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S3 Ep212: Gaming in June
76 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they catch up on the Summer of Gaming in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- It's something from Kirby idk
- SilvaGunner - DK Rap (Unused Version) - Donkey Kong 64
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Routine
00:00:49
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of soapstone. My name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I think it's going pretty good. That's good. It is. It is a Thursday after all. Yeah. And as we know, we record on Thursdays. Yeah. Um, canonically, there's been some apocrypha, you know, through the years, but I think, can you tell which episodes weren't recorded on Thursdays right in?
00:01:18
Speaker
I mean, I'll be honest, there is one really obvious tell and that the intro is different depending on the time of the day we record. Or typically it's like, uh, if I, if I ever don't say have a good night, that's probably because it's the afternoon on a Saturday. All right. I know this one's, this one's supposed to be the new format. We're supposed to talk about games, but I have a tangent off that brief small rabbit trail.
Customer Service and Food Habits
00:01:45
Speaker
Taco Bell, as we all know, fine proprietor of food. But the issue is our local Taco Bell will say, have a good night if it's in the PM at all, right? It's like 12 PM, eligible night time. Like that doesn't make any sense. And I think about it.
00:02:11
Speaker
Maybe that one specific person's like, I hope you have traffic on the way home, you son of a bitch. I want it to be choice. We should have a great evening. It's like a five minute drive. I would have to. You're going to have to be really bad traffic. Well, like, where would your cutoff be for a day versus night? OK. Is it 5 p.m. Is it the sun setting? Right. So this relates to a discussion I was having earlier, actually, about what constitutes evening.
00:02:42
Speaker
Cause that came up on meetings. I'd like to, I usually at the end of the meeting, I'm like, have a good morning, have a good afternoon, have a good evening. You know, again, like a crazy person, but if it's an end of day meeting, like at what point is it really the evening? And we got a lot of feedback. Um, when I asked people about this in an official capacity and for the most part, I think it's like when the sun, the sun sets is considered evening. So.
00:03:11
Speaker
So it's not even evening yet. We still got that light. Yeah. They're, they're, they're literally cutting out the afternoon and the evening and they're like, Nope, I don't acknowledge the sunlight. I don't either, but for different reasons, I've been burned before. Right. Well, as you know, we're supposed to praise the sun. There's the Elden Ring reference. Um, I do just from inside. Um,
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah. Anyways, that was my, that was my tangent.
Patio Talk and Fast Food Preferences
00:03:44
Speaker
Do you have a title? I, I go to sheets more frequently than I think I should, but I haven't wanted to do groceries recently. So here we are.
00:03:58
Speaker
I kind of had that realization today as well. I've been thinking about it for a while because it's convenient and some of their spicy chicken based foods are pretty good. I prefer their chicken based stuff, specifically like their crispy chicken. Oh yeah. Like I had their roasted chicken or just whatever is like more grill. Sorry. They call it grilled chicken air quotes. Um, I had a grilled chicken burrito and it was
00:04:21
Speaker
Fine it was grilled and a microwave. Yeah That's what I mean. Like it's I feel like crispy is just Better. Yeah, i'll take the calorie hits on breading. I'll give a shit but like Give me something more reliable that I know I will enjoy Yep
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's very much the case. Also, complain about sheets. Whenever I get like, oh, hey, what sauce do you want to have on here? Whatever the fuck I get, whether it's guac, whether it's buffalo sauce or a third sauce for the sake of rule of threes.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's always in like one fucking corner or like side and it's not evenly distributed. And that bugs the fuck out of me as a sandwich connoisseur. I know we're talking about burritos, but it's basically a sandwich. Right. Whenever you have really thin bread, food in a container, it should everything should be evenly distributed.
00:05:16
Speaker
I thought you were going to say whenever you have food in a container, it is a sandwich. That's right. I'm still on the sandwich thing. Could you pass me some baloney in the, in the glad Tupperware? Oh, you mean a sandwich? You want a sandwich? Yeah. Right. I can make you a sandwich and package of cheese. Um, yeah, that was the, that was the other tell for me. It was like, I was like, oh man, I keep wanting to go out and like grab lunch. One to just kind of like get out of the house.
00:05:46
Speaker
Although we found sitting out on the front patio, we got some chairs, cleaned them off, they were covered in detritus, sprayed them all down, cleaned it off, and put them on the front patio, and it's nice. We have this sitting arrangement, they're kind of all concave, looking inward as though it was a shadow council or something.
00:06:08
Speaker
But it's really nice to sit out there and eat lunch. That's not the main part of the story. I realized I had like three packages of unopened cheese in the fridge. And I was like, I should eat food that's here. I should not go purchase sheets. But sheets has even fresher cheese. That's true. But if I'm not careful, my cheese will be antifresh. So that's something I got to resolve. Yeah.
00:06:39
Speaker
That's what I always struggle with is a balancing out like what you have in the fridge and like the shelf life of everything. How much time does that bread have? What about the cheese? Oh, there's some vegetables or bag salad. It still says it's good, but it doesn't look so good. Yeah. You can't trust vegetables. You can't trust bread. Corn tortilla chips are safe though. They can go stale.
00:07:04
Speaker
Which is which is the same as bad. Yeah, yeah. But you just got to crumple up the bag and then push the bag up against something and hope that, you know, sheer pressure just stops airflow entirely. You come back and it's like inexplicably a diamond. I don't think that's right. Yeah, but no, it's it's been good. Can't remember what I was going to reference. Oh, I was going to say if you had still chips, you could still make like
00:07:35
Speaker
Make like nachos or something if you have three bags of unopened cheese. Yeah. Yeah, that would... You'd have to bake it. It's a key thing. Yeah. Well, if you microwave it long enough, it is like baking. You guys want some grilled nachos? Right.
00:07:57
Speaker
Throw some notches on the barbie. It's just like you've got hot coals and there's just cheese. You know how some people like have like a brush to clean off all like the soot and things that have burned onto the grill?
00:08:15
Speaker
That's why they made them. Too many people are grilling cheese. That's how you get grilled cheese. It's right there. It's in the name. You think you use a skillet for that? Absolutely not. But speaking of skillet, have you listened to any good Christian bands recently? No, that's not the segue of music. Nothing's really come up on my radar since POD. I feel so alive. Right. We are the youth of the nation.
00:08:46
Speaker
We are, we are. These are references for 0%, I think, of our listeners, but that's okay. You know what our listeners do? They play video games.
00:09:05
Speaker
And in order to contribute to that discussion, I mean, you don't play video games, this isn't really a discussion, but we can talk to you guys while you play video games. And the things we talk about are oftentimes video games. I understand how you might not believe us given the intro and everything leading up to this point. Chick, when's your birthday? Because I want to get...
00:09:26
Speaker
I don't know how much they cost. Maybe I'll get some of the people to chip in. But I want to get you a segue. And I want to film you on it and then have you come over and be like, look, guys, Jake can't segue. And it will be the most meta humor. Uh-huh. We're basically there. It costs $200. What you can figure out is what a segue sound would be. And then we should just play that sound when we're actually starting to get to the point. But I guess no one would identify it.
00:09:54
Speaker
I don't know. We'll workshop the idea. We'll workshop it. Summer of gaming 2022.
Food Creativity and Sandwich Debates
00:10:01
Speaker
That's the topic. It's been hot as balls outside, but yeah, I have been keeping up with some of them. I did watch most of the summer of games by most of them, I mean like for half an hour and then I just watched the highlights of things I cared about. Um, I think I skipped through a bunch of the Capcom, uh, news updates and I think there's another one.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. So they, this was actually across multiple days. Um, so they had like certain things scheduled for each day and I didn't even realize the extent of shows that were going on until basically the end. Cause spoilers today, I think is the last day, um, for some of games and reality. This is it. So, yeah.
00:10:46
Speaker
If you're listening in the future, I was wrong. No, but yeah, they had a Sony state of play devolver marketing countdown to marketing was the name of it. Yep. Bethesda and Microsoft and some other stuff. Overwatch.
00:11:07
Speaker
from uh blizzards oh it's actually a blizzards thing but i mean i took way more notes for overwatch um and final fantasy actually aired right before we started recording recording yeah so much so that i i didn't care to even check it out yeah yeah we can we can get back to that one if we want to like cap off with it but the short of it is i'm not i'm not actually that invested in final fantasy
00:11:37
Speaker
And this was specifically like focused around like Final Fantasy 7 anniversary 25 years or something like that. So.
00:11:46
Speaker
Hey, guys, we released the rest of the remake. That's right. All 17 parts. Well, we did get news on that, actually. So we could skip ahead. So we're here. Let's go remake part two, which is not called part two is Final Fantasy remake was the first one. Right. Final Fantasy Rebirth is part two. Final Fantasy Seven Rebirth is part two. I hate that.
00:12:11
Speaker
Cause if you see these two titles on the store, you have no idea what's going on. You don't know which one you're supposed to play first. Unless it says like the continuation of the saga, but even then you're shooting yourself in the foot for three. Um, and we don't know what three is going to be called, but number two is one to come. Final fantasy recursion. Yeah. And it goes back to, but I think I, if I recall correctly, it was, it was a slated to come out next year. Um, if I'm wrong, don't fact check me.
00:12:41
Speaker
I mean, that could be something for people who care about the remake, I guess. Yeah. They did also confirm that it was coming, that there was going to be three parts in total. So if they stick to that, and I mean, depends on how much you trust Squeenix. Um, I wouldn't either. So the theory
Gaming Remakes and Nostalgia
00:12:59
Speaker
is three.
00:13:00
Speaker
Well, one, it's great that they actually set a goal line of like, hey, it's going to be three parts. What's crazy to me, though, is from what I know, from the first part, the remake, I don't think it even covered. I don't know if they even fucking left a Midgar. Yeah, I don't think you do. There's too much side crap. I don't know if you remember how much is in that game, but it's a lot. There's a lot of places you go. You go exploring the high wind.
00:13:28
Speaker
I don't know if it constitutes a third of the game, especially not because they're adding more details and story into this as a part of the remake for whatever they want to tell and share. So I'm not sure if they're going to be cutting some other content to kind of fit it into those three parts or if it's even tenable, if they don't cut it.
00:13:48
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, I can't remember when the disc transitions were. I think one of them happened at like Ruby weapon or something like that around there. I don't know. I think. Yeah. But like for people who play the original game, there's a massive chunk of the game is all this open world nonsense. And I think it's going to be hilarious.
00:14:07
Speaker
if they just don't care about the open world. They just do nothing with it. They don't even include Sid or the Highwind. It's all just this linear experience. They're like, hey, we should go over and check out that temple. They're like, you're right. And then they just scene transition. They use a Microsoft project or whatever it is, Microsoft Movie Maker.
00:14:31
Speaker
Like bars across the screen. It's basically no, they actually use the old Final Fantasy 7 battle where like it does like that screen transition into the fight. But they do that to like go to major plot points. Now I'm thinking they like they put no effort into it. So it is actually the battle screen transition. But then it just goes to another scene of them walking around. The music kicks in and everything.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, screen shatters and then they're just walking down an alleyway. But yeah, I'm not sure what they're going to do with it because I could kind of see breaking the game up into like here's the open world, all this stuff in the middle section and then the last section. But they're also releasing these like distinct games.
00:15:20
Speaker
So I don't know. If it's not obvious, I'm really skeptical about the whole release cadence idea anyways. And I would have them just I realize game development doesn't always work this way, but I would have rather they just took the time to release a single experience. Because I'm going to wait till it's done at this point.
00:15:46
Speaker
Jake's never going to play. I mean, yeah, it's not going to not going to offend me at all. And then if it does all you've done, awesome. I'll have like take two months off of work and work my way through it. But yeah, that was the that was the hot take. They also remastered some things and there's like I guess crisis core was the thing at some point. You like play Zach. I don't know. I think there's some of that stuff going on.
00:16:15
Speaker
Again, I'm speaking as a skeptic and somebody who's not nearly invested at all. But I think Crisis Core and a lot of other Squeenix stuff. Yes, I'm including Chocobo Racing. I'm sorry. But I feel like it's just a nostalgia grab for a bunch of stuff like, oh, you like these these little anime people? Oh, we've done this. Oh, they're all in a game together. Wouldn't that be fun? Right.
00:16:40
Speaker
And there was even one on Steam that kind of caught my eye because there's a bunch of like chibi versions. I'm like, oh, that seems really cute and fun. But like, no, it's not for me. I wouldn't actually enjoy it that much. But.
00:16:52
Speaker
I think the litmus test for me that this fails is like, would I put up with this if it was a different game, right? Like mass effect one through three was palatable because every game was contained, right? It was not explicitly like to be continued, you know, between each of them. There was like a nice cut and you got the feeling that this was a complete game because it was a complete game. Um, and at least the portrayal of this,
00:17:22
Speaker
I, it's not, I guess, as crazy as a seasonal episodic game, something like telltale, what telltale was doing, but those came out a lot faster. They were a lot more digestible and you knew exactly what you were getting into. This is like be committed for like 10 years to get this full experience. Cause that's how long it's going to take to complete this character story.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. Like Marvel movies does a similar thing where you always know there's going to be like a next piece of the overall Marvel universe. But then it's like two, two and a half hours your time and that's it. Telltale it's like five, six hours. You're like, okay, cool. I'll wait for the next one. Even Deltarune. We know it's coming out in parts. We now know how many parts, but like you played for that section, you theory craft for months online, et cetera. But like we've all done it.
00:18:14
Speaker
Like, that's where it is. It's not, hey, Death Stranding 2 is coming out to be continued. This is part of like a 17-part series. It's like, what are you doing dragging it out for? Yeah, we'll get to the Death Stranding 2 announcement also. Death Stranding. Something different. Sorry, I'll let you finish with that.
00:18:39
Speaker
That's pretty much it. I just I keep going back to the same thing of I'm not really big into JRPGs typically as a whole. And I don't like how they're selling and marketing this because they change so much of like what I grew up with the original. I did enjoy Final Fantasy 7 growing up. Yeah. But then like they changed so much of it. And if people love it, awesome. I'm happy for you.
00:19:03
Speaker
But for me, I don't want to commit all that extra time and learn all about all these side characters, do a bunch of side quests and stuff. It's not the experience I want anymore.
00:19:15
Speaker
Then they're like, hey, there's going to be three of Asia. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You're right that it's different. It is a retelling, but it's a retelling by someone with dementia. That's what Final Fantasy 7 is right now. And if you remember the original Final Fantasy 7 story, it was already kind of fucking whack a doodle. So yeah. Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
So I'll make two promises to you then. I'll move quickly through any other Final Fantasy content that was on the list. I'll move quickly through JRPG content because there wasn't that much that I recorded anyways. So if we start with Sony, save a play. This one I didn't see. I looked up the notes on it afterwards. I think people were talking about it in Discord. Did you see this one?
00:20:02
Speaker
Uh, I don't think I watched it live. I did go back and rewatch because first thing on the list here, Resident Evil four remake. And I know Resident Evil four, uh, is pretty Mimi as far as resident evils. Uh, so I've seen bits of it played because like the storyline was just entertaining. So I think I watched like a let's play of that at some point. So this one I'm actually kind of curious about maybe this will finally be my entry point.
00:20:28
Speaker
if I do decide to check it out. Did that catch your eye or anything else from State of Play? I mean, I didn't really play Resident Evil until five. And then I basically only played with Dan more or less. He's a big fan of the series. But so so, yeah, this one, I might wait a little bit on or not pick it up at all of me completely honest.
00:20:50
Speaker
Um, but the more interesting thing to me is since I started with five, it doesn't feel like that game came out that long ago. And I'm wondering like with the accelerated speed of remakes, like we're not that far from them remaking seven, which came out like a couple of years ago. And it's like already state of the art, but I want this to happen.
00:21:14
Speaker
I want and I mean, they could they would do it, you know, I want them to remake the game and it basically looks exactly the same because just haven't improved that much. So that's my hope for it. I have a tangent.
00:21:34
Speaker
if it's okay to break away from State of Play for a moment. Something that was within like the past couple of days, I don't remember which show it was under, but they're already talking about doing a Last of Us remaster.
Indie Games and Unique Styles
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah, I saw that. And it's been done already, right? Well, I guess they did have like a Game of the Year edition or something for PS3 at the time.
00:21:59
Speaker
But like, when did that come out? Has it been 10 years? It's I mean, it's been a while. I don't recall exactly when it came out, but I know I didn't see the presentation, but I saw an image and there is a side by side by side because the graphics of this is the third time the graphics are being done. Oh, yeah. And that's just kind of funny to me. Right. Like I get that it's a really good game. Check out our episode, but, um,
00:22:26
Speaker
Actually, check out the game. Check out the game as well while you're at it. It's pretty good. Pretty good game.
00:22:33
Speaker
It's just, I don't know. Like, did everyone look at Skyrim and they're like, that, that is what we should be doing. How many guys, this is our new business model. Todd Howard's onto something. I mean, I guess if there's enough interest and you can do it, awesome. I mean, it was like a huge fucking game, probably has been like close to 10 years. Yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
But as somebody who plays games to get away from other things in life, like not playing games, which is the worst, I want new stuff, not repolished stuff, I guess. Yeah.
00:23:16
Speaker
I guess that it's safe. It takes less effort and they can make more money off of it. So from a business standpoint, I understand it, but I don't know. It's never going to be as interesting to me. And honestly, I mean, there's been a couple remasters that went out there like
00:23:36
Speaker
The only real time I look for a remaster is if it's a game I haven't played yet, right? And so, like I have the remasters for Bioshock, it's not because I spent more money, it's because they showed up in my Steam library because I had the original game, like hats off to Bioware for doing that, that's a good idea. But, you know, otherwise, if I'm really interested in a game, I'm not really waiting
00:24:05
Speaker
years for a remake or a remaster. At most, I'm waiting for like a complete pack that has the DLC. But if I really enjoy the game, I'm not even waiting for that. So this is really just them getting more money off of people that don't have the game or Shane. So.
00:24:27
Speaker
That's fair. I like how I paused, like I was going to like defend Shane on that. No, it's entirely. Yeah. I mean, Shane wouldn't defend Shane on that. I don't think so. Sorry. If you go back to Sony's state of play. Yeah. Was there anything that caught your eye? Whether it's for you or for somebody else or for somebody else or for somebody else, maybe. No.
00:24:53
Speaker
Not really. They had like a bunch of VR games for like PlayStation VR. One of them was like another, I think it was Resident Evil 7 something because Capcom will never stop making things they can sell in and around the games they've already released. But I mean, I wouldn't do that even if it was free. So I'm not going to do that for money.
00:25:17
Speaker
They had Final Fantasy 16. And here's my long running joke. I'll play the other Final Fantasies once I finish Final Fantasy 14. It looks fine. But I mean, I didn't check out 15 either. And so like, I don't know. Actually, I don't know why I shrugged. I actually did check out that one. That's one of the few I played. Yeah, it's just the boy adventure, right? Yeah, everybody in a car.
00:25:45
Speaker
The car is in Final Fantasy 14 too, so I'm not missing anything. Oh, you already got it. By the way, don't even play near Automata. I mean, they have a raid for that, so. Yeah, they had two. They had two. I think it's gonna be part of the series, yeah. What? Don't buy games, just play 14. I mean, it's not crazy. 14 is the Penn State of...
00:26:08
Speaker
But yeah, I'm not super interested in it. But it did look it did look good. And it kind of had some more medieval sci fi kind of kind of bent to it, which it sounds weird to say out loud, but that's Final Fantasy. You know, like they can do whatever the crap they want. And they talked about Street Fighter six, which obviously I'm like,
00:26:35
Speaker
I'm not going to play that. Yeah, it's I've never played Street Fighter. I respect it. I don't know. That's the thing. I don't respect it as much as some of the other ones. But for me, it's just a lack of interest in the character design and how it operates and handles. Yeah. Because like Tekken, I've watched Tekken tournaments be like, wow, I don't know what's going on. That's that's cool. I can't do that shit, but I appreciate it.
00:27:01
Speaker
or whatever the fuck Xbox is, I always forget the name of it, but it's not as big. Killer Instinct, that's the one. And they have some really cool mechanics in it and some cool music. But again, it's not for me. I don't like it. And Street Fighter just feels like the most, I don't want to say dumbed down, because I'm really just talking out my ass at this point. It looks the least interesting for me. It looks the most simplistic.
00:27:29
Speaker
with the most over the top graphics for like a jab. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
Nobody's like an alien or a mage or a terminator, you know, like they're, they're just people fighting. Hey, you're judging my mortal combat. Well, no, I was saying street fighter doesn't have any of that. Yeah. Um, as it did, right. It should have some of that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just guys then and women fighting. Now they look really buff.
00:28:02
Speaker
which is fine, I guess. It's honestly a little bit weird. It's kind of distracting in the art style, even. It's borderline. Have you seen or have you seen clips of Baki? I don't think so, but I'm scared.
00:28:16
Speaker
I want to give you some time to Google if you want. The art style for it is like overly buff. And the way you can tell is like it's neck buff people. Gotcha. OK. Damn, their neck is thick. That's all the characters. And that's the vibe I get from Street Fighter. Everybody's just very rotund from just pure muscular form. I'm like, OK. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
I don't think I'm ever gonna really graduate past Smash Bros. I'm ready to be wrong. You know, maybe there is a gateway drug to fighting games in the future, but this one's not it. And the reason I know it's not it is because there's like special moves and voice lines for frame perfect inputs. And I'm not gonna do that. And I also don't wanna know that I missed doing that. So I'm just not gonna try. And that's where Street Fighter 6 ends up.
00:29:09
Speaker
I'm not going to try out of 10. You all laugh at Jake's story, but he's going to be playing cause you later and doing specific inputs now. Yeah. I mean, well, the one that he has that's like frame perfect is not the one that I'm actually able to pull off. It's important. I'll try to figure out later. I think it's electric wind God fist. Um,
00:29:33
Speaker
But yeah, Devolver Marketing Countdown to Marketing is the next section. Were there any that stood out for you? I think they covered, I have five games. I think that was literally it.
00:29:45
Speaker
So honestly the other ones I didn't see on the list I just knew of cult of the lamb and your foot I think I saw on Steam a while back or somebody linked it to me. It looks interesting I think you have your first person hotline Miami and a hundred percent. It's that yeah, so kind of interested but not as much as cult of the lamb Which looks overly cute, but also evil. Oh, yeah
00:30:10
Speaker
So I'm just curious about that. And anything that Devolver has been involved with. Involver? No. I've just liked those types of games and it looks like a nice unique experience compared to other stuff I play right now. So definitely we'll have to check that out. And that's probably my most hype for at least Devolvers.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah, I would I would second that Cult of the Lamb has looked good for a long time. And I don't know, like Devolver releases a bunch of different types of games, but even the games I haven't played, I respect that they're being made. Right. Like my friend Pedro. Really cool idea. I'm not going to play unless somebody gives it to me.
00:30:52
Speaker
Um, even so, even if they gave it to me, I might not play it. Depends on whether they're checking back to see if I played it or not. I would enjoy watching a friend play it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but occasionally because they're just out there and they're not afraid to just make weird crap, Cult of the Lamb comes along.
00:31:10
Speaker
which is like semi blasphemous, just a name, but also like cutesy, heretical, violent, cultist simulator. If you watch like the gameplay, it looks in art style really similar to Don't Starve. Like really close. It's kind of like a not three dimensional paper craft, but like I guess like Paper Mario style. It's two and a half. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:38
Speaker
You can actually still move around, but it's not fully symmetric. But everything is kind of like a 2D paper drawing with animations. Yeah.
00:31:49
Speaker
But it looks cool. It looks like you cultivate your followers, and there's decisions to be made in base building, and there's shots of fighting bosses and stuff like that. So we don't even really know what the gameplay loop is going to look like yet, but it looks intensely compelling. I love the theming of it. So it looks better than Street Fighter 6.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's going to be true for everything on this list. Um, uh, yeah. So you mentioned anger for already first person hotline. I don't need to talk more about that. Um, other than saying I'm actually a little bit, uh, uncertain about how I feel about it. Like hotline Miami. One of the things I loved about it is how quickly you can reset and kind of just plan your approach. And from the top down perspective.
00:32:40
Speaker
Aiming isn't really a factor if in a twin stick shooter type setting, um, not to a massive extent. And this is a first person shooter game. So like, I think it's going to be slowed down, which makes it like a little less frenetic and a little bit more like, um, my brain goes too super hot. Um, I'm sure it'll still be fun, but that's my, that's my main reservation.
00:33:05
Speaker
Well, I am curious because we are both people who really appreciated ghost runner, which is definitely like a first person run around. You have to kill enemies at the level and progress. Um, maybe do some platforming. Do you feel like it's going to be anything close to that? Obviously not the same speed or style. Um, anything close to that or even, I don't remember who mentioned this one, but a neon white also kind of has a similar game loop. I think neon white's a little more.
00:33:35
Speaker
Vertical and speedy as far as how it's being marketed right now Yeah, I I do think it'll be that kind of game I don't know if it's gonna have like that cyberpunk aesthetic and like pounding music that I really loved about Ghost runner But I could be wrong. So, you know, we'll see as it continues to approach and
00:33:58
Speaker
I'm going to rapid fire through the next two. Card Shark was the next game, which was just like a card game in Victorian England. It looked cool. The music was cool. We didn't actually see gameplay as much as like a cut scene or something. And then the Plucky Squire looked like a relatively high production value 2D 3D action platformer. Didn't get a lot of information on it, but
00:34:21
Speaker
That's
Game Showcases and Community Influence
00:34:22
Speaker
fine. It's not my favorite genre, but it looks really cute. It reminded me a little bit of It Takes Two and the style, kind of like the toys. You jump out of a book in the trailer, so it's literally that.
00:34:37
Speaker
The last one, this one surprised me the most, is Skate Story. I don't know if the game has no UI or if they turned it all off just for the trailer, but it's basically listening to chill indie pop music while you, as a skater,
00:34:57
Speaker
Skate around on things, I guess, through levels. And the terrain's all like weird and geometrical. And if you if you crash, your character is like made of glass and they just like shatter and like on the on the floor. And the music really got me into this one because I'm a big fan of like indie pop stuff and indie rock. And like that was basically the music they choose to put over it.
00:35:27
Speaker
So if that carries through, this is one of the ones I had no interest in until I watched the trailer. And then it was like, Hmm, intensely stylistic. I mean, it definitely sounds like another watch if somebody's going to stream a type game or if you just want to kind of chill and skate and vibe out. Yeah, they seem to really chill.
00:35:52
Speaker
Can't think of the name of games ever, but there was a kind of, I don't want to say vaporwave music, but you're just kind of driving a car through a level. Hmm. I'm not familiar with other types of games like this where it's, I guess, less mechanic involved. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure it's bugging the fuck. I can't think of it. Um,
00:36:18
Speaker
Yeah. Let me move on and let the debtor just sit. That's fair. Um, but yeah, it looked good. I mean, to keep an eye on it, that might be my surprise of the, uh, of the show game or the one that I didn't know about at all. And I was more interested in by the end. It's always nice when something can kind of like come to you out of the blue, because you don't have any prior expectations. You're just, Oh, that's a thing. That's pretty cool.
00:36:42
Speaker
Versus when the fuck are they going to talk about silk song? It's been three and a half years. Uh-huh. Anyway, what should we talk about next? Well, let's jump to the Bethesda and Microsoft thing. And if they happen to have mentioned silk song, then we can. Okay. It looks like they did. They did. Oh my God. What? Um, did you see the, uh, Bethesda and Microsoft presentation?
00:37:06
Speaker
Yes, I actually did watch this one because it was the only one I realized what's happening. Yeah, there is a surprising amount of stuff in it that I cared about or thought was interesting to some of the other areas, which seemed more, I guess, niche for like, oh, we're just doing this type of demographic for a target audience or these types of games. And Bethesda plus Microsoft had a lot more variety. Oh, yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
I mean, obviously on here is fucking Silksong, which huge because we've been waiting for details on that for, like I said, like three and a half years, maybe even more. We're still pretty much waiting, to be honest. The trailer didn't show much. Well, I mean, it actually had gameplay in it. That's true. Which I guess the initial trailer did as well. But more things were shown in this one.
00:37:56
Speaker
Right. I just picked a different area on the same level and they're like, new content. Let's go. Every time I watch trailers like that, I'm always like, is this all just like the tutorial shit to get us hype? And then you're like, oh my god, it's so much more new stuff than we could have possibly imagined. But that was huge. Scorn.
00:38:16
Speaker
which I've been lightly following from like their very weird, I wanna say dystopian, more of a utopian type trailer. Can I do an interrupt though for Silksong? Cause I do wanna mention the story. Silksong, so they showed the trailer before they had someone come out and talk about the presentation. And they're like, all the games that follow will come out in the next 12 months. And people were like,
00:38:45
Speaker
You did say some certain wording there, and Silksong didn't have a release date on the block. And then they actually showed a list of all of these games. Silksong wasn't on it. People were taking screen caps and looking for Silksong. And they were like, I don't know if this is a thing. So they did get asked directly.
00:39:06
Speaker
on Twitter afterwards. They did confirm on Twitter, right? Yeah. They said all of the games that were shown that were shown will be released in the next 12 months. And someone was like, what about the song? And they're like, all of the games that were shown. Well, OK. Well, that's the most dramatic way to just say yes. But OK. It's Twitter, I guess. Anyways, I just wanted to mention that story because I thought it was hilarious because this was the one so many people were excited for.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like from soft games where you're like, here's a teaser and then they fuck off and you're like, yo, what's going on? And then like even tunic had like very interspersed trailers. You're like, okay, what's happening with it? So it is great to finally get news on it.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, but that being mentioned you said scorn. Yeah, I didn't know it is all blood and guts FPS very Cthulhu esque. Yeah. Is it HR Geiger? Is that the or is it two different? Is it HR HR Geiger? Yeah, HR Geiger.
00:40:11
Speaker
That's what people have been throwing around. But apparently it's body horror. Like that's the entire thing. I think it falls under just the category of Lovecraftian to a degree in that way. But it just looks really interesting. It's really interesting for no other reason. I was like, yeah, let me see that. Yeah, it was I don't know. It's it's almost too much for me. Like your gun is biological and not in a
00:40:41
Speaker
really tame FPS way where it's like, this is an alien gun. Um, it's like this is your body. Yeah. And the terrain is flash and you are flash and your weapons are flash and the enemies are flash. And I'm like, that's a lot of F words for me. Um, so it's probably gonna be good. We'll see.
00:41:02
Speaker
I want to see more with it because everything that they have shown as far as gameplay, 100% seems scripted of like, hey, we're going through this thing. There's no UI, no, nothing else going on. Yeah. I'm just showing, hey, here's like the environments, et cetera. Here's some of the puzzle mechanics. But yeah, very excited to hear more about that.
00:41:26
Speaker
And it's apparently been in development hell for a long time friend of the show. Ian was saying that it's been around for a long time. So good that they're always good to see, regardless of how the game is good, that it's a going gold being finished up. Hashtag blows.
00:41:43
Speaker
Was there anything else I'm here from Bethesda Microsoft? They're really like, oh, fuck yes. Or dang, life. Yeah. I'm just going to quick mention my ear frontier. It's like a mecha explosion farming game. It looked OK. I'm going to wait for more on that. Not even really going to talk about it. Other than the mention it's already gotten. Gunfire Reborn apparently has not been released and will be.
00:42:11
Speaker
This year, like in August or September. Okay. And like from the trailer that they showed, there's a lot of stuff that's been added to that game, like a whole lot. Um, so is it more than what they have in the current patch? I mean, I, I presume there's going to be like a little bit more, but I also checked on steam. Like I haven't played this game in two years.
00:42:35
Speaker
That's how long it's been. So there's definitely some stuff since you've played. Yeah. At least probably two or three new characters, a new level. They've definitely changed some stuff. You can now skip the boss cutscenes. 10 out of 10. That is good. Yeah. But from what I've seen, at least on when you log in, it's like, oh, hey, these are our goals for summer of 2019. We want to do this.
00:43:00
Speaker
Gotcha. As far as that, all of their goals are currently met as far as the last thing they were doing was like some major patch and adding a new character. And that was a bit ago. Right. Well, that's good to hear. I think it's so it's coming out on switch and is already available on PC. So I'm sure they're going to make a lot of money. Looks good. Yeah. Really enjoyed playing through it. I'm glad that they're still at it. Mm hmm.
00:43:29
Speaker
The other one I had on here, so I didn't know about this game at all beforehand, but it's called The Last Case of Benedict Fox. It's like a 2D platformer, which again, I don't play that many of them. Hollow Knight is just that good that it edged out everything else. Surprisingly engaging, Lovecraftian is what I have in my notes here. And it seems like you're playing as an investigator or something, and this one is absolutely.
00:43:56
Speaker
Absolutely based in Lovecraft because there's like shadow tentacles you attack with like are behind your head or something And you're possessed by a dead person. I don't know but Visually, it looks really good. Oh, okay. I did see this. I was trying to remember but
00:44:17
Speaker
I'm not trying to think of a way to describe it to help the audience envision it, but you have to watch the trailer. It's a little tough. It's not as platformy as like, it's not challenge platformy like Celeste or Hollow Knight as far as active combat. It seems more puzzle based with some combat stuff, but it does look very nice as far as the art style, more, I guess, like a great Gianna sisters type, but not as cartoony.
00:44:44
Speaker
Yeah. And they've got some voiceover and like some dialogue from the game and it sounded really good, like really good voice acting. Um, and really compelling. And I'm like, I'm kind of just curious what this is about, right? Which if you're trying to present a mystery game, that's probably a good take. So that was also one, but it's a big takeaway for me. How do you feel about the olive war?
00:45:10
Speaker
We didn't see all that much, but they did have their classic good blizzard cinematic thing. And it actually, so I started and was like, this is gonna be Diablo. And then like it kept showing people interacting and things. I was like, this isn't Diablo anymore. Like it's not gonna be Diablo. And then they got back around and it's like, it is Diablo. And it's an necromancer. And they're like, oh my gosh, it's Diablo. Except, you know, this is current year. So I was like, it's Diablo.
00:45:38
Speaker
Well, hey, they have five new classes around a campfire. That's good. I remember that. If that reminds you of anything, they did that 20 years ago. They did actually show some gameplay towards the second half, though. And I guess this is my question to you. When you played through Diablo IV, did you share the sentiment that it was too bright and cheery compared to previous games? Sorry, not Diablo IV. Diablo III, 4 minus 1.
00:46:10
Speaker
I'm trying to remember my time in three. I guess it's old now, too. Anything was overly cheery. I just remember it being it was a very, very polished game. Yeah, like it was very streamlined for like, oh, anybody can hop on and play and have your four abilities and you get the one set for the season type thing. That was my standout memory with it.
00:46:31
Speaker
Um, yeah, I never thought of even diablo 2 as like overly grim I was just used to seeing pixelated bodies and burned corpses piles of corpses everywhere But that's me. That's the diablo 2 I grew up with I mean, so I will say the reason I ask is because the community I've seen at least a lot of people were like this is nowhere near as gritty As diablo 2 was is as violent um, it's brighter
00:46:58
Speaker
I'm not even talking about the secret pony level. Like it just was more lighthearted in some ways or brighter. And like, I feel like they almost overcompensated with this trailer because they're just like rivers of blood, not the weapon from Elden Ring.
00:47:16
Speaker
Um, but like, literally, I think one of the moves caused a tidal wave of blood. And there's just like, it's incredibly violent looking. Um, which I don't really care too much about one way or the other, but it's, the impression I got is that they're really trying to make sure.
00:47:39
Speaker
that they maintain the franchise. They actually brought in some of the Mortal Kombat team to help out with some of the animations. Right. You're killing like hundreds of enemies at a time and then it just just a zoom in ten second animation. Each one has like a fatal blow. Fatality. Here's the x-ray.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, I never really realized that that was such a core part of the game's identity, at least from a community standpoint. I've never played Diablo and played Path of Exile. I'm like, Diablo is the cool, gritty one. Path of Exile is some baby shit. I'm just like, oh, it's another ARPG. So I will say to Diablo 4's credit and not Blizzard's credit,
00:48:24
Speaker
I'm glad they're using an updated engine. It looks so good compared to their other stuff. So like Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, I think I mentioned in a previous episode, the graphics for those games seem to be on a very similar engine and they look comparable. But considering my hate relationship with Blizzard and how Path of Exile has been free,
00:48:48
Speaker
Um, probably gonna check up how the bags out too, but even so double four does work kind of cool. Yeah. I think it might almost be a mistake on either company's part if they released at the same time. Right. Like.
00:49:02
Speaker
100% there are people who play Path of Exile that would also play Diablo if the games were not released at the same time. So I don't think you want to put yourself in that head-to-head because no matter what you're not getting the full market saturation that you could. I do think there's going to be an advantage to releasing first because then you're probably waiting for reviews on the other game.
00:49:25
Speaker
We'll see if Diablo releases with like, you know, a market again, using real money. Um, yeah, that would be.
00:49:37
Speaker
That would be unfortunate. I don't think it should surprise anyone at this point, given that, you know, they also created Diablo immortal. But that's another thing I actually had on my notes that I didn't add into the list. Blizzard can go suck a fat one. I've not liked it. I mean, I complain about them almost every episode, but. Why? Why do you got to do it this way? Why do you guys start making fucking Diablo G fuel? We have enough flavors, you son of a bitch.
00:50:11
Speaker
We should have an episode on Immortal. It's basically not even gonna be new content. Neither of us will play the game and it'll cover topics that we've already covered across other episodes a long time. I hate microtransactions. Yeah, I do. I feel like they're just scamming us out of our money for like no actual benefit. It's just gonna be venting for at least an hour, but yeah, nothing good about Immortal.
Indie Game Success and Innovative Designs
00:50:33
Speaker
I don't know, it's
00:50:34
Speaker
Maybe for, I don't know, keep an eye on it. I did sign up for the beta.
00:50:39
Speaker
Um, so I could at least take a look at it if uh, if I got in but I signed up for the alpha kisses muscles That's fair Um, i'm gonna i'm gonna rapid fire a couple leads if that's all right, ask real quick Do you know if diablo 4 is going to be a price game or if it's going to be? free and you would buy like Certain things in it or like season passes They haven't said
00:51:06
Speaker
Um, I would, I guess I would be kind of surprised if it was free with season pass, but not that surprised anyway. Um, especially not with some of the other decisions they've made recently. Um, but we don't need to devolve into like full speculation because we don't really have the info yet. No, not really. Not yet. Um, and who's to say Blizzard has a lot of pricing models at play right now and some coming up. Um,
00:51:36
Speaker
They did mention, I think it's like cross-platform everything though, which they didn't have for three. So there you go. Plus on that regard. So quick mention, just real fast Sea of Thieves. They're adding customization. You can name your ship. And their trailer was hilarious because it was fourth wall breaking. It was so good. It was actually really good. I appreciate that. As long as there's no expletives or curse, I forgot how they said it.
00:52:06
Speaker
Oh, there's no profanity. The way they tied that in with the rhyme was like, oh, they know what they're doing. That was good. Yeah. No, it's pretty incredible. Redfall is on the watch list. It's co-op vampire shooter, kind of in the same like squad, left for dead space. It did look like it had stealth aspects, which is a little bit different. I don't know. Keep it. It's on the watch list, not any sort of day one buy.
00:52:37
Speaker
Grounded, which, you know, several of us played a while back. It's going to leave early access in September. That's good because to my knowledge, the story is not completable until it actually leaves early access. So that's the point where I'll probably jump in here. It was fun.
00:52:55
Speaker
Um, uh, Pentamint is a mystery game by Obsidian. It's got a weird style and it's, I have no idea how Obsidian made it. They've, to my knowledge, never made a game like this, but I'll keep an eye on it. I don't think it's a big pickup for me based off genre. Um.
00:53:15
Speaker
big slime shrug here. Yeah, I know. Right. That's why I go through them quick. Slime Ranch or two, I wrote ranch. That would be wrong. That's a that's a flavor of salad dressing in Slime Ranch too. Slime Ranch or two, though, I played and very much enjoyed the first game. So looking forward to that. Do you like Minecraft?
00:53:37
Speaker
I do. Minecraft is a solid game. Do you like non-standard genres in the years in the year 2022? No. Yeah. So Minecraft Legends is it's an action strategy game. And I don't know what this means. And I watched part of a follow up video on it and I still don't know what it means. But I feel it's a test. Because like action strategy is like almost a dead genre.
00:54:07
Speaker
Well, would be an example of an action strategy, some even struggling to give an example, like something close to like an RTS. But usually smaller tactics. Yeah. Well, like smaller tactics, squads and things like that. But not tactics. Not not necessary. So not like XCOM, not like no shining for is more probably real time.
00:54:36
Speaker
controlling the people and having them. But smaller scale than a Starcraft. Exactly. But larger scale than Starcraft go up. Well, it depends. Yeah, I don't know.
00:54:51
Speaker
It's really weird. I think to watch a trailer, the whole thing sounds very sus at the moment. Yeah, watching the trailer, it still looks sus. My theory is my theory for the record book is they basically just picked a dead genre to see how much money they would make if they threw the Minecraft name on it. Just like just for science. They don't even care about the money. This is Microsoft. They don't they don't operate with money anymore. They're beyond that. That's my theory. I mean, maybe they do like Minecraft Among Us.
00:55:22
Speaker
Speaking of, they did talk about an Among Us VR game. Interesting. I don't know what that would be like. I have no context on that. Not as fast-paced, I imagine. That's fair. Speaking of Among Us, this is actually not on the list, so I'm failing miserably at the rapid fire. But Fall Guys is getting a Master Chief skin. Nice.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah. That's it. That's the whole point. The fall guys is now free to play. Oh, that's good. I never picked it up. So that means I could actually play it. Yeah. So anybody who's been like, Oh, I I'm interested, but this is money. You can now just play it.
00:56:03
Speaker
That's good. That's a good business model for them. I think it was already like microtransactions anyway. So like the game, I talked about like when it was before it even came out, like it's so good because you have this jellybean fucking character and it's all like fun and silly. And it just you go around, do goofy shit, try and get through like an MXC level. Oh, you can customize your character based on either progression through like a season
00:56:28
Speaker
Oh, you can spend real money to like get a certain skin or a seasonal event that you missed. Genius. And now you have like doom. You have Devolver digital has some skins in there. You have fucking a you have.
00:56:43
Speaker
Yeah, they even have fucking to be like, yeah, so many IPS can just go into this is like a thing. It's kind of similar to Fortnite where it just, oh, take our IPS designs and put it in there for cross pollination. Genius. They're definitely making money off of it, too. That's the other thing. But it's good that they're reaching out and establishing that. I like the dead as a completely random aside. I like the dead by daylight does that as well. They grab killers from other IPS and things like that.
00:57:12
Speaker
I'm not going to talk about Stalker because we'll see if it's good first. Persona is releasing a bunch of stuff on Switch and pretty much all the games are coming to PC. This is good because I never played 5 Royal. I don't own 5 Royal, but I could own 5 Royal on PC. And then we get to Death Stranding 2. It's probably not that, but Microsoft and Kojima Productions
00:57:39
Speaker
uh so i'll i'll i'll i'm gonna okay another brief story when kojima showed up we were in discord voice chat and i was like sakura i was like wait a minute that's not right kojima no i know it was really bad i was like they don't even look the same
00:57:57
Speaker
They don't. Also, Kojima historically has like very thin glasses. Uh-huh. Yeah, very iconic. He's about the style. Yeah. So anyways, that was my admission of guilt. This is why you lose at RNG in Smash Brothers. You're praying to the wrong God. Right. And I never pick Snake. That's the other problem. But anyways,
00:58:24
Speaker
Yeah, we don't know what it's going to be, but they literally were just like, we're working together and that's a big enough deal that we're going to put that in this show of games. They actually can't show the game because then it would fall under the 12 months clause. Right. But I don't know. What do you think this is?
00:58:44
Speaker
I mean, it's not going to be another stranded game. That was the first training game of its type. I feel he's going to have to do something in a different space. But I mean, historically, we've known Kojima for.
00:59:00
Speaker
just all of the metal gear solid games, which, I mean, we're typically third person with like a first person option for in down sites. And that's just about it. There's always very like out there in story.
00:59:17
Speaker
The story is going to be incomprehensible. Oh, definitely. That's the only thing we know about this. Are there women in the game? Something's going to be wrong with their bodies, but they're going to be hot as shit and scantily clad. But there's a good reason for it. That's tied to the plot in your justification. I'm sure it will be some type of out there story. I'm always down for like his adventures.
00:59:45
Speaker
I don't know, I'm just very curious to see where it goes. It could literally be anything. I asked you an impossible question. What if they brought back PT? Oh, geez. They can't legally do that, right? That's understood. I mean, Microsoft's pretty big. They could probably just do it. They're just like, we will pay the legal. You can have all the money. Again, we don't operate with money anymore. We're beyond that. They literally just give Konami all the money.
01:00:15
Speaker
Well, I mean Konami, I'd hope they wouldn't give Konami the money. Wait. So when you said PT, is this not the playable teaser for Silent Hill? Yes. I forget. I'm looking it up. It's Konami. I thought it was initially on. Oh, is it? Yeah. Okay.
01:00:35
Speaker
It we've come full circle. So then they definitely wouldn't do anything with PT because Konami hates Kojima for whatever. I don't know what the fuck happened between them, but it was enough of a falling out. He said, I don't like gacha games one time. They, uh, they had to resist shooting him on the spot. And they said, Konami, you have pachinked your last pachunk. Get out of here. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:03
Speaker
But yeah, I have no idea. I was going to say it's an impossible question because if I were to ask you this question when Projima, Projima, Kojima production. Well, you just said Konami instead of Kojima sometime in that mix. So we're perfectly even. So anyways, they're talking to Zach right now. And.
01:01:23
Speaker
If we were to go back in time, when he split to be in an independent studio and you're like after metal gear solid, what's his next game going to be? If you're like Amazon delivery guy, no one would have believed you. Yeah. It's so it's literally a complete guess. Like, do you remember when we were guessing, Hey, what are the new smash kicks going to be?
01:01:42
Speaker
Nobody gets fucking Kazuya. Nobody guessed another fucking sword person. Like it's we have no information to base it on. So it's just pure like I would like it if they did X and then they won't do that. I do have a prediction, though, based off the criteria we've established for what needs to be in the game. I think this game is going to be Stripper Simulator 2010. That's going to be the full name.
01:02:10
Speaker
It's not gonna make any sense, but people will think it's genius. The 2010 is just gonna be ironic. People will be reading into it for years. And then, like I said, I'm always down for it. His stuff is always interesting, if nothing else. So we'll be definitely curious to see where that goes.
01:02:33
Speaker
But I also like when he does stuff with other big people, like when he worked with Guillermo del Toro, I think it was more so from a, he's going to be a character in the game for Death Stranding, but he also has a very cool and unique mind.
01:02:49
Speaker
Go fucking create some shit together and also involve Mads Mads Mikkelsen cuz he's just the coolest death stranding to or stripper simulator with you know here Delta I can't year you play as Guillermo del Toro and aspiring stripper or the year is 2010 for your patron Mads Mikkelsen
01:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see what happens with it. Starfield was a big deal, but I'm not going to make it a big deal. There's a lot of claims made. It looked good. My biggest hope for this game is still the community and the fact that it's going to be moddable, because if No Man's Sky, and this game looks a lot like No Man's Sky in many ways,
01:03:38
Speaker
If it was moddable, the community would have gone crazy with it by now. And I think this game has that potential. So we shall see, but cautiously optimistic. Not for the game itself, but for the potential. Potential.
01:03:53
Speaker
And then the last one, the big one, this is an entirely separate reveal event. They kind of took a little bit of wind out of Blizzard's sale. Blizzard took its own wind out of its sales. During the Microsoft announcement, they were like, hey, Overwatch has.
01:04:12
Speaker
new hero coming out, junker queen, going to be a tank, all this cool stuff. She looks really cool. Um, but we're like, why is this not part of the blizzard presentation? Um, but reminder, you know, Microsoft is buying blizzard. So, uh, they get, they get that little piece of the pie.
01:04:32
Speaker
Um, and we had some reveals for what's going to be happening in overwatch to some big ones. Actually, it's going to be free to play. That's first off reminder. The first game was not, this makes a big deal because they're combining, like the playable space is the same between the two games. Right. Um, they are getting rid of loot boxes and introducing a battle pass system. And I don't know how I feel about that yet.
01:05:02
Speaker
For anybody who's not familiar, Battle Pass, at least how it works in Dota 2, is you, let's say, pay $15 for the Battle Pass for however long it lasts, but then as you make progressions through the season, you get rewards. So it's like a season pass type thing.
01:05:19
Speaker
The only change that so dodo is one of the earlier adopters of battle passes. The only money grabbing optimization I've seen made is usually games have a free battle pass now. But what they do is they give you two tracks where if you're one is the free track and one is the hey, you're missing out on all of these things. Exactly. The gathering arena actually does that. Yeah. You can technically get like passive progression like, oh, you've had enough XP. Here's a pack.
01:05:47
Speaker
But it's like, well, you missed a mastery point. You missed on these other packs. You missed on being able to do these emotes. Yeah. Why don't you just give us our money now? Cause it is our money and then you can get all that stuff. Wouldn't that be great? We'll hold it hostage until you give us our money.
01:06:05
Speaker
I suspect something like that. I suspect this is going to look a lot like the Battle Pass for Diablo Immortal. I don't see why it would really be too different. They also introduced mythic skins, which are a step above legendary, where you're supposed to be able to customize different parts of them.
01:06:22
Speaker
I don't know exactly what that's going to look like. It could be cool. Or you could just do that from Dota 2 yet again. Yes, exactly. That's going to be the next company they buy. Not Valve, just Dota. Valve would never let go of Dota. But it's an interesting idea. We'll see. I assume this is where some of the money is going to come in. Mythic skins are probably only going to be cash purchasable or something like that.
01:06:49
Speaker
Um, they're adding weapon charms, which is another great option to dilute the loop pool. And they said there's going to be four heroes this year, some assortment of maps, um, and early access, I think open early access begins for overwatch two and October on October 4th. Nice.
01:07:08
Speaker
So a lot of information. I wasn't in the, uh, thread. This actually came out. Like today, I think earlier today, this morning, I think, um, I didn't, I didn't catch the full presentation and people were breaking it down in discord. Uh, but I don't know.
01:07:27
Speaker
It's interesting. I do think that the biggest thing from all of this for me was there was a graphic and they were like, here are our plans for our release cadence. And what's actually coming out. I was like, thank bleeping God. Cause like they, that has been their number one failure. I think it's just failure to communicate. So we couldn't understand what they were doing or what was going to happen. And overwatch two was.
01:07:55
Speaker
the God of that religion of not telling people what you're doing. So with the most caution, optimistic. Pretty much everything that was announced sounded reasonable to me.
01:08:11
Speaker
I imagine people in our Discord group will play it, especially if it's free to play. Yeah. Why not? Right. Yeah. You get to try new maps, new characters. It's just, I don't want to say an upgraded version of the game across the board, but it's definitely going to be different than like, Oh, we're doing Elios again on like capture the point map. Like it'll be enough of a, an exciting change up for people, I think.
01:08:37
Speaker
I mean, to be fair though, like you could just also launch it as Overwatch 1. You get all the same maps, all the same heroes. I don't know if all the cosmetics are visible, but then I have to, I have to ask the question again. Why? Why is there an Overwatch 2? Right. Well.
01:08:54
Speaker
I guess because they can just get rid of Overwatch 1, but that's basically what they should do with the change. Overwatch 1 will have nothing but Overwatch 2. Let me restart that sentence. Overwatch 2 has everything that Overwatch 1 has, but Overwatch 1 also gets all of the PvP content and you're never going to be mechanically disadvantaged until they shut it off.
01:09:23
Speaker
Why is there an overwatch two? Well, I think, so I think the big reason it's a good question and it was really hard to answer while they were still talking about like the PVE side of it, but the PVE stuff is just going to be separate. That's going to be paid. That's going to come later. You can just call it DLC at this point or an expansion. Right. Now that makes sense. Um, but what they really want to do with overwatch two is they're like.
01:09:48
Speaker
I'm sure they ran the bean counters, all the nerds and accounting. And we're like, we can make more money with a battle pass than we were with this active loot box system, particularly because free players were also getting loot boxes every time you leveled up. That's true. So, uh, they want to get the entire community to just make the jump for over to overwatch two. And then a couple of years from now, they'll probably quietly in the night, sneak up and in capacity to overwatch one.
01:10:21
Speaker
They're going to kill. Yeah. I just I don't I don't like it. But I also don't like Blizzard or really Overwatch. So I'm not going to speak too much on it because I'm not the target audience. Yeah. But I am glad that they are actually communicating stuff to the community who gives a fuck and wants to hear updates about this major change that they're talking about.
01:10:49
Speaker
Yeah, which was initially just, Hey, uh, overwatch too. You're like, and you're like, nope, that's all we're saying right now. Well, they actually, they did it worse and they gave us a lot of information that didn't make any sense. They're like, Oh yeah, cross platform PVP. We're not going to tell you the monetary scheme. PvE will be separate and you're like, why, what, huh? And it took them like what, three years to figure out how to actually talk. Um,
01:11:18
Speaker
Yeah. Listen, we love relationships like that. Communication. Communication is the key. Communication is huge. But yeah, I would just hand on like, they have, I like all of the changes. I agree with your sentiment.
01:11:35
Speaker
that like why I think they're and I think it comes from a place of they've toyed with the community so long they're afraid of people just dropping out of the overwatch ecosystem so they're literally like you can keep playing overwatch one but by the way
01:11:53
Speaker
It's basically overwatch two at this point, but you could also play overwatch two. Oh, that one's free. You guys weren't sure on it. Okay. Now it's free. You can just, you can just play it. It sounds like a fucking internet explore update before like they sunset six or they're like, Hey, yeah, I mean, it's just, you can upgrade internet explore whenever, you know, whatever. And then they're like six years online and they're like, kill, kill the last one. Nobody knows about it anymore.
01:12:17
Speaker
See, to complete the analogy though, when you launch Internet Explorer, it's actually launching Edge because that's what they're doing with Overwatch too. So eventually they'll delete the shortcut, I guess. But they did say all of your cosmetics will be available on all platforms. So if you ever feel like playing on the Switch, there you go.
01:12:37
Speaker
um fiesta fiesta reaper or whatever that's huge though it sucks to want to switch platforms for something i'm gonna go back to the example of monster hunter we initially did on playstation great some people were waiting for the pc release pc release came out we're like
01:12:56
Speaker
Well, I kind of do want to play the game with people who haven't played it yet. I guess I'll spin up a new thing. But then you're starting from scratch and you have to go and grind everything. I mean, part of it is playing the experience again fresh with those people, but it sucks losing access to all of the stuff you've already invested time in just because you've switched a platform.
01:13:13
Speaker
yeah exactly so i don't know it's another one where i'm kind of cautiously optimistic but um i'm ready for the most brutal battle pass that's ever been seen the free track is just like oh you get a gold if you max the thing out the paycheck is like everything um yeah but
01:13:37
Speaker
We shall see. What's your hypest take for this summer of gaming? What are you most excited for?
01:13:48
Speaker
looks on my own personal list. Look for the bolded line. This one, if he asks you, it's this. I mean, Soaksong is like, I'm not going nuts because I don't have final details yet, but like, I'm going to play and love the fuck out of that game. Another thing on here was just which fire looked cool. Just which fire was that?
01:14:16
Speaker
Hey, it's an FPS. Again, it seemed like it was very much a scripted to scripted trailer. So because to see more about it and then routine also look kind of interesting. And that was just a. I
Subscription Models and Culinary Experiments
01:14:32
Speaker
guess first person exploration, but there's like evil robots and I don't know, it was very much a teaser.
01:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. But overall, fucking news on Silksong. Big dick about that. And everything else, I'm sure things will come out as they do something like, hey, this is coming out and I'll check it out with people and it'll be exciting. That's why that's a new stuff's going to drop. How about you? My top one, I mean, Silksong is obviously way up there, but for me, it is the Xbox Game Pass.
01:15:08
Speaker
Um, cause like everything that was in the Bethesda thing was like, Hey, you can just play this on Xbox game pass. It's like, whatever, I think 10 bucks a month, something like that for like 600 games. And pretty much anything that comes out is added to that list. And I'm very close to subscribing. If I wasn't literally playing Minecraft right now, I would just be like, okay, let's go.
01:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, they are. They've been talking about this before on point. They are adding a lot of value, especially with myself also getting blizzard. Yeah, like they're going to just have a huge library of opportunity. Like I'm going to I'm going to run the numbers real quick here. A game is $60 roughly, you know, plus tax, whatever.
01:15:55
Speaker
And it's like $10 for Game Pass. If you bought a game once every six months, you'd break even. If you buy games more often than that, I do. And a lot of times they'd be on Game Pass. It's actually crazy. And I'm not a huge fan of subscriptions.
01:16:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's a case by case basis. It's the same way of like Netflix where like, Oh, you've accessed all this stuff, but then so much of the stuff I'm like, Oh, that's not for me.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's why I also don't go to a phase because like I'm going to eat. I'm going to get two small plates or something and then some of the jello. But I want to put the jello on top of the donut so it gets hot and it melts on the donut a little bit. It does sound good. I've tried that. It doesn't melt as much as you think. It doesn't make a sauce. You got to use pizza. That's the key. It's hotter than the donuts. Put some jello on your pizza.
Gaming Backlogs and Audience Engagement
01:16:55
Speaker
But in the same way like you still would be getting value out of it like you said it even if you only do two games yeah, and a lot of what we listed is gonna be on there, so I Don't know it's scary. I'm gonna keep an eye on it and at one point I'll probably make the jump once I don't have other games that I immediately have on my list to play first I Just don't know when that's not gonna be the case
01:17:19
Speaker
So for those interested, please check out Jake's Steam yard sale in the upcoming years. You're getting rid of some of this crap. Gently used honey pop. I knew it was going to be honey pop. It's the go-to. But if you guys have recommendations out there in the audience for games like honey pop, you can send those into soapstone podcast at gmail.com.
01:17:45
Speaker
Probably shouldn't talk about that on Facebook. I don't think that's the play, but I don't know it's been a while since I was on there They might it might be unregulated. It's the Wild West now talk about honey pop at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast Those are the games we cover now As always we'll see you in the next one. Have a good afternoon. You thought it was Thursday you dumb
01:18:15
Speaker
He's the leader of the bunch. You know his coconut gum is finally back to fire and spurts. His coconut gum can fire and spurts if he shoots ya. It's fire and spurts. His coconut gum is bigger, faster, stronger, too. He's the gum member of the bunch.
01:18:39
Speaker
C.G. Coconut Gump. C.G. Coconut Gump. Here's Coconut Gump. Stop, stop. So listen up to. She can shrink inside with Coconut Gump. She's quick and nimble and quick and nimble and quick and nimble.