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00:00:01
Halo Infinite-ly Disappointing & Charles tried to rob Shuhei Yoshida
8 Plays2 years ago
This week Charles recaps his visit to PAX West 2022, Cyberpunk's latest update, Halo's underwhelming update, and looking forward to D23 and Ubisoft this weekend
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Transcript
Summer's End & College Beginnings
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to add to party the friendship simulator masquerading as a new show I'm your host James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles your mod, and I'm joined by Andy K
00:00:27
Speaker
Good evening. Good evening. Summer's over. What? Summer's over. That's right. September 6th. That's it. All your chances to enjoy yourself are over. Welcome to the drudgery of fall. Wait, what? Soon it will be freezing cold and you'll be fighting against the elements to survive. How did this happen? Does summer end?
00:00:51
Speaker
Summer and that's it. The way we're as far as teenagers go. And let's say summer ends at the start of September. Yeah. Yeah. Kids today is the first day of college and schools for most kids. Oh, well, I've been so far removed, forgotten that.
City Living Woes
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, I was realizing, I was remarking with James, the noises outside my apartment must be the young people, the young people turning to school. And I think Andy's really starting to top off on city living. No, no, I'm not. You know, what's the suburbs of Milwaukee? Where can he go? No, I will not. No, I cannot live a suburb life.
00:01:36
Speaker
Absolutely boring. No. Listen. Then your only answer, Andy, is to go higher, where you can't hear the din of the sixth floor of the Lesser's. Well, and I actually like the sound, right? I like the activity and the reminders of life of the people around me. I don't mind that much.
00:02:02
Speaker
You started out by saying it's annoying to me, so I don't think that's true. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What's truly annoying and my efforts to not be a Karen are the bar people at two in the morning honking their horns. That I'm over. That I'm very much over. But that's not steady living. Why are they honking their horns? I have suspicions.
00:02:32
Speaker
of illegal activities going on there. What's what's illegal about honking your horn? I'm telling women to get in the car. Oh, you know, which, you know, I don't know. It's and it's I just wish they wouldn't honk their horn, please. And their music shakes the windows. Why is the music so loud?
00:03:01
Speaker
They don't need to do this, you guys. 2 a.m. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. But I don't know how to get rid of them. We've kind of talked, you know, you should call, you know, maybe call your alderman, right? Get some people involved because they're disturbing the piece. It's not just that's woken up.
00:03:19
Speaker
Hello, I'm a mid 30 year old white man and I'm annoyed with the noise that's going on in my neighborhood. This is not an annoyance. This is your window shaking at 2 a.m. and someone leaning on their horn and people screaming. This is this is not annoyed. I mean, that just sounds like that's just you're living in a high noise area.
00:03:42
Speaker
No, I like the pleasantness of just drunk people talking. I find that nice. I like to hear about their problems or their petty arguments. If they're in love or their best friends, I want to know at all. Did you like a good neighborhood? What's that? This used to be a good neighborhood. This used to be a good neighborhood. For all those people, he says in italicize.
00:04:10
Speaker
I was going to say Andy loves to engage with people, but them not to be unaware that he's engaging with them. Yes, yes. Well, like our latest discussion, the people across the street from me now, I can watch them cook. And I like to think about what they're cooking. I wasn't there for that part of the discussion. I didn't hear about the second hand that you become a gourmet voyeur, as it were.
00:04:36
Speaker
If you see someone cooking, don't you want to know what they're cooking? Yeah. But I mean, listen, listen, Andy, but I don't make excuses for my, my perversions, right? I'm staring into people's homes. I am too. I am right now. They were cooking. They were stirring something on the stove. I wonder what it was. It doesn't make it right, Andy. This means that's just what we do. They can look at me.
00:05:06
Speaker
That's not how consent works. Okay, touche.
TV Show Favorites
00:05:20
Speaker
Nobody come back to that one, huh? I guess you're right. Well, then close your blinds. No, that's still not. No, they shouldn't have to live in a world where they hide. That's right.
00:05:36
Speaker
It's weirdos like you and I and Charles sometimes. No, we all look into other people's homes if they advertise it. No, some people don't. I've had this conversation with other people and they go, why would I? Oh, yeah. They're lying. 100 percent. They're lying. I mean, a lot of people are very self involved in even worse than you.
00:05:58
Speaker
I am selfless. I'm only thinking of others, including what they're cooking. I can also see their TV. And so I like to see if they're playing games or not. They mostly watch sports, so it's pretty boring. But there is there is one joke from the Big Bang Theory that I do actually love and have continued to have stuck in my brain for the longest time, which is
00:06:25
Speaker
One of the characters was like spying on their neighbors through a telescope or something like that. And was it at one point he's like, Hey, come on, we got to go. He goes, shh. The good wife is crying. For some reason that just got me.
00:06:48
Speaker
I support it. It was a good joke. Monkeys are typewriters, as it were. I also liked The Good Wife. I liked that show. Oh, I never watched. You actually watched The Good Wife. I thought we know this now. I love shows about lawyers.
00:07:07
Speaker
Was it about a lawyer? I don't even know. Yeah, yeah, she was a lawyer and she was like scrappy and had to like do it for herself and all this other stuff. And I was like, ah, and then they just talked really fast in it and tech. Andy, do you still have a cable subscription? No.
00:07:25
Speaker
OK. And he's a boomer. No, no, no, no, please no. I have Netflix. Why do I pay for Netflix? Well, Andy, because your new favorite show is on Netflix. Oh, is it? Attorney Wu is on Netflix and that is entirely a lawyer show. Wait, what is drama? I thought you were talking about Jojo. I mean, yeah, that Jojo too. But I think Extraordinary Attorney Wu, which is a K drama,
00:07:54
Speaker
OK, it's something right up your alley. OK. Also, Sandman's pretty good. Is Sandman about lawyers? Yeah, yeah. No, no. But back to this K-dramas, though. No, I need shows about lawyers and I want them to go to the bar after court. She she might do that. OK, I need them to drink hard liquor and talk about their day. Did you watch She-Hulk at Andy?
00:08:25
Speaker
No, but I've legit wanted to watch. You should. It's a lawyer show. You should. It's actually pretty good. And it's pretty funny. OK, I was thinking of like doing a trial or whatever to Disney, but it's actually about her is her. Oh, Andy, lawyers. Andy, you don't need a trial. Hop on your fluff Amelia. Just hop right out of my plan there, buddy.
00:08:52
Speaker
I can stalk on your plan. That is very kind. Oh, no, I've locked my profile. Oh, we could do that. Man, I'll let people in if that's fine. Yeah, you can lock your profile. I'll be at my niece. My niece is on there. I don't want her. Yeah.
00:09:07
Speaker
They'll need to know. Can you watch anything that embarrassing, though, on Disney Plus? Don't ask these. Don't ask questions you don't want answers to, Annie. Listen, Disney Plus, if you don't recall, as Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic. Oh, you mean National Pornographic, am I right? No, I have Pornhub these days.
00:09:35
Speaker
But not on Disney Plus. That's all I'm saying. You can't be embarrassed by what you watch on there. Maybe you're watching a Disney Channel original movie about a girl who controls young boys with her phone. Yeah. Or one of the best shows ever, Phantom of the Megaplex. It's a Disney Channel original movie.
00:09:57
Speaker
And Andy, do you not know about all the Disney Channel original movies aimed at young girls? I don't. They're all hilariously bad. A lot of YouTubers make their fucking life out of like doing reactions to them. Look, I'll I'll I'll give Disney one good thing about this, right? Hmm. Disney Channel original movies used to be that one new movie comes out every month for Disney. Wow, that's the speed.
00:10:26
Speaker
Even if you have multiple teams working on it, the speed of just getting those out there with a very mediocre budget, if that's how many you're putting out every time. They usually have no extras. That's how they do it. It's like the main cast and maybe some filler. That's it. That's it. What about the everyone's favorite brink? OK, I'll bring was good. Is that a lot of the Irish?
00:10:56
Speaker
Are these movies? Charles, let me let me take a real back. The computer wore tennis shoes. Oh, my God. Yeah. But didn't you like Smart House? I did like Smart House, actually. Smart House, I've heard of, but I watched someone like watch it because that had the married with children person on it. Right. Which one? It's Katie.
00:11:24
Speaker
No, it can't. Oh, was it Katie? You're right. It was Katie Seagal. Yeah, I was thinking it was the daughter, but no, it was Katie Seagal. Christina Applegate. Yeah, she's in a lot of those trash movies. Oh, is she really? Well, she gets paid. She gets paid. I don't blame her. Yeah. Wasn't it wasn't she the.
00:11:44
Speaker
No, she wasn't on Roseanne, was she? Seen Applegate? No, no, no. I thought she was firmly in love in the marriage. Who was on Roseanne that went on to do? I know who you're thinking of. Yeah, I can't remember her name. Wasn't it Sarah Chalk? Wasn't it Nock and Elliott?
00:12:04
Speaker
Sarah Chalk was in Roseanne? I think she was. I don't know. Why did Roseanne, like the person have to suck? I loved that show. Well, you know. Go too far. Climb too high.
00:12:19
Speaker
Let's see, filmography, television. Roseanne! She's back. I'll be honest with you, I didn't watch Roseanne as a kid. I watched it a little. I didn't relate to anybody. I think it was on either before or after dinosaurs. It was, it was right at that time. I would instantly turn it off.
00:12:43
Speaker
I love Roseanne. It was about so much who were poor and fought a lot. And I was like, I love this. I saw, I saw white people beyond family matters. Tell us later seasons when he got a little crazy.
00:13:00
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it was crazy enough with, uh, what's it, Stefan. So that's the Stefan or Cal or Cal. Yeah, that's a good time. Anyway, let's just run down the whole TGIF lineup. Let's do this enough though. Boy, this world, I did enjoy. And he doesn't, who doesn't love boy means world. Melissa Joan Hart first crush.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, dude, I know. Melissa Joan Hart. My name is Mr. Michelle. Also, also, I think she has problematic political uses. I recall a Christian. Yeah. Yeah. I saw her in a I saw a reaction in a movie. That's not good. That's not good. I knew her name and then immediately Melissa Joan Hart and then auto complete Trump. Oh, no. All right. OK, OK.
00:13:55
Speaker
Oh, wait, wait, wait. OK, listen, I'm looking at Melissa Joan Hart personal life. Mm hmm. I see a libertarian party. Not the worst thing. Yeah, not good. I said, I said problematic. I didn't say I didn't say that she was terrible. Libertarian suck, too. Yeah, they do, Andy. They do. They suck. Yeah, I think she's also a little ultra religious, too. But which is funny because she played a witch.
00:14:26
Speaker
That's too bad. What about Sarah Michelle Geller? How's she doing? She's married. She's still married to Freddie Prinze Jr., which she. Yeah. Yeah. I saw a news thing about it recently. Oh, well, I hope she's good for that. She deserves it all. Also, I feel like Freddie Prinze Jr. has like aged like a normal human being.
00:14:49
Speaker
Wait, really? I think he doesn't like an age. Well, no, but he hasn't got a lot of work done or anything. Like he just looks like a normal person. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good point. Yeah, he does. He just looks like a normal person. Yeah, good for him. He's very familiar to Sarah Michelle Geller. What else do you want? What's the guy who plays Chandler on Friends? When they did, I didn't they when they did the reunion, he has like the whitest veneers humanly possible.
00:15:19
Speaker
Matthew Perry. Yeah, Matthew Perry. Yeah. If you look up his teeth, he has like the waist on earth. I'm like, Oh, Matthew, I hope that's because your real teeth had a real problem and not because you had a body image issue. That's a shame for him.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah. Um, anyway.
PAX West Anticipation
00:15:37
Speaker
Oh, by the way, guys, speaking of Boy Meets World, there is a, uh, a podcast with, uh, Daniel official, Ryder Strong and Will Freidl from Boy Meets World who played Topanga. Um, what's it, Sean and, uh, older brother, Eric.
00:15:55
Speaker
Uh, and they go through every episode and sometimes they have guest stars from the show and they just talk about each episode on a podcast. By the way, Topanga crush number two. Uh, it's a Topanga still have a crush. She's aged very well. Oh, I haven't looked in a while to collect them residuals. Oh yeah. No. Oh yeah. I have seen her. Yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
Topanga. Oh, that's right. She wasn't that national Lampoon's. Forgot about that. Listen, also, I know this. No, no, no, no. Hold on. Let me tie this all together. Will Friedi also the voice of Batman Beyond Terry. Yep. Yep. He does play Terry McGinnis and.
00:16:42
Speaker
What have we said about Batman Beyond? That it should be the next Batman movie. And were we hear more about that? We talk about the 23 later in this episode, but right now. Oh, oh, maybe not. That's it wouldn't be a D23. I'm just trying to transition. Oh, wait. No, because that's DC. That's that's that's Warner. Yeah. But anyway, Charles risked his life and went to PAX West and I want to hear
PAX West Experience & Highlights
00:17:05
Speaker
about it. That's true. And you didn't come back with Covid. Well, it takes. Well, you got it.
00:17:12
Speaker
That's true. Don't wait a fucking jinx it there. If you got it from anyone, you got it from. That's true. Yeah. Well, you know, let me tell you guys about this one. Last year we talked about how Pax was a very subdued thing. Not many bigger named boots were up and it felt more like a lower level local convention. Mm hmm.
00:17:38
Speaker
This time around, no. Boots seemed to be back to normal. Lots of bigger studios showed up. A lot of cool and convoluted boots were around. Devolver Digital, the publisher of many people's favorite video games, had a movie theater-like booth where the front of it was the movie theater and it was like
00:18:03
Speaker
On the off to the sides and behind were demo boots and stuff all over the place, divided into a bunch of games that they were releasing very soon. That's cool. Yeah, it was pretty sweet. And you could order new merch from them for Cult of the Lamb, their current darling, and is very good game.
00:18:23
Speaker
Um, along with that though, there was Nintendo, uh, being Nintendo, Pokemon was there taking up giant sections just for people to play the Pokemon TCG and give you a pin. Really? That was, that was for the TCG. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. They're pushing that again, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I think they have like a new expansion coming out or something. Okay. Um, and so along with that, we're, um,
00:18:51
Speaker
That's it. I forget what this company used to be but their new name is PlayOn.
00:18:57
Speaker
But it's not spelled. Oh, that's the that was the embrace. Oh, no, it's cock meat. Cook. Cook Media. Cook Media turned out. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's it. It's a publishing company. Cook Media changed their name to play on. But it's L.A. I. Yeah. Yeah. It is spelled P.L.A. I.O.M., which is why on. I actually had to ask a lady over there like, how do you say this?
00:19:25
Speaker
I walked around with the knowledge and authority of a gaming personality media person without ever saying that except for one person that I had to break character for. Andy and I have talked about when I went there was you should cosplay, but I could not cosplay something really elaborate because I'd be walking around
00:19:52
Speaker
No, it's my Alexa. Oh, no. Amazon, here's this talking shit. Oh, well, it brings a flower, damn it. But.
00:20:06
Speaker
over by the indie sections, which I played quite a few of them, which was fun. I happened to run into one Shuhei Yoshida, the former president of PlayStation, and now leading up the indie development department. Some would say that's just kind of his passion or just like for a fun project for retirement.
00:20:31
Speaker
Let me tell you, Shuhei Ishida, really cool guy. And I know that because I hovered near him while in front of a booth for Finji in their new game. I was a teenage ex-coloness, which is like a sort of adventure game, kind of like Stardew Valley, but more adventure, less farming.
00:20:57
Speaker
And you know, you create relationships and stuff. I learned that because while I was standing there, people, the developers at the booth assumed I was interested in their game. And I said, I'm actually here for Shuhei. And they and they laughed. They got it.
00:21:14
Speaker
No, they understood. They understood. And I even had time to talk to them. I was like, well, it looks like he's busy. So tell me about your game. But here's the thing. They were also talking to him. So it's not like the. But.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, I had enough courage to take off my stupid cosplay, which is I was wearing a plumb bob from The Sims to act like a sim person. Very low effort. But enough to pass the cosplay bar.
00:21:47
Speaker
No one could tell you you didn't try, Charles. Yeah, no one could tell you. But as soon as I walked up to him, I yanked it off and dashed into the gravel. I can't have you see me like this. Charles, did anybody stop you for your cosplay? No.
00:22:06
Speaker
That's it. That's it. Not at all. Nobody cares about the Sims. No, no. How embarrassing they must have muttered under their breath as I walked past. But do you really have mods where you can have your kids do drugs in that? I mean, yes. Also, also, I think an expansion just came out like a couple of months ago where you can do drugs. No, I think we can go to high school.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think there's a school one that came out. So, you know, finally, as I walked up to I, I trappidly said, Mr. Yoshida-san, because I was like, listen, I can't act if I could say Yoshida-san and act smug about it. I was like, I should act more. I should just go American and just meet him halfway and say it wrong.
00:23:01
Speaker
But as I went to talk to him, he actually asked me to help take a photo of him and the developers. And so he handed me his phone. And I'm going to tell you, the thought occurred to me to steal his phone twice.
00:23:19
Speaker
He unwittingly gave me his phone, former PlayStation president. I theoretically had the contact information of every major game developer and media personality in my hands. Could you just put your fingerprint right there for me?
00:23:38
Speaker
He's scrolling wildly and taking pictures with your phone before it dies. Literally, the first thought when he handed me was, you could just leave right now. My mind immediately went, no, you respect him. Unless, and then he goes, no, don't do it. What a trusting kind person. Jim Ryan's number was in there, business and personal, I bet. Can you imagine?
00:24:06
Speaker
than Jeff Kelly. That's actually that's probably true. Yeah. All that information just right there. And but I didn't do it. You did the right thing. I gave him a couple of shots for him to choose from. I took like three or four photos, which is smart.
00:24:23
Speaker
And then I asked for a picture of myself and I said, you know, me and my friends do a podcast called I had to party and we love your work. It's a gaming podcast. And he very gently and kindly ignored what I said. I've lost that man. You know what, as he should, that's completely fine. You held his phone. What kind of phone was it? It was an iPhone.
00:24:49
Speaker
Wasn't a Sony phone. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Let me, let me make you regret your decision. Oh, Kojima's number was definitely in there. Oh, I could call him like once a month to be like, Oh, Kojima. So I just feel.
00:25:15
Speaker
Atodashi game will develop. You never you never think of these things in the moment, you know. Oh, my God, he totally had Kojima. Well, still what you are so close to greatness. That's so wonderful. Yeah, that's I know it was really cool. It was very nice. I was taller than him. Not not fully surprised, but he's a short picture.
00:25:42
Speaker
What was that? Do you mind if I bring up the picture? Oh, no, go ahead. I want to look at you. Hey. Oh, I have to sign into our slack.
00:25:54
Speaker
No. I'm not doing that. That was very cool, Charles. Yeah. And you tossed aside the plumb bob, right? Oh, yeah, I do. I dash it to the floor. And guess what? It wasn't made very sternly. So it actually broke that time. I just panicked as I went for that photo. I just threw it. You need to take this off. Can you imagine if you took that photo with a Sims plumb bob? Yeah, I had to Photoshop it off later.
00:26:26
Speaker
Oh, cool. Is that your screen background now? It's not. That's it. Although I will print it out next year and put it next to my Ben Broad photo. Now, you saw Ron Gilbert, didn't you? Unfortunately, no, I was joking about that one. Yeah, I saw Ron Gilbert in that picture. Did you? Oh, was he?
00:26:51
Speaker
I wasn't paying attention. I just literally took a photo of the booth. That's funny if it was. Yes, I did go up to the Monkey Island booth and took a photo. I definitely wanted to joke and be like, my friend was one of your harassers. No, I really wouldn't do that.
00:27:11
Speaker
Well, that's the reason why I didn't do anything, right? And Andy, is he the one in the newsy cap? Let me take a look again. Yeah, that's Ron Gilbert. OK. At least it looks like Ron Gilbert.
00:27:28
Speaker
And I love Ron Gilbert. I love tearing him down. No, he's a good guy. I don't know. It looks like him. Maybe it's not. I think other than your star fucking exercises, Charles, how what else? How is Pax West? I Pax was really fun. I think there was a lot of good energy involved. I spent way too much money because I was happy to be around. But to be honest with you, I.
00:27:56
Speaker
I would say the one thing that was lacking was the quality of the panels. Like the boots and everything else was good. Everything was seen back to normal. But I don't think there was a lot of enough good participants for panels to be around.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I say this mostly because I was a fan of the penny arcade staff panels that would be around. And there was certainly less of that, which is a shame. Um, not, not enough, uh, Stroud panel, Chris Stroud panels, you know, or,
Indie Games & Panel Critiques
00:28:35
Speaker
uh,
00:28:35
Speaker
you know, Jerry and stuff like that coming around. So, you know, just because I couldn't see my favorite people, I was just like, you know what, there's not as much here this time around. Yeah, it's I worry because I feel like it's a sign of people getting older and having lives and they can't do it as much anymore. Yeah. No, this is the time where you get panels for old people. I want that interesting, weird stuff.
00:29:05
Speaker
I wanted them to do the Jackbox thing again. Every time I saw the booth where Chris Drob normally sells his stuff, I was like, man, where's this drobbler? I keep thinking back to the Jackbox game where the Boston accent is just like, this taxi doesn't take credit cards. And it just makes me laugh every time in my own head.
00:29:33
Speaker
You know, no, it's a good time. Bandai Namco makes stupid scavenger hunts that are way too far from the main convention. That was rude. They have a pin on the line for it. And I was like, I know where that is. It's no way I want to walk there for over an hour. Let's see. Let's see. Elden Ring, Penny Arcade. I want to see what it's going for.
00:29:56
Speaker
Last time I saw it was like 60 bucks. It might go higher. The Buy It Now price on eBay is hovering between 70 and 120. God damn it. It's okay. I'll find somebody to trade off of next year.
00:30:19
Speaker
Joyful listeners, if you don't understand, Penny Arcade, all the events, introduced this thing many years ago around the same time that Disney started doing it, where they have collector's pins. One of the owners of Penny Arcade went to Disney, saw that and said, we got to fucking steal that idea. He was right.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, and they were correct. I am an avid pin collector during PAX. If it's not during PAX, I don't care. But during PAX, it's the best way to take up my time and actually wander around the convention center.
00:30:58
Speaker
It's so fun to collect pins and then to trade with other people and also have your pins on display like peacocks and then be regarded by your peers. Not once did I see another pin collector and them go, I like that Cuphead pin that you got there. Or I like that Tiamat pin you got there from D&D. And we just regard each other. Is there any trades you like?
00:31:23
Speaker
And I go, Oh, let me see. You have nothing I like. And that's the power move you have. Are there any mean collectors? Like, do you run into people and they're just like snotty or like judgy? Well, I don't know because I pass everybody's standards. So here we go. As long as you display your various pins, the ones that are snotty and judgy won't talk to you. OK. You can't tell.
00:31:53
Speaker
If you have at least two langers of pins, they assume that you're in the lifestyle and they don't try to take advantage of you. Yeah, that's absolutely true. Somebody in line was just like, I'm going to trade away this pin and they only had one langer that wasn't full.
00:32:08
Speaker
And I instantly thought to my head, I bet I could get two pins from that guy. Oh my gosh! You're exploiting them! Only if you go through with it. I didn't steal Shuhei's phone, okay? That's true. These are called intrusive thoughts, okay? Does it mean you act on them and you're not a bad person for having them? Exactly. But how do you think about murdering those people? You watch Cooking Dinner, Andy.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, it is never wonder what their skin feels like. What if I wore it like a suit? But I've never seen. No, I'm not going to go into. Anyways, I just wonder what they're looking. Yeah, I do feel obligated to also shout out one indie game that got created. That's it. I felt bad for them because
00:33:03
Speaker
They they have a video game and it's actually very well polished. It was actually called a spiral. It doesn't even have a gameplay trailer, unfortunately. But it's it's like a little adventure game kind of, you know, your character walks around like life is strange and stuff. But it follows an old man reliving his past memories of going through his life as he's going through a neurodegenerative disease.
00:33:34
Speaker
Just so heavy. Yeah, but it's so heavy. Who wants to go over to PAX this great celebration of time and then play that? Oh, so I probably would have spent a lot of time. Yeah.
00:33:46
Speaker
So, you know, I spent time in there. I appreciated it. It's a small team, about 13 developers. I had time to talk to them because I was very impressed with how polished it was and that they worked on it for two years and they're releasing it on Steam. And it looked really good. The voice acting was good. There was no real visual bugs or anything. It looks great, called Spiral. Seems like a lot of people to work on that kind of game.
00:34:16
Speaker
It seems like a one to two person affair, I feel like. I mean, do you think life is strange as a one to two person? That is not comparable. I mean, did you see the game I talked about yet? The old man slipping into dementia versus a teenage girl going through relatable problems. Different. I don't see how the scenario changes the amount of people working on it.
00:34:42
Speaker
Oh, I guess I would just assume buy-in and, you know, return on investment. But God bless them. I hope it does well. It might do really good things. That just seems too heavy for me to play.
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was very impressed with how they handle some of this. And like it was really cool where like, you know, imagine your character walking around your old house and you start commenting about the stuff you have and you get like flashbacks of like, you know, what he remembered this to be. And then like later on, you go back and touch the same items and then he remembers it differently. And then the scene changes and stuff. And I was like, oh,
00:35:26
Speaker
That was interesting and I was like, but which is the which is his reliable story what's true or not? I honestly think this is indies are my favorite part of packs. Yeah
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's just you get to see all these cool games. And the developers are right there. It's except for last. Except for last year when there was about nine smash clones and that one guy had a game. He definitely built an RPG maker. Yeah. By the way, there was another smash clone that I didn't play called like, I don't know, something butts or whatever funny butts. I don't know. But I.
00:36:10
Speaker
Look guys, the reason why Smash clones are fun is that they don't try to innovate at all. So, like, let's just look at Smash if you have a custom character and you're like, okay. Like, yeah, I can play this because it's exactly like Smash. But, you know, maybe somebody will iterate on the formula, like multiverses.
00:36:37
Speaker
Any any other final thoughts about Pax Charles? I would say as you know, now that we've been doing this podcast for a year, I've been I've definitely been a lot more
00:36:51
Speaker
interested in talking to developers. I like hearing their stories and what they deal with. While I was even in the demo for Spyro, I was wearing headphones, but another developer came up to those people and talked shop with them. And I literally slowed down my playing till eavesdrop on their conversation.
00:37:14
Speaker
because they were just like, how did you guys set up your marketing? Did you deal with this or this? I ran into this thing and they asked me to pay for this. I was like, was that crazy for you guys? Did you have to run into that? Could you get around it? I want to know that. When I was done with the demo, I started asking about other technical stuff. It was so fun and interesting to hear.
00:37:40
Speaker
And I like that. So definitely gaming conventions, having a chance to talk to developers loved it packs. Great time. A lot of people, a lot of money spent on pins and shirts and stuff. Um, this is great. I'm glad you enjoyed it. That's great. And it sounds like a return to form. Oh yeah, absolutely. Except the panels were disappointing. That's too bad. Cause I love the panels at packs. Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
I agree. Maybe we'll have to plan to come back to Seattle next year. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Speaking of weird indie games, this isn't on the this isn't on the show notes, but I did want to bring it up is that I've played about 80 percent of immortality. Wait.
00:38:31
Speaker
Immortality is the latest game by Sam Barlow of Tell Me Lies and Her Story fame. And it's on Game Pass. You heard really good things about that. And that's exactly why I play. Oh, come on. It's Game Pass. Come on.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's on PlayStation. I think I think on Steam, I'm not sure. Yeah, it's it's on PC, too, I believe. Well, I played it on PC, but I don't know if you can buy it on Steam. It looked like I played it. It's very it. This is my first Sam Barlow game. I haven't played Tell Me Lies and I haven't played her story.
00:39:05
Speaker
Immortality is very interesting. It is the barest definition of a game. Oh, sure. Well, it's an FMV game, isn't it? It is. You are you interact entirely via the full motion video movies.
00:39:23
Speaker
and a grid where it shows you a bunch of different scenes. And it's your job to go into those scenes and use this kind of finder tool to click items or people or move forward or backward in the scene to find secrets that bring you to other scenes. And as you go, you find out about the secret, which I'm not going to say anything about, because I do think it's actually super interesting.
00:39:48
Speaker
Uh, it's, it's good. You do reach a point where because of how it's designed, I keep getting the same secrets over and over again. Cause they put them in more than one place.
00:39:59
Speaker
to make sure you don't miss them. And I've also kind of already figured out the whole story, but I haven't found all the secrets I need to trigger the end of the game. So that's why I say I'm like 80% done. It's because I've seen the end and I know what it means, but there's like four or five scenes in the middle that I don't have.
00:40:19
Speaker
But it's it's it's pretty fun and it's pretty good. It's all just I can give kind of an idea of what it's about. There is this actress who has had three movies.
00:40:31
Speaker
She's filmed one in the 60s, one in the 70s and then one in 1999. All three of those movies never came out. And what you're watching is behind the scenes footage and and the still or the the unreleased footage from those films trying to figure out the story of this actress and what happened to her.
00:40:53
Speaker
This sounds so cool. And just to just to make it and just to give you a small hint on the bigger story, it is a science fiction story. So keep that in mind. It becomes pretty obvious very quickly if you're paying attention.
00:41:14
Speaker
And it's a little unsettling, to be honest with you. They have content warnings at the beginning. There's a lot of blood, a lot of nudity, scenes of someone fucking someone on top of an office table in front of a bunch of people. I was like, oh, this is interesting.
00:41:30
Speaker
But it was fun game. And I think is my first San Barlo game. I don't know if I'll go back and play the other ones I've heard. I think her stories considered the best and tell me lies is kind of a close second. I don't know where this would rank in the grand scheme of how people feel, but it's, it's, I wouldn't say it's a fun game. I would say it's a fun experience. Yeah. I want to play it.
00:41:53
Speaker
You should really good on Game Pass, like best deal in gaming. Best. Oh, God, it. Oh, I hate to say that it is. All right. I hate it. That makes me want to talk about the next thing, James.
00:42:08
Speaker
Which one, Tencent? Oh no. Cyberpunk? He wants to talk about Halo. I want to talk about Halo! Alright, well let's wrap these two stories together then. First, really quickly, Cyberpunk had a stream today, detailing the 1.6 edge runners patch that is coming out today, including some new, a couple of new side missions, new weapons, new customs, a transmog system so you can
00:42:35
Speaker
Wear different clothes than just having to wear whatever stupid clothes have the best stats Also revealing that the next the big DLC with more missions including voice lines by calories will be coming out in 2023 include and also will be including a full rework of the Police system or the AI because as you remember it was really stupid and really simple and also car combat and physics so
00:43:02
Speaker
They're continuing to improve this game. Good for them. I'm not mad at them. I'm glad that I want Cyberpunk to be good. But speaking, but then let's flip this coin to the other side. So CD Projekt Red's trying to make a good thing out of Cyberpunk. Kale is kind of just throwing up their hands and going, yeah, I don't know.
00:43:28
Speaker
So Halo Infinite had a dev update. By the way, whoever's eating, I can hear your spoon. And that's from the other end. No, that's me. Yeah. Which they delayed what's coming in the next version of season three, which will be delayed until March 2023, which extends an already six month long season two to something like 10 months.
00:43:53
Speaker
Uh, it's a good, good amount of time for a live service game. Uh, they also said that split screen co-op has been dropped from the roadmap, something they promised that would be in every halo going forward after halos five big debacle about it. Um, and that they still don't have a timeline for, uh, online co-op, but that it would be sometime in 2023.
00:44:21
Speaker
They're not doing great. And, you know, the framing of the one article breaking it down, which I thought was really interesting was that should 343 Studios even manage this property anymore?
00:44:37
Speaker
Or should we get rid of them? And does Halo even mean anything? Is that a tentpole anymore for Microsoft? Now they have the best deal in gaming. You know, it might have been a big deal that Halo was on it, but you've got, you know, frickin immortal or whatever it is. Now they have cod now, Andy.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that's right. They have cod now. Also, also, I believe I this is unsubstantiated because they don't have an article to back it up. But I saw a lot of talk over the weekend that the next modern warfare two will be going on Game Pass.
00:45:12
Speaker
Which is like, fuck you, Sony. Yeah, that's a big, although they did say they'll let Sony have Call of Duty for a little while longer. Yeah, the contractually. And beyond the contract, like it's the contract, I believe was stated to be at least the next five years.
00:45:32
Speaker
If I recall, that's it. I mean, that might still be five years. And, uh, and that, um, but Phil Spencer said even beyond that obligated contract or like, I know Phil, you can't say you want to do shorter.
00:45:50
Speaker
because it's still being under scrutiny about your acquisition. But then yeah, oh, maybe that's a maybe that's why they did it to show that it wouldn't be, you know, to appeal to the who's the governing body that would shut it down.
00:46:07
Speaker
FCC FTC FTC Commission Federal Trade Commission. But you're still going to look like a fool spending $70 on PlayStation versus investing that in half a year of game pass. Yep. Like game pass is the best deal in gaming and it's frustrating. Why?
00:46:29
Speaker
It's very frustrating, because I want to be on the winning team, Charles. But Andy, you got stray for free with your PlayStation extra. Andy, let's say Sony lost last generation two to one.
00:46:45
Speaker
Wait, no, no, no, no. Generation before. Generation before. Wasn't it PlayStation 4 to play Halo, to Xbox? What? PS4 sold way more than Xbox. I know. Yeah. You said they lost last generation. Oh, yeah. And actually, PS3 ended up coming up on top, I think, in the very end, eking you. Very end it did, yes. It did. Yeah, that's it. That's why I said two to one. PS4 outsold two to one.
00:47:12
Speaker
Yeah, you said you said they lost though. Well, I was trying to say they won. Sorry if I continue to continue. Listeners, we could review the tape and go back 15 seconds. Much like you can in immortality, a new game on Game Pass regardless. That's it. That's it.
00:47:33
Speaker
Just like we've always said before, it tends to be that the leading generation loses the next one, which is fine. Microsoft made some awful decisions last time. Sony can make some bad decisions this time. It's when you lose two in a row that I'll raise my eyebrow. Because here's the thing.
00:47:56
Speaker
Even now, Xbox has a great experience for value for money, which is completely good. Sony still has really good single player experiences, which is good. There needs to always be this tug of war in order for competition to be good and actually good for customers.
00:48:19
Speaker
But there always has to be two Xbox game pass because they can't do good exclusives. Well, we'll see. I mean, yeah, they haven't yet. I mean, that's fair. That's a fair point, Andy. They have yet to release a game. That's Xbox exclusive. That's.
00:48:37
Speaker
I would say even scratches the quality of like a ghost of Tsushima, right? No, they haven't. They haven't even come close. Like their games higher than this is not like to drag on ghosts of Tsushima, but like that's a good level of excellence that I would expect out of like exclusives from a console maker. And they haven't even gotten that far.
00:48:57
Speaker
No, not even, and we'll have to see from the acquisition of Bethesda, if Bethesda can, can make like, that's what they're that that's, you know, and Blizzard Activision buyouts have to like, win that over. It has to be so good to get there.
00:49:16
Speaker
Because even as of now, the PlayStation exclusives are set to be still really good overall. I don't know. God of War might suffer from that Sonic Frontiers release.
00:49:34
Speaker
You know, I am worried about that, that third challenger that comes into, you know, it's that Sega's music chair. I kind of want to play frontier. I mean, I mean, sure. Yeah. You know, I'm expecting a solid six to seven out of 10. Yeah. Charles, Charles, we can, uh, it's October, right? It's next month.
00:49:59
Speaker
Oh, can we actually play it together? Yeah, we'll play it together. When I when I made my hump day in Seattle, we can. Yeah, I mean, that's not a bad idea. Well, I want I want. Wait, when did. Oh, no. Yeah, because it comes out on the same day as God. Yeah. God of War comes out on the ninth and frontiers comes out on the by that day one.
00:50:25
Speaker
You know, it's funny just because I got so fucked over with that goddamn Hold and Ring edition. Oh, it's I did grab the not the top tier preorder, but the second tier collector's edition for God of War. I haven't decided if I'm going to cancel it, but I might. Oh, I didn't know you were a collector's edition fan of God of War. Of games I like.
00:50:49
Speaker
I feel like it's November. Oh, I'm sorry. It's November. It's November. It's not October. Oh, I was like, that feels so crazy that it's a month away. I still let it be Xenoblade. No, uh, God of War. There was there in November, not October. Yeah. That's it. That's a, it's definitely exciting. I, um, you know, I, but back to Halo being trash, I would say.
00:51:16
Speaker
That's it. It's so weird to see Halo likely get demoted into like a cult classic.
00:51:28
Speaker
Uh, I mean, here's, here's the thing, right? So you have, you now have all these studios from Activision, right? Which are like the cream of the crop, like FPS developers, you know, next, next to them would be dice. And even dice has been having their fucking problems lately. Um, so yeah, exactly. So it's like, do you give halo to a call duty studio and be like, just, let's just do something.
00:51:58
Speaker
You know what? You can't do any worse than 343 is done. So let's see what you can do, you know? And I'm sure they would love it. I think it's time to. Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the best thing they could do. But even then, I like whoever you give it to, you give them all the time in the world. Right. Oh, yeah, of course. Just like it's going to be like this, like three to four year development time like thing, which I know they most. I know they mostly left, but what's what was the studio that made tight? What were the people who made Titanfall? Which city were they from? Was that Sledgehammer? Oh.
00:52:37
Speaker
Uh, the developer. Yeah. With the people. Respawn. Respawn. Yeah. But they're, but they're, they're developers were from. They thought they were from Bungie.
00:52:49
Speaker
No, they were from a call. Infinity Ward was Respawn, I believe. Infinity Ward. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So they own Infinity Ward now. Who does? It doesn't Activision. They're not there. Yeah. Infinity Ward's an Activision company.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah, but like all the good people went to respond, right? You would think maybe their DNA is in there, though. You know what I mean? Also, I think what I remember is zempella.
00:53:24
Speaker
Vincent Pella, the guy from Infinity Ward that went on to respawn was like one of the bigger directors, right? From Infinity Ward. Well, they made, they made modern warfare. They made infinite warfare, which was the future one with, uh, what's his face.
00:53:41
Speaker
Kevin Spacey villain. So I mean like Infinity Ward does have like history of making like a futuristic shooter and they're the ones coming out with Modern Warfare 2 right now. I mean I know it's like all of Activision but they're the lead studio.
00:53:59
Speaker
I mean, what didn't did Infinite Warfare review? Well, yeah, everyone loved the campaign. The multiplayer wasn't great. Oh, honestly, I was out of a halo. I would want a good campaign, you know, will it be three, three, two, one over there that they're doing this bad? I don't know. Are they not getting the funding? Are they understaffed? You know, I don't know.
00:54:27
Speaker
I don't want to do a bad job. They've been doing this for 10 years. Right. So I wonder if they're set up to fail, honestly. I mean, it's probably it's a leadership issue, right? And I think it's probably some of those things where they just kind of need to gut, you know, from from, you know, everyone from executive level down to be like, all right, we need a better vision for what Halo is going to be. And this you guys ain't got it. So if I had to. Think on it, maybe.
00:54:57
Speaker
putting a game developer industry pay rates needs to start matching the rest of the tech industry so they could start getting better people. Ain't that true. I think Microsoft could afford it for Halo. That's it. Can you imagine being a normal dev and then looking across down to the game developer devs and seeing that they get paid so much less than you? Oh, yeah.
00:55:27
Speaker
and then going, hmm.
00:55:30
Speaker
I think I'll say the passion industry, baby. It's a passion industry. Well, a lot of time it's profit sharing. I don't know how Microsoft does it. Let me let me promise of every startup and then that startup fails or they buy a nice crew over. Andy Charles, let me ask you a question because I am uniquely familiar with this, as you probably know why. But I don't want to blow up my spot too much. But how much would you think?
00:55:58
Speaker
that a master's degree recipient archivist at a major museum makes in a year on an hourly basis. hourly basis hourly basis. Yeah, they're paid hourly. Also, yes. Oh, it's an hour. Very low. I'd say that's it about
00:56:21
Speaker
$20 per hour by you Andy. I think maybe this I like honestly I don't know But maybe because I don't I don't know maybe 20. Yeah It's I've seen it anywhere between 19 and 25 Wow Yeah, $25 an hour at a yearly rate is 48,000
00:56:48
Speaker
to have a master's degree and work at a prestigious institution. Right. Passion industries. Yeah. Passion industry. Well, and also I'm assuming that's government dollars and just charitable rich people. Yeah. I mean, but a lot of them have like endowments and the billions of dollars. Right. Endowments. Yeah. So I don't know where that money goes. Well, we know where it doesn't go is the thing.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah. How crazy. I know. But that's, I mean, yeah, it's the, the plight of the game developer is well known and unionization does seem to be sweeping the nation. So just praying for it every time. And then maybe I could switch it out to industry and still take a pay cut. But speaking of developers that Microsoft owns, uh,
00:57:41
Speaker
Hey, remember when Arkane released that game called Prey? But they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not that Prey about the Native American fighting aliens. This is a different Prey.
00:57:54
Speaker
A million minutes, which is a great fucking pitch for former arcane director Raphael Colentino. Colentino recently explained how awful he felt about using the prey name for the 2017 game. Basically, the people at Bethesda were like, no, no, no, use this. And he's like, that doesn't make sense. No, no, no. It tests well.
00:58:19
Speaker
And then everyone was mad at prey for not being the original prey. Like, how does this connect to the Native American guy? It doesn't. Yeah. And that's the thing. I bet a person making more than 20 bucks an hour made that decision and thought they were super smart and it was disastrous. I know when I heard about the new game, I thought, wait, isn't that the one about the Native American fighting aliens? How is this related?
00:58:46
Speaker
And then it was literally so confusing and I didn't care enough to really look into it. I just wrote it off completely. It just seemed like it seemed like a cheap cash in on a name. Yeah, like the the original Prey. Yeah. Was kind of like a car rock almost. Yeah. And not just because they both feature a Native American main character. But yeah. And.
00:59:10
Speaker
Prey, you know, 2017 was more of like a system shock kind of game. So yeah, they're very, very different in terms of unrelated, unrelated, completely unrelated. Just some dude making too much said, use this name and they didn't get a choice. Just use this name. And that's too much. He did for an entire year was say that one thing.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yep. It's very, it's very weird. It's, it's something we've all kind of thought in the back of our heads. It's just interesting that the former director come out and go, yeah, no, that was fucking weird. That was so dumb. And it just, it just was really confusing messaging and he put it right. You know, he even said that like people who were familiar with the previous property, they just wrote off the new one. Cause it sounded like they don't even know what they're doing. They don't even know what they're doing. So screw it. And I guess it was commercially successful.
01:00:12
Speaker
That's right, baby, Kevin Feige and the Marvel money machine. Oh, man. This Saturday, this Saturday, we got D23, which is Disney's fan event. So we'll hear probably a lot of news about Star Trek, Marvel and Disney properties. Star Trek. I don't give a shit. I'll figure it out. You know, until they give me a reason to give a shit, I don't give a shit. Yeah, I do. I do like the men, Laurie, but still.
01:00:26
Speaker
You know, who does does know what they're doing. Oh, God.
01:00:39
Speaker
But what do we got? What are we going to see at D23 in terms of Marvel? Definitely probably going to see some more Black Panther 2 footage of whatever heroic trailer creator is saving that movie frame by frame. Yeah.
01:00:57
Speaker
probably going to get werewolf by night announced, which is a horror comic. That's it's very deep in Marvel lore. And who's I believe, oh, Michael Giacchino, noted composer for many movies that you love will be directing, which is director directorial debut.
01:01:16
Speaker
And there's also a lot of talk about, you know, them announcing that a lot of people will probably be the directors for future movies. Maybe get some footage of Guardians of the Galaxy, the holiday special, which will be canonical and playing to Guardians of the Galaxy three. I thought that was pretty cute, having a holiday special. It's very Star Wars. You're doing Star Wars better than Star Wars. Old creepy man cream himself. Maybe.
01:01:46
Speaker
And then, you know, kind of on the more out there, maybe we'll get an announcement of Deadpool 3. Oh, that's right. Yeah. An R-rated Disney movie. I'm assuming published under Disney's name. Yeah. Didn't they have a studio before that they would use for adult movies? Oh, God damn it, Andy. I know the name. Yeah. Don't do this to me. Mirror Max. Mirror Max, thank you. Yeah.
01:02:14
Speaker
They'll revive Miramax to publish an R-rated movie. I wonder if we might see more mutant stuff because there was a T. There was a tease in She-Hulk. Actually, remember how we were screaming at the end of The Eternals a couple weeks ago? Yeah. In She-Hulk, there is a reference. She's looking at like a news website and you know how a news website still have associated stories on like the right hand side? Yeah. There were two stories.
01:02:43
Speaker
One is, man with metal claws gets into a fight in a bar. Nice Wolverine reference there. And the other one is, what's up with this giant person sticking out of the Indian Ocean? The lowest effort acknowledgment, by the way. We don't have to have anybody say it. We just need to show it in the world.
01:03:07
Speaker
Yeah. So hopefully we will get a lot of interesting Marvel news, much like we did from San Diego Comic Con. But that's not all we have to look forward to and probably be disappointed about because it's Ubisoft forward this weekend, too. Right. Are you ready to see Skull and Bones? No.
01:03:30
Speaker
Don't care. Remember when we were watching the summer Achilles to far from home when they they demoed that pirate game and went, that's going bones. And it was. But, yeah, Ubisoft has come out saying they will deliver updates on upcoming games like Mario and Rabbits to Spark of Hope and Skull and Bones and probably the drop for the next Assassin's Creed game. Oh, that's right.
01:03:59
Speaker
That will be happening. We are on good and evil, too. That's still happening. I wonder if that'll be there one more thing. Well, I think the assassin's creed is going to be one more thing. Oh, also, do you remember that division two heartland game mobile game that got announced forever ago? No. All right. Well, there's a division two heartland division two mobile game that will probably be announced or at least during that as well. That is really late to the party.
01:04:30
Speaker
Division two has been out for a while. This is division two heartland. You know, that gritty urban shooter that you love. We're going to take it off to the middle America. No, no, no. And nobody wants that. My cover based shooter in the middle of a field. It's easy to render on a phone, Andy.
01:04:56
Speaker
Division was good, you guys. Division was fantastic. Charles and I and you had a great time with Division.
01:05:04
Speaker
They still tell stories. They still tell stories. Those road police officers. Stop resisting where they were. Charles, we really nailed ACAB before. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We stood up on those roads really good. That was a good role playing. If we had positions of power, how fast would we get to our heads immediately?
01:05:33
Speaker
immediately. But we'll get to cry and whine about the things that happen in Ubisoft forward on another episode of add to party a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I've been your host James a cab Hartwell
01:05:53
Speaker
I put my foot down and I've been joined by. Charles, new best friend of Shuhei Yoshida, your mom. I've been joined by also ACAP. I've been joined by.
01:06:09
Speaker
What's another what's another way to say a cab? I already gave you your name. You're the gourmet voyeur. Oh, there we go. I like that handy. James, how is he going to get better if you do it for me? Boy, you're and also just curious what they're watching. I just want to know it's a lot of golf. Who watches who watches that much golf? OK.
01:06:38
Speaker
I want- I help him because I want the episode to end. I'm just trying to do my best here, okay? Kicking and screaming. Kicking and screaming. Have a good night, everyone. Have a good night.