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S2 Ep160: Talkcast - June 2021
73 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake they catch up on what they've been playing and discuss some recent gaming news in this week's episode!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction & Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
you
00:00:41
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going, Dave? It's going okay. I would say that I'm having the time of my life in that time goes on while I remain here. Right.
00:00:59
Speaker
Technically, time of your life. Yeah. Yeah. As long as you don't sing it, we won't get copyright striked. Which is a joke because obviously we use all types of copyrighted content and haven't caught us yet. That's
Evolution of the Podcast
00:01:13
Speaker
true. You think this is my real voice? No. Right. This is someone else. This is a famous voice actor from the 20s whose rights I bought for like two dollars. It's like the word.
00:01:28
Speaker
It's over 150. We're over 150 episodes into this social experiment, I guess. And every single episode is just a mashed together combination of sounds that I think we've gotten pretty good at making sound like natural.
00:01:48
Speaker
But in reality, it's a lot like those old murderous collages where you're just like taking letters and like be like, we have your like Roomba or whatever. Oh, you mean like the ransom notes from newspaper club? Yeah. I think the reason I thought of that is because you were the last person to mention.
00:02:06
Speaker
newspaper clipping, ransom notes, like in person that I talked to roughly a week ago. So one,
Childhood Memories & Humor
00:02:12
Speaker
I believe you, but two, I don't remember the context for it. I don't either. And for anybody listening, they just think that's something I do now normally. It's never too late to try new things. Ransom, not learning how to make collages, obviously.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, I was never arts and crafts enough to really do that. I think it all stems from my peanut allergy and never doing like the peanut butter pine cone with bird seed, right? So I'm all simultaneously like, well, fuck birds and fuck arts and crafts forever.
00:02:47
Speaker
It's just, uh, I'm just imagining a small Dave in preschool, like staring at the, uh, the pine cone and the peanut butter, uh, next to it. And it's just like Japanese death. Kanji just floats down. We didn't have almond butter back then. No.
00:03:07
Speaker
I don't think Nutella was at least popularized in the US at that point. I'm sure it wasn't around. Yeah, it's very much in the EU. Did you guys do any fun arts and crafts that stood out to you? No. From those days? Not at all.
00:03:22
Speaker
Do you remember doing like any type of like kid art project, like taking crayon and getting like a rubbing of a tree? I let things on fire. That's art in a way. No, I think paper airplanes. That
Standout Podcast Moments & Animation Potential
00:03:40
Speaker
was my thing. That was my jam. I guess that didn't really count in like a classroom setting, but I was homeschooled. So, you know, reality is whatever I want it to be.
00:03:51
Speaker
And thus you've constructed me. Did you ever try the paper airplane that's essentially a straw, but then instead of what would normally be considered wings, you make two loops of paper around the straw ends? Yeah, yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. And it just flies ridiculously well if you do it right. It's actual insanity.
00:04:14
Speaker
I think I learned that once, and then I'm like, I'm going to show another kid my age that they're stupid. And it lasts all about five seconds, but I was proud in that moment. Mm-hmm. It's like, eventually this could fly. No, no, it won't. And then, yeah, it flies. Living the high life. Jake's plane always went the furthest because he burned everyone else's day. It does help. Had the little aerosol cannon delighter just.
00:04:42
Speaker
It's a any sort of competition in life can usually you can improve your chances with a generous application of incendiary devices and the proper measure and location. So talking about my job, talking about married. No, if there's no one else around, you know,
00:05:04
Speaker
I'm just saying. I'm trying to think of like a funny quip off this, but I both, I obviously know your wife and I obviously know your job. Yeah, those statements are true. Yeah, those are just true. Just true. It would be weird to make a quip off of an obvious factual statement.
00:05:25
Speaker
But yeah, paper airplanes are freaking great. There's a bunch of different, I mean, obviously the Dart, that's your traditional, your classic style plane. Where you put all the massive paper at the front. Just like weighted. Yeah, actually, that's the thing. I think that's the number one mistake people make is not getting proper weight distribution in their planes. That's absolutely key. Absolutely.
00:05:51
Speaker
But what type, is this strictly a piece of paper or is this with a straw? I think you could probably have some accessories involved. As long as it's not just like and the plastic like shape of a plane and you just like jam the paper in there. Let's go. It's a cool art form.
00:06:12
Speaker
I haven't done it in a very long time for obvious reasons. That's the funniest thing I'm going to say tonight.
00:06:25
Speaker
I'm not even going to make a quip off that. I want to let that one six. It was a good joke, Andrew. But I remember any time you had a paper airplane, this is one of the few things I'll remember to teach kids if I ever have super young cousins or nephews or nieces or just other people's kids. You have other people's kids.
00:06:48
Speaker
But obviously like you just take an eight and a half by 11, uh, you fold it hot dog ways and you then just kind of fold into like make a nose. You do like a, a brief crease for like wings. There you go. Yeah. But I have to imagine that there are people who were like, okay, I remember how to do this. You fold it in half hamburger style. All right. You've already fucked up. Yeah. You have now a stubby plane and it's terrible and you're, you should feel bad. Yeah, I usually did and do.
00:07:20
Speaker
Were you making stubbies? I was just saying in general. Yeah, I don't know if I ever really got the proportions absolutely perfect. I always have one wing. It's like a little bit, a little bit too long, a little bit too short. Bit of a wonky wing. Yeah, a little bit of wonk. I made a lot of paper cranes back in the day. Oh, I'd argue that's more sophisticated.
00:07:43
Speaker
It's, I mean, it's more folding, sure. And you need an exact dimension of paper in that it has to be square. Right. I'm going to spend the rest of this episode trying to either confirm or deny, like build evidence or counter evidence to you being the origami killer. So, just so you know. I don't know who that is, so I can't refuse too much. He's the antagonist of Heavy Rain. Oh. Yeah.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah, that is me. Oh, okay. That's one piece of evidence. Still check out the game, but it is me at the end. Right. Just not even a character in the game until like the last scene. You just show up. You get like a bag of laundry. You're like, oh, yeah. Sorry. I just walk in. It's not even mocap. It's just like a very shitty green screen. That would be great.
00:08:43
Speaker
That would be funny. If I had the video editing, editing abilities and the wherewithal and the patience to do that, that'd be a funny edit. Yeah.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think out of all of our episodes so far, this is probably the one with the most animatable segments so far. I've been watching animated segments from podcasts like My Brother, My Brother and Me and things like that on YouTube because they're hilarious. And just basic sketching, basic drawing, frame-by-frame, whatever, go through it.
00:09:21
Speaker
Someday. That's the peak. That's the peak of podcast attainment is you have a portion of your podcast animated and thrown up on YouTube monetized and the animator makes more money than we'll ever make. I mean, it'd be nice for somebody to animate something for us. That'd be really cool.
00:09:45
Speaker
So anyways, if there's any animators out there, we'll violate the agreement where we're supposed to be popular first and then have people animate our things. Please
Balancing Indulgence and Health
00:09:59
Speaker
make us popular. Thank you. Oh, man.
00:10:04
Speaker
But yeah, this is this talk cast episode. We talked about whatever what you've been eating. I had some brownies recently, very recently. I'm jealous because I'm not a big chocolate person. But man, brownies are fucking delicious. That's the form chocolate should be in. It's chewy. It's flaky. It's rich. But I had two salads today and a very thin chicken breast.
00:10:31
Speaker
That doesn't sound exciting. I'll be honest. But what type of salads were they? Were they like spinach and eggs? So one is like their mixes as bags. The Asian one is more cabbage based. And then the Caesar one is just straight iceberg lettuce. Right. Nothing fancy. True to Kaiser. Yeah.
00:10:56
Speaker
I mean, that doesn't sound bad. I realize you have no idea how to like respond to that. There's not really a way to respond. I mean, it's good enough.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, sounds can be good. Shake the living shit out of it and then eat in front of your monitor and then wait for the wait for the podcast. Just look at the clock. It's like 2 p.m. You're like, hmm.
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I wish I do feel as I grow older that I could substitute more meals with salads.
00:11:38
Speaker
like there's in particular if I make decisions like I went over to um we visited your apartment uh over the weekend and yeah I don't know if you were I guess we should have told you but I wasn't there apparently yeah so let's just grab some of this stuff and go
00:11:58
Speaker
Um, but, uh, I had a hoagie was what they're called in the East coast, I guess, or some locations in the East coast sub sandwich is what they're called everywhere else, I believe. Um, and, uh, it was like ridiculous amounts of meat, just like Italian meat, just.
00:12:17
Speaker
everything. It was ridiculous. It was absolute insanity. I didn't pay any extra money for extra meat. They're just like stuff. Absolutely full. And I didn't want to like waste any of it. So I finished eating it and I was just like, this is miserable. And that would have been a great opportunity to eat salads like the rest of the week up until the brownies right before this podcast.
00:12:42
Speaker
It's something I can do for a couple days in a row. It does get repetitive, but it is like fairly quick and easy. Obviously a pretty healthy option. Right. But after like day three or four, I really want some type of variety. So like it's nice to have some meat with it on the side or a bag of chips to kind of like round out the meal. So it's not just greens. Fuck.
00:13:07
Speaker
That's why they have so many different types of dressings. You're just like. That is true. It's like, it's why I have like a creative box ramen. All the noodles are granted the same, but the flavor packets between Tuesday and Thursday, it's going to be a wild change up. I don't, I don't, I do buy the box ramen's, um, ramen's ramen. Uh, but I don't usually use the flavor packets anymore. I use some like teriyaki sauce or something.
00:13:35
Speaker
Really? I find that pretty good. Yeah. I've never really enjoyed just the reconstituted noodles in their own. I mean, the noodles are particularly good. It's mostly for the teriyaki or soy sauce or something like that. Then why not just do pasta and teriyaki? Hmm. Huh. I would add something else to that. Awkwardly sticky noodles. And at that point just go rice, right? Right.
00:14:06
Speaker
I hadn't considered that. Maybe I should just go rice more. I mean, the noodles are pretty basic if you're not using the flavor pack. I guess in general, they're pretty basic by design. It's basically carbs and salt. That's all it is. That's good stuff, though. Yeah.
00:14:28
Speaker
Anyways, that's all I've got for the episode. Okay. I was going to vlog magic noodles now, but I can watch it. What are magic noodles? Magic noodles, you ask. I don't actually, yeah, I do. So magic noodles is something I made in high school. I probably mentioned it at some point to
00:14:46
Speaker
everybody who's talked to me at least once. But the idea was, what are all my favorite things as a young teenager who likes carbs? Okay. So I took ramen, I drained the extra broth, basically just made it with less water. So it's just very, the sauce was sticking to the nudes. And then I made mac and cheese. I also have mac and cheese. Okay. And a can of like Chef Boyardee, either ravioli or the beefaroni, something.
00:15:14
Speaker
And I took all three of those and mixed it in one pot with a giant wooden stone. And I still think it holds up to this day. That's the most college student thing I've ever heard. It is. It costs $3 to make. Maybe less, maybe more. But it's very salty, very carby, but it had a complex layer of flavors. Yeah, that can help.
00:15:39
Speaker
Also, again, the variety is in which seasoning packet of ramen you choose. I went oriental. I think like, what are the flavors? They have like chicken, beef, shrimp. Are those beef, shrimp, oriental mushroom, if we're talking like top ramen. The one that's always in absolutely full stock is shrimp.
00:16:03
Speaker
Like it's fine, but like I never pick it up and no one else does. It's always the one that there's like a ton of stock remaining for. I don't know. I don't know where I was going with that observation. I'm just saying, you know.
00:16:21
Speaker
You're saying we have to have scalpers by shrimp top ramen instead of graphics cards? Yes, please. Please move over to that. We need to arbitrarily and artificially inflate the value of top ramen to do so, I think. Yeah.
00:16:37
Speaker
I mean, some people will starve, but the rest of us will get a graphics card. So, you know, it's probably worth it. That's fair. That's a good trade. What is really
Biomutant Game Discussion
00:16:48
Speaker
the value of a human life? And our next topic, we have lined up. My eyes are bugging out over here. So Biomutant came out. Sure. That's a segue.
00:17:04
Speaker
have you seen anything for it you know i have dave but good setup um looks like trash people i mean it's not doesn't look like trash it looks bad it looks good actually is the one thing it has i'm getting some mixed messages
00:17:19
Speaker
It looks like trash, looks bad, looks good. You're hot, but in a bad way. You're melting. Now, graphically, it looks good, but substantially. We talked about it a little bit beforehand. We had our suspicions that
00:17:38
Speaker
If your trailer shows a bunch of terrain and not a whole lot of gameplay other than running around and some of the set piece battles are all gimmicked instead of the core gameplay, then what are we looking at? Why do you not want us to see what the game's actually like? And as it turns out, I think our impressions were kind of on the money.
00:18:06
Speaker
I've not really seen it reviewed too favorably. I've only known one person to have checked it out, our buddy Mike, and he didn't really have a great experience with it. And I think he refunded it as well.
00:18:20
Speaker
That was that's pretty low. So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna play a little minigame with you. Okay, assuming that you haven't looked this up. Guess the Metacritic overall score. You could and you can pick the platform PlayStation 4, PC or Xbox. I'm gonna say piece I want to go into the PC category because typically those perform less well on average.
00:18:48
Speaker
Okay, that's fair. I want to throw out a 57. So if we're going by a grading rubric, it is still failing. Yeah, that's not too far off 67. So an even 10 points off. That would put it and like the average scoring below good. Like I think it's usually like it's not nice. Yeah, sure. 10 is outstanding or like nearly perfect.
00:19:16
Speaker
Nine is excellent. Eight is great. Seven is good. 6.9 is nice. Yeah, that is. I think it goes to nice. And then it's all trash. 6.8 trash. Yeah. And, you know, everything else actually like PlayStation 64, Xbox, sixty eight. So.
00:19:39
Speaker
Oh, I thought you were coming up with other consoles. I'm like, I'm not even aware of the PlayStation 64. Yeah, Xbox. Of those, I would expect Xbox to just have their next console be called 68 for no reason. It's just like series X S.
00:19:55
Speaker
V5 red zone to a touch back. So it seems like it's behaving pretty similarly across platforms. Yeah. As far as perception, whatever implementation is out there, consoles have not saved it. Oh, yeah. So it's.
00:20:18
Speaker
It's really hard, I think, to come up with a good open world game that stands out because there are definitely good examples like Horizon Zero Dawn we talked about multiple times and what they do well in it.
00:20:34
Speaker
I really think that Biomutant had a lot of cool ideas. Granted, this is, I only know this from trailers. Right. Exactly. But I feel like they could have done more with the core loop because the combat looked kind of generic and then the progression seemed kind of generic and the story seemed kind of generic and just, it fell into the, I guess, triple A category of games for like what's your promise versus what you get. Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
It really was evocative of, speaking of what you're promised, what you get, it's evocative of indie games to me that are over-typed. I mean, notably, and this is to their own fault, Hello Games and No Man's Sky, obviously a different deal here, but same thing where people have AAA expectations of what is ultimately an indie
00:21:31
Speaker
And I'm not saying indie games should be lower quality than AAA games. We have some of our favorite games, I would say, like of all time are absolutely indie games that were like passion projects and implemented really freaking well.
00:21:50
Speaker
But if you really market yourself as a AAA game and you don't succeed on that front, then like prepare to be torn to shreds, right? And that's literally what happened to Biomutant. Some of these deficiencies would not have seemed nearly as egregious if they didn't like, they weren't the next big thing.
00:22:14
Speaker
But if you cut the price in half, or if you did something else with it, or if maybe you promise like, oh, this is the first release. I'm going to be doing some free free LC later on for something else. Yeah.
00:22:29
Speaker
marketed it differently at all i don't know but yeah it definitely seemed like this is the next big open world game it's gonna make you shit your dick out like it seemed very this is the next level of gaming that was that was one of the things they were advertising more people should have picked up on that
00:22:49
Speaker
But if you saw IGN's review, it said like 6.7 did not shit my dick out. Yeah. Unfulfilled promise. Minus 20 points from the Gryffindor, I guess. I just noticed that the top review for the PC on Metacritic here is from Gamespace.
00:23:10
Speaker
I'm just going to read it because it's just an excerpt and it's really funny to me. For the first time in a long time, a game has lived up and in my opinion surpassed the hype hyped that's been created around it. Frankly, I'll be surprised if Biomutant, all caps, is not game of the year. Prepare to be surprised. But the 67, I don't think many people will be giving this game of the year.
00:23:37
Speaker
It's kind of like in 2019, having a Facebook post like, man, like life can't get any worse. Right. Like reading the tweet in 2021, you're like, or Facebook post in 2021, you're like, it's like having the New Year's resolution to be healthy going into 2020. Just like, oh, no, why not pick a hard mode resolution?
00:23:59
Speaker
They were people who invested in underground bunkers in 1999. They were like, this is going to pay off. You're like, mm-hmm. True, true. But outside of that disappointment, have you been playing anything recently? No. Yes. I'm default answering no instantly to anything you ask. Just be contrarian. Did you get taken off the sex offender list?
00:24:27
Speaker
There's not an answer for that. I know, I know this. This is a good one.
Exploring Roguelike Games
00:24:32
Speaker
I do like questions like that, though, where you can't answer it without... They're weasel questions, right? Like, you can use them in politics. Something like that to be like...
00:24:43
Speaker
Oh, if you answer this directly in any way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Exactly. Exactly. Those are fun questions, though. Because it's kind of like a logic puzzle and your reputation is on the line if you screw it up. What fun. Yeah. But playing more New Vegas, obviously still doing Tailor 2 Wasteland. Way freakin' better than Fallout 3. Having played Fallout 3 immediately prior to this,
00:25:12
Speaker
It was not worth, I think I told the story of almost getting in a traffic accident by running a red light with Fallout 3 in the seat next to me. Not worth it. And in retrospect, going back, not worth it. Doesn't hold up nearly as well. And Obsidian clearly took the entire base of Fallout 3 and built a mansion on top of it by comparison to New Vegas. New Vegas has a lot of problems, but it's so much more playable. It's so much better game.
00:25:42
Speaker
It goes to show the old try and true statement. Bethesda games can be fun if you mod the living shit out of them until it's a different game. But so I've been playing that. And then the other one, which is much more novel, I guess, is Devil Slayer Raxasi, I think is how it's said. It's like a top down roguelike ish. It's kind of slightly slower.
00:26:13
Speaker
I don't know how to not compare it to Dark Souls in any way, because it has dodge, a stamina bar, and parrying. Okay, so it's like a top-down Curse of the Old Gods, but also way different style. Yeah, mm-hmm. It's kind of got like a janky sort of style to it, like almost like a Flash game.
00:26:35
Speaker
quality look, I think. Where like different segments are animated and then they do it together. And you're like, it's one cohesive thing. You're like, no, that's some 2D marionette shit. Yeah. It looks pretty good though from what I saw of you playing. I played a little bit more after that one session. The game also, so you saw me kind of like raffle stomping my way through until like what was presumably the final boss.
00:27:02
Speaker
and it's just this linear path and you have like the one character every time you beat a boss you unlock another playable character and it's just basically for the most part they have like different passive sort of like things you can unlock in their tree and their weapon they start with a different weapon nothing too fancy
00:27:24
Speaker
Um, but the, uh, I was doing fine. Like I was going through it. I was like, these bosses are not even that hard. Um, died finally. It's like the final boss had mostly characters unlocked and then was like, all right, I'll go to sleep next time I played. It's like, all right, now pick your path. And they do like the, um, slay the spire, sort of like, which route are you taking? And there's different bosses on the different routes.
00:27:46
Speaker
And they're all much harder, like I unlocked a bunch of bosses after the first playthrough. And the second one started kicking my butt very quickly. It took me a while to actually get a full clear of the game on normal mode and unlock the last character.
00:28:04
Speaker
So good? It's like, it's all right. I think that gameplay wise it's good, but like part of the thing that gets to me, so this is like not necessarily implicitly indicative of anything, but it's kind of like Chinese made game with very heavy, like there's literally references like to the Ming clan and stuff like that. And I was just like, yeah, Ming Dynasty, whatever.
00:28:29
Speaker
All of this is kind of going on in the background. And the reason I say, yeah, whatever is because the game's like throwing the lore at you. And I'm like, I don't really care. I'm treating this like an action game, like skipping through it. So I don't really know what's going on. And I'm not particularly invested in that. And the other thing against it is it's kind of like skimpy.
00:28:54
Speaker
in how they portray the female characters. And there's not really at all a perfect example. When your character dies, they're like, oh, there's like a freeze frame of them. If you beat the game, it's like cleared. And you're like standing there victorious. But if you die, they're like dead on the ground or whatever. And it's just like, oh, and their clothes are torn. Not like in a graphic nudity way, but in a
00:29:19
Speaker
This could be graphic nudity way if it was exaggerated any more than it is. If you're wondering whether or not she's wearing panties, she is. Right, exactly. It's literally something like that. And I'm like, why? Who's playing this game? And they're like, boy, howdy. This is the type of experience I want in my life.
00:29:42
Speaker
Action game that your mom shuts on the base. What are you doing? It's like just finishing some rock CC Down here it would be a terrible game for that purpose. It's very difficult. Yeah in the later phases say I don't like in general if Romance or sex is put into a thing without a purpose. Mm-hmm
00:30:04
Speaker
So like in Game of Thrones, I get it's salacious, but it's also like part of the dynamic of the show where you have these different people interacting, falling in love, hate fucking each other, whatever it is, right? Yeah. Life is cheap and so is everything else in Westeros.
00:30:21
Speaker
But
Knockout City & Gaming Strategies
00:30:22
Speaker
it makes more sense to have those interactions there than when you're like, and these two characters love each other. And that's your reason for playing the game. I don't know who this fucking person is. I don't give a shit. Or they're just like, hey, she's kind of a busty nurse. I'm like, what? Yeah, right.
00:30:40
Speaker
There's no reason for it to be there other than to have some provocative splash art for people purchasing the game. But we were just laughing at the breathing animations when you're selecting a character before starting a run because they're just the most exaggerated nonsense, absolute insanity.
00:31:02
Speaker
To quote your wife, I think she described it aptly as the boobs were essentially separate entities that were just on that character. But they behaved entirely separate.
00:31:17
Speaker
It's true. And it's unfortunate, because I think the base gameplay is actually pretty decent. It almost has like... It clearly has inspiration from Binding of Isaac. They literally have hidden rooms that you can use items to dispel. Classic Binding of Isaac. Binding of Isaac was the first of its... But also when you get a relic for the first time, it unlocks it as a drop for future runs, very Binding of Isaac.
00:31:42
Speaker
Even the room layout is pretty binding of Isaac, but they're larger because everything's kind of slowed down a little bit and you run.
00:31:53
Speaker
I don't know. It's all right. I would only pick it up if it was on a significant sale and you didn't really have anything else super in the backlog for it. I don't think there will be an episode on it unless it gets really good and then I buy it for Dave. That sounds like a threat. That I've executed in the past. Marlow Briggs. Granted, we will never have a Marlow Briggs episode. That's fair.
00:32:19
Speaker
but that was that was like that backfired on me because i was like why is this game so bad that just playing through it and like being here for dave's torment is not enough to keep me going through the game yeah i need to bring back some of those where i just like stream something for a bit yeah oh my gosh you could be the only marlo brick streamer in the world
00:32:44
Speaker
There's a new category in Twitch, boys and girls. Yeah. But that's what I've been playing recently. What about yourself? I've been checking out, and this is a big shout out to Steven, who got me on board with this, Knockout City.
00:33:00
Speaker
So initially, I think I saw a trailer for this on a YouTube or whatnot. And I'm like, one of them. That looks like some dumb baby game shit. Why would I care? And then Steve got it, tried out some people. He's like, hey, it's really funny. You should try it. And they have a free trial. You can just play essentially the whole game until like level 25. So I got it. And it's been great. It's essentially 3v3 dodgeball.
00:33:26
Speaker
where you can charge to throw a ball faster. You can do quick passes with your teammates to charge the ball so it goes even faster beyond just you holding it to charge. You can do spin shots. You can do arc shots. You can deflect balls. You can catch balls. They have special ball types, like Cage, where you can make somebody a ball on the enemy team and throw them off the game. You can turn into a ball and your teammates can throw you.
00:33:55
Speaker
That sounds kind of great. It's a lot of stuff in it, but it's very simple and fun. But we've probably spent a good three or four hours playing it. Haven't finished the trial yet, but I'm probably going to pick it up. But we got it landed on board, got AJ to play some.
00:34:15
Speaker
Is the trial you said to level 25? Is that just kind of like a natural growing level? Like Overwatch, it doesn't impact any of your stats or anything like that. I think it's just for unlocking cosmetics and some other types of stuff. Gotcha. And a show like, oh, this person has been trying hard, but I don't think the show is level. Yeah, I think it's just a gameplay cap for the trial to get you on board. I think so. I actually have heard about this and it wasn't until you started describing it that I realized
00:34:42
Speaker
But, um, cause they weren't originally going to have, they had like a free weekend trial and then they extended it to just be all the time till level 25. Um, and I actually saw like some brief, I think this is on skill up, I believe is already where I heard about it.
00:34:59
Speaker
And it looks it looks good looks like action-packed kind of reminds me a little bit of like Splatoon or other type of like arena shooters in a way, but obviously not it's on a shooter throwing dodge balls, but That kind of same high-energy Small map vibe. Oh, yeah and I think this can be really fun and especially coming off of the the sort of like party game
00:35:29
Speaker
Hidden role or like fall guys among us all of those like easy to consume games There's probably more of a space for this type of game in the industry now not like massive teams, but just having fun with friends
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah,
Value of Game Demos & LAN Party Plans
00:35:43
Speaker
and it it is really fun just to get us all gone together And also if you have a squad you can be more cohesive Because nothing will kill you more than just being outnumbered right because you can catch a ball Um, so there's two people you might catch the first one, but the second one's gonna hit you right and you can technically deflect when you have a ball if you time it right but
00:36:05
Speaker
The balls are quick, so if there's two people and you're outnumbered, not so good. Yeah. Hard to clutch. Yeah. But you can also do pump fakes, where you do a fake throw to see if they do the grab animation. And if they do the grab too early, you just whip it at them. Yeah. Or I like to do a jump pump fake and then do a spin shot. So you just release the throw and press E at the same time, and it will arc it to the left or to the right, and then kind of home in.
00:36:34
Speaker
There's tech. There's tech. There's also a dash you can do. So if a ball is being thrown at you while you're doing like a shoulder check, it will deflect off. And if somebody's holding a ball and you charge into them, they will be knocked back and the ball gets kind of thrown up like, hey, it's free for all.
00:36:52
Speaker
So if you deflect it with like a shoulder dash, you're not out. Because if I was playing dodgeball and I just charge the ball, I'd be like, that's cool. I guess you were hit by the ball. Those are your I frames, essentially. Yeah. That sounds cool, though. I have to get a shot.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's been really good. I would recommend everybody try it out probably for like, maybe we should post it in the chat for like a WAN party. Oh yeah, especially if it's free. Oh yeah. Get everybody to download it. But it's, it's fun how much, sorry, it's surprising how much fun I was getting from it when I did not expect to really have much.
00:37:36
Speaker
It's fun how much surprising it is. It is much, much surprising fun. I didn't think it'd be so surprising. That's what's fun. And it was as fun as I thought it would be. But not nearly as surprising.
00:37:54
Speaker
No, that sounds good. I like those those types of games. I do think that like full free to play games. I don't know if I'm as much a fan of that, but because, you know, you're going to end up buying cosmetics. Well, yeah. Right. Like how are they monetizing it? But I do think that trial type games, demo type games, I've seen more demos for games come out recently. And I kind of like that. Right. Like I think I played a demo for
00:38:25
Speaker
I cannot remember the name of the game I was about to talk about. Devolver Digital, very violent carrying. There we go, I had to open steam. And it's just like, yeah, get a taste of the game, see what it's like. Pick it up, it's good. People, it's not very common at all to do that anymore. And I don't know why, because demos would be the easiest thing to distribute. You can just download it.
00:38:50
Speaker
It used to be a thing back in the day, you can get a demo disc or something or you could, I guess, download it. Trying to think of like the old days of like original PS2. Yeah, but you get like a demo disc or something you try it out. You're like, it doesn't seem that bad. I've actually might pick it up. Yeah. Or I remember rentals back in the day and we're like, I want to see how I feel about it. And you're like, okay, it's pretty good.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah. I remember it's old Commander Keen games. Those were distributed through Shareware. And they'd have a level or two. They'd have some amount of gameplay. And then it's like, all right, the demo is done. If you would like to purchase this, send $15 to this PO box. That's literally what it had hard-coded in the game. And then they would send you off the rest of the floppy disks.
00:39:46
Speaker
Don't copy that floppy. It was pretty hilarious. Well, even if you copied the floppy, that wouldn't help you because you would need the manual. And it would say like to play the game, go to page 15, paragraph two, word three, and type that in.
00:40:04
Speaker
But now with the internet, you're just like, what's the thing? And it's like, there you go, you're like, cool, thanks. Yeah, it doesn't really hold up compared to perhaps more sophisticated DRM technologies. Well, granted, yes. What are they going to have, the paper media? No, get out of here. PO Box is a great idea.
00:40:24
Speaker
Nobody has books. But yeah, no, that sounds really cool. I think we will need to, and you mentioned this, obviously, in passing, see what types of games should be played at the upcoming LAN party, which will have occurred in the past for people that listen to this in the future, which is the only time that people will be able to listen to this.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yes. Through deduction. There's only one outcome there, but land party will have happened. Has not happened yet for us. Looking forward to it.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, I always expect it'll be a good time for us, for us folks at home, because we're not getting together in person, probably for at least another LAN party or two. We're going to be on cams, going to be playing some games, just hanging out online together.
00:41:23
Speaker
We'll all be on cams. Nobody, everyone just watching the cams. I feel like a handful of people will be on cams for social reasons. Nobody's doing tasks, everybody. I was slow on the Among Us joke. That's all right. And probably I'll grab some beer or something alcoholic.
00:41:50
Speaker
because I have the most fun when I'm doing party games that I don't necessarily enjoy when I'm drunk and I take it very seriously. That's fair. That is fair. I don't know what that's like, but yeah, that's fair. I ingest a lot of sugar usually at the LAN parties. Jake will have a couple of bags of Skittles to line about. You know he's serious when he goes from normal to tropical. He's like, oh, we're fucking going.
00:42:20
Speaker
I only named those two because I don't know the other varieties of Skittles. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's like a berry something, berry Skittles. I'm not going to be able to guess versus Starburst. I did get all pink. I'm all over the place on topics, but I got the all pink Starburst. All right. I mean, those were the best ones. Yeah. They recognize that, I think.
00:42:46
Speaker
It again, that's another sign of like the modern era. We were talking about like this whole fucking floppy disk and mailing money. And they were talking about like, oh, candy with a variety pack? No, just buy the thing. That's all the one thing you want. Yeah, it's the same. I do that with tootsie rolls, too. Vanilla only bags of tootsie rolls. The holiday vanilla tootsie rolls. Really good. I'm giving you a big squint on this one. Not a big tootsie roll fan to begin with.
00:43:15
Speaker
Well, I don't like, I don't think the originals are fine, but I for some reason really like the Christmas vanilla ones. And now thanks to the internet, you can just buy like a two pound or whatever bag of them at any point and make poor decisions. Hmm. Yeah. I need to look at some candy. I want to buy like multiple pounds of in bulk. That could be one of them.
00:43:39
Speaker
or not in bulk. He'll be like, I would like a two pound thing, but send it to me weekly. Yeah. But you can't share those. Can't share it with folks at land party. Perhaps, uh, soon, perhaps after this one, I anticipate people will probably be closer to being ready to get together. Might be a question of, uh, placement location availability, but, um, I don't know, we've talked about it a little bit. And I think the previous episode, but it's nice to be able to hang out with people again.
00:44:09
Speaker
Well, you've been hanging out with recently. At their apartments, I mean, not necessarily with the people. My joke was more of like, who have you seen recently? Yeah, a potential neighbor. We didn't hang out, but I was on the way to the car to go grab some groceries real quick prior to this episode. And I was way late.
00:44:33
Speaker
by a person who walked up to me and was like, she was like, hey, I saw you're working out of that building. I'm not a stalker. I'm like, classic, great start. Great start, lady. And she's like, oh, but I'm bitch. And she's like, oh, moving in there. You know, how are the neighbors?
00:44:53
Speaker
Um, like the outer door is locked. I was like, okay, a stalker and a thief. Great. Um, but answered all of the questions and then called the police. Obviously. Now I walked away and I left after, after we exchanged pleasant dreams. I love. Thanks. Yeah. See ya. No problem. Good day, madam. Oh,
00:45:21
Speaker
So anyways, it's not just you, but other than that one interaction in passing with another human being, I suppose we have interacted with you more than anyone else. That
Elden Ring Anticipation
00:45:33
Speaker
was where my joke was trying to go too. I had a long winded, here's the path, but we end up there. I guess Dave. Did you see the new Elden Ring trailer?
00:45:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah. You know that. We literally watched it. Did we watch it immediately beforehand? Immediately prior to this. Elden Ring is probably worth mentioning. Yeah. What type of game do you think this is going to be like, though, if he did see the trailer? If I had to guess, if I really had to like narrow down a genre instead of just saying it's going to pick from multiple. Yeah. A smorgasbord. A Souls-like? Yeah. I would say.
00:46:13
Speaker
That'd be, that'd be pretty derivative. I think, you know, it's a very populated genre. Jokes on you. They didn't show you all the match three puzzles that are going to be a part of it. Now it very much does. Like it's, it's a good trailer. Um, I think we were remarking, like, uh, I said that there's some similarity to bloodborne in there, but definitely a lot more Dark Souls. But there's also a horse.
00:46:42
Speaker
Yes. Which is Sekiro, obviously. There was a horse in Sekiro. You didn't ride the horse. My name! Yeah, there's a single horse. So, inspiration for multiple games, really. That's true. Game with the horse. Inspiration from Oblivion. We'll see if there's DLC for Horse Army.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's as long as I've always said FromSauce can keep making the same type of shit and I'll keep buying it because they know what they do and they do it well. Yeah. Like the core gameplay, shouldn't even call it a loop, but like the progression, the level design, the interesting characters, the rich, deep lore that you have to look for. It's just always fun and mysterious and kind of
00:47:35
Speaker
I mean, typically kind of lonely, because you're like the the soul wanderer in like an abandoned, disheveled world. But it's that exploration and progression that gets my peepee happy all the time. So if it's going to take the critical, it's going to be on the box. Ten out of ten. Peepee, take peepee up. Daphne's up stoned.
00:48:01
Speaker
No longer affiliated with Soapster. But yeah, if it's going to just take a different form, I'm all for it. Yeah. I think Dark Souls and The Souls Likes in particular are really a perfect example that you don't have to reinvent your own formula to keep people engaged. Obviously, so Bloodborne is very different from Dark Souls 1 through 3.
00:48:30
Speaker
It's funny. Hey, we can relate this to Dark Souls. We have infinite content, Dave. There's no way we will need more content in this episode. Like Bloodborne was different. Dark Souls 1 through 3, very similar.
00:48:45
Speaker
with differences in mechanics and bosses and world. But it has more in common than it has divergent. And sometimes those are traits that you see criticized in games, like Call of Duty multiplayer. That is the go-to, I think. They're like, all right, we're going to release a game every year to studios, Infinity Ward and Treyarch for the longest time.
00:49:13
Speaker
And even though a single player, you're like, maybe this is still an engaging experience, the multiplayer was just like, is it really, is it really different? I mean, those kill streaks, I guess, and stuff. I don't know. But it wasn't divergent enough to really make it worth switching, you know, multiplayer, in my opinion. Whereas like Dark Souls, how many hours have we put into Dark Souls?
00:49:42
Speaker
A lot. I die a lot. But I've also done multiple playthroughs of probably one and three. Two, I did once and I. I might do it again at some point because it's the longest one doesn't launch anymore without that shitty resolution issue. Yeah.
00:50:06
Speaker
Dark Souls 2 was the longest one too. I think there was like 40 bosses or something if you actually cleared all of them. It was actual insanity. But I mean, coming from all of that, were you looking at Elden Ring, the early trailers to the teasers, we really didn't get a feel for how the game is going to be. And we've received word that Dark Souls, the Dark Souls series is done. It's complete. So unless they're like JK and this is actually part of it,
00:50:35
Speaker
which I would be a little disappointed with. I assume just mechanically it could be similar. Sekiro was the last game and like the Souls-like type games that are made. And that had some very significant differences in gameplay. Do you feel, coming back to the question, do you feel, are you at all disappointed that this isn't going in a, it doesn't appear to be going in a different direction like Sekiro did?
00:51:04
Speaker
Instead, it's closer to that corridor. So I still think we're going to probably see more in upcoming trailers is going to kind of distinguish it more so.
00:51:19
Speaker
I feel like we watch the trailer as Dark Souls fans and we're like, oh, this is probably the thing from Dark Souls, like a dodge roll. This is probably this type of enemy or this type of thing. But then they added stuff like the horse, which makes me think that there will be some type of open world or more open areas.
00:51:37
Speaker
right um so i feel like there's be some other things to separate it but still even if it's still pretty mechanically close to dark souls i don't care like i like that type of game so much now it's just i know i'm gonna spend a lot of time in it i know i'm gonna be hyped to talk with
00:51:59
Speaker
you, Ian, and other people about, like, I played through this thing, and, like, this one boss was kicking my ass. You're like, really? That one's easy for me. And then maybe... I just got the monkey from Sekiro to come into the game and beat him up for me. God. I remember that I had to, like, copy your strategy for beating that, and I'm like, Jesus, fuck. Because that was probably my most deaths that were... Owl, maybe? Yeah. But then, like, the last boss, I'm like, 10? 10 seems like enough.
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah, you'd smash Sword Saint. I really had trouble getting each row in Sword Saint. I don't know how it happened, but thank God it did. But I like that working through something to get your ass kicked, but you're having fun doing it. Yeah. Versus, you're just like, I just want to be done with this game.
00:52:49
Speaker
It's more so like I don't want it to end, but I'm glad that they're giving me a challenge. So it's not just a here's your victory lap. You found all the gems now kick this guy in the shin for like a gimmick fight, you know? Yeah, I got that. I get that. It's the struggle that I like.
00:53:06
Speaker
And that'll probably, that'll still probably be present. But it's based off of the trailer. To contrast it to what Sekiro was early. What the difference is in portrayal, I would say, not to be completely contrarian, but in the Sekiro trailer, they specifically emphasized the prosthetic limb and how it was going to like change fights.
00:53:28
Speaker
and the resurrection mechanic. And they really put more focus on that. It does seem with this Elden Ring trailer, the things that are in focus for the most part are dark, soulsy things. Like there's a spectral blade raised above his head, like he's going to drop it, really reminiscent of the great magic weapon sort of the spells, like soul seeking greatsword or whatever it's called, all of those spells that you cast and their weapons for the duration.
00:53:58
Speaker
for like a big swing or something. Even the art, very evocative, literally like the sword posture. Oh yeah, it's 100%. Dark souls. That's why like, after we watch it, we're like, so it's dark souls. Yeah, it's more dark souls than anything else. It's more dark souls than like Bloodborne. So far, yes. Definitely. I still think they're going to kind of lay drop something else for more of a twist.
00:54:27
Speaker
Because again, it's still Miyazaki, but it also has George R. Martin's hand in it. Right. Which we really only know him from. It's going to be Dark Souls with boobs is what you're saying. Hooray! It's all I've ever wanted.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, that actually would be a perfect game. I just, more great chess ahead would be ideal. We've just duplicated the Guinevere model illusion for different locations in the game. Yeah, it's, I mean, I'm obviously really excited about it. I'm finding reasons to be nitpicky, but it looking like a different Dark Souls like game with similar mechanics in the new universe with news lore.
00:55:20
Speaker
It's good for us. We're going to have a good time with it. It's good for Vadi. It can save his career or keep it from being extinguished again. I mean, even just this trailer. This is going to give him months, probably.
00:55:35
Speaker
If you'll notice here on frame 47, it doesn't even sound like him. I realized now that I brought him up, creating my own segue as we run out of time. Have you ever seen Vadi? His early videos actually has him.
00:55:56
Speaker
And he's like a remarkably attractive, like chiseled individual. I think for something else he was talking about like, Oh, I've been streaming on Twitch and you're talking about like some art competition or whatever with some FromSoft game obviously. But like it showed him and his like setup and I was like, Oh,
00:56:15
Speaker
We can't talk too much shit out of it anymore. But I have nowhere to go with that. I just thought it was a funny side. Elden Ring looks really good. There's basically no percent chance that I don't pick it up unless like at the 11th hour they're like, and it's a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Oh, my God. I still really want to play Demon's Souls, but I'm not going to be getting a PS5 for probably two years at this point.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah. Unless I came over a friend's house who I think has it. Well, we've already established that once you make that jump, I'm going to visit your apartment and then you won't have this. Call back. I'll have Jake play rent for like a week.
00:57:06
Speaker
It has been announced for Xbox, PS4 and Windows at least. That's good. I would assume there's also going to be a PS5 version. I think I'm just going to keep everything on PC for now. Like Bloodborne obviously was on PS4 because it was PlayStation exclusive. Seems like a good reason. Yeah.
00:57:28
Speaker
But at some point, I do want to upgrade my actual setup. But I'm just so used to playing here at the computer with my Xbox 360 controller wired. And that's just how we've done FromSoft. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you have a very competitive monitor now, too. It's pushing up against any of the advantages you would have with a full TV as far as a game playing experience.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, take that other people who are trying to say they have better monitors than me. How dare you? How dare you? But I think that, I mean, I'm excited for more news. Hopefully more
Game Development Patience
00:58:12
Speaker
news has come out over E3 about Alden Ring, maybe some more specifics on it. I'm curious if they're going to, like, I don't think we have any information about whether it will have online components. They didn't showcase any invasions.
00:58:25
Speaker
At all and the traditional sense and Sekiro only had NPC invasions like there was no online component to that at all true So we don't know there's a lot of we don't know about it. So Perhaps some of those questions will be answered perhaps you future listener and current listener depending on your time frame Know the answers to those questions. And if so, why are you not telling us? We need to know
00:58:52
Speaker
so we can edit it and re-release the episode. Right. Called it. Yeah. Do you think they're going to have news for Hollow Knight 2 ever? I hope that would be the weirdest thing to just like cancel. We had a massively successful first game, but let's never. I think it's been about two years since they had anything shown. I think it was E3 as well.
00:59:19
Speaker
Yeah, that would be good. I'd be, I'd be excited to see that. I feel like this is the equivalent of like, who do you think is going to show up to the party on Friday? You think James is going to be there? I don't know. She's really popular. She's usually going to these type of parties. Well, we invited Far Cry, but Far Cry never shows up. Far Cry has the wrong thing. Um, yeah, I, I hope so. Uh, but at the same time, given some of the,
00:59:44
Speaker
prematurely released games that I've been interested in over the last year. Almost the entirety of this ire is directed at Cyberpunk for the astute listener. I would rather them just go full Radio Dark and then come out and be like, by the way,
01:00:03
Speaker
Silksong, and then the crowd goes wild, downloads, Steam crashes. I would rather have that than continue to be kind of strung along. If they've had any sort of difficulties and things like that, they should, you know, and they can definitely state that. But I'm not in a rush for it. My backlog is still like 20 games long. Yeah, I prefer to be like pleasantly surprised by something or even be like, hey, this has been out for two days. What? There's another Delta Road? What?
01:00:33
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it's like that's it's really exciting because you're like I gotta go do it now. I'm already behind Versus like the play-by-play update necessarily. Mm-hmm Sometimes it's better. Just wait If the game is really good, you've got that established following you don't have to hype it up using advance Again, just really ragging on cyberpunk game but
01:00:59
Speaker
Hey, even Starcraft Ghost, let's take more digs at that. Yeah, fucked up. They eventually did release the Nova missions, but it was obviously not a first person shooter. So different thing entirely. I would say the chances of Starcraft Ghost coming out are pretty low for this, this E3. If it did, though.
01:01:22
Speaker
It would be hilarious to go fuck themselves. But I think it would, it would engender no good will. It would probably hurt them more than any other. It's a mobile game in blizzard fashion. Uh huh. It's really funny. They didn't really even follow up on that. Like after the mobile announcement, they kind of just let that fade into
01:01:44
Speaker
I think they realized that literally nobody wanted it. But I think it's just a sunk cost because obviously they paid whoever to that Chinese company that has an identical game to reskin it for them. Yeah. So, yeah, I just think that they thought it was better to not go ahead with it after the reception it receives. Yeah, it was announced 2018. It's planned for release this year, Diablo of Mortal.
01:02:11
Speaker
They're not talking a lot about it, and I understand why. Actually, they did talk about it in the last BlizzCon, and they immediately transitioned. They're just like, Diablo immortal, still a thing, by the way.
01:02:23
Speaker
Diablo 2 remaster. Look at this. Look at this. People like this, right? This is a good game. We made this in the past. We're making it now. Diablo 2? 2. What's 2 times 2? Diablo 4. That's also coming out. Do the math. Educitate yourself.
01:02:43
Speaker
I don't know. We'll see. I'm sure that there's going to be some really cool stuff shown at E3 that we'll want to talk about after the fact. But we don't have time to talk about it now and we don't know about it. So if
Closing Remarks & Contact Info
01:02:55
Speaker
you guys, perhaps.
01:02:58
Speaker
did see something that you really liked the E3. You could send in a message telling us about it in the form of email at soapstonepodcast at gmail.com. Or you could send in a message that other people on the internet can view as though it was posted publicly for anyone to see really at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Sayonara muchachos.
01:03:26
Speaker
Oh,
01:04:19
Speaker
you