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Why Aren't We Tired Of Remakes? (ft. MandaloreGaming) | Dev Heads
0 Playsin 41 minutes
This week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by MandaloreGaming to discuss their thoughts on the growing trend of remakes in gaming.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Background
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:01:00
Speaker
Welcome to dev heads. The podcast focused on the ins outs and goings on of game dev with host experience ranging from indie double to triple a I'm Jay. All right. I'm joined by my usual wonderful co-host Mikey. Hello. um tuna i I represent three A's and Mikey represents two, which is better. I think and I represent one eye.
00:01:24
Speaker
one today or three as I've also heard. Oh, I guess. Yeah. We have a very special guest today. The Mando Mandalorian gaming. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing good. Thanks. We had such a amazing conversation before this is recorded. And I fear we might not ever capture that energy again. No, never. How do you fully wipe away all your tears, Mandy, after I emotionally reached you? It was a lot, but like I don't like politically agree with some of the things you said, but I thought it was brave.
Guest Introduction: Mandalore
00:01:52
Speaker
You'd say that.
00:01:53
Speaker
i've I've collected my tears and I'm mailing them to you, Mikey, as raccoons. So you can you can see the damage. I guess we're so sorry, everybody. We do weren't able to record that. So Mandalore, you go by Mandy. Yeah, that's fine. Mandy. for Yeah. For um for audience reference to like Mikey and I have known each other for he checked like seven years now just about. Yeah. So we we go back. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually. Unfortunately.
00:02:22
Speaker
I'm actually in a couple of your videos. You use cutaway footage in two of them. Oh, yeah, that's right. Do you remember that? in In one of them, it's like two seconds long in seven days to die. You use some seven days to die footage and I'm in your party and in the Puck and Pulsar lost colony as well. Yeah, that's right. There is a gag about racing and spaceship games.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, because we had played pulsar for so we got to like the very end of the campaign. We got to like the final planet. We need to find out what we got here and then we got here. She finished it for next session. We'll see what's in there. That was about four years ago. I think exactly. Sorry to you. What were you going to say?
Mandalore's YouTube and Consultancy Work
00:03:03
Speaker
Oh, no. Mandalore, can you give us, ah for our new listeners or viewers that are watching right now, hello, um a quick description of what you do? Because I know that you have a pretty popular YouTube channel, and I want you to have a moment to tell us about that.
00:03:18
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I run a YouTube channel where I do reviews and go through basically whatever kind of catches my interest that moment. So it could be something from 20 years ago. It could be something that came out recently, sort of just whatever I decided to do that week, but I have a nice little, um, the user suggestion document where I track what people are actually emailing me and put them into the, it's a rotation. So if it's like, Oh, I'm in a mood for,
00:03:44
Speaker
ah FPS game, I could go through whatever. What are like FPS things people have submitted? Like I want to see a video on. So it's a nice balance of picking out what people want and not going, not doing the bit where it's like, ah, I didn't want to do a review on this game, but everyone kept asking for it on patron. Like it's shit. I don't play this kind of game. It's like, I never want to get stuck doing doing that kind of thing. because You shouldn't approach games that way. It's just silly. And then what are the accent in there.
00:04:11
Speaker
It was a jack man. It sounded nothing like you. It was a jajam. It sounded a little bit like sometimes.
00:04:24
Speaker
Sorry, Tina. Go ahead. No, it's okay. I'm being disruptive. but This is why people love us. ah ah So you segwayed your YouTube channel into almost so being involved in video game development. I wanted you to share a little bit about that as well.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess my official involvement in things is has been going on for a few years, but it's been more consultancy, which some stuff is probably under I can't remember the names I've used for them. Sometimes I put in names as a bit and they put them in the credits, which is fun. But other times, just like, oh, it's under NDA.
00:04:58
Speaker
With consultancy, it can range from they send you a bill, you sign their forms, you give them feedback and they go, oh, cool, thanks. We'll like take that in consideration. They pay you. You don't hear from them again. Other times it's more they have a conversation like we're going to have you talk with, you know, systems designer, whoever, and you back and forth on features. What do you think about this? And then you have more of a conversation that are those are more productive. And so currently I'm on the leadership team at Hooded Horse.
00:05:25
Speaker
And there was some weird timing to how that happened. Cause I know you had Tim on a few months ago. I can't remember when that was, uh, Tim Bender. When was that May? It was a hot minute ago. It was like one of our first episodes or second one, right? Yeah. Second. Yeah. Absolutely. People are listening. I'm looking at a credit horse is Tim Bender. So four months ago. Right. Okay. Okay. So I'd usually have, but like doing YouTube channels stuff, I wouldn't have,
00:05:54
Speaker
It wasn't, it wouldn't always be like consultancy work in the background because that's just not consistent enough. That's once in a blue moon, some company reaches out and sometimes I'd just do people just ask me and just do it for free on my own time. Like ultra kill is the one that probably people know the most about that one.
00:06:09
Speaker
But I just do side work kind of related to my I got my degree and just I do contract stuff on the side because I never want to put all my eggs in one basket for doing YouTube stuff because it's like it's such a. A lot of people on YouTube I do think will kind of upplay the I'm poor and dying all the time because it's like, yeah, there are times are where. where you get hit with more stuff or video doesn't do well. yeah But it's like i don't want to I don't want to be overly reliant on this unstable platform. I still want to make use of my degree in case I say on enough YouTube back to going to the workforce. I have something on my resume that's not just this, which I'd like to keep out of the most like unrelated fields if I can help it. i can I can relate. Yeah, exactly. yeah Basically the same situation.
00:06:53
Speaker
There's a lot of that, I think, with ah with game development, too. you know like It can often start as a part-time contractor thing.
Game Industry Challenges
00:06:59
Speaker
It was like that for me. I was working in a restaurant when I was doing like my opening narrative design, writing, voiceover stuff. it means you You got to kind of ease into it, and you got to make sure it's secure, right?
00:07:10
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Especially now. Oh my God. yeah I read an experience from a woman that I think she shared it on Twitter or was it blue sky? I don't even remember anymore, but he said she was laid off earlier this year, finally landed a new gig and then was laid off two weeks later.
00:07:33
Speaker
Just because of how chaotic the industry is. it It just seems like you want to hustle and have a couple of different things going on at once rather than just focus on the one, which is unfortunate. I hope it gets better. It's funny. And by funny, I mean sad. You say that, Tina, because I have the same anecdote about a different person of like, OK, I'm out. I'm going somewhere else. It sucks to get laid off. but But I'm ready to move on. And then you get laid off again. It's it's it's just the way the climate is, right?
00:08:02
Speaker
Which is crazy, like even the more like quote unquote prestigious institutions in the industry where it's like, Oh, you know, I finally got this job at big prestigious company. And then the two weeks later, like all they fired like 400 people or they fired 30 people or something happened. They just cleared a cleaned house. and Like, why would they just hire me if they're going to dump me like a week or two later?
00:08:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Like that that was a huge motivation for me when I first started studying game dev was, you know, when when you're young, you dream of working at your your favorite companies. Right. And when I was young, that was Blizzard for me. I i really wanted to work at Blizzard. um But as you start becoming educated on not just the process, but also the the work culture and ah everything like that, you slowly start to realize ah that those big aspirations might not be ah the most idyllic for for what you want to do, right? I remember a conversation with someone, it was a friend of mine who works at Blizzard, or worked at Blizzard, and we were talking about sound design because it was mainly what I did back then, and they were like, oh, do you want to what do you want to do?
00:09:09
Speaker
Do you want to like be able to make music for an indie game and make the entire, you know, the entire soundtrack and do a little sound design and have control over that? Or do you want to come to Blizzard and make like Gul'dan's nipple? And that's the thing you do. Um, and then you get fired because they're letting people off. And I'm like, man, it like for me, game dev is, is art. And, uh, as I think most people nowadays, thank God think the same. And.
00:09:37
Speaker
It pains me so much to see these absolutely staggering staggeringly talented artists effectively being thrown to the wayside by big companies for slight marginal um shifts in their bottom line so they can, you know, have better stuff for them. Yeah, that's absolutely not sustainable either. Like the brain drain this industry has had is insane. Yeah.
00:10:04
Speaker
the the The silver lining I always try to remind myself of, which which might be too optimistic, right? But I like to think of it as a lot of those people, it's awful. The best you can hope for is that they get into a new team where they make more money because that's a big way that, like many other industries, you end up getting more money as you do have to leave and go somewhere else. People don't usually elect to just pay you more, unfortunately. So the hope there is like that they do find something else. They make more money because that's how it usually happens. And they get to bring that talent to another team. And that new teams form, right? Indie and double A lower scale ones and make their own projects. It's never been easier broadly and technologically speaking to make a game. That's the silver lining that I can find when I try to think about the state it is in now.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's true. Cause it's happening so much more nowadays too. Or do you see names where it's like, Oh, I thought they're super ingrained in that company. It's like, Oh no, they got let go. Like people have been in like, who've been in the company 20 years sort of deal. Like, Oh, they helped make this big franchise. Now they're out where it's like a lot of them still have a lot of creative energy in them. It's like, they're not going to stop. So it's okay. They're going to go form and work on something else and something new.
00:11:15
Speaker
You know, something they have more control over and not get sacked. Exactly. Exactly. Because you are like the you are pretty bound, even if you're like one of the most creative people in the industry worked on some of the biggest, most creative games. You're you're bound. You're probably bound by a lot of factors.
00:11:32
Speaker
starting over somewhere else. I mean, again, it sucks and I'm not downplaying that, but it does hopefully give you another chance to roll the dice and try something else. And hopefully it succeeds and you get to have a little bit of a creative reset. I mean, I'm just speculating here, but like, I have to imagine Hideo Kojima had some doors open for him, right? When he moved on. I'd imagine it was a little different. Yeah, it happens in a special case, but still the principal part. Yeah.
00:11:59
Speaker
The phrasing you used there, which was like roll the dice is, is an interesting way of phrasing it. Like you can, you can roll the the dice and see, uh, but I think it's, it's difficult because I think that dice roll should be reserved for creative risks and seeing if your game does well rather than like.
00:12:17
Speaker
Is this company going to keep me on because, you know, um, and that that's seen a lot in, um, the triple A space. Unfortunately, uh, do you see much of that in like the double A space? Like, is, is that kind of stuff happening in the same kind of, I think it's happening kind of all over. I don't think it's happening quite to the degree, or it might not not just be as press.
00:12:39
Speaker
It's like, you know, if the amount of people having a double-A company isn't comparable to sleep the amount like a triple-A company could lay off and be completely fine. Yeah. So it's like a double-A, you know, this all hypothetical. If a double-A company is like, oh, we've alloweded laid off half our staff, but that's like 15 people. Or it's like, that's so horrible, but it might not make press headlines like, you know, 400 people laid off from company, company projected to go up for this quarter, next quarter, who knows?
00:13:05
Speaker
Bloody hell. Shit. Very short thinking. Yeah. Tina, go ahead. Well, speaking of remaking your life. That's you so the conclusion how we are forced to remake our lives. OK, so we're here to talk about remakes.
00:13:26
Speaker
But before we start, I wanted to quickly let our listeners know what we think is the difference between a remaster and a remake.
Remasters vs. Remakes Discussion
00:13:35
Speaker
Because when we were talking off the cuff about what we're going to do on this show, um I had remaster in my head, in the back of my head. And remake is a completely different thing.
00:13:50
Speaker
So where do you draw the line? You would morph them into the kind of same thing in your brain, but I think gamers... But to be fair, they're soft, right? They're soft definitions, I think. I think the easiest is like a remaster is...
00:14:05
Speaker
This is basically the same game that you grew up with. And maybe it had, no, maybe it's had, it's had some polish. There are some new features. There's some cut content, but at its core, you could pick it up. And if you've played that game, you know how to play this game. Most of what was there is in place where a remake is we're going to take this thing and there's going to be similarities, but we're going to rebuild it from the ground up. Yeah, so I think it relates some carry on monkey.
00:14:32
Speaker
i think I think the nuance is what we mean by remake from the ground up because most of these games will have the same. I've got some examples of that. So ah a good example of a remaster of the last year would be Beyond Good and Evil, ah the 20th anniversary, which is effectively an upscaling of all of its textures, um like remastering some of its sound, but effectively the levels, the level designs and its content is all exactly the same.
00:15:01
Speaker
Um, as Monday was saying, it's, it's still touching upon all of that nostalgia, all of those things that you remember. Um, and people would probably get mad if you removed a level because you didn't think it was conducive to the flow of the game. People would be upset within that. But then an example of a remake would be Silent Hill two, uh, which was done by Blooper, um, which was recent, which is effectively because of each camera, uh, shift coming, going from a forced, uh,
00:15:31
Speaker
Plus point perspective to a sorry fixed point perspective to an over shoulder camera meant that the game had to be completely redesigned from the ground up to make it work within that framework. um And they had to add new content to it to make it work. um And whether that made it a better game or not is up for debate. But that means they had to redo nearly everything. So that's where the remake comes in rather than remaster.
00:15:59
Speaker
OK, so to be cynical, when we bring back a game from the 90s or 80s and then the female character. Is different proportionally. That doesn't make it a remaster, it's still a remake.
00:16:16
Speaker
Well, I don't think that but that would depend on the stuff around it, right? Like ah I think you could do a remaster or remake and redo the proportions of any character, yeah whether or not it's remaster remake to me, at least to be yeah like we're saying, like remasters are basically bigger and or excuse me, smaller and do less remakes are bigger and do more, especially in regards to design and ah graphics. That's like that would be my canned simple definition. So, yeah, like and of course, the thing we were all thinking about, Eric puts Lara Croft up. Right. I wouldn't. That being said, I wouldn't call. What was it? Like a 20? When did the Tomb Raider reboot come out? Because I want to call that a remember. necessari Yeah, that's a good. 2010s, mid 2010s. I want to say. Okay. No, that makes sense. Some of our actual reboot. That was just like, we're not trying to make the same game. This is just, we're taking the idea and making something completely new. Re fucking names. Can we use bloody hell? We're going to find all of them by the end of the century. We're going to be drowning in renames. It speaks to the reliability of of brand, man, and IP and stuff. yeah um and And in that way, like I feel a little pessimistic about it personally. But at the same time, like it's ah it's an excellent opportunity to take something that was like pure and creative and great about an old experience of an old game and modernize it and introduce it to new audiences and have a new spin on it that's just fun independently. My case of point here is like, I'm a big Resident Evil fan. i never played I've played a little bit of one as like a child. Never played two. I played the RE2 remake that came out in 2019 or whatever it was, and I loved it. I felt really invested. I felt scared. It was tense. It looked great. And i if I went back and I played RE2, I don't think I would have gotten a similar experience. It's going to be completely different. But when, if I had played that when I was a kid, or most people when they played it, kids are not, because nothing had been around like that, they got the same feelings I think that I got playing the yeah the remake. And I know it's not nostalgia, because I never played two, so genuinely. People mention that a lot in the sense that RE2 Remake
00:18:22
Speaker
um captures ah the feeling of what it was like to play the original rather than directly representing what it actually was. it It captures that vibe, it captures that ah kind same kind of sense of suspense but just framed in a different package and I think that's really interesting. I guess something I'd love to touch on where you guys is just getting your general temperature on, let's say remakes, because I'm assuming remasters and remasters like what would you guys what are your opinions on them? Do you like them or do you think they're a bit redundant? It kind of depends. Like it's funny you mentioned that, you know, for remaster, you probably want to remove a level. And my mind went right to the crisis remaster for crisis one, because there was a level on it where you would control a airship and you'd chase like the aliens out of the jungle for a bit.
00:19:11
Speaker
and the controls on it were fucking awful. like even Even on PC, like mouse and keyboard, controlling this airship, and doing this chase was so terrible. It was this, it was this blocker for a lot of people. And so for the remaster, they just completely axed that part out. Like it wasn't necessarily long. It was like maybe only a few minutes section two. So they went, okay, like that's not even, there's not much value there. It's breaking the flow. People didn't like it. Let's just cut that out. I guess with remasters, I'm more,
00:19:42
Speaker
I'm more okay with them if they keep the original thing accessible and they don't throw the keys away to the old one accessing it like basically legally like with with the Homeworld remaster that um the Gearbox put out.
00:19:55
Speaker
Like you if you get that, you still get Homeworld 1 and 2, the classic games with it. So even if you don't like the remasters changes, they had, they said all the original ones are right here bundled with it. You can play those too. And then you had something like Warcraft 3 Reforged, where that went and they that updated all the old versions. People had mods working forever got canned. And now the nostalgic experience you bring back is having a computer in the 90s that wasn't able to play Warcraft 3 because you didn't have a good enough video card. yeah You're sitting there hammering at the keyboard wanting your game to play.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah. Which is interesting because, because, uh, I didn't check out the Warcraft through them, but I played the Starcraft one, but I guess it'd be a remaster. And I really appreciate it that you could have flipped between the two yeah the visuals on it. Yeah. That's cool. The, the halo MCC on the other hand, like, I mean, I never used the new visuals for any of the halo stuff. Oh God. just Yeah, just to grieve is the word greebly. Do we know that term? Extremely greebly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. Model making, but no, I'm not using it. Yeah. Yeah. For context for greebling, for anyone audience, it's when you have like a model, like a miniature for a movie.
00:21:03
Speaker
to make it look to scale, they go like, oh, to make this look bigger, add little little bits on it like a spaceship, like add little shapes sticking out or little like wires, like add little things to make it look bigger to scale. So unlike the in the Halo and the MCC collection for Halo one, the Forerunners, which are like these ancient aliens, they have these big monolithic structures. They're super flat looking. There's not much on them. And that it was kind of ominous because it's like they're you know, they're so advanced, but like there's not much on these like it's dark in here.
00:21:32
Speaker
remaster made them super bright and they covered all the surfaces that were flat before with like little wires and little greebles just like this adds detail to it but by adding that detail they took away from the atmosphere of it and the intent of like what those levels are supposed to feel like it's like it takes away from the detail right because You go from asking those questions to just being like, Oh, that is our model with stuff on it. That is, yeah and it works in filming, right? Because it's, but do you think it's the, the knowledge of the original and then it being added that makes it.
00:22:04
Speaker
So kind of egregious. would Would you have the same opinion of those monoliths if the original had the same amount of greeblies? I don't know because you do have people who have like gone through the MCC and they've heard like, Oh, it's bad. Like we know back in the day, I hope it's weird to think MCC is like so as old as it is now. know but recent I that's a recent thing that came out, but like it was pretty busted when it first came out and they go, Oh no, like play Halo one.
00:22:32
Speaker
And they go through it and it had like better, it had better shaders on like the like the metal on Master Chief's armor, like the surfaces. There were things about original CE that looked better than launch MCC. So people would go through that. And even even I think those little touches are a little better. They go through like, oh, wow, the atmosphere is completely different here. Like fighting the flood, like coming out of these dark black areas feel so different than when they're coming out of like a Bionicle playset, basically.
00:22:57
Speaker
I think I have a good image here, by the way. ah Let me try to pull it out. Eric, I'm going to send it to you. Continue, Mandy. Bionicle playset was a ah beautiful way of ah phrasing that. I mean, like I've added Bionicles eventually, so that's how it went.
00:23:12
Speaker
I think that's what's interesting about remakes, right? um I have to believe that a remake is being worked on because there's an opportunity to share an exciting or fun experience with a new audience.
Challenges in Remaking Games
00:23:29
Speaker
You're not necessarily making it for the core audience that already played it, right? like get That's a perk to like be able to play but that That's not your main driver. out I wouldn't imagine right as a developer. you want You want to introduce a new audience, right? Yeah. You'd want to be popular enough. sot kar um Yeah. Like, you you know, that there was love for this thing that you're working on. You want to introduce it to a new audience and that's why we're making a remake. But at the same time, you may not all be the same group of people that brought their original to light. So I think there's a lot of,
00:24:05
Speaker
on us on the developers making a remake to care about the craft that went into the original, right? Like even down to like the lighting detail in certain levels. Like I think it's important that you understand the nuance and there's maybe like something you can't really contextualize easily, like a vibe or a feeling that you had that you want to make sure you don't pull that away. And I think that developers,
00:24:33
Speaker
that spend that amount of care and effort into understanding all of those things is what makes a remake great. But that said, when we're talking about this Halo example,
00:24:46
Speaker
um you know when ah when a AAA game is being given to a AAA studio, I just think that responsibility is a lot harder to champion Across like, I don't know how, like 300 people, 400 people, right? It's also insane. Pull the picture up, by the way, because ah ah before you continue, Jay, there's a picture that we're just on screen. I wanted to show, I think this illustrates pretty well what ah ah Mandy was talking about, especially with the Forerunner infrastructure. The old style is like, I guess, brutalist, you would say, clean and cementy and mysterious. You can also see the elite. design I think was better, like it looked cleaner. And this isn't even like a ah thing that you only see in remasters or remasters and remakes. I feel like you could see the same thing in later Halo games, right? Like when I look at that elite some of the elites and maybe like three or four, I actually preferred the visual design of the elites in Halo 1 or even Halo Infinite, where it was rest busy and noisy. yeah but are Yeah, you could see in that picture ah more ridges, more lines, almost ah too much detail.
00:25:54
Speaker
that loses it. The light too, right? It's just the elite look on the left in the original for people that are listening and can't see this. Um, you you know, there isn't a lot of lighting in the foreground. Um, and you see just the bright blue little detail on the head of the elite and it just looks so menacing because you see this giant mass around it. And you're like, Oh my God, this is a big monster. a Great clip right here with the the difference, like how that entryway feels. and And also where your focus is drawn. I talk a lot about in my episodes about framing and how, how, as a level designer, it is your responsibility to draw the eye through like your skew, the, the extreme difference between light and dark using lighting, using the placement of your assets.
00:26:42
Speaker
And that door in the first clip, your eye is immediately drawn to your point of progression where you need to go. um It invites questions, but when you have so many greeblies and so much detail, this is the type of stuff that requires us to have yellow paint.
00:26:56
Speaker
Um, so, you know, so this is, this is a, uh, an issue. Like I made, I made an episode on it, which is as a level designer games getting prettier and being able to process more and more of this visual fidelity does make it harder to, uh, naturally navigate.
00:27:16
Speaker
ah the approach remaster Like this is tricky too, because it's like, if you hear remaster, there is some, there's usually some implication that something's going to look prettier graphically. Yeah. But you could sometimes, especially across a big team, you start approaching it in the same way. Some people might approach like.
00:27:32
Speaker
as an example, like I want to say like texture mods feel or scrolls games, like the biggest texture mods for oblivion are usually made by a very small group of people. These are going, okay, we're going to have consistency across all these things we're doing. We don't want to look out of place. And this, you have dozens of artists and you're saying, okay, take this and upscale it and add more detail. And everyone does that individually. And then when you have, when it comes together like this, so it looks busy. Cause it's like, okay, I'm not really focused on like where I'm looking to level the elites kind of clashing and like against the colors that were done before because they're not really looking at it as a whole. They're taking all these parts and going, okay, add more detail and then doing like an environmental pass eventually. But they don't, it's not as cohesive before.
00:28:14
Speaker
Like where you had something that stuck out easier, unless you have a really tight vision and a smaller team on it, like night dive does, which people love their masters for the most part, because they're very attentive about all those things. Doing it on this scale is just so much harder to organize. Yeah. I do want to play a little bit of devil's advocate here ah for the Halo example that we've been and looking at.
00:28:40
Speaker
So the first Halo was still in that era where you were caught up in which console has the better graphics. Which one looks the coolest, right? Like that's not something we stopped doing. We stopped doing that. I think so. Right. No, you're right. We did. Yeah. Depending on your age, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're completely right, though. It's not nearly as dramatic now as it used to be. It was like 10 year olds, you know, are playing Minecraft. They don't care about fidelity as much in games right now. But yeah, when we were growing up,
00:29:13
Speaker
It was all about like which one looks the crispiest or the cleanest or has the craziest stuff on screen at once, right? And I wonder if the group that brought this remastered a light add that stress of, okay, now make Halo look like it belongs on the modern console in this generation and push the limits. And I don't, yeah, that kind of direction can be yeah do that without without altering the, the direct flow of the level or doing anything too dramatic a control because then you'll piss people off, right? Yeah. yeah such it's It's an interesting debate though, right? It is. And I think.
00:29:54
Speaker
Going back to something you said earlier about them trying to emulate the feeling or what it felt like, something Yahtzee said on the Windbreaker podcast um when we were discussing the Silent Hill 2 remake, he repeatedly said something that I didn't directly agree with, which was, oh, it's easy to copy someone else's homework.
00:30:16
Speaker
So in reference to, well, it's easy for them to do stuff. And I don't, I actually think it's incredibly difficult because people will have such a nostalgic driven preconceived idea of exactly what that game felt like to play back in, you know, the, the early two thousands and just Redoing that in the exact same style is difficult by itself, but now frame it in a completely different way, with a completely different camera, using different lighting systems, different ways to deliver narrative, and still try and capture that feeling. That's so hard. um And I commend these these devs because, you know, in my my video on Silent Hill 2,
00:31:00
Speaker
I didn't directly feel because of the change of camera that the devs did fully capture the same feeling the original had. I think it created a really cool new one. um But I don't think they fully succeeded in that. And I don't think that's through any lack of skill. I just think it's practically impossible to fully capture it unless you directly copy assets and just upscale in a remaster. It's ah so difficult.
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's 100% true. I mean, thank you. about couldn i Go ahead, Mikey. You could nail. I'm thinking because people are talking about in the chat here to system shock, right? That's a good example. Yeah. nick yeah Awesome. ah Visual style, vibe, atmosphere, all maintained. I would argue I only played like a teensy bit of the original system shock.
00:31:51
Speaker
man do you know better than me i think you're more familiar with it but like i'd argue they did great on all that but man i really wish they reworked some of the level design because i did have to stop playing at a certain point because i just got stuck and i put it down and i just didn't get back to it so even if you nail one of those aspects which as you say jay is like super difficult because the expectations go high you could easily just not forgo but just like not get it right with another aspect like with some of the design like in my opinion uh that's a game where i would have liked if it were a little less mazy but also the craziness is like a part of its identity it's even a part of the narrative a little bit you learn at least in the remake you do from one of the logs so it's a really super tough balance to strike and it's not easy to just copy the homework i agree that's a perfect example like thinking
00:32:36
Speaker
Because System Shock, they basically, if you think about Nightdive's history, they're mainly doing remasters. I think System Shock, this was their first outright remake. They had like the crowdfunding campaign for it. This is the first time they've went, okay, we're going to basically take this idea and start over. Where the level design, from what I've played a bit too, because I also need to finish it since they had their big patch a few months ago. The level of design is, ah from what I played, one to one to the 94 game.
00:33:01
Speaker
which is kind of insane to do nowadays. But it's like when we're talking about visual fidelity and guiding your eyes and stuff like that. When you come into the ah room and then system shock, sometimes they'd be mean and hide an item. But typically it was easy to kind of pick things out in the environment. That's an item. I'm going to grab that simple. When they added all these like items around for as like detail and clutter.
00:33:24
Speaker
It's like, yeah, it makes the room look more real. It makes it feel more alive, but it makes it harder to like play the game. It's harder to get ammo. It's harder to to pick out what you should be picking out in a room because they've had all this fidelity to it. And they've also kept that old school level design to it. So the result is like like you said, you didn't play that much of it, but navigating it is a lot harder than the 90s game because it's it's like, OK, this area looks kind of similar. It's a little it's a little greebly when you're going through it.
00:33:54
Speaker
And also they're influenced by System Shock 2, where they kind of want to go, okay, let's have more of that horror atmosphere that came in this later game. and's almost It's almost like a System Shock 1.5, where it has like these elements from these two games, because they have that they have that looking back perspective on it, where it's okay, let's add more of these elements that late made made the later game good.
00:34:16
Speaker
And so it's kind of this merger between them, which is really interesting because I think if anyone other than Nightdive had done that remake, they probably would have drastically changed the level design, probably like a not like ah as far down as Doom 2016, but probably be more in that kind of realm where it's OK. We took the theme of you're trapped in a space station and you're trying to get out and escape this thing.
00:34:40
Speaker
and the and everything else would have been completely different. But they wanted to have something that was almost like in the idea of let's remaster this game and bring it to like a modern audience, modern like combat controls. But we also want to be faithful to the fans. So let's keep how mazy these the environment was. Let's have these items like, oh you know, like people like to like upgrades. It's like throw an upgrade system in here. So it's this kind of it's kind of a mess in some regards, but it's really interesting kind of looking at their thought process going through making that.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's um I want to show another good example of this. And this is a game that hasn't gotten a remake, and I feel like should get a remake, but I'm not sure like what it would be. But I think it can solve at least one of these problems. i I'm going to stream it here. ill oh ah being like While you're pulling that up, I wanted to read that Snake in the Garden gave two euros. Hello, thank you for that. And it says, System Shock 2023 captured feeling of the original.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree. yeah Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay. You're going to recognize this immediately, Mandy. Oh man. I think you know, I think you know where I'm going with this. I'm streaming now, Eric.
00:35:55
Speaker
It should be up in a second. Oh, God. Yeah. You know where I'm at? Yeah. You know where I'm at? Yeah. Can you provide ah some ah narrative for our listeners? Yes, absolutely. This is Marathon One. And Marathon is the FPS that came before Halo, made by Bungie. First one came out in 1994. Groundbreaking FPS did so many ah innovative things. Mandy does a bunch of great videos about it. ah Dual wielding, reloading without a reload button.
00:36:23
Speaker
ah narrative in an FPS game in the early nines like possibly the first FPS game with narrative like I feel like a genuine narrative but when it comes to some level design as you can see right now it can be very very maze like and this level that I'm showing right now colony ship for so cheap is yeah. Yeah. The worst cause on the game but i puzzle. I DMed you in June or July, I think. And I was like, Hey, i'm I'm on the level. And I had this plan of like, let me just try to like figure it out. How how bad it could it be? I couldn't remember how bad it was. But I remember you said it was bad in your video. And I did all this research and I saw like, this is the part where a lot of people stop and it is. And I can't fucking get past this part. And speaking from a design perspective, like this is a really critical moment. right A player arriving at at a space in a level and looking at it and going like, I really don't know what to do. And I'm at the point where I just want to put it down. That's like a that's a danger, even. right you You push people into the point of getting frustrated. And one of the cool things about remakes that we can have an opportunity for is to to to to try again.
Game Accessibility and Future Remakes
00:37:31
Speaker
right Now, Marathon, you know like I'm not sure what it would look like in regards to
00:37:36
Speaker
a remake of, like, how do we capture the feeling of what it was like to play Marathon in 1994, because it set the foundation for so many FPS conventions to follow, like, including what you see in Halo. But it would be an opportunity to at least make some of these parts a little better, and it would kind of go beyond the scope of a remaster. Because, again, like, ah I mean, this is the kind of stuff that can really stop a playthrough.
00:37:59
Speaker
Well, to add to how hellish this debate is, this is the um I think this is the left one port that they put on steam. Yeah, it definitely is. with Community port. Yeah. So long ago, they actually had it where when you got to this, they'd go, OK, actually, they altered the puzzle a bit. They made it so I didn't want to say it's a puzzle because you're just lifting the switches and trying to get them well enough so you could run up it. Yeah.
00:38:21
Speaker
for runs are getting there You're trying to make a staircase by lifting up those platforms, but this game doesn't have jumping. You basically can run through the air towards an incline. And if you're high enough, it'll, the game goes, okay. And you get to like climb up it. So you're having to build, you're having to build a staircase.
00:38:37
Speaker
And the buttons are located in different parts of the map. And so you're having to like run and raise it up a little bit, raise it down a little bit. And they have to run down and test it to make sure you could actually climb up it. So it's horrible, horrible for, yeah, they can see all the steps. once was the the point in progression When you look at this room.
00:38:53
Speaker
So like this is my level design of brain going. There are seven steps. Of course there are seven steps. God damn it. Dude. Do you not know that before? I didn't realize. No, I just noticed that now. I can't tell. There are seven steps because I can't see because I can't jump. I have to shoot my grenade launcher at that point. It'd be like an hour to figure out. I have to hit this switch and this switch. And where are you trying to get to? Like visually? I don't know. I'm not sure. If you look to the left.
00:39:22
Speaker
I think you're supposed to see that, that you're climbing up to that. there and yeah And is the player. meant to So from, I'm assuming where you're stood right now is probably the the first port you come to as someone who hasn't played marathon.
00:39:36
Speaker
It's the first place you come to to see not be each report only raises. There's a few viewing areas. Each one of these, I think two stairs. So you have to find areas. Are they raising other areas that like windows to look out? Okay. and they're And they're not like you walk right over to them. You walk throughout the level to get to them. They're like, they're a trek to get to.
00:39:56
Speaker
I don't even know how to get into here. That's part of what I was stuck at here was I thought, oh, I need to make these three interactions. I got to do something that lets me into the room. It looks like you're trying to line the three. Right. Right. But yeah, that that looks like an entry point. Yeah. Yeah. But going back to the the port thing at one point, they actually had it to where you would like press the buttons and they would automatically raise the correct level. And that was it. So it's oh, you just go to the area, you press the button, it raises up. And so the thing They took away the puzzle and was just, OK, go to the correct area. You hit the button and they progressed through the level. So they said, oh, you know, this is just horrible. This is just shitty backtracking and everyone hates this. And there was enough of an outcry that they put it back. Just said, oh, no, no, like, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, because the sentiment was, oh, no, like this is a this is like a rite of passage. Like, yeah, it's shitty, but it's sort of like a bonding. It's like it's a bonding thing for marathon. Yeah. I don't know. I want it there again. Go ahead, Jay. Go ahead, Jay.
00:40:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's like this thing of I had to do this in the original when I was younger. It took me ah five hours to figure it out. Now I know how to do it. So I want to come back to the remaster and absolutely stomp this puzzle because I know what I'm doing. Right. But then they take that from you suffer. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, it's like we're talking about this level because it has like this really shit backtracking puzzle. And from the outside, that's really funny and interesting to hear about.
00:41:16
Speaker
And it's like, okay, we just made it. So you go through it, you hit the buttons and there would be not much noteworthy about this level anymore. I do think that there is a difference between like. A grueling, you got to get this grind experience versus you literally can't solve this without help from someone or something. Wiki games, I call them games. where You have to sit and exist in 94, right? Think of how many gamers stopped here. and This is like a, it's just something that it's, it's just a shame as I guess what I'm, what I'm getting at. and ah
00:41:48
Speaker
It's not an objective thing, but subjectively, most would agree that, like, this is a thing you got to avoid and decide. Eric, I'm going to take the stream down now. Are you ready? Also think about how many people bought strategy guides just because of this whole market for this kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Some of these things were done intentionally to sell books. I mean, you guys probably don't. But do you remember when Nintendo had a hotline?
00:42:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you can call it out. Yeah. Hello, James is how a Metroid crawl made a certain amount per minute. Yeah. me tell you how to do it and Like, where's the hidden fluid for Mario?
00:42:30
Speaker
are flu Interesting. If they also could help you with, um, um, take your time. We'll wait. Take as long as you need to on our line. Yeah. Right. Kids don't know better. They're like, yeah Oh, they just got to get Mario the flute. But going back to, I guess it'll be an accessibility question and going back to system shock. It's like even in 94, they had that magical, magical difficulty system.
00:42:54
Speaker
where you could choose between the numbers for like combat puzzles narrative where it's like, oh, if you choose a minimum narrative, it's like it basically just throws an objective out there and you go, okay, go to the next spot where it's okay. I really want to do harder combat, but I'm not good at puzzles. So you knock that down. Most of the puzzles are easier. They solve themselves if you knock it down. So if marathon, like this version had that like, oh, you know, like knock the puzzle thing down. So I want colony ship for sale cheap to, I want that to solve itself and not deal with it.
00:43:23
Speaker
where it's like, I know people, it's like, if you want to be hardcore about it and go, Oh no, you have to play it on, you know, original nineties mode. And that's like all power to them. But I think having those options, it's like, it's fine. It's it's video games. It's, it's fine. The difficulty is, is so from an accessibility standpoint is it doesn't do any damage to the core experience because at a baseline or normal mode,
00:43:48
Speaker
yeah The devs can basically mould it to be the experience they think is desirable to the widest margin of players. And like you said, oh, somebody really likes combat, but doesn't particularly enjoy the puzzles because of their difficulty, their brain isn't really wired that way. They don't want to do that. They can choose to increase the difficulty of combat, but reduce the difficulty of puzzles. And their experience of that game has just been elevated because they have that option and the same in reverse.
00:44:18
Speaker
And that's beautiful. I think it's it should be done in more games, including Dark Souls. Get fucked people in chat. So you will not survive the winter. You will not survive the winter. It's not too random. The difficulty of Dark Souls and fucking Elden Ring and Bloodborne all them is a real big nerd debate. Right.
00:44:42
Speaker
So if I'm hearing you, right, Jay, it feels like there should be an option to to make a difficult on this topic too much because it is a difficult is based on your builds. Just experiment around and you'll find the easy mode. That's the secret of the Souls games as you find the you find the eye window like access. I'll finish my thought before you before you um come up when in with what you've got, Tina, like the basically just Dark Souls is built as a difficulty experience that has variable difficulty based on your build, like ah like Mandy just said. And that's beautiful, but I am a big proponent of accessibility features for people with um disabilities or people who just don't want that kind of experience, want but want to experience the narrative, which is a huge aspect of Souls. There is no harm
00:45:37
Speaker
if So Celeste is the perfect example. Celeste is an and an extremely difficult game that is based on pinpoint precision platforming, while a lot of P's. But they have an accessibility feature that is variable to allow you to not take any, um it doesn't kill you when you go into um kill zones or you have infinite jumps. And that does not ruin the experience. The game is still insanely difficult and challenging, but people who just want to experience the narrative or just want to go through in in a more casual setting, they have the ability to do that. um I think a lot of people gatekeep souls because it has this narrative of being extremely difficult.
00:46:17
Speaker
ah we by By doing that, we are stopping a huge um amount of players being able to access this wonderful narrative in this wonderful world because there isn't that option to be able to circumvent some of that difficulty. Thank God for mods ah that can do that, um but I think it should be baked bakgged into the game itself. I'm not asking for an easy mode, but variable accessibility features should be in every game, um period. They're just like very expensive to make. so It's a, it's a touch. cast on that don't we yeah and White sign soapstone, baby. Summon the gaming elite. Oh yeah. I mean i don't know what that means. but a sudden so like zone ring you kiss some people yeah You could summon people. so have You have help with the boss. the The boys are here to handle it. Like, yeah, but then go, then go into like, okay, well now we need to farm like resources or some, ah which ones are the souls games where you have to humanityly farm resources? Most of them.
00:47:15
Speaker
bloodborne. You mean the souls themselves? You mean like humanity for oh yeah like humanity and, um, and the resources you need to be able to access the multiplayer and stuff like that. Cause I'm, I'm a huge souls multiplayer um nerd. Like I e would just go and put my soapstone down to to help people with early bosses and stuff. Cause you just get, it's such a rewarding.
00:47:36
Speaker
Mate, multiplayer is some of the best and worst stuff. Thank you. Like the way you access it is so jank and weird, um but it's so rewarding to play. yeah There's so many different ways to make that game easier. You're right, Mandy, but I know you mean it is like people argue for the systems. Oh, go ahead, Mikey. I was going to say, yeah, I did the Elder and Co-op mod and I got further in the game. I think because of it, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed having that uninterrupted Co-op and I hope they consider it for their future games. That that was all.
00:48:08
Speaker
People you like oh go and farm. ah No, you're completely right for, for 99% of players and naturally playing the game and accessing the leveling systems and, and stuff like that. And altering your build to suit your play style is the variable difficulty system. You're completely right. But I'm talking about the, the small percentage of people who do matter. If you're in chat and you say they don't, I'm fucking banning you.
00:48:33
Speaker
they do matter. These people who cannot access the that kind of system because of a disability or something that's ah happening in their lives. Those people deserve to play the game too and experience the narrative. It doesn't hurt anyone to have an accessibility feature that makes the game easier for those people. As long as the game, just like Celeste, warns you that you are effectively taking away and ruining the core experience by doing this. But if you need it, it's that like that, you know, to edit that. And that was pretty tryhard a game, but later on they did that system that said, Hey, this is not how we intended it. You're like, this is not how we want you to do it. But if you do want to, you could tone down like 30 different sliders. Like it was crazy how much you could actually customize Pathologic to.
00:49:20
Speaker
There was a controversy, a slight controversy with Celeste. When they did that and you access this mode, it originally disabled all of the achievements. um But then there was a big uproar about that, so they added it back. But I actually think that that's kind of a good idea of like, okay, let's say they add an accessibility feature into Souls that makes it so you take ah like half damage or something, or you take no damage at all and you're just there for the narrative. There should be an achievement attached to doing it without those modes. You completed Dark Souls in the original format. And then it's called an achievement. Like that's, it's fair. It's just a little, it's a little digital trophy. It doesn't matter that much. Well, ah exactly. does It doesn't matter that much, but some people get really into trophy. oning or really into Yeah. I don't get gatekeeping for the sake of gatekeeping.
00:50:14
Speaker
I think you're right, Jay. Especially if it's for like a campaign or it's not like a, there's no competitive edge that you're gaining over other people. You know, like I don't have difficulty. It's like Dark Souls is known for it's for how difficult it is. Yeah.
00:50:29
Speaker
And I kind of get that people latch onto that. I'm one of those people I'm incredibly proud when I beat, you know, one of the souls games or it's DLC, or I do it on a weird build. I remember trying to do a dark souls free, no hit run and being incredibly proud of how far I got. Right. I understand how people get latched onto that, but to gate keep those kinds of experiences from marginalized groups.
00:50:53
Speaker
for the sake of just feeling like you're cool because you beat a game. And oh, no, if somebody else got to play this game in an easier setting than me, it doesn't devalue your achievement, right? Yeah. I mostly agree with you.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah, i I, at the same time, I ultimately get it. Like it's up to the developer. It does take time and resources to say, all right, well, we have to expose all these sliders, uh, to, to players and we have to keep it up to a certain quality level. It's all those things where like, I would encourage devs to do it. Like I, yeah I think that it's a, it's a good thing to have. Um, Like what if you were born of the disorder where like you're missing fingers and you want to play? What if you're blown up and you're missing fingers? Like even ah literal or not literal physical disabilities like that that are like severely limiting and mean like, am I going to get to enjoy the game or not? ah it seems like annna civilian was right It's, it's, it's super important, but at the same time I get it from the dev perspective, if they say, well, like that's time and money that like we want to put somewhere else, I kind of have to shrug and say, okay, well, I, I guess I have to accept that. The thing that I can agree you' put on though, is the, when gamers do the gatekeeping and say like, well, don't bother playing dark souls. If you're going to have a mod that makes it easier, that's just, that's just silliness. Like ah yeah people can enjoy games however they want.
00:52:11
Speaker
so Yeah. If you make a judgment about whether you're a real gamer of dark souls, if you do this and this, you're a little too in the weeds with your opinions. at point That's a, that's the thing with souls games in particular, like I'd imagine most of the defense of it comes with how many like, you know, even if they're not souls games, but everyone has so many systems and like summons and magic. And there are so many different builds you can make where it's like, I can You can do something that makes things easier and like, oh yeah, the difficulty is built into all these systems you engage with and reading through items and figuring out these, these combinations get through the bosses. But then it's like, when you start getting into like the Dark Souls, the PvP scene, and you're like, you start getting into the fan base.
00:52:49
Speaker
but There's levels to it. It's not just all you want easy mode fuck off. It's you you use the Drake sword. Well, what's wrong with you? Like it starts moving up. Like you're you're wearing havels. What's wrong with you? And then it's like yeah unless it just where you're in your underwear, the level one, like because it's like it's such a the whole culture of it's built around like how how sick can you be playing this game? And there's like it keeps escalating escal and escalating and escalating up where it's let's like you play a thing how you want.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yeah, but I used to be a gatekeeper myself. I used to be like, I'll never use the op and counter strike. Never, ever. It's too good. I'll use the scout like a cool and good gamer. But in retrospect, like that was just kind of juvenile, right? Like it's people can know it's it's a competitive game, right? Of the sense of I'll go ahead.
00:53:33
Speaker
No, no, go for it. Your, your fault is on cash, right? No, my, my thought was my anecdote for Dark Souls multiplayer was going into sends fortress and cause playing the iron golem and when bleeding people off the top of it, I go to Ander Londo and when people, when blade people off the edge, you're a creeper, know, Dark Souls three was also like most of my PVP was going, uh, was I'm going to go and be in park ranger. I can't remember what the location slipping my brain here. Yeah. It's right by the, um, the wolf. Damn. What is the part called?
00:54:03
Speaker
But you could like, you go to the cat and you could like protect the be a force protector or whatever. And you gang people come into the woods, like protect the woods. that's It's just being a park ranger. And so I do like read, like shift into a barrel and I like slide around the woods is like a bush i'd pop out and get people for coming into my parklands.
00:54:19
Speaker
Yeah, I was, I was a big old yogi playing the game, but it's like, there was so much fun in that where it's like, well, someone had the, their humanity on. It's like to that that summons, like maybe they we're trying to do the boss easier. Like they just want to summon some things, go to the boss, but I was there and this is my part. They're causing for fires.
00:54:37
Speaker
yeah I wanted to go back to the accessibility topic for a little bit. Bookworm776 donated $5 and says, i have a so I have severe migraines and I'm really limited on what games I can play because of sensory issues. Accessibility is super important.
00:54:52
Speaker
And want I want to add on top of that. There's some games that I unfortunately can't play right now just because of my lifestyle, right? Like I can't afford to play a game and then get to ah a save that's triggered in script um because I have a little toddler running around, right? And it would be irresponsible of me to keep playing. So sometimes like I give up on like long-winded story-driven games because I just can't afford to play them right now unless the kid's you know out for the count. yeah it expands It expands into um
00:55:31
Speaker
Going back to what you said as well, Mikey, which was a sense of sometimes you can see why devs don't do it. I completely agree within a indie or double A setting where funds are limited, manpower is limited. But when we're getting into the triple A space, oh, Tina, this this it works. You worked on the game.
00:55:53
Speaker
I have I have a friend who a very close friend of mine and she has one hand. She was born um with one hand and um she plays controller games um in a very, very interesting and unique way. And she can access most games that have but button remapping because she has to do them in a certain way. Yeah.
00:56:17
Speaker
Um, and, uh, she can not play. She loves story driven RPGs and she could not access. Um, I'm not sure if it's been added now or added in the sequel, but the original God of war and the which free on consoles did not have button remapping, which meant she could not play the God of war. Just just to clarify the three. Okay.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah. Reboots. Yeah. 2017 God of War, I think. Yeah. right Yeah. Okay. no understood North, North, North down of war. um She had played these games at all ah through a simple thing that is included in most games, which is button remapping. I believe the PC versions have them um by default, but the idea is, oh, we don't need to add them in console because everyone's going to be using the same controls.
00:57:06
Speaker
um in these AAA games, my friend could not play these games whatsoever because there wasn't binary mapping. And I think with AAA games, these are things that could be done ah because you are making it so a lot of people can't experience these these wonderful stories.
00:57:27
Speaker
because of the disability they have because of something as simple as button remapping. I'm not sure if the Ragnarok had button remapping on console. I know it was originally the the original one, but um you know, it's small things like that. They When you have the resources to to do those things, um it's good to think about them. um I understand why they go under the radar because it is in the grand scheme of things, a small percentage of players and, you know, having remappable buttons put on the back of your, ah on the box, isn't going to sell more copies, right? Well, it will in a small degree, but I understand it it's the same with UI.
00:58:07
Speaker
having, you can't put, we have Stella UI on the back of the box, you know, it's how much more content do you have? But I think as developers, it's our duty to think about these things and to, you know, make sure that our games can be accessed by the, the people who, who deserve to play them, you know.
00:58:25
Speaker
So God of War Ragnarok did introduce um a lot of accessibility options. Funny enough, it landed on ah the shoulders of a wonderful woman named Mila who ran the UI team. And I thought it was natural that UI kind of championed the accessibility features because at the crux of a lot of these UI work, right? um And ah no, it was really cool to see that ah she was promoting the fact that we should be working on these features. And you know I had the ah um opportunity to help scope them. And there was a lot that was slated to be done, but because of time and the limited power of human beings and what we can do, um we scaled the original plans back a little bit. But I think what was there, it was pretty significant. We'll send Eric a link.
00:59:20
Speaker
And then I can have him share that with the chat. Or actually I could share with the chat. I'll share with the chat right now. I think Eric's got a video on currently, which seems to be on accessibility in Ragnarok. It's so wonderful to see, you know, because these conversations I were having was before Ragnarok came out. Well, you know this, I wasn't being like, hey, gotcha. I wonder what you guys did with Ragnarok, because as someone who is able-bodied, I don't necessarily need to access these features in in in these games. So I've played through Ragnarok and didn't you know necessarily look out for them. um So it is so wonderful to see that, um you know, AAA games are ah ah diverting resources to this stuff because it does it does matter a lot.
01:00:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, playing any triple A game now there's, it's like seeing them out of menus that pop up now or like, you know, are you colorblind or like you have the checklist of stuff? Yeah. That's so different compared to even like five years ago. yeah Oh yeah. Yeah. Someone who is colorblind is really rewarding, right? Especially having the variable of, uh, the, the spectrum of people kind of get lumped into different categories of, uh, colorblindness. So I have a pro top.
01:00:32
Speaker
With all of this said, I do think that you you guys all raised a great point that we're not making directly. But I think it is that if a remake is going to be made in the future, it should include accessibility features. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Because that's the goal, right? you Going back to your original point, you want to find a game that is popular enough that is going to you know get people interested in it. But in a way, it is a...
01:01:02
Speaker
It's being made in a way to get new audiences into a thing that they wouldn't have accessible Silent Hill 2. Most people aren't going back to play Silent Hill 2 on the PS2, right? Most people don't have a PS2 anymore and are going to have to source it and spend however much money to get get a copy, right? Or emulate it, which yeah, is accessible, but most, a lot of people don't know how to do it or are intimidated by it. So it's a way how we can get new people into it and tell that story and accessibility.
01:01:29
Speaker
be that through you know adding features that make it accessible for people who aren't able bodied or adding colorblind modes and stuff like that is a way of allowing people to experience it. you know So it is all about accessibility, just in different degrees.
01:01:44
Speaker
I just wanted to share one funny anecdote that I had for God of War. So God of War 2018, one of the lead combat designer ah designers to me here that I'm friends with, he was telling, he asked me if I ah had fun playing it. And I told him that, i you know, cause I come from shooters, I play a lot of shooters. I told him I use the ax a lot. The one that like just comes back to you. like and And he said that he made it for players like me.
01:02:11
Speaker
No, you could get into the game more. So you made it with like shooter fans in mind. And I just thought that was great. That's smart. Yeah, I've had that before in a lot of games. You get you find a class or an ability or a gun and you're like, this is for me. This is mine. They had me pegged. Is that the case? They had me pegged. I don't actually know. I think that, that phrase may, it is that, but I think it's morphed. Right? oh Yeah. That's what I have.
01:02:45
Speaker
Looping back to a remakes, I guess we could get to, um, cause I know Mike at the beginning was saying like, I am a little disillusioned by them, which I think we're in the same camp, especially cause you come from the modding scene too, you know?
01:02:56
Speaker
It's like seeing what people have out there like Silent Hill 2 had such has something, you know, they had like the HD edition that came out and everyone hated it. But there is a mod for Silent Hill 2 called the Enhanced Edition for PC, which is like it's ah it's basically a fan made remaster. That's the problem is you have to know it exists. You have to know.
01:03:14
Speaker
especially nowadays, like, you know, people growing up, their computer knowledge is like nosediving. If you weren't like that golden zone, it's like, Oh, I grew up for like, I knew what computers were like when they weren't too complicated. And then it goes back down to now I grew up when computers were too simple. So like, you know, you have to know like, Oh, there's this mod for Silent Hill two that makes it, you know, play better. And it looks better. You have to know about that. You have to have a PC that does it. You have to have the hardware. You have to have the know-how.
01:03:39
Speaker
Speaking of that topic, I have something to add to that. World of Warcraft. I downloaded WoW Classic and I didn't realize how much I took you, I for granted, until I played that game. And then I had to download the mod to help me figure out what my objectives were.
01:03:57
Speaker
We've come a long way. with right design yeah It's definitely true. Yeah. Yeah. Retail. I, because we spoke about this wild topic a little bit in, in our, in our meetings, uh, not, not on live, but I, I'm a huge what a Warcraft nerd been playing for literally over half my life. And the UI is such an interesting aspect to it because, you know, whenever I get the game um up again, I have to go get a suite of, I think it's about.
01:04:25
Speaker
12 mods, like other, they call them add-ons in, in, in game, um, through curse forge, uh, big ups curse forge, not sponsored. Just love it. Chris orange respond to my DMS. I haven't gotten back yet. I reached out. But like you have to, we don't have to, but to, to have the experience that I deem as vital, you do have to go get those mods. Like I cannot tank.
01:04:51
Speaker
in that game without having the mods I feel are a necessity and like most games aren't like that and most people if you get someone fresh into WoW like Tina your experience how difficult did you find it to go and find relevant mods and get them installed? I needed a friend to tell me what to do exactly yeah they like gave me the link they were like just download this and I was like okay and you know they made it easy but at I don't know. but else that That's the problem is we can't expect every fucking player to be the power user that they need to be to know to get this mod in this spot in this mod and don't install them with that installer, install them with this installer and to to figure out which don't work with the others to to fix it when the updates break. ah Yeah, sometimes there there's a very high barrier to entry to experiences that would otherwise be
01:05:45
Speaker
access by more people, just if it was like, let's set setting aside all the other accessibility stuff we were talking about, people who who are differently abled. ah The other issue can just be simply like a lack of knowledge. You just don't know or you't you're not patient enough to spend all the time learning about all the mod stuff. Yep. Like System Shock 2 has a great community patch for it. I actually got an update, another one, I think like three months ago, but it was going for I want to say in your 20 years now. Yeah. It's like their big overhaul one for it. Yeah. No one else has that vampire, the masquerade bloodlines. Just so fastidious German man out there who's just been cranking away for years. That's the plus for the love of it, right? Yeah. Dude. Fuck. He must love it. They must love it. I just, there are different breed.
01:06:35
Speaker
but version so of Like for vampire, the GOG version just includes, I don't know if it's the most up to date one, but they include that mod in it. Cause like, yeah, if you're playing this game, yeah, they hope if you're playing this game. You should have like the plus mod in there. I don't know if it has like all the options enabled for like restored content and stuff, but like, right you had the same thing for a nice older public where they had that restored content mod. And I think for the switch release and like the, um,
01:07:00
Speaker
and was It wasn't, wasn't a remaster. They had summary release of it, but I know it included i was a remaster. Yeah. But that like included that in there too. but is why just right Yeah. And going back to system shock. Now it's like there's for two, you had all these mods that most people install playing the game.
01:07:16
Speaker
And now like night, I have to work on the enhanced edition. And from what I understand, like they're, you know, the touching up some models are doing a lot of work on it, but they're also just like flat out integrating some of those mods into it where it's like, Oh yeah, most of the community is already playing with these. So to a degree, like, let's just put these in there. Cause it's what people are doing.
01:07:32
Speaker
which they have the question of, okay, well, how much value will the game offer beyond? Like if I could go and find these things myself, like then what is, what's the value in that? And it's, Oh no, we're going to add these other, we're going to put our engine, like we're going to fix multiplayer support since that's been broken forever. Like they're adding value into it. That's not just, I guess a little more than like a ah consumer remaster, like people could do on their own if that a lot of time and effort. And I guess a lot of my issues with remakes and remasters is that,
01:08:01
Speaker
Like the the stuff we're youre making is like games that were perfectly fine for the most part. Like Silent Hill 2 is an example of, okay, that one's like hard to get into. Like i yeah I would also be like, that seems like an off one. Like the fact Dead Space got a remake is still kind of crazy to me though. great history History repeated itself for the PC port, still kind of botch botched now where people have stutter issues on drivers. It's like, Oh wow. It's just like the original, so like they kept that intact. But, um,
01:08:29
Speaker
It's like when you think of films, no one's going to be like, oh, wow, I can't wait for a Lord of the Rings remake because the trolls are going to look so much more HD. It's like how you engage with a remake or a a remaster of games is so much different than any other any other media, really. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you have you have like a new edition of a book that adds like some changes, but they're not going to like rewrite huge portions typically.
01:08:53
Speaker
Like you have these movies like most reboots and all of them. It's like you have the thing like i everyone loves because of the thing remake where people love that where that's basically reimagining a thing from another world completely beyond just scary thing alien in the Arctic.
01:09:08
Speaker
And then speak of devil again night dive is doing a remaster of the thing game and I think two weeks and the thing game. It has some really for those who know about it was a PS2 kind of era one. It has some really interesting ideas and about half of them are functional.
01:09:24
Speaker
It is is a nightmare of a game to play through. Like you go through it. They had this idea like, oh, you'll check who's the thing. And you have like these classes, like Half-Life opposing force near squad. Like I need an engineer
Remaking Controversial and Flawed Games
01:09:36
Speaker
to open doors for me. And like a medic heals me, but you have to check who's the thing like with the blood tests. So you're going through the game. Like I didn't see my squad mate for a while. I need to check if he's the thing.
01:09:45
Speaker
That's like a really amazing idea, especially for a for a movie tie in game back then where it's like it's space chimps and like it's just like trash that they're going out. What's the movie going to be about? We're not telling you. Just make a game for it so you can release it to promote the movie.
01:09:59
Speaker
Like they went really hard on this idea for it. The problem was they started executing it and they went, oh wait, if you need an engineer to like open this door, what happens if they're the thing? Now you can't open that door anymore. So it's, oh shit, like, uh, we can't make this work. So, okay, fuck it. You know what? They only become the thing at like certain stages in the game. Then they just become the thing no matter what. So you could check their blood. Oh, they're good. You walk five steps and they turned to the monster. You know what? This is terrible. So do you think they'll change it?
01:10:31
Speaker
I don't think so. Like I need to play it like when it comes out. But yeah, maybe beforehand we'll see. But it's more that it's such a it would completely change the game if they did fix that. You would have to reimagine so much about it. But the fact that remastering such a fundamentally flawed game, I find a lot more interesting than this sold like hotcakes before. We can resell this again with some visual touch ups.
01:10:56
Speaker
But it's also like looking at looking at that game. It's like, oh, wow, that would more benefit from like an alien isolation like remake. Like, yeah, I wish remakes were that was a really interesting or good idea executed poorly. Let's try again with a different approach and see if this can work.
01:11:12
Speaker
But the industry right now is still going for the most part. This game sold exceptionally well or has some kind of fan base. It's in a franchise. It has really strong roots. We can sell this again and make a shitload of money off of it. And so far, they're mostly right with those.
01:11:29
Speaker
Yeah, as much as I love and adore the RE4 remake, ah when I first saw it, I was a total skeptic. I was like, RE4, what play made it special? great still It feels great. And what made it so special is still special even to this day. How can Leon move and shoot? That's insane. It'll never work with with my was my take on it.
01:11:51
Speaker
Uh, but then I played it and I'm like, wow, they like, they, they made it work and it was great and it was super fun. And I'm actually so excited for fives. I don't know what they're going to do there, but maybe I'll be so trick five is an interesting one. That's like, how how do you make five? Like they' that's going to be tricky redoing five today. So I know I'm like i'm excited to see what they do there.
01:12:13
Speaker
But that's like an interesting remake, like five, like that's a controversial one. Like people weren't like, didn't the co-op was weird, but it's like, who, no one, I don't want to say no one, like night dive doing the thing is like, no matter how that comes out, I applaud them for doing a fucking the thing, the game remaster. But it's so hard to sell these companies on like, Hey, so there was this game from 25 years ago. Um, it sold like dog shit that had like 40 in the Metacritic. Can you give us like five million dollars to give us another crack at it? You know what I would love? If there was a game studio that just remade the shittiest games but made them like blockbuster hits. You know, if they took it on as a personal challenge, that'd be amazing. So would that be like... Okay, what would be an example of that? Like you're saying a shitty game that gets turned into an excellent game. What's a good example? Halo's falling off, it's time for the Hayes reboot.
01:13:06
Speaker
oh my fucking ha dos bady let's do it haes is badring troy baer going out with it Yeah, going up against a no one north like antagonist yeah general skin coats back You know what guilt tree of different combat drugs you unlock this fire Yeah, this is the songs for it. Fuck yeah. This is our improv pitch. This is the improv pitch. We're doing it right now. it's way we transition We transitioned. ah All right. What games could you, all right. So we'll we'll pick one. We'll, we'll pick one and then we'll take it and then we'll say how we're going to turn it into a better game.
01:13:49
Speaker
Oh, man. A remake of any video game. I'm looking at my library is shit. That is objectively sh remake a or remaster.
01:14:00
Speaker
bre I think you'd have to remake it. You'd have to read everything. You'd have to remaster a shitty game. You're not going to sell anything. my type doing the thing Right now. And I'm so excited to see how that turns out. ah This movie tie in game that was kind of a little bit of a cult following, but I'm so glad they're doing that because that's such a strange choice. Yeah, I was really, I really rose an eyebrow at that. And I agree with you largely about ah what you're saying, but a shitty game that needs it.
01:14:29
Speaker
Like everyone made fun of Superman 64. I'm sure you can make that fun. Oh, fuck. That's interesting. I've got mine. Superman 64. Can we keep the fog?
01:14:43
Speaker
yeah He flies through rings it's like this, like these like big sonic waves behind him. He looks like when people make those like unreal, you just have a shit on a game fail. So it actually feels it's like good to play a super compelling narrative with like excellent acting, excellent writing, but he's flying through all the rings.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. Combine Ace Combat with Superman 64. Oh my God. Quincy Brown's Lex Luthor talking about the rings over the radio. I really like that idea, Tina. So Superman's like in in a dog fight with some fucking F-15 or something ridiculous. Super 30 seconds are scrambling to stop him. yeah like You must stop playing through rings, Superman. He violates Tracy of airspace.
01:15:28
Speaker
Imagine loading into a mission and it's just being Superman basically flying into ah airspace that is contested and he's just like he's got an earpiece in and they're like you have to take out the nuclear facility and just like flying through it and just destroying it and shit. that's That sounds pretty cool. What's the narrative here? Did Superman go crazy like that Superman V Batman arc or is he working for one of the countries? ah Does he have his own agenda? Why is nice he?
01:15:58
Speaker
he He hit his head and he's stupid now. You're playing as Bizarro. Bizarro, is he ever goatee? I just love this. I also think that's a refreshing story. If people saw the plot line was just Superman hit his head and he's stupid now and he's flying through every ring he can see. He saw all these like brute force superpowers, right? He sees the big donut on top like a diner and he flies through it. Like he just can't stop flying through rings and he's compelled to do it. Like how do we, we have to bait Superman into the strap by like putting up rings from the fly through. He hit his head and he's stupid now. How do you suppress someone that's not, yeah.
01:16:32
Speaker
Right. They can't kill them. So they have like jets that are, uh, what do you call it? Skywriting and they're writing out messages saying Superman, you sustained an injury. Please. My God, my God. You can't read anymore either. Scrabble more. like the They're setting up the rings to, to delay him while they try and find a way to make other rings work. So they just,
01:16:56
Speaker
the only foot out of ring superman yeah you're bizarre superman it's just oh look at that it is my cute hu bizarre superman and could we make him think The top of volcano was a ring and maybe he'll fly into it. No, he's flying through the rings. He sees him going toward a volcano and he goes, wait a bit. it And he veers off. No, we're going to put the rings closer to the lava.
01:17:24
Speaker
What monuments in the world are rings because like he would just be beelining it towards it and he'd be like um is ah this The st. Louis arc it's too much in a car curriculum he's heading do and It'll it'll get destroyed there. You know how in every um disaster movie there's like the iconic landmark getting exploded or whatever. Yeah, it would be What's call it called that same was arch? I don't actually know the name that one yeah's like going around the walls He's going around the world destroying all of the farce wheels
01:17:56
Speaker
around Are fair we flying through them. I can see the video for this. Like I can see unreal engine five. I could see the intense bloom. He's running for the grass field before he takes off. ah People are people are screaming. W. B. Hire this man. With the magic in the development developer giving a talk with the magic of level streaming. Yeah, it's like the rigs all across the planet with no loading screens.
01:18:21
Speaker
Jesus. Did you miss scanning characters for the game that never appear? All these celebrities, the promotional material that just vanish. Oh, well, Josh Brolin is going to be in that new Superman 64 reboot. I can't wait. Oh, he plays the guy who drives the car that Superman throws. That was kind of brief.
01:18:39
Speaker
Oh, my God. OK, OK. We have Superman 64. That's one game. Yeah, I've got I've got one. ah as heed into that break you
01:18:54
Speaker
Okay. As we, Tina works on breathing exercises, I've got mine, which is let's, i'm ready let's remake night trap. hey jes on nice good pay Good one. yeah i'm like It's going to be a five nights at Freddy's game. If you want the most sales. ah Okay. Cool. yeah called fred its called thirty' mansion but Let's not let it be. Cause this is just in our minds. We can make it right.
Preserving Gaming History and Nostalgia
01:19:20
Speaker
This could be anything. yeah So for Tina and listeners, I'm looking at it right now.
01:19:24
Speaker
Wow. Night Trap is a game from 1992, which was a full motion video game where you're effectively monitoring cameras to ah save like a slumber party of girls from ninjas, monster men.
01:19:40
Speaker
And yeah, there was like in a, there's like burglars and stuff. that Yeah. So you check the cameras. Oh, that room is fine. That's fine. Oh God, a burglar. I've got to do something. calling We, we latch onto a genre that's doing very well recently, which is a normally games, uh, in the same vein as 10 bells and stuff like that, where you're monitoring the cameras and instead of, Oh, well I just see where the ninjas sneaking about. It's more of.
01:20:06
Speaker
What's different about this room? Is there an anomaly in here? And if you don't catch them in time, that's what happens. And it's also the night trap was very campy. um I think we go for campy, but we juxtaposed that with incredibly violent deaths. Well, that can be fun. jesus says So you're monitoring and it's a lot more subtle, finding anomalies. And if you don't catch them in time, there's this, you know, bombastic death of a slumber party. Oh my God. They're calling it harvester for the next generation.
01:20:35
Speaker
kids kids are playing it ah Perfect. Oh my God. That's pretty good. That's really good. I think you can level in stock or two if they tried like, you know, have have a monitor some station somewhere. How about we don't know you haven' gone far enough in maybe Stalker two is just night trap. We don't know. Yeah, maybe we're going to get to that point.
01:21:00
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Can you imagine them making that creative decision? You know, there's a lot that we can pull in from Night Trap into this project. Don't you all agree? And everybody looks at them in the meeting. I loved it. I mean, the fact Night Trap got a it was some sort of remaster. I don't know who did it, but I would love to be there for whoever like pitched that to Nintendo. And then they said, yes, that's that's incredible that they made that happen. Yeah, that almost went to my trip.
01:21:28
Speaker
Yeah, that too. Yeah. So it was released in 2017 by developer Screaming Villains. Oh wow. Cool name. Yeah. ah um i want To get night trap back but or legends.
01:21:45
Speaker
Do you have a game you'd want to fix or was was your Superman 64? Yeah, it was. Right. I can't think of a good one. I've got a couple that are like less fun because they're games that like I don't think got their fair shot. ah The ship is one. Oh, that's great. You know, social yeah. So it's like a social deduction. Yeah. yeah Super fun. pop source was Now.
01:22:07
Speaker
Right, it was ah it was first a Half-Life 1 mod, then they did a Source standalone one, even had a single player. But it just came out in the early 2010s, and I just don't think it had the mass that it needed to get a lot of attention. Are you talking about the ship Murder Party? Yes, I think so. Let me confirm that that's the... yeah it is okay yeah It came out in 2006.
01:22:28
Speaker
Yeah. and And that would be interesting. ah Not just be now. I think the problem here would be like what might just be an imitation of other social deduction games. But the theme is pretty cool and the art style is nice. So not a hilarious answer, but a game that I think would be cool to have another fair shot. ah Angels Fall First is another one. Again, not a shitty game by any means, but just like a game that I think could have another fair shot. ah That was a UE3 engine game that had like a I think battlefield, but in space of like boarding ships and fighting people while you're inside of ships yeah and then jumping out of yours, going on to a station and fighting. That was really cool. It's so being patched. I think like angels fall first is still around ish. This had never got the population to take off, I don't think. So yeah, that's a great she's a cool game. There's there's still an early access. I'm looking at them now. I'm so surprised.
01:23:19
Speaker
There's still a chance. Last up in June. Okay. Okay. See, this is, this is the, this is the game industry mindset. You're trying to reboot a game. It's still an early access. This is unbelievable. It's not even 1.0 yet. You're only trying to reboot it. Well, Travis, the cool game. Check out ages fall first. It's, uh, that's one. I can't think of many other. Oh, wait.
01:23:39
Speaker
I have a genuine interest in a remake that I would love. Can I want to give one more? Because I think this one's hilarious. I want to see a modern binary domain.
01:23:51
Speaker
That would be fun. Yeah. but The voice controls work a lot better nowadays. Yeah. that Not a bad game. Also, I'm not really answered the question, but it would be fun to see a binary domain remake, the one where you fight all the robots and they're like surprisingly satisfying to shoot. It's a third person, like years of war inspired. Yeah, it is. But they managed it, I felt at least at a co-op mode. You know, there's there's room for expansion to a lot of the things that they offered. ah That's it. Go ahead to you I just want to say.
01:24:19
Speaker
Diddy Kong Racing, such a good game. Oh, Tina. Oh, Diddy Kong Racing. What's wrong with Diddy Kong Racing? What's wrong with Diddy Kong? I'm imagining, I don't know, like a shit smooth Michael Bay style AAA Diddy Kong Racing, I guess. You're assuming so much about this already. When I think about a remake, I think about going ham and putting all this money into it. And it's a known brand, right? Because it's fucking...
01:24:45
Speaker
Diddy car i'm pretty great right like didy Kong's got an eye patch. They're going to scan a real elephant and put it in. it's her and everything True to scale. Like apes and chimpanzees, like the entire con family. You can see every hair on them. It's using like that. like that would technology. is Like the, what is that Nvidia hairworks? We see the mutual strength. I hate it. I hate it so much. It reminds me of like the Lion King remakes like live action. I don't, I don't want it. I don't want it you shaty cong racing again We should stream it, Tina. I love Diddy Kong racing. Yeah. Well, there's that how to train your dragon one now where it's like they've solved the problem of oops. And that, well, I guess not. It's different company DreamWorks, but it's the same. It's the same shit. There's a live action. How to train your dragon. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh my God. want it.
01:25:32
Speaker
Yes, I know that this this happened like yesterday. This is brand new. But OK, it's for Lion King. They went, oh, let's make the animals really realistic. And people went, oh, wow, they have no expression on their faces. It just looks like I'm staring at a big cat. So for how to train your dragon.
01:25:47
Speaker
It just looks like the in instead of being a 100 percent CGI movie, it's not like an 80 percent CGI movie. They're like toothless looks almost the same. Yeah. Look at look at Jay's face exactly. That's in the trailer right now. It's just it's so gray. Gerard Butler's back, but he's just wearing a big beard. It's it's the most needless possible movie. I believe.
01:26:11
Speaker
So they said, put on this big fake beard and be dad again, and we'll redo all the same shots. We'll look gray is the fucking, yeah I hate, I hate live action remakes so much. Yeah, this this is the game remake brain that that Mike and I get sometimes where it's like, no, you don't need this. you Yeah, we know't it's fine. We don't. It's true. I'm having I'm having the same thought. ah The Avatar live action remake like not all right. That was weird. I really didn't. There was a lot that I disliked about it. I guess overall didn't capture the original vibe. A lot of the acting felt like out of place like they felt they felt too American in a weird way.
01:26:47
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like, they what you mean and yeah, yeah it it didn't, it didn't capture me. It didn't feel like the adventure that the original, uh, animated one was even though like you I didn't hate all the actors or whatever. This is outside the game.
01:27:02
Speaker
Yeah. I just meant like for, it's from that mindset of like the eighties where it's like, you're not legit until you have the movie. Like you've got a live action movie. We're like, Oh wow. What a beautiful animated movie. What a beautiful animated show. Sorry, but um when's this going to be live action for adults? Oh dude, it is. I mean this from on the bottom of my heart, taking animated, like beautifully animated movies with incredible stories that are great for all ages and the making a live action version of it is an affront to art.
01:27:31
Speaker
And I i think they're terrible. I don't think they should be made. And don't go see them. Vote with your wallet. Just go buy. Just go buy the original on Blu-ray or something and support the original artist because fuck that man.
Video Games to Movies: Challenges and Pitfalls
01:27:45
Speaker
And I may say don't buy physical media and wait for you to get your ticket for Akira with live action. Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Tina, please continue. like Please tell me you were joking about me and the whole nation of Mexico will be waiting to watch um Dragon Ball Z evolution. Yeah, it's got a lot of action. It was great. Oh, it's that's real. Oh, Dragon Ball Evolution. My man. evolution Enjoy. It has the. he man the old the older side Yeah, the older son from a War of the Worlds plays Goku.
01:28:21
Speaker
sta yeah oh my god away for more of the words holy shit the one who runs off sick dad this battle's sick i want to see it please let me see the takes it's so that's very go let's him go sun said what that's that's our fucking gou that's a gou he loves explosions you though no wonder he he loves explosions that's our goku So he never died. He actually made it and then he was Goku.
01:28:47
Speaker
same is at the apartment he just showed up you oh really it's fine I'm sorry. You're right. You're right. um preach no He's just there. I forgot. I actually liked that movie except for things like that. I thought the vibe was actually pretty creepy. Actually the tripods, the scene where I'm using.
01:29:05
Speaker
the scene where Tom Cruise, the tripods come out the ground and they just start vaporizing people. And then Tom Cruise gets home and he's like caked in like human remain dust. And he doesn't realize. And it's like, and he shakes it all. his yeah It's so good. And the sound is design the sound is incredible on him. over Oh my God. It gives me shivers, man. It's so good.
01:29:25
Speaker
like so over the world know how to make movies There's like, yeah, there's a dude, he, I think got permission from the studio now or so they had some sort of agreement, but it it's looks like the movie and had like the same tripod sounds might be changing some stuff now. Oh, I see. that makes sense thing There's a company making a game. I remember this vividly because I was talking to some game dev friends of mine and we were just like kind of similar to what we do here. Like pitching just like crazy ideas. And I went, man, there should be an asymmetrical war of the world's game where one player plays a tripod and the others hide from it.
Game Development Complexities
01:29:57
Speaker
That'd be fun. They were like, Oh, they'd never make that. It would never work. And then the next day a company announced they were making it and released it. It was crazy. It was that a perfect. They're so scary looking. A lot of ah film companies are trying to pitch their IPs for game content. Yeah. There's a lot of money no money in reverse, right? It's there's a lot of cross pollination.
01:30:20
Speaker
especially now they see the money in it where it's like, yeah, you could give them an IP, you get 10% and hope they make something good. So, you know, whatever. Sometimes put out way higher numbers for a bigger IP. But yeah, I would like Halo to try again with a show or a movie and just like a reset, just you give it a clean slate. And and I just I I guess I'm thinking of it because I'm thinking of like the importance of the anonymity of of the chief. But I want people from dread to be involved with the production. Hmm.
01:30:49
Speaker
because I really liked that about Dread. about like the it was the the gri Obviously the tones are completely different, but just the fact that they committed in that movie to like, he's never going to take off the helmet. I think that they understood the source material of Dread to some extent, and they understood how you can give an actor us a challenge of subtlety. right Like they give Tom Hardy all the time when he has to wear a mask in multiple movies. That would be really cool to see. I'd like to see The Halo Show try again.
01:31:15
Speaker
Especially because it's such a rich universe to and like, hey, Master Chief could be a much smaller character in a larger story. And they said, hey, we have seasons of a TV show. Let's make the Master Chief show where it's like he could be a piece of it, but focusing ah around him like to that level is like as much flack as Halo Infinite gets. They handled like the Master Chief stuff so well as like a character. Oh, you think so? Really? It's just yeah everything surrounding it, right? Like it's.
01:31:42
Speaker
I I've got a weird relationship with Halo. I think like just in general that IP is probably one of the biggest. fumbles over the last 10 years. Like they, there's so much they could do as such a rich narrative. And there's so many ideas they could be doing, but they're telling this line between, well, let's just, let's just make free again, or let's try and make the fans happy. But in return, not like that, again, that's kind of like the topic of remakes, right? Like they're trying to not enough.
01:32:14
Speaker
I'm sure some of us have heard the Halo pitches about the grapevine where it's like, Oh my God, that sounds so cool. But it's, yeah, no, not doing that. I'm only speculating here. Uh, and I also have to be kind of vague, but like, I know somebody who's pretty involved with the Halo infinite development and without being specific, like I got the impression it was just fucking hell. And yeah, we could tell that from a public perspective. And the thing that Again, this is just speculation. The thing that I think happens when that shit happens is nobody wants to touch that again and take that risk because it went the way that it did. And I really liked Halo Infinite. Like, single player, I still need to finish. And I'm, like, not sure how I feel about it, a little mixed. Multiplayer was awesome from the get-go. I didn't agree with the monetization, didn't agree with some of the progression, ah and there wasn't enough content for me. ah So there is still, like, some fumbling, I agree.
01:33:03
Speaker
but um I just got the impression that because of development was such ah such a problem, when that kind of thing happens, it takes so much momentum to get things started again and to get the right people working on it and to get the the money to make it happen because it is very expensive at that point. I remember interviewing for 343.
01:33:22
Speaker
as a producer. And I thought that it was kind of eyeopening and a strange way that at the time when I interviewed, they wanted me to, I was interviewing to be like a producer of, uh, customizing, you know, your armor and stuff in the menu. And that was it. Like, and then I asked like, oh, okay, well for localization and multiplayer lobbies, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like how do I interact with this? They're like, no, this is one menu.
01:33:51
Speaker
but Okay. and if you If you think about like how many producers they would take to just silo them and features into this own little like tiny world, I feel like, like we were talking about earlier, communicating a broad goal or having things feel cohesive is much more difficult to do. And so just for me personally, ah i i I wouldn't enjoy working on a team where I was in charge of just one tiny little thing. And then it's a part of a bigger piece.
01:34:21
Speaker
but then you can't really like interact with those other teams. like it just For me, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. No, that that might not be the the way to go. you're You're saying that they were telling you, you're going to be hyper-focused on this one thing, and that's that. You're not allowed to move from it. Yeah, and I and i got the impression that a lot of the team was siloed like that, right? like So if someone was in charge of one game mode for Halo, they may not have communicated with all the other departments.
01:34:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Without being specific, I can. What I've heard, too, was that there was a, you know, there could be a ah there was a siloing problem. I could specifically confirm this is maybe.
01:35:01
Speaker
I mean, playing through it. Sorry, I know. Yeah. Single player has the same feeling I have is when I played the um the Phantom Pain, like Metal Gear Solid V where it's you go through it where, you know, that had a lot more systems in place, but it's you get the sense like, oh, wow, I can tell like there was so much more planned for this. And I know, man, especially what people dig up when I know people like going to concept art is never like like all sorts of stuff gets lost in the concept art stage. That's meaningless. Yeah. But the stuff people are finding like,
01:35:30
Speaker
rudimentary bits of and pieces is like, Oh, wow. like That's a, there's so many interesting things that were clearly just cut for time and everything else happening with the production on it. Yeah. Like direct voice, voice acting and, and stuff like that, which is something that's happening late in into production. Once things get like green lit and stuff like that, to have those in engine.
01:35:49
Speaker
and sitting there just speaks to things being completely removed wholesale, yeah which doesn't need to happen in nearly every game, right? Um, things do need to be cut, but, uh, historically with metal gear, um, the five, if I were, if I was a lot.
01:36:06
Speaker
If I were president of video games and the world and I could like make up a law, it would be, and this is a complete fantasy, totally unrealistic. I don't think it'd be bad for the industry. It could be, but I like this idea. I would make it where after a game releases 15 or 20 years go by, you have to release your source code and let the modders and the community do something with it. That would be my fantasy. That'd be sick as hell.
01:36:36
Speaker
but but it would never song team fancy years I know it would never happen. It's like a completely. i This is like Mike. He's president of games. He has now on his presence. True. pet Star Trek would look at this and say that's too idealistic because I know I'm being idealistic. yeah but But but um it's ah it's a ah fun fantasy for me, because I think about Metal Gear Solid 5, and like, man, if modders took hold of that, think of all the cool shit that they could do. If they had unlimited access, that would be a ah beautiful creative artistic thing. And as president of video games, maybe I'll be able to pull it off, we'll see. 15, 20 years, you know, that's a long amount of time, right?
01:37:15
Speaker
That has been my biggest change from going to like working at a, like at a tourist compared to being like, Oh, do like a reviews of games. Cause you always like playing them. You get the sense of like, I guess looking at them the way I would do it. It's like, Oh yeah. It feels like there was something missing here. Like there's clearly more planned and like seeing firsthand how much those things can change before launch or like, Oh, like this was supposed to be placeholder. Now it's shipping where it's like, I always got a sense. I got like a little bit of a sense, like how much that happens, but it's more like,
01:37:42
Speaker
ah how people outside of it don't know like, like, oh, this game was like, okay, when it came out, or yeah, this one's fine. Or it's like, oh, I saw this like at a way earlier stage, like thinking outside of Hooded Horse Consulting, like, oh, you don't even know how bad things were before at one point. Like the fact it got to like this level, of like, oh, this is like an all right game. Like there are people move mountains to get to that level sometimes.
01:38:04
Speaker
It's like it all just kind of gets hidden away into the annals of history and talks of bars, but it's like, man. Yeah. That's the only place that will ever exist in. And then it will fail. And then it'll just be the game until that fades and the sun explodes. But still, you're right. Like there's a, it's interesting how that is
Content Creators' Influence on Gaming Legacy
01:38:21
Speaker
just lost. It is. Yeah. Like I went to school for um like when I'm before before games took off, I got a I double majored in history and political science. So big thing is like, oh, wow, it's like archive and genealogy work in the side and seeing how much how much game history is essentially the same problems we'd encounter doing like like early American history. You would have accounts like battles, the Civil War, like stuff, you know, and colonialization like that whole period. And you would have like, oh, the Native Americans are mainly just using oral history.
01:38:50
Speaker
An oral history in most academic circles was not taken very seriously until ah fairly recently in the and the study here, really. It's like, oh, it's not written down. like you know like that That's sort not more like a witness account. like It doesn't have the weight to it. Even if the story has been passed down near verbatim for 300 years or something like that, when so much of game history is like, oh, there's this rumor that came out or this this journalist talked to someone else and went through some telephone and came out.
01:39:17
Speaker
And then like maybe 20 years later, a devil be asked directly about something and go, Oh, now that like enough time has passed, it's been like 30 year, 20 years where, okay, am I might not be in trouble for talking about this. My memory's fuzzy and all the details, but here's what I, here's what I think we want to do based on my recollection. Like even the half-life documentary that came out, it's like we're losing, we're losing so much of the process and like what actually happened to just the ravages of time. And it's so sad.
01:39:44
Speaker
Yeah, I one last comment and we do have to we want to move to ah comments I think but you realize Mandy that you are a part of this preservation when it comes to games, right? Like we do as far as like what's the zeitgeist or something deeper than the zeitgeist How will people remember a certain projects?
01:40:01
Speaker
it's going to largely come down to certain content creators who like did the video on it that got the most views that then perpetuated itself on top of all search results. I feel like popular opinion of what kind of game Darkest of Days was is going to be based around you, right? Or or somebody like you who did that review and that's how it's going to be remembered.
01:40:22
Speaker
It's, it's a harrowing, I don't want to say it's that harrowing, but it was more kind of realizing it was at that stage. Cause I'd see discussions about some game like a little bit. And then I would see people repeating points I had made about the game, but then like other things I knew weren't true about it, where it's like, Oh God, this is someone who's just watched like a YouTube video and they're talking about like other assumptions they've made off of it. So now it's like this, not that like making the entire perception of something people aren't going to be playing much.
01:40:46
Speaker
But it is different where it's like, oh, people can if a YouTube video or something is popular enough, people will repeat some point or criticism from it and and they won't go and experience it themselves. And it's like, that's what it could be relegated to. And it can even be like inspired by I've had people directly tell me that, like, oh, yeah, I saw your video on um on on X game or whatever. And working on mine, like I'm implementing this feature you talked about, because I think that's really cool.
01:41:10
Speaker
It's like, oh, that's like, like, I didn't think I'd have that kind of effect to that level, but it's also like they didn't play the game themselves to kind of fill out that feature. They said, oh, I saw you reporting on that night. That inspired me to go and do this thing on my own. It's like, I am still a secondary source for that. So it's like there might be more nuance to it you that you get by playing the game compared to just getting this kind of peek at it. Yeah, but I think you're right.
01:41:34
Speaker
It's tough, right? Like I, I've had devs contact me, um, on like specific videos I've made covering health bars and how to frame health and stuff like that. And then be like, Oh, if we're watching your video, you know.
01:41:47
Speaker
ah It's changed how we're doing health in our game and we're approaching in a different way from what we thought we were doing conventionally, which is great, right? But also the same to your point. Are they doing that because of maybe one or two sentences? I said in that video that was based on me looking at a hundred different games.
01:42:08
Speaker
And context, right? Because a huge thing with game dev is there's never one answer to any solution. It's all dependent on on your systems, your target audience, you know, how you frame things. yeah So why I know the team that messaged me, I have faith that they're doing the correct thing, but You know, there is a sense of responsibility as content creators where how we frame information might influence and does influence a wide range of gamers and creators, other a creators. So there's a responsibility there and it's it's difficult to manage.
01:42:41
Speaker
It loops back to the remakes and remasters thing. People can play a game they thought was popular and it's like, Oh wow, this is, this is what people liked about it, right? Like a thief reboot. They maybe some people played thief in the head of it. We're like, okay. I like, I like these darkness. I like stealing where it's like, it's you're not getting all the aspects that the general player base liked about the, for it's, Hey, this is just my personal insight into, I really like this about this game. The promise you're that one person who could then put a video about, I like this thing about it. Then people go, Oh, this game is cool because it has this thing where there could be something you didn't touch on or missed or something about how that didn't work. It's
01:43:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's just nuts how it spreads out like that. There's a reason why the the term used to be influencer, right? Now it's creator. um ah They're all nightmare terms that are changeable. yeah they They sound a little, there's always a little bit of a chill and I use them in a professional context, but like the power in centralized to certain people, it's kind of a daunting and crazy. So I get what you mean. Yeah.
01:43:42
Speaker
I always, um, this is just a personal anecdote that makes me sound like an asshole. I'm sure it'll be fine. You know, I've been to like industry events where I'm like, hi, I'm, you know, introduce myself. And then they're like, hi, I'm a content creator. And then I want to say me too.
01:43:59
Speaker
But not in this, like, it's just weird to be like, I'm a content creator. Yeah, you all know. Yeah, me too. when you say that Are you referring to the fact that you, in a literal sense, make video game content as a developer? Yes. OK. That's why I just like the term. Like, I didn't like content creators. It sounds like, oh, I'm making content like just.
01:44:18
Speaker
I will say, Oh, I'm like a video editor. Really? Where it's like you're just watching videos. Like I love consuming your content. Like, Ooh, that's that, that feels a little weird and slimy, but yeah, it feels like critically. Like being a critic makes sense to me. Yeah. I thought I, I thought I didn't like it until I heard influencer. no You know what? Content creators. Okay. yeah influences but so It's actually not so bad anymore. It's sticky. Horrible. Yeah. A hundred percent.
01:44:44
Speaker
Right, we should probably get to donos because we've got quite a few. So we won't be able to linger too long on each one and answer, but we'll try and answer them best we can.
Content Creation Challenges and Burnout
01:44:54
Speaker
Just a reminder to everyone ah that all of the podcasts and series on Second Wind are supported by your wonderful donations um and on Patreon. So for everyone who donated today, thank you so much. um And we'll get through them.
01:45:08
Speaker
So, uh, you read a few of these Tina. So if I start reading one that you read, yeah ah punch me in the face. Okay. Right. Directly punch him in the face. just like directly yeah time perina to ja's room yeah yeah i'm only right different side country No, I'm on the East Coast rather than England. All right. Frogs ah disseminating other frogs for friends gives five dollars and says joke. I'm disappointed. Mandalore didn't join in VTuber form a day. I don't have any VTuber form. I'm not. I'm not sure if I'd make some nightmare rig and I have a friend who who does VTuber ship. And I was considering reaching out to them and Mandy and seem like, hey, would this be fun to you or is this too much? But but I decided against it. That's probably good. Like, Hey, look, we, we presented you this. It's going to be you. And it's going to denser on the screen. It's eyes going to kind of look one way wrong. And it's kind of just snapping the facial positions when betteror i to guess it though because I thought like is, I don't want to bug them. This is probably too much trouble, but it's a cool software that, that they know or that they have rather. Um, anyway, continue Jay. No worries.
01:46:18
Speaker
a wild Josh gives $10 and says, how did Mandalore escape the hooded horse influencer influence a dungeon? Wait, first, you, uh, Faustian bargain work release program. How did you get out? I'm glad I'm like, glad, um, it's already pulled up. Yeah. So I did the ah publisher showcase for hooded horse this year.
01:46:37
Speaker
And a lot of things that seem like bits were not really bits. I was, I was basically moving places and the place I moved into had a disgusting basement filled with, um, like it had like horrible, I had a mold problem and like the ventilation and stuff. So I said, this is horrible, but this is also production value. And because, because they said, um, you know, you go make the publisher showcase. I said, okay, I will do it on my own and lean into this being a low budget solo project. I'm going to film it on a webcam from 2006.
01:47:06
Speaker
I have nothing to announce which project. Yeah, it looks so good. So you had no I had no games to announce. I had no reveals really. So it's OK. I will just go in here and vaguely talk about the games we have. So that was the work on the rate on level truly that high where you were. That was actual rate on test they took before the house where.
01:47:27
Speaker
You could see it getting like up towards the border line of the danger zone, but then it would go down like that. That plug coming out of the concrete into the outlet. That's 100 percent real. Oh my gosh. The dead lizard, the like the like sludge in the walls. That was all completely real. I was like, people are going to think this is like some some bit, but no, this was a horrible, terrible tradition you built. You are. You are not. You're not a creator. You're not an influence. You are an artist. That's what you are. You are committed to it. Proves it unable to help. Yeah, but like the production notes, like people going through that, look that with a lens that it's less of a bit. And a lot of it was real, real conditions, like production notes I was getting, but it was a lot of fun. Absolute fire. Right. Dark Jackal, $5. Thank you. It says, thanks for the conversation. Very random question. What do you like to do when you need a break from video games? That's a nice question. Is this for all of us?
01:48:26
Speaker
Let's take it for all of us. hu I think it should be for all of us. Yeah. Play on the floor. I'm like the exact opposite situation. So taking a break is a video game. yeah Yeah. I mean, I, I go for walks. I go, I still see some movies sometimes just kind of do out, go out friends if they're available since adult friendships are magical world where It's like, Oh, I can't wait to see each other again. And maybe three to six weeks of our schedules all aligned perfectly. Yeah. We've been reading more. Cause I've been catching up. I've been, I have been reading as much as I should the past few years. So I'm going to try to make time for that. What you're reading. Oh man. One of my friends just finished infinite jests. And I said, wow, I will not be reading that again. I've only read part of it and I couldn't get as far through it.
01:49:14
Speaker
I've been reading through the ah Dune series again. So the movies came out. It's like, I should I should like try and give a heretics of doing another shot and go through the later ones since Frank Herbert basically on book four, he goes, sorry, a worm talked to you for a for a few hours. Here's my book that's basically hentai. You're like, oh, I got them for Dean. Yeah. But then after that, there's sex control. There's like yeah there's sex scenes and it's it's it gets crazy later on. But yeah, this. Yeah.
01:49:40
Speaker
so like So weird dude, the answer is gets weird. I read it in I read it in college and I this was not the right move because I missed out on good fiction, but I stopped at the hand in the pain box. I was like, I'm sorry. This is a little too weird for me. And I closed it and I never picked it up again in the very, very first. Eric has a picture of doom. Do also a great book series. do You guys are read the fucking doom book. No, yeah you got you got filtered by the Gamja bar, but I guess I'll check out the. It's the doom book is just like the the game doom. It's I read down the corridor I couldn't find the red key oh record out it so It's like it's not the rock and it's but it's pretty don't know like it's the game doom in the first book It's like pretty close to I think right in one and And I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but it's pretty much just like I ran around and it's got one of the best, um I guess the word would be metaphors I've ever read. He fires the rocket launcher at the Baron of Hell, or one of the bosses, I forget, the Spider Mastermind. And he says that the sound it made, sounded of the Spider Mastermind or whatever exploding sounded like a supermarket being slam dunked into a mountain.
01:50:53
Speaker
And I was going to be so well, isn't that rad? ah do it was married i did not think your how That could live up to what you said being like one of the best metaphors you ever said. And it it blew my expectations. Can you imagine the sound of the supermarket? Everything flying. i the debris, the amount of fragments it goes into. And it describes a rocket launcher being shot at a demon from hell. So like it, it matches the insanity of that action. But anyway, that's some real, fun real fun but some real artistry and doom, the novelization.
01:51:25
Speaker
yes get absolutely well and For what I remember, yeah. ah Sorry, we're talking about ways that we take a break. ah Yeah. I also like to go on walks, ride my bike. Been a big biker ever since Amsterdam. ah Loved it. Loved it. And I guess just relax and stuff. I don't know. Like I can't think of any other things, but it's usually just decompression feeling things. Yeah. Good. Mind some.
01:51:55
Speaker
Ever since I came to the US, I've actually had the reverse where um you know work had been so intense with you know being a YouTuber and game dev at the same time and working on weekends. like i I didn't want to play games in my free time because it was just all-encompassing and everything. Very similar to what you were talking about, Tina, with you know working in AAA. and That being your whole thing. But ah now that I've come to the U.S., I my weekend, not my weekends, my evenings are free again. And because I'm not streaming or in meetings or in podcasts and stuff like that in in the night in English time. So I actually find myself excited to play games again, which is like ah I haven't felt in the last four years. And it's really refreshing. So for me at the moment, I relax and I try and play a game in the mind frame. And like, Mandy, I'm sure
01:52:46
Speaker
you you deal with this, which is playing a game and trying to turn my content brain off of like, how can I make this a video and just be like, oh yeah I want to play a game and have fun and relax and stuff like that. So I'm really enjoying having that back again. Yeah. I mean, that's a real struggle too, is that when you have.
01:53:07
Speaker
I don't know. People will go like, Oh, content careers, the hardest job in the world. Like it's not, i've always I've worked retail. It's not, but it is the thing that does suck is that when you're done with retail or like a nine to five, you go home and you go, wow, workers are off, but now works over. When you make your own hours for doing videos, it's like, I'm sitting here, like I'm watching a movie, but I could be working on something else or you're cooking projects in the back of your mind. You're like.
01:53:29
Speaker
Oh, I should just play this game for fun. And like, Oh, could I do a video on this? Actually, like, this is an interesting thing, dude. I've written down free video ideas in this, in this time we've been in this chat. really just Wait, wait, let's hear it. Let's hear it. I know one of those accessibility, it has to be.
01:53:54
Speaker
Yeah, one of them is accessibility of Superman 64. Another one's called duty. It's called a duty one. um white And there's a number one that I want to get 64.
01:54:06
Speaker
The liminal horror of Superman 64. I want to make ah an episode on marathon and potentially that level. I'm your man.
01:54:19
Speaker
There's a link up. Let's educate me on marathon. You can hold. Yeah, dude. We go for it. Yeah. I'll send you a video series I found of like a recent deep dive to say. Awesome. Okay, cool. There's this one line going through the. Yeah, it's him. I mean, where he goes to level level by level. They're like, we're talking about the same guy, right? Yes. Yeah. It's like 40 minutes long. We goes through like everything in it. And it's crazy. Developer commentary. And like, here's why he put the trash can here instead of here. Yeah. Like I say.
01:54:46
Speaker
Oh, you got, okay. Let's smash through these Tina just said she's got a hard out. So let's, let's get through these. Uh, Gigi lag, ma master gives 10 Ron. Oh, we had that last time. Uh, they're ready or not. Uh, just kidding. They're ready or not. 10 already. When will you make a classic fallout video? How eventually?
01:55:11
Speaker
It's such a boring answer, but it'll come eventually. It's like, I'd rather do some more off like I get the age of decadence for some, the RPG train. That's a big one, man. The original fallout, the original deus ex some, some games are so iconic and huge and you only
Favorite Game Remakes and Future Plans
01:55:25
Speaker
do them once. So yeah, you feel like you need to have a big, big play through it before. But prom is also like,
01:55:32
Speaker
I do run into that sometimes, just like I could do a thing on Fallout or should I talk about this other, this more washed up or like a weird thing that was out there people don't know about. It's like I'm sure people love hearing about something they're also familiar with more, but. People have to know about this Hungarian World War II RTS. I have to make this video. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
01:55:51
Speaker
I got scammed at best buy for $20. So now I have to make a return somehow. I'm a little child. He has to get his allowance back.
01:56:01
Speaker
He got to read Eric and not Eric. Sorry. Jay. Oh, it's not on my, it's not on my list. Oh, I'll read it. It goes frog to wild Josh, giant Jackal. 50 euros and says, hi, Mandalore, big fan of your vids. I love it. When you go through weird ass video game plots, have you ever considered going down the remedy verse rabbit hole? Like you did with bungee as for remakes? What are each of you guys' favorite full remakes?
01:56:28
Speaker
Uh, for remedy answer, I might do a quantum break thing, even though that'd be out of the actual order of things, I guess with Max Payne. So yeah, that could happen, but it would be another big project. Maybe I actually want to do an Alan Wake theme to Halloween to think from my house this year, but I didn't have enough time. So I'm like projectors doing like the little dances or hell of darkness in the trees. Cool. Yeah. Collective question was a, what was it again?
01:56:53
Speaker
ah What are you guys's favorite full remakes? Marvel versus Capcom 2 probably nice second. Yeah
01:57:03
Speaker
I guess it would have to be Resident Evil 2 HD, the one I said earlier. ah Yeah. With that one. there Another Capcom. Yeah. Yeah. Three master would just be beyond and evil for me, but that's just because I am a hopeless nostalgia driven um for all. So in Mandalore. This is tricky because there's like the age of empires like two and mythology like HD versions were great. And those are like outright those have like outright remakes, too, which I was like, we don't really.
01:57:32
Speaker
I don't really need those. I try to think of a remake I really like. so a i'm I'm struggling to think of a remake I was like really on board with. I guess the Dead Space one was probably the most interesting for me and what like they had changed. But off the top of my head, it's hard for me to... like I love the... um like There are remasters I now really enjoy. like The Homeworld one was great.
01:57:56
Speaker
There there's so many remasters like it's just the game where they've touched up a bit. But think of a whole remake. It's not the Doom 3 BFG edition. I don't know why I thought that. That's not a. Doom 3 BFG. Oh, that's the one. That's also a remaster. Hell yeah. That's like a bad one to go. You like as a remaster, except the BFG is a really scuffed one. But I guess I don't remember that. Well, maybe Skyrim got remade at some point. I didn't keep track.
01:58:23
Speaker
I, if I pretend a quake four was a remake, then that would be one of my answers. Oh, cause that's a quick to base. Well, pretty much. Right. But not really, not really, but still I love quake four. I love quake four. If that counts, I would love to take quake four as a two remake. Yeah. So for the next, uh, all of the donations, we're going to do a rapid fire because we've only got.
01:58:48
Speaker
what, like 10 minutes left before, before we need to wrap up. So, um, we're going to, if they require a response, we're going to be off the top of our head. Great answer onto the next one because we've got a lot of donuts. So yes, Mr. J snacks, snacks, a little gives us six 99 Canadian dollars and says nothing, just a donut. Thank you so much.
01:59:10
Speaker
mo Mopman43 gives $4.99 and says, hey Madelor, love your total Warhammer content. Hope we get the next DLC soon. Do you plan on doing a video on it when it comes out? Probably not when it comes out. for For reference, I did videos covering most of like, the I think all the DLC for two and basically the launch of three. And three's launch is just a little rough, so.
01:59:32
Speaker
I think it's got a much better state now, so I'll be coming down the line. It's more just figuring out the time to when I could really get into those games again, since between doing other videos and hooded horsework, it's the the hours run short. Oh, yeah, dude, for sure. Bookworm 776 gives five dollars. Thank you. And says I have severe. Oh, we read this one severe migraines. Actually, it's really important. Thank you for sharing a career, by the way. Oh, OK. Do not play a career. A career.
02:00:01
Speaker
Pokey gives $5 and says the Dark Souls get good mentality is done in it irreparable harm to gaming culture. Accessibility exists almost in contrast to it. Yeah, agreed.
02:00:14
Speaker
Agreed. Hokey pokey. ah Senu or sunu gives $4.99. Thank you. and So another important accessibility option is is just hold the button instead of mash it. My hands cramp easily. QTEs have stopped a playthrough for me. Yeah, for sure. Dave, the diver was a good move. Smart? Yeah. I believe... um Dead by Daylight has that an option ah as an option in interest in its accessibility features. Matthew C. Snow, $4.99. Thank you as for your information. The Switch version of Coke Tour 2 didn't add them more ah the mod for legal problems. Oh, interest only the Switch version. That's interesting. I wonder why the rules would be different there. That's ah that's actually really interesting.
02:01:02
Speaker
and second way I thought they're going to say the switch version of night trap that we talked about earlier. There was something else going on behind the scenes somewhere. The switch version was delayed past the PC one. So who knows? But that's interesting. If it's true, something legal. Change.
02:01:20
Speaker
Noel, uh, her on gifts for $99. Thank you. And says, what war lockers? He has a fun, uh, fantastic review on VTMB, uh, with all the important mobs, highly recommend war lockers. See what a great name. Yeah. Is he's great. Yeah. He does. Uh, RPGs. I think I know him. Yeah. I don't know him personally. i know content Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Let's check them out.
02:01:48
Speaker
more legend. Uh, Joro gives it two euros. Thank you. And says recently played a tyranny made me one, uh, Manda more tyranny is a great RPG. And I wish they hadn't. I wish things went differently with it. Cause I'd love to follow up to tyranny.
02:02:06
Speaker
I've not checked it out. I'll i'll have to. Is it RPG where you play is it's basically actually Judge Dredd. Mikey was mentioning earlier, basically the bad guys. Sauron one and he plays one of his Judge Dredd's. You go around through the land basically. So it's like you can do RPG decisions, but it's still framed as you're an agent of the evil overlord. They like a lot of stuff. was Yeah. A lot of stuff was cut in the game, unfortunately. So it's like you can. It has that problem like near the ten the end. You can be like, oh, man, a lot's been cut out here, but still really interesting game.
02:02:36
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds great. I want to check that out. Um, all right. So, oh, PM, Astra, Paul, Lito. Damn. You're really testing my dyslexic powers here. and ah Dungeon Lords, a bad action RPG would be a fun one to, to remaster into a better game. I've never played dungeon Lords.
02:02:59
Speaker
Whenever you play dungeon, I'm looking. I got to look it up now. Who did they say to this? No, just a lot like sacrifice, actually. But if it was like an art, oh, that looks. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Sacrifices one. That should have been my answer. Damn it. Sacrifice would have been good, too. Oh, fuck. Yeah. Fix the voiceover and all that. Right. I mean, there's a lot of stuff to.
02:03:20
Speaker
Let's say fix the voiceover. I mean, like I hated Tim Curry in that game. ah no No, no, no, no, no, no, no, the repetitive ah combat dialogue. That's got Colonel Campbell out of here. that's I want more Tim Curry. Always a good thing for sure. Luke B five dollars says remake double o seven night fire co-op, especially included even if Activision has to make it too bad. um IO has the IP.
02:03:50
Speaker
yeah It's always golden knife source. People want multiplayer and double o seven. That's a literal golden standard. um Has any old.
02:04:03
Speaker
die. Diogenes, the cynic gives five dollars. Thank you so much. says As anyone mentioned, Drakon guard. I always wanted a dragon rider game. Hmm. Oh, God. Drakon guard. There's layer touched. It's always layer for the PS3. If you want to write dragons, layer. What? a Yeah. Or there's a divinity dragon commander. If you want to be a dragon with a big jet pack and decide what's the dragon game that they're remaking with the starts of pay.
02:04:32
Speaker
I can't remember what it is. It's on. It was on the PS free. I believe it was on. And I think it's a dragoon. Are they really? That's a dragoon. Yeah. I had that on the fucking Sega Saturn, man. That was a drawback. Oh, that's interesting. Weird. Okay. I made RPGs.
Debating Classic Game Remakes
02:04:50
Speaker
They made the third person, almost like a light gun style arcade game. Right. It's an interesting game. Yeah. Cool universe.
02:05:00
Speaker
ah Storm Templar gives $2. Thank you. And says, Mandy, ah when are you going to join the evil and stream? Probably when there's i have less working hours. ah and that's such It's such a boring answer, but like ah I already streamed once in a blue moon even before this. So, yeah, of course it's not sponsored by whatever this is sponsored by, which I should, I should, I should plug a rival or something. I'll think about it later. Who's arrival to mind cop?
02:05:31
Speaker
Elevator action on the Super Nintendo. I don't know. Night Trap. The stream is sponsored by Night Trap. Night Trap 25th Anniversary Edition. I trap is a ah criminal advocate game elevator action. I think we should stream playing it. I think we need to play through night trap now. We should do it to play through. an har Yeah, that would be so fun screenshots here. Mine's a bit of a lawyer. You're welcome to join us if we stream. We do stream. We'll get you in.
02:06:02
Speaker
Wait, I'm sorry. this So there was a there was a 25th anniversary of Night Trap? Yeah. I thought you guys were fucking joking. No, no, this is real. No, no. Somehow they somehow re-released Night Trap on Switch. Someone screaming villains did it. Yeah. Wild. Oh, that's screaming. OK, I think I misunderstood. I thought it was going to happen and then it never did. No, this is why it somehow happened.
02:06:26
Speaker
I would love to hear how it happened because that's kind of crazy. There's a story there. but as you said only Only in bars. It's going to fade away. We have to talk to someone. It's about preservation. That's what they keep telling themselves. why do that And as the final don't know, unless I've missed one, apparently ah sovereign gives 20 Euro. Thank you so much sovereign. Such a great supporter of the show.
02:06:50
Speaker
and said some years back I bought a copy of Resident Evil 4 for a friend who wanted to get into horror games. Two minutes in he said this controls like absolute fucking arse. He then dropped it after two hours and he played Dead Space and said the remake of it may have been justified.
02:07:07
Speaker
No, i I look, I totally get it. And and I don't think anybody here is. I mean, there's a reason why our title is Why Aren't We Sick of It? We Like Remakes. but We also have to yeah challenge it and say like this is what I was going to say earlier when I mentioned Ari for it would be nice to have that money go to unique and riskier things.
02:07:25
Speaker
yeah Like sometimes, at least, yeah it's a bit of a shame when it we just keep going back to the same brands and the same IPs and we have games that have six sequels. Like that's kind of crazy and and a bit of a shame, artistically speaking, and this is an artistic medium. So we have to acknowledge that piece of it ah while also we acknowledge like, no, this was like a good modernization of a game that people otherwise wouldn't get to experience. And it was fun for them. And it opened them up to a series that they engage with in other ways. Like it's it's not a black and white thing.
02:07:53
Speaker
Or maybe we'll get Horizon Zero Dawn right the third or fourth time we remake it remaster.
02:07:59
Speaker
Didn't they just come out and they're already doing another one of it? Oh yeah. Oh my God. No, they're re-releasing the first one. They're remastering the first one. It's wild. I thought they were doing so with the second two. No, that's for the PS5. Oh my God. Like both of them? I think they're, were they doing that for the second one? Maybe. Oh, those are Horizon Zero. Is there a remake?
02:08:23
Speaker
It doesn't matter. None of this matters. None of it matters. Video games. I remember a friend describing the first one to me. She was like, it's a ginger Native American. You'd like it because they shoot dinosaur robots. And I was like, OK. That is actually a legit way of describing. And it's from the people who did Killzone. Yes. I was what? Speaking of things that could be remastered.
02:08:48
Speaker
Let's bring that kill zone and resistance. Yeah, my God. OK. I think I did resistance recently. They put it on a play on PlayStation now. Yeah, you could believe you could play the trilogy. It's not like a remaster. That wasn't Samniak, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
02:09:03
Speaker
That was a fun setting. You'd really have to do something to Killzone and Resistance. Resistance, I think, has an awesome setting going for it. Killzone has a cool setting, don't get me wrong, but mechanically, something has to happen to make the combat stand out. I don't know what kind of... Maybe they do a different genre. It's like Open World or something, but there need to be something there for a remake, at least. A remaster would be cool, too, I guess. Open World.
02:09:28
Speaker
ah open world kill zone game. I don't know. It could be cool. They have experience now in open world games. So maybe girl is true. It was Spider-Man. I don't know what it would be like gorilla fighting, but but more honestly being a gorilla instead of like Far Cry's version of a gorilla, which is like too much access to resources. You don't get the vibe right. In my opinion, they don't get the gorilla landing on toxic hell again, like sneaking around doing like kind of like a spy game. I guess what shadow fall is trying to be a little bit but yeah more like a resource pressured.
02:09:58
Speaker
that was the PS four one where they all the shots like four inches from people's faces to show off the graphics. So it's like a launch title. So it's like, look at his pores for all the shots. That's what it was. Right. It was killed. It used to be that benchmark. Oh, okay. All those launches like kills on two is amazing looking when it came out. So it looks great now. It's like, wow, this is like, look at the power of the cell.
02:10:19
Speaker
It really was. if If you had to go back to Killzone, I guess what I'm just saying is like you'd have to do something different because otherwise it'll be perceived as like, oh, what? they They remade this and they're trying to be Halo or something. I don't feel like you could do a linear single player FPS game with a cool art style anymore at a super high production. It wouldn't get green lit unless there was something else to it. And it's too cool of an opportunity to add something to it to not take it up.
02:10:46
Speaker
I mean, it might make it happen. There could be a way. Yeah. I mean, art wise, these guys look super cool. You know, the wolf's brigade, right? Or whatever it was called. Yeah. um You take your dress, them up a bit make them space baddies.
02:11:01
Speaker
Well, just quote unquote space baddies. If you dig into kills on lore, it gets a little bit, it's a little bit strange. What's going on despite their gas aren't that bad. Is that what you're saying? It's a very complicated history, but their basically their planet's like really toxic and shit. And they were like sitting on it and because their planet conditions were so bad, that's why they all have to wear like the gas masks all the time.
02:11:24
Speaker
Just like if you like read up on it, it's it's a little weird how they frame things, but that could be part of the intention.
Emotional Impact of Games
02:11:30
Speaker
It's been a while since I've gone through all of them, so. Years of war is also interesting in that regard, because I think the planet on which it takes place, which I think is called Sera, S-E-R-A, that like humans colonized it and the locusts come to kill them. But you could make an argument that locusts have a greater right to be there because they were there first.
02:11:50
Speaker
I don't know if there was a diplomatic failure, though, because like the locus should have the locus probably should have reached out to humanity and said, hey, we live under the crust. Could we talk? Sorry. Like, well, should they don't like should like if we got invaded by an alien, an alien race and they like built infrastructure in our clouds and stuff. Would we? Well, I think if, if, uh, if sentence is established in both, which I think it is because the locals have organized militaries and they talk to each other, then you got to try, right? You have to try that first option before you go to the, the military. Newcomb bug. I don't want to get too front of gears, spoilers, but there are situations a little complicated too, where it's like, it's like, were they native or they mutated like people?
02:12:37
Speaker
But oh, I didn't know any of that. OK. Yeah. regard Regardless, the cog like the human is pretty fucking crazy or something. They like put her in a little thing. Is that her name? Maria Dom? Was it Dom? No. The other guys. yeah Maria. That was Dom's wife was Maria, I think, Yeah, it's like we laugh is cool. They laugh at some of the delivery of those lines, but that moment Yeah, I mean I remember that's really fuck. It's fucked up. It's it's really sad she's alive and Just kind of falls out yeah, he sees her at this is massive spoilers for anyone watching but he finds his wife and he and he sees her as being okay, then it kind of fades and he just screams like a something like I tried so hard and Dom just said and Gulp's all he can muster to say, being the the the beefy, probably insensitive man that he is, my interpretation, is just, Dom, it's okay. It's all he can muster. It's like it's devastating for everybody involved in the scene. I liked it.
02:13:37
Speaker
The promise shadow, the hedgehog. There's just something about screaming Maria and video games. It's really memorable, right? thats not The thing you need to get all the time, but okay. Shadow, of the hedgehog also had the Maria who gets shot. That's like his, it's like dumb I did not know that shadow had an emotional connection with a woman named Maria with a human woman. No doubt. hut will All of these hedge pigs have female connections, have interspecies relationships.
02:14:04
Speaker
Yes, she's on a hedgehog. Oh my God. We need justice for Maria in 2025. Put her in your game. Don't kill her. what heard your get to shadow of the hedgeho Deep female characters. That was probably Sega's only condition. They were like, yeah, you can let shadow have a chier have an interest, but she has to die because we can't have a speculation but of because of this.
02:14:29
Speaker
I would love a shadow, the hedgehog remake with like the most aggravating leaks possible. Like they're saying Marie is not going to die in this one. They're saying, Oh my God, like shadows, not getting a gun. He's getting a flashlight. Just a single bit sound like the gamers are pissed. You're saying the gamers get all pissed off. This isn't like the shadow. I know they're making shadows. His motorcycle is going to be electric now. It's like running on gas. Oh my God.
02:14:56
Speaker
It's electric motorcycle and flashlight with no gun and a live maria. This sucks. I would love to see a marketing campaign run like that just to see, you know, just for science to see how well the game sells because of it.
Marketing through Controversy
02:15:11
Speaker
Is that that like people will talk about your game nonstop? Oh, I see. Wait, are you saying like a study that reinforces the principle of any press is good press of like it would actually ah It just goes on like trolling, you know, just constant trolling. Oh, I see. Okay. It's a deliberate choice by the developers like, fuck, fuck up. We're going to give a flashlight for the last like 20 years. It's like Metal Gear Solid 2. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like instead of Snake, you know, you played us right. And like, what if instead of Shadow and the Shadow the Hedgehog remake, you play as Maria?
02:15:47
Speaker
after the after you get a five minute motorcycle section that he plays Maria for the shadow of the hedgehog game he's like replace them on the trailers it's not even the same gameplay she's like filing her taxes like she's still bless she's just doing boring shit what was Maria's job in the game a woman I don't remember there being much to honestly, I know you mean, I know what you mean by that. You mean that they were going to do this same and the purpose of the game fan. She was, she was going to be humanized. Sonic fans in the chat, just like actually she was in the US government. She went to help shadow. She went to pull lever and then ah the cop from cyberpunk shot her.
02:16:29
Speaker
did you that Bad, bad Delores to magic or his loss. Mandalore's lost his touch. Did you hear what he said about Maria? but I'm unfollowing immediately. Yeah. want I want, I would love a shadow hedgehog game. He plays Maria filing her taxes and basically like organizing her apartment. Yeah. you You see shadow news about shadow on the news. And he's like, she's driving his electric bike around. He doesn't have a gun. That's like for the news. Sticker would say he has no gun would be on there.
02:16:57
Speaker
The only interaction you get direct interaction with with shadow is after firing her taxes. She checks her phone and she, sees she missed a call from him and she decides like, that that's, that's two emoji. I can't get into that today. And she just puts the phone down and finishes filing. Oh, you could, that'd be a good mechanic. You check the phone like at the end of every tax filing session. It's like, oops, I miss another call from shadow. That's like, Oh, I miss, miss five calls from shadow. And he sent me 55 text messages. I need to tell him to stop calling me.
02:17:25
Speaker
It's a game about setting boundaries. Yeah. Boundaries of shadow. but i'm white my Light shadow have light and shadow. How always have boundaries. We can't be together. What I'm saying, you bring out a dark side of me. I'm shadow. I'm always in the dark, but a shadow needs light or else it's just darkness. Stop.
02:17:52
Speaker
I really don't want this chat to end by the way, I really don't. This is very fun. Make a new show called Terrible Game Pictures, now regular on it. we This is that basically this. I'm accepted. Go ahead Jay, go ahead. this like I've been saying this to the to the the rest of the team. like At the end of every episode of Dev Heads, we do the whole, um, improv game pitch thing. And it's always, they are always simultaneously the best and worst things ever. Yeah. They never go the way you think.
02:18:24
Speaker
No. And I want it to be its own show. Like I want it to be we sit down and we we take a topic and we we do that thing. Like a fun idea.
Is Fortnite a Constant Remake?
02:18:34
Speaker
Get the animated versions of it. I like your your concept art for the cover. Yes. Should I ask my dumb philosophical question, by the way? Oh, yeah. sure We didn't get to go for it. Yeah. Like if if if someone is on edibles listening right now, this is like your moment. Turn off this.
02:18:54
Speaker
It's Fortnite, just a game that's constantly in a remake loop. Oh, like, well, like as a live service game, I guess. Yeah. Oh, actually that's a point about live service games. That's like ship. oftheus
02:19:09
Speaker
yeah but does an ummo still that means There was a ship and basically like you take something breaks in the ship like an old ah like a C3 one. Yes. Yeah. You take the board off and then your place at what point like is it still the original ship if all the pieces are replaced. Yeah. Yeah. I think. um Well, I guess we'd have to like go. ahead They had building, right? Like building up like stuff was a part of it. And then they just pivoted and they're like, we're going to do better. So the building is kind of like out of place, but you're still playing a shooter. And it's just got really damn good at making a wall of wood or planks and stuff. And
02:19:50
Speaker
Yeah. Mikey was actually Creole from like, I think it was right when Fortnite was taking off. He's like, Hey, you want to play Fortnite? Like they added this, um, he's like, yeah, I think this is game mode or it's like a battle where I'll be like building it. Like it's kind of cool. I was like, Oh, like maybe some other time. And it was like, right when it's like, what's Fortnite? Where it's like, they just added this mode into it and that just completely exploded. Yeah.
02:20:08
Speaker
yep it was a he it was i mean look at the name right i'm pretty sure it was going to be called fortnite because it sounded a little bit seven days to die inspired right were you like you it was a today survival defense is a base defense defense game i was in the it was like the friends and family alpha for the aura wow it's pretty pretty grim um it it wasn't good um no i just go forward it was just like uh zombies slowly come to your base and you shoot them and then you the browns over
02:20:41
Speaker
It is better. It's a better game for it. But at what point like the ship of feces, at what point does it stop being fortnight? And does it start being a commercial machine to sell, sell you M and M skins? You know, it's like, yeah, the zombie game is okay, but I wish Thanos was hitting the gritty. Yeah. And twerking. that Now I'm, now I'm sold. Take my wife and Travis Scott and all my favorite celebrities were here.
02:21:06
Speaker
ah Oh my God. i Mando, you're so fucking funny. I need you to be on more of our chats. That'd be fun. what way up This is great. When I told Tina, Hey, I've got, I don't i don't know if it was, if it was you specifically, Mandy, it might've been Chavoxie, but I basically said like, Hey, there's a couple of people I know that are YouTubers, but they also have like the gaming side, right? yeah I remember Tina expressing skepticism. She's like, I don't know.
02:21:34
Speaker
I don't have a good experience with YouTubers. But, but it was, it was, which is a, you know, a fair thing to be concerned about, but I'm so glad that you could make this. I want to set the tone though, or like the foundation. Okay. I come from the Call of Duty environment. And when I say Call of Duty environment, I mean. The allegations environment.
02:21:55
Speaker
yeah I, I have lived through like 12 to 15 year old YouTubers saying the most heinous things about me personally and my friends. And now they're like 25 and they're, they've erased to their history and they're apologetic and you know, moved on, but like they had a reputation and and when you collaborated with them, you just run the risk of being associated with, you know, right. i guess i guess you So that's where, that's where I was coming from.
02:22:26
Speaker
Oh, I thought it was more of like the like game dev, like expertise side of it. Like, ah so Tina, can you tell me why the developers were so lazy and didn't add more guns into the call of duty? I don't mind having those conversations. I don't even get offended by that. Um, no, it's, it's just more like, you know, you just run the risk of someone saying, uh, what's, what's something that's bad, you know, something like they'll send you into an HR office and that they would fire you for something bad enough that you can't give an example of right now. yeah Right.
02:22:56
Speaker
but The Superman 64 reboots perfectly fine. This is the country. percent Yeah, let's get that done. Lovely. Yeah. No, no. Speaking of the, speaking of the ship of Superman, our nuclear gives $5 and says it stops being the same ship. When they delete the game, I paid money for and replace it with overwatch too.
Game Preservation and Sequels
02:23:15
Speaker
I'm not a Sully. Oh, they did do that. Yeah. I was i guess I'm what I'm thinking. Wait, what?
02:23:23
Speaker
Wait, say that again. Okay, so what happened was Blizzard released Overwatch. It was unbelievably popular, made them, um I think, over a billion dollars. I love that game. Yes. Fucked up. Yeah, me too. I loved it too. And then they were making a like a single player mode for it, and they were bringing out a bunch of maps and new heroes, and they decided to just release it as its own game.
02:23:45
Speaker
um um it was goingnna be a paid yes And it was be a paid experience. yes um But it was effectively just DLC again. And it was originally going to be that you people who owned Overwatch 2 could play Overwatch with people who owned Overwatch 1. They would just have more stuff. But then they realized, oh, splitting your player base in that way, not really good. so Especially for multiplayer. Exactly. They decided to axe Overwatch 1 and um make Overwatch 2 free.
02:24:14
Speaker
So everyone could play it and then add the single player mode and more content later on. ah They then axed the single player mode, fired everyone who was working on it, I believe, or reallocated them um and made the game ah in a lot of ah players opinions worse ah because of it. So yeah, I mean, I enjoy Overwatch too. I don't play as much as I did one, but they did fumble on a lot of things there. That's a shame.
02:24:42
Speaker
Like that's my talk about marathon. I promise I've had people going like, Oh, you should play through like, Oh, like bungee has so many interesting connecting threads through their games. Like play through destiny one or like two. It's like, well, Destiny one's going to be tricky. And two is like, they've, they've sunset at all sorts of like, like there's levels and missions are just gone now. inside entire dcs Yeah.
02:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. Like you try to play it from the beginning and it's like you, you get some elements of the story, but someone's just gone. It's more like playing that's going on YouTube and seeing what was there before. But it's like, I've kind of ah kind of missed the bus on that, which is very sad.
02:25:16
Speaker
yes Yeah, having the there's a reason why a lot of live service shit works and it's it's good. And it's not just like FOMO. There's ways to do live service where you don't need to have that FOMO being it or like ah supporting it.
02:25:33
Speaker
ah Games I've worked on like it says you stand storm like we had all kinds of content and we just kept adding It didn't make the menu experience so great and I wish we thought ahead in some ways But at the same time like that's a small cost to pay ah You don't need the the FOMO aspects to make a live service game I think be good and support like growth of the game and the company and And there's some good ways to do it. I don't consider it a bad word. ah But yeah, there's definitely bad practices within it. And that's one of the ones I would argue. like If you remove content, that sucks. Those levels were fun. like put Lock them in the menu somewhere. Even if it's inelegant and gross, as much as I don't like UI that I would describe as like bad or dense or cluttered, like I'd rather have that and still have the content. right I feel like any player would make that choice.
02:26:22
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say the argument against that would be file size, but that's kind of gone a long ago with a lot of games.
02:26:33
Speaker
That's true. And there's ways around that though, right? Like you just, yeah, okay, we're going to make this DLC. And if you uncheck it, then you don't have to download it. Obviously there's like a bunch of architecture and there's a big lift there, but to to me, it's worth the the squeeze.
02:26:47
Speaker
Right. However, so is a good example of it working well. So it held every two like they have like events, quote unquote, but like the narrative is kept fairly light. It's like, oh, like if you miss the cut scene, you could book on upon YouTube and see it like the end of events are more like, oh, we're trying to achieve this objective. Like you might have missed these battles like that plants going to come back and like the fight. It's not like some insanely cool event. Like, oh, you only get it every once in a while. Like the. um I was thinking of Diretide for Dota. Everyone like what? Diretide was a lot of fun. People would cry for Diretide every year. they They're like, oh, we're doing a different one this year. It's like, what a shame. But then I think when they run in custom games, I think people could kind of make their own Diretide before then. It's like, well, if you missed it, you missed out. You have to hope they bring it back. What was Diretide? I have to look that up. It was a ah Halloween event. OK.
02:27:37
Speaker
Gotcha. Or if they had it this year, actually, they might have. I haven't kept up the soda in quite a long time. Someone said stalker to 150 gigs in the chat. Oh, my God. domino Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. And it's probably for a good reason, right? It's not good for us, but it's private. There was probably a real reason for that. It's ah it's crazy. I wonder what's going to get completely unrealistic. Game will change, right? Yeah.
02:28:06
Speaker
Optimization is such an awesome topic and like how how you do that and how you you condense those files down um to a manageable level is super fascinating. I'm going to
Game Optimization and Technical Challenges
02:28:20
Speaker
make a video on it, but it's always like, how do you frame it? That's always my, I think like, how do you make a video about that interesting to my mum?
02:28:30
Speaker
Actually to know, you might know of this from the EA grapevine. Wasn't it tight? I remember that those conversations. kind of I think they start with Titanfall one, have like 60 gigs of uncompressed audio or something like that. And there's a lot. There's like multiple languages. Like they have the audio for every language in it or something. There was something like you could kind of cut out and organize better than I think they just ah shipped out. That was taken a lot of space. I believe on the audio side, it was um language and voice over packs are usually downloaded based on your like steam or console region and or language set. But I think it was the included all of them at once. So it was the the games data was voiceover.
02:29:14
Speaker
Yeah, something along those lines. i tune Yeah. No, I think it's just um an example of rushing the final build and then not being able to check for things like this. Yeah. and I remember being shocked that fear one was 16 gigs and came on like five CDs or something. And I think a lot of it was the audio ah for there as well. Yeah. That had that creative labs, ex support in there to get those beautiful tunnel reverbs.
02:29:43
Speaker
The fun remake. I don't know what you would do to it. It's still a good game. oh That would have been a good answer for, for remaster fear. It'd be great. yeah That's getting hard. I think you asked me a while back, you're playing fear, but I was like, you're having some like FPS problem. And I was like, are you seeing like a logitech mouse?
02:29:58
Speaker
yeah And you're like, Oh yeah, I was. Cause there, there was this famous, there's two famous performance bugs in fear. One is related to having a logic, a certain brand of logitech mouse past the year. Like the frame rate just cripples unless you, you get some patch for it. The other was there's this level, I think we first go into the sewers and there's these rats that run in front of you. Like they get kind of go down the tunnel.
02:30:18
Speaker
And throughout the entire levels are going through it. The A.I. for the rats is still spinning as they're like just navigating to the end of this tunnel and just like milling about. So people back in the day are getting these huge performance hits on it. It took years later for them to look back and go, oh, yeah, it's because the rats are being like we're being called to without the entire time you're going through this level. So it's fun, full fun little quirks like that. Yeah, yeah, it could. It's it's not I played it again recently um last year.
02:30:46
Speaker
It might have been when we talked about it, I forget. But after a couple fixes, it was fine, for the most part. But there is still a tiny HUD issue that I remember. I had to work toward. I had to set a frame rate limit, which would have been great. But I still played through it. I loved it. I was so happy. I actually played it overnight one night. And as soon as you get out in the end and daylight starts to break, the actual daylight is coming in real life. I was so happy with that timing. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. I fucking love that game. Fury 1 is one of my all-time favorite games. Same. It was probably right around when either tripping to was coming out. We're reading about it like, oh, wow, I should go back and play fear because looks like you're doing a fear spiritual successor. Like you're even kind of tripping to like how cool it's like it's the real fear to after fear to was whatever that was. You know, we had him on like the lead dev. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's a cool guy. He talked all about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. And did you play tripping to you? Do you have a chance?
02:31:45
Speaker
I haven't beaten it yet, but I've played through it. Like I didn't finish it. Yeah. The improv pitch we did with, um, with him was yeah fucking wild. That was good. fast blaster ask last yeah yeah The I want to I want to call it as plaster. My vision was for the game to be called as plaster. The premise was Tina presents like a picture or a gift or whatever of something. And she's like, hey, do a pitch based on this. And her picture was ah kind of like a silhouette of a guy or something doing a ah ah dance move swinging around like on his legs in a windmill. fire Yeah. He was in the windmill and like rockets coming out of his ass. Yeah. Yeah. flames and And smoke.
02:32:32
Speaker
And so the premise was like, it's kind of like fear, like you're ah you're a weapon created by some sort of like defense company or whatever, or evil corporation. And ah your ability was, you ever read Scud, the disposable assassin, a graphic novel? I'm familiar with it, but yeah. The premise there is you're an assassin, you're a robot, you kill someone, someone then you explode. So you destroy all the evidence. This guy never exploded. So he becomes a character in the world and he has to reconcile that. In this one, Asplaster was supposed to be a suicide bomb, ah like a secret agent that you put somewhere, infiltrate, and then he just blows up to kill the
Innovative Game Pitches and Industry Standards
02:33:07
Speaker
target. But instead of blowing up, the bomb malfunctioned and fired a shot out of his ass.
02:33:11
Speaker
and He, as that person, needs to go like, what am I? I was a weapon of of war. And all I'd, what do I do with my life now? All I could do is shoot fire out my ass. So he seeks revenge on the people that created him with like a Brazilian, um what's it called? Appuera fighting style. Appuera fighting, yeah, dances to blast people. And it was like a co-op kind of movement on a 2D plane.
02:33:34
Speaker
It was like pop. Exactly. Yeah. I could see this youwaa dancing with, with like co-op movement and then like ass blasting people. It was wild. And um I cried during the, the I still love the idea. You can make it like a house kind of like tone to it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of promotion to like any menu item and Arby's like the ass blaster. It doesn't matter. It's from Arby's, it's the Asplaster item. Burger, fries, any sandwich, whatever. Aced item of from Arby's. Asplaster guaranteed. My God. Okay, so um we have we have one more donor that's come in, which we'll go through and then we'll sadly yeah have to wrap it up. This has been the longest ah podcast we've ever done. Mando, thank you so much for helping us with this.
02:34:29
Speaker
Is Tina broken? Is Tina broken? Can I read this don't know? My entire slack is screaming. Why are you talking about ass blasting? Why are you not working? You should be working right now. You're talking about Arby's back in the dungeon. Yeah, I should be finishing off the latest design. Delvin. Yeah, I'm here. Daniel Pearson gives 50 sec. Doesn't matter.
02:34:56
Speaker
Is that Swedish currency? No, these Crohn's that could be a yeah'm looking at a Swedish Corona. No, you're right. It's crone. Oh, so it's Swedish um E for money. Corona. Yeah. There you go. Swedish, Swedish gold, basically. Yes. That's sweet. Gold gives 50 sweet gold and says, uh, love the demo, but hated the game. Metal Gear solid Phantom pain, which kind of rhymes nice ground zero being the demo, right? Effectively.
02:35:25
Speaker
I did put like 30 hours in ground zeros though. I played the shit out of that thing. I liked them both. I feel like if you liked ground zeros, you would probably like MGS five proper fan of pain. the proper prize that and No, I get that because it was also, it was full price, which goes against it. Like that was crazy to make it like 40 bucks or whatever, but it's also like the vibe of it, like hitting this big open map.
02:35:47
Speaker
Where it's like at the fan and pain had ground zeros map like level design where it's you go into like this one area, but you can approach in all these different ways. Like, look, there's side objectives. Like you got a lot of mileage of Camp Omega, like the atmosphere, like the rain. So I'm going to go GMA teasing when the game is coming out. Like you will return to Camp Omega. Like you it'll be back. But of course, like many other things didn't make it to the final.
02:36:09
Speaker
That's a fair point. Level design is important. ah Next time we'll talk about the Halo versus Halo Infinite open level design. That would be so good. Silent Cartographer is going to be a doozy. Oh yes.
02:36:23
Speaker
mogoy Right. Okay. Well, this, this sounds to me greatly, but we'll, uh, we'll have to, to, to wrap up. Unfortunately. Um, I think we just need to have mental or on a again sometime. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent topic. And we'll get, we'll get my back on cause the night traps a great idea too. That'd be fun. I'm still advocating. If you want night trap to work today, it just put a FNAF skin on it. Those kids love watching that funny bear dancer in the house.
02:36:51
Speaker
Oh yeah, it'll just be bears going around for sure. Vandy, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything you'd like to ah to shout out or um let the people know that you're working on?
02:37:04
Speaker
um i got a shout out to Shout out to Arby's and the Ask Blaster promo. Don't order anything from there unless you want to experience that pitch yourself in your home or your office. I'm here. I'm here. I'm in the US s now. Are you saying avoid, avoid Arby's? Become an American and eat some bad fast food that makes you sick.
02:37:24
Speaker
Just okay get whatever item they're promoting that has the most meat in it and go, wow, this is, I didn't know meat could make me feel this way or it could feel this way in my hands. Then you'll understand. Oh wow. what my in my a Look at that disgusting sandwich. She's put up on that. For those of you, for those of you who can't see right now, cause you're listening, our Eric has put up a really delicious looking picture of an Arby's roast beef sandwich. Yeah. je Jamie, can you pull up some more sandwiches and the, uh,
02:37:50
Speaker
That's really wild. That's so great. I remember I used to always praise Arby's and I've never tried it and I probably never will. What's that exclusive? Vince and Pella likes Arby's rings and Mac and cheese and the same bird. Oh, that's heinous.
02:38:12
Speaker
That looks like a Korean menu item. That's insane. Rings for tower of me. Yeah, that's right. And she's in a mukbang through night. Yeah. Like look at that and say, does he scream ass blaster? Like, that's it. That's it. That's the time. Look, bang. Seen it. You're heinous. What are you? Night trap, mukbang sounds like ah the worst thing on the internet. I guess ah I'm sold. Let's do it.
02:38:41
Speaker
with it thisbi on limited horse It's fun playing games and helping run a company. It is nice though. Everyone in the C suite, like knowing games is so, is so nice. It's not like, yeah, right. Talk to develop dude. And import. Oh my God. Like I was hearing Tina's story about like the apex, like trying to market it where like they don't understand it. They want to be out of games where it's just like, Oh, you know, like what is this like?
02:39:04
Speaker
ah Can you, can you make it like a Fortnite? I heard of that Elden Ring. Can you do some of that in that game? Where it's like having everyone else in the council being like, Oh, that game, like that Lux derivative, like man and conquer generals, like where everyone knows their stuff and is at that level is just so it's so nice. Everyone cares about other their developers. So.
02:39:24
Speaker
but great but Like from our perspective, also shout out to Hooded Horse, not just because Mandy, you know, being a director, like we've spoken extensively with their team and not only are they a pleasure to talk to, also doing amazing things as a publisher um and should be commended and hey, if you're a publisher, copy what these guys are doing in terms of how they treat their developers because it is commendable to fuck.
02:39:47
Speaker
Amazing. I love it. The industry doesn't have to be a nightmare. We can treat people like human beings. If we all want to not have it be a nightmare, it can be pretty good. You can make games and see your children sometimes. Gosh, sometimes. Maybe we should make that happen more. 100%. Tina, Mikey, do you have anything you want to shout out? Anything you want to promo?
02:40:11
Speaker
Nothing on my end. Thank you so much, Mandy, for coming on. This is a lot of fun. We'll do it again sometime. A lot of fun. Thank you. All right, and I guess for me, yeah, check out, keep checking out Dev Heads. We've got loads of cool guests coming on. We've got um Mark Brown from Game Maker's Toolkits coming on um in the following following weeks, which is gonna be really cool. If you're new here, I have a game dev centric show called Design Dolls with me, my cartoon dog, Ludo. So check that out if you haven't. And yeah, as a final thing, Maddy, thank you so much for joining. It's been a pleasure. It's been one of the most fun episodes for me that we've ever done. And we hope to have you on in the future.
02:40:50
Speaker
Oh yeah. That'd be great. Yeah. This is a lot of fun too, especially since this is like the most, I don't want to say high profile podcasts, but I was like, Oh, Mikey's on it. It won't be too stale. A lot of fun here. So yeah, it's definitely going to be fun. My hopes and dreams for the discussion. There was a very buttoned up here. You see how readily I said ass blast.
02:41:14
Speaker
Yeah, you like to hesitate at all. Like you were just looking right into the camera. Yeah, we need to make this. foods we we we We educate. We like to think that we're trying to educate. It's part of the thesis of dev heads, but it's also about, you know, making it casual and accessible and just being ourselves. And we know we all curse and swear and speak in this way. So it's genuine. So. that so Yeah. All right. So it sounds me to say this, but thank you so much, everyone who came to watch. And we will see you in the next episode. Goodbye guys. Bye-bye everybody. Bye.