Introduction and Anticipation
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a news show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by a stone cold sober Charles. I'm joined by.
00:00:29
Speaker
and you've been joined by a still very drunk Andy K. Guys, like seriously though, when are you supposed to stop being drunk? Like, I drank a whole Nalgene. I'm a Nalgene and a half in. When does it go away? I don't know.
00:00:50
Speaker
Ravages of age, we kind of saw Andy, but that's all right. We don't have time for banter because we have to talk about the latest PlayStation showcase, which this is going to be great with a drunk Andy. Yeah. To be clear, and he just got drunk for separate reasons, not because of the show. No, not because of the show or because my company paid for it.
00:01:10
Speaker
Which is the best reason. It's always a good reason. Yes.
Rumors and Expectations
00:01:14
Speaker
Today, May 24th, there was a hour and 20 minute PlayStation showcase and which was, I believe, announced right after we recorded last week. So we didn't really get to talk about it. Let me tell you, rumors are flying wild. What can what could we find out what Housemark is doing? What is Blue Point doing? What is Sucker Punch doing? Well, we find out about Lost of Us factions.
00:01:40
Speaker
Last of his factions. Will we find out? What was the other ones? We find out about more the new Wolverine game than Insomniac is working. What if I told you we'll find out about none of this?
00:02:00
Speaker
For an hour and 20 minutes, we won't hear any of that? No, we'll hear something, some interesting things. I would definitely say for the first PlayStation showcase in 18 months,
00:02:15
Speaker
It was a touch underwhelming.
Was the Showcase Underwhelming?
00:02:18
Speaker
18 months it's been. They've had a state of plays before this, but since the last showcase, it has been 18 months. Generally speaking, showcases are their times to really come out and show what their first party studios are doing, get you excited about their catalog of games.
00:02:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure why they called this one a showcase instead of a state of play other than it was happening around E3 slash summer game fest time. Yeah.
Surprising Omissions and Rumors
00:02:49
Speaker
But we're going to go through the list of these announcements. Charles or Andy, any just kind of rumors or anticipation you had that you were surprised didn't get announced at this game, like just not things that did things that you were thinking were going to happen and didn't.
00:03:08
Speaker
Nope. For me, they talked about everything I thought they would talk about. Okay. Realist Charles. For me, I wanted them to announce a new Tomb Raider. I was really hoping.
00:03:23
Speaker
I know they're working on it. I know it's supposed to be like, I think it's picking up where the first one starts or at least it's supposed to like, um, who bought it, Andy? Uh, crystal dynamics was bought by those people that bought everything, right? Embrace her, which actually there is.
00:03:42
Speaker
Really good news about Embracer that maybe we'll get to. Good news. Really bad news about Embracer. What about for Tomb Raider though? Is Tomb Raider okay?
Sony's Strategy and Future Plans
00:03:53
Speaker
We'll find out. We have to get through this first. I will say the one big miss that honestly, I mean, obviously it's always Bloodborne PC. We always hold out the dream, right? That's fair. They didn't even talk about Liza P either though, which is shocking to me. Yeah. Comes out in August.
00:04:12
Speaker
Hmm, huh? I know. Here's your blood born. I mean, listen, if not in on the PlayStation Showcase, probably in Summer Games Fest. Summer Games Fest. Yeah, I mean, you know, I would say, too, this sucks for Jeff because that this one didn't go so well. Everyone's be like, oh, well, certainly then Jeff must have a lot of great stuff. And Jeff's probably go shit, shit, shit. I don't want people.
00:04:42
Speaker
I think people get excited. That's the only thing that explains this. No. Is that it's all set up for the keelys. Well, I don't know. There should have been bigger bangers in this. The summer keelys have consistently been disappointing.
00:04:57
Speaker
That's true. But we'll see. I say the other big miss for me that I was kind of holding out hope for, you know, obviously Bloodborne, but Bloodborne, anytime Sony does anything, they could fucking post a tweet like, is it Bloodborne? Yeah. I was actually kind of wondering if maybe we would see I-07's James Bond's game that they're making. That's right. I have nine. They're making a James Bond game?
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. The hit man team is making a James Bond game, which is like match made in heaven. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was like, if they're making it, I would be interested. I would not be interested in any other way. So I was kind of hoping for that. Um, cause that, that seemed like a kind of game, but so let's run down what they did announce instead of they did it. Now let's do it. Now that I've ruined your anticipation for this.
00:05:50
Speaker
Yeah, you definitely couldn't wait for it. I was like, you should have just went through it and then what talked over it. Now, you know, color on it. No, it was a complete dud. It was. It was not. It was not like it was like they showed the important stuff. I've taken the expectations down. Now we can build them back up. There we go. That's right. There's at home. Let's delight and surprise you. Yeah.
Game Announcements and Reactions
00:06:15
Speaker
With Sony shared.
00:06:18
Speaker
They opened with Haven Studios Game, that's the new studio that was founded by Jay Rabin, has announced their first game, Fair Games, with a dollar sign.
00:06:33
Speaker
Yes, it is a it looks like if someone smashed together watchdogs and payday and a look in a three person co-op multiplayer shooter. So, yeah, it's it's got very much kind of this feeling of like we're going to rob billionaires and steal their money.
00:06:54
Speaker
However, your team will not be the only team trying to rob a billionaire as you will be competing against other players to get it as well or NPCs probably as well. But yeah, it looks like it's this was just a CGI trailer concept. Right. And it very much seemed like kind of a three B three or, you know,
00:07:15
Speaker
or at least three person teams infiltrating into maps to try to find and hack and defeat security and then make a score while potentially maybe another team or NPCs are trying to stop you. And it looked really cool. Like as a concept trailer, I'm down for it.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yep, agreed the same way. Ever since playing Exo Primal a few weeks ago, and even Ghost of Tsushima Legends, doing those team-based race against other team modes, pretty fun. They're really enjoyable. So, yeah.
00:07:59
Speaker
It's a good mode. We'll see if they can make something good out of it. This was interesting and also notable that Sony bought Haven Studios before they even released or publicly acknowledged this game. So it seems like it's a game that goes with Sony's plan for business model, which is doing more
00:08:21
Speaker
GAAS games, AKA games as a service. So we'll see. I mean, yeah, so far I didn't look bad, but you'll notice a theme that throughout all of the a lot of the games being showcased, there's a lot of trailers, not necessarily gameplay, which is, I think, what kind of detracts a bit from the overall presentation. Yeah, I would say, too.
00:08:48
Speaker
Again, I'm going to say a lot of I'm a prejudging the state of play before we get through it. But this this feels like some are showcased. This feels like something Xbox would have done recently. Then. Oh, this shade shade.
00:09:04
Speaker
Also, Sony released, I think it was either their end of year or they're like just essentially a stockholder report recently as of like yesterday or today. And one of the things they said in there is that they anticipate in the coming years that 60% of their development budget will be spent on live service games.
00:09:23
Speaker
So something to think about as we go through these announcements. We knew that they were going to work more on it. We didn't know that their breakdown percentage. So it's very interesting that they said 60%. And to be honest with you, Sony is known as a very firm establishment on their single player experiences.
00:09:47
Speaker
I'm not fully alarmed by the idea that 60% would be more of a live service game. Because I'll be honest, when you say live service, it also hints at multiplayer. Yeah, it also includes things like MLB The Show and other stuff like that too. And also, right?
00:10:07
Speaker
That can you can take that number and look at is like, we're going to take a lot of swings. Like they understand that you're not always going to. Yeah, they're not all going to hit. So we're going to allocate a lot of money to this and just take a lot of chances on the hope that one hits. Oh, sure. Sure. You know, I also don't think so. So he does do dumb shit sometimes, but I also don't think Sony would be like,
00:10:33
Speaker
Man, you know, third person single player narrative stories has has assault has propelled us to the top of the mountain. But we're done with that shit. They'll probably still have those. Yeah. Yeah. Next, in kind of a dark horse announcement, hell divers to announce with.
00:10:55
Speaker
with a move from top-down action to a over-the-shoulder third-person shooter. I never played Helldivers 1, did you two? Did you describe it? Because I don't really know too much about it. I know it's kind of like, it almost feels kind of like Starship Troopers-esque, but it's really like you're fighting a ton of bugs on alien planets, right? The type of things you fight change depending on the type of planet you're in, but bugs is one of the major ones. Okay.
00:11:24
Speaker
The original Helldivers was a PS Vita and PlayStation 4 game that was top-down and you would land on a map and you and your team would fulfill a set number of objectives.
00:11:42
Speaker
And depending on how many objectives you do, you will finish them, run over to an extraction point, and then leave. And you just rinse and repeat. The fun of the game, however, is there is lots of different difficulties. There's different guns.
00:12:03
Speaker
There's a lot of there's also modifiers for everything. And there's if I recall correctly, Andy, there was also better rewards the faster you do you complete everything. Isn't it true? There was like a grading system at the end. I don't remember being tied to time, but it could have been. Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Um, and you know, it was a fun game and it was one of those fun games where griefing was, you know, you killed, you could kill your teammate, but it wasn't that bad of a. Detraction because you could revive them. So there's a lot of times where, um,
00:12:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And to also hint at the name Helldivers, what you would do is you get some auxiliary abilities where you call down reinforcements of some kind. So you like, hey, we need ammo, you throw a beacon on the floor. And, you know, after a couple seconds, the ammo
00:12:55
Speaker
reinforcements get sent down to you in the drop pod and it like lands. And if you aim it and time it right, you could have a drop on either your own teammates or on enemies and it kills them. So like, you know, and unlocking those abilities was always fun. You could get a mech, you could call down, you could call down turrets and all this other stuff.
00:13:15
Speaker
So you just, uh, if you're a team that you coordinate, I think one time Andy, uh, our friend, Josh and myself, we all just said, all right, let's just call down four turrets. And we just threw them down when we had to do a defend, um, defend the map type of mission. And you just laid down the ground watching the turrets kill everything for us. It gives me big, like less Japanese version of earth defense force.
00:13:41
Speaker
You know, I never did play Earth Defense Force. I've never played it, yeah. Earth Defense Force, I mean, this is it seems very similar in scope, although Earth Defense Force was always big on like throwing kind of almost extra primal like throwing thousands and thousands of monsters at you. Oh, I don't know if Helldivers has similar like mob density, but like, you know, Earth Defense Force is a very Japanese game. This strikes me as having maybe more Western sensibility and design in it.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah. Um, the other thing with hell divers was there was a semi stealth component where, um, there's cool down periods and then there's like probes that could spot you and call in reinforcements and cause waves to spawn. So there was like, uh, you could have easier runs. If you had fast reactions to seeing a, um, spotter and you just shoot it down real quick before anything could happen. Um, but it gets harder in the game.
00:14:36
Speaker
just because they start having even more spotters, so it's unlikely they could kill all of them at once. But you can tell numbers, too, it looks like mostly the same, but over the shoulder, third person. So I'm excited to play it. It was always really fun. Yeah, they said it'll be coming out this year to PlayStation 5 and Windows PC. Yeah, I mean, that looks it looks like a fun, like,
00:14:58
Speaker
party shooter game.
Surprise Reveals and Artistic Focus
00:15:00
Speaker
Um, you know, and it also doesn't seem like it would be bogged down with too much like story, right? You know, as something like a live service game would be like, Oh, we have to sit here and watch all these fucking cut scenes. Like, no, get down there and shoot. Yeah. Yeah. And the original one had basically no story. You're just moving between solar systems. And then you get a brief rundown of just like this plan's really hot. Whatever.
00:15:28
Speaker
Next up, we had previously announced Immortals of Avium, which is a game by Ascendant Studios and published by Electronic Arts. Something to note, Electronic Arts isn't having an EA showcase this summer, so we'll probably be seeing a lot of EA's trailers at other conferences, including Xbox and the Summer Game Fest.
00:15:50
Speaker
And this is a sentence. Studios is made by a bunch of Call of Duty devs who broke off and it is a first person. What did you call it? Battle made shooter. So instead of having guns, you kind of like cast spells, but it all happens with your right hand sticking out like a gun and your spells act as different guns. So, you know, it looks it looks fun, right?
00:16:18
Speaker
I've heard from some people who've done previews that the story leaves something to desire, but the gameplay is pretty fun. And also it has, you know, a bit of a Doom vibe to it. Arena shooter kind of vibe to it, which Call of Duty sometimes can devolve into. I don't know. I struggle sometimes with first-person games that use magic and things like that as their
00:16:46
Speaker
as like they're shooting or they're shooting mechanic because I, it ends up feeling floaty. Oh, you know what I mean? Where it's like, you don't feel like you're doing a lot of like damage or like it doesn't, your, your actions don't feel as strong, um, compared to gun, but yeah.
00:17:05
Speaker
I don't know. I'm neither excited or not. I'm very whelmed by this game. Sure. This also strikes me as being one of those games where it's like it could be a mid 70s to low 80s kind of game on the best end. It'll be coming out July 20th, 2023. Did the trailer do anything for either of you?
00:17:26
Speaker
I have no memory of it. You were drunk,
Major Announcements
00:17:29
Speaker
Charles. I remember some of them. There was there was a quip that they made that the main character makes during the trailer that made me go, well, that reminds me of four spoken. Yeah. Yeah. It's got big four spoken vibes a little bit. Yeah. It sounds just like maybe, you know, let's not look forward to the dialogue. Yeah. That's what I mean. Like in the combat, save it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I.
00:17:57
Speaker
You know, for your thing about magic being the conduit for first person shooting, I agree with in a way. I just don't think the problem when people use magic is that because it's here, like they tend to just have your hand in front of you and it just stays there. It's very static and it doesn't feel like there's any weight to whatever you're doing.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, and and for some in my head that what's imprinted into me is like old games Like you think I'm like Skyrim combat and oblivion Yeah, yeah and all that stuff where I'm just like we're past this like we got to do better to make this more it is
00:18:45
Speaker
intriguing. Like you don't have to keep your hand there. Like I don't you don't have to show me that the hand is there in front of me to fire. Yeah. I mean, I mean, to be fair to the game, it's still it looks very visually impressive and all the magic does look like fantastic. But until I play it and feel how it plays, I don't know how I'll feel about the game. Mm hmm.
00:19:09
Speaker
Like it's a very good looking game, but, you know, good looking doesn't mean good playing. So agreed. Next in. Oh, that will be coming. I don't know if I said already, but coming out July 20th on PS5, Xbox and that's coming on.
00:19:26
Speaker
Let's go. Yeah, it's coming soon next. And I did not expect to fucking happen. This was a surprise of the show. One of the surprises of the show for me, which is Ghost Runner 2 got announced. If you didn't play Ghost Runner 1, you play as a cybernetic ninja climbing a tower in a post.
00:19:45
Speaker
apocalyptic cyber hellscape world. It kind of plays like a platformer tied in with like a speed running assassination game. It's hard to explain, but when you see it, it makes
Classic Franchises Return
00:20:01
Speaker
perfect sense and it's so fun and so fluid and it has one of the best like
00:20:07
Speaker
synth punk pot, uh, at least the first one did. And I expect the second to keep form, um, synth punk, like soundtracks, like this is like a game you wanted cyberpunk to feel like this game in every moment that this game. Um, yeah. And basically it's, it sounds like it would be coming out this year. Um, and it looks like they'll be adding some new mechanics, including a motorcycle.
00:20:36
Speaker
Something says fucking cyberpunk more like a motorcycle. Let me tell you is this like uh What was that game that EA made? Mmm. Oh, I'm a mirrors edge It's not I wouldn't say it's mirrors edge because it's not parkour. Okay you're it's it's the it has a fluidity of movement, but it's really it's
00:20:59
Speaker
You're you're kind of like just kick flipping and like wall jumping and all sorts of shit. But it's not like based in any kind of like what a human can do. Like you have an air dash and shit like that. You know what I mean? It just is. It was very smooth and very fun to play. And it was a quick game, too. I think you could beat it 15, 20 hours easy. Wow. Yeah, I've never I have no.
00:21:22
Speaker
Like awareness of this game. So even this I talk I told all of you about it when I played it, but that's okay Don't worry I knew about before James told me about it Waiting for it to be released I heard you and then unfortunately forgot I am sorry
00:21:42
Speaker
Charles, did you get excited about this? Yeah, I would say I had to explain it to our friends when this came up. I was like, it's ghost very choose coming out. It's sick. Not expected to be announced for this year. Yeah. You said 2024. I would have been like, Oh, that makes perfect sense. But this year, crazy. Yeah. I mean, it came out during the pandemic.
00:22:06
Speaker
I was around the same time as actually Cyberpunk.
New Hardware Unveils
00:22:10
Speaker
This was the thing. Oh, yeah, you're right. We all got sad. And then, yeah, and I was like, yeah, thank God Ghost Runner is here.
00:22:21
Speaker
Um, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Um, again, I, I, I think ghost runner, um, the original got like, I think mid eighties reviews. I would, I don't really think they have to change too much to keep that score. Um, just kind of deliver on more.
00:22:36
Speaker
Um, so looking forward to that next in what was another surprise of the show. Phantom blade zero. Um, and you know, it started and I was like, Oh, look at this. Another fucking soul's knockoff from COVID. Yeah, but it's not. Yep. It's a developed by S game who is a mobile game developer.
00:22:58
Speaker
This will be their first console release and phantom blood apparently is a series of games. They have released on mobile before oh So this but this is a new they're not porting like their game from mobile This is a new game made for consoles, okay?
00:23:14
Speaker
Um, and basically you play as, uh, I don't know if he's like a samurai. I think he's a technically an
Spider-Man 2 and Gameplay Highlights
00:23:21
Speaker
assassin, but more or less playing in some sort of feudal Asian nation. They didn't really specify, which could be China, could be Japan. Who can say feels more China. If he had to ask me, I think, um,
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you know what? It has the it has the dragon dog. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it has really kind of like sacral like combat. I mean, it seemed very like fluid, high focus on like striking with your sword, dodging fluid movement. They did talk about
00:23:56
Speaker
Uh, S game released a press statement about this and they talked about how, you know, they've done a lot of development for mobile and they've had a lot of thoughts about how to simplify their combat for, you know, just playing it on a touchscreen and not, you know, having players do a ton of shit to make cool things happen and kind of moving that idea to consoles too. So, you know, maybe this may not be like the super hard, like kick your ass dark souls kind of game, but it might be a game where you can just kind of like very easily do cool ass shit.
00:24:26
Speaker
and kill people. And sometimes those games are super fun. Yeah.
Showcase Reflection and Impact
00:24:32
Speaker
It looked good. I think I had the same reaction that you did, James. What is this Koei Tecmo game? But then it wasn't. And I hope it's good, because why not have more?
00:24:43
Speaker
But if it's a mobile game, does that mean it's going to be monetized like a mobile game? I don't know if the other ones out there monetize their monetization or I'll tell you what, I just clicked on the trailer.
00:24:58
Speaker
And YouTube tries to categorize videos based on the game they're associated to. And YouTube thinks this game is bloodborne. So that's I don't know what meta information it uses, but Mighty Google thinks it's bloodborne. Yeah, I mean, the thing for this game that stood out to me that made me think it might be worth something is
00:25:28
Speaker
The movement during combat, and I think I heard something else about the combat, that this was also being directed by a action. Yeah, I was going to look up this theme. I know what you're talking about. So yeah, the sword fighting in this is very Chinese martial arts-esque. I think they would call those wuxia films.
00:25:53
Speaker
And I think one of our friends, we were all talking about this, didn't like the movement for this game. But I think, to be honest with you, this is one of the first games in at least a decade where I see these movements captured so well.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think like I don't see this type of movement with their sword fighting done anywhere else. And it looks good. It was very fun. It's like a it's like a sped up Chinese martial arts movie.
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah. So they, uh, their, their fight director was Kenji, uh, ton of Gaki. And I think he worked on, he was a stuntman on the route, the route, the Rooney Kenshi films, the live action ones. Um, he was an action coordinator for many.
00:26:49
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. Basically a lot of like, I would say, you know, Asian kung fu films. I didn't want to. Yeah, it looks cool. Yeah. So, I mean, like, if this is their foray, I mean, also to be fair, it looks like a PS five game. Now, like they definitely make use of the PS five. So is this their first foray from a mobile game to a console proper? Yeah. It looks good. Yeah.
00:27:18
Speaker
I mean, you can do crazy things on funs these days, too. So I'm actually a little bit excited about it. It feels like it has energy to it. Like a combat has energy, unlike to me.
00:27:30
Speaker
Um, like all the a lot of the other souls games or yeah, it's a little 20 minutes to swing your sword. Like, well, that's um, it just feels, oh, oh, hmm. Charles, you know, my favorite, my favorite part is this one right here where he does like the, the sword slashes from like the low position. Like that's so good. Yeah, it's good. Cool movement.
00:27:55
Speaker
yeah anything to say it feels like it's not moving through molasses and yep yeah i like them you didn't are you sick euro nope i don't know why honestly you're i don't like because it was hard oh that's fair i don't remember it was hard it was hard
00:28:18
Speaker
Next and next in a surprise announcement, is it Journey to know? But also, yes. Sort of the sea from the developer of Abzu and the pathless is not from who made journey. Is it that one game company? I think it's that one game company. Yep. That's their actual name. Um.
00:28:42
Speaker
But it's it's made by, I think, the same art director from Journey because, god damn it, some of these shots look like they were taken directly out of Journey. Yeah. But this is made by Giant Squid. And yeah, you did you play Journey? If not, you surfed around on sand through beautiful fucking landscapes and learned a lesson about togetherness. Listen, in this game. This was multiplayer, James. OK.
00:29:12
Speaker
What? I remember reading an interview with the director of it and he said the inspiration for Journey listeners at home is he was talking about how he used to play like MMOs like WoW and stuff and how he wished to be connected to the people he played with.
00:29:29
Speaker
meaningful connections. So when he approached Journey, he wanted to create something to create connections with the people you're playing with. So in Journey, you are a character, you are on a quest to get to, I don't know, the top of a mountain or something, and you play along others' people, but you can only communicate through chimes.
00:29:50
Speaker
And, uh, it, it creates something. What's that? Yeah. It's something really, really special. Uh, the way you interact with people and there's a couple of other ways you interact with that. I actually don't want to spoil because they're pretty touching moments. Yeah. Oh, I mean, it's really wonderful, but it was.
00:30:10
Speaker
And it was, and this, this looks to be kind of like, I don't know, a spiritual successor. They, he didn't, they didn't touch anything about any sort of co-op or multiplayer functions of it, but it's a very similar idea of like just moving around these beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I'm going to say one more time, beautiful landscapes. Um, and you're kind of skateboarding on a sort sheet.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, including a half pipe at one point. So it looks real good. I we're going to do poor job explaining anything about it. Sort of the siege is look up the trailer. It's it's quite beautiful. If you haven't played Journey, like if you play Journey, I think you can get a sense for the art style if you haven't go to the trailer. But don't you kind of not want another journey? But we don't. This isn't necessarily. Well, it's not necessarily Journey, right? That's the thing. Yeah, journey. Yeah, it is. That's OK.
00:31:05
Speaker
Charles, are you excited for Journey 2, Tony Hawk Pro? Yeah, well, I like that it's there. My problem for me is it's very unlikely I'll end up playing it. Did you play Journey? Yeah. OK. So I think it's great. I would recommend other people play Sword to Sea 2 because it definitely looks good.
00:31:29
Speaker
And we'll find out more once it gets released and there's reviews and whatever. But the concept's great. The idea that you're in this desert where the sand is fluid that focuses like water and then you actually turn the sand into water, that's really cool. No, it looks beautiful. We'll see how it actually plays and what you actually do in it.
00:31:56
Speaker
And again, in another surprise announcement, you know, it's funny because I'm saying all these surprise announcements, we didn't expect them. We didn't. Right. But they're not really big announcements. They're still a surprise announcement, but they're not big announcements. Yeah. One thing that I definitely thought was.
00:32:18
Speaker
interesting is, um, and I, and I listened to a bit about from kind of funny and I thought, and I thought this was very important, uh, thing to call out is this state of play is more. Okay. So judged on what wasn't there then on what is, because the contents of what is in there wasn't bad, but people wanted to know more about the stuff that didn't get brought up. Yeah. Yeah. Sir, I'm Dan Paul for calling in the showcase.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yep. Uh, so yeah, next, next, uh, next was, is the Taylor's principle too. Um, if you're unfamiliar, the Taylor's principle is a first person puzzle solving game. No, I'm not going to say in similar necessarily to the witness because
00:33:07
Speaker
with the witnesses, a entirely different game, especially in terms of how it approaches puzzles. But it's basically you are doing a first person puzzle solving game. And it was very much a meditation about consciousness and transhumanism. And what does it mean in terms of what it means to be human and what it means to think?
00:33:31
Speaker
It was a great game. Andy would hate it. Andy would hate it because it's the game that freaked me out. That made me start thinking about, Oh, was it? I didn't realize that was playing it because it freaked me out so much. I didn't realize that that was the Taylor's principle that started your hatred of robots. That's funny.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't. I honestly never expected a sales principal to again, just used. It's like having the witness to write. It's a weird thing to make a second game of just. And I think that's just because directors who make these kinds of games don't generally make sequels. They usually just kind of move on to like the next game where they explore like another kind of.
00:34:13
Speaker
idea or something like that. Obviously transhumanism. There is a lot to talk about there just in general. So I imagine maybe just because, you know, the creator of the game had more to say and more expand on the conversation that they went that way. But I'm, I'm excited. Tells principle two is a great game, a fun game, a frustrating game sometimes. So did you play tails principle one? I did not. Okay.
00:34:43
Speaker
Just didn't get to it. It was it was on PC for a long time. There's so much. Yeah, it's it's not it's not an awesome game because I thought it was not good. It's just that. Yeah, there's so many games. No, I understand. I understand. Oh, actually, yeah, there was the Tails Principle came out 2014. So we're in the new game will be coming out this year. But I don't think it came out to consoles until like 2019 or something like that. It took a while. Yeah, I played on console.
00:35:06
Speaker
I like puzzle games usually. I do.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah. Next, do you want to cry? Because the creator, the developer behind Greer wants to make you cry. We have the new game, never. NEVA. It was just a animated concept trailer that, frankly speaking, told me nothing.
00:35:36
Speaker
Um, which is that there was a, uh, you know, a person of color woman swordswoman with a large dog, antler creature, and then a smaller dog antler creature. And they fought off weird black blobs in a beautiful animated style. And then the large dog died in the trailer. And that was it. I mean, I don't, either of you play green. I never did. I.
00:36:02
Speaker
Always meant to yeah, I know me too. It's it's one of those games. I'm always like I gotta play green one of these days Because it's such a bit like the the fucking Cover art of Greece so beautiful. Yeah And it's this trailer. It's so beautiful and like I'm like, I'm really curious for muscle like
00:36:28
Speaker
Well, yeah, I don't know. There's not much to say about this game other than it'll probably be very pretty and it will probably break your heart at some point. And a reminder to play green. Yeah, there you go. And it'll be coming out next year. Next. Yeah, this one is the worst in the show. Is it? We'll see. Oh, I have my opinions. I have my opinions. It's it's definitely top bottom three.
00:36:58
Speaker
Hey, you like Splatoon? You know when you go to your mom and you're like, mom, I want to buy Splatoon for my Nintendo Switch. And she goes, no, we have Splatoon at home. And that's Square Enix's Foam Stars.
00:37:19
Speaker
Oh my god. And you know that they believe in it because there was no Final Fantasy crossovers in that trailer. All right. This is an IP that stands alone and they are proud. And it's just I could think was why. Don't worry.
00:37:34
Speaker
The the emergency break in case of a break in case of emergency button is going to be right there. OK, they'll do they'll have they'll sell file fancy skins in this game. Don't worry. I yeah, they have to like we have a lot of other games to talk about, so I don't want to spend too much time talking about foam stars just to say enough that it's like if so at the beginning, it said Square Enix, which was super great of them, because if you told me Ubisoft made this game, I would have believed you in a second.
00:38:07
Speaker
If either of you want to get in a joke real quick, I've got nothing else. I mean, my my thing with the game is just that the actual gameplay looks awful. I think it's just not polished. But I look, Splatoon doesn't own this format. It's like other people can definitely try to make it. But this one just looks ugly. And I'm surprised more people haven't tried to rip off Splatoon. Right. Yeah, your point.
00:38:40
Speaker
Anyway, yep. Best shows coming up. Yeah, honestly, next up was the plucky squire, which has been shown in a couple other conferences and states of play and wherever have you. But it's a beautiful little action adventure game where you play as a like hero in a storybook game where you're playing in the storybook.
00:39:05
Speaker
Mm hmm. So you're kind of doing your adventure, flipping the pages. But surprise, you can also leave the book and go out and play in the child's room that you're in as well. Moving from kind of this over the top 2D look picturesque book to a, you know, real life 3D space of like a child's like a child whose parents have too much money to spend on toys room. Like as a descriptor, too, it's like if you are playing Earthbound
00:39:34
Speaker
and then moved into a tunic. It takes two. Oh, actually, that's a better one. You're right. It takes two. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and it just it seems like you could flow between them seamlessly. And that's kind of really cool.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yep. It's a beautiful game. I, I can't wait to play. It comes out this year. Yeah. When this came out, when this came on, I have, um, the other friends that we were on a call with, they doubted this. I said, no, no, no. It's plucky squire. It's great. And they're like, Oh, and then they, they saw the twist and they're like, okay, this is good.
00:40:12
Speaker
Uh, next up, uh, they announced that tear down will be coming to consoles. Uh, tear down is a game that's been a PC for a long time. Uh, it uses voxels to create things that you can destroy. It is a great game. Um, it's great that it's coming to console, but it's not new. Sure. Um, yeah. I mean, uh, either of you have anything to say?
00:40:36
Speaker
Have you played teardown? No, I never heard of it. OK, it's a it's a I played it since it like early, early access.
00:40:45
Speaker
Like it even looks, it's gotten looking better because they've had a great tracing and stuff to it, but it's, it's essentially a heist game, um, where you have to plan your escape. You have to like steal something or destroy something and plan your escape. So you get to go in there and just plan how you're going to destroy everything to get the thing you need to get. That's true.
00:41:07
Speaker
And then you have to execute it perfectly. And there's some, you can pre-destroy some things to make your life easier, but some you have to destroy on the go. So it's like, it's fun. And it's, it's actually a kind of a, a puzzle game slash physics space game. It's a great time. Sounds really cool. Yeah, it's great. Uh, and next up, the one thing they actually didn't disappoint with
00:41:33
Speaker
That's right, baby. Metal Gear Solid 3 is coming back as a remake now known as Metal Gear Solid Greek Symbol Delta. It's a little triangle. See, that feels like a Kojima thing to do, but Kojima is not involved.
00:41:50
Speaker
So why is it Delta? It's definitely a marketing thing so that people will buy it because they won't go Metal Gear Solid 3. I haven't played one in two. Oh, you think so? That's that's fair. Honestly, hundred, hundred percent. Well, and the other thing that I think you're saying, yeah, which is in the same trailer for this at the end, they mentioned that it's going to be part of a they also announced a collection.
00:42:17
Speaker
of one, two, and Delta, seemingly, which volume one of a collection. So there's going to be a volume two of this same collection coming up. So it seems like all the Metal Gear games. So the collection is going to be one, two, and three original.
00:42:38
Speaker
Ah, okay. Delta will be a separate release. Okay. Well, in that case, also still good. A remaster of remaster being the updated to play on modern consoles. Versions of those will be great. Hopefully the volume two will include four, but we'll see.
00:43:04
Speaker
I mean, it could be just Peace Walker, Acid and Revengeance. Well, the main stories from the thing from the portables are portable ops, Peace Walker and then five. Yeah, but five doesn't have to put five in a collection. You can buy five everywhere. Hmm. I mean, it's probably portal. Honestly, it probably portal ops, Peace Walker and Acid.
00:43:29
Speaker
Well, the problem is if you have acid, there's also acid, too. Well, you can throw them both in there because those are pretty short games or really small games. But, yeah, I mean, not to show. But, yeah, it was just the CGI trailer. You saw a stink for like a half second at the end. So you didn't say the other thing I was going to say is the.
00:43:49
Speaker
Virtuous studios. Yeah, who knows? Well, no, no, they didn't mention who made who's developing it, right? Like even Jeff Keeley and everybody else was just like, who's the development team making this game? Oh, OK. Well, it's not Blue Point because it's it is confirmed to be going to Xbox and PC. Yeah. So it's it's not Blue Point. Yeah. It's weird that they don't tell you who's making it. Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
Are they in the other thing would be to say is, um, and this is a very Konami move. Honestly. Um, if you wanted to relaunch the metal gear solid franchise, this ain't a bad place to start. And by calling it Delta, you could more or less start a new trilogy or not even new trilogy, but a new, they can change the story. Right. And use this as a starting point.
00:44:40
Speaker
which I know would be sacrilege to every Metal Gear Solid fan. But if they just give you all the old games and be like, all right, this is our new continuation and a new timeline. Mm hmm. That's it. Listen, it's a miracle Kojima did to make a sensical story. If he's not there to do it, I don't know how they're going to be able to do it. Well, I mean, we'll see. It's that's that's more speculative work. And so we'll see. It's more speculative than anything.
00:45:07
Speaker
Also, there are they are calling it a remake, not a remaster. So. Yeah. Final Fantasy seven was a remake. It wasn't the same game. Yeah. And I mean, that's I honestly. Yeah. So you have to you also have to think to write Final Fantasy seven remake and its success is a reason Konami might be doing this. And what did seven do? They changed the story. Yeah, but they had to have a good team. So. Well, it's Konami.
00:45:36
Speaker
Uh, how many more games we got? Oh boy, we got to hurry this up. Let's just let's pick out. All right. Towers of a gossip was revealed. I don't know. It's breath of the wild looking ass game. Yeah. I mean, look cool. It's fine. Another trailer for Final Fantasy 16 did not say the demo would be coming out today like everyone hoped. Oh, well.
00:46:04
Speaker
Coming out June 22nd, though. That's right. We're less than a month. Next, they had a gameplay reveal trailer for Alan Wake 2. And it seems they'll be having dual protagonists, Alan Wake and a female FBI agent. Cool. I thought they were remaking the original.
00:46:23
Speaker
Nope, new one. And coming out October 17th this year, just in time for Halloween. I love it. And to be fair, this wasn't the first announcement of Alloy 2. This is the gameplay trailer. Yeah, this is the trailer. Oh, maybe I'm confusing the reveal of 2 as a remake. Whoops. No, I think this was maybe... I think this might have been...
00:46:45
Speaker
either at Summer Game Fest last year or the Game Awards. I can't remember, but I remember there was this kind of, I think, yeah. Yeah. So just, it was kind of like Alan. Everyone was like, Oh, is this control two? And it was like, no, it's Alan week two. It's like, Oh, shit.
00:47:01
Speaker
Which listen, it's all fair. It's all in the same universe. It is all in the same universe. I heard someone bring up essentially is like, what? Jesus Christ remedy. You're announcing like a new game every day. And then you're also fucking making Max Payne and control to. It's like, how many. Why do you have? Yeah. Own. Yeah. Yeah. They're making a new Max Payne. We talked about it on the podcast, Andy. Another Max Payne. Is it the fat one? No. Well, no, I think the other remaking one.
00:47:32
Speaker
Oh, wait, I think I did know this. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Did you play out on week one? No. Nope. Yeah, me either. I don't like. I don't like scary. It wasn't out on Xbox. I think it was an Xbox exclusive for the Xbox one generation. Yeah. It was the 360. Was it 360? That was one of the reasons I held on to my 360. I was going to get rid of it. And I was like, but I never played Alan Wake.
00:48:00
Speaker
Oh, never played Alan Wake. I have it. Never. I don't this. This looks very scary. I honestly thought it was the outlast trials for a minute at the beginning of the trailer. Oh, sure. I don't know if I'll play it because I'm a little scaredy baby, but we'll see somebody else play. It's going to be great.
00:48:19
Speaker
uh next we have games hold the phone you like resident evil resident evil turns into an action game halfway through every game is that still scary i just have to power through the first like four hours of a resident evil game and then it's an action game i didn't know you're
00:48:35
Speaker
You're such a baby. That's okay. Terrified. Next, we got the reveal for Assassin's Creed Mirage. This is the story of Bossum, the assassin that was in Valhalla. He was like the more traditional assassin to Ivor's fake Viking assassin.
00:48:56
Speaker
And this is a prequel story that takes place back in the Middle East and will actually be a harken back to like Assassin's Creed one and two combat with like instant kills and bribing. And like, you know, actually, it's going to be less more of an RPG and more of like, you know, the action adventure assassination games that the first Assassin's Creed for comes out on October 12th. Looked cool. I'm kind of excited for it. If it has good reviews, I'm I can't wait to play it.
00:49:24
Speaker
Well, I have to play all the other Assassin's Creed's for playing this one. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's why they called it Mirage, baby. Because technically speaking, this is like Assassin's Creed eight or nine or something like that. Yeah. No, no, no. Listen, story didn't didn't matter after Assassin's Creed three, which is also why I'm still not playing this one. Well, you know, I mean, spoiler for Valhalla.
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah, I heard about how they pull some things back together. Yeah, I mean, listen, if you don't know at this point, then it's not my problem. But spoiler for all Bassam is and this will probably come up in his story is overtaken by the spirit of Loki, who is one of the precursors. I don't know what they're actually called. But it was like the ancient aliens that. Yeah, that that that that created the the apples of Eden that the game is based on and
00:50:20
Speaker
And he's trying to get revenge on the resurrections of Odin, who are technically who most of the main characters have been. And at the end of Valhalla, he takes over the person who is using the animus to become Ivor. He manages to take over their actual human body. What are you even saying? Yeah, I know. Right. Andy, that's how convoluted the story of Assassin's Creed has become.
00:50:49
Speaker
ancient ancient uh human aliens have had reincarnations and have used the animus to take over bodies in the future
00:51:05
Speaker
Don't worry, Andy, if you don't like this one, maybe Assassin's Creed Red, set in Japan will do it, or Assassin's Creed Hex for Central Europe in the 16th century will be something. That's right. Yeah. Because they're all in on Assassin's Creed. They took that break and then they're like, fuck it, we don't have any better ideas.
00:51:24
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, they also announced, by the way, that the the sands, they also announced, by the way, today or yesterday, the sands of time remake has has gone is now in the concept stage. They've taken it all the way back. Wait, are you lying? No, I'm not lying. They literally said we're in concept right now. So they're there. Yeah, they've taken that baby all the way back to the foundations.
00:51:49
Speaker
that that's wild. So then, nope, we got seven minutes left and we still got a couple of games to talk about. Next game, dragons, augmented the first souls like game that came out that nobody played except me and Imran Khan. Um, yeah, it's basically dark souls, but with, you can climb on things.
00:52:17
Speaker
Um, yeah, it had a very robust like climbing engine and it's a much more medieval story that it's much more narrative focused. Um, and there's a weird kind of like cool pawn system where you can trade like, uh, or you can create companions and then share them with people online. It was fun. Um, it's one of those games, I think we've talked about being like lightly confirmed in rumor for a long time. And it's cool to finally see it coming out. Mm-hmm.
00:52:43
Speaker
Next day demoed Resident Evil 4 VR mode. Looks good. Yep. I'm actually going to be scared playing it because I was waiting until the VR mode and now it looks too scary. I might wait till somebody else is with me.
00:52:58
Speaker
Uh, next in something I never thought I would ever fucking saying is that bungee is making a remake of marathon. Um, if you don't know, marathon was the first game that bungee ever made. It was the game made on the Mac because bungee was a studio that wanted to make a video games for the Mac. And then Microsoft bought them.
00:53:18
Speaker
Get fucked, Apple. They do say, however, this won't be a first person narrative shooter and instead will be a PVP extraction style shooter in the vein of Tarkov or the Dark Zones in Division or what is it? The Cycle, which is another game. Or what is it? Just shit. DMZ in Call of Duty. So I never super like those modes that are very try hard and sweating. But sure.
00:53:48
Speaker
It looks cool. I mean, bungee fucking knows how to make a goddamn trailer. Like I almost thought it was system shock for a fucking second. I did too. Yeah. It looked real good. Um, but the, the prospect of it being an extraction shooter makes me much less excited for it. Uh, next was Concord. Uh, and we don't know what it is. Yeah.
00:54:14
Speaker
I still don't get it. Firewalk Studios, which is a bunch of devs from. But I think they're ex bungee devs. This third brand new studio, and it was just a CGI trailer of a space station or excuse me, a spaceship going someplace. And that's it. Yeah. Who could tell you who could tell you what it is? It says it's coming next year. OK, great. We'll find out. Will it be a live service game? Probably.
00:54:42
Speaker
Uh, next they showed the trailer for Gran Turismo. Still looks funny. Next. Ha ha. We were right. Everybody. They made a stupid piece of hardware. The project queue has been announced, uh, which again, they couldn't even bother to come up with a real thing. Yeah.
00:55:03
Speaker
And it's just an eight inch LCD screen shoved in between the two ends of a DualSense controller. It is only it works only on Wi-Fi and with your PS5 controller. It is just for remote play in your home. And it will be out later this year. Like I said, yeah, that's it. Yeah, my thing with this one was, like I said before, if the price is right, I'll probably still get one. Also, these earbuds.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, they also announced earbuds, which finding good earbuds that work with your console can be a pain. Honestly, it's not a bad idea to release those. And then finally, they close the show with a 12-minute demo of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. I'm not going to recap the whole thing, but it starts with a CGI trailer of Craven hunting some dude in the wild.
00:56:00
Speaker
And then it goes into a long gameplay mission where Peter is already wearing the black symbiote suit. Um, and he's fighting off Craven slackies who are hunting Dr. Connors, the lizard, and he beats them the fuck off with his venom suit.
00:56:18
Speaker
And then it transitions to Miles, where they show a bunch of stealth section and Miles's new glide suit as well. And then a big cinematic sequence of chasing through the the Long Island.
00:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's basically through the Long Island Sound to to just a big action set piece. It looked real fun. It looks good. It still kind of just looks like Spider-Man to me. Like I don't see any like like it's pretty. It's prettier.
00:56:53
Speaker
I will say that it didn't necessarily seem to be running at a stable frame rate. I didn't seem to be 60 frames per second the whole way out, especially during some of the more intense cut scenes. But it looked fun. I'm excited for it. I haven't played Miles Morales, which I still have to do. And they did not give a release date for it either.
00:57:14
Speaker
Um, I have opinions on this change it to fall 2020. Yeah, it's fall. I have opinions on this, but Charles, Andy, you two go first. Andy, go for it. I don't know if I have anything interesting to say about it except that, well, I normally don't even really like these kinds of games or not that I shouldn't, that I don't like them, but I don't normally find interest in like playing them, but it just looked awesome. It just looked fun. Everything was like a spectacle in like the most flattering kind of way. Um, and I'm pumped for it. I'm going to play it.
00:57:44
Speaker
Like this is what Sony does. Like this, like X Xbox, what the heck? Like, why can't you do this? This is how you make an exclusive, but that's it. Yeah. I mean, my thing about this one was, uh, yeah, it all looks good. I it's, it's all the things I would expect to be improved upon. Like, um, and it does kind of hint at how they, um, they're going to handle you playing as a different Spider-Man.
00:58:14
Speaker
Um, where, you know, well, we don't know what it looks like in non-mission mode, but during the mission, you are prompted on when you switch. So it looks like the missions, you will be switching interchangeably between the spider people, um, at set times, not like freely. Um, but we'll see. Um, either case though, it looks good. The sequences look good. Um,
00:58:41
Speaker
I like that in the Spider-Man game so far, there have been multi-villain issues. In the original one, there was the Sinister Six. In this one, so far, we see Craven the Hunter and we see Venom. Well, we see Venom. We also see Lizard in this one.
00:59:01
Speaker
We don't see Venom. We see the symbiote suit. But I mean, if it's here, Venom, well, well, remember the trailer even has the. Oh, that's. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, they didn't show Venom in this gameplay trailer. Yes. But so we know Venom is going to be in this one. Yes. Agreed. A hundred percent. Yeah. So so, yes, there's a lot of stuff here where we where it looks like there's going to be multiple villains that you're juggling through. The sequences look fun.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm very like, yeah, it looks great. I'm not thrilled with how the symbiote suit looks. You don't like these extra ridges.
00:59:39
Speaker
It looks like he's wearing football pads. It looks like the symbiote suit has always been this very smooth thing. His normal suits always has the spider webs on them. And the symbiote suit was always the stark black single entity with the very short boy. And I understand, they changed things up. They did that when they made the new suit for the game, and I was fine with that. I don't know, it looks bulky.
01:00:07
Speaker
It's just not how I imagine the symbiote suit. But I mean, I guess if they're trying to make the statement about being more physical, it being more bulky makes sense. I don't know. I mean, I don't love it. Yeah. My thing about the way things look, it's probably a costume skin change. Oh, yeah, I know. Like in the in the other in the first game, it's literally you just switch between like different costumes and you know, like the symbiote suit. I know. But that's what they're going to do. And they'll
01:00:37
Speaker
charge like $2 for you if you want to buy it. Yeah, it's probably honestly going to be a pre-order bonus. Get your classic outfit. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's just one of those things where it's like, there's some things you don't fuck with. They got it right. Yeah. Well, for me, I care less about the original Spider-Man symbiote suit more than the Venom
01:01:05
Speaker
How venom look. Yeah. I want to know how venom looks. Yeah. And I'll be honest. Here's my here's my Hail Mary. I wish it gets added. Surprise carnage. I mean, I mean, honestly, if that's not like an end credit thing, I would be surprised. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, again, it's I say like I haven't played Miles Morales and that's not for any particular reason. I think I just haven't gotten there.
01:01:32
Speaker
Um, so probably sometime this, maybe in July, right? That's our little little time, I think to play some games, but I'll be able to try to knock it out then, but it's, um,
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it looked great. It looked fun. Like I said, it did seem to have some performance issues, but I don't know. I assume they were really good about having a performance mode and stuff like that. I feel like they're probably running the same quality mode or something like that. Oh, it looked good. And I like my and I liked Miles's like gameplay segment looked fun. Yeah. Well, Genki kind of was not great.
01:02:08
Speaker
The writing for Genki was kind of annoying That's your annoying best friend character Yeah, I like Genki though in the comics and and he's he's not Genki in the movies What's like him or his name? Yeah, he isn't like the use of that Filipino guy. Yeah Yeah, well, yeah, cuz he's not cuz he's with Peter not miles, but he's essentially Genki Yeah, but anyway
01:02:39
Speaker
It was an OK showcase. I gave it like a seven out of 10. I was like, I'm not I'm not mad at it. I'm just like, if you told me this was a state of play, I would be like, oh, this is a great state of play. Yeah. But I feel like if you're going to be like, this is a PlayStation showcase, we're going to sit you down and we're going to show you what all our first party studios have been up to. Yeah. And that's not what it was. No.
01:03:06
Speaker
Which this was like, hey, we got some stuff on the burner, but you know those questions you really wanted answered about like Blue Point, Naughty Dog and Sucker Punch and Housemarque and so much in this stable. I'm just it just really makes me wonder, like, does this mean it's being saved for the Summer Games Fest or whatever? I mean, it's possible they could do another one after Spider-Man like they don't want to take anything away from Spider-Man right now. That's fair.
01:03:35
Speaker
Um, and then maybe later in the fall or, you know, in the winter, they might start on the other stuff, but you know, like Spider-Man's kind of their only big release this year. Yeah. Um, hold on. That's okay. But how did you feel about it, Charles? I know you said you didn't think it was.
01:03:58
Speaker
I think 7 out of 10 is probably where you would put it. My big thing is I've always had a problem with...
01:04:11
Speaker
people distinguishing between a showcase and a state of play. I know. Because to be honest with you, and much like Nintendo Directs and some other stuff, the companies themselves don't say this is the thing that's going to be different. Like, I thought the only difference between a showcase and a state of play was just the length of time. Like, that's it. You have long state of plays, though.
01:04:38
Speaker
But this one's an hour and 20. I don't think a state of play has ever hit an hour and 20. At most, 40 minutes. For me, I don't think Sony's ever made a distinguishing factor themselves to say, hey, state of plays are going to be this, showcases are going to be this. I think that's been outside external forces making that differentiation and saying, hey, this is what it is.
01:05:06
Speaker
Um, so I don't like to necessarily put as much pressure between the two and say like, Hey, if, uh, you know, if this was a state of play, you know, we people would feel better about it. Like I don't fully buy that yet. Um, but I would say this is only an okay showcase, uh, in the sense that, um,
01:05:30
Speaker
Right now, there's a lot of doubt about Microsoft and their games. And this showcase could have been, hey, these are all of our games coming out in the next two years.
01:05:46
Speaker
Yeah, just fucking just put in Dale and Microsoft. Yeah, they could have just like sealed that up entirely just to be like we have first off, we have Spider-Man and that's coming out in the fall. And then we have all these other games with gameplay to show that to really highlight that these games are going to be going to be able to be playable and coming out soon ish right within the next year or two.
01:06:10
Speaker
But because of like a lot of the games they showed, there's a lot of things that were more like trailers and not gameplay without release dates. There's a lot of questions about games, including all those first parties we mentioned, like what is Blue Point doing? You know, Naughty Dog.
01:06:31
Speaker
and everything else. It's just like there's all these chances to hammer home what is gonna be coming out in the future that you took it to only emphasize really Spider-Man. I mean, it's a choice. It's not the worst choice you could have made, but it's really close. Like just as a read the room situation of like, I always joke about like, what is it?
01:07:00
Speaker
It's kind of like in fencing.
01:07:04
Speaker
Um, where, uh, in fencing, there's only, you like to think that when the swords clash, either person could get really get a point. It's not really true. It's the person that has right of way in fencing that gets the point. And like at the time, Sony had the right of way and they could like keep driving in their lead. But right now they stumbled. The right of way goes to Microsoft now who has the later.
01:07:32
Speaker
presentation that they could make one that absolutely one ups PlayStation now. Yeah. And also Microsoft was waiting just in the wings as soon as their showcase. Yeah, the students showcase was over there like, oh, by the way, all those games they showed here are the four, the 12 of the 20, 25 games that were announced are coming to Xbox anyway.
01:07:57
Speaker
So it's, you know, just to be like, you know, really, you didn't even show that much. Yeah. Smart. Yeah. No, it is smart. Yeah. It's a good. It's a good repost. And that's and that's like an annoying problem because you're like.
01:08:15
Speaker
You're in the lead, stop making these decisions that let your people catch up. And here's the thing, I don't know what's going on internally. Maybe a bunch of the games they were playing to showcase, they all got delayed.
01:08:29
Speaker
Maybe you just, well, you know what? We're not ready. Uh, this is probably the best they could do. I mean, it's, it's one of those things too, that like some of these games, you could do the kind of concept trailers that some of these games did for your big studios and people would be happy and excited for that. Right? We just, yeah, we just kind of want to know, right? Cause I think.
01:08:51
Speaker
We like we like being excited about things, you know, I don't know. It's weird. It is a weird showcase. I don't. It makes me very interested about how Summer Games Fest and the Xbox director going to go. Jeff has been almost uncharacteristically downplaying Summer Game Fest, being like, I think we have four things people like.
01:09:19
Speaker
You know, which is a very it's like, yeah, that's that's a very like caution way to be like, don't get too crazy. Like we have some things. We have some things, but it's going to be, you know, a couple, you know. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, Xbox at this point, like they have to earn trust. Yeah. I don't go into any Xbox showcase going. All right. I can't wait to see all these things. It's more like you're kind of sit there with your arms crossed and go, OK, Xbox. Wow. You know what I mean?
01:09:50
Speaker
You know, it's like you're, you, you're on the back foot here. Uh, yeah, it was, it, this was, so this was Sony's, uh, presentation to lose, you know,
01:10:05
Speaker
And they didn't lose, but they certainly didn't win. I just don't know why it happened. We are way over time. But I will say one quick thing, the Embracer note, because I do want to put it in. Embracer, they did have an investor call today saying that a several billion dollar deal that they've been negotiating for the last eight months did not go through. And because of that, they would have to readjust their financial expectations for the year.
01:10:34
Speaker
Um, and they were expecting something in the, in the neighborhood of a $2 billion shortfall. Wait, like when they say deal, like in terms of like investment in them.
01:10:46
Speaker
Um, investment or like a deal for work, right? Like they were going to, that wasn't necessarily going to be an acquisition, but just like they were going to make an agreement with a company. They did not say which, um, uh, but it, it has now fallen through and they will have to readjust. Um, having a $2 billion shortfall, would you have, I think at conservative count, a hundred plus studios under your umbrella,
01:11:10
Speaker
Maybe problematic. Yeah. This was also live stream and you can literally see the pain in the CEO's face as he goes over it.
01:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's it'll be interesting with Embracer, right? Embracer has lived in kind of this continuous growth era. And now as we enter into kind of some rough financial times, don't default on the debit, Congress. Yeah, it could be get political here as fast as we go late.
01:11:45
Speaker
It could, it's causing a lot of companies to shrink and for companies like Embracer who have not demonstrated crazy good revenue and crazy good development games, it could cause some trouble sometimes, which we'll probably talk about more. On another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a news show. I've been your host, James, Bloodborne PC is real and you can't convince me otherwise, Hartwell. And I've been joined by
01:12:14
Speaker
Charles. God, I really wish, but you know, I would sell my first born child for a bloodborne 60 FPS patch, uh, Yemont. And I've been joined by. Andy, who cares about bloodborne. Give me another Tomb Raider. Let's go. Please embrace her. Don't go bankrupt before I get my Tomb Raider. Okay.
01:12:35
Speaker
I want to listen to him. He's drunk. She's going to have to tell you guys. Uh-huh. That's the real Tomb Raider. You didn't say your last name yet.
01:12:45
Speaker
Tomb Raider. I did. Okay. Did there? Maybe. I don't know. I also thought he did, but it's fine. Oh, okay. That's fair. It's okay. All right. Have a good night. Have a good night. And drink water. Everybody. Yeah. No one in particular. I went through a whole other Nalgene. Drink another one. Good night.