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AAA’s Franchise Identity Problem | Windbreaker Podcast
6.9k Plays4 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost, and Marty chat about AAA franchises, and whether or not their evolution lends to an inherent identity problem.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This video is sponsored by My Lovely Empress, a narrative-driven kingdom management game inspired by a mix of East and Southeast Asian mythology.
00:00:10
Speaker
that's why i think hitler is right hello welcome wood breaker podcast everyone i'm yard to groure i'm joined by party slavever aroundro i don't i don't think killer was right he was right and a bad artist also no he's no chiye let me tell you that i think it's the food he was a vegan one he says's a lot about german cuisine He was, he was vegetarian. I don't think he was vegan. I only had vegans back then. back and like Remember there used to be a distinction. What's the difference? ah You don't eat, if you're a vegan, you also don't eat dairy products. Nothing from an animal. not yeah Unless you ask nicely.
00:00:47
Speaker
You go to the cow and say, hi, Mrs. Cow, my hands are nice and warm. And I noticed you've got this very bloated milk sack there. Uh, may I please partite? And if Mrs. Cow says yes, it's fine for vegan staff. Speaking of series with an identity problem.
AAA Game Franchises' Identity Crisis
00:01:02
Speaker
Yes. Well, that gets us to the topic this week, which, uh, I was eventually going to start steering towards. ah ah Well, this is something that came up last week, isn't it? for We were talking about the new showcase of trailers that came out in Summer Games Fest and the Xbox Showcase, the Ubisoft Showcase, where what identity do these long established AAA franchises even have anymore? And I made this point when we were talking about Doom the Dark Ages, because if you asked like the average person what Doom was like 10 years ago, they'd say tech base,
00:01:37
Speaker
You're a marine. You're five monsters. BFG 9000. It's a whole thing. Oh, you're a marine. I heard you're a marine. like i heard a guyneumon and literally this identities yeah Angry little piss boy. Well, they could be a urine marine as well. I mean, we never see them go to the bathroom. and They probably have a little, you know, two traces down there. we can Yeah. yeah They probably drink their own piss to keep them going. It's kind of bad as they are. So when you say dune, it just sounds like doom to me. I think I may have said it wrong the first time.
00:02:17
Speaker
but You just say dune. That's what I know. Dune to popcorn bucket. Speaking of his Doom Eternal's just sort of started drifting like the franchise into a dark fantasy instead of like sci-fi with demons. And my question at that point was, what does it even mean to say that you're making a Doom game any anymore if it could be literally anything? What is the series's identity at this point? It's it's funny because i I agree with this topic and I think it's something that's interesting if you look back all the way from the start of video game history. I don't see it with Doom. Doom to me always kind of feels the same. It's just you're ripping and tearing and just if you're ripping on tearing on a space base on Mars or in hell or in a or in a messed up version of um of the the the planet Earth or now you're ripping and tearing through the Dark Ages like at all.
00:03:16
Speaker
I guess, like, ah do we think that an identity is formed from aesthetics, from story, from mechanics?
Role of Creators in Franchise Identity
00:03:22
Speaker
Well, perhaps this is jumping to the end for me, but an identity for me comes from having a creator, an individual, or to guiding the franchise so that you can hear, oh, Hideo Kojima is making a thing. I've liked his previous things. Therefore, I am confident that there will be a steady hand on the tiller. Obviously you don't have that in committee-designed AAA bland swill. So all we have is a franchise names. Say, hey, this is the new Doom, this is the new Assassin's Creed, this is the new Dragon Age. See, Doom is bland swill? Doom? Doom's taken strays from you?
00:03:57
Speaker
Alright, perhaps Doom was a bad example to start with. It's not like Assassin's Creed or... I mean, what we're seeing for the Doom Dark Ages feels more like a Quake game to me. It's something to do with like the original Quake. and Or Painkiller. It looks a lot like Painkiller, I thought. Do you remember that? yeah Yeah. It has more of that sort of gothic gothic fantasy horror that both of those games have. But Assassin's Creed is absolutely like the poster child for this. What does it even mean that they're making a new Assassin's Creed game? We don't know who's making it. We don't even know what particular team in Ubisoft is making it. Several. Probably like nine of them in different cities. so i've one When was the last time Assassin's Creed was about something in terms of overarching themes? Oh boy.
00:04:48
Speaker
This is interesting. You had to get an apple or an orb of some sorts in one of the games. You were Desmond Miles. Desmond Miles was trying to save the world from a solar flare at one point and then he died and then the series has been about. That was so long ago. And you love Black Flag. You love Black Flag. Wait, he had to he had to save it from a solar flare? I don't even remember that being part of the story. Even you have forgotten that this was like the driving force behind the overarching plot in like the first six games. yeah Don't say even me, I forget everything. It's not surprising to me whatsoever that I forget that. So you're saying story is...
00:05:27
Speaker
and important like is is is it the most important thing to an Adagity? Because when if we go back, if we go back to like the eight 1664 bit eras, it feels like we we the the move from, or even like in the and NES, we had sequels that very quickly veered off from the identity of their originals. You had the US version of Mario 2, which felt very different than Mario 1, you had Zelda 2, Castlevania 2, those immediately felt like they were very different than what came before them. And so like from the beginning, I feel like franchises were kind of grasping at straws a bit to figure out their identity or to even maintain their identity. So this doesn't necessarily to me feel like something new. um Well, that's, uh, those are some, those are some very early examples you're giving there. And I think that might've been an early stumbling block in the games industry shared in later years. It was less the case. Who's to say they i always go.
00:06:22
Speaker
I mean, do you have an identity after one thing? Is that an identity? Don't you need a couple under your belt to be a franchise? Or even say Zelda. Do you think the first ones? No, I mean, I think Mario really came into its own around Mario 3, I'd say. Yeah, well, it was funny because a lot of those franchises, when they moved to the Super Nintendo, it very much felt like, let's just iterate on what worked originally. And so Super Metroid, Super Mario World, Castlevania, Final Fantasy VI, those all felt like um building upon the original
Transition to 3D: Successes and Failures
00:06:55
Speaker
foundations. But then in the move to 3D, some of those franchises kind of were able to take those ideas and those mechanics and those verbs and transition them to 3D in ways that make sense, like Mario and Zelda and Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, whereas
00:07:10
Speaker
Uh, the move to 3D like was a huge hurdle for Sonic, for Mega Man, for Castlevania. Like that was a point where it's like, what is this thing? I'm not sure you guys actually know what this thing is. And maybe that's the point. Maybe a thing can be the vessel. you the baby Is the thing the liquid or is the thing the vessel? I guess is your identity. but many i did and Identity is about, uh, informing the buying public. It's like say, if you say to the buying public, hey, we're making a new Doom game. What are you, what are you, what is that statement telling them? It's telling them they can expect a high octane shooter. Sure. I mean, he's going to be there but guy right there. Doom guy's going to be there. Yeah.
00:07:54
Speaker
yeah yeah and I don't feel like they veered away yet in the same way, like like a bond, how how bond has evolved throughout actors and throughout sort of ah decades and generations. like It's ostensibly the same thing, but like the Craig movies are so different than the Roger Moore movies or the yeah Timothy Dalton movies. At the same time, you say to the buying public, we're making an open world game set in the Star Wars universe. sure And it's going to have a trillion different mechanics. yeah and Absolutely no focus. There'll be stealth, there'll be action, there'll be blah, blah, blah. So for me, this feels like
00:08:33
Speaker
you're not really telling the ah the buying public anything is just saying, hey, here's a thing with a thing you like attached to it. You don't know who's making it. You don't know what their previous strengths have been. You don't know what ah what what the sort of focus the gameplay is on so you can be informed and buy it if you're really into a certain kind of game. All we know is that it's Star Wars and that's all these big franchises seem to be relying on at this point, just slapping the names on things. that's That's what I'm complaining about. Yeah, and it's it's interesting there. Because games are part art and part ah tubes. I don't know what's in these PCs. And anyone can do the technical mechanical part of it all. But it's the, I would say the artistic part is where the identity is like is's either there or not, you know? ah To the point where, like Call of Duty,
00:09:24
Speaker
The identity for a lot of people, including myself, was the earlier Modern Warfare trilogy and then the Black Ops one. But that's around the time where the the old boys were gone. They took the juice with them, so to speak, over to Titanfall and Apex Legends. And ah that's sort of like they had a a more rounded identity where now you said, can you make a game without an identity? I think so. That's kind of where the cards have been, where they're just like, is that ah is that almost a negative if you're if you're so identifiable that you don't need a a lead creative anymore that you can just go in for it is doom guy now there we're just like rip he rips he tears he's got a green suit you know like is that is that where we're dooms approaching now is there any is there any Bible so to speak for him
00:10:09
Speaker
ah feels like fra franchising in like a fast food sense by saying, Hey, here's a piece of paper with the instructions on how to make the hamburger, right? ah Just give it to literally anyone like a mythos though, right? Because if you say like, um you can have some some very verbose text of like, here's exactly how I want everything like J or Tolkien, or tokien or um you can just have like Robin Hood. How do we portray him? We don't know too much about him, almost like Yasuke in Assassin's Creed, right? He's got so many gaps that we can make whatever we want of him. Is Doomguy that? Has he ever actually had, like, a really solid identity? ah You probably have to... Well, he was in the Doom comic book. Oh, no. He had a very clear identity in that. he couldn' You couldn't shut him up in the Doom comic book. Is that real? Does it count? Does it count? The Doom comic book is actually where the phrase, rip and tear, comes from.
00:11:02
Speaker
That's a little fun fact, little doom fun fact. Yeah. I feel like it's like the root of some of this ah lack of a franchise identity comes from the fact that individual games have a lack of identity, right? Because now as- Yes, because that we de-emphasize the notion of a single auto director. I think the all of Hideo Kojima's games carry his identity. You look at Death Stranding Game, you think, that's, there's my boy. There's my boy Hideo doing his thing. I think he's liking it or not. Yeah. Yeah. hideous um
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I guess there's so there's creator shift, which happens um in the I think the games industry more than even any in the film industry, because I feel like in the film industry, at least like, I mean, aside from George Lucas handing off their selling Star Wars to to Disney, like it's sort of a small group of people have the reins on it, whether that's a good thing or not. um There is like, ultimately, you look at the MCU, Kevin Feige, someone looking over everything, whereas you don't have that in games anymore. Or if games have lasted since the 90s, or franchises have lasted since the 90s, they've been, the franchises have moved hands and owners so much that you none of the people who ah but were responsible for the original Doom's have anything to do with id now, um like with with these with these current games. So you have creator shift. um It feels like
00:12:27
Speaker
the deeper you get into the franchise, the more you need to up the stakes in a way that I think ultimately loses something that was in the simplicity of the original. And that's how we end up on the path where everything gravitates to a state of maximum broad appeal.
Critique of Modern Game Trends
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah. Everything gravitates to asking about in a bush, the Jiminy Cockthroat open world model. oh be i was a time when to I've said this before, but you know, there was a time when Tomb Raider was a platformer, Far Cry was a shooter and God of War was a hack and slash. And now all of those games are just asking about in a bush.
00:13:04
Speaker
But do you want them to stay the status quo? Like, do you want, like, don't we also bemoan stagnation at that point? I'm with Marty there that I do like a little experimentation. I grew up with four Crow movies, vastly different from each other, but still keeping very similar themes. There's four Crow movies? See what I tell you, a real fan here. Faker gets out of it. One of them was Edward Furlong, who was played at the Crow. and um You've waylaid me on my own sidetracking there. What was I? I'm sorry. Watch the back four crew movies. Well, well, you were saying we want games to experiment. Experimentation. But is it experimentation to now, as Yahtzee says, go open world and fuck around in a bush? You know, that's the feeling I got over Doom where I was just like, oh, no, you kind of like you can't do what the other people are doing now. You're doing a little what Cod had going on there because like I don't want to be the pisses on your Cheerios and the trailer.
00:13:58
Speaker
but going back and watching it, I'm like, huge open arena. Cool. But there's only like eight things you're fighting in the center. It's essentially like taking the corridors and just going, wow but the gameplay hasn't changed, you know? And now the claustrophobia, the tight combat spaces, the identity there is sort of, you know, dissipating a little. Doom Eternal was doing that a lot. It was doing the Ghost Train ride arena to arena thing. And that seems like where the Dark Ages is going as well. Are the walls part of the identity? So now I don't want a game to like broaden out an experiment. I want games to focus on stuff. I want games to find out, figure out what they're good at.
00:14:37
Speaker
I'm not trying to please everyone. Well, I think these are different. I think experimenting is different than like trend chasing. Like trend chasing gets us into that homogenized slop where every game kind of feels similar because it's like, oh, well, this game was popular. So we got to do this kind of open world and oh, well, people want their RPG mechanics and oh, we need to retain the audience so that they don't sell the game. So have them i do this. I've been, I looked at the Summer Game Fest trailers this morning for the first time because I'm writing up like one of my, what used to be like the post-E3 zero punctuations, but will now be the post-Summer Game Fest fully rambling. And i was the first words on the Star Wars Outlaws ah gameplay trailer is, welcome to the first open world Star Wars game.
00:15:28
Speaker
Now, I kind of had the first person whose mind immediately started racing when they heard that. Surely not, I thought. Surely not. Let me go over this in my head. Open world, open world, open world. and I mean, you can stop making a habit of this. Did you not count Jedi Survivor as open world? It's like the worlds feel pretty big and sprawly. Souls like, sprawly, arguable. My first thought was the MMOs. I was the Old Republic. Yeah, yeah. But Ubisoft have a habit of this. They like try to invent ways in which games are the first such and such when they are absolutely nothing of the sword.
00:16:03
Speaker
Like when Assassin's Creed Odyssey was the first Assassin's Creed where you could choose between a male or female protagonist. It's like, no, it isn't. Syndicate like you do that. Oh yeah, Wicked Ninety-Four, the Lego Star Wars was absolutely open world, the most recent one from a few years ago. Like that was the longest I've ever been open world. Yeah. Like you had a whole planet, like entire planets. That's fine. We could lie. We could lie just a little bit in our marketing. Sprinkle a little bit of lying. I'm very much again caught between the two of you here, ah clowns on the left of me, jokers on the right. Here I am. The overlap is that I liked the experimentation, but I'm also on Yasu side where like, if it just feels off, yeah, why not just go, huh? You kind of, I'm not sure where you're going with this. It's, it almost goes into these different phases of like,
00:16:47
Speaker
I like both God of Wars, the old Packet Slash and the newer like Harry Dad version of it, it's more cinematic and whatnot. I'm okay with both, two two different kinds of cake. I don't like just one cake. Okay, I mean, we're still fine with the old God of War, because they didn't run it into the ground. Whereas if they would have stuck with that formula, and we would have gotten two ps4 games that fall like that, and a ps5 game, I feel like we would have gotten less fine. No, brother. Wukong is
Evolution of Game Series: Case Studies
00:17:18
Speaker
just God of War China.
00:17:22
Speaker
i' already say talking about wou car wou kong sorry for that I don't think I would argue that the original God of War format wasn't run into the ground. I mean, they made like a whole bunch of those beyond God of War 1, 2 and 3. Yeah, I guess Ascension and then the handheld ones. Yeah. Yeah, Chains of Olympus and all of them, and the whole God of War format out was like copied by a million other games at the time as well, like Pantase Inferno and the Castlevania Lords of Shadows. Do people play those aside from critics? Those throw me off, like I know there's excess Assassin's Creed games too, but do do people recognize those as like actual games? People see them as like... I guess ah yes again people against people don't really talk about God of War ascension anymore. Well, Edward did. you think yeah
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. God of War 2018 and um the ah Ragnarok. Do you think those... Do those still feel like they have the original franchise identity to you, Yahtzee? Or do those feel like, do you think they're changes? I mean, for all their individual merits, it felt like they slapped Kratos onto a completely different game altogether that was more in line with the Um, uncharted brand, uh, linear single player game that was of the, ive of the time. Hmm. That's interesting. Cause I feel like they could have gone away with having non Kratos be there, but also I kind of just, I liked that it was Kratos because you get to take in that old stuff with you.
00:18:50
Speaker
hello yeah so weodle um I feel like it was a more it was it was a more interesting reflection on the original games than doing a God of War 4 that was just a really pretty version of him doing the same shit he was doing then. Even if it wasn't Norse mythology, if he was just the same Kratos he was in that original trilogy. I don't know, I kind of i was had so sort of resented the slight ah undertone of those games that was like, ah boy, those old games were immature, weren't they? Now we're grown ups. Now we're almost all slightly ashamed of the fun we used to have.
00:19:25
Speaker
I think that's normal for quite hauntinglyism time wasted masturbating. me If you want to, if you want to sort of like be introspective and deconstruct everything you that you did up to now, the the best example for that for me would be saints row four. I was like, hey, let's just push things up to 11 and take the piss out of ourselves. yeah yeah and And to like just tie a nice little bow around the all the crazy places our series has gone up to now. Were those the same creators? Yeah. You should relish. it all I actually don't know much about the like Saints Row lineage. like I don't know how if that team stuck together, if it was a similar team, if like it was at all volition.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yeah, it was all volition, all the same dev. I don't know about individual members. That's kind of the problem, I suppose. Sure, sure. I suppose I'm there with Yachts, as far as identity goes. I'll take experimentation, but when it comes to the point of like, oh, we're kind of ashamed of what we used to do, you should relish in your cringe. Like absolutely yeah take the piss out of it. it's I think it's whenever they try to undo each other where it's just, well, you're going to end up with different loyalist camps, right? Old God of War and new God of War. Yeah. just like american I was talking about um about how if you keep reinventing yourself, it feels like, as I said, um a web comic that's been running since the late 90s. And how if after a while, like in a questionable content, if you just if you're gonna like drift away from slice of life, teenagers, drinking coffee to robots and aliens, maybe you should just do something new.
00:21:03
Speaker
and um yeah Okay, here's a good one then. Supergiant. What's their identity? Different games? Every game, they well they make they make an awful lot of games with very sexy sounding voice actors. Sure. Yeah, I mean, the giant game I think, boy, I'd like to be listening to this voice actor the next time I make love to something. Like, I think that's a good example for us, but I feel like Supergiant, you can pretty clearly see. You can absolutely, you can absolutely feel a something on every Supergiant. I'm not saying they don't, I'm saying where is it?
00:21:41
Speaker
Okay, they tend towards an isometric viewpoint. They have very nice sort of what looks feels like hand-drawn art. They've always got the sort of storytelling tone that uses a very dialogue focused, very character focused narrative. ah very ah moment-to-moment storytelling. I mean, if you can't sense that there's a recurring creator thumbprint between Supergiant Games, I don't know what to tell you. because Is it then Logan Cunningham and like, what's the name? Gen Z? ah does the art is that Is it the heart that we're feeling? To me, it goes back to the, I want to feel like- Eric, are we boring you? Are we boring you, Eric? Is that why you do these things? Pikachu? Marty Chu?
00:22:28
Speaker
Well, you know, if you're going to go back to, I want to feel like someone wanted to create something. To me, the only time I feel like the identity is completely lacking is when it feels like, okay, yeah, we just, we had to keep the ball rolling. Um, usually it's, you know, I still like black flags, even though, uh, Patrice Desolay wasn't working on them anymore, but at a certain point it feels like, okay, this is just our annual showing aside from like, Hey, someone, I found a director that really wanted to make this this time around.
00:22:55
Speaker
I like Black Flag entirely divorced from the fact that it's an Assassin's Creed game. I keep saying I like the Black Flag part, I don't like the Assassin's Creed part so much. and Individually, I like it. Sure. i It wouldn't have been sold to me if you just said, it's a new Assassin's Creed game. At that time, i was very I was already sort of mired in Assassin's Creed fatigue at that time. Would... Even at that even if there's stage. Or I guess five games in the span of... six or seven years. was yeah Would Skull and Bones have done better if Edward was there?
00:23:32
Speaker
Maybe if they, if it would just been Assassin's Creed black flag with the Assassin's Creed stuff taken off it, it would have been just as good a game. teamed me at What a slam dunk skull bones could have just been if they would have just done it. We'll just do this again. Do this pirate thing again. Do this again. Don't call it Assassin's Creed. Like it is baffling to me how they dropped the ball on that. It could have just said a black flags online. Boom. yeah I don't know. yeah it's it's it's I don't know if it would have been as easy as that. We know how many headaches are arise in transitioning something from a single player offline to a multiplayer online game. I guess I meant less the online and more of just make another pirate game. Just make another pirate game and divorce it from
00:24:12
Speaker
Assassin's Creed, like that the online thing again is is the sticky wicket anyone gets by trying to follow trends, especially when you are steering a ship, no pun intended, that takes five to six years in order to get to port. And by the time the five or six years are up, people are like, oh, we don't actually want that thing from half a decade ago. We're on to the next thing. Fail faster. um See, that's the c but fail just fail faster. So you can get on to the next one. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's im I'm trying to think of like modern, I feel like Nintendo has done a pretty good job of maintaining identities in their in their franchises, which again, might be a part of the fact that they have so many original creatives who are still there. Some people who have been working on these franchises for decades.
00:24:57
Speaker
As always, Nintendo are sort of the outliers, getting by in an alternative timeline, their own little world, where with created on print is still a thing, and franchise is still somehow retained identity. Why shoot you if you like deviate too much from the originals? but i mean so they see like There's a handful of people who are like not even a handful. I think there's a lot of people who like don't like the direction Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom went in and want to go back to, you know, You know, the traditional dungeons and items and, you know, just a snazzy looking ocarina time. What about those spin-offs? Like there's that Zelda Amuso, where you're just out here beating ass. It's just very different from the other games. I guess, do you consider a spin-off a loss of identity? The Mario typing game was in the front too. The Mamma Mia. Yeah. Or is a spin-off like safe from this?
00:25:49
Speaker
No, it's a spinoff is a spinoff, you know? And what I'm talking about is tentpole franchises, releasing tentpole installments, rather than, you know, ah Paper Mario. And tent yeah, there you go. That's a good phrase.
00:26:05
Speaker
i so yeah because When we talk about Tenpole Mario, we're talking about, you know, Super Mario 3, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Galaxy, Super ver Mario Odyssey, that whole through line. Everything besides that is spin-offs. It's a job and gets a new job that's been off. Yeah. The Paper Marios, the RPGs, like Marietti just typing the sports games. That's all, you know, the the nice little branches that come off the tentpole tree that the tentpole pays for. The little creative experiments that the tentpole pays for, that and that which is, after all, what the purpose of a tentpole is supposed to be.
00:26:45
Speaker
Which is funny, because every once in a while, then those little experiments like Smash or KART end up selling more than the tent poles themselves and become the new tent poles. Well, that's why we need the tent pole system, because that's how we create the new things. The new things come off, like we experiment and find interesting new places to go. And if they don't if they don't work, fine, we've still got the tent pole to pay for everything. And if they do work, double hoorays. Did you, I'm, I'm trying to think of examples where, where really shifting an identity has worked well. And when in watching these trailers, Yahtzee, have you watched the Lego horizon trailer yet? Um, like I like a right zero down haven't sat down and watched it. I saw like what we saw of it when Eric was sticking it on the thing last week. Yeah, there it is again. And that kind of tells me everything I need to know, frankly.
00:27:36
Speaker
Like that feels to me like ah an identity change that I can actually get behind because I don't like the identity of the core games. Like I am not a fan of the Horizon games. And so like taking some of the parts that are interesting, like robot dinosaurs and putting them in something else that I might find more interesting, like a kind of tongue in cheeky Lego take on it. um Well, it does doesn't have the identity of a Horizon game. It does very much have the identity of a Lego game as as I understand them. yeah This is like the the the vibe that every LEGO game has, really. Yeah, yeah. I guess LEGO's identity is actually pretty strong because their thing, no matter what vessel you pour it into, has this feeling, even though LEGO movie has a similar vibe as LEGO Star Wars or anything like that. Absolutely modular. Yep. Yeah. Just makes the piss. They must have very good creative controllers, keeping an eye on that, Franjo. Again, Shadow of the Dutch, or the Danish. I don't know which one LEGO is.
00:28:30
Speaker
It would be very easy to just license Lego out to whoever ah paid them the money and just let them make whatever garbage they wanted. But no, it seems like they actually keep a firm hand on the reins there. Yeah, brass on that. At what point, though, during an identity shift, does it sort of become the new identity? Like, the newest Assassin's Creed game coming through, I expect it to be more like Odyssey, more like Origins than, say, you know, Black Flag or even Assassin's Creed 1, 2, 3. I'll tell you what sprung to mind when I think of a series that does maintain an identity and sort of shifts that identity over time.
Impact of Game Identity Shifts
00:29:09
Speaker
Grand Theft Auto. Yeah, of course.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. Grand Theft Auto is a good one. Grand Theft Auto started as 2D games, did all right. ah Fairly noteworthy as like you one of the earliest like open world ah fuck about games. GTA 3 when they brought it into 3D. suddenly it's like the biggest franchise in the world. yeah and it start And they started out like still keeping a little sort of the goofy tone, but then that tone sort of shifted in GTA 4 to make something more brown and gritty and cynical at the time. And that became the GTA identity. but And then they sort of lighted it up, brighted up a bit of a GTA 5 to make a sort of game whether that has the central themes of sort of an nihilism and
00:29:54
Speaker
Uh, almost cheerful nihilism, I'd say, and I'd say, uh, GTA five has maintained that, uh, identity. like Yeah. a Similar. Um, uh, I feel like persona took a similar, uh, route of going from those first three PS1 games and then evolving into Persona 3. And then once Persona 3 landed, that sort of identity has been what the franchise is going forward, obviously, notwithstanding spinoffs and whatnot. But I guess even Rockstar knows you can dabble in other things. You can sort of goof with spinoffs with ah Red Dead's Undead Nightmare, which we talked about a few weeks ago that, you know, um
00:30:40
Speaker
didn't feel, I don't think anyone was up in arms over that because it was obviously like the franchise isn't just this now, this is a offshoot. Like this is a little goof offshoot, which I would, I would actually prefer to have little goof offshoots. I wish, yeah I wish maybe that was a place that more franchise holders could be a little more playful with their, um with their series instead of keeping everything so sort of. and there all i reddensked Red got a sort of ongoing, own of its own, I'd say. Yeah. It's a like, you know, cynicism in the face of a changing world. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Being the last of a dying breed. Yeah. The last of the the old West. that That was the, always the theme. Yeah. How about, uh, how about them where, um,
00:31:34
Speaker
It is a clash of identity, but it's the favored one like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, two different creatives here. And yeah, it's almost like a twin monarchs, right? Who's destined for the crown? yeah well yeah ah Definitely has a favorite, but yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how sometimes like, uh, uh, folks from outside the forest can see the trees a little bit better than the people who are just in it. ah there Are there examples of a series that ah lost its identity and then got it back? I guess Residue's back. Resi lost its juice and then Resi found its groove. I think that was more of a reinvention because Residue 4 is very unlike Resi 1.
00:32:25
Speaker
yeah urgeina They kept Resi 1's formula format going for a while, ah and everyone sort of got sick of it, and then they sort of completely rebuilt it from the ground up for Resi 4, and that's sort of been set in the tone ever since. Yeah, well and then they like had some misfires of 5 and 6, but then tried to do it back to basic things with 7 and 8. Yeah, it's weird, because they it was like, and again, a complete reinvention for Seven. But then they took it straight back to the RE4 formula for the remake series, and now that seems to be fine. That seems to be working fine for them. Yeah, that's what has me curious about if Resident Evil 9 is still going to be first person like Village, or if they're just going to be like, wow, fuck it, let's just make it third person again and just... I president want work am mean, my gut tells me it's going to be third person, Resident Evil 4 style.
00:33:16
Speaker
I think the response to eight in my view would point to that being a sort of, that they'd probably want to draw a line under that now. Yeah. I think they even ended up adding third person modes to eight. If I'm not mistaken, like the DLC was third person where you play as a, what's his name? One hands daughter. Well, well, there you go. So yeah, Ethan windsfields is yes ethan Winters, my mistake not to be confused with Scott Summers. Uh, do you want, are there any last thoughts or do you want to go to the, the super duper chats? Fear there's going to be last thoughts, I guess, uh, fear there's going to be a big identity problem conversation coming within the next like five years or so as live services taking off and early access is now like being seen as a good thing overall, instead of just like, oh, there's some good in amongst a big trash bin, right? Because it it comes down to like,
00:34:13
Speaker
um Was it the early access games losing their identity or gaining one upon completion, but also live service games? To where just a couple of balance changes, it might just be a whole new game. I was about to say, yeah, I guess that's an example of an individual game changing its identity. Cyberpunk, that's not too long ago. It's happening right now. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, Nick ni was talking about that one game that was like a live service game and then went to just only it's good premium. Yeah. Yeah. So like things can just change like that, which is very strange. Well, I guess my point was I still don't think it would be any bad thing if it was the law that you only could only have a certain number of sequels and then you just had to stop.
00:34:59
Speaker
Oh, that sounds nice. And that would make the last one always very exciting. Like, Oh my God, they're getting to the fifth one. That's black. If youre i'm just and you're conscious of some of the, what you're doing is going to be the last thing you can make something really interesting out of it. you know That's why, that's why I always get excited when, when a TV shows I like announce that they have a ending in place. Like the boys just started season four and they're like, season five will be our last season. And I'm like, good. Like I don't want you to go for it. They're going to hold I just, i I want to, every now and again I go to YouTube and watch the final scene of Breaking Bad again. Why do you like watching that horrible machine gun scene? No, not the machine gun scene. You know, it's like, that's just that nice, oh like a quiet ending where he like walks around the lab and then drops dead and then like baby blue by bad finger plays over the soundtrack and the camera slows zooms, the camera slows zooms out of his dead eyes and it's like, yes, that's how you end something.
00:35:59
Speaker
Thank you. That's a good ending. Now everyone can go away. It's been 11 years, and if you haven't watched Breaking Bad yet, that's on you. That is on you. That's not on us. Technically. i didn't say who Hey, I didn't say who dies at the end. Breaking Brad dies at the end. No, Brad. Breaking Brad. It's a good thing he was good at Brad. I imagine. Thought it went awful. Who's to say that Doom's not doing that though, because this is Doom in the Dark Ages. They are going back in time, aren't they? So like, let's say you get your term limit. Sure. Like he can't be Doomguy anymore, but it's like, what about prequels? Cause this is a prequel. Oh man. It doesn't count. breaks over but I like that. I will give you three and then new friend and public domain. You get three, three goes and then public domain.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's the law. I need to do one and a half. We did a one and a half. That's why they don't name that. I don't count titles anymore. Well, obviously that'd have to be a board of inquiry for situations such as that. The third one, warfare two release. Oh God. Yeah. Okay. Super chats.
00:37:14
Speaker
All right, Dr. Theo, who signed dollars and says, the only AAA company I can think of that feels like it has at least some identity is Nintendo. The rest feel identical, borderline confusing. I really hate to be that guy, but yeah, I feel like a lot of identity borders on vibe. It's so like Joe's. Blue's Clues, when they swapped out Steve at a different vibe, but Joe is still cool, right? Like you can, you can replace Yahtzee with another wise cracking Brit, but you know, it's it's going to be a different vibe. It undeniably will be a different vibe. Nintendo feels like a company, but if you went to them with a perfectly good game that was good and would probably sell, but it didn't vibe with their company brand, they would say, nah, I don't want it. I don't think any other company or Steam or anything like that would do the same. It's good for them. You have indie games that want to be on the Switch, you know? You know the vibe, you know what we like.
00:38:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's a culture.
Speculation on Future Game Announcements
00:38:14
Speaker
People have people ask me when stars put back. Everyone's going to be on switch. Will it be revealed during tomorrow morning? Nintendo direct at 9am central that we'll be streaming live here at second wind. I doubt it. Damn. Well, first, I think the person who knows how the fuck to games for snow. And who would be able to get their head around incredibly amateur me solo developer.
00:38:42
Speaker
It's a big barrier. That hat weirdly suits you, Tovey. That's so good. And Dr. Theo comes back with another $5 and says, I already asked you out to this, but what are your guys' guilty displeasure? Games you know are good, but you just can't enjoy for whatever reason. Yeah, I remember this came up on something I was on recently. Anything that Yachts describes as Jiminy Cockthroat. I know they're good enough to make a lot of money. I just can't get into them. That and two artsy-fartsy. I'm sorry, I can't with... Oh, hell yeah, give me that artsy-fartsy. I don't understand the artsy-fartsy thing. I just can't. If they made me... A little bit wild? Yeah, yeah. Brother, it's still a few of few of them. Outer Wild specifically is probably mine, because ah yeah but like I like Artsy Fartsy, I appreciate the Outer Wild and its vibes, but I just... I've never finished it, because after a while I just fall off and I'm not entirely sure why. But you don't understand, yeah, it's it's symbolism for... it's like Yeah, I'm still doing the same thing. still I'm still doing the same thing. You can't use... You can't understand it as an excuse. Yeah, that's a game that on paper should be my gem. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:39:58
Speaker
You know what? Well, I, I've mine, i've I've said mine a thousand times, most popular web Western RPGs. And, uh, I don't Minecraft. I just don't get it. Like I know it's good. I'd still get genres. it's not my go sort the You to train Minecraft like a creativity toy that keeps trying to kill you. um thing Yeah, you have a project in mind. I want to build a giant cathedral to my honor and I've got to build it while also the game my world is trying to kill me. I just don't have that that creative muscle in my brain. You know what I played this weekend? I finally played Hellblade 2. I thought it was a like a pretty major step down from Hellblade 1 story wise. Super gorgeous. That game
00:40:43
Speaker
You can't say that franchise doesn't have an identity. Hellblade 1 and Hellblade 2? Absolutely, keeping that identity. What is that? So there you go. You just need to move the stick a little bit, and everything's really pretty, and then they walk and you hear voices in your head. It's an identity. It doesn't mean it's a good identity. I suppose so. It maintains its identity. I'm not saying, I'm just saying. That story is. Yeah. I thought it was very pretty, and I thought the story was like a major setback. What'd you think of Thor Jr.? For one. The most well-adjusted Norseman.
00:41:13
Speaker
You know what? I like being introduced to someone who's a bloodthirsty slaver. And then like two and a half hours later, being like, all right, no, this is actually a good guy. He's got major daddy issues, and he's the only one that shrugs off the madness. Like, oh, no, I just felt a little funny there. Like, what? Yeah, yeah. No, I just had to tell me, like, yeah, that's fine. The reverse, Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad. You're breaking nice. Breaking nice. ah Uhh... Alex Abishang, who's side-dollar says, what's your favourite gaming controversy? Mine's the petition to recast Far Cry 5's religious cult into Muslims or black gangsters and take place in Canada. ah jumpy real Okay, who the fuck was the petition in there?
00:41:53
Speaker
I mean, we yeah is it a real controversy or like someone with a with a head injury like made a petition like sign this dot org and two people signed it? Yeah, got I got to ah one would be back when actually this always comes up anytime Hindu deities are displayed and they're a little too sexy. There's that one. Guy that, yeah, gets a little weird about it and is just like, this is a mockery of Kali and Ram and I forgot his other name. That's the one, but that he's kind of, I think he's giving it up. Recently though, this, have you guys seen the banana game on Steam?
00:42:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, I don't understand, it's just very modular. It's a chain play, guys. Every three hours you click and it'll give you a ah banana that you can sell in the marketplace and that's it. People are are getting stupid with it and dumping some real money into it and they're calling it a scam and all this other nonsense. I think it's a bad show. I don't think it's a scam. You know, I think people will buy anything. People are putting, there's like microtransactions? No, it's just in the marketplace itself, which I don't know if you know anything about that. That's no experience with TF2 hats.
00:43:03
Speaker
Did you sell a fancy TF2 hat? No, I got out of the TF2 game before hats were a thing. Nevermind then, as I've said. Yeah, no, that's my favorite kind of controversy as of now. Mine. goes ah Sorry, after you. Oh, uh, Mo, mine really quick was in, uh, 2009 for the, uh, EAs, the godfather two, they sent press in a press kit, brass knuckles. And it turns out that that is a federal crime to send that weapon via the mail. And so then they asked everyone to send them back and no one did because they were like, well, I don't want to commit the crime. It's not just going to keep my brass knuckles. ah So there you go. ye Yeah. I don't know. Zero punctuation. That's all after that industry. The devil is ending to he, he, he episode on the hot coffee controversy. It'll be my favorite. Yeah.
00:43:57
Speaker
It's just also so funny when you look at it, how sexless it is. but yeah The funny really funny part is what a huge first people made about it. It is just the least erotic imaginable. Oh my god, fully clothed humping in my policeman murdering simulator. Oh, Christian values shattered. Just like that. Uh, FoxD gives $46.15. Science says, just got a big promotion and raise at work. Here's the first day's surpluses. Thanks for making Mondays much more enjoyable rather than something to dread. Have a drink on me. Thank you very much FoxD. Congrats on your promotion. I'm going to spend a large milkshake and give myself a stomachache. They're booked, they're hired, they're done call height, gives two euros and says, quick, name an example of a no true Scotsman.
Defining a Game's True Identity
00:44:51
Speaker
Uh, uh, no true Scotsman would send their, uh, doomslayer back in time to the middle ages. Well, you don't need to put the Scotsman in there. You could just, you could just say, this isn't a true doom game. And that would be an example of a no true Scotsman. physics there No true doomsman. Is this whole, is this whole episode been a no true Scotsman? Is that what this has been? this whole episode Yeah. Well, no, you're thinking of Quasimodo, the Notre Dame guy. That's good. but all oh good
00:45:25
Speaker
Alex Armstrong gives $5, says, IP is having no identity can be good. Mario can literally do anything and all the fans love it. Then again, Sonic can't do that because fans make it weird. It's weird that you present Mario as an IP that has no identity, Alex Armstrong, frankly. Yeah. I would say that's an IP that has a very clear identity. It's Mario. oh You look at a picture of Mario and say, Hey, that's Mario. I think the core games are, yeah, have have a very, uh, very strong identity. And then it's the offshoots that don't, but like we said, the offshoots, that's what they're kind of there for. Identifiable than Jesus. Like that's why they had to get Chris Pratt of all people, someone with no identity to voice the very identifiable character. There you go.
00:46:10
Speaker
ah Dale Mallows gives $5 and says, just checking in real quick to tell you I got a shit. I'll listen to the pod later. Toodles. That's a really long shit if it's gonna take you to our podcast. yeah Yeah. Wipe off already. but ah The Piss Bandit. The Piss Bandit gives $5 and says, why should those filthy commoners get to know about anything? It could get in the way of them giving us their money. Speaking of the voice of the AAA publisher there, perhaps. You don't like it, Mal? rest
00:46:41
Speaker
at least more playable demos assholes like what steam indie games do yeah and keep them up but maybe don't have them all in one week oh for only a week maybe spread the bottle yeah let's go do it before the fest after the fest please Yeah, if you could if you could design your demo with the understanding that we'd be playing it for one minute each, then people would that would probably take rise more to the challenge there. Because how do we summarize our game in one minute of gameplay? ah Yeah, yeah, I don't want to be that guy. But some of some of the demos during the next fest, you're definitely ah sort of like I'm the only game you're gonna play this year. Maybe even I'm the only game you'll ever ever played.
00:47:24
Speaker
Also, just please include but basic options like ah being able to resize the game window or um being able to lower the volume. you know Now I brought it up. That actually sounds like it would be a really good challenge for an indie game developer. I'd say, Hey, you you're good. You have to make a demo that will be over in one minute. How are you going to show off your core gameplay, your core, uh, vibes, your core themes? 60 seconds. and that That would be a really useful, 60 seconds of animal. but you shall not just That would be a really useful creative exercise for a creator. That's just a game jam. No.
00:48:00
Speaker
but it's less like make a full game and that's only 60 seconds long and more of you have a game. What 60 seconds slice is can be indicative like a yeah movie. You could do that. You could take a minute of a movie and be like, here's yeah the tone we're going for. Here's like something we're really proud of aware with a game. Like how do you onboard someone within 60 seconds while exactly showing off what's cool about it? Not just the opening 60 seconds of a game, which might not be the strongest. I'm always banging on about, uh, making sure you have a strong core gameplay loop. That's what you'd need. That's all you want to see. The minute long loop of your game. um like Anyway, Raphael Sampaio gives five R dollars and says finally played portal recently and Yahtzee was right. That game truly has no flaws. Were you the only person to say that about porn? Well, it's the only game I've ever said that about. Yeah.
00:48:52
Speaker
as was it historically speaking. Portal 1 might not have any flaws. Portal 2, a little too long. Just a smidge too long. Yeah. As I've said before, Portal, it's still a good game, but it's like Portal 1 was three perfect cherries, and Portal 2 is five perfect cherries and a handful of sawdust. Sure. The only perfect game is Tetris. Nice, lean, clean. Brought down the USSR. But where's the skill tree? Brought down the USSR. Where's the different colored goop that makes you do things differently? There you go. Tsunami Dushin gives $20 and then says, nah, thanks for the money, Tsunami Dushin. Madeline Argentus gives 10 PLNs and says, the one game get me hyped from SGF was Spitterhead. You know what? I was hyped on that just in the way Marty was describing it last week. Slitterhead. I'm so excited for Slitterhead.
00:49:50
Speaker
It sounds like it would be a fun game. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be Godi. And it's by the Silent Hill devs, no less. Yeah, Team Silent. Oh, geez. Um, where are we? Yeah. Uh, FoxD gives $5 and says, create a thumbprint is just a less charitable way of saying signature style. Look at the Haunted Chocolatier trailers or a delta rune. Why is that less charitable, VoxD? I think that's just re-wording of creative thumbprint. Yeah. That creative thumbprint is a good thing. Because there's no alliteration. I don't think that's cool. Yeah, I think that's what we're talking about when we talk about it. ah Old 177 gives $10 and says, if a franchise stays the same, it's criticized for being stagnant. If it changes, it's criticized for losing its identity. The only thing they can do to retain goodwill is to end and be missed.
00:50:43
Speaker
Uh, I agree with that sentiment, old under seven, seven, as I say, we three and your house, as we say, that should be the law. I mean, there is no way that silent Hills would have been able to, uh, what would would have been as high in people's esteem as PT is because we never got the thing. Silent Hill to silent Hills would have absolutely had flaws that people would have complained about. Whereas PT, everyone sees as this beautiful little thing because it was never allowed to blossom.
00:51:14
Speaker
Uh, Jonathan Griffin gives $9 and says, it's unlikely, but any chance Starstruck Vagabond gets a Mac port one day. I've heard Mac's harder to dev for, but I've always wondered what that means. Well, I'll tell you, Jonathan Griffin, because I, uh, when I was making it The Consuming Shadow, my producer at the time encouraged me to do a Mac port. But to do that, i had first I had to buy a Mac, so I had to get a second random one. Can't develop for Mac on PC. Oh, good lord, no. Can't taint the ivory walled garden of Mac iOS with code from something else. And in order to to make it, I had to jump through who knows how many fucking hoops just to make sure that the game was assigned with whatever internal bullshit iOS needs to run this car its shit.
00:52:01
Speaker
And then you put it on the Mac store, but it doesn't stay there. You got to keep paying for an app developer license to be able to continue selling your stuff on the store, even like long after you put it out there. And frankly, I couldn't be asked. So after like ah yeah a year or so, because even if it's not being on the Mac store and no one complained. Well, that's just three things. Was it Steve Jobs?
00:52:28
Speaker
But that's why i all I really cannot be asked to make Mac ports for anything anymore.
00:52:38
Speaker
Anyway, ah Jackson Jewel, a member for seven months in the Green Gang says games need to stay close to their origins. I'm not sure that's what I was saying. I don't know. Just DLC.
00:52:54
Speaker
of people always complaining that, oh, it's not it's not it's just a 1.5, it's not 2.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think more of like whatever the first thing is, then the identity is like set in stone. And I don't i don't think that's necessarily true. I think there's a lot of franchises that have sort of morphed throughout the years to become something. You mentioned Resi, for instance, or how Zelda has morphed to become something arguably better than what it was at the start at times. And then, uh, an example, strongest two dollars and says spinoffs can still have identity far cry three blood dragon. Yeah. I think we're saying that this, but but it's, it's the identity of far cry three blood dragon is not in my opinion related to the identity of far cry proper in the same way that the identity of Mario spinoffs, they might be good. A smash is great. A cart is great. I don't associate it with the same identity that mar a new Mario game would have. Hmm.
00:53:54
Speaker
Yeah, and didn't hurt that the the Blood Dragon was quite good and funny in its own right. you ah Rafael Sampayo gives five R dollars and says, a franchise that I feel managed to change an identity well was Ys. Changed its gameplay style three times while keeping the fundamentals the same. Ys. Well, actually. What was that? The first Ys game. The first Ys game was like ah an RPG where you didn't have an attack button. It was an action RPG with no attack button. You attacked things by running into them. Just by holding your sword out, going if, if, and just walking forward and backwards and forwards into the deal over and over again. Jesus was always like a little bit behind the rest of the industry, but you know, it's carved out a little niche for itself.
00:54:43
Speaker
almost
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, I would say, I mean, Final Fantasy, we did a whole episode on it last, whenever 16 came out last summer or whatever. Um, and that's a series that's kind of reinvented itself multiple times throughout the generations. I played, uh, East Orogen, East Oath in Felgana, which had a sort of, they were fun. They had a sort of Castlevania-esque emphasis on interesting boss fights. And then of course there was East Monstrum Nox, which was something else entirely, which I recommend if you like big titty anime girls. All right. You heard it here. Perfect. Game of the year. Nice pairing with weathering waves. through Well, if you like your games to be basically nothing but big titty anime girls, then sure. Play some weathering waves.
00:55:31
Speaker
ah where I never thought about the word weathering until I watched the the cut of your um fully ramblymatic. I never thought about the word weathering. And I was like, I don't know what weathering is. It's so a slightly archaic word, but it is a word. But I also don't know. It describes what things do in a violent wind, basically. Weather in Northern English. even So weathering, weathering waves makes sense. But weathering heights, like you mentioned, I don't get it.
00:56:00
Speaker
It's a song by a very high pitched lady. There you go. ah Jackson Jewell gives $2 or says or just become a new franchise. Yeah, when can you just take off and make a new thing? I wonder. Well, firstly, you have to be successful and you can't really count on success in your first release. I mean, that's the mistake the new Mummy film made. Sure. Yeah. I mean, there's but people also said, uh, why, why can't, why wasn't Doom the Dark Ages just called Hexen? And the reason is because the millions of copies of the game would not be sold if it was called Hexen compared to Doom the Dark Ages. And that fucking sucks.
00:56:42
Speaker
But that is the truth. Millions of people are going to buy this game because it has the word doom on it. And if it didn't have the word doom on it, people would not buy those people. I would argue that Resident Evil seven would have sold and done just as well if it hadn't been called resale. Don Ring got a bunch of normies who did not know is from software.
00:57:06
Speaker
There you go. Yeah. they're Like, oh, yeah. And I guess the ah I think the um Yeah, the counter, the other side to it is if you put a number too big, people might be like, I can't. do A 16th Final Fantasy? I can't start now. That's too deep into it. like That's the one piece of video games. I'm not touching that. yeah Armored Core 6? Nailed out. It's fine. I can hop in. Yeah. I don't know. I guess, yeah, they don't they just don't care. FromSoft doesn't care. Speaking of Elden Ring, I got all caught up. i'm I'm all ready for the DLC. A beat Moog? I'm ready to touch that egg. I hope it's not there. I generally hope it's like... Fucking somewhere else. He's just, no one hit him. Yeah. I know. He wants to be talking about the Elden Ring goes there, but I'm officially, uh,
00:57:54
Speaker
you know, kind of into my souls like fatigue. I never finished Elden Ring and I don't know if the prospect of going back and play it again just makes me go. You really, i um you miss the gun, don't you? From another crab's treasure. Yeah. What if they put the guns on the crab tree? I'm still playing Dark Souls 1. Well, obviously I'd be all over that. After, after that thing we've done. Dark Souls 1's really good. I'm like, yeah, give me a straight player build again. Easy mode, but. Yeah, so good. But now let's see that question real quick. Uh, Wesley Thomas. Sorry. Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia. They did the branching thing and did pretty well there. Oh. Is that just Assassin's Creed? Or is it actually something that can help? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's like when you change the name, when like the name has been ruined, I guess. Hmm.
00:58:51
Speaker
I don't know. Well anyway, Wesley Thomas-Gusard dollars says, I know this is off topic, but I noticed that pilot math seemingly has no swear word that maps to addition. Is it so bad? Nobody dares utter it. Oh, I don't know. I guess I just never came to mind. I guess it would have been dish ah in the same way track was used in place of subtraction. You're Jack McCown. said nothinghen I guess you could say dish as a word to mean sort of disrespecting someone. Hey, that guy's dishing me. it may motors That would have probably fallen into parlance. He made his own language for his books, Marty. Oh, I was going to be like Frost definitely. Frost doesn't know what pilot math is. I definitely know what pilot math is, but explain it to Frost.
00:59:33
Speaker
It's a reference to my galaxy for food series. See, afraid it's a reference to did you pe like all good sci fi like all good sci fi franchises. I made up my own swear word language wondering if like that was something you just wanted to do or if that was the because of clockwork orange.
00:59:50
Speaker
I might have had more to do with Red Dwarf, because Red Dwarf had their own swearing language. Everything was smeg this and smeg that and smeg off, you smeg it and smeg her. Does Star Trek have? Who kind of Star Wars does? Firefly does? Farscape has one. Everything's Frel in that. Get your Frel-ing hands off something. Frel-ing.
01:00:18
Speaker
Uh, didn't, um, Battlestar Galactica have one? I never watched that. That's a big blind spot for me. Anyway, Severin gives 1,000 RSDs, whatever they are, and says how Games Workshop handles Warhammer IP is an interesting example. They just hand out licenses to use the IP to anyone who pitches something profitable stroke interesting. And because of that, we end with with a bunch of genres. Yeah, right. It's doing that a bit. Yeah. as i said it's As I said, it's weird that LEGO doesn't do that. That LEGO seems to retain creative control over all the all the games and films and stuff.
01:00:54
Speaker
also are the Serbian dinner. Oh, a Serbian person. oh First one I've ever seen. Uh, yeah. Right. It does that with their, um, current IP. What was it? Mage seeker and arch fade. Yeah. Just like, like a flat chance. Just like hands it out. And now they have, um, I think like an RTS an action platformer. visual novels coming probably.
01:01:28
Speaker
Uh, Sean Harriman remember for six months and says, new Witcher and no Geralt. He essential to identity. Oh, I think ah interesting. Yeah. I would have said so. Cause like the, he is the titular Witcher. He is the Witcher occupation too. It's not like, you know, be by another duty, which is like, i'd I'd be fully down to just help.
01:01:53
Speaker
But who would be the Witcher of the two witches? ah Who witches the Witcher? Yeah, ah which one would be the Witchist? Yeah, like they could have gotten a they could have assassins created it and every Witcher just have a different one because Geralt is the White Wolf specifically of the Witchers. so that That was Jon Snow as well, wasn't there in Game of Thrones? so You know nothing, Jon Snow. Oh, yeah. They, he was the white, they call him the white wolf towards the end. Game of Thrones was great. Cause cause he had a pair of white wolf. that was't that much didn't but
01:02:31
Speaker
Didn't put as much thought into it, I guess. but sovereign gives 20 euros, says, Hi, guys, do you think developers should be allowed to openly fight back against critics they disagree with? Yes, I'll admit, this question was kind of inspired by what happened to last week's fully RAM, not trying to stir shit. Sounds like you're trying to stir shit. The developer sort of acknowledged they were in the wrong on in that particular case. I mean, that aside. Did you hear about this? Yeah, I've seen it, but that aside, it's not like a developer. We're talking shit. Yeah, they can talk shit back. What presidents is. Allowed? We can't say no. Just don't slap them. Well, obviously, obviously, it's allowed. But I personally take have a policy of never responded to criticism because, you know, don't, as they say, don't stress about the people who hate you just focus on pleasing the people who still like you.
01:03:25
Speaker
And it can feel very tempting to want to set people right. There could be a big temptation to set people right, but there's no there's no magic combination of words that's going to change the mind of someone who's decided they didn't like someone. So don't even bother. Don't engage. I've survived 20 years on the internet. Just keep out of it, you'll have a much happier life. That's something Nick should listen to. But he never does. I mean, in the end, their opinions, right? You can't say someone's opinion is wrong or right, because they're not opinions. No, exactly. Exactly. No. So you can't change someone's opinion by calling them a twat. Essentially, if I were to say Yahtzee's opinion is wrong, it's me invalidating his experience as a human. I was like, no, you didn't. Yahtzee, I heard you giggling. You quite loved that game.
01:04:11
Speaker
well Yeah, you can't you can't say someone's opinion is wrong because they are the authority on their own opinion.
01:04:21
Speaker
Anyway, ah fungus finder gives $2 and says 9am. I love the smell of second wind in the morning. That was napalm. That was more apocalypse now. I don't know what time zone you're in. Uh, Ryan Betts give side dollars and says the no true Scotsman argument has never been more relevant except for maybe last week's topic. Thanks for keeping your identity strong second winter. You all right, Tovey? He's trying to rub his face on the couch. Oh, and i he did some acid. He just wants to like, he wants to feel feel this couch though. field is
01:05:01
Speaker
ah Mr. arms and legs give five Canadian Canadian dollars. says I feel like the defining the identity of Prince of Persia is a love story. Every pop game has one. A shame lost crown missed the mark on that. Yeah, lost crown didn't have one of those commonest teams. Yeah, go forgotten sands didn't have one. I thought the identity of- Yeah, I think Prince of Purchase's game, that identity has definitely changed. Even in that core trilogy, I feel like its identity changed. No, no, worry or Warrior Within doesn't have a love story. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Unless you count a young lady's armor and its mad love affair with her bum crack. It was the oldest time, yeah, of course. SVS Guru 2000 gives 20 euros.
01:05:51
Speaker
and says, Horizon was at its best when it was about discovering ancient secrets. Tribal conflicts and fighting sci-fi eelons didn't do it for me. It should make an Aloy archaeology, archaeology sim after they get the evil AI thing out of their system. I thought, I thought robot dinosaurs were the draw of that franchise. That's amazing. Am I that guy? That seems to be Legos. Am I that guy who sees like that Transformers movie with the dinosaurs and go, cool shit, but that's not what you guys are here for. Sorry. Beast Wars? You think about Beast Wars? I mean, I thought Beast Wars was is like, yeah, more weird mech stuff. But apparently that's not what people want.
01:06:30
Speaker
Always thinking about rehab. What people want is a complicated issue because then we get into the argument of a broad appeal versus niche appeal and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but then you also get those like those franchises that feel like they need to like, oh, our identity was one thing and people were thinking of it and now we need to rehabilitate it and become something else. I guess how deep into that is. How deep into the weeds? Why even put the same name on it? It just makes something new. It just really depends on how you are as a person. right yats You've been doing CPS stuff for 15 years. We seem to accept as a given that franchises must keep going. And my question would be why?
01:07:16
Speaker
I mean, the money thing. Like i I completely agree with you, but I just feel like there's like, I don't have the raw Scott dog in me to fight that fight that I just, I'm not sure is winnable. Like, um, they do it all the time from the creators of bio shock from the janitor of horizon. You could just, that's all you have to put. And then your your new game title. Yeah. Yeah. Like Judas. Yeah. Uh, Mark. Yeah. Yeah. Ken Levine. He's still a name for a second. I thought you were just talking about the dude who killed Jesus yeah due to so one of like yes i du just didn't kill jesus so come on for a bunch of pieces of silver. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was the being nailed to the big bit of wood that killed the guy.
01:08:08
Speaker
Actually, it wasn't even that. It was like being suspended in it for three days. What about the Spear of Longinus featured in the hit anime Neon Genesis Evangelion? That's just for the holy grail thing. Technically, died of asphyxiation.
01:08:25
Speaker
yeah Yeah, that's how you die and when you crucified, technically. You asphyxiate. Asphyxiation? Get the fuck out of here. Is that real? because it's Because your entire body weight sort of pulls down your lungs. What a time to be 11. I learned about that when I was like seven in church. yeah very early it Seems very early. early.
01:08:46
Speaker
Yeah. um but Also, they're more likely to put the nails through the wrist bones and not the palm. you Because if you put it in the palm, that will just put your whole weight on that, that will just rip straight out. Perfect. Anyway.
01:09:04
Speaker
ah Margaret Selman, you've said this, what are your feelings on franchises with different stories and characters for each or almost each iteration versus direct sequels? and like and So what are we talking about here? Right. Like the, uh, the dark pictures anthology. So what we're talking about was dead space three. eyes yeah Yes. Nevermind. I thought, uh, far cry, I guess are far cry changes his characters. Yes. Yeah. granded children and autoto Yeah. I like those. Yeah. I don't, I like if, if, uh, if a story is interesting enough or a character is interesting enough to continue, then great. Um,
01:09:42
Speaker
I don't feel like I should be. Like those franchises tell different stories with each game, but they have the same vibes. Yeah, very much so. Yeah. It's not like American Horror Story. You know, it we're just, we're just creating vibes, but we do it by taking a different route each time. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Laurie gives six euros as Nintendo isn't getting off squad free, but Paper Mario franchise lost its identity pretty hard, only bearing a surface level resemblance. Can I spin off, lose its identity? I think they just didn't really know what to do with Paper Mario. Oh, okay. And again, they want to make a new...
01:10:22
Speaker
Wanna make a new RPG with slightly different combat mechanics? Ah, we'll just slap Paper Mario onto it. And we don't wanna pay Square, so we can't be associated with my RPG anymore. Um... Yeah, I also feel like... Paper Mario, like it was only two games, like the Thousand Year Door obviously felt like a, oh, we're going to take what the first game was about and and really build upon it. And then from there, each game was like, oh, we got to throw in
Unique Game Features and Their Impact
01:10:47
Speaker
a wrinkle. We got to throw in a wrinkle. There's got to be color. There's got to be, there's got to be dimension shifting. There's got to be stamps, stickers. I think Super Paper Mario was pretty good.
01:10:58
Speaker
for what it was. Yeah. I need to, I need to go back. I've i never played the sicko levels. Like after you're done with it, like, like normal Mario games do, like you beat it. And now have like yeah we're going to take it out on, you know, if you keep playing. Yeah. Thousand year door has like the pit of a thousand trials or whatever, where you got to fight like a, got to keep going down and fighting harder and harder battles. Yeah. I think see the big Murray had something similar to
Gaming Culture and Historical Impact
01:11:23
Speaker
that. Anyway, ah Jack once made his $5. I think my favorite controversy is one of the old ones. The 90s raged against Mortal Kombat because it led to the yeah ESRB and gave a tool for game ratings. And then we learned that no one fucking pays attention to ratings anyway, so who cares? Yeah. That was probably one of the more popular ones, or more one of the more, I guess, influential ones.
01:11:43
Speaker
mainstream ones. Well, it's, you know, yeah, I guess it's tricky to defend the game where the dude pulls the other guy's head and spine out and fountains of blood. muffy we But again, when you think back to the original ones, so quaint compared to like the fatalities and the new games where it's like, Oh God, I know. Right. This is a show one of these fights out east to like 1600s peasant that explodes their head. No, that's just their daily life. I mean,
01:12:21
Speaker
in medieval peasant, that's just what happened to their uncle the last time that you could care Bono rolled through town. I did do that. Let's go around for the X. No, no. Let's go back to the 80s. Reagan, Hays Code. There we go. There you go. No, Victoria in England. That's who you want to go to for proof. them Quakers. Uh, Ryan Betts member for four months. in tipcha Thank you very much. And then Tyrell 007 member. Oh, sorry. Ryan said, please God, no one brings, so bring up some of the hedgehog. Oh wait. I just did.
01:12:56
Speaker
Well, let's move hastily on from that. Tyra Hill 007 member for four months in ad free podcast says, so games are several things, art style, music, gameplay, story. How many of these need to be retained to remain franchise name, like a final fantasy, et cetera? What happened there? Yeah. You're like a ship of Theseus there. Well, we're, well, we're not, we're not the fucking board of inquiry, but we are inquiring. ah I mean, but there was like around Final Fantasy 16, people were like, this isn't our final fantasy game. Other people were like, there's crystals. It is. And so it's, it's, I guess it's like, well, we say something often about porn, like, uh, I know yeah can't describe it, but I know it when I see it. Oh, I could describe it, but there's, there's like, we describe production. There's amateur in them. There's different strokes, different folks. Yeah. Final Fantasy nine of all things.
01:13:48
Speaker
great game i mean yeah they like you know I think he possibly had that queued up because we talked about the leak of Final Fantasy IX Remake on a podcast last week. Because he loves it. He's a big VV boy. Eric, VV, Vykart. That's what but the Vykes stands for, VV. Are they remaking or remastering? We don't know yet. It leaked. There was like an epic database leak and a Final Fantasy 9 remake. I imagine it's not going to be like Final Fantasy 7 remake, but it might be zooshed up a little bit. Make the main female character who has the proportions of like a 10 year old into something that people feel less guilty about jerking off to perhaps. Yeah. There you go. Everyone should just be jerking off to Queena, the big frog lady anyways. Get your crank on to her.
01:14:37
Speaker
Were they a her or were they gender neutral? I got that's how they're generally vibes. They were big froggling. So I'm not sure that's all I'm down to. Yeah. Yeah.
Consistency in Franchise Identity
01:14:47
Speaker
Oh, look, it's Eric Whitehouse. Remember for seven months in ad free podcasts, who says I don't think Nintendo series are 100% about identity, but rather a mixed with gameplay formula. This is why main games can be different like fours elder i cream was it Yeah, I don't know, family friendly, bright, colorful. I know what I'm getting when I grab a Nintendo game and I've done that consistently and and that's all I'm there for. On top of the plumber. Yeah, I guess they have like a corporate identity as well, ah like above franchise identity, right? A corporate identity in a way that Sony and Microsoft don't.
01:15:25
Speaker
Yeah. They are like a little minute made juice box. That's what they are. Minute made juice box. Nice. No fuss. Delicious. Have a shot in between your Yeager bombs. oh right ah you go Jack One Spade gives $5 and says, yeah it would be nice if instead of rebooting famous franchises, they rebooted Dead Ones, Bonk, Bubsy, Gex, Dungeon Explorer, Vector Man, Primal Rage.
Potential Revival of Classic Franchises
01:15:52
Speaker
I'll convince the CEOs to double down on things that failed to make money the first time.
01:15:59
Speaker
Yeah. Call up fucking Eve Guimo and explain. yeah so words with we Morbius. They put him back in theaters. We could do it for primal rage. I mean, we're getting, uh, we're getting the the three Gex games in our remastered trilogy. So maybe this is the beginning of the Gex assance. Those jokes are not gonna hold up. Well, I'm bored when this game comes out. Oh my God, it is bad. I hope it's just like targeted anti-woke jokes. That's all it is. It's just gags going like, is the glass half full or half empty? ah Why don't we ask the glass?
01:16:41
Speaker
and
01:16:44
Speaker
Uh, Mr. Arms and legs gives five Canadian dollars. It says, yeah, see how many years of not playing a soul's like, will it take for you to be cured from a soul's like the fatigue? welcome of the crabs i help you I was about to bring that up, yes. I really liked Crab's Treasure. I played it through to the end and everything. And a lot of the reasons why I liked it, because it wasn't really incredibly difficult. It didn't feel like it needed to be more difficult with each one. It didn't feel like it was like beating me about the face and neck every time I tried to play it. And more recently, after Ayati tried it, I've been continuing through with nine souls. And actually rather enjoying that.
01:17:21
Speaker
Because again, I don't feel like it's beating the snot out of me the whole time. And as long as I focus and learn to keep my parry up, then I'm getting through that quite comfortably. ah Did you also keep playing Arctic Eggs? No, i've I've let that fall on the wayside, I'm afraid. Oh, that's a shame, yeah. I've noticed during the next fest a lot of these, at least they were tags, soulslikes, and sometimes in the description, they are leaning towards, um I don't know, I wouldn't call them cozy, but they're definitely leaning more towards hack and slash flintlock. um Eric can go ahead and show that one up there. Soulslike and the like, here's the big boss and the bonfire presentation, everything aside from, as Yahtzee said, they're beating the hell out of me. The platforming even works.
01:18:04
Speaker
There's like, we're starting to just go back towards, I guess, DMC Bayonetta, more so than actual souls likes now. But Estes, we'll have to keep the Estes, of course. Ah, yes. So I guess might we might be seeing traditional style God of War come back.
Why Iconic Franchises Persist
01:18:21
Speaker
Who knows? A cycle. Um, uh, number 10, five gives $5 and says, do you think long running franchises like Pokemon Sonic and Mario should end? I don't think they could end at this point. but then I think the franchise is you're talking about to sort of crossed over to the point where there's pretty much always going to, that's video always going to be coming back. Even if there's ah like a big stinker one, uh, all they'll have to do is announce a new one and all will be forgiven. Yeah.
01:18:52
Speaker
It's just an institution at this point. Yeah, like essentially government mandated. Yeah, ah you couldn't you couldn't drop it. There's nothing to replace it. I always ask. I always ask every time they need to get a new Sonic game. Where the fuck is this hidden massive Sonic fan base that keeps buying all this shit and making it profitable? They must exist. They're just all like hiding in the basement somewhere like chuds. Maybe they're hate gaming. Can't have a list of humanoid underdwellers. Maybe they're hate gaming. There's hate watching. Maybe it's got a hate fan base. I bet there's a lot of Sonic fans who are just normal and they're like, Oh damn, a new Sonic games. I think that's just a lot of normos out there.
01:19:44
Speaker
Well, if you're still really looking forward to the next Sonic game after you've played some of the really atrocious parties, played them all, then there's clearly not something, there's clearly is something wrong with your pattern recognition ability. Yeah, but then we get Sonic Frontiers as both both you and I agree. One of the best games of 2022. So it wasn't good. We had such a good time streaming it. We had a lot of smiles. We told some jokes to each other.
01:20:09
Speaker
Sheik supposed to give us 5.99 euros and says less than three Toffee, Frost, and Mary. Hey, it's me. Mary. Do you hear that Toffee? We're married now. Oh, no. You may kiss. You may kiss the bride. Yeah, find out. That almost like like a fuck kill Mary, but it was a... Toffee, Frost. You gotta choose. Frost, Toffee, Mary. so I suppose to come back with $5.99 and says here's some money to turn queef struck vegan to become franchised. Where's your sequel? Yeah. like buy the fuck Buy the fucking game if that's what you want. Be the change you want to see in the world. still wantt like big up Big content update. Big update coming at the end of the month. Around the time of the Steam Summer Sale actually.
01:21:05
Speaker
Well, Mike activated commands might be. Might be the time to finally take it out.
01:21:13
Speaker
Sheik supposed to again, gives 599 three 599s in a row can't stop him. And it says from software is going Blizzacti way release mostly same game with just enough change to warrant 60 euro dollar price. Let's see here. Okay. Should I suppose you're very early to the anti, uh, from soft wave. but So I don't, I don't think that wave of Chris. Yeah. The wave is coming. We'll get there. The anti from soft storm is coming. I promise you, it's just not here yet. So you're just little not when the last game they released went open world.
Innovation vs. Repetition in Game Design
01:21:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, there's going to be a party in here. It's just the doors aren't open yet. So you gotta, you gotta figure out something else to do for a while until they released that one game where people go and say,
01:21:57
Speaker
I am so excited for that urge tree. I want to see what's going on in the shadow. There's going to be a bunch of mean dudes. There's a gator down there. Just sit on the trailer. A whole gator? We know. Buy you. Oh, moto me. Buy you, gaming. and i'm I'm not sure what it would have taken me to go back to playing Elden Ring, but so calling the DLC shadow of such and such probably didn't help. What about the promise of a gate of a possible gator sighting in the trailer? Oh my goodness.
01:22:31
Speaker
I guess I'll watch lots of YouTube videos of people seeing if the Gator boss can kill the giant lobster boss. There you go. There you go. Jewel Rogue is two euros and says, Jesus also died with a boner on the cross, a hero. Well, I don't know if I've seen that in all the Renaissance paintings depicting it. It was after the great crudening, where they bashed away the genitalia of all the statues and put figs on them. Crudening? I forgot the real name for it. Yeah, I forgot who that was. An emperor? Someone came into power, was like, that's enough cock in the workspace. Yeah. And took it all down. And prescribed, collected them, kept them for himself. I respect my weird marble cocks everywhere. Quite the museum you could make.
01:23:24
Speaker
Dr. Theo gives five dollars says quiet place game releases trailer. No real gameplay. No release date only says this year. Year already half over. Saber interactive. Okay, releasing. a I was so excited what I saw at this morning. Yeah, a trailer for us quiet place game. It's like a first person horror game where you can't make noises or else the monsters get you. And I we are so back for movie tie in schlock. And I'm excited. I hope this is ushers in a wave where every time a big blockbuster comes out, we get a schlocky tie in game with it. Bring it back. I miss it. Well, a quiet place does feel like a pretty natural video game mechanic sort of premise, isn't it? It's very quiet in isolation, is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it'd be even more quiet. It'd be quieter. It's got to be even quieter. No believe me so no babies. No babies. No babies in this world. Dr. Theo comes back with another $5. It says, I've seen people say Dead by Daylight lost its identity, but I disagree. Still feels like a Hall of Fame of Horror, even the new D and&D chapter.
01:24:22
Speaker
even the new D and&D chapter. Yeah, I've been watching a couple of YouTube videos on like, ah the actual gameplay of Dead by Daylight. Apparently, it's really badly balanced. It's a multiplayer. They tried. But they had a crack at making like a pro scene for it, which completely failed and fell on its ass because the game's so horribly bad. Yeah, it's an asymmetrical multiplayer game with forced matchmaking. That's a so not Not in that sense. It's like some players just the give the killers the runaround and the killers just get stuck, getting teased for the entire run. I used to play both more killers. Pretty rough stuff. ah their lo If anything, they didn't have an identity when they started and then they kind of canonized it. But it's always been that basically the entity just grabs random people and brings them to this
01:25:18
Speaker
weird purgatory space and does the same for villains. So that's, that's just always been the identity. And I think it still stays on track. You know, one day you're going to get Scooby-Doo and one of those.
01:25:30
Speaker
right and nice you go Well, speaking of. Kurt Horsting gives $10 and says, I hope no one has made you play multiverse as post beta. It's amazing how WB took a year to make a game worse in every way. A 30 frame input buffer is criminal. We've got a fighting game pro in the chat. oh God, it was awful. We played it and Will and I played that last week. Of course, you won't catch. Who did you main? Black Adam is the only one that felt like no matter what I pressed, he would just kind of take control and string out a 30 hit combo. Oh my God. Yeah. You're never going to catch me whining during a better with friends because it's all about the having fun with the friends. But that was atrocious. We have this list. We're making mentally of like worst experience so far. I think as far as functioning game, that is
01:26:21
Speaker
Get right above Red Bull. Yeah, that was, that was rough. Rip. But they might put a character from franchise you like in it. Think about that. You'll have to, you'll have to play it there. I love nothing. Yeah. I'm fine. but logan ro succession Yeah, they can put Walter White. us I was hoping he'd be in Tekken. No, he just announced the trailer.
01:26:51
Speaker
Who would be the worst imaginable ah addition to multiverses? Kevin Spacey in House of Cards. They should put Larry David from Kirby Enthusiasm in there. I think he'd have a great time.
01:27:11
Speaker
FoxD gives us $5 and says, I've read somewhere that Sonic apparently has a big customer base among Christian parents buying the games for their kids. Well, it's a good thing none of them saw the kissing scene from Sonic 2006. In a way. No, Christian parents love two things. ah Very loose gun control and marrying the first human woman. You're like, why are my women the way I like my gun control?
01:27:39
Speaker
Is that a thing? Yeah. Yeah. And fungus finder gives $2. It says Dem der Gator gon et dat krulfish hooey chair. That was close. All fair. That was good. Just like Jim Cummings. I thought your Cajun accent would be better. Wow. I wasn't, I was just reading it phonetically. I didn't have a, I don't have a Cajun accent. No. A child. Wow. That was something that was impressive. Uh, and then with hisism gives five dollars and says just finished V rising just now. Thanks for keeping me entertained against during the final boss. you like that Oh, it's our honor. Congratulations on finishing rising. I was surprised to hear rising has an ending at all. Frankly. That's the whole buildup. yeah
01:28:32
Speaker
ah Just wondering why Eric put a black bar over Tovey there. He's been censored. Turned around to see him. He's not, he's notching his bits. Notching his bits right into the camera. Right in the perfect spot for the camera to see. Excellent goof. Thanks Tovey. Very enchanting sound to make right in my ear as well. of that Well, that was a lot of the superchats, actually. We did it. So thanks, thanks, thanks for indulging us as we navigated our way this through this very vague idea of what is valid and what isn't. I was the articulator, I was joined by Marty, who's in that direction and crossed who's in that direction.
01:29:20
Speaker
Well done. Uh, things to plug. Uh, I've got a new fully Ramblamatic of dropping on Wednesday, as we've already inferred earlier, it is on the subject of weathering waves. Try to guess how dismissive I'm going to be of the whole thing. Oh, there you go. No good cause to get through. What's that? Do not have a good podcast to get through. Oh, I had my podcasts, but even I had to pause those for like the story cutscenes. And that's where the real pain was. Hey, how dare you interrupt my podcast while I'm gaming? Absolutely.
01:29:56
Speaker
ah So that's that. Yahtzee tries on Wednesday as always. I haven't quite decided what I'm going to play. Someone threw out lingo this morning, which is apparently a word puzzle game that didn't get enough attention. And you know how I like my word puzzles. Or is it? They call lingo? Yeah, lingo. I came in 2021, apparently. Oh, well oh yeah, I saw a video of this the first person puzzle game. Yeah, apparently it's got word puzzles. I like word puzzles. You do like word puzzles?
01:30:34
Speaker
And yes, Semiramblematic will be dropping on Thursday as well. Oh, ooh, ooh. Takes two weeks for them to be made, so like so I almost forget what they're about by the time they actually come out. This one's going to be fun. It's about depictions of female protagonists in video games. Yeah. Oh, get your get your ah nose holding equipment out for when you read the comments on that one.
01:31:03
Speaker
and yeah i think that's it for me this week
01:31:07
Speaker
lovely say ah ma you know roasted ah I will be back with Casey in about 90 minutes. We'll be doing a cheeky little one-hour sponsor stream of a game called void rot ah Which looks like a very nice hand-drawn 2d action platformer in the vein of your Hollow Knight So your nine souls tune in for that the hot muddy energy crew will be back normal time tonight playing crypt master Which is another another it's a type them up of a little dungeon crawling RPG type them up with a cool aesthetic and
01:31:40
Speaker
Tune in for that. And then I've been playing that but spoiler alert. I actually quite like it. Oh, look at that. Put it in the pile pile of games. Yahtzee gives a seal of approval too. Uh, and then, uh, yeah, like I mentioned, uh, tomorrow, Jimmy will be joining me in the morning, uh, 9am, uh, central. So have get your coffee and your breakfast and we'll be watching the Nintendo direct. Should be fun. Nice Danish. How about you, Frost? I like that hat. Yeah. Uh, I see a new cold take came out talking about, uh,
01:32:13
Speaker
High-risk hypocrisy. That's what I should have been titled, good thing. That's such a good... Alliteration does so well on algorithms. And then ah the usual streams. Better with friends tomorrow. All that good stuff. Aww. Not missing anything. Nah. Same as usual. We leave now. We hunger. Well, we got two more superchats first. FoxD gives two dollars and says Toffee the Miller Test Edition. And then beneath 1-1-1-1 gives 20 Swedish krono and says, I wish to hear Frost sing falsetto. so again Take it away. ah again
01:32:47
Speaker
so but the darkness I believe. I believe in a thing. Hold on. What was that? Well, I was I can't do full set of at all. I'm like, Oh, that's right. It gets out on you. No, I used to use to roam the hallways of a old warehouse chanting Ave Maria to myself, hoping somebody would stumble in and I would create the urban legend. Yeah. that there was like a ghost. Cause we had no security. So I was just hoping I'd like freak people out away. Yeah. What's your, uh, octave range for us? No idea. Like it gets down real low. Like
01:33:29
Speaker
well yeah Well, you start as low as you can go, then you go, do re mi fa so la ti do, do re mi fa so la ti do. That's about as high as I get um let's go. It's got gaps. but Okay, let's give it a go. Nice little. who Do re mi fa so la ti do. And then you got to hit falsetto. Do re mi fa so do. That's it. Okay, well, you're completely off key. Yeah, but I don't know where those go. Aside from like, I lost my keys. It's just like, I can't put the keys to them, but I have good pitch, whatever it's called. There's no training. Yeah. Freddie Mercury had a three octave voice apparently.
01:34:16
Speaker
Or was it a five octave course? That's so many octaves. He had a crazy, he had a crazy number of octaves that Freddie Mercury about. He's got the highest. Bon Jovi. adele Oh, Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi. Yeah, very one. Yeah. Cause if you listen to a song like a crazy little thing called love, you can hear how low Freddie Mercury is capable of going. We all know he can go high, yeah but he goes really low in crazy little thing called love. Crazy little thing called love. That's a good song. With a $10 don't know second wind musical fund. It'll happen. Second one will be a musical.
01:35:01
Speaker
I did that Cecilia song for Ventress and I. That's true. I've done my part. Everyone else has to do a solo. I did Stuck in the Middle with You Today. What do you mean? I spoke on word edition. Okay. in My first episode of Archive on Mega Man Legends. I'll create a song. I'll put a song in there. okay Okay, we got to go now. I got to walk this dog. i rest this dog by Bye everyone. See you next time. Dog syndrome. I almost had restless dog syndrome. That's something different. He can see, he can sense it. He can sense it when I'm getting ready to go.
01:35:58
Speaker
you