Transcript
neocharge: What's up everybody and welcome to Shapes of Gaming, the weekly conversational podcast all about video games that's unedited, unfiltered, and most certainly unhinged, that's for sure. I'm one of your hosts, Matt Stinson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me are two beautiful boys here for episode number 54. First off, you know him, you love him.
neocharge: He's a retro gaming encyclopedia, Bob Harriman, Leon Lyon-Hartley on PSN. What's up, dude?
Leon Lionheartly: Konnichiwa, motherfuckers.
neocharge: yeah And returning the people's favorite, he 100%s all his games. You also know and love him, Caleb Schiff, Admiral Murphs on PSN.
neocharge: What's up, buddy?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Konnichiwa, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes!
neocharge: Oh, yeah yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob-sama. Oh. Hi. Hi. Hi.
neocharge: Is is that the Oiro?
Leon Lionheartly: I... ben
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What? What?
neocharge: What is it called? There's Watashi and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, did you refer to yourself? Yeah, ore. Ore.
neocharge: all Okay, I was close.
Leon Lionheartly: a
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, yeah.
neocharge: I was close.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah The the best job best Japanese you're going to get out of me is from Scary Movie 3, is it?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ore. Ore.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fine.
Leon Lionheartly: and yeah ah Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wait, wait. Okay. So as much as I appreciate that, not Kill Bill, you're not going to you're not going to get some Kill Bill action? Because that's one of the best places for some good Japanese.
Leon Lionheartly: You are correct, sir.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Whoa, Misaki, very good.
neocharge: That's true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah i mean, that's not Japanese, but it's the guy Japanese guy s saying it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So anyway.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah. yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: What's up, fellas? We are here for episode number 54. We're going to talk all about a big event that just happened. We had a little watch party there. Caleb, you weren't able to make it.
neocharge: You were going to fly in. We were going to pick you up at the airport. I don't know what happened. Your flights got mixed up or something. Not sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, i my parents were here and they couldn't take me to the airport.
neocharge: Ah, dang. But regardless, we have a lot to cover. And Caleb, we love you. We're excited you're back. And you're here for State of the Draft. We're going to go over State of the Draft as well. But before we get into all that, how's life been?
neocharge: Caleb, you start.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah ah Busy, busy the last couple of weeks, but you know it's been pretty good.
neocharge: Story time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, yeah, fuck, man. I got, all right. So I had, this happened, uh, probably a week and a half ago. This thing, I actually took a mental note. i was like, I have to tell these guys. They're going to believe this shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I have a huge problem with certain things at the store.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right. like I went to get French onion dip.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right. I had a ah request.
neocharge: Wait, okay, hold on.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep. What?
neocharge: What kind of French onion dip do you like? I have a specific brand that I like. Is it hell of a good?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, it, but So interestingly enough, that is what I ended up with, but i am not a French onion dip person.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was, I was just doing it on request, you know, it was somebody else, but I went to the store to do, to do this.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I've never bought it myself, at least not in like 30 some years. I may have bought it when I lived in my hometown. That was a Kroger. So I knew where to go and just find the fucking shitty pop top version, whatever.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I had no idea where to go in this giant Eagle. And I thought, well, I'll just go. like I'll figure it out. I had a couple other things to get at the store. I'm going to try to make this as short as possible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the longer it goes, the more ridiculous it is.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I went to get some deli meat. And back by the deli meat, I look over and it actually says dips. like There's a fucking section that says dips. And I look over and I see they've got... I don't even know what kind of dips. It doesn't matter.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because everywhere I looked in that dips section, that's the important part. It fucking said dips. There was like a dill dip. There was, it might've even been a ranch dip. There were all these dips, but no fucking French onion dip.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm in store,
neocharge: It's usually like with the milk and the sour cream and shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, yeah, I didn't know that because again, it says dips.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: You should have called me, dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Why? i Like I understand now again, I understand why, because there's dairy in it. Like I get that now, but also Caleb in the store is just thinking they have a section that says dips.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Why is it not in dips? So I'm walking around the dips is three or four subsections of this section. And I'm just thinking I'm, A moron. I can't, I don't see French onion anywhere. Did the whole world buy French onion dip at this giant Eagle? Like what is going on? So I text Lisa and i said, where the fuck do I find French onion dip and giant Eagle?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And she's at the office. So she's not to answer right away, but I'm standing there just getting more and more agitated. Cause I'm like, I didn't want to spend my morning getting this French onion dip. why Why, is everything so hard for me when it's like the simplest shit? So anyway, she doesn't say anything.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And i get mad and I take a picture of the whole section to say, I want you to zoom in and circle the fucking spot that your stupid husband can't find the French onion dip. And I'm walking around, you know, just getting the other stuff that I need, getting agitated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm not even kidding you. It was as I was walking the last section that I would have thought because I went, I had to get milk. So I go to get the milk and sure enough, I look over and there's hell of a good French onion dip.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I just, I'm in the middle of the store and I yell, what the fuck?
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know, just like which is totally inappropriate.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I, there's this like, this old, old lady worker who is just working on the other side of this, this refrigerated area. And she doesn't look at me, but she she sort of arches her back. Like she heard me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And she just sort of stands up straight. It's sort of sorttle slowly glances over. And I'm just an angry man muttering to himself. And then Lisa texts me at that moment. And she says something like, it's with the dairy, you idiot. It was just like the meanest, but but also very justified thing. She's like, you should know that you've bought French onion dip before. So then I got in like a texting argument about, I have never bought French onion dip at Giant Eagle, which is again,
neocharge: Oh, man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): not the point, but I was just fuming because again, it says dips, it says dips and they don't have all the dips and it's also refrigerated. So it's not like I was a complete jerk going into the dry dip section.
neocharge: True.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All they had were dill dips as far as the eye could see. So I was just like, I will never buy dill dip ever.
neocharge: Dude. Word.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was so mad.
neocharge: That word.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I didn't know what dill dip.
neocharge: Dildip.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well,
neocharge: Dildip.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Dill weed, dill dip, same, same, difference but dill, hey, this is a kid show.
neocharge: Dildo.
neocharge: ha No, it's not.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's not, it's not, ah this is true.
neocharge: We warned everyone it was unhinged.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, no, I wanted to share that because it's another story of how stupid I am. But also again, I'm going going to die on this hill. Don't say it's dips and not have all of the dips there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just, that's misleading and I won't stand for it.
neocharge: you should
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: You should write a strongly worded letter to the management of Giant Eagle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I, I shared it with the checkout lady as well. She was like, you find everything.
neocharge: um oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. And I said, you know what, Karen? I didn't. And it's not your fault. It's my fault. I'm an idiot, but I, she got a kick out of it. She's a nice older lady. She's seen me before. She's like, Oh, I, you know, you're always so fun.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I said, I'm not fun today. I'm so angry with your dip sign being misleading. And you know,
Leon Lionheartly: Do you always have conversations with your local cashiers?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, kind of. it It is one of my curses and gifts.
Leon Lionheartly: cool
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But but the other the other story that I will share that's very quick, tonight for dinner.
neocharge: Is this one? Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, this is the one that you know that's beginning of. i We didn't know what we wanted to get. We didn't really have as much time to go to a sit-down restaurant.
neocharge: First of all,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, like...
neocharge: i gotta tell people I gotta tell people, this is all unscripted, by the way.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What's up
neocharge: like he He shared this story with us and we were we were laughing our fucking ass off.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): up?
neocharge: We were like, dude, you gotta share this on cast. like This is all unscripted.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it happened what? An hour and 10 minutes ago something. This a pretty fresh one.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah So I'm a French.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i like the tennis. So French Open is on right now. And every year during the Grand Slam tournaments, I like to treat myself to Chipotle when a lot of the Americans play because Taylor Fritz is sponsored by Chipotle and Chipotle is good.
neocharge: You're goddamn right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But he was knocked out in the first round this year of the French Open. So i was like, fuck, I can't have any Chipotle. And I'm bummed that Taylor Fritz was knocked out. Yes, I know I could get Chipotle. Anyway, so I was saving my Chipotle trip for the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, which are coming up tomorrow and and onward.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So tonight we were going to maybe do Chipotle or talk some kind of Mexican food, Chipotle, Taco Bell, or a sit-down Mexican restaurant. They're generally pretty quick, but we didn't have as much time because I was going to be doing the cast.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So wife and I are talking. We decide on Taco Bell. I wanted some chalupas. I was saving my Chipotle for the French Open.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Mistakes were made, ladies and gentlemen. I fucking ordered chicken chalupas. We get home and Lisa ordered some stuff too. I'm just i'm just going to i'm gonna spoil the joke before it happens.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nowhere in our ordering process was the word bean mentioned. Nowhere. Lisa didn't order anything with beans. She didn't order a bean burrito. She didn't order a Mexican pizza with no beans. She didn't order bean soup. She didn't order a fucking bean carnival. None of that happened. No beans anywhere.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I get home. i sit down. i open up my Chipotle. I take a big-ass bite because I'm hungry, and it's just fucking beans, brother.
neocharge: Taco Bell, not Chipotle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): or go Yeah, whatever the hell I got. to Taco Bell. Jesus. I'm just so mad about the beans, Matt. So I fucking bite this chalupa. Yeah, chalupa, not chalupa. I bite into my chalupa. It's just beans. I mean, there's lettuce, but who gives a shit? It's just so much beans, so many beans. And to the point that I thought it was like somebody pooped in my food or something. It just didn't.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It wasn't the consistency my mouth wanted. It wasn't.
neocharge: so just
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): flavor of my mouth wanted.
neocharge: I have questions.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know you have questions, but let me continue first, and then you can ask. i I was aghast with this. I mean, it just was gross, and I'm pretty sure... I mean, I yelled, Really loud. Lisa's sitting next to me, and she just looks over. sweetest woman in the world. She doesn't need to...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): deal with this shit but every day it's something new and special so she looks over me what's wrong and i just i didn't know it was beans but i flip open the chalupa and i cause i'm trying to figure it out and she just she's just this furrowed look on her face says what is that and i just said is it fucking beans and she just lets out this sigh because she knows that i'm going to be miserable after that Both of my chalupas were just bean chalupas for fucking reason that makes no sense.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Paid for chicken, got beans. I didn't even know bean chalupas were a thing on the menu.
neocharge: They're not!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think I've said it. Well, I think I've said this before. Maybe not. I used to work at Taco Bell when I was in high school. All right.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's long time ago. But so they did give us a receipt. was like, give me that fucking receipt. And i look and in the receipt, it says BB Chalupa, which I think it means black bean chalupa because I know how to read the receipt shorthand.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that was black beans back in the day. Just BB something. I like BB burrito was a black bean burrito. Why? is there a black bean chalupa on the menu?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): who Who orders that? Who, what vegan asshole made the that on the menu to ruin my chicken chalupa experience?
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yep. That's it. That's it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I've never had a problem ordering that before.
neocharge: Blame the vegans.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because that's that's the other thing. When I order food from fast food, I try not to change too much because let's let's face it, everybody's fucking stupid.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): anymore.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the world is stupid now and nobody can do anything right. I'm on my soapbox, my angry fast food soapbox, but I try to order something that's just the thing. So all they have to do is, is boop the thing instead of booping it, minusing, you know, subtracting something, adding something.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, this fucking lady as but but black bean chalupa, for some reason, And i you know what?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can't stand it, gentlemen. I'm so upset. My bru my dinner was ruined. Lisa had one third of a crunchy taco left and because she likes black beans. I mean, I like black beans too, but I want some actual meat in chalupa.
neocharge: Yeah, not itself.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't want just black beans. So she takes she takes the chalupa from me and I said, you don't have to suffer. Just, well, try it. I don't think she liked it either, but I got a third of a hard taco and some nacho fries for dinner. So- Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm in a great mood. You guys got me on the right night.
neocharge: Excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Man, that's how I'm doing. How are you, Bob? Well, do you guys have questions first? Or do you want to just ask Bob?
neocharge: yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I think you told that story pretty well.
neocharge: I was just wondering. Yeah, yeah. you You went through the details. You answered the question I had, which was what type of beans were it? Was it like refried beans or black beans? Black beans.
neocharge: So that's not great at all. Were there any cheese?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's not because also super liquidy.
neocharge: Was it any cheese? Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): they're Okay, the amount of cheese on there could not feed a small mouse. it was You know how in recipes, the the pinch of salt? I don't even think this is a pinch of cheese.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was it was the stupidest. I can't.
Leon Lionheartly: You know what it was?
neocharge: Now did you?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can't.
Leon Lionheartly: you You went with the black bean chalupa, which got the guy at the counter who was actually smart, confused, because he's like, it's back black beans, but I can't put cheese because he's a vegan.
Leon Lionheartly: What do I do? And like, the wires got crossed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But if even that's if that's even the case, why did he give me a pinch of cheese? You're probably right.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But he's still fucked up if that was what he was thinking.
Leon Lionheartly: true
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So ah Lisa left the receipt with me. She said, I'm sure you're going to have strong words on the feedback. And I said, if they're lucky, I don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: look
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's not worth my time. But God.
neocharge: Well, the moral of this story is don't go to Taco Bell.
Leon Lionheartly: You go to Taco Bell when it's two in the morning and you're drunk.
neocharge: No, I like...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): do have really good.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Everybody knows that.
neocharge: Drug food, for sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm pretty sure if I was drunk, though, if I was drunk at two in the morning and that happened, I'd still be pissed off.
neocharge: 100%. I do like their Chalupas, though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't care how hungry drunk Caleb is.
Leon Lionheartly: ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What the fuck is this bean chalupa that nobody asked for? And if we have a listener who's like, all I eat are black bean chalupas, you know what?
neocharge: That's true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Good for you. But also, how dare you? How dare you take the thing from me that was the sacred?
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: if you If you worked at ah at a Taco Bell um around in high school, the reason I don't order chalupas at Taco Bell anymore is because they got rid of my Baja chalupa.
neocharge: What dare you?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They did, and that sucks because those were great.
neocharge: Mmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The Baja sauce was awesome. I do agree.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: No, i sometimes I like me good Taco Bell. It's the chalupas, the gordita crunches. Those are good, too. And yeah, I'll get like steak and chicken chalupas.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Chicken quesadillas. Yeah.
neocharge: I don't think I've ever gotten just beans in my chalupa, so.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Those are my...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I have. It's great. Let me tell you how not hungry I am right now.
neocharge: and
Leon Lionheartly: Ha ha ha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Jesus. Jesus.
neocharge: Oh, shit. Well, regardless, it's a funny story, though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So welcome to well to Shapes of Gaming, where we talk about shapes of rants.
neocharge: shapes of Shapes of tacos. i Ironically, this came up because i had Chipotle tonight.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, this wasn't going to come to the... I wasn't going to bring this baggage to the cast and tonight, and this motherfucker sends a picture of Chipotle right as I'm suffering with my B, and I was just... i was so...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was butthurt.
neocharge: I had no idea you had this Taco Bell bean debacle.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was a bean debacle guy.
neocharge: But bean debacle, the great bean debacle of 2026.
Leon Lionheartly: Bean debacle. ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's
neocharge: Uh, no, I had Chipotle. Um, I get, I just get like the, the burrito. Right. And I get carnitas. Uh, I get a lot of lettuce, a little bit, of ah a good amount of cheese, little bit of sour cream.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not a pinch? You go to a pinch of cheese?
neocharge: No, No, I like my fucking cheese.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: ah You don't want to get too much sour cream because then you're going to just be swimming in your burrito. It's going to be all liquidy and shit. You got to eliminate those liquids. ah And I get some pico de gallo.
neocharge: I get the fajita veggies. And then sometimes I do get beans, but sometimes on the side. And you basically just get a side of beans. And you always got to get the chips and guac. So that's what I have for dinner.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Let's think I actually like black beans fine with other stuff I don't i just don't you know on top of nachos maybe or it's yeah
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Right. It's a side. Or with other stuff in the burrito. like it it Just beans? Yeah, no.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's a fucking
neocharge: That's a psychopath's order.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): somebody Somebody somewhere, whoever made that for me, is probably a serial killer. I don't care.
neocharge: Yeah. 100%. 100%. No. No. No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): God. Oh, i ruined i ruined the cast again.
neocharge: hundred percent
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm so sorry. We're to keep it short tonight, but Caleb was on, so we fucking ruined it.
neocharge: no no
Leon Lionheartly: You know, it's funny you say that. talking My wife is working nights tonight right now. And we were we were talking about ah planning for the rest of the week.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Hey, got Summer Game Fest coming up. Got this going on.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And I said, casually, said, oh, and tomorrow night I'm going to be recording and we're going have Caleb on. And she goes, okay, I'll plan to Uber home.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but Sorry, okay Crystal. She's not wrong, but... Oh, man.
neocharge: We love you, Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right in the...
neocharge: Everyone appreciates the stories. We've gotten comments.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right in the head.
neocharge: Let let me just tell you, we've gotten comments that they think the stories are hilarious and they appreciate them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah? No. I'm glad glad to hear it, that my my suffering is somebody else's joy.
neocharge: So, yeah.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i mean, I do.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually am sincere when I say that.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because it is funny.
neocharge: They're funny.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it's a little it's observational humor that I really appreciate myself.
neocharge: It is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But, you know... What the fuck? how does How does it happen consistently? Because you know it happens. This kind of stuff can happen to everybody, but it's usually one-off.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're like, man, that was a weird experience. For me, I swear to God, I'll go and mail a letter.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): at least lisa every time I'm going out to do that, I'll get home and I'll walk in the door and she'll be like, how's it going? I'll be like, goddamn fucking shit. She's just like, what happened this time? There's always a thing. She said, I can't send you out to do anything. She said, you can't. there's ah There's a target on me and I don't understand.
neocharge: Huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I'm glad that people do appreciate it.
neocharge: Dang. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah You probably don't appreciate the Uber bills for for your wife, though, since she since she has to get her own ride home.
neocharge: They do.
Leon Lionheartly: She does enough damage hunting for Pokemon in the city, okay?
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fair. That's fair. ah
Leon Lionheartly: okay
neocharge: Shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So how are you, Bob?
neocharge: How about you, Bob?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah How are you?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Hey, just segment.
neocharge: Hey!
Leon Lionheartly: ah No, pretty good. um I got to say, you guys are going to hate me. My go-to Taco Bell order to keep this going, and ah trust me, get the cheesy bean and rice burrito, but have them grill them.
Leon Lionheartly: They're a buck like a buck-o-nine apiece, so you can get like two or three of them, and they're delicious when they're grilled. And of course, naturally, it's fast food, so you say grill it. Sometimes it doesn't happen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. yeah
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. they Well, they have the, when we used to, I don't know if that's the same apparatus because that was 25 years ago, but the way we would grow when quesadillas were coming around, I think it was like 15 seconds or something, maybe 18 seconds.
Leon Lionheartly: But...
neocharge: No meat in there, though. You got meat.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And half the time, if you got the wrong side of the grill, because people use the left more than the right, at least at my restaurant, because it was a It was, that's just like the way at the end of the line. So the right side, even though it was supposed to be hot all day, the right side, if you ever had, you got a lunch rush half the time when your shit wasn't grilled, it's because it was on the side that nobody ever uses.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it wasn't hot enough, which was stupid because you'd think that fast food and and I don't know, common sense, you'd figure that out when you open it up. But I have tried those before, Bob.
neocharge: a
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When I worked there, I would make those for myself as a little snack. They were amazing. They're excellent. Very good. And they're inexpensive too.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the other thing.
Leon Lionheartly: That's the other thing.
neocharge: Heck yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: They're so inexpensive. That's the reason why.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But yeah, other than that, pretty good, man.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Just keeping busy. Work has been ah quite frantic lately. um That's not a complaint, really. you know and ah It's funny, Caleb. I'll give you your observational humor one ah for this week, simply because you reminded me of your incident at the...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah at the yeah Well, I'll give you two of them. at The incident at the grocery store when you were just like, fuck!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: right sometimes it's Sometimes it's funny to do it intentionally. um so And this all stems from Memorial Day weekend. ah My wife is at work opening. She's Jewish.
Leon Lionheartly: She works at Sam's Club. So retail, big shopping place. And you know when people are fucking lazy, right? And I pick go to pick her up. The store is slammed. It's a Saturday. Everything's going on.
Leon Lionheartly: And I go, and I have the window down, and I immediately go, as she's getting in, I say, you know, it's probably a good thing you're not closing tonight because nobody seems to know how to return their fucking cart.
Leon Lionheartly: And every and i got like three people looking at me.
neocharge: so ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah ah But,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: I hate that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I bet.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I have not met a single person in my life that I, i mean, in my circles. And I do know a lot of people who would leave their cart. Everybody, everybody across the board hates when other people do that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So my question for you gentlemen is who's fucking doing it. If everybody that I know claims that they hate it, somebody is lying or they're just different, different subsets of people.
neocharge: nine
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Matt, are you the liar? Are you the one you caught?
neocharge: The people that you don't know, you probably don't know a lot of people compared to the people you do know. I'd say it's like a 10-90%, 10-90% ratio.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I know, but you would think with ah with a sample size at all, you know, if I have friends in – like apparently, but fuck, man.
neocharge: Right. Maybe you just have cool friends.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. you you You're surrounded by good people.
neocharge: I always put my... I always put my fucking carts back. It takes like five seconds.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: And sometimes, sometimes if I see a cart, just a rogue cart, I'll go grab that and put it back and bitch and be like, hate people.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, me too.
neocharge: I fucking hate people. Yeah. So.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do.
Leon Lionheartly: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah when If Lisa's with me or if anybody's with me, sometimes if I'm by myself, I will channel my inner mom, my mom, like my personal mother, who she says things way too loudly that she doesn't want other people to hear, but but everybody hears them anyway.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I don't think she does it on purpose. I don't think that's intentional. I think she just thinks she's being secretive. Anyway, I'll grab a cart, like somebody else's cart, who is still there. They're like fucking around at their car and very clearly just abandoned it. And I'll grab it and I'll act like it's the most exhausting thing in the world. I'm like, oh my God, this ah well this is so difficult. Oh, I'm done.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There it is. sib It's in the spot. like yeah But I'll make a point and they'll look at me like I'm the biggest asshole in the world. and i don't i say you want to throw down If you want to throw down in the parking lot over a shopping cart because you're a terrible person, I'm angry right now.
neocharge: Well, they're the asshole.
neocharge: Let's do it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Testosterone and adrenaline are wonderful things.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This is like, let's go
Leon Lionheartly: but Oh,
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Why was your husband arrested? Oh, he was mad at somebody for not returning their shopping cart. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: thank, thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: and the Then the officer will be like, oh, that's fair. yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The officer tased the guy that did it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like, fuck, that guy sucks.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good, man. yeah I have to tell you about a D and D character. had idea I have around that specific thing sometime. Um,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That sounds awesome.
neocharge: Excellent. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um But no, it's going good. Oh, and the other thing from ah labor Memorial Day, sorry, um Memorial Day weekend.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. you're good.
Leon Lionheartly: And you'll appreciate this, Matt, because you've been there. ah It's Saturday morning.
neocharge: um
Leon Lionheartly: I get up super early because I had to take the wife into work. And I'm like, screw it. I'm going to the ah to our local butcher shop, Ranch Foods Direct.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: some of the some of the best cuts of meat you'll get. And my plan was to get a nice steak. It was her birthday weekend, let's get this. And I walk in at like 10 in the morning and the ladies in there are really nice, they're helping me out.
Leon Lionheartly: They they i even let me, they're like, here, we'll give you the best cut of the ribeye that we're looking you're looking for, awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): none
Leon Lionheartly: And then we're going to wrap it up. I'm an idle conversation person and I immediately realize it because I go, man, Saturday morning, you know, it's actually really quiet for a Memorial Day weekend.
Leon Lionheartly: And I looked at her and I went, uh-oh. And she looked at me was like, going to fucking kill you. You just broke the number one rule of retail.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Dang.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, don't don't speak that into the world because now they're screwed.
Leon Lionheartly: if Yeah.
neocharge: putman
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oops.
Leon Lionheartly: And her ah her ah counterpart that was on the other side of the store stopped and looked at me deadpan too.
neocharge: Can't do that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Would great if they just slowly pulled the ribeye back away from you.
neocharge: Oh my God.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Get out.
neocharge: Yeah. like Get out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Said, get out.
Leon Lionheartly: if We don't serve your kind around here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: but
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Blasphemer.
Leon Lionheartly: it's
neocharge: You better start walking, boy. no yeah yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. ah But yeah, doing good, man.
neocharge: That's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: How are you, Ben?
neocharge: I've been good. I've been good. Uh, I have fully almost moved into the new place. I'm in the new studio slash office recording here. Got everything set up.
neocharge: ah Yesterday was so fun. We had a watch party for the state of play. Ironically, ah the brats, the beer brats that were made, which you made some beer brats, were from Ranch Foods Direct because they have the best meat around.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ooh.
neocharge: So you made some bomb-ass beer brats. ah We...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sounds good.
neocharge: Yeah, we had a good time. We talked to games and it was it was a blast. So we're going to do it in two days again for Summer Game Fest. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll pick up at the airport, Caleb. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You gotta, you're going to celebrate my birthday.
neocharge: Well, birthday bash.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. That's, I mean, yeah, that's, that's, uh, That's happening. That's not the airport. Cause I actually, I mean, I'm going to be watching summer game fest, but some friends, some friends here are taking me out.
neocharge: You best.
neocharge: Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think Saturday afternoon after all the other, the smaller shows. Cause like, this is a whole, you know, four or five days of of stuff.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But I told, they said, when are you free?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know this weekend sucks for you. And I said, I'd set him the whole summer game fest schedule. I said, you can figure it out. I'm watching everything like, okay.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Saturday night. at iss and so Yep. Yep.
neocharge: Beautiful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Cause it was either that or Sunday after the Xbox showcase. And I said, whatever you guys want, whatever works best for you.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They said, we got a babysitter for Saturday night. So I don't know. I don't know what's, what Saturday is going to bring. If you get some fucked up texts, i you're welcome. And I'm sorry. what We'll just, just,
neocharge: Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it
Leon Lionheartly: and If you get too drunk, remember Taco Bell.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): no, i've gotten I'll go to Taco Bell and I'm just going to say, do not give me a fucking bean chalupa.
Leon Lionheartly: There it is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You monsters.
neocharge: you'll get one. Then you'll get one if you say that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They'll give me 41 bean chalupas for my birthday.
neocharge: But yeah, it's been great. I love June. we We are officially in June. It's the month of all the announcements of everything I love. Gaming, and you know, Apple's got WWDC next Monday.
neocharge: So I'm super excited for that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. So we'll we'll see what macOS 27 has in store. Maybe Redwood. I don't know what they're going to call it, but it's always exciting to see the new shit, the new software that's coming to all the devices. So yeah. Yeah, Summer Game Fest is kicking off in two days, Friday.
neocharge: And then, yeah, it's a slew of events. So it's kind of like our E3, and I always love E3, and I love the month of announcements. so And yeah, I'm ah officially pretty much moved into the new place, and i'm I'm liking it.
neocharge: So it's fun. It's right down the street from my old place.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Good.
neocharge: So not really, it's a new location, but same area. ah So yeah, that's been fun.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is it walkable your old from your old place or or not?
neocharge: No, it's about five minute drive.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah. I mean, that's close. I just, I didn't know if you could, ah if it was easy for you to just walk down, if you, forget oh, man, I forgot this box and I don't want to drive there.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Oh yeah, no, not that close.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know. Yeah.
neocharge: i
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: He can one wheel it.
neocharge: You could, and i could one wheel. I could one wheel about 15 minutes probably. So yeah, weather here has been pretty great. little overcast, but today it was like 70 and sunny.
neocharge: It was awesome. So yeah, Yeah, things are good. And beer in hand as well. So I actually got, yeah, I got this six pack specifically for the state of play yesterday because, you know, sometimes I like to get a six pack or two for an event, you know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What are you drinking?
neocharge: So I got ah the Peach Stand Rambler Blonde Ale from Odell Brewing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: Odell Brewing is, of course,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that sounds, that sounds good.
neocharge: It's delicious. it's It's delicious. I wish I could save you one, but I would have to fly with it and like this winter or something, but it's good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's all right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Odell Brewing, it's peaches and deliciousness in your mouth.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nice.
neocharge: so Odell is in Fort Collins, Colorado about... three hours from the spring. So, uh, another brew in Colorado and it's, it's just delicious. I think they use a Palisade peaches as well. Yep.
neocharge: They do use Palisade peaches. So Palisade Colorado is very famous for their peach harvest. And if you can get your hands on like a fresh Palisade peach hole, it's life changing.
neocharge: Because we have farmer's markets around here, and sometimes they will have Palisade Peaches.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And oh boy. So this is basically that peach, but in a beer. And it's great. And I'm ah drinking out of my Pokemon glass. Got all the starters from Gen 1. The best.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's cute. that's That's a good glass.
neocharge: The best generation.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh,
neocharge: so Did you know Charmander is the sixth Pokemon?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: and ah But yeah, life is good. 25? yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What number is Pikachu?
neocharge: long twenty five
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fuck you. I'm going to believe that that's true. I don't actually know it off the top of my head, but I would i would believe you.
neocharge: I think it's 25. Yeah, 24 or 25. Yeah. Somebody fact check me.
Leon Lionheartly: so I'm already on it.
neocharge: Bob's fact checking me right now.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and Okay.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: How did you know that?
neocharge: Excellent. Excellent. How close am I? I'm pretty sure he's 25. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Pikachu Poket Dex number is 25.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Wow. There it is. There it is.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right. That was Shapes of Gaming.
neocharge: Then one is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'll see you guys later.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm out. That's fucked.
neocharge: You can like, follow, subscribe. No, Gen 1 is close to my heart. So I know like Pikachu is a staple, right? And the starters are a staple. You know, Mewtwo. Dude, they have new Pokemon Lego sets.
neocharge: That Mewtwo looks sweet. And they have a Gengar one too. Like official Lego sets. But yeah, I can usually like nail around like give or take 10 numbers of where the Pokemon ah lies in the Pokedex.
neocharge: So I've studied that Pokedex, man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Arna Kuno.
neocharge: 142.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Seen the oneir s
neocharge: How close
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would have guessed 130s or 140s.
Leon Lionheartly: ah for
neocharge: thirty eight
Leon Lionheartly: Wait, who were you looking up? Sorry, I had a...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Articuno.
neocharge: hard at kubena
Leon Lionheartly: 144. 144.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Articuno.
neocharge: artic kuno wait no one
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: i want i wanna say one forty six final answer
Leon Lionheartly: ah one forty four
neocharge: take that was close
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, the three the three... What is it?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Articuno, Voltress, and something else?
neocharge: Three birds.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i Yeah, I don't remember.
neocharge: Zapdos.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Zapdos is the name.
neocharge: It's the three legendary birds, but there but then after that is the Dragonite evolution. So then Mew and Mewtwo and Mew, that's 150-151. So you go back like three. it's like If you know where they are in the Pokedex, it's kind of easy to nail them. So, yeah. ah There's new Lego sets.
neocharge: Some of them look dumb, but I like that Mewtwo one. And the Gengar one. so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Matt, I'm so sorry.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What number...
neocharge: jeez.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What number is Machoke?
neocharge: What? Oh, boy. Ah. 69. 67, you son of a bitch.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: yeah i I did say 69. I was close. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, God.
neocharge: he's God, what an irrelevant number.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i But I love the fact that Machoke is that number.
neocharge: What an irrelevant number.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What the fuck? Like, why? Why? Anyway...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: The middle evolution uh, yeah. The evolution that evolves into Machamp. So, dude, the original 151 were just peak design and they're, they still are incredible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They were.
neocharge: So, yeah, this is Shapes of Gaming, a gaming podcast. Pokemon is gaming. We're talking about Pokemon.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): At least that is gaming. it's Yeah.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm going to stop derailing you and just let you go on until it's my turn to speak for the state of the draft.
neocharge: yeah.
neocharge: Hey, we said unhinged. So, yeah, this ah this episode is the state of everything, pretty much.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So we're going to go into the state of the draft. It's the beginning of the month. So we're going to ah get a pulse on the draft, and we've got some great pickups, and we've got some ah games that have scored pretty well.
neocharge: so And then we're going to ah go over the state of play, which happened yesterday, 3rd.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Say
neocharge: third ah June 2nd.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): again.
neocharge: Today is June 3rd. ah And it was great show. so But before that, if you're part of the community, thank you. We've had some new people join on Discord. So if you're new and listening, thank you so much. Welcome. This is the podcast. We we talk about Taco Bell and Pokemon and beer and video games.
neocharge: it's ah We eventually get to video games, but we like to have fun here. We drink, we we have a good time, and we're basically just a bunch of nerds just talking about video games. And if you are also a nerd, you and you are part of the community, we have a huge community of of nerds and cool people on our Discord. So if you aren't part of the Discord, hey, Bob, hey, Caleb, where can people find us
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's linktr.ee. Right? That's Blast from the Past.
neocharge: Yeah!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, shapesofgaming.com, right?
neocharge: Before I did the redirect.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Pretty easy. Pretty sure that's that's what it is, shapesofgaming.com.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And when you go there, I'm not going to say it like Bob does, it'll give you all the shit you need to see to pick your poison of choice, whether it's YouTube or Spotify. i do not know all of the options.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Apple Music. I personally use Spotify ah just because that's where all my classic rock jams and
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and all the things are that I use. But yeah, shapesofgaming.com will set you up. Is the Discord link on that website as well? That's one thing.
neocharge: It is.
Leon Lionheartly: Everything is there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay, there you go.
neocharge: It is. Got Discord. You got the Facebook link, all the social media links. And yeah, we're on every single podcast app of your choice, pretty much. So, I mean, Spotify, Apple Music.
neocharge: We're even on the weird ones like Podbean and all that shit. So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Don't say bean in my presence, sir. How dare you? Yeah.
neocharge: Beans.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Roll that beautiful bean footage.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If for some reason you don't have an internet browser and you're a troglodyte, then I guess go out and just shout and ask your nearest neighbor if they have shapesofgaming.com and they can turn it up for you.
neocharge: ah Yeah, we're...
Leon Lionheartly: Ask him what Pokeducks number shapesagaming.com is.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ask them what Machoke is.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that?
neocharge: No, that link has everything. And you can join the Discord. Alex, our social media person slash friend slash part of the crew. ah Awesome dude. He does our intro too. And he has his own music as well. So be a select start.
neocharge: ah He has an album out now. Amazing dude. He fucking got ferrets and raising the roof.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: thats Oh, I wish we were on video. Soon, probably.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob is deadlifting ferrets while Matt is trying to let's share the, share the words.
neocharge: Basically.
Leon Lionheartly: they were
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh,
Leon Lionheartly: Kiddles tried to leave the house and they were running up to the front door and they're like dad, I can't leave.
neocharge: I love that.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm like, just hand him here. So my ADHD brain kicked in.
neocharge: It's amazing. But yeah, we' it's it's a huge community. it's a It's a good community. I wouldn't say huge, but big. And we're growing. And we appreciate everyone that has been part of the community that has joined the community. And if you like what you hear and you like the podcast, subscribe. It's all free. We don't sell anything except our secret merch store.
neocharge: We have shapesgaming.merch. No, i'm kidding. ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Slash Deez Nuts.
neocharge: Slash beans.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fuck. Man.
neocharge: But yeah, ah and if you like the podcast, leave a leave a review, leave a like. Let us know how we're doing. Go on the Discord say, hey, you guys suck. It's the worst podcast.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hey.
neocharge: It's a gaming podcast and they haven't even gotten to games. It's like been 36 minutes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Talking about fucking Cheez-Its beans and shit.
neocharge: They're just talking about games.
neocharge: I'm pretty sure they're all psychopaths.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. French onion dip.
neocharge: One out of five stars.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I want, actually, I'm waiting for somebody to go on the discord and say, what kind of asshole idiot doesn't know that French onion dip is with the dairy?
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: think
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And you know what?
neocharge: Please. no
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fair. ah
Leon Lionheartly: which
neocharge: It is fair.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Except dips.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, man. I got so many merch ideas now. I'm going to just get random merch with shirts like, did you know Bulbasaur is the Pokedex number?
neocharge: Ah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Charmander is number six.
Leon Lionheartly: Charmander is number six. I'm going to one that just says, I love Cheez-Its in all caps. Okay.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Can we have one it's asked, it just says, do you like Pokemon?
neocharge: Dude, we could totally make it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then underneath that, it'll be Matt doing this. And then on the back, it'll be Machoke.
neocharge: that
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): People will just, if you know, you know.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh. ah
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: All right. Well, we're probably going to start a merch store now. And if you're into graphic design or you can make this shit for us, that'd be cool. If you have any ah connections with ah vendors or where we can make these shirts, we' we're all for it.
neocharge: ah So we're a community and we're a community-based organization and we're always growing and evolving. So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's true.
neocharge: That's what Shapes of Gaming is for everyone. It wasn't... The the real treasure was the friendships made along the way.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, the real treasure was the fucking Cheez-Its and beans.
neocharge: Banes. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the real treasure.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to take a picture of me eating refried beans in a bowl with Cheez-Its for the chips.
neocharge: a
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Unfortunately, you have to do black beans or it won't hit as hard for me.
neocharge: Love it.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Makes it soupy and gross.
neocharge: One... One shirt we would have to do is the spiral.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: All hail the spiral.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah. I'll hail the spiral.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): A French onion dip.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep. But yeah, ah we're here and we're having some fun. And let's let's talk some games, fellas. Let's get into the state of the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: Caleb, take it away.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): State. State of the draft, draft, draft, draft.
neocharge: State of the draft. Draft, draft, draft, draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): All right. Well, where do we begin? ah We are going to just do what I usually... draft. um So we had a handful of games this last month that dropped.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah I'm not going to go in the order of release because nobody really cares about that. I'm just going to go in the order that is on the thing. So,
neocharge: what What is the draft? Our new listeners, with this what's what the hell is this draft? Is it like a fucking military draft?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): oh
neocharge: are we talking What are we talking about? What the hell are we talking
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is a draft. ah Five of us ah were drafted. Well, I don't know. You don't want to get political. i was going to make a joke about going into the war. So maybe I won't do that. No, it's not military. It is fantasycritic.games.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is you know people who play like fantasy football draft. It's that, but for video games and video game releases and how they score on opencritic.com. So it is the aggregate score, open critic, not metacritic.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um Whether you think that's, what's that?
neocharge: The better one.
neocharge: The better one. Open Critic's the better one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, the better one. Yeah, it's, it's, or is it anymore? Who fucking knows after some of the scores this year, but whatever.
neocharge: Yeah, no.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But so at the beginning of the year, we all got together and this year it was a total of 15 games. We initially drafted, was it, it was nine of them. And then we were able to bid on six of them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is that correct? Or it was it eight and seven? I can't remember now.
neocharge: Yeah, sounds about right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But but yeah, either way, it might have been eight.
neocharge: With one counter pick? Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's a Fuck, I don't know. But one counterpick. But how this works, we all would take turns, there were us in the draft. And the order was, i don't want to say randomized, but it was chosen at random.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then you went in the snake draft order.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah So... Bo got to go first. I was second. ah Matt was third. Bob was fourth. Mason was fifth. And then we go backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. So then Mason, Bob, Matt, me, Bo.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So once we were done picking our initial drafts, there was a counter pick. And the counter pick is the thing that there's a different way to play it, but it's a thing that somebody can't drop. They can't get rid of it on their draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And what you, i don't want to say you want the game to score poorly because we don't want games to score poorly, but that is a way to get more points for the person who counterpicks it.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Whatever points above 70, the game gets, whoever counterpicks it loses that amount of points. There's anything below 70, the counterpicker gains those amount of points. So usually you try to go for ones that you think aren't going to do as well, or that just aren't going to release this year because then they're stuck as a dead pick on their draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah So that's essentially how it works. Then the game's released, they get scored.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We get points. And at the end of the year, the King gets all the finest meats and cheeses.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, so there was a literal crown.
neocharge: and A literal crown and scepter. As you know, because you are the reigning champ.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): in the I was the reigning champ. And then, and then I got, uh, Tanya Harding, uh, Nancy bird and me.
Leon Lionheartly: laughter
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, which is, and I mean, it really kind of, uh, with the initial draft, I kind of checked out after I found out that I got fucked. That's okay. Whatever. Who cares? Um,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the releases that came out this month, I'm not going to go in the order of release. I'm just going to go in the order that is in front of me because it's way easier for me to do that and I don't care.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah A big game we were all excited for, Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight. That game came out like a week and a half ago. was the end of May.
neocharge: Yeah, I got it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And ah
neocharge: It's on my shelf. I'm ready.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We kind of... i'm I'm not going to lie to you. I kind of expected it to score a little higher than it did. It got an 84. An 84 is still a very good score. Everything that I had seen about it and everything that I had read when it came out, I have not played it yet.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was reading 87-ish. That was kind of what I was thinking. So 84 to me was a little lower, but...
neocharge: Lego games typically don't score very well. I thought it i thought it scored a higher than it actually...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah? You thought it was going to be like an 80 or something?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I mean, you you have played...
neocharge: Yeah, I mean, it's it's one of the... Yeah, no, I played a ah lot... ah Almost all the mainline ah like Lego games based off of popular IPs.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ip Other IPs, yeah.
neocharge: ah And this is like top three highest scoring Lego games of all time.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But i I thought because it was Batman and because it was sort of an Arkham Asylum-esque thing, and and people do love Batman, maybe there's a superhero fatigue ah because nobody's allowed to be happy with anything anymore, which I don't understand.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But and it just, it looked really fun to me.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It looked really good. It looked like it was a much more solidly designed than the last... Star Wars, the the big Star Wars deluxe Skywalker saga, which was very good.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You've talked about it before on here. But like you said, playing the levels the first way the first time through was just kind of eh, fuck that.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the rest of the game was awesome, right? That's that's what you...
neocharge: Oh, exploring the planets and like being able to basically land on almost any planet in the Star Wars universe. You you think of one, it's there. Like 25 planets, I believe.
neocharge: ah But the levels were not great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's pretty cool. yeah And that, you know, unfortunate, but at the end of the day, it's about the game that you play and you had a really good time playing, doing it that way.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You got to free roam on planets and do all the the stuff. Not to sidetrack too much, a serious question.
neocharge: ah it was great. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you remember, is Dantooine in the game?
neocharge: Yeah. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cool. I like that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because Dantooine is kind of like the forgotten... you know, sister of tattooing in name and Knights of the Old Republic had it in there.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Dantween.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And anyway, so, um but Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight got an 84.
neocharge: Dantween.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that needed netted Mason 14 points. He needed that because he got shafted on a couple of his others. ah God of War, Sons of Sparta and Darwin's Paradox are his lowest scoring ones right now.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And Ghost of Yotei Legends still doesn't have a score because I don't know.
neocharge: We'll probably have to manually score it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah I mean, I know why, it just it's kind of sucks, because you'd think that it would.
neocharge: go Going back to your question, no, I thought i was thinking of Dagobah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, Dantooine, yeah, not...
neocharge: now Dan Tween, no, no.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but so dan
neocharge: That was like a one-liner. That's the one you think of. The one you think of.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i Well, I just figured since it had like all of the things, I thought maybe Dantooine would show up, but yeah, I guess i guess not.
neocharge: It was like a one-liner. and Right, right. That was in A New Hope and Leia was like, Dantween, the the rebel base is on Dantween, and it was a red herring, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I mean, it was most Star Wars fans now our age would probably know it more from Knights of the Old Republic.
neocharge: Oh, okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. yep
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like that's because you actually go to Dantooine and you get to sort of see the Jedi.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Anyway, yeah, nobody that's nothing to do with the draft.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was just I was curious.
neocharge: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm sorry. um That was the only thing for Mason this month. And then.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i'm Actually, I'm going to save Bob for last ah for reasons that he probably knows. So I'm going to go to Matt. You had Yoshi and the Mysterious Book drop, which was was a counterpick that I had, not because I didn't think it was going to be good, but I thought other things were going to be better by the time it was mike wi my pick.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My pick, I don't like guessing release dates.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually... I don't want to take this away from you guys because I know you really, really like the draft. One of the things that drives me fucking crazy about this is... the rumor mill and the leaks and the thing. I just, I don't like that. Just me personally. I don't like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would rather see a game, get announced, see a game and and set and judge it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Then instead of sort of like at this point, I would just rather play the lottery if I was going to do that. And I don't, I don't play the lottery. So yeah, that's just not my thing. So no shade for people that do enjoy that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just not my jam. But yeah, but Sometimes it really, really pays off, right? So I counterpicked Yoshi, the Mysterious book.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I believe I said at the time, I didn't think it was going to be above an 81. And it's it's solidly in an 80 right now.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Sitting at 80.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I'm actually okay with that.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i It was a little all over the place. i think it was an 82 and down to a 78 and then back up.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it it settled right there in the middle, which which is good. Anything 80 and above is is considered very good. So I'm good on you for that one.
neocharge: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The other release that you had, which I think is a pretty good one, was 007 First Light. i We are going to be talking about that at some point
neocharge: What, that game?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not going to harp on it now.
neocharge: That game?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah you know But that was a great get. That was your second pick in the initial draft. It scored 88, so he got 18 points for that. ah Very, very good scoring game.
neocharge: I win you drafts.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And yay, James Bond. ya james bond um
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then for me, I actually didn't have anything officially released in May. I did have, and I'm going to defend myself here because I'm not upset about it. I did have mixtape.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the only reason that i dropped it the week before, is because it did end up scoring very, very well, I think it was maybe an 87, something like that, was not that I did not believe in the game.
neocharge: but Yeah, really high.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually very much believed in the game. But all the reviews that I had been seeing for other games before this entire year were just so off the mark that I asked myself the week before Mixtape released, would I be more pissed off if I had the game and it was scored criminally low?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or if I didn't have the game and it scored really well and I opted for option two, I would rather the game score well and me not get points. I realized I didn't have any control over that, but I thought if it doesn't score as well as I think it should based on reviews and everything or based on trailers and everything, I would be in such a fucking bad mood if I saw, know, if the game was deserving 87 and they gave 75.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would just be furious at the reviewer.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, I'm already furious at most reviewers.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Bye.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I thought, i hope it does well. The first day reviews, the review embargo lifted, I think it was at like a 95 or something. I was like, holy shit. I was, I really was thrilled for the game though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was, I i mean, I was sure. Oops, I dropped it, but whatever. I'm going to lose anyway. Cause fucking slay the spire too. And all this other bullshit with Solasta, you know, things that I fucked up that I talked about previously,
neocharge: Bad moves? Some bad moves?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but they weren't bad moves. They weren't bad moves. I was led astray.
neocharge: Beans!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You son of a, b no, don't you beans me on this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was promised the things were going to be not that, and that is not how it works. So never again. But anyway, so I dropped mixtape, not upset about it. I'm so glad for them to have a hit. That's awesome. This is very, very cool. I just wanted to touch on it because it was in the draft for a while, and that's why I took it away.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But such is life. Another big release of the month, now moving up to Bo-Rito Supreme. Forza Horizon 6.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm. hello
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That scored 91, which was pretty much, I don't want to say on point for what we all thought.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is exactly what I thought. I was hoping it'd be a little higher because it's in Japan. ah you i just That's just personally for me. But it's it's technically, I think it's it's above 91 points, but below 91.5 because he's got, or excuse me, 91 review, which was 22 points because everything over 90, every point over 90 is worth double. So 70 90 is 20.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): 1, 22. a good good draft.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That was Bo's third third selection. Fun fact, he picked it right before I did, so that was bullshit. ah But what are you going to do?
neocharge: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Lastly, and not leastly, is Bobbo coming in with ah the thing that I picked last year that got delayed to fucking Oblivion less than three weeks from its launch date.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Mina the Hollower. Big, big boy. That thing settled at a 92, which is awesome. 24 points. We were all excited for being to the hollower. It looked great. The demo was fantastic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Glad to hear that the final game is just as fantastic.
neocharge: Me too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah I have not played it yet. Not the full release, because when? But Matt, I did play the demo.
neocharge: You played the demo, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I played the demo, and the was awesome.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So have you started the full game yet or not?
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: I launched it just to watch that cutscene again, but then I couldn't dive in because I had to see a First Light through. And then i I really do want to see Hades 2 through at least.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: And at least get to the
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: the epilogue, but i mean, Mina's, Mina's right there on my dashboard.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Uh, I got a code from Kickstarter. I was like backer number 3000 for the original Kickstarter. So I have had my eye on this game for almost half a decade.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And I,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: Can't wait. And I am thrilled that it scored so well. I am itching to play this game because it it melds two of my all time favorite IPs.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And then one of my i mean, I like the genre, but it melds Castlevania and Zelda. Zelda heavily, I heard. into a Souls-like game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well,
neocharge: so And the demo I played, yeah, so good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but based on the demo, yeah, it's great.
neocharge: I am very excited to play that. And it's all in 8-bit style.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob, have you...
neocharge: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, have you... Are you getting Mina or was it just a draft pick for you? Like, are you interested in actually playing the game or not?
Leon Lionheartly: No, I'm actually interested in playing it because that played the OG Hollow Knight and I know what Yacht Club is capable of and I played the demo. um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You mean Shovel Knight, but I got you.
Leon Lionheartly: I mean, Shovel Knight, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Shovel Knight, yeah,
Leon Lionheartly: But I absolutely... I'm going to get to it. It's just a matter of when and we'll get into that mess here later in the episode, but...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Play in September.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The age-old issue for us.
Leon Lionheartly: all All I'm going to say is what makes Mina the best is the fact you were forced to drop it last year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well,
neocharge: he you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): why well why would that make it the best? Because it's not like it affected last year's scores.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, but you were going to Oh, I knew it was going to hit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know what mean? I get what you're saying.
Leon Lionheartly: and There's a reason it was number two. I knew nobody was going to grab it by then, but I knew it was going to fucking hit this year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and I knew the score was going to be ridiculous. like I was kind of betting, and that's why I picked it number two. so The fact that I was able to actually get it because I wanted to grab it last year, and you got it before me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's what makes it really sweet.
neocharge: It was high on my list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I actually overbid you. i didn't... Because it was a bid, Mina, last year. So we...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I think it was.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Because I think it was... i think it was June, actually. It might have been Summer Game Fest where they had the release date announced in October.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think it was. But... ah Yeah. And I... it's It's funny. Actually, the story of my draft this year, other than the the fucking lies of early access stuff, ah three of my three of my big games were pulled right before I did.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I got them. so Because I was second pick. So my first pick was Resident Evil Requiem. And then you got to pick second before I did.
neocharge: e
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know you were third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You were third and seventh. And I was second and eighth. Yeah. I mean, the Hollower was actually my next, you got it right before I did. So then I took Halo campaign evolved. It was either that or Forza Horizon six.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I thought I, it's Halo. That's probably going to go sooner. And then Bo took Forza Horizon six right before I did the next round. And I was like, motherfucker. So, you know, i got I got shafted big time on those.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But that's okay.
neocharge: It's the card. It's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i'm I'm really happy that... Well, also, there's there's one other thing. I actually don't care. i just want the games to be good. That's what I care about. I don't give a shit.
neocharge: Of course, we all do, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I really i don't give a shit.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, good for you. Seriously, that's awesome. ah I'm really glad that we all get to play an amazing game. That's that's really all I care about.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So...
Leon Lionheartly: That's the real reward.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it really is. we all We all win, even when somebody just laughs and says, fuck you ah so the only two pickups this month were, for as short-lived as they may have been, Bob, you had picked up ah Dragon Quest XII Beyond Dreams, which we don't fucking know anything really about it because it was Flames of Fate.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: he picked up He picked up Flames of Fate, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, and then it was changed to, yeah, it just...
neocharge: And then and we got Chad.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We got fuck-ass Chad.
neocharge: it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): God, if you watch, just don't. I hate it. Anyway, and I love Dragon Quest. I'm going to get it, but that main character's got to go. Fuck-ass Chad.
neocharge: Ah, bad design.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Anyway, ah the other the other bidding war was just between Bob and Bo. for
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This one was officially announced last night, but it was a rumor before Rayman Legends retold.
neocharge: Ooh. Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And looks great.
neocharge: Damn. It looks so good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): especially if you're a Rayman fan, even if you're not, you can't deny like, Oh, that looks like a pretty good, it is a remake, right? i mean, it's, it's a full on remake.
neocharge: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um
neocharge: Oh, yeah. The last one was cel-shaded in vector 2D. So this one is like completely 3D. It looks like UE5, honestly. It looks gorgeous.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It does.
neocharge: they ah They showed one of the best levels in the game, ah like a musical level. And man, i my jaw dropped the entire time. i was like, holy shit.
neocharge: Because I am one of the few with the platinums on Rayman Legends.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: for There's a trophy in there that... like you have to do a challenge every day for six months and you have to get gold. And to get gold, you have to be I had a fucking spreadsheet and everything.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I remember when you were doing it
neocharge: I logged on for every fucking day. I had to do a challenge. Not only I had to do this challenge, you had to get gold, which you had to be in the 10% of ah the best people on the leaderboard for that day.
neocharge: And you had to do it, what, fucking 360 times? ah three hundred and sixty times ah So i was like, I'm going to get this platinum.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): sounds terrible. but
neocharge: And I was like, what have I done? So, yeah, I'm a huge fan of the Rayman Origins and Legends.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And apparently Origins Remastered Origins, the enhanced edition, comes with Legends. And it's only 40 bucks. Fuck yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's an awesome deal.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: I got that shit preordered. Yeah, it's awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's October, right? I think it's i think it's October 1st or first week of October, or something like that.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah October first
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah I, that's great. Uh, I, yeah, but another one. Great. Like it sucks as a competitor.
neocharge: Incredible pickup.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He's going to get all these points. I don't give a shit.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The game is awesome. Like bring it up.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That that's all, all I really care about.
Leon Lionheartly: yep
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So those were, what do you, what are you guys going to do if it comes out?
neocharge: The original's sitting at like a 92.
Leon Lionheartly: yep
neocharge: Yeah. Damn. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the only level that was good was the one they showed and all the other ones are just horrible frame rate issues.
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it fucking tanks.
neocharge: wow
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It will not, it will not.
neocharge: to
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's going to be, it's be good.
neocharge: right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, uh, But yeah, the only other thing that I wanted to touch on, because again, the score updates are are just misleading. Even now, I mean, we are halfway through the year, so I could give you the actual points, but there's still so many games to come out or not come out.
neocharge: e
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just still kind of, well, not anybody's game.
neocharge: even
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's between the probably three of you. that And I think Mason and I are probably fucked, and that's okay.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um Like I said, I don't give a shit.
neocharge: I just want to get podium. I always go for podium. I got podium last year. I got second. If I'm on that podium, i that's cool. I succeeded.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, you know I would have gotten podium if not for your bullshit lies with early access and fuckery. You sons of bitches.
neocharge: Well, you know I would have won last year if fucking Nintendo didn't get their head out of their asses and released the Metroid Prime trilogy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I don't.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't think that's true.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But also one of these things is not like the other.
neocharge: Do the math. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): One of these things is very different. but no ah So the current point total right now with only two release games, ah Burrito Springs in last place with 33.5 points, but two release games and 33.5 points is very, very good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it's not that's this very misleading.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then in fourth place right now is Mason with 52.53 points. or I'm sorry, that's projected fourth. Sorry. Fourth place now is Matt with 50.48 points with only four releases, but he is projected to overtake Mason because Mason, who is in third with 52.53 points, has seven games released.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So for seven games, it's it's it's kind of a rough – I mean, that that sucks overall for the average score, and he had the negative with God of War, which, you know, bummer.
neocharge: He's fucked.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But he's still he still does have eight aid games coming out, so we really don't know.
neocharge: Criminally underscored. Criminally.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He could still, there could be some surprises on there, but it's not looking good based on some of his, uh, the counter picks that he has against him.
neocharge: Yeah. It's anybody's game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Doesn't look like Judas is coming out this year. Who knows about the Duskbloods? We're going to find out what's going on there, but we'll see.
neocharge: All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um, and then in second place right now is me with five, 58.73 points released. with only five games released ah That's still not bad.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And a counter pick where I lost 10 points. so that's actually right on the cusp of still being okay, but not great. It's not great. It's, it's just okay. But killing it with eight games released is Bob with 117.44 points.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just as an example Mason has 52.53 with seven released. Bob has over double his score with one extra game released. I mean, that that's why it's like a really good, ah really good running right now.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, and most of his games that are coming out in the rest of this year, I think three of them don't have an official release date, but the rest do.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, that's correct.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that's a good sign too, unless it's Mina the Hollower that gets fucking delayed at the last minute. Oops.
neocharge: Right, right. We got one yesterday of one of your games we'll talk about.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wait,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, we will. um But yeah, so that's that's pretty much state of the draft. Aft, aft, aft, aft.
neocharge: Draft, draft, draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you want to follow along with the draft, it is on the Discord. We have a dedicated channel for it with the links. And if you had questions, if you had just wanted to know how it worked, or if you wanted to say, you fucking morons, why didn't you pick up this game?
neocharge: Yes, sir.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you know Whatever you want, go on there.
neocharge: nothing
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's on there. Do it to it. Maybe improve it.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. ah Let's rapid fire what's releasing this month on the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah. That's the other thing I wanted to touch on. Uh, I'm sorry. That's my fault. Dave, the diver in the jungle coming to, bow, uh, bows, bows draft on June 18th.
Leon Lionheartly: right.
neocharge: No worries. David Aver.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the expansion of David diver. And yeah, it looks great. That was another one. i was on the cusp. I was on the fence. I was going to do that with my, uh, Diablo. It was between Diablo and Dave, the diver. I picked Diablo four and then, uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bo picked Dave the Diver right after that. So, you know, he he got it. We both had decent games. It's fine. I think it's going to score pretty well. Dave the Diver scored really well. So that's good. Also on June 18th, we're all excited for this game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Matt, especially so because it's on his draft is the Adventures of Elliot, the Millennium Tales. And for those that don't know, well, do you guys know if the demo that they just released that goes into the full game?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is that different than the one we got last year?
neocharge: I don't know. i played the original demo and i was just like, I'm sold. i pre-ordered.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I don't need to play anymore.
neocharge: I have it pre-ordered. Yeah. Square Enix made a Zelda and I'm i'm here for it. So I don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Zelda with a red mage lead, basically.
neocharge: Exactly, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like that's That's fine. So yeah, I'm i'm excited.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Yeah, it's Final Fantasy meets Zelda. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm very excited to give it a shot. I mean, I played the demo. I loved the demo. Well, i'm not loved.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I very much liked it. A step below love.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There were a few tiny things that I thought, maybe you should clean this up. But overall, I thought it was really fun. that's And that's all that matters.
neocharge: And it's in the 2D HD engine that Square Enix has.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: that They do Octopath. They did the Dragon Quest 1, 2, and 3 remakes in. so yeah, it's gorgeous.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah,
neocharge: I'm super excited for it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah it's going to be good. Bob, are you interested in this at all? I know you like the HD 2D engine, but I don't know if this is your style of game that you would care that much about.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, absolutely. I didn't get it. I'm so sold on it. I didn't even bother with the demo ah because I saw it was a Zelda game in the HD 2D engine with a red mage as a lead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: And I was like, but you don't have to fucking sell it. Like I'm already in.
neocharge: i I was there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, okay.
neocharge: I handed you my Switch 2 and I was like, here, check this out. I think it was on the road trip to MAGFest 2025 or technically.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah, probably. Probably was. Yeah.
neocharge: And i hate I was like, check this out. And you played like five minutes. You're like, i'm sold. but
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: mr
neocharge: So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it felt pretty good to play. That was, I will say, i i was kind of on the fence about the story.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not that all the games like that need to have the best story in the world, but it wasn't until the very last bit of that first demo, I said, ooh, I like where this could go.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cool.
neocharge: that boss fight.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I mean, I liked the rest of it anyway enough, but that that was sort of the final hook of, yep, you're going buy it day one instead of waiting to see.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're going to get it. Will I play it day one?
neocharge: I think it's going to be great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Probably not.
neocharge: I think, I think, right, right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But no it'll it'll score... I mean, my guess right now is probably mid eighties. I would based on the, yeah, like between 84 and 87, something like that.
neocharge: Yep. I was thinking early to mid eighties. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Anything over 80, fine by me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If it does better, yeah if it does better, great. If it does slightly worse, still a good game, you know, 82 is still good.
neocharge: Yeah. Right. you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But excuse me. The last thing that is coming this month officially is the, I think we touched on it maybe slightly last month on one of the, one of the casts, uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): there It's official. Star Fox being remade. Star Fox 64 is being remade. The Lilat Wars. It's very exciting for those of us that played Star Fox 64, whether you think they look like the horrible furry demonic creatures.
neocharge: and Oh yeah.
neocharge: It looked bad.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the thing is, who gives a shit? the game is The original game was really fun.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My only concern about this game at all, as far as scoring is is concerned,
neocharge: Frame rate.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): is actually not even frame rate. I think the frame rate will be fine.
neocharge: That's my concern.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think people might be like, oh, it's the same game and they they didn't add enough. Like it's it's too basic. Well, some remakes that we want That's what we want. you know we We love the original so much.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do agree that it'd be nice to have maybe like a bonus bonus section, bonus area to go to, or just, hey, if it was in the chopping bi in the editing room, sure.
neocharge: There's new story beats.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I mean, as far as play playing, if if maybe there was another area to go to, I think reviewers who tend to be really hard on that stuff for some fucking reason, because their heads are up their asses.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: if Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i That's my only concern on your behalf. I don't care. I'm going to get the game. like I'm going to get it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's Star Fox. and
Leon Lionheartly: If I may, gentlemen, and this is just, this is actually one of the reasons I was like, I know Matt's going in on this, but here's the thing with Star Fox 64, and I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just trying to be realistic behind this, is go play the first Star Fox.
Leon Lionheartly: Like, people, our generations can say they love it, but objectively, it's not that great. It's very Polygon on the SNES.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You mean like, you mean Super Nintendo?
neocharge: On the SNES?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You get down to like 12 frames a second.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's rough, really rough.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah Yeah, that's not great.
Leon Lionheartly: And 64 version was great. But what really sold the N64 version of Star Fox?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Rumble Pack.
neocharge: Rumble pack.
Leon Lionheartly: Rumble is a feature that if you don't have it, people are like, why the fuck don't you have this? It's like having Bluetooth on your cell phone nowadays.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right? yeah
Leon Lionheartly: You have to have it. So my question is, what are they going to do to even bring back more than just dysknalgia?
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: And I don't think Nintendo has an answer for that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And me me too.
neocharge: The five ah five frames a second game chat.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Those character models, I'm sorry.
neocharge: ah Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: They're...
neocharge: Nightmare fuel.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it is.
Leon Lionheartly: They look like Five Nights at Freddy's animatronics. It's fucking creepy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They do. And that's that's the the the shitty part because I don't want that to detract people from giving it a shot because because of how good 64 was.
Leon Lionheartly: who yeah
neocharge: Right, it's an option. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like 64 was really fun.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But that's as far as reviewers are concerned, that's my only real...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's what I mean by referring to reviewers.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to play the fuck out of that game.
neocharge: We'll see.
Leon Lionheartly: You know I will.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, we're all going play it It's gonna be great.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: in
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And who gives a shit?
neocharge: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i mean, that's that's kind of why I sort of checked out with half the reviewers.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, Diablo 4 expansion getting a two and a half out of 10.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Go fuck yourself. i' say That's not just because I drafted it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's because I've actually played the goddamn thing. It's not a two and a half out of 10. It's also not a 10 out of 10. But a two and a half out of 10, okay.
neocharge: Yeah, that's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like, get bent. Do you know what i mean?
neocharge: brutal.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's just, fuck you. So I could see that guy. right What was the the first light review? was like six and a half. out of 10. Was that the one that PC Gamer gave it?
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the guy who, he hates James Bond.
neocharge: Yeah. It's too bright. no
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, you should definitely play a James Bond game. You should definitely tell people what you think about a James, that kind of shit makes me so sick and tired of the draft.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just fuck off.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i bought it. I voted with my wallet. I thought it was fantastic overall.
neocharge: Yep. Me too. We all finished it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, you know, yeah. But, oh, we can say it?
neocharge: And we're going to have ah spoiler cast on it. but but
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Fuck it. Yeah, why not?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: oh dude, if we did that, we'd be so pissed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm interested.
neocharge: but not No, we're not doing the spoiler cast now, and Bo is going to be on the spoiler cast, but look forward to a 007 five-hour First Light spoiler cast with ah us and Bo Rito Supreme.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah very Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right now. Five hours.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Actually, we should shoot we should shoot for seven hours.
neocharge: Yeah, that's true.
Leon Lionheartly: yes game awards
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We're not doing that. I'm i'm not doing that. I'm not.
neocharge: Dude, what's what's our longest one? We had to break it up into two parts. The Game Awards one, I think it was what?
Leon Lionheartly: yes game awards
neocharge: Five and and hours and 45 minutes or something like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was longer than the Claire spoiler cast.
neocharge: I think it was like... Oh yeah. Yeah, we had to break it up. zenka We broke Zencaster.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just couldn't remember if that was just because of the video situation, but anyway.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So any any other draft things you guys want to talk about or ask about?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We did get release dates for stuff yesterday, but they're not in this next month.
neocharge: No, I think...
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: dude it's We did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I figured we would just touch on those later.
neocharge: Right. yeah well Yeah, we'll go over those when we go over the state of play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): when When they're relevant, right?
neocharge: But yeah. oh Exactly. Yeah. We're going to do some manual scoring, I'd say, what, before the next state of the draft, and then we'll have an idea of things.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah I mean, not to be that guy, but you said that last time and it's still not done.
neocharge: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, mighty draft.
neocharge: Give me a fucking...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We did.
neocharge: Look, hey.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How dare you?
neocharge: we No, not everyone...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, Bob, Bob, what score was Slay the Spire 2 supposed to get when we last spoke? And it all agreed to it on the text chat.
neocharge: and dont Not everyone agreed.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Everyone has to agree.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): are you fucking talking about? Who disagreed?
neocharge: Everyone has to agree.
Leon Lionheartly: Who?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Who didn't agree?
neocharge: What? Who? Who? Yeah,
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, wait, we can't do that anymore. He returned.
neocharge: yeah that's true.
Leon Lionheartly: um No, I think we said it was, what, eight and a half?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, he can't agree if he's not on the fucking chat. That's not his fault.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: Look, hey, I'll send a text and I'll get it in stone with everyone. We got to like manually score Yotei legends. We got to manually score a couple other ones.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's true.
neocharge: Yeah, so... We'll get it all in one fell swoop and we'll ah report back the the first episode of July.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't believe you.
neocharge: You'll be on it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But luckily for you, I also don't care.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So still I don't give a shit. All right.
neocharge: But yeah, the dude, this year has been incredible for games and we're ah we're only halfway through it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And man, we have a stacked second half of ah games that we...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We really do. It's fun. We all bitched about April, but in a good way, it's like a good problem to have that April was just insane.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Have you seen September, everybody? September, October is just nuts again.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So April 2.0, April 2026 2.0.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. I remember last year, September was stacked too, because we had an entire episode on it and we called it wake me up when September ends.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah yeah
neocharge: Yeah. So september i think September, October, I think they're both going to be stacked. And I think it's the same exact reason of last year. Everyone is trying to get ahead of Grand Theft Auto 6 because it is inevitably releasing probably mid-November.
neocharge: God, I hope. I hope to God that the review, the the ah embargo or the cutoff date for nominees for the Game Awards is like i don't know, November 14th or something, and GTA releases November 15th?
neocharge: I hope to God!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: i will probably go to the Game Awards if GTA isn't nominated. so Because we all know it's just going to sweep. Because, whatever.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because people are fucks.
neocharge: So.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, I'm sorry, but i I, I mean, it could be the greatest thing ever.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe we'll see, but I, I don't think it will be based on merit.
neocharge: It could? It could?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think it will be based on the name and that's where I get frustrated.
neocharge: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): no
neocharge: And the clout and everything like that and not necessarily...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do think, i do think not not for the draft, like I think this would be terrible for the draft, but I do think on a personal note, it would be really funny because all these games were like, oh, you know, early August, late August, early September, late September, early October.
neocharge: We'll see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If GTA was just like September fourteenth Just fucking right in the middle of all that shit.
neocharge: yeah That would be funny.
Leon Lionheartly: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): every Like tomorrow or on Friday, if they announced it, that they would just, I would laugh so hard because I don't give a shit.
Leon Lionheartly: written
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I wouldn't affect my gaming at all, except that all these other, these developers would probably be like, oh, panic.
neocharge: right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And they delay and move their dates. And that would make me mad.
Leon Lionheartly: Can we talk about, like, there's a real possibility.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Like, could you imagine them coming out Friday and be like, sorry, we delayed the game three times. Here, as a special bonus to you. yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I mean, it would be hilarious.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Mass panic. Mass panic across the industry.
Leon Lionheartly: so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like the first thing that I would do if that happened would just go to Devolver Digital's Twitter page to see what they say, because they always have the most perfect thing to say.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: That'd
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They'd probably release something.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like if if GTA said September 14th, they'd probably be like, hey, this game comes out September 13th. They would just try to do it just to like troll the troll.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Did you see, a was that in the text group?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and
neocharge: be amazing.
Leon Lionheartly: Did you see them on Twitter?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hilarious. This is hilarious.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's great.
neocharge: Amazing. Yeah. But ah yeah, no, um,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah.
neocharge: Nothing else with the the draft. I think we're good. And thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: We love having you on and ah doing the state of the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Congrats on a good month again, Bob. I mean, you too, Matt, but but Bob's Mina, that was excellent.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Excellent score.
neocharge: mean, a hit.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We all thought it would, but damn.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Yep. And congrats to Bo with that incredible pickup. I was i was hesitant because, i mean, Bob and I talked about it and it was like, is it going to be a port? Like, they're they're they're not going to remake a PS4 game. Well, they fucking remade a PS4 game. So, and just gorgeously. So, I thought it was going to be a port. I thought about it.
neocharge: But, man, that, I think he's going to get 20 plus on that one.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just really mad it's not The Last of Us Part 1 remade.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just i really We need one.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): we need another We need a remake of The Last of Us Part 1.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: The Last of Us Part 2, Part 3.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's been about three months since the last...
neocharge: Yeah, we're or're due for a Last of Us remake.
Leon Lionheartly: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's been forever.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Forever.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Now, the Rayman thing that really grinds my gears about the Rayman is because I knew it and I knew Bo was going to bet.
neocharge: Forever.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: So I said, you know what?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going bet go like kind of low because I think it was like $4 or $5 or something. And he goes in $10. The idea was to get him to bid big and kill the draft money. And I was like, when the rumors hit, I'm like, okay, it's cool.
Leon Lionheartly: But it's Ubisoft. I know it's Rayman. But at the end of the day, you know it's not going to be like the world on fire. And then we'll get into it here in a minute. I saw it in the state of the draft, and I fucking wanted to flip the table.
neocharge: I blew all my bid money.
Leon Lionheartly: At the state of play? I was like, yeah.
neocharge: I already blew all my bid money. Almost all my bid money. i have like 25% left, but I blew it all on, ah I think, Castlevania, Ocarina Time, Remake, and Star Fox.
neocharge: So hopefully hopefully I get a good return on those.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: But yeah, I'm not sitting too well on my fake bid money. It's all fake, everyone. Calm down.
Leon Lionheartly: Wait, you're using fake money?
neocharge: It's fake money.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): real.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I did. I actually did. I did want to say one other thing. I'm sorry. ah Bo got a little unlucky during the state of the play or state of play yesterday.
neocharge: What's up?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Tomb Raider got delayed to next year.
neocharge: Ah, yes. Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah to Well, not delayed. They'd never officially announced that a date.
neocharge: They did officially announce 2026.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They just they said the year.
neocharge: They officially announced a year, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, but it's coming out in February of 2027 now. to To be fair, it looks great.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We're probably going to about it in a minute. But because it got delayed, we we' were allowed, what, three?
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Three super drops?
neocharge: Super drops.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or two, three.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. So he he had to he had to punt that guy away.
neocharge: Three. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's still on there because it can't go through until Saturday. But I bet he was probably bummed about that, even though Tomb Raider looks awesome.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm very excited for Legacy of Atlantis myself.
neocharge: okay
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So whatever.
neocharge: Me too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i was only glad. I really wasn't glad for the draft. I mean, obviously... you know, don't want all the points, but I was glad because I thought, when the fuck am I going to play it If it comes out in September, I thought for sure it was going to be another September release. Uh, so I was kind of glad that they just said, Nope, we're going to go to, we're going to be first for next year. We'll be early in the year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It'll be a nice February game. I think so. Uh, but that was the only other thing, uh, yeah, as far as draft concern.
neocharge: yeah I will.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So moving on.
neocharge: Yeah. Let's get into it. State of play. PlayStation. They did another state of play. Yesterday, 3 p.m.
neocharge: MST and all the other times. EST, 5 p.m. It was for you. EST and all the other time slots.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: ah But we knew this was going to be a good one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: um I mean, they did they did have it in theaters, but then come to think of it, it was all in Alamo draft houses and playstation or sony owns alamo draft house they're like yeah well fuck it might as well put it in there uh we got a what 70 minute event what was it like yeah 70 minute event uh and we knew it was going to kick off with wolverine but we got some surprises along the way and we're going to talk all about it because playstation is near and dear to all of our hearts We have a lot of PlayStation fans on here, and they just had their event.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Something like that. It was about 70 minutes.
Leon Lionheartly: something like Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: So let's get into it. We kicked off with Wolverine.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Oh, my God.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We did
neocharge: Amazing. All gameplay. All bloody gameplay, mind you. And i this game, this is actually my first draft pick because it's Insomniac.
neocharge: it's ah It's going to be PlayStation's tentpole game. a fall game. They have two one to two tentpole games a year, and this is going to be their tentpole game from one of their major studios, Insomniac.
neocharge: ah Insomniac's famous for Ratchet & Clank, most recently Spider-Man, and they know how to do the superhero ah games, and We are getting Wolverine. This game has been ah cooking for a while. It was in a little bit of ah trouble and they switched creative directors and everything like that. But man, we got about 10 minutes, maybe seven to 10 minutes of pure gameplay. Just highlight reels of combat, traversal and set pieces. And boy, oh boy, we were just cheering the entire fucking time. Bob.
neocharge: What'd you think of this this Wolverine showcase?
Leon Lionheartly: um this so This specific trailer, this is what I was waiting for on whether this game was a sale for me.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um Simply because Wolverine belongs in the camp.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and And hear me out on this, folks. Belongs in a camp of superheroes. When you do them in a video game, you have to nail it and you have to do it in the right way. Him...
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Superman, anybody that's invulnerable, unkillable, Deadpool, you have to know how to nail it.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: and Because if not, you're just a literally unkillable creature and there's no fail state, right? um
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Here, it looks like they got it right. I am really excited for this.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: You regen your health real time. You see the battle damage kind of healing over on your on your skin.
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's very violent, very gritty. um You could tell he's like, there's that part in there. He's like, ah the kid's like, are you a superhero? And he's like, or an X-Men?
Leon Lionheartly: He's like, no, I'm Wolverine.
neocharge: Wolverine.
Leon Lionheartly: Please, this is what I needed to see. Gameplay, because I also needed to see how the hell you were going to do this with Wolverine. And it looks like Insomniac, surprise, they nailed it.
Leon Lionheartly: But there's still that in the back of my head, man.
neocharge: Yep. ah They nailed it just like I thought they would. They nailed Spider-Man. they're They're an incredible developer. First party PlayStation. And yeah, I was wondering. I i had faith. i didn't I wasn't on the fence. I was like, oh yeah, this game. We actually bet a six pack. So this game is coming out, Bob.
neocharge: It is coming out.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, it is.
neocharge: And you're already you already bought the six pack, so we're square there. But ah yeah, I've been excited about this game since it was even announced. And since the teaser trailer, like what, four years ago, ah they showed ah him in a flannel at the bar. And I actually like called it really early. i was like, oh, that's fucking Logan.
neocharge: we and That's Wolverine.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: And then his claws come out in in the teaser trailer, and I was like, fuck yeah. So we were all super excited ah for this game. ah Caleb, you're a huge Marvel fan, huge Wolverine fan.
neocharge: You're over the moon with this game. Sold day one. What did you think of the showcase we saw?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I actually, i I mean, I'm excited as hell because Wolverine, you know, I, that's, that's an easy, easy win for me, no matter what.
neocharge: Exactly. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will say there were a few parts of this that bothered me. I think I touched on it a little bit before in the original, ah when we finally got to see the first real look at Wolverine last year, I really like the lead guy as an actor.
neocharge: Wow,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think he's a great actor.
neocharge: yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm still not sold on him voicing Wolverine. There were some parts, some dialogue, and I think I think i might be too close to it as one of my absolute favorite favorite Marvel characters ever.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And knowing how how good of a job Steve Bloom did when he voiced him in Midnight Suns and a couple other places, the guy who does it on X-Men 97, I just, I don't know.
neocharge: wow yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't feel like he's enough Logan. And that's, I'll be fine. The game's still gonna be awesome. i don't I don't want to put that anybody's head in a negative way. But that's me being and exceptionally critical The other problem that I have is that they fucking spoiled the fact that Jean Grey was in it.
neocharge: you know
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would have loved them to just not tell me, even if they left it. you know i mean it's i'm I'm not spoiling for people. It's so it's on the in the gameplay, so it's marketing, yeah.
neocharge: It's marketing. It's marketing at this point. So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But when they even hinted towards the redhead, when he finds the red hair and he's smelling, doing his mutant, you as Wolverine has a really strong sense of smell. He can sniff things out, and he's a ah, redhead. you know He just says that. And that's all they needed to do.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just plant that little seed and let me experience this later because also I'd be wondering, is it Mystique? Is it Jean Grey? Is it Madeline Pryor? is it like There could have been so many options that they could have gone with But then, you know, 20 seconds later, she just fucking floats. and It's like, oh, hey, Gene, which is cool as a fan.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I'm also thinking, don't blow your load, man.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's i don't know.
neocharge: Insomniac does that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They do. And it drives me crazy because obviously people like my wife, she's not she doesn't dislike Marvel. She doesn't care about it like I do. That's fair.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She's not if she was watching this trailer. I feel like that is not going to make her say, Ooh, I need this. Now that Jean Grey's in it. So the game's not called Jean Grey.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The game is called Wolverine. So just, I don't know. That's again, that's me being incredibly picky. Uh, I love the visceral bloody nature of it's Wolverine.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's, that's very cool.
neocharge: This is what we need.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, I do think there were there were some other small things, and I do think part of it is because I was spoiled with First Light being incredibly cinematic. And ah what's the other game recently that's that's been very good on that front?
neocharge: Pragmatism.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah, Pragmata, thank you. Where I thought some of the action sequences, while very fun-looking to play, I don't want to use the word jank. That's not fair.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just thought, this doesn't look quite... finished I realize it's not quite finished yet, but I don't know. I was i was i was hopeful that it would just sing 11 out of 10.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it was still, i it was more like an 8.5 to 9 out of 10 for me. It was still very good. And I'm still very excited. I don't want to make that sound like I'm i'm mad about it, but boy, i did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I sat here and I thought, am I just in a grumpy ass mood or is this not quite like the way Logan runs when he would run?
neocharge: Was it after the dip debacle?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, the dip debacle was about a week and change ago. This was actually, I'll be honest with you.
neocharge: Oh, okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yesterday was ah was a pretty solid day. My parents, before they left, they they took Lisa and me out for lunch.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Lisa met us from her from her office. She snuck away for lunch and got along.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It wasn't like my parents and I argued anything. Rest of the day, i got to finish... Was it just yesterday that I finished James Bond? I think I platinumed it. It might have been yesterday. Because I finally had time to play again.
neocharge: Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I was ready for the state of play.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I really, really enjoyed it. I don't i don't i really don't want to make it sound like I didn't.
neocharge: Yeah. Why do you hate Wolverine?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know, right? it It makes me sound like I do not love him.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think i i am disappointed that there's not a collector's edition. At least not one announced.
neocharge: Right. Yeah, that was weird.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I thought that's fucking weird. And I was ready to get a big ass Wolverine statue with claws coming out. I would pay a stupid amount for that to be like the Venom and Spider-Man 2 one.
neocharge: Right, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's really cool. but
neocharge: 19 inches of venom.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but But yeah, i again, I don't want to make it sound like I wasn't happy. I was very happy. I just thought, i think I've seen so many very polished games recently that I'm going wait for that one to come out before I really judge it.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i know I'm on board. I know I'm going to get it. doesn't really matter. It's going fun to play. but they also That was another thing in the when they fucking talked about you're also going to see people like Mystique and Sabretooth and they showed Leech and I'm just thinking, shut the fuck up!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't want to know all the things!
Leon Lionheartly: Wee hee hee hee
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that That really was more of a marketing problem I had though than the trailer itself, like like the gameplay trailer itself.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was cool to see it in action finally and and know it's going to be fun. i am
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Some of those stunts when he throws the guy off the roof or whatever the hell that is.
neocharge: And then, like, jumps into him.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm thinking, yeah he does this Wolverine claw dive. I didn't expect that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I thought he was just going to throw him and I would still be like, well, that's brutal. Logan's brutal. But then we got that extra little fuck you in the air. And I was like, okay, yes, this is Wolverine.
Leon Lionheartly: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So they did understand that part of the assignment.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They did.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just, I'm really hoping for Liam, the voice actor to, to really prove me wrong and and be Wolverine instead of being himself reading lines that Wolverine would say.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's That's the thing I'm afraid of. And that's, again, super critical.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I understand that. and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not just gushing over a thousand percent like I should be.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I'm still up there.
neocharge: Hey, no worries.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm still up there.
neocharge: We're having the conversation about it. That's what it's all about.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's true.
neocharge: ah I'm excited for it, and I'm probably going to stay dark ah going forward from this point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I've seen enough pre-ordered.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Day one! So, ready to go.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Say what? Yeah, that's good.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. Uh, so staying with Marvel, Caleb, I know you're excited for this announcement.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): oh Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Personally, I'm not. ah know It looks cool. The animations look cool. But ah Marvel Toe Con Fighting Souls showed four new characters. And this is in the faction of the Knights of Doom.
neocharge: We got Dr.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, man.
neocharge: Doom himself. We got Magneto, which is awesome. We got Green Goblin, Spider-Man villain.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh.
neocharge: And ah one of the coolest ah Spider-Man characters, Carnage. So, they showed all these characters. Man, I gotta say, I'll let you take it away because I know you're super excited, but the animation in this game is top tier, dude.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes.
neocharge: What I saw was awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's I mean, you could try it at my house sometime.
neocharge: I'm not going to play it, but what'd you think?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): if like you know You don't have to pay for it.
neocharge: Yeah, I will.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just come play it to see, oh this is cool. Not for you.
neocharge: I will before we go to MagFest.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i It's not a Matt game. It's absolutely not a Matt game. I get that.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But ah I will say the biggest surprise for me, because I had a feeling they were going announce another team, because they've been doing it every couple of weeks, every month or so, which is great.
neocharge: Mm-mm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): a lot of the A lot of the characters, as they're announced, I get very excited for at least one or two. I mean, it's hard. We knew that Dr. Doom was in this game from the get go. And I thought who are going to be the doom villains? Who's, who's going to be with him? That's, that's a good question.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Magneto is a bit of a surprise because Magneto is not always a straight up villain.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, he's a cool character.
neocharge: Anti-hero. More like anti-hero.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So as far as, as far as the game is concerned, like, fuck yeah, absolutely. Magneto looks great. Green goblin, uh, Also a good the Spider-Man's in the game. So having Green Goblin in the game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Cool. Very cool. I like what visually what I saw with him. I like the style.
neocharge: Oh, his character model looks so cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's very unique, but you knew immediately who it was. That was great. Right.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will admit the biggest surprise that actually made me yell. Shut the fuck up was when Carnage. I did not expect Carnage to be in this game at all.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like even Even as a character in in battle passes or or yearly passes, whatever they decide to do, am so happy that Carnage not only is in the game, it's very cool game, especially also after seeing Green Goblin, I thought, okay, they got a Spider-Man guy.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nope, they got another one. It's Carnage.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But he looks amazing. He looks like the Carnage that he deserves to be and not just to...
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): toned down, I guess. He he looked violent as all shit and just angry and the beautiful deep reds in the art style when they were when they were showing it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was i was pretty pretty chuffed about that, I would say. ah i I'm so excited for this game. I cannot wait for all the really, really talented Koreans to kick the shit out of me online. I don't even care. I'm going to play it. I'm going to lose, but I'm going to love every second of it because it just looks high octane, fast paced.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not that good at fighting games. i'm I'm slightly above average. I've gotten the platinum in Mortal Kombat 11. I got the platinum in Street Fighter 6, but I'm not like a master rank diamond rank, whatever the hell they're called.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. I'm just persistent enough and good enough to get there, but I don't care. this game is, I'm all over this shit. I, I think, I think Bo's going to be playing it too.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob, Bob, do you really care that much about fighting games like this or, or not?
Leon Lionheartly: um I do. I just know my skill level. um Fighting games for me have always been ah take a massive bong hit and beat the ever-living shit out of all of my friends on a local fighting.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah like You put me in a bloody roar match, I guarantee you I'm beating everybody in our chat group.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: 100%, 10 times out of
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and
neocharge: Who's your main? Who's your main?
Leon Lionheartly: No, I always had dependent on the game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah So, um but in Primal Fury, I always played as, then and I don't remember the character names, but I always played as either the wolf um or i played as the bad guy that was the praying mantis.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, me too. Leon, I think, is name.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I think it is, or the bad bad guy that was a praying mantis because you could dance around people really.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: His skill set was pretty bad.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, you could.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What was the, do you remember, it was it a velociraptor, the reddish skinny dinosaur looking thing? I think it was a raptor.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, yes, I remember that one, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that was, that was my guy. I don't remember his name at all, but I wasn't very good at it either. i mean, I just wasn't, but I am.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But...
neocharge: My fighting games were Soul Calibur and Smash Brothers.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Soul, soul.
neocharge: Soul Calibur 2, specifically. Yeah, and Smash Brothers, but I'm not big.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Dreamcast, baby.
Leon Lionheartly: Gee, I wonder why. I ah
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah. Link.
neocharge: Link!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: He was my main, and Keylink.
Leon Lionheartly: martin
Leon Lionheartly: should have guessed you would have done that. Yeah, surprise. right
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sung Mina.
Leon Lionheartly: But no, this...
neocharge: Come at me, bro.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry. I was Sung Mina and Taki.
neocharge: What? Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: aye Yeah, I always played as Nightmare and Soul Calibur anyway, so.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Mmm.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The first two, Soul Edge and Soul Calibur 1 on the Dreamcast. It was Siegfried and then Nightmare.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Siegfried was my guy and then I'm going to spoil the game.
Leon Lionheartly: And then Nightmare.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): He turns into Nightmare at the end of Soul Edge and I was pissed because I was like, no, you were supposed to be the knight who was good.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Sung Mina and Siegfried were the beginning
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and Sung Mina was in every game that she was in, I was like, yep, that's my girl. She's so awesome.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, so anyway, you were saying, Bob, I'm sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: and No, you're good. ah i was I've been on the fence on this until I saw Carnage. i think i'm going to I think I'm going to have to get this at some point, even if I don't play online.
neocharge: Ah! Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: ah even i'll play with you I'll play with you, Caleb.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Gotcha.
Leon Lionheartly: like ah We'll do something. i saw that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, we'll beat the shit out of each other.
Leon Lionheartly: and ah Yeah, fuck it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sounds good.
Leon Lionheartly: I saw Carnage and i was like, i was huge i was a Venom main in Marvel vs. Capcom.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay,
Leon Lionheartly: So I saw it and then I saw his animation and I saw his moveset and I'm like, yeah it's just Venom with extra steps. Like we know Carnage is. Let's do this. Let's go. um And finally, the more I see, the more I'm like, I'm so fucking glad I got this in the draft.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah, it's ah it's a great pickup, or a great draft.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's going to be...
neocharge: Oh, it's going to hit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, arc Arc System Works, those guys are fucking... They're just so good. It is them, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Am I just making that up?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it is ArcSyscore.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): pretty much just Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, it is
Leon Lionheartly: it's It's basically a first-party game without being first-party.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. ah Very heavily. ah promoted and advertised by PlayStation. um i but It's not first party, but it's it's exclusive to PS5.
neocharge: So, yeah, it's going to incredible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't think I knew that. i i did not I didn't think it was exclusive, so I believe you.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Fact check me. I'm pretty sure it's exclusive. Tocon? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's exclusive PS5 because we've seen it as State of Play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: They've been all over the coverage for it. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: As far as I understand it, it's PlayStation um only, but yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Match made in heaven.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I love a lot of the lot of the selections of the characters in it, even before now. I i was sold because I'm sold. The game looked good. But then when they showed, obviously Wolverine was in, was like, yep, that's happening.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then they they fulfilled my other wish, which was magic. I've always been a huge magic fan.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I love magic so much.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When she was brought into this game, I thought, are you fucking kidding me? I'm getting my dream? if they had Gambit Nightcrawler in here from the X-Men, who boy, I would not be able to handle myself, but, but I, I love all the selections so far.
neocharge: Ooh, gait Gambit. Gambit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like they've done a really good job of sort of having different styles in for everybody. And, making everybody happy. Even I'm sure people are kind of sick of Spider-Man being in every single Marvel game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know that that's, even though people love Spider-Man, but people were were starting to get a little sick of him everywhere else in this game.
neocharge: the best.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't care. He looks great. And now he's got carnage and goblin green goblin to deal with. So that's, that's, that's cool.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: so So I'll tell you, Matt, as ah as a fact check for you. This is why you don't trust AI, folks.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It hallucinated. If you use the AI overview, it says Marvel Token Fighting Souls is coming to PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: How vague. but if you go to best but if you But if you go to Best Buy's website, I don't see any Xbox.
neocharge: PC. Okay, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: v It's all PlayStation.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: So I'd have to go back and double check on Steam. But I'm pretty sure this is a essentially a first party game.
neocharge: mike Yeah, it might be one of their, ah well, it's not first party, but I mean, I know they got out of the game of releasing on PC, but it's not first party. So it does definitely seem like first party.
neocharge: And I love how they have been releasing these announcements and you know drip feeding all these characters. And the next team ah before release will probably get it. Maybe one more state of play, maybe in September something, is a Ghost Riders team.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i would it could It comes out in August, so I think we're going to see the last team.
neocharge: Oh, or July.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i think the last team will be July.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I am wrong, gentlemen.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It is available on Steam as well.
neocharge: Okay. All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's cool.
neocharge: So it is PC. Okay, cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
neocharge: All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): more More players.
neocharge: Just not Xbox.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): More player base, honestly.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: but just not That's the distinction, not just just not Xbox, so you can't get the Game Pass money off of it.
neocharge: More players.
neocharge: Right. Yep. So. This looks cool. It's not my type of game. not my I'm not going to get it, but i I would love to watch because the animations are gorgeous and everything I've seen. Love the characters in it. I'm huge Marvel fan. so ah It intrigues me, but it's definitely not my type of game.
neocharge: and it In August, man, I'm all over Beast Reincarnation. so yeah because This release is pretty close to it, doesn't it?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember the date off top my head, but I think they're within a couple days.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What is it?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): going to find out right now.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah. Beast of Reincarnation is August 4th. Marvel took on Fighting Souls is August 6th. So it's just right.
neocharge: da
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Right. out Right after that. And then Wolverine's September 15th.
neocharge: Oh, I'm going to be...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I'm.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. And that's all in September, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep. It's the only game in September, not Phantom Blade Zero, not Onimusha.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): not
neocharge: Not Phantom Blade Zero. Phantom Blade Zero got pushed back, and we're going talk about it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): heard no
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Did it officially get a date? A pushback date?
neocharge: Yeah, October 29th.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay, okay. Control Resonant was the other one that i couldn't
neocharge: Yep. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, this looks awesome. its The next announcement, super excited for. We were talking about it a little bit in the beginning of the cast. ah I'm a huge fan of the Rayman series. I played a lot on the 64. And then they recently, like UBR recently, well, not recently, but I don't know, five years ago, five-ish, six-ish years ago, released Rayman 2D, like in a vector art style, cel-shaded, and then
neocharge: They did a sequel to Origins Legends and we're getting a from the ground remake from the ground up remake. It looks like Rayman Legends Retold, not in the cell shaded 2D vector art style anymore, but pretty much 3D. I mean,
neocharge: From what we've seen, it looks incredible. So everything I saw in this trailer, I was like, yep, I'm buying that. To my surprise, I go on Best Buy. It's $40, and you get the enhanced version of Rayman Origins as well.
neocharge: So holy shit, this game looks amazing. I'm there. Day one, October 1st, 2026. Are you fellas excited for this game as much as I am?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Not as much as you, but excited.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes. not
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. but No, really. I like Rayman. It's not my favorite thing in the world.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so but But I do think it's good.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This looks good. What about you, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: ah This is a purchase. I'm not happy about the the release window. like yeah It's getting a little rough.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It could be worse. So I will say that much. But this is a purchase because I've got a boy here. the Brain Man Legends is notoriously... Two things. One, it's notoriously fucking difficult.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: if you if you but If you know you're ah playing the OG, it is difficult. So I've got a son here. I think he's going to really love it. he all He thinks he's a good gamer. So I'm going to really put his chops up under his first test um and say, hey, you're going to help me because this is a co-op platformer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Amen.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: um And secondly, I didn't add it. I will say I'm here excited for this. And I've been getting more excited because certain snippets are being revealed generated. leaked or somehow and some of the levels rayman legends is very rhythm based with its music in its levels and some of the music has kind of been leaking out i haven't put it not putting it in the this i don't want to spoil anything so i haven't put into the chat
neocharge: It's a remake. So if you play the original, it's it's the same shit. I've watched all of it, and it's it's all from the original.
Leon Lionheartly: oh ah oh oh is uh i don't remember you would have to confirm something for me then
neocharge: Okay. We don't have to do it now, but... What?
Leon Lionheartly: I can right now if you want.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, go for it.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. ah So they've revealed can't touch us is is one the beats for one of the levels.
neocharge: Oh, that's new.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wait, like MC or no shit.
Leon Lionheartly: MC Hammer. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that I did not see that.
neocharge: What? Yeah, i missed that one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's pretty cool.
neocharge: Huh.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh. Yeah.
neocharge: That's exciting. New shit. Love that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I guess that is retold.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hammer time.
neocharge: That's true. Yeah. But like they have levels revolving around like the entirety of a music-based rhythm platforming.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So when you hear the the beat of the drum, you jump. And it's it's awesome. Mario did this ah in Wonder. And Rayman did it first. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. So I'm here.
neocharge: I love it.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to play. I'm going to play with the kiddo, dude.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'll play with you online if they have that that online feature.
neocharge: Yeah. Oh yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: feature it Yeah.
neocharge: True. I wonder if, I wonder if they'll do out the challenges and I wonder if they'll do a trophy again.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You'll have to do it again.
neocharge: I can't do it.
Leon Lionheartly: i
neocharge: I can't do it again, but I will.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you Here's my hope.
Leon Lionheartly: He's got PTSD.
neocharge: I will.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My hope for for both of you guys is that everybody gets parachute pants for the can't touch this level.
neocharge: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just i'd be fine with I'd be happy with that.
neocharge: That'd be amazing. I can't touch this.
Leon Lionheartly: uh
neocharge: Yeah, ah very excited for this one. I'd say I'm a big Mega Man, or not Mega Man, big Rayman fan. Not a huge Rayman fan, but I really like like the 64 games. And I didn't get the collection just because, I mean, when, right? It came out at a very crowded time. ah But this hits, ah it does hit October 1st after the slew of September games we got. and But I think, yeah, it's pretty close to...
neocharge: a game we'll talk about. ah Yeah, who knows? I'm very excited for it. so This next one, what?
Leon Lionheartly: ah you'll You'll see in the chat for later.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, he links.
Leon Lionheartly: i found ive but i found the link for you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So they can't touch this.
neocharge: Oh, excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I just gave it a little watch.
neocharge: Okay, I'm going to check it out. Excellent. I'm going to check this out because I don't remember it not being in the original. ah But this next one, we were pretty all confused, but it's called Bunched
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh.
neocharge: Boncho the Chef. ah It's a spinoff cel-shaded adventure game based off of Dave the Diver's Chef.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a prequel.
neocharge: data Yeah, okay. Yeah, prequel. Yeah, because he's older in Dave the Diver. Did either of you guys play Dave the Diver?
Leon Lionheartly: Nope. nope
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did not. i It was one of those. i wanted to, came out.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was like, yes, I'll get this.
neocharge: Me too. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I just never got around to it. I hear it's fantastic.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just didn't.
neocharge: Yep. I've seen a lot of it played ah and I've always wanted to play it and it's it's gorgeous pixel art, but never got into it. So I saw this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You should pick it up August 4th.
neocharge: it's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just get it August 4th and just play it.
neocharge: Yep. September. yeah I'll get a September for sure. ah Yeah, so this looks cool. It's called Boncho the Chef. And Dave the Diver prequel game tells the story of how Boncho, the intense chef from Dave the Diver, learned his craft.
neocharge: So if you're a fan of Dave the Diver, you're getting some backstory on an odd old Boncho.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Our old friend Boncho, the chef that makes all the sushi of the fish you catch. So that's cool. ah Yeah, the next one, I don't remember this one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm so... you You would remember, it's the the every the woman that everybody loves ah came out to introduce it.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the Nakamura. I can't remember her first name.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But...
neocharge: Ikumi.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Ikumi Nakamura, yeah. she
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah I was so curious what you guys thought about this. We didn't talk about it at all before. Well, we didn't. You guys may have because you watched this data play together. But go ahead and introduce it.
neocharge: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I cannot wait to hear what you thought of this game.
neocharge: Yeah. What genre was it? It's a Hunt.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's part of it's part of the fun.
Leon Lionheartly: That's...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What genre is it indeed?
neocharge: Right. Yeah, it because it looks like an arena shooter, like MOBA-ish. I don't know, but...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, it's like up to three-player co-op doing yokai hunting shit.
neocharge: Yeah, nah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't...
neocharge: That sounds cool. I played Nioh. I'm good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It sounds cool, but it also... Well, continue. Say what it's called. We'll we'll we'll go to it in a second.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. i It is called Kumari Hunt of the and so Hunt the Unseen, which comes from the evil within artist Akumi Nakamura. It's heading to PlayStation 5 in 2027. We got a year and the first gameplay is basically just ah characters zipping around the city and battling paranormal creatures.
neocharge: So I was pretty, i I remember this one. I was pretty checked out on it. I was like, eh, not my style.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I thought it was break in or break out or whatever the fuck they're going to call it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. yeah
neocharge: Fair games. So I was pretty checked out on this. ah Not for me. What'd you guys think? Looks, I like the concept.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What about you, Bob? but What did you think of Kebity? Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah got feeling you go you want me to go I had a feeling you want me to go first there, Caleb. You got something to say.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: I can hear it in your head.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do.
Leon Lionheartly: ah it's it's that It's that thought just kind of like bouncing around.
neocharge: I can,
Leon Lionheartly: Ding, ding, ding. ah
neocharge: I can see it in your head.
Leon Lionheartly: now I gotta see more on this. It's got a very unique art. It shows me cool things I like. um You got a unique art style. You got some good music. the You got an action-oriented gameplay. um It's like everything's kind of there, but...
Leon Lionheartly: there's that little multiplayer string that's kind of dangling. And I'm like, okay, you can do single player, but is this a multiplayer game that has single player optionality?
Leon Lionheartly: um And you know how you know how that is. If you build a game, that's kind of meant to play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: as but Borderlands is a good example of that. It's meant to be played with other people versus by yourself, right? If that's the case, I'm a little sad. But up until then, I'm like, i'm I may play this if it hits a sale.
neocharge: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's I very, very much like you. That was this kind of my original thought. i and And like Matt, I was a little checked out. I really like her. i think she's a lot of fun. i think she's a great character when she's on screen and she's happy and upbeat and everything. i My biggest problem with this game, weirdly, was not the multiplayer. It was the confusion as to what am I supposed to even do? It seemed like The visuals were outstanding as a still art form.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You take a screenshot, you take a a screen grab of that game.
neocharge: Oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, wow. Look at this is packed full of just cool shit. But when it was in motion, it was a fucking mess for me. mine and My eyes didn't know where to look. I didn't know what the game was really. I mean, they did the Fox view thing. That was a cool idea. But again, I need more than just a neat idea that doesn't really say anything to me. It's it's weird because I do get upset when games show too much. I very clearly talked about that with Wolverine earlier.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But there is a thing is not telling me anything about the game. If it's a new IP and it's a new style, I need to know why do you why am I playing it? What is the point of this game? And it's oh, you're hunting yokai.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay, but is it hunting yokai ninja Gaiden style, Neo style? Is it hunting yokai and rhythm format? is No, this is ah somebody spilled a shitload of colorful ink and just drew a bunch of flashy nonsense. I might be way too harsh on it because I i really like the art, again, in still form, but in in movement, I just thought it was ah like too much. It was sensory overload.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i I did not...
neocharge: It's pretty spastic.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it was very spastic. And that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It could be great. Maybe they just didn't clip together the best stuff to sell it to me. But then, of course, when they added the multiplayer aspect, I thought, okay, maybe that's cool.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But but why, though, was very much what when I saw this game. And I felt kind of bad because I could tell a lot of work went into it. and And there is some cool stuff there.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But it it seems like it's less than the sum of its parts instead of greater than sum of its parts. That's kind of my issue with Kemody.
neocharge: Right. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But You know, time will tell.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's ah They don't have a release date, just a release year. So maybe we'll see it again in the future. Game Awards.
neocharge: Probably.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe they'll have like a gameplay trailer or even a demo.
neocharge: Yeah. We'll close the show with it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Now it'll be the biggest announcement and they're going to change the name.
neocharge: Welcome to Ken Murray.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Kemuri High Guard 2. two
neocharge: Yeah. I don't
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): High Guard 2. Kemuri. Kemuri da.
neocharge: know. ah It's just giving me Genshin, Zenless Zone, Wuthering Waves, insert other gotcha game here vibes. So, yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did like the class list when they said, I don't remember them now, but one was a shaman. One was a swordsman. one And I thought, I actually thought of the three us.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was like, well, I know which Bob would be and I know which Matt would be and I do the other one. So, but do I care about this game?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't think I do.
neocharge: Yeah. I, like you said, I need to see more.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We'll find out.
neocharge: So, and I wonder if it's free to play. Like I need I need to know more on this game to, you know, pass more judgment, but I just have a feeling.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I need more deeds.
neocharge: Yeah. I need more deeds. I just have a feeling it's, it's not going to be for me. So, but who knows?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I gave it the the old chance when I was watching it and I just, I kind of checked out because I thought this is something about it just did not capture me at all.
neocharge: Uh,
neocharge: Sure. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So if it looked cool to you listeners, can you please like, honestly, could you just, can you tell me why, what you, like that i I will watch the trailer again.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Let us know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i will see it again and give it another chance. A fair shake. I would like to be sold on it because I do like her as a dev and an artist.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think she's, she's neat.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So,
neocharge: Let us know. Let's have a conversation about it. That's what we do. This next game I'm not checked out on, though. This next game i'm very, very excited for.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No.
neocharge: ah We saw more gameplay and a lot more set pieces from Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis. ah The ground up remake of the original Tomb Raider on PS1.
neocharge: So, ah yeah, I'm so excited for this game. ah Unfortunately, it did get pushed back, probably outside of the Grand Theft Auto clusterfuck that we're going to have.
neocharge: ah It was originally scheduled for 2026, and then we were going to get Catalyst, which is the actual next start of a new trilogy for Tomb Raider and our girl Laura Croft for 2027.
neocharge: But this got pushed to February 12th, 2027. So, which will probably push Catalyst to early 2028, if I was to guess.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But boy, oh boy, does this game look fucking awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It looks great.
neocharge: And holy shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It looks great. It does.
neocharge: Ah, it looks so good. Give me it. I want it. I want it.
Leon Lionheartly: this This game, I'm glad it got pushed ah because, yeah, Amazon Game Studios is behind this and suddenly due to a recent game, I'm like, okay, yeah just see what you can cook, right?
neocharge: Yeah. A delay is never bad.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep. yep
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, give give me more of this. I don't need to i don't need to see any more. I'll see you in February. um You'll get my money January 15th or whatever, right? It's going to happen.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will probably get that collector's edition if it's not super limited. I, yes, I love Lara Croft.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, it has a T-Rex head. yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She's one of my favorite characters. ah characters in video games, not just because she's a beautiful woman, but she's, she's just, she's kind of a staple growing up and when she was introduced.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She was so cool. Even as a polygon, she was so cool. I have, I don't, you guys can't see this behind me, but you were here. You know that I have all three, yeah the Tomb Raider trilogy when, when Crystal Dynamics was under Square,
neocharge: Oh yeah, from the Tomb Raider trilogy.
neocharge: Which was fantastic. i loved it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i loved I loved all of them. I really did. i got all the collector's things that were associated with with Rise and Shadow.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and i So this this one, yes, please. get and They didn't announce a price for it.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They did not announce a pre-order date for it. but i'm And I haven't been doing that many collector's editions lately.
neocharge: hold on
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's been Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and and the Marvel stuff that I really like. So... Lara Croft and Resident Evil are the only other ones that I really that i really do. that That one is absolutely happening.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Unless it's like $7,000, but you know I don't think it will be that.
neocharge: Dang. Right, right. It looks cool. I usually don't do collector's editions either, but new place, new office, new space. I got a new shelf.
neocharge: And ah my boy Edward Kenway is going to go on that shelf because I got the collector's edition of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, you you deserve the collector's edition of that one.
neocharge: This was...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that that's ah You got that written on.
neocharge: Yes. It's like my in my top five favorite games of all time. And the last collector's edition I got was back in 2024. Final Fantasy Rebirth.
neocharge: We got 18 inches of old Cephi. Which was got an incredible collector's. I almost got Final Fantasy 15, but E3 was too small. But very detailed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): 16, but I got you.
neocharge: sixteen yes sorry yeah
Leon Lionheartly: umm I looked for you, gentlemen, because you you mentioned the price.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): know what you're saying.
neocharge: 16. Yes. Sorry.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's not live, but it's posted to Best Buy. No, the collector's edition?
neocharge: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. For Tomb Raider?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is posted there?
neocharge: You can pre-order it?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: It is posted. You can't pre-order it. It says coming soon, but it is live and it shows. $200. $200. two hundred dollars
neocharge: Oh, okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm okay. Done. Done.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's done that done So that's no hesitation. i i will.
neocharge: How big is this statue? Because I know it's it's Laura jumping away from the T-Rex's mouth, which is trying to eat her.
Leon Lionheartly: That's what I'm trying to get off of this. It just says Lara Croft versus the T-Rex statue.
neocharge: I'm just curious. You're hearing it first on Shapes of Gaming.
Leon Lionheartly: um The signet pin and the collector's box and all that. But the statue is 100% there.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: it doesn't I'd have to go look into it but it doesn't actually say yeah um with it. um So, I don't know.
neocharge: Yeah. Huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, come come to me.
Leon Lionheartly: Just more.
neocharge: This looks awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Come to me, Lara.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's cheaper than I actually would have expected based on the image we saw of what it all includes.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am more than happy to do that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's fine.
neocharge: Yeah. Like you said, Laura's a a staple, and she's like one of the most badass protagonists in gaming, like in a ah very big female lead character, like one of the most famous.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I've talked about it countless times before on the earlier cast that I do have a very weakness, a very big weakness for strong women.
neocharge: Good old Laura Kroc.
neocharge: eat
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Lara Croft is one of the strongest in gaming and in movies, even even if the movies, ah Angelina Jolie ones, love them or hate them.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They did okay other than the source material, half of it being ignored.
Leon Lionheartly: right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They were fine. They were fine movies.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just think she... I'm so glad. I was really nervous when Square was selling Crystal Dynamics. I thought, you guys fucking had it. They're so good at when they made them.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And ah and the fact that they sold the entire studio, essentially, and the studio was like, actually, we're fine. Somebody else bought us. We're all staying together.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was like, okay, fuck it. Square, you fucked up, and you're going to see when it comes out. You should have let them do it, but I don't care.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm so happy that it looks great. I'm so happy that we are getting more Lara Croft and
neocharge: Looks incredible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): even if it is the original that we we grew up on in the first one remade.
neocharge: I love this direction they're going. Because, I mean, the they recently kind of remade the originals.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's great.
neocharge: The the first six, I believe, right? Or first five?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, to re-release on the, on like PlayStation plus and stuff.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, and they cleaned it up.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And like this is a from the ground up remake, and I'm all about revisiting ah the the first one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: so the The first original, original. I mean, it's it's getting pretty old. didn't
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: It's still good, but you know they don't age well.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): isn't it This game deserves a remake. that This deserves a remake.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Absolutely. i
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, please. And after, like Bob was talking about, after First Light, yes.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just just Just give me that.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Give me that, please.
neocharge: Exactly. Yeah. So very excited for that. February 12th, 2027. Good old ah girl, Laura Croft. The next one I thought was the Jurassic Park survival game, but nope.
neocharge: It is a ah dinosaur first person survival game, and it is called The Lost Wild Fear. True fear is primal. ah Who developed this?
neocharge: um I don't know. Do we know who developed this? ah It looks like um a Jurassic Park video game and slated for PS5 in 2027.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: First person survival horror with dinosaurs. I'm usually all in, but I just, it's probably going to release in a fucking crazy, like, crowded window, and I'm going to have time for it, and it's not on my list.
neocharge: So, right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): can i Can I tell you not to be super negative what my least favorite thing about this game is?
neocharge: Yeah, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The title. I hate the title.
neocharge: Yeah, like what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it doesn't It doesn't roll off the tongue.
neocharge: The lost one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The Lost Wild True Fear is Primal.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Who's going to fucking go to the store and say that?
neocharge: It's a mouthful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but like go to If I go to your house and be like, hey, are you guys playing The Lost Wild True Fear is Primal?
neocharge: It's a mouthful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It just doesn't.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It feels like AI wrote the title. I'm sorry to be that guy.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it really does. I hope the game's great.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i hope i just i feel like just keep it like The Lost Wild. Or you can't call it primal fear, but I don't know.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Something.
neocharge: Fear is primal. Fear is primal. Just like, drop the true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is fear primal?
neocharge: Because yeah, it's a mouthful.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Is primal fear? True is fear? friar Fear is primal true. I i i don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: No!
neocharge: Pre-er is primal. No.
Leon Lionheartly: Just drop the True Fear is Primal. like Get rid of it. Just keep the Lost Wild because this is basically Outlast meets Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park is the lost world.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: That's fucking cool.
Leon Lionheartly: So the Lost Wild is a great play.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Leads in. You know what you're going for. um ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but I know that that's silly, but when I was watching this, that would not get out of my head.
neocharge: Titles are important.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Usually I can just say I don't care. a game could be called Poop Farts, and if it looks really good, I'm going laugh at the title, but I'm still going to play This game, just the the title bothered me so much that I said, I don't want to play it anymore.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): At all. I just don't. The title will not... i ah I'm probably getting hung up on it like the beans and Cheez-Its, but, you know...
neocharge: Dang. Bob. Yeah, you are. Beans! Bob, or did you like what you saw?
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, sir.
neocharge: were you excited for this one? Is it on your list?
Leon Lionheartly: um It's not on my list, but I like what I see.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's Annapurna and Annapurna is killing it right ah lately.
neocharge: And a part of that, I knew it was, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And Hurt is great.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. i So, yeah okay. i think there I think there is a group of players for this. I don't think I'm that group of players. Like, I played out last, and i was like, oh, this is really cool in concept. But my survival horror has Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield.
neocharge: You're goddamn right.
Leon Lionheartly: You know, uh...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or Silent Hill. Silent Hill's the other one
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. ah So yeah, I wish him luck. I think it'll look as long as they can, it's small team. I think they'll be just fine. And it'll find its audience, especially since it says it's only 2027. So we really don't have anything until next year.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. ah Yeah. This next one is one of our first and of many coming out September. Caleb, I know you're excited for this one, pretty sure.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm excited for the concept of it. I'm not going to get it though.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not, but I can tell you why.
neocharge: Okay. Yeah. You're a big fan of Dune.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yo yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, you're a big fan of Dune. It's called Dune Awakening, a survival game, and it will be hitting PS5 on September 22nd. Single-player, third-person survival action game, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but So here's why I'm not getting it, at least not right away.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because when this, i you're absolutely right.
neocharge: and Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I love Dune. I loved, I only read the first four books or three and a half, whatever, before his son took over after he passed ah Frank Herbert.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I, and I love the movies, the the original with Kyle McLaughlin, my original, at least, I don't think there was one before that. I love the newer ones. I i do have to give props to Timote Chalamet, but Rebecca Ferguson's on my like top five ladies that, hey, how you doing?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I love her very much, and my wife knows that. I'm not being a super creep. She just knows Rebecca Ferguson and does it for me. but ah But no, the movie's very, very they're well done. Denis Villeneuve, the director, awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just they know He knows what he's what's Yeah. I should be over the moons of Arrakis for this game. It came out on PC and it was like an MMO, essentially, that again, in in theory and in concept, awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do not fucking have time for that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i don't even have time for Crimson, John Desert, and Diablo 4 to really dive in like I used to. i mean, I have been playing a lot of them, but i this this game, I thought, there's no way I'm not doing an MMO.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If I did an MMO, it'd be Final Fantasy 14. I'm not doing this again.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But I was really happy for Dune fans, and I was hoping that they'd come up with some cool stuff. Mechanically, it looks it looks solid. I don't actually know how the PC version was received. I've never looked into it because I didn't want to be told it was the best thing ever. because I would then feel more obligated to do it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): One thing that I will say about this, getting a console port, That's great. More player base, the better. That's fantastic. My biggest problem with the PC version was it seemed like there was not really a single player option.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This PC or PS5 version has a new single player mode. That was the most intriguing part to me when I saw it yesterday. I thought, oh, fuck. Do I have to get this because of the the single player?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right now, the answer is no. They have a few months to win me over. If it turns out that the single player is enough to justify a full-on purchase and I can ignore the MMO mechanics. I know that seems like a waste because I don't want to shit on the devs. I don't want to not do something that they put their work into, but I am much more inclined to play a single player version of this than an MMO version. And that's just because I'm an old man.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It really is. The time, it's not that I'm not good at them.
Leon Lionheartly: and
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, I don't, I don't care. I, but I do love the world. I love everything about it. i do. I really think that this is a good get for PlayStation five Dune fans.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um, but I, the MMO stuff, it's just not for me.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): any I can't. What about you, Bob?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Eh, you said MMO. i had a Single player adaptation into MMO. I'm a Guild Wars OG.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Addicted kind of thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: i get it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Respect.
Leon Lionheartly: But I can't do it anymore.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: It's the time commitment. So, you know what?
neocharge: did it. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: it I hope it finds its audience and there's much success, but this is a pass for me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was one of those things in the trailer where I was like, oh man, you're showing me stuff. That's pretty cool. Talking about the Fremen troopers and talking about, or Freeman, whatever. My thing, my absolute favorite thing about Dune when I read it as a child.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then when I played the Sega game that came out in like 91 or 92.
Leon Lionheartly: but That's a callback.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Uh, I, and then of course in the newer ones, I thought that they were shown perfectly were the ornithopters. They're, they're flying, uh, the, the, uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Atreides flying machines, such a cool design, such a cool idea that they're basically like wasps, flies, bees, dragonflies, whatever you want to call it.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just that such a neat thing. You get to fly one in this in this trailer they showed. And I was just like, you sons of bitches. Because that was the thing that made me really legitimately excited.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I told myself, no, no, you can't. Back away, beast. And I was holding my hand in front of the TV and telling it to the power of Christ compels you get off, get off my screen, but I know.
neocharge: Because it releases September 22nd. No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. But Matt, I'm assuming you don't really give a shit about this.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Okay.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Didn't think so.
neocharge: Dune's cool. ah The first movie's cool. Haven't seen the second one. Need to watch it. Own it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh my God. You really, you haven't seen the second one.
neocharge: I know. I know. I need to watch it. I need to watch it. I just...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Please do.
neocharge: ah I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, I didn't think they were going to be able to pull it off.
neocharge: I need to.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will just tell you as a huge Dune fan, they pulled it off.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was, it was, I loved it.
neocharge: Okay. Cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm so excited for part three.
neocharge: Yeah, it's on my list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh,
neocharge: Yeah. yeah i want to I want to watch part two and then watch part three in the theater when it releases, so...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and deathth
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Part of Doon's Day.
neocharge: Yeah, and I just... Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, I'm not not into this. But this this next game, okay, we're all into.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
neocharge: you
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fuck.
neocharge: But i have I have thoughts on it, not because of the game, but I'll go into Onimusha, Way of the Sword, launches September 25th. Oh, uh, and they showed us a new trailer. This looks amazing.
neocharge: I would be all in except, uh, I'm not because it is on my list. It's on my list. is I have tiers of, of interest, right?
neocharge: You know, if I, It's it's all the way from like big eye roll to holy shit day one, right? It's like big eye roll or, oh, intrigued, interested, in maybe, but not on the list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: Or, ah okay, no, it goes on the list, but maybe not day one or day one dropping everything for this game. This is on the list, but not day one.
neocharge: Uh, and it's because of another game that we're going to be talking about. And it's unfortunately one day after, and there is apps. And then after that is, uh, Rayman, right? So it's just in a very bad place. And I, it's the same for this next game we're going to be talking about. Uh, I'm, and I have never played any of the Onimusha games. I know I should,
neocharge: But it's one of those like, oh, like, am I going to really get everything out of this that I should be because I haven't played the Onimusha games?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: I will get this game eventually at some point, but it's just it's releasing it the worst time. And you could as an a huge Onimusha fan, you could say the other games are releasing it at a worse time. But I personally, I'm just a bigger fan of ah the game releasing a day before Onimusha.
neocharge: So i I will not, unfortunately, be pre-ordering or buying this game day one, but it is staying on my list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that Matt, you need to control yourself.
neocharge: know I know, do. i just don't resonate with this game. you know It's just, ah it's not a resonance for me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's a bummer. I do. I fucking love Oni Musha. I love it so much.
neocharge: Yes, yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i know.
neocharge: And nothing against Onimusha. This game looks amazing. And I still might pick it up shortly after. i just can't on day one. I'm very interested, very intrigued. It made it all the way to my list. But you're super excited.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah i But I feel you because I'm in the same boat the day before.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just i'm just as excited.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i've That game looks so good. I love everything about the day before game, Control Resonant. I'm just going to say it finally, officially.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah But Onimusha is Capcom game.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and Capcom has been just home run after home run after home run.
neocharge: and
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So Caleb's fucking dealing with April 2.0 and September of this year because there's there's something basically every week, or in this case, two times that week.
neocharge: They haven't missed this year.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm going to hope and pray See, i've I've got, I actually have tickets for the U S open this year. i'm very excited, super excited about it.
neocharge: Very cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And yeah, quarterfinals, semifinals, and the day past the day of the quarterfinals, we didn't even bother trying to get finals because we're not multimillionaires.
neocharge: Very cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like it's not going to happen. Um, but I am very, very excited. It's the first grand slam tournament that I'm ever going to go to. I have been wanting to go to the S open for years. So maybe I'll get some Chipotle if Taylor Fritz makes it all the way, but right when I get back Wolverine,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then then there's something like five days later.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then there's something five days later. And then the next day is Onimusha Way of the Sword.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So was just like, you motherfuckers are doing it to me again.
neocharge: September is fucked again.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and then October, obviously, you already talked about with Rayman and then Ace Combat.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. And that's going to stack up. I think just it's.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, just it's a lot. But but i am i will be getting this and I will be playing it, if not immediately, very close to immediately.
neocharge: Cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it'll be it'll I'll have to stagger. I will. I just i have no choice.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I love Onimusha. Way of the Sword looks fantastic, in my opinion.
neocharge: It looks so good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I don't think it's going to matter that I'm a fan. I do think they're going to do a good job and just say, you know, you appreciate the the the soul of the game that you you played on the PlayStation 2.
neocharge: Okay. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that that's fine. Now you can just play this new version of this new thing, a new chapter. That's what I want. I want them to do that. And everything points in that direction while keeping those Onimusha feelings solid, right? What about you, Bob? I know you're excited, but what are you in the same boat as we are? Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'm gonna, let me build up the anticipation, okay? So Animusha is Capcom. Absolutely. I played... And they're on a fire streak.
Leon Lionheartly: like They're on a generational run.
neocharge: Dude.
Leon Lionheartly: We've put we've said it before.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I played Animusha PS2 way back in the day.
neocharge: Yeah, they are.
Leon Lionheartly: I get it. um i am But here's the thing. For every...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's clobbering time. Sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Had to be done.
Leon Lionheartly: For every one of these we get, or a Nioh 3 we get, we get a we get a Lost Soul Aside, or we get a Wu-Chang Final Feathers.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): eleven
Leon Lionheartly: or like You get something that's good, but it just doesn't quite hit. um The catch is, i am an absolute fucking mark for these kinds of games.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It is the bobslop that sits right next to an RPG and a
neocharge: Bob Slop.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um Wolverine looks amazing, but I know what I'm getting. ah This is at the top of that list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I will hold off on everything else because I'm going to do one a month is what I try to do to focus. This is it. Capcom is killing it. I love Ani Musha.
Leon Lionheartly: I love the game style and they showed everything I needed to see. I'm going to be, I'll be in this while you guys are playing Wolverine and shit. So I'm there.
neocharge: And how about how about the game that launches before it? Control Resonant.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's the...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah So that's the other part of this um on the decision-making.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I really loved the original Control. like I played Control Ultimate Edition because it came on... p yeah Wow, I almost said Game Pass. Shame. ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh my God.
neocharge: Hold on. I got you.
neocharge: Yeah! Still have that on the soundboard.
Leon Lionheartly: we' Worth the credit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, I know, I know why he said it.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Anyways...
neocharge: Yep. 100%.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know why he said game passes. Cause he just said Bob slop.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, so you get it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So just kidding.
neocharge: That's true.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sorry, Xbox fans. I'm just shitting on you. Cause it's fun.
neocharge: ah ah And entertaining.
Leon Lionheartly: The point is...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm glad that you guys are releasing stuff. It's great.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, the point is, I think from my standpoint, Remedy's amazing, but I think when I'm playing an Alan Wake game and not a control game, that's when I see Remedy really sing.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: i really...
neocharge: Okay. Let's save your thoughts for when we talk about Control.
Leon Lionheartly: allan
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and So at the end of the day, Animusha takes the cake because of that.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Whoa? Okay. All right. Cool. Okay. that'll be That'll be good for the cast. You'll be playing Onimusha. I'll be playing a Control Resonant for sure. Day one!
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um
neocharge: 100%.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'll be playing John Desert because it would never ends.
neocharge: Jay, I should still be...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. it with
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They keep adding new shit.
neocharge: You're 150 hours in with 4% on your trophies.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Fucking crazy. It's funny. How many hours into that are you? With 4% trophies.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I actually don't even know. I really don't.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But i know I do know that the trophies that I've gotten so far are like for mastering a weapon.
neocharge: Gotcha. I was just curious.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it's not you know you You do all these things.
neocharge: Yeah. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't even know that was the thing until I got it. but
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know all of them, but I'm assuming it's just do everything in the game it's at this point.
neocharge: Right, which is nuts. i heard it's like a 400-hour plat.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Which I'll do... By the end of the decade, I'll work on it slowly over time.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. Onimusha Way of the Sword launches September 25th. Looks incredible. I know we have a lot of listeners very excited for it. Bo is super excited for it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: He's a huge Onimusha fan. ah It's just bad timing, guys. it'll it'll It's on my list. I don't have it pre-ordered. It won't be day one, but it'll stay on my list.
neocharge: And sometimes games are like that. And if I don't have anything to play, I'll be like, hmm, what's on my list?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: That hasn't happened in the last five fucking years, okay?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): no
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Because there's been so much good shit. But yeah. um I think it's going to do great. Capcom's on a big streak. And I think it's going to be great. ah The next game, Konami.
neocharge: Guess when it releases? Silent Hill Townfall. September 24th.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: The same exact fucking day as Control Resonant. One day before Onimusha. ah Silent Hill Townfall. Looks awesome. Survival horror. Silent Hill. i The setting, if you will.
neocharge: and But it's first person, which kind of turns me off a little bit. Unfortunately, I like my third person survival horror. But very intriguing. ah Looks really good. Looks scary.
neocharge: Again, not This one didn't even make the list. Sorry.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's unfortunate because Silent Hill is is great.
neocharge: I know know it is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I know Bo's a big Silent Hill fan too.
neocharge: it is. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So he's probably like, what the fuck am I going to do?
neocharge: Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I'm i'm sure Carrie's going to be all up on this, right? She loves Silent Hill.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I don't know that she cares about Onimusha or maybe Wolverine.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and I don't know. But i'm between the thing that is surprising to me, Control Resonant,
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know that it's going to be as creepy, horror-y as as Control was. you know There was that feeling. It wasn't quite survival horror, but it just had that creepy, weird stuff.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Might have more of a power trip this time though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's and maybe that's not a problem...
neocharge: Yeah. I was getting prototype vibes and like ah infamous vibes. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. But I do want that story, that underlying story to be just like, the fuck is this?
neocharge: who Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just like kind of weird and and unsettling. But just having this released the same day as Silent Hill Townfall, I thought horror and potential weird horror. How do you choose?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it's definitely going to be the type of gameplay instead of the narrative stuff.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So we eating good, man.
neocharge: Exactly. Yeah. it's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Too good.
neocharge: Oh, dude. Incredible games. I mean, I don't want to say too many games because it's a good problem to have. There's a lot of games. But speaking of something still on my list that I haven't played, Silent Hill F.
neocharge: I plan to play it this October.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Maybe. Who knows?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, right?
neocharge: Probably not.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But yeah, this one, i I just can't do it first person. um I kind of stay away from first person. it's just a preference. And it's releasing the same fucking day. September stacked.
neocharge: Can't do it, guys. Sorry. Looks incredible. Bob, are you? a You didn't even really finish ah Silent Hill 2 remake. I don't think you're in on this game, are you?
Leon Lionheartly: <unk>d like If I ever get to the end of my backlog, like I know this is going to good game, but if I ever get to the end of my backlog, it'll be there as a pickup and play, but I still have Kronos that I'd rather play.
neocharge: yeah
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You didn't finish Silent Hill 2?
neocharge: And we got a little tease.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You didn't finish Silent Hill 2?
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: um No, no, no. That's one of the few survival horror games.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: That's the actually the only survival horror game that I played where i'm like, I can't finish this because my anxiety just goes through the roof so bad. And I don't know what happened in 25 years since the first one, but yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: What was it? Was it the... I don't want to spoil it, but was it the really dark place?
Leon Lionheartly: ah It was a certain area where a certain character is standing behind a certain set of bars.
neocharge: Oh, damn, that's so early!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Okay.
neocharge: Yeah, that'll do it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: That'll do it.
Leon Lionheartly: I was like, nope, I'm fucking done.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, I feel you.
neocharge: Yeah, that game's scary as fuck.
Leon Lionheartly: I was like, no, I'm done.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm good. I'm good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): bob Bob got lost in Silent Hill. that's He's never to be seen again. he says
neocharge: Right? Right? Oh, I wish I would have been there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's good
neocharge: You just put the controller I was like, ah, fuck this. I'm out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): good.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Know your limits, guys. it's Good for you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: basic
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Good for you for just saying thanks, but no thanks.
neocharge: Right. Just a big old, big old. Nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that's funny.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. yeahp
neocharge: Yeah. um Yeah. It's just, it's bad timing again. Looks awesome. Glad Konami is making and a, another new silent Hill. Just, yeah, not even on my list. I'm interested, intrigued, but to yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: And Caleb, you're not getting it. Just it's.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Tomfall?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah not Not at the time of release.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i'm I'm actually way behind on the scary games because they're not generally my favorites.
neocharge: Yeah. you can
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They have to be, i think I've talked about it on the Requiem spoiler cast, that I really need them to just be more something.
neocharge: Mm hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Alan Wake 2, I absolutely loved because the story was just so good.
neocharge: Mm hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do i played the original Silent Hill 2, did not play the remake.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's not because I didn't want to, it's because when the fuck would I have?
neocharge: Mm hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do need to play that.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do want to play Silent Hill F. I'm going to play town fall after I get around to those two, but chronos, I'm going to play chronos.
neocharge: You want to play Kronos?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, one of them will happen this October.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If we're lucky, probably chronos, honestly, but who knows?
neocharge: Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We'll just have to see what happens.
neocharge: I can't wait talk about Kronos with you guys when you finish it. Just ah incredible. Incredible game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When the DLC comes out, I might, they'll probably have a deal for the game and the DLC.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'll probably, because I do i do not actually own Kronos, so I'll probably wait for that to happen and then buy it then and just get it all and enjoy it.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Okay.
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah, they teased and and an announcement. We assume it's DLC, ah but they did tease Lazarus ah and they they ah tweeted it or X'd it out, whatever you want to say.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: ah But they said ah it's LZRS, Lazarus 28, Pursuit Protocol Engaged. That's very exciting, and I can't tell you why. so Yeah, Chronos is an incredible survival horror. We talked about it on our top 10, or was it top 5? I don't know. Top favorite survival horror games?
neocharge: It made mine.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: so And i ah I played it early this year, I believe. Or no, I played it Halloween.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): played it right around when it came out, I thought. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, I did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because I know Carrie was...
neocharge: Or shortly after it came out. Yeah, because there was something else that came out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Carrie was on that episode and you guys both you both loved loved it and talked about it in great detail, which was...
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Oh, so good. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, I was intrigued then. It was just... i Well, you knew i hadn't played Alan Wake 2 yet. I was so far behind from all the shit I dealt with years ago.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I was like, I got i can't let Alan Wake 2 wait anymore. i've I've owned it since...
neocharge: Nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the Yeah, had to do it, so...
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, looking forward Kronos for sure.
neocharge: Yeah. That was awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So Townfall will will be just fucking sometime, but i just not not at release.
neocharge: Yeah. Who knows?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No way.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, so Silent Hill Townfall launches September 24th. Looks cool. Go check it out. The next game, I think... I don't know, Caleb, if you're... I think you're excited for it. ah I'm intrigued by it.
neocharge: It's still not on my list because of the fucking date.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Uh, and yeah, this is Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve. ah I have, I wanted to get into Ace Combat 7 after, especially after Top Gun Maverick just kind of got that itch.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Fucking incredible movie, my movie of the year. Uh, amazing, amazing sequel. One of the rare times when a sequel is better than the original. Uh, and exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Especially so many years later. That's the other thing that it was so far.
neocharge: Yeah. Like,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: 30 years later something like that, right? Because Top Gun was a 90s movie. um Incredible movie.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Crazy.
neocharge: Go watch it. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maverick was awesome. Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, Maverick was so good. But yeah, Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve. ah October 2nd. Cool. One day after Rayman Legends retold. Thanks, guys.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: So, nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hey, it's before that GTA.
neocharge: Nope.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's what they were going for. just
neocharge: Exactly, exactly. And I have a sneaking suspicion that Castlevania is going to be releasing this October. So, ah yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My guess is October 24th for that day, or for Castlevania.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know why, it just feels right.
neocharge: You heard it here. Heard it here first. I like it. Sounds about right. ah Yeah, this game looks awesome. It's, ah you know, fighter jets and has, it looks like it has a really cool story. It's the eighth ace combat ah mainline, of course, and looks incredible.
neocharge: ah Bob, you have this drafted. Are you excited for it Are you going to get it?
Leon Lionheartly: um I won't be getting it, but I'm really intrigued by this game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: there's There's something about it. um and it just The more I see, the more I'm like, yay, so glad I got this one in the draft because it that PS5 Pro on OLED, you put on some headphones and like crank up some Kenny Loggins and i fuck, let's go.
neocharge: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. sure
neocharge: going to hit Yeah. Dude, I played that fucking song just cruising in my car probably for a solid month. That's all I listened to after Top Gun Maverick.
neocharge: And yeah, got to throw that on while playing this game. ah Caleb, you excited?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For sure.
neocharge: You going to get it
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I'm not going to get it at launch because the timing is just bad. I love Ace Combat.
neocharge: Yeah. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I played Ace Combat 4 so much back in the day.
neocharge: okay
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I never, I actually never got to play 5 and 6, but I did play Ace Combat 7. I do not own it, but I did own it. And then one of my, actually my oldest friend, my longest term friend since we were five years old, doesn't really play that many video games, but he was going through some shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I just... He's hey man like bad I think divorce so you know the whole the whole nine yards was horrible stuff. It was not great. And he was sort of looking for something to make himself feel better. And he said I'm going to get a PS4. I'm going to PS4. I don't really play it. What should I get. And he loves sports games. That's his thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But he and I used to play his combat together all the time. And I got him turned on to that.
neocharge: Nice.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just gave him my copy that I hadn't even opened yet of Ace Combat 7.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I said, just take it. this this He played the absolute shit out of it. I'd go over to his house. We would just take turns.
neocharge: That's awesome.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was really fun. I had a great time with 7. I just never played it on my account, so there's no proof that I did. Wings of Thieves looks incredibly fun. It looks really, really fun.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Big chance that I get it eventually, but again, like you said, the release timing is just bad. I am very hopeful that the game does well. I hope i hope it sells well. I hope it scores well. I hope it's well-received. That's all I really care about.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But come on, guys. It's just, damn it. Also awesome...
neocharge: It's just starting to, we're just in the beginning of it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's awesome that it and includes the other game, the the game that I named that I'm forgetting. the
neocharge: Oh yeah. The,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a free pack-in with a digital pack-in with it. I don't know why the name is with me, but...
Leon Lionheartly: and The PS2 one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's it's great. it This is a good get for people to if they want to just see a little bit more of the routes. But quick correction, I didn't mean October 24th for Castlevania.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I meant the 23rd, the Friday. Friday the 23rd is my my actual guess, but not related to Ace Combat at all.
neocharge: Ah, okay. 23rd. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i just I kind of wish that there was literally nothing coming out because I would pick up Ace Combat if that was the case.
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, I, I love fighter jets.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I've always wanted to be, if I had to do military, that was going to be, I wanted to be a pilot, a fighter jet pilot.
neocharge: Me too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I thought that would be super cool. These games do such a great job. Just letting you sort of live out that fantasy. And and I'm really hopeful that eight sticks the land.
neocharge: You probably would have ah i would have moved to Colorado for it because we have the Air Force Academy here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It looks like it's going to. Yeah.
neocharge: Everyone that gets trained to be a fighter jet pilot is basically like 30 minutes up north.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): One major problem with that is that I'm a, I'm a chicken shit coward.
neocharge: It's gorgeous there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I mean, I would, I, if I had to, I would absolutely do that.
neocharge: Ah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah du there's
Leon Lionheartly: You know what? It's not important.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: there a correction?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah ah so Keep in mind, um Ace Combat, when you're dealing with the ah the aircraft carriers, keep in mind, Navy fighter pelt pilots.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Or yeah, that's technically, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: so yeah It's not always Air Force.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Now you're, yeah, you're obviously you're right.
Leon Lionheartly: just ah My military mind has to scream it out loud.
neocharge: Ah, okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm sorry to be the actually guy.
neocharge: Actually, actually.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, but, but that's, that is good to know. Cause as a layman, when I was younger, i I mean, you think air force is going to be everything air related and that's just not true. Like I, but but yeah, you are, you are correct.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thank you for clarifying that.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Looks cool. ah It's on my list, but it's not a pre-order or a day one. It's just, it's ah the the timing sucks. So I will eventually get to it like you, Caleb. And yeah, I'm i'm sure we'll all eventually get to it. So yeah.
neocharge: yeah Ace Combat 8. October, Ace ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve, October 2nd. So if you like fighter je jets, go check out that trailer.
neocharge: Looks incredible. I mean, just the cloud the engine and the shit they're doing is awesome. ah The next one, also not interested in. i know, Caleb, you're probably not interested either.
neocharge: Bob, you're interested in it, though.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, he is.
neocharge: Marathon is getting season two. Nightfall, when I heard this fucking name, I chuckled because I'm a huge Destiny fan.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And Nightfall is the actual like activities you can do, a little mini dungeons. But yeah, the Marathon Season 2 kicks off yesterday, June 2nd.
neocharge: So ah to June 9th, or sorry, no, it kicks off. when and When does this release? Because they have everyone to play. You can play for free June 2nd to June 9th to kind of build up to this release.
neocharge: I think it's mid-June or something like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, I think it's simultaneously.
Leon Lionheartly: so no it's it's start so the season two started yesterday and they're giving people free to play between now and the ninth as in onboarding yep
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Is it?
neocharge: Okay, it's good story yesterday. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Give them a hit for free so they they get addicted.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: so I played the the open beta or the early version of Marathon. It was great, ah just not my style. So I'm not interested in this. And I would like to take this moment to talk about the... huge thing going on on the internet right now, which is a big, big push for destiny three. And unfortunately for marathon, they're in the crosshairs and a lot of bungee fans, a lot of fans of destiny three, there's a petition out there to bring destiny three, instead of like focusing on marathon, why not both? Right. But they, the destiny players are like, Oh, destiny's dying. We talked about it on episode 53.
neocharge: And they're kind of placing the blame and putting their crosshairs on Marathon. So a lot of players are boycotting Marathon, which I don't think is the best thing to do. Why can't Bungie just do both? There's a petition out there, I think 350,000 signatures on it, that Bungie should do Destiny 3.
neocharge: So it's...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but here Okay. Well, if i Bob, you are obviously closer to Marathon. So if you want to talk about Marathon before, or if you want me to comment on this Destiny petition thing now, i yeah, what do you want to do?
neocharge: How do we want to do it?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because...
Leon Lionheartly: I mean, I got thoughts on both, so...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um the quick thing for me from the destiny three crowd, cause I, I have to say, obviously I played destiny one. I played destiny two. They were both a lot of fun. I put a lot of time into it.
neocharge: You played a lot of it, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't, I didn't play all of it. Like I didn't do the last bit that you did ah to to end the whole thing.
neocharge: Did you do the final shape?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did not do the final shape.
neocharge: Oh my God.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I didn't. And I was in it for the story. i was in it for the gameplay. I was in it for all the things I probably should just watch all the final shape stuff at this point, because I'm not going put it, but,
neocharge: You should. It's it's the endgame.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, and it's something that I genuinely care about.
neocharge: It's the endgame of light and darkness saga.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But so while I don't have the same skin in the game as the people that their whole lives are Destiny, um I do understand where they're coming from from a passion standpoint.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do get it.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): However, do you fucking internet people think that Bungie can just make Destiny 3 in like a week?
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You think if if you sign this petition, they're going to be like, you know what?
neocharge: I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We're shutting down Marathon right now. Destiny 3 is coming in in August.
neocharge: dick
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like, what do you fucking honestly think? And i I know I don't want to attack you if you are one of these people. I really don't. Because and like Matt said...
neocharge: Let me look up the petition because I think it's just to see if it can be in the conversation.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it' it I mean, Matt, when you say, why can't they do both? that They probably could with enough funding, but that's the problem.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's it's expensive to do this shit and time consuming.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um But also, when did Bungie get to make Destiny? They made it after they left to do their own thing.
neocharge: 2014. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They had an idea
neocharge: ah yeah Then Activision mucked it all up.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And they came up with destiny though. they They came up with this thing that was very special to a lot of us. And not to say that that they're sick of it because it's bad. I don't i don't want to make it sound like that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But if they're not feeling it, let them do something else. Let them cook on something else and eventually... Maybe another hit will come around that you care about so much.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe it won't be from Bungie. Maybe it'll be from Rockstar.
neocharge: Let me...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Who knows? But for people that get really mad about that, I just feel like it's it's almost unfair that that marathon players... might suffer. Because, I mean, Bob, you're still going to play Marathon when you want to play Marathon. You might be upset if Destiny 3 doesn't come out, but you got Marathon.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's like me saying, I'm not going to play Final Fantasy 17 because it's not the one that I want. Like, no, I'm still going to play it, give it a chance. If it fucking sucks, I might be loud on the internet and be like, what are you doing?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I'm not going to say, how dare you? You should be working on this other thing.
neocharge: ice
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know what i mean?
neocharge: I see both sides.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It just, for sure, I get the passion.
neocharge: I see both sides. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do. I just feel like you you're you're Not you, but the people that are angry.
Leon Lionheartly: I.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think they're focusing in the wrong place. Okay.
neocharge: Let me read this petition real quick. The Destiny franchise has captivated millions of gamers around the world and has immersed universe Thrilling gameplay, strong community. However, with the end of updates for Destiny 2, it's time to take the next step to keep this beloved series thriving.
neocharge: That step is the development of Destiny 3. So they just want the development to start.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): okay
neocharge: ah The desire for new adventures, fresh storylines, our passion and commitment to the Destiny franchise drives us to reach out to Sony and express our collective voice. ah Join us petitioning Sony. So to to be fair, this petition...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's fine. That's fine.
neocharge: petition Yeah, this I'm going to sign it. This petition isn't ah cannibalizing or or putting down Marathon. That just happened in the overall community online.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: This petition focuses on Destiny 3 and says, hey... Let's start the development of Destiny 3. Here's our support and why you should start the development on Destiny 3.
neocharge: That kind of...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Yeah, that's,
neocharge: and then And then the toxic part of it was like, oh, Marathon is getting in the way of the the development of Destiny 3. Fuck Marathon. We want Destiny 3. Right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the problem I have.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The first part I don't have a problem with.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, you know, you should absolutely let your voice be heard if you're a fan and you want like, no, we want more of this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We will support this. We will buy this.
neocharge: I'm signing this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But at the same time, those people better put their money where their mouth is if that happens, because how many times does shit happen and then it doesn't get supported?
neocharge: Right. And
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right?
neocharge: the same fucking fan base was bitching constantly about Destiny 2 when it was like here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. Yeah.
neocharge: It's like, oh, it's going away. Now you care. Now you want it back. I think Bungie should just let it lie for a bit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Let people miss it a little more. And then boom, in like three years, Destiny 3 in production, releasing like two years from now or something.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Let it it's be. a It's, but it also is one of those things where you don't like you're damned.
Leon Lionheartly: right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you do, you damned if you don't write with developers and stuff, it's like insomniac is great. I love insomniac, Spider-Man, lot of fun. Spider-Man too, a lot of fun. I'm very excited that Marvel Wolverine is happening.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But if if Insomniac said, after this Wolverine game, we want to make a fucking game where you've you've it's a football game, would I be happy about it Because I don't really care about football that much. No, but I would still be like, dude, you guys need a break too. I get it. Do what makes you happy. And I'm sure the good stuff will follow.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I kind of want Bungie to be able to just just chill for a bit and and do their thing, have fun with Marathon.
Leon Lionheartly: Peace.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If that's what they want to do, they're feeling it, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, that and that is a key thing to remember there, Caleb, is you can when you do that to your studios where you're like, hey, no, you're going to do this, you're going to do this, ten can you end up with a franchise fatigue is what ends up happening.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Most notoriously, if you look at Metroid Prime 3, Metroid Prime 3 is the worst rated of the Metroid Prime series.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We're not going to get into four, but out of those core three, it's it's it's it's considered the worst rated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah,
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And the reason for that is they were done Retro was done with Metroid Prime 2 and they're like, we don't want to do this. We want to do Donkey Kong.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right?
Leon Lionheartly: And miamo and Miyamoto and Iwata basically said, guess what? Can you do us one more to complete the trilogy and then we'll let you... And it kind of ruined a lot of the team. If you look at that, a lot of people shed off from Retro and look what happened to them now.
Leon Lionheartly: Look where they're at. So don't don't do that. Um... and more but if you may i may I got a couple of things I can say on this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Please.
Leon Lionheartly: this but Let's start with this petition and then we'll and then we'll circle back.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Please do.
neocharge: Yeah, please.
Leon Lionheartly: as ah First off, Sony bought Bungie for like more than what Disney paid for Star Wars. It was like almost $4 billion dollars for
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: billion and change or something like that.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, $3 billion and change.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It was gross.
Leon Lionheartly: It's a gross amount, way overpay. that money ah Sony's getting the debt a Destiny on the back end, but they weren't there where they weren't the they're not the father, so to speak, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right.
Leon Lionheartly: ah And you've got to let Marathon cook. Bungie, it needs to they're in a sink or swim situation and Sony, PlayStation are holding the chain.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah It sucks, but <unk> this is what's going to happen when you overpay for a studio and this is their project, right?
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah,
Leon Lionheartly: um And then lastly, I'll say this. um I get it. Destiny was a great game. and I understand it. Like I played the OG vanilla. I knew it wasn't for me, but I knew it was a good game. I know a lot of guys like you and hell, half of our community played destiny two for fucking thousands of hours.
Leon Lionheartly: But if you played it for thousands of hours, Matt, Caleb, when was the last time you actually played destiny two?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah exactly. Exactly.
neocharge: Final shape. I put it to rest.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I almost had a Viking funeral for it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, he came back for Final Shape.
Leon Lionheartly: And the final.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was out before the, what, second Iron Banner, third Iron Banner. I mean, yeah i I did enjoy what I played, but the story was done.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The main arc was done for Destiny 2, not the Final Shape, not the whole thing.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But it was years ago, literally years ago.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh. And that's my point.
neocharge: I played...
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, go ahead.
neocharge: i played all the I played all the major expansions, and then I kind of checked out on the seasonal stuff. I kind of i started i played a lot of Destiny, like D1, D2, Taken King, Forsaken.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: But then Shadowkeep, I started checking out with all when it went like free to play and all the seasons and bullshit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That Shadowkeep was, that was right. I quit right before Shadowkeep. That was, that was when I stopped.
neocharge: Yeah, I stepped back right before Shadowkeep, but then i I, of course, played Witch Queen and Beyond Light.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Lightfall was fucking incredible. And then Final Shape. I was i was there for the big expansions. ah But yeah, after that, the 10-year Light and Darkness saga, I put it back on the shelf and I was like, that was a good fucking 10-year game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: and now would And that's my point.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: that was the that's the That was the signal, right? It was the signal.
neocharge: the final shape.
Leon Lionheartly: Where was the player base after the final shape?
neocharge: Uh, they, yeah, they went to, they were waiting, on more stuff. I mean, there were, it was more content. There was a roadmap and then they brought star Wars to destiny, which we all know. Destiny has always been, uh, kind of inspired by star Wars. Gaul was literally Darth Vader.
neocharge: Uh, But bringing Star Wars and Laysay, it's like, yeah, you're Fortnite-ifying this shit. So there was a big fall off after the final shape because, I mean, if you play it, it's finale. So. Mm-hmm.
neocharge: it's a finale
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that's the thing.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i mean, part of the reason not to get like too far off base, but with MMOs, I actually have a lot of respect for MMOs. I do. My problem, my problem because other people live for this stuff, for for something to be beautiful, in my eyes, it has to end.
neocharge: even
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that sucks.
neocharge: Yes, agreed, agreed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like it sucks when things end, it it does suck. It hurts. It absolutely does. But, uh, Star Wars Galaxies was a really a popular game back in like the late nineties, early two thousands.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think I don't remember when it sunset, but a lot of people were very, very sad, bittersweet when the servers got shut down and that game, I actually didn't play galaxies, but I had a lot of friends who did and, uh, played final fantasy 11 and we would talk about it in final fantasy 11 and then in world Warcraft and then in final fantasy 14.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But a lot of them might've been upset at the time. And about a year or two later, they thought, what a beautiful experience it was that I got to just, it just got to end.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that's the problem with starting a living game is that you kind of know going in, this is going to end whether I want it to or not. Yes, we get this with with narratives, single player stuff. Yes, you get it when you buy any game, it's going to end eventually, but let it end together.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): on their terms. Let it end the right way. don't I just i don't understand.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: it's ah It's a conclusion. It's closure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's okay.
neocharge: These are the types of games I love to play. like Because I don't i don't play ah usually ongoing games.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: I got into Destiny because, I mean, it just...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They checked all the boxes.
neocharge: It checked all the boxes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It it really did. yeah
neocharge: But then like it started going free-to-play and seasonal and a lot of microtransit. It started evolving into something I usually don't play. and But I like when games end. You play it, you finish it, you say awesome, you sometimes platinum it, you see it through.
neocharge: That was an awesome book. On to the next one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, i go I go back and play k Chrono Trigger on occasion because it's just so perfect.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Because it ends, I mean, it ends like 15 times if you if you want to get all the...
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah I don't remember how many exactly, but but it does end and it's like, wow, what a great experience.
neocharge: ah you Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and And MMOs, you have arcs that do that.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that's great. You have expansions that do that. And that's great. I feel like for me, that's enough. But this, this I don't know, it's just like, let it let it die. let it Like you said, let it go away for a bit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Let it rest. And then if you if if you're inspired to bring it back, Bungie, if you have the money, if you have the fan base for it, fuck yeah. But for people, i love the passion of people doing this stuff and I love having their voice heard.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's the toxicity part that really just makes me crazy.
neocharge: Yeah. The blaming marathon, it's just like, guys, come on.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, like what is that?
Leon Lionheartly: it yeah It is that blaming the marathon. And yeah I'm a realist, and this is not to crap on anybody that's going to sign the petition.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I think it's really good to see the passion. But you also have to understand, yeah um you just don't go to a fucking developer and say, make this monkey.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: Like you go, hey, me I want you to surprise me.
neocharge: Yeah, no. There's a process. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: There's a process. They come out and they say, here's what it is. Because people have been bitching about no games on PS5.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: for for For the entire fucking generation, and ah people are ripping on PlayStation Online, Sony, and you go to circle these certain groups and it's like well, Sony's surviving off of Xbox and LifeService, which is fundamentally true, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Which is insane.
Leon Lionheartly: That's happening within the PlayStation ecosystem. So we finally get something, and I know I'm part of the problem, but that's a different point. I'm interested. is We get a first-party game.
Leon Lionheartly: Housemarque made a fucking excellent first-party game, and the reports, according Serkana, it sold like 300,000.
neocharge: Sure it did.
neocharge: I voted with my wallet.
Leon Lionheartly: um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Really that low?
Leon Lionheartly: Mina sold that many in three days so you can't just tell Sony do this and then not fucking buy the games when they provide it for you yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Holy shit.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. It's so good.
neocharge: Right, right. So I'm glad these games end because, I mean, we have other games just constantly coming out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
neocharge: And if you have ongoing games as a service, like going at the same time, they're going to start cannibalizing each other.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: you know, because you can, exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: uh huh yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They already have. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, they already are. And you can only spend your time, uh, currency, like your attention can only go to one game. Like, I really hope people aren't fucking playing two games at once out there.
neocharge: Uh, like one with their feet or something. I don't know. Uh, but yeah, games need to end.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just me.
neocharge: Yeah. And let, Let it sit for a while. Like kind of like Uncharted. Uncharted went away for a bit. and We haven't heard a lot and everyone's going to be super excited.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I miss it.
neocharge: I know me too.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i fucking miss Uncharted.
Leon Lionheartly: hollow
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And and that's good.
neocharge: Let, let people miss things. Let people miss things. You know, I think it, it is a bit too soon.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: We can start talking about destiny three, but it's, it's way too soon to get like an announcement or anything. Just, I mean, maybe bunch is like, it's in development. See in five years, you know?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You know what I would actually love?
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would love, I mean, I know a lot, I'd probably be in the minority here. I would love if they revisited the Destiny universe and didn't have it be online, have it be a different genre, like almost go the studio sabotage route with the messenger and sea of stars, just do destiny something.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yes.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): far away or however they would want to do it. Maybe not even have it be a third person shooter or first person shooter.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe it'd be a fucking action game. I don't know. They, they obviously like lightsaber stuff and the, the, you know, heavy weapon blades.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe they could come up with something that's almost like a Phantom Blade zero esque thing and destiny. I don't know.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, I mean, Bungie to figure that.
neocharge: Single player, just in the story, in the universe, I'd be all in.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That would be so cool. Yeah, I would love to.
neocharge: All in.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): give me like What did I say on the Pragmata thing? Science fiction is so hard to do well. And Destiny was fantasy sci-fi.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's obviously the fantasy elements.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fantasy sci-fi is even harder to do well and not just be stupid.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They nailed it with a lot of the storytelling in Destiny.
neocharge: We did.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So bring it on in a single player.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Give me a Destiny Mass Effect. That would just be, whoa, man, like that.
neocharge: Yeah. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I would love that.
neocharge: f
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So...
neocharge: I mean, it Destiny was unveiled as a three-person multiplayer online like adventure, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Not this free-to-play. We knew it was an ongoing game with expansions, but not all this microtransactions.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. And then Mo Light.
neocharge: Yeah, and MMO Lite.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, so...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But but on on the marathon portion of it, though, Bob, season two, what are you thinking?
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): do you feel about that?
neocharge: I did want to talk about that. Sorry. That was a little bit of a tangent.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. no if No, you're good.
Leon Lionheartly: no
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're good. I just...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah you're youre You're good.
neocharge: little tangent.
Leon Lionheartly: You just have to include that with the title ah somehow.
neocharge: I will. I will.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm just kidding. But
neocharge: Marathon sucks!
Leon Lionheartly: it the and Marathon is a...
neocharge: Destiny's better!
Leon Lionheartly: All caps, exclamation point, double X for sucks.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: ah If the boys call me and I get the beacon from Mason and Bo and say, hey, we're going to hit marathon, um i'll I'll be there. This is an easy come in, come out out kind of game.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't care. I'm not going to... It's not my ah hard focus. I'm not going to platinum it. But... Marathon really fucking plays well.
Leon Lionheartly: And it is so much fun when you're in that mode. And this season too, with the nightfall, like the nighttime settings and the the low vision and everything else, because it it helps when you look at, like you see people and they're like, oh there it's a snipe.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And you're like shit, he's way out there here. You see that, that, that shot in these trailers and you know where it came from. um So um I think this is a, if the beacons are lit, I'll be there.
Leon Lionheartly: If not, Let it cook, but it still looks good. So if you will play it like marathon, go check this out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it looks it looks fun for for an outsider. I'm intrigued in Marathon for the for the gameplay and stuff. It looks good, but it's just not a thing that I have time for. But you guys were talking a little bit in the chat about the season two, the new shell, the new all this the new stuff that that just seems like, yeah, if I were interested in this game for time, I would absolutely play it. It looks great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yay, yay for season two.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): More is always better. More of something you like is always better. if you still like it.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So why why not?
neocharge: And it's included with the purchase of the the game. It's not an additional cost.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yep
neocharge: ah Love to see the support and Bungie's gunplay is unrivaled. So, ah yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Top tier.
neocharge: they ah Love to see them continuing to support this game and tweak it and just ah give the fans more and really raise the value of a the purchase.
neocharge: So, Yeah, I'm excited for people that are excited for it, and I want to see Bungie succeed in whatever they do, because they're an incredible developer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They deserve it. They really do.
neocharge: Absolutely, absolutely. ah This next game ah kind of confused the fuck out of us all, ah because it's ah a week I initially thought it was the breakout, break-in game, because it's fucking Firesprite making it.
neocharge: So we are we are getting Until Dawn 2. And it's set on an island in like a tropical setting. So nothing like the original, which was a cabin in the woods. ah But the more the trailer went, I think i was the i was the one that was like, this kind of reminds me of Until Dawn.
neocharge: And everyone's like, yeah. And then the fucking title comes up.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: So. Until Dawn 2, the slasher movie turned game series is back. Full-on sequel. Launches in 2027. We got a year only.
neocharge: ah New setting and characters. The same interactive film content. ah Did you guys play Until Dawn?
Leon Lionheartly: A little bit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You did play it? Did you play it on PS4? Where did you play it? Do you remember?
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah so I played it on PS4 back in the day for a little bit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: Good question.
Leon Lionheartly: um Short answer, and I can get to this because I know you've got a lot much more experience of with this, Caleb, is I like these style of games when they were heavy rain.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Like,
neocharge: Yeah. Jason?
Leon Lionheartly: 2015 years ago, 20 years ago, they were awesome.
neocharge: and sudden
Leon Lionheartly: They really clicked with me. I'm not saying, I'm not trying to discredit because like Detroit become human and everything else are great games, but man, I have a hard time keeping going. um So it cool.
Leon Lionheartly: I wish, so I wish that was success.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): not for everybody.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. Not for everybody. That's with until dawn. i so I did actually play just a little bit of until dawn, but not, not here. Is it friends? I think the best way to play until dawn is with a group of people where everybody picks a person and you, yeah, you get to make the decision ah that, that I actually think works really well.
neocharge: a party game. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Maybe that's a me thing because I'm not a huge fan of slasher stuff in general. I just don't find it that interesting. But when you're sitting with six people and you're just like, Oh no, like, so-and-so just died because they're bad decision like that. That's way more fun for me. um But like you said, Bob, I'm kind of with you on, I very much enjoyed heavy rain.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, I, well, enjoy it as a strong word. I appreciated heavy rain. I appreciated Detroit become human.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I appreciate those was beyond two souls.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So if the one was called, I appreciate all those.
Leon Lionheartly: no
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I really like them trying to make an interactive movie ah that isn't just a fucking slog. unfortunately, to be accessible to more people, you kind of have to make some of it a fucking slog. they did There's not really a good way to do it. With one exception, we all played it recently.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i i would consider it to be one of the best iterations of a playable movie. But i i'm I'm really happy for the Until Dawn fans. I think Until Dawn looks like it's going to be more of the great, if you liked Until Dawn 1, you're going to love Until Dawn 2.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): they've They've learned how to make it beautiful. They've learned how to do the storytelling. They've learned how the interactions happen. So I'm not going to be picking it up unless I have a big old party with some friends that want to play it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not going to buy it new at long, like full price. It's nothing against it. it' Just not my jam. So, but good on you if you're, if you're a fan of this stuff, I think.
neocharge: Yeah, same here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What about you? How do you feel? Okay.
neocharge: Same here, yeah. Not my jam. Not my style of game. ah i' I've played a couple Telltale games in this style. Tales from the Borderlands and Wolf Among Us.
neocharge: I enjoyed them. Definitely not my style. I like a little little more control. um like like Like actual like sticks on the sticks and really controlling your character other than like choosing different paths kind of like a choose your own adventure watch the game instead of play it um i'm yeah just not not my style it's i i am intrigued not on my list i'm definitely not getting i think like you said i think these are incredible party games the one i would play the one i would dive into this style i really i do want to play detroit become human i think it's
neocharge: the the the story is right up my alley with like the AI stuff. But like you said, yeah, yeah, I would love to.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): o Yeah. It's a little heavier.
neocharge: Yeah, I wouldn't. I would want to do like a party style like, oh, what should I choose? I wouldn't want to play it alone. I think these are like really good party games, like you said. But yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is weird for should Become Human.
Leon Lionheartly: If I may, Matt...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did not want to play it with other people.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but judge
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's that's going to be my...
neocharge: Hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the one.
Leon Lionheartly: That's my point.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Detroit Become Human, Don't Make It a Party Game. um How do I put this...
neocharge: I know it gets deep. ah
Leon Lionheartly: It gets very politically deep in messaging and it slaps you across the head.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So
neocharge: Excellent. It's a party.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): who
Leon Lionheartly: why
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But also,
Leon Lionheartly: i'm going to take that's the kind of game I'm going to troll you 100% if we're doing it as a party.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and I feel like, I mean, there, there is a place for that, that absolutely would be fun.
neocharge: Excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But as a person who I didn't really know what to expect with Detroit become human, but I, for some reason I thought I really need to play that. I just need to play this and I don't even know why.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And when I finally did, not that I would be embarrassed if other people were with me, it wasn't that. It was more, I'm glad I can just kind of reflect on this decision or this lack of a decision or whatever I did wrong or right or morality and there was a lot to learn from that game and a lot of people online like bob said the the political nazis not literal nazis the people that are online fake nazis i don't know what to say shouldn't said nazis whatever those people that just go full bore and shit on everything i i don't think i think the game deserved better than that uh But other the other ones, Until Dawn and stuff, like absolutely great party games because you've got it's a little bit more on the surface of like, oh, you fucked up and you got your head cut off.
Leon Lionheartly: Agreed.
neocharge: name
Leon Lionheartly: agreed
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Whereas in Detroit Become Human, it's like, you just committed mass genocide because you're an idiot. It's not something that would be as party-full,
neocharge: Gotcha.
neocharge: that show Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): at least in my opinion. I don't know. I was glad that I i just kind of let that game marinate.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: I see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so
neocharge: Yeah. That's the one I would play if I were to play. And then there's a slew of them. So, yeah. ah If you loved Until Dawn, you're getting a sequel. We knew the sequel was coming because I think the PS5 version kind of at the end teased a sequel.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I did.
neocharge: So... Yeah. ah Looks cool. Looks really good graphically. So, yeah. Very cool that we're getting a sequel for it. So, I'm excited for those that are excited for it.
neocharge: This next one, day one, on my list.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. They won. They won!
neocharge: Been excited since the announcement. Day one!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's
neocharge: I can mimic him, uh, control resonant.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): great.
neocharge: We finally got a release date. This is like our fourth trailer, I think. Uh, but this is going to be releasing. You guessed it. September 24th, 2026. Uh, finally got a release date. This is a put down everything and play game for me.
neocharge: Uh, control was a fucking gem. I loved every minute of it. Uh,
neocharge: Man, I don't know which one's my favorite, Alan Wake or Control, but they're they're really, really close because I loved the shit out of Control.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No.
neocharge: I played all of it, Platinum'd it, played all the DLC. I have been excited for this one ah since the tease in Alan Wake 2. So love it.
neocharge: Can't wait.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you're a fan of like film and stuff, film and television, I do think Alan Wake 2 might be – I would lean you more that way.
neocharge: I know you guys are excited. and mean Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you are a fan – because they they both do them very well. Control and Alan Wake both do gameplay and and visuals and and film and storytelling very well.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I do think if you're more interested in the gameplay, I do think control is where to go. But if you're more interested in ah visuals, the narrative and and film, that feeling, then Alan Wake's the way to go.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): If you like it all, we love them all.
neocharge: That's a, that's a good point.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that that those both of them are great.
neocharge: Oh yeah. i' I love both of them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Tough to choose.
neocharge: I can't pick a favorite, but yeah, controls way more gameplay heavy and you're, you got,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: like telekinesis powers and everything. Uh, you followed Jesse in the original control and it was a new IP from, uh, remedy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And I'm a big fan of remedy as a developer. i loved Alan way, gallon way too. Uh, And this is going to be following Dylan Faden, which he was pretty mysterious in Control. I'll just say that.
neocharge: ah Control's on sale. You can get it for like the Control Ultimate Edition on PS5. You get it for like $4. So go buy that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Worth every penny and then some.
neocharge: Go play it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's so good.
neocharge: Oh, God. Absolutely. Yeah, I don't want to spoil anything on Control, but Dylan was a very mysterious character. And yeah, what?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What is that
Leon Lionheartly: Keep going.
neocharge: That was the weirdest fucking face.
Leon Lionheartly: I knew this was rumored. I knew this was rumored.
neocharge: Oh, are we getting breaking news here?
Leon Lionheartly: I didn't think it was confirmed. Please tell me if this was confirmed because my brain is fried. ah
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Speaking a Remedy, you go to their website and click on Games.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: so Control Resonant is there and there's a placard holder for Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake now.
neocharge: Just tell us.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, didn't know was confirmed, but I did know it was a rumor.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, that was something else.
Leon Lionheartly: Was that actually confirmed? I thought it was heavily rumored, but it wasn't actually.
neocharge: Announced, yeah. It was announced.
Leon Lionheartly: Where?
neocharge: Remedy said they were working on a Max Payne remake.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I see. I never heard it directly from the source. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, gotcha. Oh, you were looking on the Control Resonance stuff? Yeah, that's in in development. So ah that's another game. ah Quantum Break. Not great, but fun. ah I didn't play it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): was a big fan.
neocharge: I watched them.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Big fan.
neocharge: Yeah? Good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it had its issues, whatever, but that I mean, we talked about it a little bit before on an earlier cast.
neocharge: Okay, cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't remember when, but that Quantum Break ran or walked so that everything else could fly. Everything after it flew because Quantum Break, but that I had a special place in my heart for it.
neocharge: Oh yeah. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's not a 10 out of 10 game. not It's just not.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But boy, did I really enjoy it. So, yeah.
neocharge: Awesome. Yeah. Well, they're going third person sandbox, uh, beat them up in control resonant. And I love how they're changing the genre too.
neocharge: Cause they, they like to do that. They like to keep us on our toes. Uh, but this has given me huge, like prototype infamous, uh, vibes. So you're, you're in New York where the FBC is and everything's just gone to shit.
neocharge: You got Dr. Strange style fucking shit happening where,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Like, up is down and down is up and birds are multiplying and turning into fucking kaleidoscopes and who the fuck knows what's going on here? But it's all going to be explained in 47 documents, you find.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): reality Reality is bending. yeah
neocharge: Oh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And hopefully Dr. Casper Darling gets to tell us everything everything about it.
neocharge: oh he ah he ended the this trailer and I was like, yeah!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. was so happy.
neocharge: Because he is... He is the original voice of Alan Wake, and they they have live action sequences in some of their games, especially on TV. But they, dude, Dr. Darling is a gem.
neocharge: um Can't say a lot about him, but go play Control. you'll You'll see what we mean. There's a lot of live action sequences because they blend live action and gameplay. <unk>s And he's just a gem. So I'm glad he's back. And they're leaning into everything I think we loved about Control and putting us in a sandbox with a weapon that can just turn into whatever the fuck you want.
neocharge: ah Following Dylan Faden, which I was always a fan of. He was super mysterious. But yeah, he's going to be front and center in this. So yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm looking forward to what the actor can do, what the the performer can do, because this this is his chance to just show us what you're made of kind of in his own game.
neocharge: i Yeah. Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i i'm I'm looking forward to it for sure.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep. And they showed Jessie too. So Jessie is returning. Not sure if she's a playable character. We don't know that. That's not confirmed, but they did show her and she's she's rocking a new fit, rocking a new look.
neocharge: So I don't really want to see any more about this game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not mad about it. Yeah. No.
neocharge: What? Oh yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not mad about it.
neocharge: Yeah. But I am.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like, I'm like, yep.
neocharge: No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Oh no. She looks great. Yeah. So, uh, very excited, very excited for this game. Day one, putting everything down, clearing the schedule for it, clearing the gaming schedule, like going to be strategically trying to end the game, like two to one to two days before this game.
neocharge: That's this type of game for me.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): heaven
neocharge: Uh, so yeah, Bob, you're, you're a fan of control, but this one isn't like a, Oh my God, I can't wait game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thank you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i I'm really excited for this game, but I also know I've been on the burner with like, let's just say we know remedy is kind of like in the house mark realm where you, sometimes you need to give them a couple of weeks post launch, um, to clean up around the edges.
neocharge: Okay.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, and that's okay because then I will play the better. I don't want to say the better version, but I'll play the cleaned up version, um, of this. And, i like I really like the concept of control.
Leon Lionheartly: The ah the FBC, um just leave it like that. And that part of the universe, I think is really neat. That's the kind of like genre that I really love. them like more Almost more than sci-fi.
Leon Lionheartly: I love that that pseudo science fiction, quantum break realm, paranormal style, like warehouse 13, if you know what I'm referring to, kind of stuff.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Paranormal.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Like Twilight Zone shit.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Twilight Zone. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I love that. um But I got to let Remedy cook a little bit earlier around the edges, and Animusha's right there, and Capcom is just hitting back to back to back to back. I can't it's that i can't miss that one.
neocharge: It's true. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um So definitely look forward to it, but, dude, Remedy rocks.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: They they fucking nail they eventually stumble sometimes, but they eventually recover and nail it um ah short of FBC firebreak.
neocharge: but Dude, I smelled the stink on that a mile away.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: i was like, guys, what are you doing?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah
neocharge: lot them Let them learn. That game got, I think, like 50s on OpenCritic, and I think it's dead.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it was not great.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So, yeah. This is a put-down-and-everything-for-you game. Right, Caleb?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's I will probably um because I don't like to play that many things at the same time.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I know I said that in April and what have I fucking done?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just keep panic. But I do when it comes to a game like Control, it's very heavy in the story for me. I mean, the gameplay is going to be great. I know it's going fun, but the story is kind of number number one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Onimusha, however, is near and dear to my heart, very Capcom. I might actually do both.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And if one has some issues, one's running rough around the edges, then I'll just go to the other one, finish that one first, come back again.
neocharge: yeah that's
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But i will be in I will be in a good space because I don't care about Grand Theft Auto, that whatever games I fall behind on, and since October is going to probably be Kronos, scary game, maybe even Silent Hill 2, I don't know.
neocharge: good plan me too I
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): remake, then I can come back to whatever is broken in November when they've finally patched it. I doubt, I think both of them are actually going to be pretty good at launch. I do think they've learned from their mistakes.
neocharge: think so too
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Another thing that intrigues me is i don't I don't want to know how long either one of these are, but I know the first Onimusha was like three hours long.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Second Onimusha was closer to between 10 and 15.
neocharge: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think that was the same for Onimusha 3. So my expectations for Way of the Sword. are the same or hopefully like a 15 to 20 hour adventure. But if it's good, if it Capcom, they have been nailing it with resident evil, 12 to 15 hours, 10 to 15 hours, pragmata and 15 hours.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So if only moosh is 10 to 15 hours and it's as good as the others or better. Yes. I will have time for both of those then that's, that's a, uh, so yeah, I, but I will be playing control at or very close to launch.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's it. I'm so excited for it.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. They dude, I, I'm a huge fan of control and yeah, it's, it's a good point. These games sometimes come out a little undercooked, but I think remedy is learning from their mistakes.
neocharge: Maybe who knows? We'll see.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
neocharge: Uh, I have it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. We'll find out 24th.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. I have a pre-ordered. It's a, it's a day one for me now. Uh, This was probably my third favorite game of the show, Control Resonant. And then think maybe Rayman Origins was my second.
neocharge: ah But this next one ended the show and it was my favorite ah because it is a from a series near and dear to my heart.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're first.
neocharge: And they're exploring some pretty crazy shit that I've always wanted them to explore. ah Sid Schumann comes on. He's like, all right, this is our last announcement and we're going to give you 20 minutes of gameplay from this game from one of our beloved ah studios and IPs. And man, they really milked this one, dude. It went black screen for a while. Okay.
neocharge: And then you hear, heard some birds in the background. You're like, okay, it can still be intergalactic. It can still, still be that. But then you hear our girl Faye from god of War. Okay.
neocharge: ah start humming the God of War theme song. And they're like, oh shit, it's God of War. So Santa Monica comes up and ah we get the...
neocharge: we're We're going to try and not spoil God of War 2018. It is, it Yes, but they start...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, it's going to be difficult, but yeah, we'll dance around it best we can.
neocharge: it is it is i yes but they they start but i mean 10 minutes in god of war 2018 your wife fey has died and you're cremating her and the whole game is based on you spreading her ashes on top of the uh highest realm in uh midgard which or the highest realm or jotunheim uh yeah the highest realm in all of the the realms of the norse mythology so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Gotenheim, yeah.
neocharge: And where this was kind of rumored that we were getting a Fae-centric God of War game. But then it goes into like her going up into the clouds and basically they just like dying, right?
neocharge: Because she's getting burned alive. Or not alive. She's getting burned. She died.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Kratos is burning her alive.
neocharge: what
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. yeah
neocharge: Kratos!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Boy, be quiet.
neocharge: She's getting burned.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Your mom is...
neocharge: She's getting cremated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The goat.
neocharge: Right. Her spirit, or this is like new content. We're like, oh shit, it is following Faye. She wakes up in this area and man, the the graphics are gorgeous. ah And we get a shot of Debra Ann Wool. She is playing Faye.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): go
neocharge: ah Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She did. I mean, this is, I don't consider this a spoiler for flashbacks and stuff.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the second in God of War Ragnarok, Deborah Ann Wall was actually playing this, this character, this role before.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it was very nice that she got to reprise it and and actually carry through, know, carry it out.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That that's exciting for those of us fans of Deborah.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She's, she's awesome.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I very much like her. She's great.
neocharge: And as a fan of God of War, it's really intriguing. Like, she kind of orchestrated a lot of ah the and the journey of Kratos and Atreus. ah And she's an integral character,
neocharge: in the story arc for many reasons, which you should go find out when you play God of War 2018.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And in Norse mythology. she She has a big role in Norse mythology.
neocharge: Yeah, and in Norse mythology.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So, yeah.
neocharge: Exactly, exactly. So, ah yeah, she ah dies and wakes up in this place, starts going through this corridor. We we see gameplay. I mean, it's top tier fucking gorgeous photo realistic.
neocharge: Wow. ah Like the hair physics, everything. And then she's a badass, like spinning around, fighting everything. We see the combat and everything. And eventually she gets caught and we start seeing some gods and goddesses.
neocharge: And I nailed the first goddess, Sekhmet, because I was like, oh, that's ah that's a serpent goddess and she's super Egyptian. And oh, it's a god of war.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, her health your helmet thing, you know, whatever it was.
neocharge: Sekhmet. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was like, oh, fuck. What?
neocharge: Right. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's exactly what I said when she came on screen.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep. yeah But we also see also see Betsy, ah which is a Mongolian god of war. And we're starting to see a lot of like these different mythologies and ah God of War doesn't just explore Greek and Norse. They are exploring others. Let's just say that. And we see that here. So then she gets caught and she gets thrown in a cage.
neocharge: She's fucking blanket starts talking. The blanket flies off its cube. It's literally the gelatinous cube from D&D. we have We have theories on what this is. Voiced by Jack Quaid, which is awesome.
neocharge: He's in The Boys and he's great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Boys fans rejoice.
neocharge: Yes. ah And the cube has a sword stuck in it. We don't know what the sword is. I have theories. We can talk about them. But it has ribbons on it. And the ribbons are ah nicknamed Rue.
neocharge: And that starts talking. And then, like, she she's a big magic user. She uses magic to blow up. She gets the sword. And we see some awesome fucking aerial sword-based gameplay. The ribbons are like Kratos' Blades of Chaos. ah Just a huge set piece. All this is gameplay. All this is real time. The unique thing about God of War and God of War Ragnarok is they never cut the camera.
neocharge: They never do load screens or anything like that. It's always one continuous camera shot. And it sounds like it's incredible.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Kind of amazing. It really is. it and I mean, some people might not be a fan of that, but again, from my film stuff, the first God War when they did it, I i just shit my pants.
neocharge: It's like, what?
neocharge: I love it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I was like, how the fuck did you design a whole ass game around this?
Leon Lionheartly: Hey.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: any
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i
neocharge: Great.
Leon Lionheartly: you're You're right. And in the what I really appreciate that is not the the the the the film student side, so to speak, excuse me, but from the technical aspect, because if you understand how they do it from a technical aspect, it's really fucking genius.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: It's like the way they they projected 3D in Doom without actually being 3D back in the day.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. It's so cool.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just so, and it's one of those things that if you notice it, you, you really appreciate it. If you don't notice it, you don't even know, but you appreciate it.
neocharge: a
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You just, you might not know why you appreciate it.
neocharge: Exactly, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You just do. And then when you think about it, somebody points it out to you, you're like, oh my God, no way.
neocharge: Right. You're like, oh, this game's...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then you've really paid attention.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): for like Holy fuck. Yeah.
neocharge: Right. The camera never cuts.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's,
neocharge: It's crazy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And the the choreography, you're talking about her aerial flips and all that stuff.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: It's always...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The choreography for Faye in this, this gameplay we got to see.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: The animations.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. I was just imagining Debra Ann Wall.
neocharge: Was this your game of the show as well?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um, I want it to be, but it's one of those, I was actually very surprised that they decided to show as much gameplay as they did and then not give us even a release window.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: i agree.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I thought, boy, this is further along than I would have ever guessed based on what we're seeing.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. i thought I thought we'd get a year at least.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um, Yeah. I was, I actually thought, i was like, Oh my God, are they going to do it? Are they going to go November and say, fuck you, Grand Theft Auto. We don't care.
neocharge: Ha ha!
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I, I didn't, I didn't know. um It probably was Game of the Show, but that's not fair because I kind of knew everything else. Like Wolverine, I knew was coming.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah For sure, we knew it was coming.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Same thing with Onimusha, same thing with Control Resonant, and even the other games, like Ace Combat games that might not be on the immediate list.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But this was this was the surprise, and I just didn't expect it at all, ah even though it was rumored that something like this would exist.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah, I think, unfortunately, I think it... it's not really that close. Cause it was like, that's exciting. I, I saw some of the feedback on the internet today.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Just people were always going to shit.
neocharge: Yeah,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): on I don't care. i don't care what they say. One thing I will say during, during the gameplay though, when they showed the cube, I i was like, the what?
neocharge: yeah I don't want to shed light on that shit.
neocharge: Stupid.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, it was a little out of place. But if they haven't earned your trust by now with their storytelling and everything else, then I don't know what to tell you. This is just not for you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So i'm I'm not mad about it. Like I'll be mad about it if they just poop the bed, but i I'm not mad about it.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What about you, Bob?
neocharge: Everything I saw.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Did you care?
Leon Lionheartly: um It's a really cool idea, and I like all the visual flares and everything else that's that's in there. And I like the setup that's a concept. I have one ah two big, big, big problems with this.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: um And we can lead into it as the second one is part of the overall experience of this state of play.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah, that's good.
neocharge: i
Leon Lionheartly: One, it's in you said in development.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah We saw... i know i know like Bo and a few others have said, that oh it looks really like they're really far along. That could be a farce, though.
neocharge: Maybe they're to polish the shit out of it. 30.
Leon Lionheartly: like The first Halo 2 demo was notoriously known for like the game would crash if you went outside of bounds because they were that far behind. so This is in development, and that was 20 minutes of an intro, but you still have another fucking 60 hours a game or whatever it is to complete a modern-day God of War.
Leon Lionheartly: So... um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, 25, 30-ish, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So it's
Leon Lionheartly: yeah And this kind of ties into my second problem.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um don't spend 20 minutes on a state of play and hype me up for two weeks for 20 minutes on a game that's in development. Get in there. Give me something new. What is coming?
Leon Lionheartly: Everything was great. Fucking Wolverine. Awesome. I love the seven minute Wolverine. A game that's coming out in three months. Got 10 minutes. This got 20.
Leon Lionheartly: Come on, man. Who the fuck is part of my expression? And I got a rant, but who the fuck is designing this?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, you're good.
neocharge: Yeah, that is a good
Leon Lionheartly: You've got a game that's literally about to sell. You need the numbers, and you gave it half the time that the Fae chick got. um And I'm not saying it's a beautiful game. I will play it.
Leon Lionheartly: I love everything I saw, but I didn't need to see 20 minutes of this to see in development.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I needed to see 20 minutes of this to go, by the way, it's coming November 19th.
neocharge: Or
Leon Lionheartly: Fuck you, Grand Theft Auto.
neocharge: maybe it's on, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but that's That's kind of what I was hoping. that That part right there was, if you're going to show me this, we're further along.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then the in development part, I do agree. was like, man, huh. But you're right in that the Halo 2 demo is a perfect example of maybe they just aren't ready.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But then my argument would be, why'd you show me all this stuff now and come out two years later?
Leon Lionheartly: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like I don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: please
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i But I still was excited about what I saw.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I really i i really was.
Leon Lionheartly: but i love the gelatinous cube. I saw that and it immediately went to my D&D lands and I was like, yes.
neocharge: His name...
Leon Lionheartly: Frank.
neocharge: Yeah. His name is Frank. P-H-R-A-N-Q-E.
Leon Lionheartly: Frank.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I love that. it I love that spelling.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. So, we got the title. It is God of War, Laufey. And... ah If you want to spoil God of War 2018, look up what that means.
neocharge: And we're not going to it inna say that's her. Yeah, that's Faye. like lafe So yeah, ah don't. If you go play God of War 2018, please.
neocharge: um And Ragnarok, both incredible games. ah this This was my game of the show. They did yeah they did spend 20 minutes on a game in development. They could have squeezed three more games in there.
neocharge: ah Interesting. It could have just got its own state of play, and then they could have deep dived into it. There's some vid-ox on it if you want to know more about the game. ah She is in the Everywin, which is a space but between worlds where gods go when they die.
neocharge: Gods and goddesses go when they die. So that's exciting as a God of War fan, because God of War, you kill gods.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's cool idea for sure.
neocharge: So are the gods that you kill coming back? Because there's some important ones. Go play God of War. and Go play God of War 1, 2, 3. Chains of Olympus, Ghosts of Sparta, 2018, and Ragnarok.
neocharge: And Ascension. Don't forget that one.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I i actually didn't like Ascension that much.
neocharge: I thought it was alright.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Of all of them, I think that's the my lowest. It's it's fine, but yeah.
neocharge: ah My lowest was Chains.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Ghosts was good. Ghosts was good, but Chains of Olympus.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did like Ghost. I did like Ghost, for sure.
neocharge: Yeah, Ghosts of Sparta was great.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But yeah, as ah as a big God of War fan like you said, the fact that I might be running into some of my old ah angry people.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You married who?
neocharge: The God of War.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the think about it.
neocharge: Okay. The God of War isn't God of War.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): not it
neocharge: Spoiler.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like but But just think about think about if you're Fae and you come across any of the Greek gods, they're going to be like, wait a minute, you married that motherfucker?
neocharge: Aries.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That angry motherfucker? What are you doing with your life?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I can't wait to see what those interactions are if we get them.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And can i After the cast, I really want to bake your noodle for a moment. I don't want to say it even though it's not the biggest deal and we don't really know.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My very first thought as soon as this trailer started this gameplay trailer started, I was like, oh my god, I think I know the answer to a question.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): just so wellll But we can talk about that afterwards.
neocharge: oh Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't want to ruin that for fans that haven't played.
neocharge: Yes, let's let's talk about that. i'm I'm sure we'll have a spoiler cast on this. This is one of, this is a a Sony PlayStation tentpole game. ah It's a full-fledged game, not like a in-between like Miles Morales or like a spinoff or anything.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: It is a next God of War sequel. ah So God of War, Lao Fé, in development. No date, no year. If I were to guess, fall of next year.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I would guess next and ah November, October, November of next year would be my guess.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. yeah
neocharge: Yep. It'll be our tentpole game. And then Intergalactic will be our 2028. So. I know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Which, that's another problem I have. The intergalactic showed up with the same thing that Bob was talking about. Like, what the fuck?
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Don't do that because I'm going not care.
neocharge: Right. That's what I thought it was going to be.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, so did I.
neocharge: Yeah. That's what i thought it was going to be.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But at the first note, the very first note, I knew it was God of War.
neocharge: So.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): As soon as I heard the music, I went, no way.
neocharge: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then Santa Monica came up and i was like, oh,
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): my you what are you doing and then can we talk for a second about that title screen like she she you know the the spirit floats away and then lands in the everyone and she's just laying there with her eyes closed and then start game no but the start game pops up and then she wakes up that was ah just it was a neat i really thought that was fun yeah super cool super cool
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. yeah Please.
neocharge: Yeah. She's like... oh Yeah, that's the that's yeah that's all awesome. They did the same thing in 2018 when he's in the woods with the axe.
neocharge: I love when they do that. yeah And it kind of leads into the no cutting or... ah the continuous camera shot, because you're like, oh shit, it's like the title screen, it's interactive, cool, so yeah, love Sony Santa Monica, keep cooking, ah they're working on the God of War ah trilogy, the original trilogy, the Greek trilogy remake, God of War 3 is my favorite, ragnarots Ragnarok is close second, I'd say, but yeah,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. So neat.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The remake of the originals? Yeah.
neocharge: I'm very excited for this. It was an interesting placement in the state of play. I do agree, Bob. And I do think they they spent a lot more time when they could have given us like three more banger titles. But I'm glad nonetheless it was there.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, for sure.
neocharge: it was my game of the show. ah Overall thoughts of the state of play. Who wants to go first? you want to I'll go first.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Bob, you go first.
neocharge: Bob, you go first.
Leon Lionheartly: All right, sure. i This is going to sound negative, but I'm trying not to be.
neocharge: Why'd you hate this state of play, Bob?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): yeah
Leon Lionheartly: This state of play was an A. If I was a teacher grading the paper or project of the students, you have an A.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And then you got to the end of the project and you forgot you were supposed to do the end of the project. So you fucking threw something together at the last minute, hoping that it was enough to fake me out.
neocharge: I doubt it.
Leon Lionheartly: Sorry, PlayStation. I ain't buying it. In development, 20 minutes, give me intergalactic. Give me Judas. Give me something else that we know exists for sure. ah So you get a B- minus on this one.
Leon Lionheartly: You pass because you did so good up front. But at the end, you kind of gave me something that's hard to conceptualize. That's what it is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um And at the end of the day, um the
neocharge: Yeah. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I have to say beyond a shadow of a doubt that that Wolverine, the Wolverine is the game of the show because we know Wolverine's coming. We saw what it looks like. It answered so many questions. I'm like that. That right there tells me exactly all I need to know. I'm buying it.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Like, there you go.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Leon Lionheartly: Cool. ah So, but yeah, they get a B minus because they they did everything else really well.
neocharge: Gotcha. Okay. I'll go next.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): okay
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I thought overall this was a very solid state of play. Was it better than the last one? Not even close. ah it it was It was a solid state of play. It was good. ah There wasn't as much as there was in the last one. They did spend a lot of time on the front end and the back end.
neocharge: um I gave it a Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Boy, that's interesting. I give it a solid B.
Leon Lionheartly: Really?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So you're B minus, I'm a B, you give it a B plus.
Leon Lionheartly: Really?
neocharge: nice
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): My B, the only real reason, because I very much enjoyed a lot of the games we saw, and I think that they did a really good job generally with the trailers and stuff.
neocharge: Yeah. And dude, how many games as a service, how many gotcha games did we see?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Right. that's a well
neocharge: None.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But we were missing one key thing for Caleb.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How many RPGs were in that?
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Nah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Zero.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And i'm saying I'm not saying that everything needs an RPG.
neocharge: That's true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They had something for just about everybody. They didn't have sports. They didn't have RPGs. You're missing two. Not everything needs to be for us, right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that's I'm not saying that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like i don't i don't need I don't really care that much about sports games, but I do appreciate when they have one or two good ones in there for the people that do. I was disappointed personally for the lack of any RPG, even even just like a, hey, we we want...
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Now, this was first party, so I'm assuming all the RPGs will be in Summer Games Fest and and Xbox Showcase even. But I thought, man, I'm i'm kind of missing one you know major RPG announcement.
neocharge: I hope so. Tales of Eternia.
neocharge: One big one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm not talking about i'm not talking about that one even.
neocharge: lot fantasy.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): it It could be a different developer.
neocharge: Oh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It could be somebody else.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i just Just something that's that's that. The closest we got was like Dune, but that's the MMO thing.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And I i just thought, oh, well that's kind of a bummer that
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Those of us that that like the long ass RPGs didn't get any love this time. And last time we got the teaser, we got the one that we thought was the next Tales game that's not.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And that was still just, that was more of a concept trailer than anything else. So...
neocharge: And then we got Dragon Quest. Fuckface Chad.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Fuck ass chat. Oh God. But i that was my only real, it's still still very good. B is very solid for that.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do think they did a good job.
neocharge: Yeah, solid.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I do agree with Bob.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): to Closing the show, it was no high guard, thank God. But it was like, you got my hypes up and then in development.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What the fuck does that mean?
neocharge: mine
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's just, yeah.
neocharge: Right. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah it it shows this is the ripple effect of the mismanagement of sony first party studios for the last what five to ten years with uh with the chase for the the live service uh this is that ripple effect
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Herman.
neocharge: but umm
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. And I'm glad we're focusing on this now. Like focus on our roots, focus on what you're good at, single player, narrative driven, photorealistic, action heavy video games.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like I give it an F because there's no Bloodborne.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah ah Right?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No, it was a good, it was a good show.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, it was a good, it was it' is definitely a good show.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I did it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): No.
neocharge: Solid. Overall enjoyed it. All right, fellas, we're going to get out of here soon, but let's first talk.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Wow.
neocharge: Well, I want to do I want to do two things. i I definitely want to talk about first slide. I want to talk a little bit about we're playing. We'll, we'll get quickly into that. I also just want to do like three rapid fire, uh, predictions on what you want to see for summer game fest keynote coming up in two days.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So Friday, not Sunday.
neocharge: Uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You're not talking the Xbox, just Summer Game Fest.
neocharge: Friday summer game fest keynote.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: So yeah, or the Xbox of all events. Well, no, let's just keep it summer game fest. Um, I mean, summer game fest is four days, but, uh, yeah, let's, uh, we're, we're getting long in the tooth. We really are, but we, we do need to talk a little bit about first light because we've all played it.
neocharge: We've all finished it. I finished it last night. Uh, last one to finish it, I think. And, uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Congrats. I mean, you know, you did it.
neocharge: Thank you. Thank you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): You got through it.
neocharge: I'm going to platinum it. I'm probably going to platinum it. As much as I want to get to the next game, I do want to platinum. I was... Maybe. Because there's that one thing that shows up in the bottom right corner that is new content coming out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep.
neocharge: I'm like, hmm, this will give me a reason to revisit this game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yep. Wait. maybe Maybe wait for it. Yeah. That looks really cool.
neocharge: Maybe wait for it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: And then... my And then do the chapter selects and collectible cleanups there. Then. So... actually put it down for a bit. I don't know. I'll get in front of my screen and be like, I'm deciding now.
neocharge: Hades 2, First Light, Mina the Hollower, Lego Batman. Fuck!
neocharge: So, let's get into First Light. What'd you guys think?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: You guys liked it more than me. I hated it. No, okay. I loved it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Let
neocharge: ah But I didn't like it as much as you guys did. I had some qualms with it. Let's just talk about it quickly. We can talk about it as a group or we can, we can, yeah, let's just talk about First Light as a group.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): me...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. I will very easily say from the film side, because I know Bob is a huge Bond fan.
neocharge: You go
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i mean, I'm not ashamed to admit he's a bigger Bond fan than I am. I love James Bond. Bob breathes James Bond.
neocharge: go.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's very, very different.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so But I have a lot of respect for the IP.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I have a lot of respect for everything about it, even like the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was very excited for this game. Didn't quite know what to expect. But I was so pleasantly surprised at how...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): bond it was it was such i mean i will say this in great detail in our spoiler cast i can talk about the specifics with with bob and hopefully bo will be joining us for that i
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Do we have a date nailed down for that? can we just Do we want to announce that now? Just to to get everyone excited for it?
Leon Lionheartly: i I have a soft date after for recording as long as it works for everybody else here.
neocharge: Soft date, okay.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Caleb's the only wild card that ah you're you're half committed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): but But, I mean, you can absolutely count on me because I did get more information today.
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think I'm good. So if that's the date, that's the date.
neocharge: We have a hard date.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, well, in that case, there we go. That's all I needed to hear.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so
neocharge: When we're doing the spoiler cast, Bob. You're leading this one.
Leon Lionheartly: ah We'll be recording that next week on June 10th.
neocharge: Sweet.
Leon Lionheartly: um So expect to see that next week ah in your feed.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sometime, whenever, depending on how long it is.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: ah We'll start recording Wednesday night and then we'll probably finish by Thursday midday, I assume.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i will I will try not
neocharge: Yeah. yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): we're We're aiming for a seven hour cast.
neocharge: it all So we're going to record it then. ah release We're going to release episode 55 that Friday, 12th.
Leon Lionheartly: it
neocharge: Maybe a weekend release, maybe a Monday release. I don't know. Depends on.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll figure it out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): There's going to be a lot you guys have to talk about with Summer Game Fest and the Xbox showcase.
neocharge: So.
neocharge: it Yeah, there is.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that's the hard part for you, but that's that's what you guys do.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so But I will say the spoiler-free version of this First Light game that I can talk about now is, I think it is, if not the best, I do think it might be the best, but if it's not the best, it's up there with the best.
neocharge: Yeah. Please look forward to it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): movie that you can play that actually plays well and is like movie quality. It's it's not based on any of the movies that exist, it but it feels like a James Bond movie.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i I don't know how they nailed it as hard as they did for that, but that was the thing that impressed me the most.
neocharge: Sure
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yes, I have some small issues with it, but they're very minor. It's overall, what an experience. I really was just happy
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): the whole time as a Bond fan. and And I was happy as a gamer.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just thought, how the fuck? Love the script. Script's my favorite part. ah The character interactions, the way that they did.
neocharge: story is so good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Things I won't talk about until the spoiler cast because it does tend to ruin things that I think should be experienced freshly. and I don't want to tell somebody this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): so But those are those are my general feelings.
neocharge: Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah Bob, I assume that hopefully you're in the same vein
neocharge: Okay. let's Let's sandwich this because I got a little bit of negativity and we're going to do positive, negative, positive.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Okay. Yeah.
neocharge: ah To be clear,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: I loved this game. It's great. Is it in the conversation for me for game the year this year? Not even close. It's an amazing game. It's a lot like Uncharted.
neocharge: The sneaky sections were a little taxing for me. ah The back half of the game is a lot better than the front half. All of it is great, but I almost put this game down due to some frustration with the sneaky sections, due to some pacing issues, due to the my skill, honestly. I wasn't very good at this game because I wasn't utilizing all the combat mechanics available ah Cast in Hades 2.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: and I just, ah you know, sometimes that happens. um It's an incredible Bond. It's the best Bond game, easily. ah that is not That's not really a hype. I mean, GoldenEye pretty awesome. ah But this game, it dripped Uncharted. I would disagree with you, Caleb. I think the best movie-style video game, Uncharted 4.
neocharge: is my favorite. It's a very movie-esque game that kind of plays like a movie.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I mean, they there are a lot like that, but this, I mean, we can talk a little bit more in detail during the spoiler cast because I'd have to go into film stuff.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): like Things like, okay, the spoiler-free versions, like Star Wars has special types of fades.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When you watch a Star Wars movie, you expect to have a fade, right? A type of fade, that the screen wipe and the stuff like that. um Uncharted is very cinematic. Mass Effect is very cinematic. God of War is very cinematic in their own way.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But the Bond game was like that type of film. it's It's so hard to explain because of the styles of cuts and the way that they...
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): interject things, but I'm not disagreeing with you because obviously Uncharted 4 is awesome. ah
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But Uncharted 4 was a game first and it's sort of like borrowed from Indiana Jones to take a Bond, but the Bond world that is known for its movies.
neocharge: Yeah. Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's that's it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then Goldeneye.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But they're usually, Goldeneye was based on the movie, right? The Goldeneye movie existed first.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): This was sort of like, okay, what are you going to do?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And they gave me a Bond movie that is never in theaters.
neocharge: They nailed it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I could just play it. That's, that's like so strange ah to me, but I do, i do see what you're saying as far as the cinematic experience and the, it's, it's visual, uncharted.
neocharge: They nailed it.
neocharge: Yeah. See...
neocharge: The sneaky parts were a little too slow for me. ah Like i said, I wasn't use utilizing as much of the combat mechanics as I should.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Hmm.
neocharge: But overall, especially the back half of this game, especially some specific areas, every area is gorgeous, but some kind of stood out to me and they're in the
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
neocharge: later back half, I had a blast this game.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They were really cool. They were really cool.
neocharge: I love it. And ah i a lot of bond references, probably a lot. I didn't pick up as much as you did, Bob, but I am a bond fan. I don't bleed or breathe bond like you do, like Caleb said, but I am a fan of bond and I didn't catch the nods to a lot. And there are a lot of Easter eggs ah in this game. If you're, ah if you're a bond fan. So, all in all loved it, uh, roll credits last night and yeah, just had some, some minor issues with the slow sneakiest parts. And it's, uh, I think it's pretty hit man esque. I mean, it kind of borrows from hit man, but, and then I've never, I don't play hit man games for that reason. Cause it's kind of a little too slow for me, I guess. But, uh, all in all, I, I quite enjoyed myself and, uh, I,
neocharge: had a blast with it. So, and it, it, it, uh, exceeded my expectations for sure. I was excited for it and exceeded my expectations, especially the set pieces, man. Uh, yeah, really awesome. So I liked it.
Leon Lionheartly: Cool. I'm glad you liked it, at least.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i can i can i can walk ah I can walk away from that.
neocharge: Didn't love it. Didn't love it.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah You're right. i You're both right. I live and breathe Bond. it It's a thing since my childhood. it's it Bond leads into Metal Gear Solid, which leads into Bob joining the army.
Leon Lionheartly: all right like That's how this this whole fucking thing starts.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): How important it is for you?
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's how important this is. ah
neocharge: Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: I think, so there's some roughness from, or there's a couple of technical things i was like, eh, or yeah in regards to like, you could have polished that a little bit better and I would have been okay with it.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But it's not the end of the world. um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And I will say, I think from the way the game flows, If what you're referring to, Matt, um with, and I disagree because what you're referring to on the back end, if the back end had kept that pace and style, and we'll get into in the spoiler cast, in the front end as well, I would have gotten bored with the game.
neocharge: Sure.
neocharge: Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: This game, it is a roller coaster that ramps up and it does it and it goes there. So when you're going up and it's slow and slow and then it kind of speeds up, that's that's the way it worked.
Leon Lionheartly: um And Caleb is right.
neocharge: Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: If you watch a Bond movie, this is this whole. So Star Wars, the cuts. What else do you need in a Star Wars game? You need the scrolling text. at the beginning, like there's certain things that are required and you go, ah, that's a Star Wars movie. There are certain things in a Bond movie that are there you go, there it is. Yep, that cut, that sequence, that whatever it is, that makes sense. It's part of the flow. And they did that in a video game from literal press start to the roll of credits.
Leon Lionheartly: And I can't believe they fucking did it that good.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know how, I really don't know how they kept it up. I, I just, that blew my mind the whole time. i was like, what, where did you guys learn to do this? And also let me play it, not just watching it.
neocharge: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's the thing when you're a part of it. Oh, what?
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And we, I can't wait to rip that part open in the spoiler cast. I really, i think that'll be my biggest contribution. And then after that, Bob and Bo can take the rest of it because they know bond more than I would better than I would, but, oh man, just so cool.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: and Yeah, there's there's a lot of good stuff in there. And ah you said there they're deep cuts. i don't think i was I don't think there was a single movie that was not represented. And for the record, there's 27 Bond films.
neocharge: Right. No.
Leon Lionheartly: like So yeah, um I loved it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: It's lot.
Leon Lionheartly: this is I haven't decided yet, but this is in that stratosphere for the conversation for me.
neocharge: Yeah. Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do think it deserves, at least right now, I think it deserves some ah type of recognition.
neocharge: Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know where I would put it, though.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i don't i like For me, I said the the script is the script is my favorite part of this this by far, and then write right up to that is the the pacing and the editing of of making it movie-like.
neocharge: Performance. It
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But they don't really have original screenplay for games. That's not a thing that exists, so I don't know where to put it
neocharge: Yeah. I'd say his performance as Bond should be nominated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, he was, Patrick Gibson was was excellent.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Just excellent.
neocharge: I'd say that's where it would be.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I mean, i liked I liked everybody in it quite a bit, but he, I didn't know how he would do because I've seen him on various shows.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The OA, he was in Shadow and Bone. He's a couple other things, but I thought he's really going to be the next Bond. Like, whatever, I'll give it a chance. I thought I would find him mid.
neocharge: He nailed it.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I do not find him mid. I find him incredibly good as James Bond.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yeah. I think we all agree on that for sure. And yeah, we'll crack this open wide open on the spoiler cast, uh, releasing sometime next week. Let's just say that. So, uh, Bo will be involved in that. If he can get his computer turned on, we'll see.
neocharge: We'll see.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Oh shit. All right, fellas.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Got him.
neocharge: Um, anything else?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Got
Leon Lionheartly: um Anybody playing anything else?
neocharge: Yeah, anything else quickly you want to ah talk about your plan? Just a rapid fire.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): What did I finish before First Light? don't even remember. i mean, I've still been playing Diablo 4 just with my friend, my buddy, who's big into Diablo been playing.
neocharge: John Desert. No.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I am still playing the Dissidia game because I hate myself. I am having fun with it, but I i mean, it doesn't take up that much time.
neocharge: Oh, boy.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, and then I was gonna start either Hades two or Saros, but with, with the summer game fest and, and I was like, you know what?
neocharge: Yeah. Ooh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm going to focus all on that stuff. Get real hyped. Cause I, this is my, my favorite two weeks of the year. It just, it always is.
neocharge: Yes, same here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So between summer game fest, all the other shows, Xbox showcase, the state of play, we just saw the Apple world, uh, WWDC conference on Monday.
neocharge: Same here.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then if Nintendo decides to grace us with some,
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): something. I don't know that they...
neocharge: I think we will get a direct next week sometime.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, I'm just not sure.
Leon Lionheartly: uh nate the hate said it's tuesday well he didn't say tuesday he said it's next week because he doesn't he got he got us basically he's got his pp slap because of starfox
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, well, the okay, so...
neocharge: What date?
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay, so he just mentioned next week, but...
Leon Lionheartly: so he's being vague on purpose but everybody kind of concluded the ninth like if you look at patterns
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. But so so, yeah, we're...
neocharge: I want to get my pee-pee slapped.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): we're doing We're doing that. I'm doing all that. And then once I have this sort of denouement, so to speak, then I'm going to... Because also I'm busy with the doctor's appointments and shit.
neocharge: Love that.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I love to just live and breathe this and and maybe catch up on a few shows while I have an hour here and there off between the other things.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Love that.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then I'm going to start... I don't know which one I'm going to do yet, though. I i can't decide.
neocharge: Oh, man. I have.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Probably Saros first.
neocharge: Yes, that's what I would recommend.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Probably.
neocharge: I did the same. I was in the same boat as you have.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I'm just... I'm excited for all of them.
neocharge: Sarah says the appetizer.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: Hades two is the main course.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. That's, that's probably what I'm, that's what I'm leaning towards.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just, yeah.
neocharge: Excellent. Excellent.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So that's, that's all I'm really, really playing right now.
neocharge: Cool. All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think, I don't think I have anything else in between that that I've done, but what about you guys?
neocharge: Good deal.
neocharge: Okay. I mean, i I started First Light and shortly after the last podcast and recently finished. That's really all I've been playing.
neocharge: So I saw it through, ah finished it.
Leon Lionheartly: All right.
neocharge: So yeah, and we're going to have a whole ass spoiler cast on it.
Leon Lionheartly: Nice. um i I've been playing some Pikmin 3 Deluxe with my son.
neocharge: Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: He's like, Dad, can we play Pikmin 3 Co-op? Because it's one of the few that have the Co-op and it's actually well done. I'm like, yeah. If you haven't played it, go check check this out. It's so it's very cozy.
Leon Lionheartly: um Lemmings meets cozy puzzle game.
neocharge: Nice. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: It's all about... it's all about Gathering fruit and defeating monsters with the Pikmin and solving puzzles because you need the fruit to bring back to your ship because you're like where you came from, the planet you came from. ah Quoting or might be even close to quoting here. Due to poor lack of planning and foresight ah caused their home planet to run out of food.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: And ah it's it's really...
neocharge: Nice. That's on Switch 1?
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, it's on Switch 1.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We're playing it on Switch 2. There's not a Switch 2 version I'm aware of.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Or no, we are playing on Switch 1.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't think there is a Switch 2 version, so it doesn't matter. um But it's it's really cute.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah It's got a lot of cool ah art style.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: um You like your chibi sound effects. go It's chock full it's chockful of it.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then the other one, you're i think you're you're going to be interested in, Caleb.
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: It's the last one. I just want to mention it real quick because you stole it from me in the draft when you picked it up as a bid. I go in ahead and grab the demo for The Eternal Life of Goldman.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. What do you think of it?
Leon Lionheartly: Um, so I got through most of it.
neocharge: Oh, want to play that.
Leon Lionheartly: I got through most of it. They said it's about 90 minutes. i did a little over an hour. Um, not because I didn't enjoy it, but because I'm like, I know what I'm already getting into. That's what a demo does. Um, this is a 2d action platformer that looks like it might want to be a Metroidvania, but I didn't get enough and ah off of it to be able to like say yes, definitively.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: what you can do. ah Like in terms of maps, some of those little things that you go, that's a Metroidvania. Those things weren't weren't there. um So we'll see in due time. But at the end of the day, the story seems like it's a, they don't tell you a lot. They give you contextual ah conversations, but they don't just tell you. um It seems like this is a story of an old man that's saving this group of islands or this island ah community.
Leon Lionheartly: from something that's going on, but the story is being told from an old lady, ah like a grandma to her grandchild via, uh, a la princess bride.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
neocharge: So it's narrated.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So it's narrated in that regard. Um, uh,
neocharge: Very cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Overall, I'm really impressed with the gameplay. ah There's some wonkiness with the jumps when you're jumping, where you can see on a normal jump, your animation would normally... like I'd be like, anticipation and prediction.
Leon Lionheartly: My jump's going to land XYZ. But because there's a platform that's just a little bit beyond it, magically I can get the extra distance. um So I think that's a little wonky.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Combat itself is very minimal. you This is pretty much DuckTales. The only way I've killed things is...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's all I wanted to know.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's all I needed to hear.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes. You take your cane and you can just bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. And that's what you do um with your cane. You can hook onto things with it. um There are customizations to the cane that will give you different abilities for the three different parts. ah the The shaft, giggity, the handle and the tip, giggity.
Leon Lionheartly: But you can switch them on the fly. ah And I think the real charm here is that hand-drawn art style um that you, if you remember from the trailer, um I think you really like this.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: This is going to be, if I were to take a guess based on what I've played, this is going to be a, a probably an 81 to 83 game on open critic at the end of the day.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Low 80s. Yeah, the graphics graphic style were was one of the big draws for me for that game.
Leon Lionheartly: It's going to be a low 80s game.
neocharge: Yeah. Nice.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Looked really cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): For sure. Yeah.
neocharge: And just the yeah the gore and everything. he was I was very intrigued with this game. I think I want to check out the demo too.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, there's some grossness in there and that goryness.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You're like, what the heck is happening? um It doesn't tell you a lot, but that could be the demo.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: So we'll see when the full release hits.
neocharge: Okay. Cool. Cool. Rapid fire, summer game fest, crazy predictions.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, crazy predictions or things that I just actually do want to see.
neocharge: Who wants to go first? Just rapid fire.
neocharge: yeah What you want to see. I think we are are in agreeance with one thing.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i want to see, i want to see the street fighter six, uh, next year, passive characters. And I want Tifa Lockhart on it.
neocharge: Yep.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't care if that makes me a piece of shit.
neocharge: Okay. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think that would be, i mean, crossovers tend to piss people off. If, if you like, street fighter fans are like, Oh, why the fuck is this girl in this game? Who cares?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): She's a fighter. That actually makes a lot of sense in a Street Fighter game.
neocharge: It makes ton of sense.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I feel like it makes more sense than anything else if you're going to do it. She didn't make it into Tekken. I do think it's because maybe Capcom snagged her first, if if this is the case.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And it also would coincide with the release for Part 3, potentially.
neocharge: OK.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Build up that hype with other players being able to see her.
neocharge: yes
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I really think that would be awesome. Plus, it would be nice to see the other three characters in Street Fighter. six, because they usually do a pass of of four four characters.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): um So that's one big thing that I do want to see. I realize it's probably not going to happen because it's a long ways out. It would be cool to see more of Mega Man Duel Override, but I think it's too early.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think they made it very clear we're working on it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They didn't do a 20-minute gameplay thing and and tease us.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): They said... this is happening. Here's two seconds. Get excited about it in like two years. So I don't think that's going to happen. That's a wild ass prediction. And then the third one,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that I would really like to see. And again, I don't think we will, because I think it would have been at the state of play. I would have loved to see more tides of annihilation. I would have loved to, even if for the release is like, if they say late 2027 at this point, I just want to know where we're aiming.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Uh, cause I, Arthurian legend, man, that's, it looks very cool.
neocharge: That looks so cool.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I want to, I want to know more.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So those are my big, my big ones, my big three.
neocharge: Yeah. Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Um, what about you?
neocharge: Cool. I really, I thought it was going to be at the state of play, but I would really love to see more on Castlevania, Belmont's Curse.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, sure.
neocharge: i I really want a release date at least because we're we're getting close to ay maybe it being pushed back to 2027.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Go time.
neocharge: Yeah, because ah you know you got maybe three more months and then it's GTA territory and nothing kind of nothing really releases in December unless...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: They're desperate, like Metroid Prime 4.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Do you? Yeah. do Well, yeah.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But we got a state of play last year that announced Final Fantasy Tactics ah you know in February, I believe.
neocharge: oh
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then we got another one with with official information with other games.
neocharge: That's true.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think if Castlevania is coming this year still, you got another state of play coming in and ah in about a month or two.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: think it'll be September, maybe. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. i would guess Actually, I would guess August for an October release.
neocharge: Yeah. Be a PlayStation thing. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That would be my guess.
neocharge: Right, right. Yeah. I'd love to see more on Turok Origins, not only because I drafted it because of dinosaurs and it looks fucking cool and co-op third person dinosaur hunting action. Fuck yeah. Would love to see that.
neocharge: um I really, I, this is kind of a hope. I really want to see more on Darksiders 4.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): oh yes that's it i would love that i i would love that too
neocharge: I want to, I think it's time. I think it's time. Yeah. To maybe get like gameplay, uh, released year 2027, show us some more darksiders for, and, uh, lastly, I know this is, but it was at, uh, it was at, it was at summer game fest, 2023.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Well, yeah.
neocharge: They ended with final fantasy seven rebirth and then released it, uh,
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: April of the next year. So i honestly think there's a good chance we see Final Fantasy VII Part III end this show with a 2027 release year and we get a trailer, we get gameplay, and then we get the title.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Sure.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Release window.
neocharge: And I i really do think it's going to be reborn. Final Fantasy VII Reborn.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, it's Return. You've been wrong this whole time. It's Final Fantasy VII Return.
neocharge: think so.
Leon Lionheartly: It's return.
neocharge: Okay. All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i don't know what the fuck you're smoking.
neocharge: All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): When it comes out as reborn, he's going to send me a million texts.
neocharge: All right. We'll see. it It's the refer-off.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But no, I do think Return is my my actual...
neocharge: Yeah. And now.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I've been thinking that for like a year now.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah so
neocharge: Yeah. Gotcha.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But whichever one.
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The only reason I didn't include that on my wishlist is because that's always on my wishlist. That doesn't ever go away.
neocharge: Right, right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But I do i do agree.
neocharge: And just just get me give me the high wind.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think it should happen.
neocharge: Give me the high wind, take it off. Give me high wind, take to the skies. I'm going to cry. A grown man is going to cry. going to sob because, my God, that game is near and dear to my heart.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i did I did leave out one of my other wishes, and this is the just you reminded me.
neocharge: What?
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think actually at the Xbox showcase, it would be nice to see the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy if they were going to do a remaster, a release of a trilogy.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): ah and And not that I don't want to see it at Summer Game Fest, but I think Microsoft is much better at picking the things that people want to see than getting it.
neocharge: yeah Yeah, oh yeah, they have amazing showcases.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And at Microsoft, specifically, they were the ones that didn't have Final Fantasy for the longest time.
neocharge: I'm excited for that one.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): We now have a Remake on there, Rebirth.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It would be cool if they were like, hey, Final Fantasy 13 trilogies.
neocharge: Rebirth, yeah. June 3rd today.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, exactly. But it'd be cool if they were like, this is, you know, you guys got to see 7 Part 3 Summer Game Fest. Now we're going to tell you this is coming out in like August.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): or I mean, I don't know. But it would be cool if that was the fall release from Square Enix.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I think that that would be a really good choice for them.
neocharge: Oh, I would love to see that remaster. It's up next.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): and
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But who who knows?
neocharge: Okay.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): that But the XIII trilogy, again, I would love for them to just say, and really just release it.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's the only one that's not available on current consoles.
neocharge: Exactly.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): The only one, should say.
neocharge: It's stuck on the PS3.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, so it's it's time, guys.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Let's do it.
neocharge: It is. It's time. How about you, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: uh i don't know man let's see some doom the dark ages dlc a i'd like to see that uh because we had something several weeks ago but it really wasn't much it was just like here's concept art from the dlc um so you're cooking something show us um yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Okay. Good shit.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It'll be on Sunday. I have a feeling it'll be on Sunday.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah I'd like to see... It's a snowball's chance in hell, but I want to see Ken Levine come out there and and show Judas.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Fuck!
neocharge: Yep. Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: What are you doing?
neocharge: it's It's time. It's fucking time, Ken.
Leon Lionheartly: um
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It is. It is time.
Leon Lionheartly: And then lastly, I want to see... And this will probably be at the Xbox Showcase. um Not just because I drafted it, but because I've been interested in it since I first saw it last year at the Xbox Showcase.
Leon Lionheartly: And I want to see Clockwork Revolution.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, that would be nice.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It would be nice to get an update on that for sure.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, because that looks...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): even Even if it is like next year or they could say it comes out in July.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I just want to know about it. I don't really care.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): you know, tell me more.
Leon Lionheartly: it it Yeah, it's Bioshock meets Outer Worlds. I'm like, please sign me the fuck up.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. I'm in on the Bioshock side. Not much on the... Not necessarily on the Outer Worlds side. It looks cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I'm intrigued. Show me more. So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It would be nice to see some Halo, get a Halo release date in July. That would be sweet.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But i i mean, again, that's that's kind of like kind of like Final Fantasy where it's like, I always hope for the big ones like that.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Halo campaign evolved.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Like I'd shit my pants if we saw an Uncharted 5.
neocharge: Right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's not going to happen because that was that was yesterday's opportunity.
neocharge: Ooh. Ooh.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): But, you know, that's...
neocharge: Right. I don't know. They have had first-party stuff here. We got Last of Us Part 1 announced. so
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's true.
neocharge: and intergalacis Intergalactic was at TGA. ah Game Awards.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): maybe Maybe Jeff was like, Sony, I pissed everybody off with High Guard. Can you give me something awesome?
neocharge: All right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): And then he said the same thing to Microsoft. like maybe Maybe they'll each give him a really good trailer to Mea Kalpa.
neocharge: I don't know, but Summer Game Fest has been pretty solid the last couple years.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I don't know.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: So I'm excited and I think it's going to be a good show. So ah yeah, Summer Game Fest kickoff keynote, Summer Game Fest 2026, 3 p.m.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Me too.
neocharge: June 5th. So 3 p.m. MST, 5 p.m. EST, 2 p.m. PST, 4 CST. june fifth
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): 3 p.m. Mountain Time.
neocharge: so three p m mst
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: five p m est
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: two p m p s t four p m cs t
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): I will probably be getting myself canes and watching Summer Game Fest.
neocharge: Yes. Ooh, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): That's probably my...
neocharge: Bob, let's get canes. Let's get canes for the Summer Game Fest.
Leon Lionheartly: I will see.
neocharge: Chicken.
Leon Lionheartly: We'll see.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I can't commit to anything like that.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. Well, you'll be over here for Summer Game Fest. Just figuring out food. So, yeah. I'm having another watch party. So, yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Good.
neocharge: Um... Oh, no, a listener of the show will be over and he's bringing some bomb ass Mexican food. That's right.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Oh, sweet.
neocharge: And shout out. So, yeah, we don't need to eat dinner. Maybe Sunday we'll get canes. So, but yeah, of course.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: coordinate off cast.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Actually, that's that's a good point.
neocharge: No, let's coordinate right here. No.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i might I might wait for the Xbox showcase for Canes. Canes is more of a lunch thing for me than a dinner thing.
neocharge: Mm hmm. Ah, yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): So I might do that, but whatever.
neocharge: Yes.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It'll be great.
neocharge: Yeah.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): i'm I'm looking forward to it.
neocharge: All the events. The Xbox showcase is that or this Sunday at 11 a.m.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah.
neocharge: MST.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah. 1 PM to 3 PM for me.
neocharge: ah
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): It's a two hour show.
neocharge: Yep. So lot of other small events. If you want to check them out, go to summergamefest.com. It's that time a year again, and we'll be here to cover all of the announcements. So let us know what you're excited for on Summer Game Fest, on the Xbox Showcase, on the keynote. ah Hit us up in the Discord.
neocharge: Tell us what you you'd like to see in these events. But other than that, we're going to get the hell out of here. It's been a long one. Thank you so much, Caleb. We appreciate you.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Yeah, of course.
neocharge: Always.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Thanks for having me.
neocharge: Yeah, of course. So, ah yeah, keep the conversation going. Keep talking about those games. Keep talking about the events. Let's let's just celebrate video games. It's the time to celebrate video games and ultimate immersive art form out there. So shout out to Jeff Keighley.
neocharge: He's the man when it comes to celebrating video games. No more High Guard bullshit. Let's just cut that out.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Everybody gets one.
neocharge: So...
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Everybody gets one.
neocharge: Exactly. Everybody gets one. So yeah, thank so much for listening and have a great evening, afternoon, morning, whatever the hell time it is. Have a good one.
Leon Lionheartly: Later.
Caleb (AdmiralMerps): Beans. Fuck them.
