Transcript
neocharge: What's up everybody and welcome to Shapes of Gaming, the bi-weekly conversational podcast all about video games that's unedited, unfiltered, and unhinged. I'm one your hosts, Matt Stinson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me for episode number 59 is the retro gaming encyclopedia, Bob Harriman, Leon Lionheart, Leon, and Leon Hartley on What's up, bro?
Leon Lionheartly: You can silence me. You could bind me. But I just keep coming.
neocharge: That's right. That's right. So yeah, how's it going, man?
Leon Lionheartly: Not too bad. um Been playing a lot of catch up with games, of which course we'll get into. But more importantly, i ah Went ahead and noticed that you go if you go to YouTube, should I say, back up, they've got our channel for free movies and dcent TV. It's just a channel.
Leon Lionheartly: Recently, Final Fantasy The Spirits Within ended up on there.
neocharge: Oh, interesting.
Leon Lionheartly: So I sat down and watched it while I was at work doing other things today. i got to say, man.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: People say what you want. It's not a great Final Fantasy movie, but it's a very but is a very solid movie.
neocharge: good movie.
Leon Lionheartly: um I think it's more like an ocean star um or so ah in per am my like
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: or star ocean, should I say? I'm sorry. More of its themes and stuff. It's not really Final Fantasy, but solid, amazing voice ah cast.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's just ah ah it's bad you know that... poor set You saw Sakaguchi's vision. It just sucks it costs so much that it ended up losing money.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Right, right. There's a couple Final Fantasy movies out there. Have you seen Kingsglaive? It's in the Final Fantasy XV universe?
Leon Lionheartly: No, I skipped that one.
neocharge: it's It's good. It's another good one.
Leon Lionheartly: and Okay, all right.
neocharge: It's not a great Final Fantasy movie, but it's a good movie. And of course, The Goat, in my opinion. One of my favorite movies, honestly, and I don't care. Final Fantasy Advent Children.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's it's a very, that's another solid the movie from production value standpoint.
neocharge: so
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You know, I thought it was a good story too. And it in it's in a great Final Fantasy setting. So um all around, it's a killer.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. But this podcast isn't about movies. We talk about everything, though. It is about video games, but it's also about drinks in video games. And we have some pretty unique drinks today, Bob.
neocharge: What are you drinking?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. um So I know you mentioned this morning you weren't feeling so well or today as we were prepping. So I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to do the same thing. um If a buddy's down, you help them out because if you're really sick, you don't want to drink, drink. You know what i'm saying?
Leon Lionheartly: um So I found a can of tangerine powder run sitting in the fridge.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I found a jug of orange juice and we have the citrus ah blast, ah a.k.a. a beer Mosa.
neocharge: Love it. what What glass is that? I see the etching, but what what is that? Who is that on there?
Leon Lionheartly: um So this one is ah the best and greatest League Legends champion, Jyn himself. um
neocharge: Nice. Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: Real shame yeah that he doesn't get enough light in like other media because a character concept, very, very well done.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. He's like the the Japanese and has like the mythical ah Japanese mythology stuff, like the dragon, and he's got like katanas, doesn't he?
Leon Lionheartly: No. So this guy, yeah no
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: ah he comes from...
neocharge: Oh, umm I'm thinking of Overwatch.
Leon Lionheartly: he's in his Yeah, you're thinking of Overwatch.
neocharge: Never mind.
Leon Lionheartly: He's he's a an assassin, but in the game, like everybody always just attacks or shoots. If they have like guns, they never have ammo. Like John Winkler, right?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: He was the first champion that was designed around having a reload mechanic, and the number is four.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And... which is really great because he's also the kind of person or character that believes um murder is an art form. So the number four, because, you know, four steps and things like that, the four act four acts of a play, they all tie together in the theme in his voice acting.
neocharge: Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: And it's so fucking well done.
neocharge: Okay. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. And then you got that glass at MagFest. I remember.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, sir. This is a really good.
neocharge: I was there.
Leon Lionheartly: I love these glasses. Anybody in the house touches them?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I stare at them like the Dexter beam.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. I like the laser engraved ah glasses and shout out to that vendor. I'm going to check them out next year at mag fest, which is Ocarina of time themed. Holy shit.
neocharge: I'm so excited. Just counting down the days. Of course I started counting down the days from three 64, right? As soon as I leave mag fest, I'm not gonna lie.
Leon Lionheartly: you Yeah, it's like a Christmas Christmas.
neocharge: Like I fucking love that place. It really is. It really is. So yeah, ah like you mentioned, I woke up not feeling great. I don't know what's going on. i got a sore throat, runny nose. I don't feel sick though. I don't feel like lethargic or anything.
neocharge: I don't know if it's from the smoke because fucking Colorado is on fire apparently and we're getting some smoke from the south blowing up and it's really hazy. You can't even see the mountain. You can see the silhouette, but I don't know what it is, but I'm trying to knock it out. And yeah. So have you ever heard of the hot toddy, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: So that's what I called her.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: A hot toddy is like a shot. ah It's like an alcoholic beverage, like a shot that helps with sinuses and in sickness. it It was created a long time ago, back back in the olden days, you could say. ah It's either rum or whiskey with a little bit of lemon juice, little bit of honey, ah and...
neocharge: It's you, you, you take it hot god and ah you you basically take a shot of it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: So I kind of did a play on that with a little bit more ingredients and it's called, I call it the cold toddy. Okay. Uh, So you've heard of liquid IVs.
neocharge: You had one when you were over here. You you have them yourself.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: They're like powdered ah packets that you put in water. makes like an electrolyte, a really good drink for hydration. Great for hangovers, let me tell you.
neocharge: ah Costco sells them. They're awesome. I did that with about 40 ounces of water, ah some ice, and I put a little bit of whipped local honey. I put a little bit of lemon juice.
neocharge: And i also put some aloe vera juice in there because that that that's good with the throating the coat and and ah good with digestive health as well.
Leon Lionheartly: And
neocharge: Aloe vera juice is awesome. But I also added some rum and not just any rum. The rum you brought over when we had the pirate party, the Assassin's Creed for black flag spiced rum.
neocharge: Not great, but still rum. And i had to you know, make it a little spicy, if you will. So, uh, it's delicious. It tastes like hard lemonade, honestly. So I think I have a hit here and it's in my Yeti. Uh, and the Yeti keeps everything so cold and, uh,
neocharge: Yeah, it's like a 48-ounce Yeti. It's crazy. So ah I'm a big fan of it, and I like it and that's what i'm drinking. So...
Leon Lionheartly: Hell yeah, dude. No, like that sounds good. Sounds good for you. I love old-timey medicine.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Like, you've you've got a cold, you got tuberculosis here, drink this whiskey with some extra shit.
neocharge: exactly Oh, you got you got a wound? Pour some fucking vodka over it and disinfect it.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Here's a line of cocaine, and call me in the morning.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. so yeah. ah we We got some unique drinks happening, and ah we're kicking off the show with that. So, ah let's address the elephant in the room, Bob. Unlike other fucking companies that aren't. Okay? Okay.
neocharge: We missed an episode and we we sent a nice little message over Discord and we really meant it. ah And we are going to be going bi-weekly with our podcasts. ah One, we...
neocharge: we We were still playing the same games. we were We didn't really have anything new to talk about. And two, life stuff happens. Life is getting a little busier for us. And we want to do biweekly.
neocharge: ah So that's that's what we're doing. Also, the industry fucking sucks right now. And it's it's personally affecting me. every Every day we're hearing negative news. I don't want to cover it, honestly. ah we We are ingrained in the industry. We don't work in the industry, but we do cover the industry.
neocharge: And i mean, I got to a point where I was like, I'm thinking about getting out of the industry. And I'm thinking about becoming a filthy casual, if you will. I don't think that's in my DNA, unfortunately. But I just... ah Like, I don't know. 5,000, 6,000 people got laid off since our last episode.
neocharge: And like some of them were from games we're playing now. and you know, like... most of the team at Ubisoft Montreal that made Black Flag got laid off.
neocharge: Like right after the, right when the fucking game launched, they didn't even like, and the same thing happened with the game you're playing, which you're going to be talking about. Doom, the dark ages revelations right after the game launched a day after they did 75% of the team. off they laid them off after the game launches. They're not even waiting.
neocharge: And I feel like the industry is going in a bad place. ah And honestly, i think it's getting really negative. And I'm not into it. You're not into it. It's affecting us personally.
neocharge: ah And we're going to be talking more on that. I want to talk more on the... the ah announcement that PlayStation made with the going all digital. And I want to do like a multi-pronged approach, like how it's affecting me personally, what it does to the industry and how it can work. Cause we were high on emotion the last episode. And I, I recognize that and it hit me like I'm,
neocharge: it's It's affecting me. So the industry is not in a good place right now.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I know we shouldn't be like cowering and putting tail between our legs and say, we don't want to, we don't want to ah report on that. And we're just going to do, you know, there are, there are other reasons for it.
neocharge: You know, we got lives. ah There's a lot of games coming out last September. We were pretty crunched and the episodes, kind of cut into our game time. And we we want to make good content for all you all.
neocharge: And we want to have a premium product. And I think less is more here. So we're going to be doing two episodes a month. We're going to do bi-weekly. And Caleb's kind of going to be like a permanent third chair because he's going to be on like one episode per month. one of two.
neocharge: because we're so we're still going to do state of draft because, boy, the draft is is getting nailed down a little bit, and we're we're getting spicy in there.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: so Yeah, we're going to try this out. We need your feedback, everyone's feedback. If you want us back to weekly, let us know. if we don't hear from you, two we're going to stay bi-weekly. We might even stay bi-weekly still because ah there's a lot of games to play.
neocharge: There's a lot of angst and and negative energy in the industry that, quite frankly, we don't really want to be involved with, but we're still going to report the bad news. We're going to keep it light, though.
neocharge: So I did just... ah mentioned that 5,000 people are being laid off. they like People are putting roses on their desks. and like The industry is in a bad place. And it's it's getting greedy. And ah yeah.
neocharge: So we don't really want to dive into that. Most importantly, we started this podcast because we're gamers. We love to game. We love the art firm form. And we love talking about it. We do report the news too.
neocharge: And the industry the industry's in a bad place. So that's why.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep, thanks.
neocharge: you have any questions for us at all, ah let us know you know. Hey, why are you doing this? we We love the podcast. We have had some people reach out and you know we we address them one on like individually.
neocharge: So if you have any questions, let us know. we got the Discord message there. We're not going anywhere. In fact, our episodes are probably going to be better because we're we're going to be more excited to get on the mic.
neocharge: uh when two weeks have passed i know i was kind of itching we were at a brewery uh last night with a friend of the show and i was like man i'm kind of excited to get back on the mic and talk about games so we're playing a lot of games we're going to talk about them that's what's going on with the podcast if you're not part of the community and uh you're not on the discord we have a really cool community there and thanks everyone for That's part of the community for listening, for keeping the conversation going, keep those messages up.
neocharge: We love hearing from you. if you're not part of the community, Bob, where can people join? Where can they...
Leon Lionheartly: uh let's see it's been two weeks let me see if i can remember this uh i spoke a lot of pop folks um uh oh yeah shapes the gaming.com you'll go there come say hi nat already beautifully covered all of this where the socials and all of the live links you expect to see us back on twitch soon in a couple of weeks because we got halo coming um But come come listen to us.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Sure do. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Come talk to us. We're around. where We're just not recording as frequently. That's all. But once again, go say hi to us. Shapesofgaming.com. And if I may, Matt, I'll give you some good news so we can at least get this out.
neocharge: Sure.
neocharge: Please.
Leon Lionheartly: Only because you touched on it already with Doom. Hugo Martin apparently had a stream this evening. um The evening we're recording this. And he confirmed ah a lot of things. Talking about the ah update for the DLC moving forward.
Leon Lionheartly: But... The reports about the layoff numbers at id were way overestimated. And actually, they're at the same so a team size.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: And Hugo Martin, for people that don't understand, he's ah he's the game director since like 2017, 2018 over at id. So they're actually at the same size when Doom 2016 launched.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: So it doesn't sound like it's a complete destruction all-star, so to speak, over there.
neocharge: Okay, good. Good. I'm happy to hear that. ah It's always shitty when people lose their jobs. And man, especially when you're playing the game that and and you're seeing like people pour part of themselves. they're so They're honestly part of their souls into art. And gaming is an art form.
neocharge: And when you're playing the game and then you hear about layoffs of the fucking team that is making the game you're currently playing, sours it. It sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it kind of does. it really does.
neocharge: no Yeah, it's like, because you're playing it, you're enjoying it you're like, this is phenomenal. I can't wait for this team to keep doing what they're doing because this is a great product. Nope. Like Assassin's Creed Black Flag, most of the team got laid off, so cool.
neocharge: ah But yeah, that's great news on the the id front. And yeah I heard a lot of people got let go from id tech and I'm like, man, dude, Microsoft, what are you doing?
neocharge: take Take some of the id tech team and make a fucking halo in id tech. Like, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
neocharge: Right? Like, you have an incredible engine. Doom, the the trilogy of Doom and even the DLC ah after, it's you have an incredible engine that you're you're you can use for other teams because you own that fucking studio.
neocharge: Take id tech and spread it across to other IP. Why? Why not? Why not?
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, y'all, if if we got EdTech to work, like, I mean, just think about the shooters.
neocharge: Because...
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It would take some ah work, but but think about some of the shooters that we would get out of there that, oh, and then, oh, Halo Studios, you you lost the IP.
neocharge: I know.
neocharge: I know.
neocharge: I know.
Leon Lionheartly: We're giving it to EdTech now.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. I mean, it it just makes sense. Like, even ah Id said in a ah little statement today, I think it was directly from Id, right? They're like, ah our relationship with Microsoft hasn't really done shit.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, that was a couple. ah That was right after, I think, the the layoffs are right around that time. So this would have been, what, last week? But yes, I remember saying that seeing that, and I'm like, hmm, gee, you think?
neocharge: Right. Yeah, exactly. Oh, and water is wet. You said I fucking laughed. I laughed my ass off. Yeah. So, ah but here's here's the crazy part, Bob. When the industry is kind of like s sinking and isn't doing too hot. Yeah.
neocharge: we are getting some of the fucking greatest games of all time. i I feel like we're in the golden age of gaming. As a gamer, so satiated. It's positive. It's great.
neocharge: And i mean, ah we're only halfway through 2026 and we've gotten so many bangers. And there's a shitload of them on the back half of 2026, especially in September.
neocharge: So, man, it's like the golden age of gaming for the the medium and the art form, but the industry is in the worst state I think it's ever been in.
neocharge: Wouldn't you agree?
Leon Lionheartly: From an industry like production, yeah, there absolutely is. um and we I'd be happy to talk about that one in an entire separate cast because Bob here has theories.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i've been I've been watching this industry since I was a wee little boy, you know?
neocharge: A wee lad.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: wee little
Leon Lionheartly: wee little lad getting interested in who was making in the games and what they were doing, and then it just continues and fuels to this day. and We're in a bad spot, man. It's... it's ah it's because the most dominant force in the industry, like the de facto default, and we'll get into this ah later if you want, but the de facto default ah platform in home is kind of struggling. And despite their struggles,
Leon Lionheartly: they're still winning because Nintendo does well what Nintendo always does. And Microsoft, unfortunately, i don't know. i guess they just keep aiming at themselves. I don't know how they...
Leon Lionheartly: like You're rolling...
neocharge: Shoot him in the foot.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you're shooting... You're rolling natural ones consistently. How are you this bad at your job?
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah, i don't I don't know. We can dive into the news. That's the next segment. So let's let's dive into the news.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Take it away, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Sounds good with the news these last two weeks. um So like you said, let's get the let's hunt the good stuff, as we used to say ah during my um army days.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: This came all the way back on the 5th of July. um So just after our last ah recording session, if you will, or last episode. Wade Forward, the developer behind the Shantae series and a few other games, was at Anime expo Expo in Los Angeles.
Leon Lionheartly: And i'm pulling this from Video Games Chronicle, by the way, um where they shared artwork
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: for a redesigned shantae along with a 2027 release window for an unnamed new game in the shantae series um so for those that aren't aware shantae is a 2d platformer um that was made ah came back a long time ago in fact this evening has roots to back like 2004 when they were doing ah working on a game boy advance game um and they work on a couple other smaller things they worked with nintendo already for the advanced wars one and two reboot series which is fucking awesome by the way yeah um but yeah they're giving us uh shantae another one matt did you ever do you have what's your history of the shantae
neocharge: Nice. Yeah, that's a good one. Yep.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: I dabbled, ah but I know they are really good games and ah they have a lot of good titles for that IP. So I would love to revisit them. I've never beat one, but I dabbled in their 2D action, side-scrolling action platformers.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Yeah. All
Leon Lionheartly: she's got i I gotta to say, I don't have history with Shantae, but I know it's one of those IP that if you say the name, I'm like, oh yeah, I know what the game is.
neocharge: right.
Leon Lionheartly: I've seen it. ah I know who makes it, but I've never actually experienced it. So I'd like to, and um considering this year is fucked, so you know what?
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe 2027, I'll have an opportunity to play a new Shantae game, um whatever it looks like.
neocharge: Yeah, I'd be down.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. That'd be cool.
Leon Lionheartly: I like that, man. ah Well, that's ah that's some good news for you this week. um I'll give you another one just because we talked about it earlier.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You come and check us out.
neocharge: isn
Leon Lionheartly: We're on Shapes of Gaming on the Twitch channel excuse me next year. um But the official Halo Twitter account
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: posted, ah this would have been Tuesdays from when we were recording, so two days ago, um on the 14th of July, that Halo campaign evolved, which is so funny.
Leon Lionheartly: They call it Halo CE still, but Halo campaign evolved is officially gone gold, um which means ah not only is it gone gold, and then there here's the better, more exciting news.
neocharge: Right.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Reviewers have gotten their copies and are working on those reviews with the embargo lifting July I'm sorry.
neocharge: Gotcha. So five days before. That's cool. Or four days before math. Yeah. 27. okay. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I'm sorry. The early access begins twenty third i believe... ah
neocharge: <unk> okay
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, um i want i have to go check, but I think it is still the 23rd, like the early access and the embargo lifted the same day.
neocharge: Gotcha. Gotcha. Let's talk a little bit about what gone gold means. Cause maybe some of our listeners don't know what it means and it's relevant ah because it's going away. So gone gold means the developer has the final version of the game and they are printing it on the disc, sending it to PlayStation or whoever to, uh,
neocharge: basically approve it and that is your gold master so your gold master is version one of your game printed to disc and that's what ships uh with the physical games uh so this is going away unfortunately we're not going to have gold masters anymore with playstation i think xbox is going to follow suit as well but they are working on taking discs and making them digital, which that'd be cool.
neocharge: ah There's rumors about that, but nothing official. And I'd love to see that. But that's what gold gone gold means. Usually a game will go gold about a month before release because they have to, you know, print the disc and then put it in the case and then ship it to all your real retailers. So, yeah.
neocharge: That's what, uh, gone gold means. So gold master is ready to go printed. And yeah, dude, I'm excited for halo. Uh, we are playing at the 27th on that Friday, I believe, uh, 20.
Leon Lionheartly: 28th should be.
neocharge: twenty Oh, okay. 28th.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: When's that Friday? Is it 28th or 27th?
Leon Lionheartly: No, no, no.
neocharge: don't have a calendar. of front of me what but o
Leon Lionheartly: The 28th is a Tuesday because the early access begins on Thursday.
neocharge: Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. None of us did early access, right?
Leon Lionheartly: No, I didn't.
neocharge: Gotcha. Yeah, 28th is a Tuesday. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
neocharge: I'm all backwards. Dude, I put my trash out last night thinking it was Thursday. And like i I go to get dinner or whatever. I come back home. I don't see any other trash cans out.
neocharge: And I'm like, what? I thought trash came on Friday. I'm like, oh, yeah, shit. It's Wednesday. Right.
Leon Lionheartly: It's funny because you putting out the garbage cans on Wednesday reminded me to put mine out because my garbage pickup is Thursday.
neocharge: Right. Yeah, because you were over here and I was taking the trash out.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Yeah, I fucking, yep, whoops. So, whatever. Yeah, Halo Campaign Evolved comes out publicly 28th. So, that's when we're going to be playing it, either the day or the evening of, because I took off work for it.
Leon Lionheartly: I would love to. Unfortunately, I can't ah ah with ah with the way things are it at work.
neocharge: Gotcha, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But you're right. Good call. Gold Master.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: It's an old term. um And unfortunately, as as excited as I am to fucking do this, I'm also... sad knowing that this is probably going to be the first and last Halo game I can get physically for a PlayStation.
Leon Lionheartly: or for for a playstation
neocharge: stupid
Leon Lionheartly: um So I'm a little sad because you know this is going to sell.
neocharge: buy him.
Leon Lionheartly: You know it's going to do good and you know it's going to put a light light of fire in their ass and be like, hey dude, let's go just fucking do two. Do three. Sell them ah sell them ah piecemeal. We don't have to do a Master Chief collection and I'll be there.
neocharge: ill buy em
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Be like, hmm.
neocharge: I feel like if they have the engine ready to go and they have already created Halo 1, I feel like we might get Halo 2 campaign evolved 2027. twenty twenty seven Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Shit, I wish, man.
neocharge: Maybe like a year, a year from, well they have the engine ready to go and they have the bones of the game. And apparently it's like in between a remaster and remake kind of like black flag.
neocharge: Uh, they're adding some cool shit, but it's, it's still the bones of the original game, which I appreciate. And I'll talk why that's awesome and nostalgic because of black flag. Uh,
neocharge: But I feel like if they have the engine, it's ready to go, and they have the original game, we might get Halo 2 2027. i twenty twenty seven so Halo is probably my favorite, I'd say. 2 is phenomenal, though.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to get fucking pitchforked by the ALO community.
neocharge: Uh-oh.
Leon Lionheartly: to to's not that Two's not that great.
neocharge: Don't say it. and In your opinion.
Leon Lionheartly: right
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: in In my opinion.
neocharge: Let's talk about that, Bob. No, i'm kidding.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Oh, I'm happy to tell you all about it. I'm like, a I beat that game on Legendary in 48 hours when I first picked it up. I was like...
neocharge: Dang.
Leon Lionheartly: um that and people talk about it being hard and I see that and I'm like, but I don't know what happened. if i i like Did I just go into a Superman coma and all of a sudden become a Halo god?
Leon Lionheartly: So my experience with with it was ah not that great because I also was away from people. like This was my first outing as an 18-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid, so I didn't have online multiplayer to play with people or couch co-op.
Leon Lionheartly: So that might have really soured the experience because Halo with friends is the best kind of Halo.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: The best kind of Halo. And we are going to be playing four-player co-op Halo campaign evolved. ah Probably start on Legendary, I'd say. Right?
neocharge: if If we can.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, come on, dude. we're We're going to fucking do it. You know we're going to do it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We have... that the Them's the rules.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And I'm just saying, we're not getting multiplayer.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Because I want...
neocharge: No, I'm not.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: I'm not one one because ah i don't want the multiplayer trophies in the single player trophy list and two I'm just not a fan of PvP but that's that's me. I know I'm in the minority here. ah I'm just so excited to play Halo with the boys and we're going to be streaming it. I'll stream it. well No, I probably won't stream it. We're to stream it from Shapes of Gaming. Bob is going to be streaming on on his end. And you can see me like run out and try and kill everyone and then die. and then they have to come arrest me constantly, all the time.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: Every fucking game we play. ah ah
neocharge: I hold my own, ah kind of. But yeah, Neo, Neo 3.
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: you you You hold your own until you reach the ending of a Halo game. That's all i'm going to say.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Legendary is no joke. And I wonder how they've balanced it. So we'll see. We'll see. I think we'll crush it. I think it's going to be a blast. I kind of want to order some pizza, maybe drink a Mountain Dew. I hate soda, but you got to drink a Mountain Dew with fucking Halo.
neocharge: Have a pizza. Not while you're playing the game. Let's be clear. You eat the pizza, then you wash your fucking hands, and then you play the game. All right.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, 99.9999% of the time I would agree. But there's something about Halo, man. yeah yeah yeah You just got to do it like in the moment when you're in the middle of a battle.
neocharge: yeah i
Leon Lionheartly: You're just fucking grabbing the slice of that pizza.
neocharge: no no maybe with gloves maybe with gloves bob but you're getting you're getting like the the dough dust and like the salt and the grease nah man that just sounds like a bad day for the controller especially the edge you can't pizza and edge bob can't be you
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I'll clean it. i'll clean I'll clean the controller after. Trust me.
neocharge: With your tongue?
Leon Lionheartly: I'm not... a oh yeah yes
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Well played. I'll clean the controller, but I got to do at at least one.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: For the old days.
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: For the old days.
neocharge: i I'll devise a plan to eat pizza with chopsticks. Maybe cut it up in annual little pieces and eat it with chopsticks.
Leon Lionheartly: no get a pizza and get it cut tavern style.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yep. That's true.
Leon Lionheartly: There you go.
neocharge: Yeah. Maybe like eat it with tongs. I could eat it with tongs. Tongs work.
Leon Lionheartly: That would be amazing, dude.
neocharge: I'll get a picture as I'm eating pizza with tongs with my Edge controller. Oh my god.
Leon Lionheartly: Some New Yorker is going to come crawling out of the shadow and stab you for saying that alone.
neocharge: eat Yeah, it's like it's like eating a fucking burrito with a fork.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: You just don't do it.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Oh, man. I'm excited, though. It's going to be a good time. ah That's in like a week and a half. We're going to be all up in Master Chief's business and be doing a Halo Legendary run with the boys. So ah we'll we'll nail down a time. what We should probably nail down time now because the next recording we'll do is after that. And Caleb will be on. Bo might be on, too.
neocharge: ah We need to ask him. ah And maybe we'll have all four of us and we can talk about Halo and our experience. ah Let's say 7 p.m. MST for our ah first Halo run.
Leon Lionheartly: MSG?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I could probably do six.
neocharge: Six. Okay, I can do six. I can do six.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Halo is one of the few exceptions, folks. that are If you're a parent and you've got responsibilities, ah you take care of your kids.
neocharge: Gotcha.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You take care of your house. You take care of your partner. You take care of the adult stuff. But every once in a while, there's a game that comes along and you say, I'm sorry, you're taking over.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to do this and I'm going to just do this and there's no questions. And Halo is that game.
neocharge: Yep. Halo is that game. So July 28th, Tuesday, 6 p.m. MST, twitch.tv forward slash shapes of gaming.
neocharge: Be there. Comment. Have some fun. And we're going to be playing Halo, baby. We're going to be playing Halo on PlayStation. What fucking timeline are we in, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: I just want to hear finish the fight on a PlayStation.
neocharge: Finish the fight. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: Oh, that intro to one. Ooh.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah it's every fucking time, man.
neocharge: yeah And a hit. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yep. dottata to that that that
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Oh, I'm excited, man. I'm excited. So, yeah. Look forward to that. Please look forward to that. It's going to be good. Cool.
neocharge: Let's talk about any other news in the industry. because I want to
Leon Lionheartly: No, I know you wanted to talk about something, and I kind of think it's good for me to follow up.
neocharge: kind yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I kind of think I left things on a sour note.
neocharge: and think so, too.
Leon Lionheartly: So let's go into this, buddy.
neocharge: I did, too. Yeah, I did too. we're goingnna We're going to dive back into PlayStation announcing that they're going all digital in ah early 2028. And I'm going to take it from a multi-pronged approach this time, right?
neocharge: I'll touch lightly on how it affects me personally, because that's kind of what I got into mainly in in the last episode. ah On an emotional note, honestly, and it is still emotional for me because I'm a big physical collector. We both are. I'm a big proponent with ownership and owning your shit.
neocharge: I'm a big proponent of tangible things that you buy. ah And yeah. So on a personal note, well, first of all, let's re i tell the audience what PlayStation announced, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I got you.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: um This came through the PlayStation blog post. um
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: As of January 2028, we will no longer be getting newly published games on two disc.
neocharge: Yep. So they're going all digital. So a multi-pronged approach, how it affects me personally, what I think about it, what I fit what i think it's going to do to the industry. And a third one, if you will, maybe on a more positive note, why it could work and why it won't work now.
neocharge: So how it affects us personally. Bob, you want to go first or you want me to rant a little bit more?
Leon Lionheartly: um You know what? i'll I'll tell it to you like this. So i I know it seemed like I was pretty sour on this.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And we'll get into this because I think this goes deeper than just the disks, right? um On a personal level, I am kind of like, okay, all digital future.
Leon Lionheartly: you know what? i'm I've been doing this long enough. Arcades went away. Cartridges came along. The formats changed because we got CD. like i I get the industry moves. So on a personal note, I'm like, it that is what it is, right? um Guess what?
Leon Lionheartly: I'm not dedicated to one single platform um that some people are.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: So the the personal effect or betrayal, if you will, and we'll get into this later, of Sony makes me go... okay, that's fine. If that's how you wish to, the direction you wish to go, um I've never so once said, i will only ever play on this or I will only ever support this team because I remember the PS3 era and it's this and it's yeah launch out the gate. The 64 and the GameCube were good in my eyes, but the Wii U absolutely sucked and I have one still in the house. So my point is, I've been there. I've been on a 360. It is what it is at the end of the day.
neocharge: Yeah. Okay, cool. And ah to be clear, PlayStation announced this on July Okay. okay ah exactly midway through 2026 with a year and a half lead up to no discs, only digital.
Leon Lionheartly: <unk>
neocharge: They haven't said shit since about it. They've, they've done, they announced the the fight stick, but then they announced it's that's delayed too. we should probably talk about that.
neocharge: The fight stick and token. No token wasn't delayed, but the fight was delayed.
Leon Lionheartly: No, no, no, no. No tokens.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: So they've been radio silent. They dropped that bomb. the The comments on every single one of their posts, on every single Twitter post, they're getting community note striked.
neocharge: like they're They're getting so much negativity on Twitter, on their blog posts. They boast about something. Everyone's like, ah you can address the elephant in the room or what. But they went radio silent and it's making it so much worse.
Leon Lionheartly: Do you mind? I like to provide context.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: This is context on how this is not just a ah Twitter group.
neocharge: please.
Leon Lionheartly: you People on YouTube are getting banned from ah from YouTube for commenting on PlayStation ah videos because of this.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um And for frame of reference, we'll talk we'll take the latest, right? Everything you need to know about Marvel Token. this ah This came out to today, July 16th, as we're recording.
Leon Lionheartly: It currently has 72 likes, they're calling hearts, they're hearts in this case, with 39 comments. But if you go down to where they have the, and you start going, it's been so long, we have to load more, and you go to the the physical disc production ending January 2028, right? post...
Leon Lionheartly: that blog post alone has 1,240 likes. um So that's getting going.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But it has almost comments that are attached to that specific blog post. the highest I've ever seen
neocharge: Yeah, it's like record engagement. And it's it's mostly negative. Like 99% negative. You go into those comments. It's constantly just ah talk about going all going all digital. Why are you doing this? you know Boycott this. So yeah, i don't I don't know what the fuck their problem is, but it's pissing me off.
Leon Lionheartly: i Yeah, no, that's ah that's absolutely it. That's kind of been my... and what i'll get we'll get it We can get into the to the impact of the industry, but like that's that's the problem.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You're not saying anything.
neocharge: Yeah. Right. It's like being in a bad relationship, right? You're in a relationship with someone. You get into a fight. They insult you and call you bad names. And then they just leave and they're silent.
neocharge: It's just like, uh, no, I'm not into this. I'm not in Wolverine released a new CG trailer today. And I was like, don't fucking care.
Leon Lionheartly: It's funny because Xbox says too much.
neocharge: hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: PlayStation says nothing.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Like Nintendo says more than PlayStation, if we're being honest. um When it comes.
neocharge: Yeah, lately, lately, it hasn't always been like this, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
neocharge: It hasn't always been like this. I went to three in-person events in 2015, 2016, and 2017 called the PlayStation Experience.
Leon Lionheartly: keep
neocharge: ah One was in San Francisco, two were in Anaheim, California. I sat in the front row where Shuhei Yoshida, Herman Holst, Sean Layden, Corey Barlog,
neocharge: Andrew house. They were all just having a conversation, answering fan questions. This event was put on for fans specifically. And yes, I know COVID fucked all that up, but again, just tell us why you're fucking doing this with a blog post. Why?
neocharge: You have 5% of your audience. I know it's only 5%, maybe 10, but the rest are casual. They don't give a fuck. They don't know what's going on in the industry. That's okay, right? But your hardcore fans, your whales, they like to call them, the ones that support you the most, the ones that made you who you are today, want to know why the fuck you are doing this. Give us an explanation. We will understand what you're saying because we understand the industry.
neocharge: And just tell us why. Don't be like, no, just we're going all digital. Silence. Nah, fuck off with that shit.
Leon Lionheartly: do Dude, it's like I told...
neocharge: well
Leon Lionheartly: ah So this is a very specific thing for people in the IT industry. So all two of you out there are going to fucking laugh your ass off. um You know what I told Alex about this, Matt?
Leon Lionheartly: Is you you know who else goes and posts notoriously going to be upsetting news in a self-published blog post and then walks away like nobody ah liked it and never acknowledges it?
neocharge: What?
neocharge: Microsoft.
Leon Lionheartly: Microsoft, every fucking time they've got some news like that, they just put it out into a Microsoft blog post and then walk away and ignore the problem.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah, it's not how you do it.
Leon Lionheartly: That's not how you run your business. Microsoft is struggling because of that, but that's a different topic.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Hello, McFly.
neocharge: Yeah. Yep. Yep. So yeah, ay I think you can imagine how this affects me personally. And i I ranted enough on the last episode, but I'm not a fan of this at all. I'm a big physical collector.
neocharge: I don't like digital because of the infrastructure we have and the landscape. ah your account has every single bit of digital. You don't own it. You're just renting the license. Actually, the EU is going against a lot of companies saying, hey, you're not buying shit. You need to put rent instead of own.
neocharge: So like they're they're getting shit for it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: And I understand that. you're not You don't really own the license because they can pull it at any time. And they proved this by announcing before this... Then all of the movies for a specific studio are going away. Oh, you don't own them anymore. You never did.
neocharge: But we're pulling the license. So you bought this $20 movie. Well, du you don't have access it to it anymore. Maybe like, oh, here's your window to download all these movies to a drive, right? Or to even your PS5.
neocharge: Right? Instead, nah, you know, we're pulling the licenses. Oh, you bought it? Tough luck. By the way, we're going all digital in 2028. What the fuck?
Leon Lionheartly: a
neocharge: Like, no, no.
Leon Lionheartly: It makes no sense. yeah I'm sorry. Go ahead.
neocharge: Yeah, I'm a huge collector. I have a ton of physical games. I like the idea of, you know, we have we sometimes have breakfast for game launches. It's just that in I go to Best Buy, i get the game, open it up. There used to be a manual. No manual anymore, but that's that's okay, right? But they could have gone about this a different way. Maybe raise the price of physical games. Put a manual in there. Extra $10, you still get the physical. You get a nice little manual.
neocharge: They still would have made money, right? So...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. And if I can, on that point, sorry, is this is what's really ah irritating. i would pay $100, like you said, for a collector's edition that's physical with a manual.
Leon Lionheartly: call it Call it a collector's edition, and I can still just be what we 15 years ago. But there's been zero, from what I can tell, zero discovery and thought into what else can be done besides just yanking the plug.
neocharge: exactly yeah
Leon Lionheartly: No, how do we split this? how Can we negotiate better splits with their like ah with the retailers? What can we do for this? And there was zero thought into that. And it was just like, sucks, suck nerd.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: It's like they're pulling the rug out from everyone, including retailers. Retailers are pissed about this too because it's going to tank the... Like GameStop. GameStop runs a business on you trading in games and then them reselling it.
neocharge: Do I get it from a business standpoint? Absolutely. PlayStation isn't seeing a dime of that money. And you have multiple consumers with one game, right? And PlayStation is trying to crack down on that. And ah you know if you buy the game, it's locked to you and you're never going to be able to trade it or sell it.
neocharge: right? But yeah, I'm a big physical collector.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah,
neocharge: I'm a big proponent in ownership. I don't think when you get these digital games, you own them. And they have proved this a couple times. They've pulled licenses and you can't download the game anymore, right? PT. I mean, that was free, right? ah Lord of the Rings.
neocharge: ah Lego Lord the Rings. They lost the license with WB. If you bought that game digitally on PS3, you can't download it anymore. So, yeah. You don't...
Leon Lionheartly: no, that's that's true.
neocharge: you don't No, you don't own shit when you get digital. That's a big thing. So not a fan of this. All right. Into the other pronged approach, which is how do we think it's going to affect the industry?
neocharge: I think it's going to be a domino effect. Go ahead. You kick it off.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um I think this is like you said, we've we've kind of included into it, this is going to cause a chain reaction.
Leon Lionheartly: um And so stores are still going to get code in a box a la Grand Theft Auto 6.
Leon Lionheartly: But here's the rub on this. And that sounds really good. You're trying to play nice with the retailers. But the people that would actually buy physical at the store um are there to buy the physical disc.
Leon Lionheartly: They don't want the code in the box ah kind of a so situation.
neocharge: and Pops.
Leon Lionheartly: So you're trying to offer something to that demographic, but it's really not what they're wanting. And they're... And they're just saying, can we find another way? Right. um And that kind of irritated that that's just nasty work.
Leon Lionheartly: But more importantly, this is going to kill boutique ah ah makers of games, mom and pops.
neocharge: momma pops
Leon Lionheartly: They're going to not just the people that make the discs. So LGR um or is an example. Limited Run Games is an example where they do physical releases for games that were long.
neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And you can go look up, pick your favorite one, right? The small ones. Those are going away. um And then you look at the most mom and pop shops that actually sell in these games.
Leon Lionheartly: Don't think GameStop. Think your local game store. They are there. We've got several in the city of Colorado Springs, right? though Their supply is going to be gone because of ah because of this.
Leon Lionheartly: And because of that ripple effect ah of what we're seeing, because this is affecting non-normal people. I talk to people that are not only do not know anything about games, but I also talk to casual gamers and they've even heard about this.
Leon Lionheartly: So your ripple effect is so bad.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We are causes so much. Bad will with a lot of other industries. I think Sony's got a reckoning coming for them and they just don't know it yet. um This is a 2013 Don Matrick going, you can play your 360 game. We've got a 360 for you, those that don't have internet. These are the types of blunders that killed Xbox. And I think Sony is going to learn next generation.
Leon Lionheartly: I think they we're going to get hardcore people, but once GTA has passed and the fevers die down and people will still be able to play GTA on PS5, they're going to see a reckoning and it's going to fucking hit him right up inside the head. Pardon my language. And you know what?
Leon Lionheartly: At this point, for what you did, you kind of did it yourself. You kind of deserve that what you got coming.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. I was there in 2013. I was a huge 360. It was my primary system. And the way Xbox treated their players and focused on the TV and the sports and the Xbox is about to become the next water cooler. I fucking left.
neocharge: I've always had PlayStation. Sometimes it's my secondary. Sometimes it's my primary. At that time, it was my secondary. PS4 came out. They're like, ah, it won't always be online. You can trade your games. We're going to be all physical. Hell, they made one of the best commercials of all time where it's Shuhei Yoshida and Atom Boys, and they were like, here's how you share your games on PS4.
neocharge: They literally handed the disc, and he's like, thanks. And I was like, holy shit, I'm i'm going back. i' I'm going primary with this company. It's awesome. Yeah. I think this is honestly PlayStation's 2013 Xbox moment. And it sucks. I'm not going to switch again. I'm not going to go back. I'm certainly not going to go back to Xbox. They are dead in the water, honestly. I probably won't go to PC.
neocharge: The only thing I would maybe go back to, and I probably won't, ah is Nintendo. But Nintendo has always been my system for their first party games, but third party, i'm I'm going to stick with PlayStation, but it is, it has left a sour taste in my mouth for the industry. I think a lot of others are going to follow. I think a lot of major publishers, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, they're,
neocharge: excited as hell about this because they don't have to print discs. They don't have to do anything like that. They don't have to like they're going to ah see like one person buys the game. It's locked to them. Oh, if if the other person wants to get the game, they have to buy it probably full price because they won't have a lot of sales on on PSN or or Xbox. Xbox has already been talking about this, going digital. and And Nintendo has already been dabbling with this third party. ah Even some first party games, they have the key games, which is you still get the cartridge, but game isn't on the cartridge. It's just the license. License is literally on the cartridge. You have to download the digital game. I think 2028 is going to usher in digital only for every single year.
neocharge: major player in the industry. Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, they're all going to go digital. Because it it makes sense on a business level that they do this. This is the way the industry has been going. We we we knew it was inevitable, but PlayStation should have either announced this two years ago leading up to 2028, or they should have announced this and gave it a three-year lead up to 2030.
neocharge: Because pulling the rug out from under us with a year and a half lead up, not cool. Dude, They gave us a five-year lead-up to say PS3 and PS Vita are going offline. But for digital-only games, it's going to disrupt the industry like crazy? Yeah, a year and a half.
neocharge: Fuck off. they and Oh, we're going go silent.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. and and And to be, and you're you're almost, that I think we've got something else possibly going to happen brewing. And I think what's going to really shake the ah the big players, if you will, and and quite frankly, the entire industry is you leaned into it with the EU.
neocharge: Hmm.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: We're going to have government ah intervention. um And that and that that puts that puts the industry in check.
neocharge: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: You get a couple of senators to start talking and you bring in. like Could you imagine Herman Hulse having to explain this to a congressional hearing? um that dukes yeah And the reason I say this is this is not the first time a ah digital storefront has been shut down and you can't receive your services.
Leon Lionheartly: um The same day that this was announced, ah Sony went ahead and also said, oh, by the way, we're shutting down the Vita and the PS3 storefronts, which means there are some games that are going to orphaned.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But the PS3 is old. The Nintendo DS...
neocharge: And they announced that five years ago too. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: They did. And the Nintendo DS store shut down in 2017, but the DS came out in 2004.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: What I'm getting at here is with enough time, people tend to go, okay, you know what?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: they They lose the connection and the feeling and they go, that kind of sucks. Here, it's almost a too soon, bro.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And when you do that and you start seeing CNN and you see Washington Post and you see outlets coming in, that gets the attention of people who don't even know what the fuck a video game is.
Leon Lionheartly: And then it gets people writing to their senators and their congressional people. And then you get the industry, ah you get the government involved.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: And when the government involved gets involved, that's when these get and these companies finally go, oh, fuck.
neocharge: Yep, exactly. Uh, that's a good segue to the other prong of this multi-pronged approach, how it could work and why it's not going to work now. Uh, and that's pretty much the infrastructure, right?
neocharge: Uh, it's not secure. You can get your account hacked by someone calling in. And if you lose access to ah your account, you lose access to every single one of your games. Uh,
neocharge: There's no way to trade games as of now. There's no ownership for digital games. ah And there is no way to trade in games or sell them or even download them and have them on a drive to play them anytime. right mean You can download them externally, right but you still need that license to play it.
neocharge: So... It's not going to... The the infrastructure isn't there now. I could evolve with the industry and I could go all digital. But right now, I know the technical intricacies of the backend and it is not ready.
neocharge: They are putting the cart before the horse right now. And they're announcing something with an infrastructure that is not ready at all. They need to secure and tighten and strengthen their account security.
neocharge: They need to make the account... Did you know if you don't log into your account ah within 365 days, like they can deactivate it and you lose access to every single one of your games? It's either...
Leon Lionheartly: 36 months.
neocharge: It's three... i
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: 36 months, got three years. Gotcha. So thank you. Thank you for that.
Leon Lionheartly: yeahp
neocharge: ah But they need to k nix that. they they You can't do that. You can't lose access to these games you've paid for. ah And I get it. I get why they do it. and but But honestly, like wouldn't they want those to to pump the numbers of PlayStation Plus subscribers? I don't know.
neocharge: The infrastructure is not ready for this. It's not secure. And there aren't things in place that will make the switch to digital ah kind of like physical, right? If they put these implementations into place, if they say, you buy this license, you you own it, and you can let a friend borrow it, just transfer it digitally over PSN. They'll never do that. But I mean, that's what you do with physical games.
neocharge: I got a friend of the show. wanted to play a game. He's like, can I borrow this? Like, absolutely. I love sharing my games. You know, that's what, that's why I get physical games so I can share them and smell the cases.
neocharge: Let's be honest. Uh, And dude, the account security, right? We just heard about the the crazy thing that happened to Colin Moriarty. He got his account stolen by someone calling in and giving them and saying, hey, like what games have you purchased recently?
neocharge: And they didn't need the password. They didn't need anything. So if you have a PSN, the the best form of security you could do is a passkey. So add that passkey. I called in. to PSN support after I heard that. and I was like, hey, what can I do to harden this account? And they're like, not a lot.
neocharge: But we can note on your account that if anyone calls that is not this number, this phone number, we won't talk to them. However, people can spoof phone numbers nowadays with s SIM some cards.
Leon Lionheartly: oh yeah.
neocharge: So like they need to increase the security. they They need to ah do a little bit more ownership on the security part or on the account part and on the when you buy a game, right?
neocharge: And they they do have sales on PSN a lot, but they they probably need to increase that because you can go... you could like For example, Final Fantasy VII Remake, because I was looking at it for a friend.
neocharge: And you can go on Best Buy, get it for $40, physical. Right now on PSN, it's still $80. So, like... And that's sealed. That's brand new sealed Best Buy.
neocharge: But it's still $80 digitally. So think about if you didn't have that physical copy and you wanted to play, you were new to PlayStation, you wanted to play Final Fantasy VII Remake, you'd have to shell out $80 fucking dollars.
neocharge: There's no competition. So...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, I hate it. I hate the way it's going. I think it's going to decrease value of the product too. Like, ah like let's say a kid, young gamer, Gen Z or whatever.
neocharge: They're like, oh, I want to play this game. Download it. They have a list of fucking games. And they're like, oh, what game do I want to play? And they they have like just an infinite choice. They play the game and they're like oh that was cool. Whatever. On to the next one.
neocharge: Opposed to, yeah let's say just 10 years ago, you stand in line for the launch. you you're excited for the game. you talk about the other people You talk to the other people that are buying the game.
neocharge: You maybe make friends in line. You get the game. You hold it. You open it. You get that nice manual. You're looking at the manual on the way home and you're like you're excited. And then you put it in the console. You download the update or whatever. You play it and you take it out. it's just There's more value in it.
neocharge: Right? oh
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, there is.
neocharge: No more midnight launches. No more midnight launches.
Leon Lionheartly: oh there'll be midnight launches for... i don't know. They're not even midnight launches anymore. We're in mountain time. The shit unlocks at 10pm for us.
neocharge: I know. yeah That's true. That's true.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, man. So I just, from a personal level, it's devastating, right? It's ah such a first world problem, right? I won't be able to get my games physically. It's like, I got shelter.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: i got food. I got water. I'm in good health. Cool. Right. But, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: it's It's, I'll say, I'll give you two things. One, you're spot on with the the the the infrastructure not being there. Like, ah Sony, you need, under people may not remember, but I remember a little incident that happened, ah you know,
Leon Lionheartly: not so long ago, and it's happened a couple of times where the PSN is not only down, um we remember the infamous leak of 24 days where people's credit card ah information was stolen.
Leon Lionheartly: um So when you go to a full digital ecosystem, a full digital walled garden, if you will, um i you know what?
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Awesome. Build the strength. I think you you have the numbers to be able to do that and cut off the industry. But you need to understand there are not everybody is friendly and nice out there. um Some leave nasty comments on YouTube. Others have a more direct approach and think they're more holier than thou about it. You're putting a target on your back.
Leon Lionheartly: You don't walk into a sketchy neighborhood at two in the morning um and you know not become strapped. You just don't go full digital with half-assed security in place.
neocharge: Right. Right.
Leon Lionheartly: You need to put your big boy britches on and really... If you're going to do it, lean your fucking shoulder into it and do it right because there's no digital transfer, there's no account security associated with this, licensing still hasn't been sorted out, so you can lose access to things, um you can get accounts banned, and oh by the way, when the account is banned, that person loses access to their games.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, that's not fair if they say a slur in a Call of Duty lobby. and if They should be off the PlayStation Network but they should also ah from at least a multiplayer, but they should also be able to at least download the games that they they' previously purchased, right?
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um They should be able to still do that. So lean into the Sony. Really do it, but do it with your big boy britches on um because you're not that guy, all right?
Leon Lionheartly: Not right now. ah um You're not that guy.
neocharge: Yeah. And not that guy.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then secondly, i think, like you said, what we'd like to see um or what we would like to have come out of this is i I think we need to, what I'd like to see personally is give us something to interact with the device with.
Leon Lionheartly: um It doesn't have to be doesn't have to be a disk. um Nintendo figured it out. Game key cards are still cool. I know they're controversial. I really like them because they're the license built into the cartridge.
Leon Lionheartly: You still have to connect to the service, but it's at least...
neocharge: I don't mind them.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's something...
neocharge: Yeah. Doom the Dark Ages did the same thing, and I was actually pleasantly surprised with that experience.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. give give Give us something, the interactable, the tangible. um You want us to like experience the entire thing. There's there's ways to do that. right um Whether you do keep a disk and just say, all right, it's going to install certain files and you may have to do updates.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's that's the life of the business. All right. But guess what? We're going to call it a collector's edition. Here's $100. i
neocharge: Yeah. I'd buy it.
Leon Lionheartly: and yeah, like it's the old classic Nintendo meme. I'm trying to give you my money, dude. Like, why don't you take my money?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Right.
neocharge: Because when you when you buy that $100 game, it turns to an $80 asset. And it could increase in value over time. And that's an investment. When you buy that $80 digital game right now...
neocharge: it's it turns to vapor. It's locked to you. You're buying the experience and that's all. No tangible good. No actual item. you It's not an asset.
neocharge: And from an investment standpoint, it's a really stupid fucking purchase.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Oh, that is good. That is entirely true, my friend. um And then clean up your storefront.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Like, how can this work?
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: You need to clean up, not this, the account security is one thing, but you need to clean up. You've been working on it and we're getting rid of some shovelware. But, um yeah, let's let's fix how that algorithm algorithm figures out the games that I want to play.
Leon Lionheartly: Because if I look at top games in my country, and then you look at my purchase history, that that list doesn't always line up. ah
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah yeah just give it to Stop giving me these... I'm sorry. i don't mean anything rude, but I'm not a ball-and-gun gamer.
neocharge: Me either.
Leon Lionheartly: don't I don't need to see NBA.
neocharge: Well, work we're about to play Halo.
Leon Lionheartly: I...
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: you know You know what I mean. All right. I don't play college.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't play NBA. I don't play MLB. I don't play Madden. I don't play Battlefield. get
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Make it to where you look at it and really customize it. Because if you want this to be what it is, which is an experience, I need to be able to experience the product at a personal level.
Leon Lionheartly: And you're not doing that.
neocharge: Exactly. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I have to figure out weird little search fit ways to try to find Suikoden or whatever, and it's really annoying. So um that I think that would be the other way you could do it, is make it feel like it's a true experience for the player and the type of player that they are. Don't tell me the top 10 best games in my country are are these games when you know I don't buy them.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't care.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. Tailor it to to your experience. use You can use AI for it. Look at my fucking like list of 600 games in my collection and show me the games that are like those.
neocharge: you know like i you can You can do this the right way and you can set it up for it to work. Because honestly, I can evolve and migrate to a digital-only future.
neocharge: I buy digital games. I bought Monster Hunter Wilds digitally. I bought Borderlands 4 digitally. They are super fucking convenient. You can play them usually the night before they release. If you're in MST, they unlock at 10 p.m. There are...
neocharge: positives and upsides to digital games, but your infrastructure isn't ready for it yet. And you're not doing a good enough lead up to implement this.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: And I mean, if from if we're all if going all digital, let me take my physical games from PS1 and on and make them digital in my PS5.
neocharge: How about that? Probably will never happen. Maybe even just my PS4, PS5 games, right? I can play my PS4, PS5 games on my PS5. Let me put in that disc. The license is on that disc. There has to be a unique code printed on that disc that you can read that can say, okay, this is now digital.
neocharge: The disc is useless and it's digital now. And um go digital, all digital only. Like, this can work, but you can't just drop this bomb of news and then go silent. You can fuck right off with that shit.
neocharge: So...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I agree. and I'll give you something that um i'll give you this i'll give you something else um that's been coming out. ah There have been a recent quote-unquote leaker.
Leon Lionheartly: um I got to go see if I can find him because I just saw this in passing.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'll see if I can find it for you. um we'll we I'll follow you up on the side. But
neocharge: correct
Leon Lionheartly: The current thoughts are, and cake, this was a grain of salt. We may have the best fucking thing to see in this industry in a while, a sense of irony, because Project Helix is still not yet confirmed whether it has a disk drive or not, and current leaks suggest they may end up putting a disk drive onto the next Xbox console.
neocharge: Oh, no.
Leon Lionheartly: Dude.
neocharge: that's ah That's a fucking 180, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Dude.
neocharge: Xbox is going to do what PlayStation did to Xbox 12 years ago, 13 years ago. Jesus, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I'm still trying i'm trying to...
neocharge: what Think of this.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Think of this. The PS6 comes out. you can take your disk drive from PS5 and just put it on the PS6. What a crazy concept. Huh? Like if PS6 is all digital, guess what?
Leon Lionheartly: What...
neocharge: It's not going to be backwards compatible with your physical games. And if you have a big physical library, backwards compatibility went out the window. PlayStation did such a good, good job with the PS5 making PS4 games backwards compatible.
neocharge: And now they're fucking it all up. Like, ugh.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, and that's and that's the thing. This is why I didn't put it in the news because there's no source yet, but Destin Legare, who's known to...
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: He's got some hits and he's also got some misses, but he hits pretty good.
neocharge: Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: um he is ah been He was reporting on this too. so There is some potential to that. and Dude, could you imagine Asha... Imagine this.
Leon Lionheartly: Asha and that booty come out the Helix fucking a thing and they go, here's how you share your games on Xbox.
neocharge: Here's how you share your names. Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, I would fucking...
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: I'd probably be like, cool. Hang it up. I'm done with the industry. It's gone first circle. I'm ready to go out and be put to pasture because I could die a happy man.
neocharge: It has. Yep. Literally an Ouroboros. Literally. Just eating itself. Cycle after cycle. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah for
neocharge: Yeah. Oh my God. They, now Asha has a chance to really put their foot on PlayStation's neck. And you know what? I hope this lights a fire under PlayStation because PlayStation did the same thing with PS3. They were arrogant as fuck.
neocharge: They had just done the PS2. They killed ah that last generation. They came out with PS3, super overpriced. And PS3 was not a great generation out the gate. and they were kind of full of themselves. And they said, oh our shit don't stink. We could do whatever we want.
neocharge: me 360 fucking killed you, ah that generation. But then Xbox was like did the same thing. Ah, 360 killed the generation. We can do whatever we want. We're going to attach a fucking Kinect on this thing, make it a VCR, i tout that it does sports, TV, and Call of Duty, and everyone's going to love it.
neocharge: Nope. PS4, you ate your shit, man. Like...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, or U8 PS4 shit, I should say. So is it going to happen again? Who knows? Am I going to switch to Xbox? No, I'm too old for this shit. I can't switch again. Not going to do it.
neocharge: I traded in every single one of my 360 games and got the PS3 version of them ah shortly after that announcement in I think it was like E3 summer of 2013. I watched it.
neocharge: I watched Xbox just fucking blow a hole in their ship. that that day. some And Jeff Keighley actually asked Don Matrick. He's like, hey, like ah what do you what do you have to say for like the troops overseas that don't have internet for this Xbox One when it always has to be online? And Don Matrick was like, well, there is fortunately a console for them and it's called the Xbox 360.
neocharge: And I was like, you fucking idiot. You bitch-ass suit motherfucker. You don't know shit. Get out of here. Guess what? Don Matrick got fired shortly after.
Leon Lionheartly: I remember that. It was very shortly after he was gone for that stunt.
neocharge: shortly after.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah. i
neocharge: Bunch of suits.
Leon Lionheartly: Bunch of suits. And when you are a faceless corporation, let's be real, they're not exactly a popular entity right now. um
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: And you're going to find out gamers are pretty fickle. yeah remember Remember, half of PlayStation's revenue
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Leon Lionheartly: is dependent on live service games that they do not own. The Fortnite, the Overwatch, the Minecraft, the hell.
neocharge: Yep. Helldivers.
Leon Lionheartly: that Guess what? Those gamers, all you have to do, you have to get one kid to grab by the next x Xbox and say, no, man, come on over. No big deal. um
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: were We're all playing on Xbox anyway. And a shitstorm happens. And next thing you know, you're losing a generation because you wanted it to fucking chase Nintendo with a handheld.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: And in order to do a handheld, you need to go all digital.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah. So they're not taking this seriously. they They think their shit don't stink. They think they're invincible. And man, they've they've kind of... ah ah lost all their goodwill.
neocharge: They've gone to the the bottom of their bucket and they're announcing this not in a good position after the Concord fiasco, after the Bluepoint fiasco, after the fucking all the shit they've done.
neocharge: And they don't have a lot of goodwill left. And a lot of... i'm I'm never... I'm not going to jump ship. I'm loyal to the IP and the devs. I like PlayStation first-party devs. I have a tattoo of the sacred symbols, triangle, circle, X, square. And that is not a PlayStation tattoo. Well, I mean it's a PlayStation tattoo, but it's not a...
neocharge: a brand loyalty tattoo. It is a game loyalty tattoo. This is the ah controls from Horizon. This is the controls from Uncharted.
neocharge: ah This is, you know, a God of War tattoo, right? It's PlayStation symbols, but it's not the PlayStation logo. I'm i'm not... uh, advertising PlayStation. I'm not loyal to the brand. I am loyal to the IP though.
neocharge: I really like the games they make. And i mean, but Wolverine coming out, I'm kind of mid on it. Honestly, I canceled my pre-order. I got it. I got to say something to this company. It's not going to move. I hope it's not going to move the needle. I hope it does, but you know what? It's that little thing that I can do to stand up and say, I don't like what you're doing. I'm going to vote for my wallet.
neocharge: I'm not going to buy Wolverine on launch. I'm going to cancel my pre-order. Fuck you. Am I going to play it? Probably. Am I going to buy it? Probably. But I might buy it used. Oh, I might buy it used at a mom and pop store.
neocharge: That would just be like, ah fuck you, Sony. ah
Leon Lionheartly: that would That would be a smart move, man. Okay.
neocharge: I think that's what I'm going to do. That's kind of like my stand. I'm not going to cancel my PS Plus 1 because I got grandfathered in at a crazy fucking deal with PlayStation Premium. I'm not going to get rid of my PS5. I'm not going to jump ship. I'm not going to abandon PlayStation, right? But this is that small thing I can do to say, hey, this isn't right.
neocharge: You're not doing this the correct way. And you'll never see this. You won't give a fuck that like millions of people are going to buy Wolverine. One person or two or three, in our case, ah you're never going to see that number. But in my heart, I know that I stood up and I said, no, this isn't right. I know. They'll never know. That's good enough for me.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. You know what? Hey, I respect that stance. Every individual person needs to make a decision on on your own.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You need to figure out where where you lie.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um i love I love PlayStation as ah the platform.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um And i think I think we've had some amazing first-party games. like We can never deny the importance of Crash Bandicoot, Jack, Ratchet, Nathan Drake over at Uncharted.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: there's There's some things there, right? Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But when I look at the other side of the pond of what third party has, and I look at the Resident Evils, the the Mega Man, Capcom, Konami, Square Enix, Atlas, and I start looking at these and I go, oh wait, this
neocharge: Capcom, man.
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: There may be an option for me to play this on another platform, and it may not necessarily be at the highest fidelity, but I still get to experience the story of what's being told through the developer's eyes and experience what they want me to see based on what they can do for that platform.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Sony, what are you doing then, man? like yeah ah and it's a It's not animosity.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's not anger. It's, ah like you said, in an abusive relationship, they share ah yell at to you, call you names, and walk out the door. No. The second that happens, you pack your bags and you walk ah you put your foot down.
neocharge: You put your foot down.
Leon Lionheartly: And this is me slowly packing my bags. Halo is probably going to be the last... multiplayer it might be we'll see what else comes out but it might be the last co-op or something that I'm doing on the PlayStation Network like that's what you're looking that's me putting that's me putting my suitcase at the door
neocharge: We got to go back to Borderlands 4. There's a new a new ah vault hunter and she's cool. Yeah, we gotta go back.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know
neocharge: to We gotta play more Borderlands 4.
Leon Lionheartly: and now No, no.
neocharge: We gotta do that DLC.
Leon Lionheartly: i got to I got to put my suitcase at the door. I got to show that I mean i mean business, right?
neocharge: I gotcha.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'll still get some cool games.
neocharge: Oh no.
Leon Lionheartly: There's some cool stuff I'm excited for. But when I kind of start thinking about things like the pixel art game that comes out this year in October...
neocharge: Uh-huh. Resonance.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah ah huh guess what? Octopath Traveler 1 was a Switch 1 exclusive at first.
neocharge: Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And it was an amazing game that looked beautiful and blew my mind away. I haven't made it i haven't made the call yet, but they it's leaning every day that Sony keeps their mouth shut that I'm going to buy the Switch 2 version because I've got it right here.
neocharge: Ooh, one switch, nice.
neocharge: I see where you're going.
Leon Lionheartly: The Switch 2 dock will... light up on a sony ah the Sony OLED beautifully. Like, okay, we can start doing this.
neocharge: Yep. o
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to start i'm going to start edging a little bit more and pushing back. um And will it do something in the end? Eh, I don't know. But like you said, and I love the way you put it, I have to do my part to show them that I mean business.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. I respect it. It makes me sad. It really does. ah i I don't like seeing you leave the the platform that I'll be on. A lot of your friends will be on. Maybe you'll get that FOMO. Who knows? But I i respect it. i i respect the hell out of it, man.
neocharge: I really do.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: And...
Leon Lionheartly: And don't get me wrong.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I'm sorry. going to say, just to make sure, to be clear, I'm still going to buy PlayStation your games on my PlayStation. But now I'm going to be a lot more selective because Fable is going to run amazingly.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And while I still have a PS5 Pro, fucking take advantage of it, right? Halo, it's not coming to Switch 2 as far as I remember, but it's going to look good.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I would do it there. But when you're talking about Belmont's Curse, you're talking about Resonance, the games that aren't the high fidelity see the pores.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Now I'm starting to look the other way.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Uh, it's going to be an interesting second half of the year and definitely an interesting 2027. So we'll see how it shakes out and, uh, we'll report all the updates here.
neocharge: Uh, so yeah, that's kind of our thoughts on the, the, announcement PlayStation made. you know we We took two episodes, two weeks apart, to talk about it even more because it it's a huge thing. It affects us personally and it affects the industry exponentially. So we'll keep reporting on that.
neocharge: But ah let's get into some cool shit, Bob, because we're playing a lot of cool shit.
Leon Lionheartly: Fuck yeah.
neocharge: ah We're playing some cool games. ah What are you playing, man? what's What have you been playing?
Leon Lionheartly: um So I've been on a kick lately these last two weeks, man. um Absolutely fucking killing anything and everything i can get my hands on.
neocharge: Thank
Leon Lionheartly: A lot of stuff on the Switch, too. There is some PS5 stuff, and we'll save that for the end. But... ah by um just because and yes i know the irony matt we discussed this but i did this as kind of like a you know what fuck you like just angrily i did the anger thing and i bought starfox i did buy it digitally but i was just kind of pissed off at sony and i was like fuck it nintendo you could take my money it it was a spur of the moment it was the point but i gotta say man starfox is really good like there's something i think they the team yeah
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. We played it. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I
neocharge: and then might i Might I add real quick that it's it's so cool. The Switch is such a cool system, honestly. Like the Switch and Switch 2, because you just brought over your system, and I have a dock on both my TVs, and we docked it to the upstairs TV, played it there, and then when we wanted to get like a theater experience, we could dock it.
neocharge: It's such a cool concept. And PlayStation is going to totally steal that. But Nintendo, I mean, the Switch is a great little console. And I'm i'm impressed by it.
neocharge: It's not the most technically advanced, but it's so cool that you could just bring over your console, dock it. You had the Procon, and we were just chilling out and playing. And, oh man, Star Fox is amazing. Go ahead
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah, no, it is really good. ah You've seen it. I've played through most of the paths. um ah There's some really cool extra content in here, um but this is a true one-to-one redoing of Star Fox 64.
Leon Lionheartly: There's some extra cut scenes depending on paths and will give you a little bit of different dialogue. But outside of that, it's the same levels. It's the same layout. I played this game.
Leon Lionheartly: i was obsessed with this game. So I immediately know where like what well what to do. For example, when you have alternate paths, the way it works in Star Fox on the map, you have the bottom and the middle and then the top ah lanes.
Leon Lionheartly: Typically, the way it works is the top ones are kind of like the harder ones. They're the optional areas. My first fucking playthrough, i I'm going whatever expert mode, just going through the fucking top and I don't care because I remember where every enemy pops up.
neocharge: but
Leon Lionheartly: I still remember the patterns to to get down there.
neocharge: Impressive.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. That being said, there are three things that I have a little bit of a personal issue with on on the on on this.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: okay
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um First off is the feedback that you get when you hit a weak point on some of the bosses.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: You don't get that sense that you did in the 64 version. um You see the the shield, the the enemy's health bar, if you will, drop, but you don't see the part like flash or move or the feedback's not there.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And that kind of can confuse players ah who might not understand. And they're like, oh, um because you want you want to be keep your eyes at the center of center. If you're looking to the left to see if you hit got a good hit, that's when you get shot at. That's when you get shot down. These are high action games, right? um So I think that's a little... Secondly, the voice acting,
Leon Lionheartly: ah need yeah it's serviceable. It's not bad, but...
neocharge: Right, right.
Leon Lionheartly: Star Fox 64 had some cheese with it. you know um When youre you're like, who are you guys? And and Fox in the 64 version is like, we're Star Fox. Real cocky-like.
Leon Lionheartly: um Here...
neocharge: We're Star Fox.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, here he says it more flat. We're Star Fox.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And it's like, i yeah.
neocharge: And he added, there's another sentence he added after that.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: It was just like, aw, man, that was like an impactful, he's like, we're Star Fox. And you're expecting that, but there's he adds another sentence.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: like, ah, come on.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it kind of kind of sucks. um And the last issue I have with it, this is just this might be just me not understanding the current technology within the controllers.
Leon Lionheartly: um But if you play the OG with the Rumble Pak back in the day, um that thing could... how do I put this eloquently? Oh, who who am I kidding? I'm on a podcast with you. It couldn't please it could please a woman.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. Here, it's like, bert but the 64 version was like, bar it really shook everything.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Oh yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Here, it's not there. And that makes me sad because that's kind of what I remember about grid the glory of Star Fox 64, man.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. The rumble pack went in the, to the controller.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Yeah. Huh. Uh, and you, you checked your settings for the, like the rumble intensity or whatever.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah. just I guess it's a it could be the power. um I was playing with the Pro 2 controller, so it could be that.
neocharge: in
Leon Lionheartly: um i have to do I want to try it with the but the Joy-Cons. i just my hands Even my hands are a little too big for the Joy. It just doesn't work at my age as much as I like to.
neocharge: Do the pro con too. I was excited for the built in paddle controls on the back. My hands are too big for it. My middle fingers do not land there and it's like cramps it up.
neocharge: it It's it's unfortunate.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude, that sucks. Because I i i don't have that problem.
neocharge: Yeah. I have big hands. I just, I have big hands.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: Sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Like I can, if I do a like thumb to pinky, I can go almost the entire length of, from like a, to the other key, the return key on a Mac book pro.
neocharge: I have big hands.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: You know what they say? people Big hands.
Leon Lionheartly: ah very handsome
neocharge: I wear big gloves. I wear big gloves.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, yes, absolutely. ah That sucks, man, because I'm going to tell you the Pro Controller 2 rules. um I played with that bitch for like a week and a half, and I started charging it because it said it was at 50%, and I just didn't trust the sensor.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: like That's how fucking good this controller is in terms of its battery life. um But ah yeah, Star Fox, highly recommend it. Go check it out. It's a good price, 50 bucks.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i Go experience it if you haven't. And if you already did experience it, just understand it's very it's made with a lot of love and care.
neocharge: yeah ah Bo brought it over. We played. You brought it over. i sucked it up so bad on the Aqua level. So bad. I don't remember a lot of it. It's a classic.
neocharge: ah I was doing pretty good on Corneria, but yeah, it's very fun. The visuals are incredible. There was a level where we were like, oh, man. So... Yeah, good remake. I still haven't bought it because I i basically beat it twice. But Bo brought it over and you bought it over. It's not ah not a long game, but it's a classic nonetheless. So I'm glad they're doing that. And ah yeah, it was fun when you brought it over.
neocharge: You also were playing another game, which I'm i'm intrigued by, honestly.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I actually...
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. Yeah, I'm going to get there. I'm going to give you two quick updates, folks, because it's been two weeks.
neocharge: Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: um I did play some more Pikmin 3 with my son. We're almost done with the game, and we're breaking it because we're like fucking SEAL Team 6 in this. You go do this. I'll go do this. ah It's definitely...
Leon Lionheartly: Pikmin 3 Deluxe has ah the best... couch co-op so definitely we'll be done probably this week um with it um i'm still hammering away been killing a lot of xenoblade chronicles uh the switch 2 uh version uh god i could go on and on about that game and i'm gonna get you to fucking play it one day uh because it's that good yeah
neocharge: Nice.
neocharge: I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. It does remind me a lot of Tails. They took a lot from Tails, too. So...
Leon Lionheartly: Oh yeah, she's a technical boy. She's a beasty beefy boy. I got the last party member. There's seven of them. I got the last one at like 45, 50 hours in. um
neocharge: Yeah. Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: But I kept getting distracted by side quests.
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: So that might be on me.
neocharge: Yeah. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Uh...
neocharge: The best distractions.
Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah oh Yeah, absolutely. um And then most importantly, um because of the news at id Software, um I really was on the fence, but then I heard the news and I was like, I got to experience what was made by the team before they were hit with layoffs.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um So yes, I went ahead and played Doom the Dark Ages Revelations. The DLC that recently came out, this was last week, um I 100%... Well, I'm not going to say 100% of it. There's some post-post-post arena fights that aren't part of Tide to Trophies that I haven't done.
Leon Lionheartly: But I've done all of the trophies and I've done everything else in this game or in this DLC.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um It is... better than the dark ages which which is something uh it's shorter this is a 10 to 12 hour experience uh depending on your uh speed through and play um the if anybody's not aware the catch with this one is um you have what's called the chain spear uh this is a
neocharge: Wow.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: secondary ah weapon, if you will, that replaces the shield for for a time. um And then eventually you'll be able to do both. And the idea is you get used to the spear and then you'll get access to your, ah youll you'll come back to the shield and you'll have them both. Now the game builds around you developing a combat style while switching these because they have different things. So the shield is the grounded ground pound. that we all love from Doom the Dark Ages. ah Parry the fuck out of something. You don't jump, really. you don't go you're just ah You're a tank.
Leon Lionheartly: The Chainspear is where you suddenly get to fly around the map like you're in Doom Eternal again. but um you're fucking, you're fucking hook shotting off ah enemies and spinning around and shooting them.
neocharge: Hell yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You're using the spear, uh, to do all these different cool tricks. Um, I don't want to spoil abilities. You've got an entire fucking skill tree dedicated to this, uh, this weapon. Um,
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: So like the similar to how you have the runes for the shields, you've got the entire fucking skill tree dedicated. There is ah some this game, this DLC gets harder as you play the game and it's harder than the Dark Ages, in my opinion, like the base game, ah the post game fight, like, you know, you would expect out of a game, the post game optional fight that's required for a trophy.
Leon Lionheartly: Had me sweating fucking bullets. And I want to see you i want to see you stream this one, Matt.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Okay, I will.
Leon Lionheartly: ah you'll You'll see it.
neocharge: Totally.
Leon Lionheartly: ah This has all kinds of cool stuff. The collectible. I will say one big change for folks with collectibles, just so you know you're going in. i like to is in the dark ages, it showed you where these collectibles were on the map.
Leon Lionheartly: They took that away.
neocharge: Oh, dang.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. i you've got to find them. So go hunt. They want you to explore. Go fucking explore.
neocharge: Yeah, that's cool. That's right.
Leon Lionheartly: Go do this. um The music is upgraded in some of their, ah in a lot of ways. There's some post there's certain side stuff that I want to see your reaction to, and I'm going to wait for that text because you're going be like, holy shit.
Leon Lionheartly: And going to be like, yeah. um Just...
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: amazing, amazing stuff. um I'm trying to be very vague for a very specific reason ah because I don't want to spoil any of the really cool, awesome things. um And then i guess Lastly, this is the thing that shocked me the most, Matt.
Leon Lionheartly: And we talked about this, but for people that out there, when you play Doom, it's as Romero and once said, you know, story in a video game is like story in a porn. It's required, but it's really not that important.
Leon Lionheartly: So when you play Doom, you just, you you you you rip and tear, pardon the pun.
neocharge: Oh. Hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: Here, the story that they're telling, and if you're paying attention, had my attention. It is extremely important to the base lore of the Doom universe.
Leon Lionheartly: it's yep It's canon, new canon information that is really important.
neocharge: right.
Leon Lionheartly: And i want i want I'm like, wow, I didn't expect to actually get good story out of a Doom game. ah So...
neocharge: crime.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. I think you're going to really appreciate appreciate this dude. um It scored a 90 on OpenCritic. That is easily the mark for this game. for this game um And it absolutely did better in than the Dark Ages. I can't wait for you to try it.
Leon Lionheartly: But first, you've got to get through the games you're playing.
neocharge: Yes, I'm very excited to get to it. I've i've been excited ever since we saw the unveiling like what? couple months ago. Actually, wasn't it Summer Game Fest or something like a month ago?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: ah Or it was like at the Xbox presentation. I don't know. There were so many events. It was somewhere in there, but I'm very excited for it. The only reason I haven't played it is because of the game I'm playing now, which I'm going to talk about.
neocharge: And yeah, I can't wait. You've you've ah said nothing but good things about it. And from what I've seen and what I've heard, I'm super excited to dive in. Not a bad price either. 20 bucks.
neocharge: happy Happy to do it.
Leon Lionheartly: That was $30 FYI.
neocharge: Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: f fly yeah
neocharge: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. ah I'm excited to get to it. Before I get into the big game I'm playing, which everyone knows, I do want to touch a little bit on a game that I put down.
neocharge: for ah a couple times. got you know It's a roguelike. Got little bored with it. Put it down. Picked it up. Put it down. Picked it up. But I finally dove into it and that's Hades 2.
neocharge: And boy oh boy. What a fucking gem. It's not my favorite Hades but it is the best Hades. I do like 1 over 2 but 2 is the better game. I platinumed it.
neocharge: So I did platinum it, and there were a couple RNG tied trophies at the end where I just fucking couldn't trigger it. RNGesus was not on my side. I couldn't proc the specific thing, and I was like, oh, why isn't it? So I just kept running and running and running. Thankfully, the game's fucking fun to play. So it didn't annoy me that much, but man, the ah the epilogue of this game.
neocharge: Oh, my goodness.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: What a fucking story beat. Let me tell you. ah if you If you play this game, make sure you get to the epilogue. It is pretty tough to get to the epilogue. Lengthy, I should say. I was clear in left and right, man. I pretty much broke the game. I had some favorite boons we talked about.
neocharge: ah This you know improves on the first game in all ways. ah Melon away is an incredible new character, and I had a blast with it.
neocharge: It started to get long in the tooth. I had to put it down a couple times and I just played other games. But then I was like, I felt the pull. Felt the pull Hades 2. And I was like, I want to play it. I kind of feel the pull again. i want to play more because I did platinum it, but I haven't 100%ed it. Like you said, I do have a couple more things in the list to do in game. So maybe I might jump in because dude, we were playing 80s one.
neocharge: We just jumped in because it's just a fun ass game to play. So made by Supergiant. They nailed it again. and yeah, I had a blast. I think my time was like 82 hours and 120 runs. I platinumed it. So.
Leon Lionheartly: Impressive. i got to go back and look. I'll get those numbers for you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i You know what? Mine are probably more. I had too much fun with the game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So I'm glad you platinum did at least.
neocharge: Yeah. m
Leon Lionheartly: ah It is my favorite of the Hades, but I get why i get why Hades 1 would be your favorite. Yeah.
neocharge: just It just hit different. I was a huge fan. I am a huge fan of Supergiant. I think they're an amazing developer. And I was ah very excited to hear that they were doing roguelike Greek mythology-inspired game. And no one knew it was going to be that good. I knew it was going to be good because it's Supergiant. Love Transistor, Bastion, Pyre. And I was like, oh, this is a new thing they're doing. And they just fucking hit it out of the park. I it was i had...
neocharge: I didn't know it was going to be that good. And it it surprised me so much. So Hades two, you knew what you were getting, right? And they improved upon it in every way, but Hades one, man, it's agrious hit different.
neocharge: It really did. So he is our boy.
Leon Lionheartly: He is he is our boy.
neocharge: Hades two is definitely the better game. If you loved Hades one, you're going to love Hades two even more. So, uh, I highly recommend it and man, super giant, just top tier fucking S tier developer. I can't wait to see what they're making next. Wouldn't be mad at Hades three.
neocharge: I do hope they, they do something new though. So they were, they usually do a new IP. Uh, Hades two was their first sequel. Uh, and they've been making games, you know, 20 years.
neocharge: So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: You hear that, Caleb? Drop John Desert. Just go play Hades 2.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Drop the the ever blue. What is it?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Grand blue fantasy. Grand blue fantasy. Hentai waifu gacha game.
neocharge: Drop that shit and go play Hades 2. All right. We're going to give you shit on the next episode. So you're going to hear it. But yeah, phenomenal game. Had a blast with it. Highly recommended. 9.5 out of 10.
neocharge: Beautiful, beautiful game. Just beautifully made. Love it. ah The next game, I've been looking forward to it. I drafted it. It's the original one is in my top five of all time. Okay. Top five favorite games of all time.
neocharge: And this is Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. Boy, boy, oh boy. I got this on launch. Put it in immediately. the The nostalgia immediately hit because they use the same app screen music as they did on the original on PS4.
neocharge: And like i kind of teared up. i was like, oh my God, this is amazing. Got in.
Leon Lionheartly: that
neocharge: This game is a pretty much a one-to-one remake when it comes to the story beats and everything. They added new content, but it's so familiar yet gorgeously updated graphics.
neocharge: It's incredible. I love it. It's the best Assassin's Creed, in my opinion. One of my favorite games of all time. And I got the collector's edition. I usually don't get a collector's edition. The last collector's edition was got was was Rebirth.
neocharge: Got the statue. Statue is way bigger than I thought. It's way more detailed than I thought. They did an amazing job on the collector's edition. you get like a book. You get a map.
neocharge: And it's like a cloth map of of the Caribbean ah for Assassin's Creed Black Flag.
Leon Lionheartly: That's so fucking dope, man.
neocharge: It's so cool. Yeah. You get like a ah shanty, like a, a song sheet of one of the shanties, man, this game, uh, developed by not, not Ubisoft Montreal. We're going to do a correction on that. It was developed by two Ubisoft Singapore and Ubisoft Mount Mount Pilger. The original was produced by Ubisoft Montreal.
neocharge: So there's a little correction.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Uh, They nailed it, man. This is in between a remaster and remake. So it's kind of a one-to-one remake with updated graphics. but And they added new shit. They added new quality of life stuff. They added new UI things. They added new combat. They added new animation. So it is a remake, but it's so familiar at the same time. like The reason you love the Assassin's Creed Black Flag is all here.
neocharge: All here. i As some of the funnest open world traversal combat, you could say, in a pirate ship. like just you You finally get your pirate ship and you just go out and you plunder, man.
neocharge: you just the The ship combat is... S tier. It's so fun. You're just, you're sailing. the The water physics are gorgeous. Your crew is singing shanties.
neocharge: You come across this ship and you're like, yeah, I'm going to fuck you up.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i remember that was the strength of uh of the og bed was the ship to ship combat
neocharge: You just
neocharge: Yep, 100%. That's where this game shines for sure. But then it's also an Assassin's Creed game. And there is a deep Assassin's Creed story here that, you know, shocker, there's Assassins and Templars in Assassin's Creed game.
neocharge: ah And yeah, it opens up amazingly. And dude, I was quoting some of the cut scenes. I love this game so much. You know, like your Star Fox, you're like, oh, this enemy here, this enemy here.
neocharge: I was doing the same thing with Black Flag Resynced.
Leon Lionheartly: that's I fucking love to hear that, man.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, third-person action-adventure. Best pirate sim you'll ever play. Hands down. And that's not subjective. No, I'm kidding. ah It's one of the best, man.
neocharge: And it's a really great Assassin's Creed. A buddy is playing it. a Listener of the show. Shout out to him. And he's he kind of played a little bit of it, but he's finally playing more of it. with the And he's like, dude, this game's incredible.
neocharge: I'm like, I know, bro. I've been trying to tell you. So...
Leon Lionheartly: so So I got a question for you. um Well, on behalf of the on behalf of the audience, you said the charm is still here.
neocharge: What's up? Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: um Does this include the infamous ah bugs that used to exist that everybody loved?
neocharge: yes
neocharge: Yes, so there are still bugs here. there It gives it a little bit of charm. There's some UI bugs. There's some ah collision bugs. There's some ah there's no story-breaking.
neocharge: Well, actually, I think there is a story-breaking game bug.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, no.
neocharge: I haven't encountered it. I haven't encountered a lot of bugs. More just like animation bugs that don't really affect your experience, right?
Leon Lionheartly: They enhance it. Bethesda does the same thing.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's not a bug. It's a feature. So, yeah. This game is just gorgeous. I've been... There's a photo mode right out the gate, and I've been i've been so impressed with Ubisoft's Anvil engine. I think they're calling Anvil Pro. ah But, man, this game is...
neocharge: gorgeous There's night-day cycle on the the Caribbean. ah There's like ray tracing. I'm playing on on balance. So it's got your ray tracing. It's got your high fidelity.
neocharge: But it also has VRR. So honestly, I think it's running between 40 and 90 frames a second. Sometimes it's super buttery smooth. But when it dips, I...
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Notice it, but it's it's never dips below like 30 or anything like that. I think it's it has like a threshold on the low end of maybe 4045. It runs beautifully, looks beautifully, and they did a really good job with the character models. There's ah I mean, it's in the marketing. Blackbeard is in this game and they really enhanced his character model. He looks awesome. They did. it They actually did a CG trailer for the original ah back in 2013 of Blackbeard talking about Edward Kenway. And it was CG. It wasn't in game.
neocharge: He actually looks like his CG model did then.
Leon Lionheartly: Wow. Wow.
neocharge: Yeah, like 13 years ago. So that that was really impressive. i was I was happy to see they really enhanced the character models. They added new content. ah There's like the animus system that came in Shadows as well. So there's like things you can do in the world that allow you to unlock shit with like Ubisoft Connect. ah they They tell you one time, hey, there's a store.
neocharge: There's these $10 cosmetics. Go here if you want one time. And then it's buried the rest of the game. They don't bother you with it. It's kind of in the background, hidden. They did the same with Valhalla, same with ah Mirage, and they're doing the same here. So that's how you do it. There is some pay to win, but it's single player. You can you can pay $5 to unlock every single ah fucking icon on the map, and you can buy resources to level you up.
neocharge: Not a fan of that, but it doesn't affect anyone else but yourself. So congratulations. You played yourself if you get it. So it's not affecting like a multiplayer or anything like that.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: They scrapped the multiplayer, the trophies. I'm finally going to get the fucking platinum on Assassin's Creed Black Flag because I didn't get the platinum. And one of my top five favorite games of all time in the original Because of the bullshit multiplayer, you had to probably dump another 60 hours into a multiplayer.
neocharge: I thought about it because i really liked that game. I played a couple matches and I was like, this is not good and I'm not going to get this platinum. So I abandoned it. I abandoned it back then, but now I'm finally going to get that platinum and that's ah that's exciting. So...
neocharge: Yeah, everything you can think of being a pirate. you got You got all the pirate towns. You got the Caribbean. ah the The Assassin's Creed traversal is here. The soundtrack is epic. Very ah like incredible pirate tones and sounds. and like Think i mean Pirates of the Caribbean. You're basically playing it as an assassin, Edward Kenway.
neocharge: ah And his character arc just evolves over time. he starts as a, just a greedy pirate out for himself and that evolves over time.
neocharge: Let's just say. So, yeah, I'm, I'm having a blast, man.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: I mean, I'm in such a pirate mood. I'm drinking rum right now in my cold toddy. I have, I have a pirate hat. Sometimes I swing my pirate sword around and I'm streaming it.
neocharge: Twitch.tv forward slash Neo charge on my personal channel. And we've been having some fun over there. So, I couldn't be more happy about this remake. It got really good ratings. So ah I'm happy about it. And I can't, well I'm about 32 hours in.
Leon Lionheartly: Nice, man. You're making good headway for that game.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm really glad you're enjoying it. I've seen it on your OLED and on the pro on the Pro, and it looks beautiful.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And I was like, man, that looks good. But I got to do this. Shout out for Will.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We saw it on his ah PC. He's got a 38 ETI, I believe is what he said. um So it's not top of the line ah or anything. And he said we said as a joke...
Leon Lionheartly: crank the fucking shit out of the good graphics and the display settings on this. um and i got It was so funny because this computer was radiating so much heat from it.
neocharge: Uh-huh.
Leon Lionheartly: We could feel it. But he was running.
neocharge: Looked good.
Leon Lionheartly: it looked It looked better than the Pro, at least at the base level. I'd love to see it on a real OLED TV. And
neocharge: That's the thing. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. And it was hitting at 60. And then when he got into combat, it was dropping to like 42, 43.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But it held steady, man.
neocharge: Yeah, it didn't go under 40.
Leon Lionheartly: I've got to say, it did not go under 40. So shout out, Will. I'm glad you kept us warm on that hot summer day.
neocharge: Man, that thing was just humming. Those fans were going overtime. So, yeah. I'm impressed with what they did. I would love to see more of these. I would love to see Assassin's Creed 2 re-synced.
neocharge: I would love to see Assassin's Creed Syndicate re-synced. Assassin's Creed 1 re-synced. Assassin's Creed 1...
Leon Lionheartly: I want brotherhood.
neocharge: Yeah, well, that they might that's the trilogy of two. You got two Brotherhood Revelations.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I know.
neocharge: ah But one was not a great game because of the mechanics. The story was awesome. So if they bring one into the modern day mechanics of of like the Anvil engine, I think it would work. So Assassin's Creed 1 Resynced would be awesome.
neocharge: Yeah. The next one, timeline-wise, ah they did they are teasing a little bit of Hexay. There are some Easter eggs in in Black Flag for Hexay. And it it does match up.
neocharge: The Salem Witch Trials were 1600s. So it does match up with the timeline. I think the Golden Age of Piracy was like ah fourteen hundreds or something like that. I'm not sure. I'm playing the fucking game. i should You're looking it up right now.
neocharge: It's either Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, I'm just curious because I'm like, that's one of the things you think I would know. Oh, it took place between the sixteen fifty s and seventeen thirty s
neocharge: Yeah, 16, 1700s. So this will be after Hexay. But yeah, it's during the golden age of piracy. you know Blackbeard, Hornigold, Cortez, all the famous pirates. And ah yeah, it's great. And you sail you basically sail the Caribbean.
neocharge: there's There's towns. There's Mayan temples because the Mayan civilization was down there. They go into that a little bit. ah There's plantations. ah your i mean You go and you you like fuck plantations up. ah Your shipmate, your your quartermaster is Adewale.
neocharge: ah And he he he was a former slave because this was during slavery. But you free him and he be becomes your quartermaster. So that's in the marketing. And that's super early on, like sequence two or whatever.
neocharge: So yeah, it's just it's incredible. it it the whole time I'm playing this game, it reminds me of why I loved the original and that I think that's the key to ah to a good remake remaster. So I'll report back more on the next episode. I might be finished with it by the next episode. Our next episode will go live on Friday, ah July 31st, actually.
neocharge: So that's going to be the next episode. We'll have Caleb on. We'll do a state of the draft. So yeah. I'm having a blast with it, man. You should play it at some point.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to get to it. um And it is on the list.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: hey You never know.
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: By the time you're done with a Black Flag, I might be finally done with Xenoblade.
neocharge: Right. Right. So, yeah. ah Cool. I think we'll we'll wrap up this episode. It's been fun. We're going to do bi-weekly stuff from now on. You have any fun plans for the weekend, man?
Leon Lionheartly: ah This weekend? Not particularly. Well, you know what? I'm trying to keep my voice low in case somebody in the house could hear me, but I'm thinking about grabbing tickets to go see the Odyssey to go with one of the kids who loves, loves it loves that story.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Like the the story of the Odyssey loves it. yeah there's fucking altars to Ares and Poseidon in that kid's room. All right. So like, I'm like, eh, I'm not going to able to do it in the 70 inch IMAX the way no one wants me to see it, but that's okay.
neocharge: Amazing.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It's not about the movie. It's about the experience with a loved one.
neocharge: Yeah, definitely. ah Hades 2 actually touches a lot on the Odyssey. And instead of Achilles, you get Odysseus. So there's a lot of callbacks and references to the Odyssey in Hades 2. It's a Greek myth. it I mean, it it was set in Greek mythology. So...
neocharge: or the ancient Greece, you should say, or I should say, but yeah, it's kind of on like going to see the Odyssey because I am, i am going to see the Odyssey in 70 millimeter tomorrow.
neocharge: ah My friend picked up tickets, so shout out to him and ah he invited me.
Leon Lionheartly: Which friend?
neocharge: i A listener of the show, let's just say that.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. 2025, something like
neocharge: Yeah. um So I'm very excited. It's a Nolan movie. ah They 70 millimeter IMAX theaters. There are 20 the US,
neocharge: in the u but
Leon Lionheartly: twenty twenty five something like that. Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, it was 25 in the US that can show the Odyssey how Nolan meant it to be. And one of those 25, sorry, 25 in the world. i'm sorry. Yeah, there are millimeter IMAX theaters in the world.
neocharge: twenty five only And there's one right down the street so from me. ah So I'm going to go see it in 70mm. And if you guys don't know 70mm, it's just a bigger screen, better quality, way immersive. the and Like most IMAX movies, some scenes are filmed in the IMAX ah ratio.
neocharge: This entire movie was filmed 70mm IMAX. It's going to be game-changing. I think it's going to be as game-changing as Avatar 3D was for theaters. So, uh, yeah, I'm super excited for it.
neocharge: Nolan don't miss. He's, i mean, interstellar is one of my favorite Nolan movies. So, and I love Greek mythology. So this, this could, uh, you know, dethrone interstellar for my favorite Nolan movie. We'll see. I'll report back and you'll hear about it. July thirty first Other than that,
neocharge: Not a lot. don't know. Might hang out with some friends this weekend. Play some split fiction. Who knows? Who knows? We'll see.
Leon Lionheartly: Hell yeah, dude. Awesome.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Sounds like a great weekend. i'll be ah I'll be thinking of you when you're playing Splayed Fiction and I'm doing fucking yard work.
neocharge: Yeah. So gaming, some drinking, good food, good movies. Might go for a bike ride. I don't know. Depending on the smoke out there. I don't know what's going on with the sinuses. If, uh, I need to stay inside for a bit, but who knows?
neocharge: But, uh, Other than that, we're going to get the hell out of here. Thanks so much for listening. We appreciate all your support. We appreciate your understanding with us, kind of forced understanding, with us ah going bi-weekly instead of weekly.
neocharge: We appreciate all your support. We appreciate you listening. And ah yeah, have a great rest of your evening, morning, night, day, whatever the hell time it is.
neocharge: Have a great time.
Leon Lionheartly: Peace.
