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S2 Ep57: We'll See: E3 2019
72 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they recap E3 and talk about what was shown!
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction to E3 Discussion
00:00:45
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-hosts. This is always Dave. How's it going, right, Dave? Hey, Jake, it's going pretty good. How are you doing? Doing great. Yeah, that's great. So basically to kick us off here tonight, we're going to be talking about E3, which is something that's happened in the past as well as this year, but also relative to this year, a couple... We're a little late on the episode compared to when we could have recorded it.
00:01:08
Speaker
I'm gonna make the PERT happily comparison again because I bring it up every time because you do that exact intonation. I do it on purpose, Dave. Also, I'm asthmatic and I can't keep up this bit. Yeah, I know. So I'm gonna... I'm gonna slow it down. We're gonna run out of content. 20-minute episode. Geez, budget's gone down. There was very little at E3 and we covered it all. I say away from the microphone.
Doom Eternal: Excitement and Comparisons
00:01:31
Speaker
I should have put it in the notes at all. Comparison to last E3. Yeah, I've forgotten everything But I believe certain titles were shown again that were shown last year, correct? That were still under development but had increased reveals. Yeah, I pretty pretty much always I think that's the case. I'm not sure if Doom Eternal was officially announced last E3, but it was definitely in a previous convention because we've known about it for a long time.
00:01:59
Speaker
I saw an initial trailer and I saw another trailer. Can we start there? Doom Eternal? Doom Eternal looks fucking dope. Yeah. So it does. I mean, like, basically we knew about it. Good counting. Yeah, I figured I'll add some flavor, you know, contrast the points you're trying to make. No, it looks really good. And the first game, I mean, we just hyped out about it for an entire episode, so.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, uh, it was worth it. Yeah, and it looks like they're You know working off the same model but going onwards and upwards And to be fair if they release just new levels, yeah, or there's some new campaign for uh 2016 I would have bought it then yeah I think I think it's interesting right because sometimes you we would criticize games for not having Enough of a difference and we probably will later in this episode over the base game but if the first if
00:02:53
Speaker
The first title is just so good and remains so novel through the whole experience. I think people are more receptive of a bit of more in the same. So did you... So obviously there was the initial gameplay trailer where they had Dr. Samuel Hayden talk about some stuff and they show some demon killing and some environment interaction. Yeah. Like swinging up like a flagpole. Yeah. And then like going and like crushing a little ghoul. Mm-hmm.
00:03:23
Speaker
That was dope. Did you see the other one though? Which was... It might have been like sort of initial gameplay, which I guess is not a trailer so much as initial gameplay, like for 15 minutes. I don't think I saw that, no. Alright, so I won't spoil the whole thing. I mean, if it's in a 15 minute E3 reveal, I feel like you can spoil it.
00:03:44
Speaker
So basically you as the Doom Slayer you go to like some Mars station. There's some alien stuff And like people are like on the radio like trying to like call for help and stuff and as you walk up Everybody shuts the fuck up Rick. Oh Is that the guy towards like the door trip to the outside there's like two soldiers no one guys like
00:04:07
Speaker
Hey, you have identification to go outside. This guy's like do do don't do fucking don't and you just look at him Just kind of like go to the pails like oh, it's you He just you take his gun and then you just walk outside that it has so much character building in that because you're now at this point a Fucking legend you have this legacy of just that guy kills demons. Yeah, what else nope? That's his thing. It was really good
00:04:36
Speaker
Kind of a specialist really. Um, yeah, they're kind of in a way, they're retreading, um, previous, the, the series in the past, right? Cause there was, was it doing a storyline? Yeah. Cause like, was it doom two that was hell on earth?
00:04:52
Speaker
I know there was a doom hell on earth and it was one of the classics. I think that's basically the plot line here too. Clearly we didn't get them all guys. There's an outbreak on earth as well.
Game Revivals and Media Trends
00:05:08
Speaker
What's interesting is as you described that to me, and, uh, we talked about this just slightly before, but the, uh, that's a very similar opening to, uh, Duke Nukem 3d. Oh yeah. But yeah, it's literally like you in this like ready room essentially. And then you like talk to all these guys and they're like, Hey, what's the, what's the plan? And they like bring you up to like a whiteboard with a Sharpie and you can draw whatever you want on it. You can just be like.
00:05:33
Speaker
penis and they're just like my god this is this is the best plan and then uh then you go out and you fight a fight a boss on like a football field so
00:05:47
Speaker
right now I expect the doom eternal will be better received as it has already been better received you know yeah you can't revive all of them right like they're gonna be misses
00:06:03
Speaker
Do appreciate some of the attempts But in other times it does feel and they're doing a slot with movies where they're kind of like reanimating like you're dead grandmother Yeah, please let her lie a good full life. I appreciate my memory of her being alive I don't want a memory of her being undead and trying to like chomp at my neck type thing. I
00:06:23
Speaker
You know how like uh, sometimes as soon as an author or like an a um An artist or someone dies like their works become really valuable, but then they also like people start the Biographical movies or like whatever I used to start you can use their likeness as soon as they die I take that example to the extreme. You're just like, oh they're dead Well, let's go use them in a movie, right? Let's reanimate them get them in there I kill people
Bethesda and E3 Speculations
00:06:49
Speaker
just to deep fake them honestly
00:06:52
Speaker
But yeah, Doom is going to be awesome. Pretty much guaranteed. The only way it fails is if they change too much and they take away the core of what it is. For the people they have and the direction they've been, I don't really see that being a thing. No. I've seen commentary for the first game and I just agree with the developers entirely. They completely got it. They're just like,
00:07:18
Speaker
None of this stuff matters. Like, let's just let them kill D. Like, okay, yeah, that's 100% right. That's the whole point. Thumbs up. But they were done in the, they went with Bethesda, right? Yeah. So Bethesda announced anything this year? Bethesda announced a lot of things, actually.
00:07:38
Speaker
Any that you care about I don't have them broken out by Publisher I'm gonna look down the list real quick here Cuz there are definitely things
00:07:51
Speaker
You know what? I can't remember exactly what Bethesda is publishing. I can't break it up by that way, don't you? Hey, me either. Specific games. And maybe that's just because there's such a big difference between Bethesda's first party games and their... Oh, you know what? The one... Ghostwire is actually published by Bethesda.
00:08:10
Speaker
I was supposed to ask the audience for help. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's for the third party games they published. They don't have the ill will that Bethesda first party games now have. So we'll see where that goes. But, uh, but yeah, ghost wire mostly for the presentation. We learned very little about that game. Um, it was mostly just a trailer and spooky.
00:08:39
Speaker
I'm always interested for like a good teaser trailer But as like a hard tangent, I prefer stuff in the League of Elden Ring. Yeah Because it's just it wets your appetite and it has like slow coolness built into it, right? It's not like here's some quick flashy shit 20 to 1 it you're like, yeah
00:09:01
Speaker
It's kind of like an art to making a teaser and not actually showing gameplay, but making sure that your teaser means something. So for Ghostwire, like, oh yeah, it's like the rapture and people vanish. I guess you're like fighting ghosts and stuff. Is this an action game? Is it a first-person shooter? Whatever. Fromsoft with Elden Ring. Elden Wing.
00:09:21
Speaker
They, you basically already know it's going to be like an RPG. In fact, I think they've said it has more RPG based elements than some of their previous games.
Elden Ring: Anticipation and Speculation
00:09:35
Speaker
And that's like much more useful to me, right? Like rather than a trailer and you're like, man, maybe, you know, sometimes you need more than a compelling premise. You need some genre information to latch onto, I think.
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah. Elden ring looks good though. I like the, I like the, the cracked people and visuals, uh, and the, and the actual trailer, like the, uh, the blacksmith who's actually was shattering in the ring. Um, just like really cool visuals too. Yeah. They've always had a very good hold on that niche of things being decayed or crumbled because everything is kind of.
00:10:19
Speaker
Not anarchy, entropy over time for seven other games. How much does it matter to you that George RR Martin is involved with it?
00:10:34
Speaker
It's, it's nice. Cause like, I know he can write good shit. Right. If you look at the earlier seasons of game, but as far as like, as his works, he's really good at putting a fuck ton of information and world building into that. Yeah. Which is one of my main draws for like a things in the Dark Souls series. Oh yeah. Um, because you feel very invested because you know so much information about
00:11:00
Speaker
these small intricate pieces and then how they all fit together. Yeah. I think they actually, and this is just my opinion, obviously, as most things I say are, um, but for Sekiro, they like world building existed, but it didn't look like it was going to provide Vaddy like three years of content as he breaks down the translations. He's released some videos, but like there's just not that much to pull from item descriptions compared to Dark Souls, at least.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yeah, um Well, I feel like dark souls is also wrapped a little bit more in this tree Whereas the kira was the more straightforward This is so and so sword that he got from so and so after this battle like that checks out I guess I guess another big part of it is you just can't change your gear and sakura So they didn't put descriptions on everything. Did you not equip the wings?
00:11:54
Speaker
That would have made some of those levels what is it katana Daddy should use the auto blaster I'm sure you can these headless Yeah, no, but it looks looks really good Elden ring sounds like a
00:12:13
Speaker
a lord of the rings title to me obviously yeah um it's like it's not el it's not elven though it's elvin because the ring belonged to a man named elvin who was an elf but no uh i mean uh hopefully we learn more about it yeah no no probably not
00:12:35
Speaker
Little bit of teasing ghost. Yeah. Um, but no, it, uh, seems pretty solid. So look forward to more information there. Um, from soft has not disappointed yet. So is this true? I will continue to play their games until the day they, or I die or they betray me.
00:12:56
Speaker
That's valid. Did anybody betray
E3 Highlights and General Impressions
00:12:59
Speaker
you at E3? Were there any releases you're like, Oh, I feel like they missed the mark. I mean, there wasn't anything that I was already really excited for that they killed my hype for. Like, um, there wasn't anything that was made less interesting by providing more information.
00:13:15
Speaker
Which is good, because that's a bad sign if that ever happens, right? I think E3 is mostly hype building, kind of across the board. And it's relatively rare that you get a well-fleshed-out example of what the game will be, and then it elevates your hype a lot.
00:13:36
Speaker
But obviously Some games there are capable of such a thing So I know like this isn't in the next in the list officially, but that's your end. Nobody can see this but us Nobody can see us But death stranding has some actual gameplay shown and I don't know what that is like, yeah It it feels exploring
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, I like the ladder you just like you just carry around because like my question is What percentage of the game are you carrying this ladder? Is it like he was just kajima was just like super motivated at the last of us ladder moments? So he's like I love ladders. You know what? We'll just have him carry a ladder for 70% of the game
00:14:28
Speaker
It's actually all an homage back to medical metal gear solid three. Uh-huh. That was harder than it should have been. That's it's a tough thing. Um, but yeah, it seems like it has some basic combat. You can hit people with a briefcase. Yeah, but I feel like you're not supposed to like, it's not a combat oriented.
00:14:47
Speaker
It's not a combat briefcase. Where you can deploy
Death Stranding: Mysteries and Mechanics
00:14:50
Speaker
it that shoots before. Right. No, that's the laptop gun. A laptop gun. Yeah. But I'm really curious because a lot of these games that Kojima's made has had really cool and unique boss fights. Even if it's not a gun based boss.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah. So if they're not relying as much on combat, I'm curious to see a, it would be that type of game, or if it's just you go on missions or it's kind of fairly open for what you have to do. Yeah. But typically games down bosses. So what would that be in this context?
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah, if you cut out like the context that it's death stranding and you cut out like some of the interspersed Dialogue and like close-ups on the characters presumably from cutscenes things like that The world traversal is just like really weird. No one would know Like what the game was at all based off of that and I don't even think it would generate hype people just be like you kind of just in a suit like slowly crossing ravines and
00:15:48
Speaker
Mean most of the time when I come home at the end of a workday, I'm not just like let's let's get those ravines, you know Yeah, I mean I didn't cross a lot of ravines there that was mostly shooting people I didn't beat that either
00:16:04
Speaker
I shot people across the ravine. But no, it's the more I learn about death stranding, the less I know about death stranding. That's true. But at the same time, my interest has been progressively peaked because each trailer is kind of like the fuck. You don't have information, but it keeps slowly building out the universe and you're like,
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, but still, what the fuck? Like, I think in the trailer they mentioned there, or at least imply that the baby is kind of like a utility item in some way. The baby allows you to like, it's, it acts as a conduit for you to kind of half exist in the past.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, and you can like see the the shadowy things or whatever I guess. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of unanswered questions that the game will come out and then years later we will have answers. Someone from the development team tells us what any of this meant. But I don't know. Seems interesting. So that's a game. Let's let's pick one that people were not hyped about and that looks like shit. It's something that looks bad. OK.
00:17:13
Speaker
Well, I can say, at least from doing minor research, I know a lot of people were not super thrilled about the battle toads they were making. Okay. Very cartoony style versus pixelated. Right. Yeah. And a lot of people, like, obviously it has its own lore. Yeah. I didn't realize it was such a big thing that people would care about if somebody goofed on it. Yeah.
00:17:41
Speaker
You gotta be really careful when you're remaking a classic game and you're changing the art style. I mean, there's good examples of that. The Legend of Zelda game looks really good.
Remakes: Battletoads and Psychonauts 2
00:17:53
Speaker
I think it's Link's Awakening, but that's what it's called. I'm gonna give you a half shrug.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. There's been a lot of titles for that, which really good. Completely a different art style, but it kind of just meshes with the full experience. I never really played Battletoad, so I can't say one way or the other. I only know it's a very difficult game.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's the old, uh, sidescrolling beat him up. But if somebody is like an inch above or below, maybe you didn't punch them type thing. Yeah. It was fun. I played it with my cousin. Um, it's kind of cool, but it wasn't a nostalgia trip for me where I'm like, Oh, this new thing is bad. It's not something I'm going to play though.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, kind of just play different types of games now, but I don't know. We'll see, see where it lands. Um, I would not put it on the hype meter for me. Pretty much not at all. Um, was Psychonauts 2 actually shown at E3? Yes. Okay. I missed the presentation for it. Um, I knew they were showing more information about it like around this time, but I didn't know, did they show a significant gameplay?
00:19:01
Speaker
Um, it was at least like a premise trailer of like, Hey, uh, we're now past the events of the first game and here's what some stuff that's going on. I think a little bit of gameplay might've been shown as far as like some simple mechanics and briefly going through snippets of levels. Yeah, actually I did see a short clip of it. I remember him like running down a hallway that was continually just spring. Yeah. It's ringing into existence in front of him.
00:19:28
Speaker
Um, I don't know. It could really be good. I, I hope that it's really good. I'm I've kind of, uh, I think we have slightly different bearings on double fine. Like right now, uh, I I've played several of their recent games or attract them. How recent there's, they have like, I'm trying to think of the most recent one I played.
00:19:53
Speaker
Cause I know there was the crowdfunded point and click adventure, which I played a little bit of. Can't remember the name of that for the life of me. There's something with like a D nine in it or something like that.
00:20:04
Speaker
I don't know. Oh, I very vaguely know you're talking about. Yeah, they've had some missteps They've had some missteps like where their games have just not been getting reviewed nearly as well as as they could be and they're shorter like experience I think costume quest like costume quest is a little gem though
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, but those are the games that they they've been succeeding on more it's like the shorter kind of focused This is just compact writing and hilarity style games. They're longer Adventures or branches out into other genres and things like that. Haven't gone nearly as well So I think they really need this basically they need psychodots to to massively succeed Do you want to just call for forever someone?
00:20:48
Speaker
No, I was, uh, I just had to clear out my throat a little bit, but the, I mean, in a way they kind of also don't need it to succeed because they've already been paid for it. Right. Like this was, this was a kick-started game and I definitely paid them for it. So it better be good. But I also only paid like 20 bucks. Right. Um, does that get you a copy? Does that get you a copy? Or is that the tier one below? No, I, if I'm donating towards a game, like I want the game.
Game Mechanics: Ori and FF7 Remake
00:21:13
Speaker
Don't give me like, uh, stickers to put on my car. Yeah. Um,
00:21:18
Speaker
But yeah, for how much I love Psychonauts 1, I have high hopes and high standards for Psychonauts 2. But as long as they keep the same type of characters, cool gameplay, really interesting story and gameplay, and like keep that Tim Shafer humor, it should be fine.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think they have a very deep well to draw from as far as psychonauts is concerned so That should that should get them a lot of fuel to make it through the development of psychonauts, too. Yeah, I might But uh, yeah, those are those just big ones. I also see Ori twos on the list. I didn't beat Ori one Um, I enjoyed it but I took a break from it like kind of midway through and the game is designed in such a way that um
00:22:07
Speaker
You kind of, you build, the challenges are built off of previous accomplishments. You're getting better at the game, constantly better at the game, better at the game. You might throw mechanics back at you.
00:22:17
Speaker
Exactly. So if you take a break from it and you're like, I don't know how things work. And then you come back in the game, you're like, ah, what am I doing? Right. It's kind of like, uh, not exactly the same, but like picking up final fantasy in the center and you're like, I think I'm on a quest. And then cloud retired and became a farm. And then the world blew up. Yeah.
00:22:42
Speaker
Um, but I mean, it seems graphically very impressive as that series always is. Um, do you have a final fantasy has always looked pretty good. That's yeah, exactly. So now that we're talking about the remake final fantasy seven actually looks really solid. Um, they haven't shown much in the way of gameplay. It's like an initial, uh, small party cloud and Barrett in a reactor. Yeah. You played seven for sure.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I didn't beat seven right because my computer would literally explode at certain points That doesn't make it difficult to prove I need another computer But I don't know they've made some really interesting changes like um Before you kind of controlled it was essentially turn-based Plussed plus like haste essentially, but for the most part it was turn-based
00:23:36
Speaker
with their ATK bars that would fill up before you could make an attack or like an action. And I guess now you can just attack with like the X button or something. I hope it's... So I really like the updated art style because game's fun but dear god did it look awful. Yeah.
00:23:57
Speaker
Really awful. But when they made Advent Children the movie for like two years after Final Fantasy 7, I'm like, dear God, I didn't know this level of animation existed. It's probably slightly dated now, but it still looks...
00:24:11
Speaker
Really good. So if they can bring that back to life with graphics even close to that, really excited. But if they make it kind of a mashing X gameplay, I'd still buy it, but I would be mad at myself. So the way it works is like, it is the mashing X gameplay until you fill like an attack bar, essentially, then you can use one of your specials.
00:24:35
Speaker
Okay. And your limit break charges by taking damage. And your other, your AI, your other party members will be controlled by AI. But you can like hit a button to activate tactical mode. Is this Kingdom Hearts? This is where all the Final Fantasy characters went in Kingdom Hearts. Found them.
00:24:52
Speaker
They were in this weird other IP that you can activate a tactical mode to be like, hey, use your special abilities, your limit break, whatever, or switch control over to them and then be doing their auto attack to fill their attack bar faster or whatever.
00:25:12
Speaker
I don't know exactly how that factors into pacing because it seems like You're just gonna be focusing on whoever your strongest character is like getting the most attack damage impossible And then being like oh someone else you can do a move do your move, you know like that, but I don't know it's I Get that they didn't want it to just rely on the turn based kind of a style I
00:25:37
Speaker
Think they want to try something new and do something a little more Actively engaging. Mm-hmm Because maybe today's demographic is your audience might be less Open to I'm gonna do RPGs. Yeah, I know there's some like big JRPG fans out there. I
00:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, shout out but Maybe they're thinking oh, we need to have them do things kind of in between. Yeah, so still be RPG like But they're not gonna be sitting there waiting for their bar to fill right says some old executive Yeah, I even I even think in seven the default wasn't to pause the game when your action bar filled But you like why wouldn't you turn that on for later fights? Yeah, like you don't want to
00:26:20
Speaker
You don't want the boss to continue attacking you while you're deciding whether you should really use your rocket, right? Yeah But I don't know looks really good. So I'm sure I'll play it. Yeah, it was actually the reason why I picked up a ps4 initially Yeah, I'm like we're gonna get this one day. Yeah, whether it's good or bad. We will get it Now I have a switch so
00:26:45
Speaker
That's for the next Final Fantasy remake that comes out exclusively on the Switch, right? They're definitely going to get a Switch Final Fantasy title at some point. It'll be adorable as fuck. Super Smash Bros, actually. Technically.
Deathloop: Concept and Expectations
00:26:59
Speaker
Has Super Smash Bros released anything? Oh, that's a fair point. I didn't even have anything in for that. So yeah, Duck Hunt.
00:27:08
Speaker
We actually might've talked about it last time. We did. Yeah. Yeah. So just as a reminder, um, Banjo Kazooie is out. I did my best to not, uh, interject when Jake said the word rare earlier. Yeah, that's my trigger. Um, so Banjo Kazooie and a guy from dragon quest.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, which if you're from Japan and according to analytics, you're not, um, that means more to you. Um, but yeah, I don't know. Uh, kind of already talked about them. They didn't, it's all kind of a we'll see, you know.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure I'm sure I'll get them. I already have the character pass, so I will get them. But just in time. Who knows if we'll play them or not. But it's cool. It's cool to have. Another game that came up from a publisher that I track pretty closely and play the games a lot is Deathloop, which I don't know if you saw any video for it. I did see the trailer. It was very. It didn't say much. It's kind of a.
00:28:17
Speaker
There's kind of, there's like a large sort of circular like energy arc or machine of some way, of some type that is probably related to the plot, but the gist is you're playing a protagonist who's
00:28:33
Speaker
Stuck in this area like a town or something like that and Every time someone dies they are just reborn either at the arch or somewhere else. It's not really made clear in the trailer But there's two conflicting ideologies you apparently have a rival who? Embraces it they're like this is
00:28:55
Speaker
Well take it yeah to take it to the extreme. That's like this is heaven for us like you know I get to just Do whatever I want none of it matters I'll always be able to engage in access and murder and violence and all of this and for the guy He's like I don't know if his family's somewhere else or whatever, but it's held to him right so that's the cliche kind of balancing back and forth and
00:29:17
Speaker
But so like Arkane's made the dishonored series, which I quite enjoy for their gameplay. They made prey I'm still working on it. Yeah, which I'm waiting for Dave to finish and then I'll have to do a little revisit playthrough to to jump in and We can have an episode on prey someday
00:29:38
Speaker
I really, really freaking like Prey, like Mooncrash DLC, the whole thing. I just, I really like Prey. And so I have some faith in them as a developer and that combined with like an RPG advancement system combined with one of my favorite kind of subversions of traditional gameplay, which is incorporating death into your game.
00:30:01
Speaker
Like Dark Souls, like they're the traditional, they kind of made that more popular. Um, but one of the things that really gets me when I'm playing an RPG and including it specifically, Arkane's RPGs is like, my mistakes don't really matter. Like if I want to clear a room and dishonored and I want to do it completely silent or I'm going for like a no kills place or something, if I ever screw up, I reload.
00:30:28
Speaker
Like that's just the way I play. And taking that away from me gets me much more invested in the game. I could house rule myself, but I would know it's not the way it was designed by the developers. So are you normally.
00:30:48
Speaker
Afraid of consequences in games or you just want to have that feel good. I practiced I for using it as the example. Yeah, I killed everybody in here super sneakily in cool ways. Yeah without issue and that's gonna be what saved on your file.
00:31:03
Speaker
yeah i think i think it's more like that and the the challenge or the accomplishment to it so like if there's a huge mansion and i can sneak through and knock everybody out not kill anybody and not alert them um then jake was never invited to my housewarming party again this is now a slumber party
00:31:25
Speaker
But then I feel like I've accomplished something there or like I was playing Horizon Zero Dawn recently and there's some missions where it like starts in stealth and it's like hey Yeah, you know do your infiltration or whatever and in my head I'm like what happens if I do this perfectly if I don't get caught at all
00:31:49
Speaker
And unfortunately, sometimes for games, like I think in cases in Horizon Zero Dawn, it's like, oh, you've knocked out 80% of the enemies, the rest automatically are alerted, which I think is the cheapest out you could possibly have. Yeah, it's not the best.
00:32:05
Speaker
I I do admire that of you though because I do not have that for me I'm just five being a good example. Yeah, you stealth in and like, okay, I'm gonna hit this guy I'm gonna choke this guy out move his body over here. Yeah as I approach the first guy I step on a twig or fart everybody knows where I am at the same I immediately go into like full Rambo mode and then for the one guy who's left I'm like
00:32:31
Speaker
It's actually hilarious you brought up MGS5, because I was thinking about it while I was talking about this. Because that's an example of a game that doesn't work. You can't quick load your save. It does periodic saves. So I was the same situation. If I got detected in an outpost infiltration, I'm just like, OK, consolation prize, what can I get out of this?
Watch Dogs Legion and Surveillance Themes
00:32:54
Speaker
But I accepted my consequences, because the game didn't let me just save scum, essentially.
00:33:01
Speaker
I do appreciate that. I'm also the person who will wait for someone to be like, I have amnesia. I forgot that person was ever here. Right. And it goes about the thing like they probably won't be back. The Skyrim thing where somebody like some some guard or something sees his friend shot down next. I'm just like pelted with arrows. He's like, oh, God, damn it. Runs off, tries to look for something.
00:33:25
Speaker
Must have been the wind. Goes back, stands next to... Stands next to Timmy's corpse.
00:33:33
Speaker
I always told him we don't piss in the wind. Don't shoot arrows in the wind Window get you it's good life advice really but yeah, I'm excited for it. I'm not saying I'm it's a dedicated buy for me for death loop, but There's enough of your description. I'm a little more interested. Mm-hmm I'd be I would at least follow up on a trailer and be like, oh Jake was really excited about this The first trailer didn't sell me. Maybe I'll check out the second one. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's entirely contingent on where they go from here But what will we will see?
00:34:02
Speaker
Maybe they keep it vague to be like we have a game and the next one they're like guys We got to plan out what the fuck this game is. Yeah I think that's that's the bold e3 strat is you announce a game that you haven't started developing yet and you just have the trailer Just like anybody like Final Fantasy 7 But I don't know see where it goes
00:34:26
Speaker
I have a couple other things on here. One of them I suspect you may be less interested in. The next on the list, Watch Dogs Legion, which I understand if you want to just like have a short nap or something.
00:34:41
Speaker
I didn't play the first game or the second game? Yeah, there's been two. I didn't play the second game either. I did play the first. So what is the, I saw it's kind of a bit GTA-ish in that you have a third person, you have a city you're working with. Yeah. So basically the crux, the centralizing themes of Watch Dogs are like,
00:35:01
Speaker
government surveillance programs or corporation surveillance programs are becoming oppressive and they have a lot of control over the infrastructure of the city and you acting as a subversive element can can hack a lot of that infrastructure and Watch Dogs 1 that was like changing lights as you go through intersections to like screw up the cops behind you or like hacking into people's cell phone devices or bank accounts taking their money and stuff and
00:35:31
Speaker
it's It's not uninteresting as a concept, but it's never stood out as a very Compelling genre. No one was gonna be like watchdogs. That's my favorite game This year, you know, so like it has cool things doesn't really have a direction. It's kind of like open world free city Go have your fun
00:35:52
Speaker
There's a story but it's not or at least in my case It wasn't memorable. Like I think at some point a minor secondary character died. I don't remember who they were I don't remember how they died It was supposed to matter the protagonist, but I didn't care. Yeah But it's really the moment-to-moment gameplay of like what can you do with being able to hack the city? Essentially that makes it a bit more interesting. So for watchdog's Legion There's a couple interesting things I noted about this one
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, they they initially it's it's in the UK But they initially started like making it in the UK before the whole brexit thing and then they're just like hey, let's Incorporate this as a post brexit UK. I'm just like alright, that's kind of just a commentary on things I don't know what that means
00:36:46
Speaker
as far as i know like they still have not like everybody voted like yeah let's do the whole brexit thing yeah and then they're like fuck we were all kind of like playing chicken and then so i don't know if that actually has ever gone through it it hasn't it's uh not to get too much in the political commentary but basically there's a lot of factions of their parliament yeah that want their version of brexit to go through yes and they have to reach a certain level of consensus before it passes
00:37:14
Speaker
And they absolutely have failed to do that, unlike every occasion. But they also, they say it would be going against the public consensus to have another referendum and actually ask people if they're sure that they want to leave.
00:37:30
Speaker
Um, which, but they should just do that anyway. Yeah. Yeah. You should probably be confident. Right. But anyways, I digress. That's for our politics podcast, which we have not created. Um, so I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, I don't feel like the politics matter too much. It's kind of a, um,
00:37:51
Speaker
Orwellian future where, I mean, London's already had all of these issues with security and surveillance, you know, kind of similar to the Snowden links and, and Prism program links leaks is what I meant to say, and prison program in the US. Um, so this is grounded in reality, just extrapolated to a slightly dystopic future. Um,
00:38:15
Speaker
It's black mirror. Yeah. Yeah, basically. But in reality, I can see it happening. Yeah. Um, and the first, the second game is not super well received, but I've been more kind of, uh, I don't hate the series. I would play the game if I saw it and I was like, that seems cool.
00:38:34
Speaker
I'm interested to see more, but it doesn't feel like my type of thing. As I said, time and time again, I need some form of direction or just, if we're going back to more open world stuff, really dumb, fun mechanics like MGS5. Yeah. Where it just, it has enough to engage me. And I'm also already a fan of the series, which helps. But if watchdog is like a standalone IP and it's like,
00:38:59
Speaker
Hey, you're this guy. I'm like, I don't know this guy. Yeah. Who the fuck is this? It's hard to get jumped into a new series like that for me. And it could be that in the past they tried to lean too much on a story nobody cared about or a few people cared about. And now the mechanics are more advanced to the point it's fun to just hack the city. Like you can recruit just random NPCs and then play as them and they'll all have different kind of attributes. Yeah. So the one they really showed off was the old lady. Yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
Um, who's like has a taser. So you can kind of slowly walk up on somebody and tase them. That sounds like a stupidest thing. Like it's, it's entirely novelty. It sounds like to me, but I mean, being able to play as any NPCs, it's pure novelty, but at the same time, I think they want to showcase. Oh, Hey, it's not all one exact thing.
Monster Hunter World DLC: New Features
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. But from this, if they haven't announced already, I imagine them going into multiplayer direction.
00:39:54
Speaker
It's like hey do the shit with your friends either in a co-op fashion or uh There's four of you in the city. Yeah, kill each other Yeah, I think they would they if they don't have it and I said like I said I didn't play too But like Assassin's Creed had this whole like find the assassin when everybody was like a random person So you had to look for behavioral differences to figure out who the player was. I like that. That's cool I like that guy in t-pose. Yeah find the spy but
00:40:23
Speaker
We'll see. You know, like I said to every other game and most, most of it, most of it in E3. Bit of a, bit of a naysayer, Jake. Yeah. I wouldn't say this. I'm not going to take time off for this game, but it's no.
00:40:36
Speaker
That means my laundry is partially dry Anybody still out there we're still working All right going back to a little bit more hype Mm-hmm. How do you feel about Monster Hunter? We played we had an episode. Yeah, and now they're coming out with Some DLC for it. So yeah Monster Hunter was my game of the year Picking it up onto Systems and then not feeling ripped off at all
00:41:05
Speaker
is pretty rare for me. We have one friend in particular who rebides the same game for like every single system. That's just in his nature, like every single release for it. I don't do that so much. I mean, usually just a copy of a game is good.
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah for me, um, I merely go the justification of like just pissing away money But yeah monster hunter was another good example where I actually did do that and as you said did not feel cheated because I was replaying it with people
00:41:39
Speaker
It is different from the ground up. Yeah, it's it's really cool to level up with your friends and kill big-ass baddies Yeah, I mean I assume they're bad. Why else would I kill them? Right? Yeah as I am the good guy that makes them the bad guy
00:41:55
Speaker
Yeah, I mean like a game Monster Hunter is like one of those squad deep games where it just feels so much better to play it with friends It's also Methodical in a way once you understand what's going on So you can almost kind of there's these games you can play and then have a discussion at the same time You can be talking about like another
00:42:17
Speaker
Like talking about how your day was whatever you kind of like almost like the poker game Sort of sort of thing where it doesn't take all of your focus necessarily and monster hunter reach once you reach a certain tier And you're not fighting like necessarily the strongest creatures. It's that kind of game You can just get in the groove play it a bit talk to people and it's super fun for it. You're playing bombs. You're like
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm probably gonna make chicken tacos tomorrow. Yeah. Finding bombs is a good time to have discussions, though, to be fair. So what about the ice aspect of it? Did you see the new monsters that were revealed? I don't recall the monsters necessarily. I remember some of the mechanics that were added. Oh. Like snow falling. You can get like snow attached to a snowfall trap.
00:43:01
Speaker
Or like, um, the snow itself will like cling to your character. You have to like roll it off periodically or impacts your, um, your stamina. Um, and they also had, uh, new, I guess their trail riders this time. And so like tail Raiders or tail writers. Um, and they, uh, I don't know exactly how far in the, in tracking the monster you have to get, but they are amount you can just jump on and they'll track the monster for you. They'll like run you to the monster.
00:43:30
Speaker
That sounds so convenient. Yes. Like once you know how much just running around that game has or like you track a monster to the end of the map and he's like, Hey, I'm going to fly over here. Like eventually you kind of just want to sit back and get there. Right.
00:43:47
Speaker
Autopilot that shit. Um, they also said that it's it's supposed to have like almost as much content as the base game Which is really easy
Dying Light 2: Innovation and Plot
00:43:56
Speaker
for me. Yeah that um, unfortunately i'm gonna get that then and play it Yeah, because if it's that much if it's like two characters in new area, that's cool, but I don't feel the impetus to buy it. Yeah
00:44:10
Speaker
Is it I assume it does cost money I would assume it's that much content. Yes that I don't think they're giving away Monster hunter world iceborn, which is also a crossover with bloodborne
00:44:22
Speaker
This is just another element. Yeah, then we'll have fire. Why is this light level so low? And earth born, wind born. Hey, Fiverr. Yeah, I don't know. It's something that looks like it'll be pretty fun. And I mean, if a game is my game of the year, I'm probably going to get the deal. Yeah, it's another one of like, if you have that much fun with it, I can consider it, you know. Yeah. Speaking of, they're doing a dying light too. Yes.
00:44:52
Speaker
Which is another episode worthy jumping off zombies game. Yeah Um, we definitely that we did an episode on it I I think jake. I I was there I kind of am um, and a lot of it's going to come down to how much variation It has over the base game or over the first game. I should say um, because there was I feel like i'm safe. It's safe to say there were definitely flaws in dying. Oh my god like
00:45:22
Speaker
The minute-to-minute gameplay was the game that I gave a shit about. Yeah. When they're like, hey, plot stuff. Timmy has the zombie virus. I'm like, fuck Timmy. Yeah. The whole thing was like, oh, I'm going to go kick zombies into spikes. Timmy just died to arrows. Because I shot Timmy because I wanted XP.
00:45:41
Speaker
Remember like I the the points of this game to stand out to me are literally nothing to do with the plot because we skipped all of it Except the kind of escape sequence Thank you. That was kind of cool. I liked it Again, I did like it. I just don't like the and the rock. It's like directly paced to how fast you're going. Mm-hmm Yeah, sprinting away people like all blisters the gunfire behind you. Yeah, but then you go like a light stroll and people like just shooting the ground like
00:46:11
Speaker
Oh, you made it like nice stormtrooper had anything yeah, but the actual like unlocking skills gaining new abilities to like fight the zombies the absolute brokenness of the melee Like attacks that just invalidated actual weapon usage Yeah, it's crazy. I'm like stomping them in the nuts destroyed 90% of that game
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, or like hanging out next to uh to spike traps Yeah, and just be like and I throw you in that and they suplex you in that and you know all of this um It's it's that game that gameplay and like how smooth the free running was that made it Interesting to me compared to like other games in that space. So If it's the same game, so like we talked about how doom this is this was the correlation i was gonna make
00:47:04
Speaker
If it was Doom 2016, in a new setting, with a little more content, I would be super happy with that. If Dying Light 2 is Dying Light 1, in a similar setting, with the same mechanics, I won't play it. Yeah, because I've already had that experience.
00:47:20
Speaker
Not something I would buy at a full price anyway. Mm-hmm. But if they just tweak it enough I could see myself sinking at least 20 hours into it. Yeah, which then if you do like the math on how much you're spending per time I'd still argue that it's worth it. Mm-hmm, but I wouldn't be necessarily buying those games Every other week type thing. It's just
00:47:44
Speaker
I know that the developers are probably listening to us now. My advice to them is you need to figure out how your plot works in a multiplayer game because that was one of the biggest downsides to me was if I'm playing with a friend, I'm playing for gameplay. Like neither of us are going to just put the controller down, like cook some popcorn and watch like a 30 minute cutscene.
00:48:07
Speaker
Like that would work for, I almost said GTA 4, but Metal Gear Solid 4 or something like that. Like where it is a cinematic experience. But if you're playing with friends, you want to play with friends. It's not like a group sit down activity. Yeah. And this game had, or Dying Light 1, had all of these quests and all of this dialogue and this whole warp to where your ally is so that we can actually like talk to the NPC system that
00:48:37
Speaker
It was just to make it work, like foretelling the story. And none of it mattered to me.
00:48:45
Speaker
So my thing has always been if you're forcing me to do something That's probably because I don't want to do it innately. Yeah, right So if you're forcing me to watch your cinematic so you can give off plot and storyline It probably sucks. Yeah, if it's good, I'm gonna look for it and seek it out like Dark Souls like any other game. I'm like, okay. I actually care about the lore like Halo
00:49:11
Speaker
I actually care about that lore a little bit. Yeah. Like it's an interesting enough universe on its own. Yeah. A really cool world building. The flood. Yeah. Grave mines. Guilty spark. I can go on. Jay names all the characters and races. Halo, the protagonist.
00:49:30
Speaker
That came with just a giant hula hoop, anyway. So yeah, it's again, it falls under the we'll see. But I would like to be optimistic about more information and content for it. I can see that as a bye.
00:49:47
Speaker
yeah as a directly as a completely disconnected aside as you said like it's a giant hula hoop i imagine like the the pelicans like flying down to the ring and there's just like barely perceptible like tropical music playing but as they land on the ring it gets louder and louder and louder
Baldur's Gate 3 and D&D Lore
00:50:06
Speaker
I imagine if they like flew through Halo, they kind of like did like a very slow barrel roll and like kind of sparks came off Different game different game. Yeah, that'd be a rhythm game or something
00:50:19
Speaker
But yeah, we'll see how it ends up. Can we just call it the we'll see episode? We'll see, yeah. We'll see comma E3. That'll work. E3 we'll see. Yeah, I could see it. Coined it. Maybe. Nobody will steal that. Yeah. We only post by the time you hear it. Got them. Speaking of threes though, did you see the teaser for Baldur's Gate 3? I did. And as someone who has some affinity to D&D,
00:50:48
Speaker
I like that. For somebody who's played Divinity, I like that. That's our common ground here. So yeah, I played like a little bit of Baldur's Gate 2 back in like the 90s and it was like... I don't know if the term is like revolutionaries correct, but I'm gonna use it.
00:51:06
Speaker
It was like revolutionary for the time because you basically could get 8 player direct IP connect co-op in that game. Well, 8 player co-op because you could have like a crazy number of like 8 people in your party or whatever at a given time. So you just could have that many people like player controlled characters.
00:51:27
Speaker
And it was absurd and I mean it never worked because it remember all like the the NAT Problems in the 90s with opening your computer up to outside connections going to your router port forwarding Yeah, that was a thing
00:51:42
Speaker
Thank goodness we're not there anymore. But, um, yeah, I mean, Baldur's Gate, south sword coast, interesting city, very popular in, uh, in forgotten realms. And, uh, Larian as a developer, I've said this before, but they are the most qualified people to make this game. Like if Wizards of the coast was like, Hey, we're going to handle this first party. I would be like, I don't know. But Larian's like, you know, it's going to be good.
00:52:12
Speaker
Yeah, what? I love about Larian. Again, we're never gonna have a divinity episode, but we'll talk about it. We can have content throughout episodes.
00:52:25
Speaker
So I know I've talked about before, but I'd like to sell it again. There is a metric fuck ton of content in that game, uh, between dialogue, character choices, the overall plot, all the side quests you can do the character building. It's ridiculous. Yeah. And I'm like, wow, that was a great game. I'm glad I played it to fruition. And then later they're like.
00:52:49
Speaker
Yeah, we added like 500 hours of like probably exaggerating a little bit like right 500 was at least 100 minus one like 300,000 lines of dialogue. They added on. Yeah after the game is already out. They didn't charge anybody for it. They're just like
00:53:05
Speaker
We kind of wanted to tweak this. They just couldn't leave it alone. They had to perfect it more, right? Yeah. And then I watched a talk from one of the head developers saying like, hey, here are all these problems that we ran into in place that we went wrong. Yeah. I'm like, but the game was perfect. And like they have so much good things to offer and they truly care about it. And they're great story writers. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
Like, similar to George RR's care for his books. Right. It's, oof. So if it's anything in the RPG aspect, they're now one of those studios where I'm like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I will follow your stuff until the end.
00:53:46
Speaker
I'll check it out because it's based in D&D. So And D&D has its own cool ass lore. Yeah, exactly. I guess for so much of the early RPG things have branched from Yeah, it definitely borrowed from an outright copied from the people before it in particular Tolkien And other high fantasy for the time but mostly Tolkien, right? Yeah
00:54:10
Speaker
But, uh, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's added a lot since then. So look forward to, uh, being absolutely destroyed and having my brain eaten by illithids. Mine, the mind flayers and of all these gates should be good for me. Just know that is, is like a smaller casino. That's essentially what it is. Actually, uh, it is a small casino. That's 100% true.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, no, it'll be good though. So looking forward to that co-op campaign, which I'll actually play. I mean, hey, um, I'll probably pick it up too. So maybe it's a good chance. There's a good chance. Um, but we'll see. I make these jokes so that Jake feels shoe horned into playing co-op games with me. It's like a fucking hate Dave. I don't want to play games with them, but I keep recording these when we keep bringing it up. It's on the record now.
Outer Worlds and Fallout Comparisons
00:55:04
Speaker
I mean, we've played co-op games recently, though. Jake, it wasn't an actual, you don't have to defend yourself. It was a joke. We're post. Oh, shit. Yeah, that's honestly one of the big ones. Going kind of more quickly through some of the things that I
00:55:22
Speaker
or highlights for me. One of them is Outer Worlds, made by Obsidian. So this is basically, they didn't bill it as such, obviously, but people are calling it fallout in space, essentially. That's what the inspiration looks like. Right, like nuclear radiation in space is not much else to it.
00:55:41
Speaker
No, but like they made Fallout New Vegas and they are much more likely to have disparate character paths based off choices than Bethesda is. Bethesda has shown kind of as a Fallout 4 that things in their games choices tend to just come back to we're basically the good guy and we're going to complete the quest.
00:56:05
Speaker
Um, but it has been very old school in that regard and I don't say that in a positive way but maybe it seems like outer worlds could be uh The true successor right spiritual successor, yeah, and it's it's i'll be honest like i've played i'm not
00:56:27
Speaker
Actually, you know what? I'm going to take that back. I am tired of the modern fallout setting. Like they just, there's so much that's already there that they kind of have to like keep putting subtle nods to like in fallout 76. They're like, we know that the brotherhood of steel wasn't like founded here because it's already been established that it was founded on the East coast, but man, they sure made a tough, like a big decision here. So we're just going to like,
00:56:54
Speaker
voice dialogue and like, you can like find some terminals and read about it and stuff. I'm like, yeah, I get it. It's kind of like you have some important touch points, points in your world. And the only thing you can do is tie connections to those touch points. Like you can't stand on your own and a new area, um, and keep everybody's interest. And I mean, obviously other problems with all 76, but so is more of like a piggybacking, you believe.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah, they're they're building. I would love it takes more effort to make a new world. I think I would agree with you as would everybody. Right. I mean, like to a certain extent, it's also tough to keep an old universe.
00:57:36
Speaker
Interesting relevant. Yeah interesting and relevant but there you can inject a lot of fresh gameplay with a completely different game right where you're not beholden to Mechanics from Fallout 3 Fallout New Vegas Fallout 4 People don't have to collect junk just because you introduce that as a feature at one point and then I'm a fan of this hi-fi setting like jumping between planets and
Borderlands 3: Novelty and Expectations
00:58:02
Speaker
It feel based off what we've seen it looks kind of like a more RPG sort of like borderlands with character choices and like dialogue and other things like that We haven't seen a whole lot and energy swords. That's the cool thing
00:58:16
Speaker
That's what's got me sold, is the almost- I'll give you an eyebrow raise on that. The blood dragon looking beam swords and things. Yeah. So I'm going to continue to watch this and I will probably pick it up and pray that it runs on my computer. Not that it's going to like have amazing graphics. Is this Minecraft? It's not going to be the case, but I hope that it doesn't just crash constantly. Obsidian has had trouble with some performance issues in the past.
00:58:47
Speaker
I said it happens to everybody. I like that. This is me coming off of I'm not going to I'm going to quickly go. Oh, Jake, I know you're a liar flat out as a person, so it doesn't even phase anymore. Oh, yeah. But you did mention Borderlands 3. I know that was also announced that he's had some gameplay. Yeah. Some people were streaming that. How's that look to you?
00:59:11
Speaker
I'm not a big Borderlands person myself. I didn't grow up with it at that exact time. I got a little bit late. I do appreciate some of it. Like, Oh, that's kind of cool. But for me, I'm not following the universe. Yeah. So I'm less invested if they made a third. Yeah. But I know you guys have definitely done some stuff through Borderlands too.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah, I I never played the pre-sequel I i've had it like installed and ready to play for like the last three years. He's just waiting to refund that shit Uh, no, I think I think about the key on green man gaming so I can't refund it at this point but um Like the the writing really Peaked for me in two and I just had less interest from what I saw in pre-sequel so hopefully they can kind of They need to make improvements to it borderlands. Can't do the call of duty thing and be like
00:59:59
Speaker
and here's another one and they're like slight mechanics change they have to be mixing it up more because the core mechanics are just
01:00:10
Speaker
So founded, I guess, like so established that unless you're making significant changes or giving me a reason to come back to it, I'll just be like, if I feel like playing Borderlands, I'll play too. Cause it was really good. Well, I'm sure they're going to try and add new zany characters and then also add some other weapon modifications, but still keeping things like, Oh, you know, you're going to have a Jacob sniper rifle and other things. Right. As I always did. Yeah.
01:00:39
Speaker
For a reason. I
Cyberpunk 2077: Anticipation and Themes
01:00:43
Speaker
don't know. I had a quick glance for me. Again, not invested in that. It just seems like a sequel. Yeah. And I'm not going to follow it until like there's like three people I know who aren't already borderlands fan people who are like, this looks really good. We should play it together as a group.
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah. And there's, there's also like, I have a lot of questions about where they're actually going to go in the story. Uh, given this happens after two, cause this isn't the prequel now or the pre-sequel cause that happened between one and two. I don't know. Um.
01:01:20
Speaker
1.5 hearts reborn. Yeah Because basically borderlands at least For one and two culminates in this massive boss fight. Mm-hmm. That's just like oh, that's what all this meant and it was kind of cool like it was some world building and you had some justification for it and I don't know where they go for three I don't know if this is borderlands. We need more money or if this is borderlands. We had some really good ideas. I
01:01:47
Speaker
That's a good way to categorize sequels actually Yeah So, yeah Do you want to end the podcast and skip over cyberpunk? Yeah, I don't We should jump to it though. There's other things on this list. Nobody cares. No one will ever know I
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think the main thing that people were pretty much most people were tracking would be cyberpoint 2077 Yeah, it's kind of just a force of will choice to not talk about it up to this point and just pretend that it wasn't at e3 I thought you just missed it. I'm like, thank you for God
01:02:23
Speaker
No, I, I saw it was originally on your list. I mean, obviously I saw it. So this was, I'm going to like, I like to be a little more edgy and like non-mainstream. I don't even care. Cyberpunk just looks really, really good. Like this is the game I'm most excited for by far. And it's like, I love the idea of Baldur's Gate. You know, I love the idea of a new obsidian game and sci-fi setting, but cyberpunk is just freaking CD project Fred who.
01:02:52
Speaker
I just pray they continue to maintain their streak of making really, really solid, amazing games. I mean, they made Witcher 3, and that's all I need to give a shit about it. It's like, but I guess the cynic would be just because Witcher 3 was good.
01:03:11
Speaker
Now maybe not even cynic But someone who's not as optimistic as maybe just because Witcher 3 is good does not mean cyberpunk will be good This is a first room. This is a first-person shooter. They've never done that or Like they haven't really stepped outside of the Witcher franchise and IP so like how do they deal with character interactions things like that and
01:03:35
Speaker
But I argue the exact same way. Yeah. All right. It's just the mechanics have changed as far as like it would be shooting and stuff. But when you have, again, people who are that passionate about their projects and then when you have like the guy who made the original cyberpunk, it involves Mike Pondsmith.
01:03:56
Speaker
Like the directions gonna go in a good way. Yeah, because they care about it. That's their baby, right? Yeah, they're not gonna like cover their baby and shit Pay me money they're gonna nurse it for like 18 years send it off to college Is that is that how that usually works nursing for 18 years? I didn't know how to speak until I was 19 No, it's a
01:04:22
Speaker
like mechanically it sounds like obviously I haven't been able to play the demo because I didn't go to E3 but the the demos that have been shown show a What it looks like as the abbreviated I've never seen anything about cyberpunk introduction is it looks like Deus Ex with more RPG mechanics in a more compelling Setting as far as interpersonal
01:04:50
Speaker
Interactions go to me and like I I like CD Projekt Red because they're in Poland like they don't care about what Western sensibilities are I mean, they're still Western in quotes, right? But like American sensibilities are so this is a game that will have adult themes and I don't just mean like it's a porn game because that's a season of
01:05:13
Speaker
But it's like they'll. Well, they'll breach boundaries. A publisher like Bethesda never would. Yeah, because they're just like, oh, people will dislike that, you know. Yeah. In a way, they're not going to. Water down the game, like if they're trying to like convey this is like some shit where like these gangs are doing drugs and murdering each other. Yeah. That's what the game is. And that's what they'll show. Yeah.
01:05:39
Speaker
I think one telling thing about it is the description that everyone in Night City, which is a setting for Cyberpunk 2077, um, wants what's best for themselves. Like they're not here for altruism. None of the people you work for are just going to be like, yep, hope, hope, like helping out the new guy, you know, going to give them a contract. Yeah, exactly. It's all like, how can they get ahead? Is it more beneficial for them to backstab you?
01:06:09
Speaker
And then your protagonist, your character is in the same situation. Like everybody, it feels like an RPG is they want you to be the hero. Yeah, typically it is kind of that you're the chosen one to save the things you can fuck the princess later. But not that. Sensibility. But like the whole thing is it's like the slow progression of power of like the main character. Yeah.
01:06:38
Speaker
At least very early on, it was common to be like, you are the good guy. Yes. But there have been so many interesting things where it's like, I'm not the good guy. Right. Or maybe you find out later, you're like, Oh, I'm an asshole. Yeah, exactly. Or being, or forcing a player to be put in those choices. Like, um.
01:06:56
Speaker
If you're in the studio already Wolf Among Us, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like I got your action. Yeah, telltale. How are they doing? I Had some interactions from characters and I got into like a bar fight and ripped a guy's arm off Yeah, I think it's gonna go that way He died But I like
01:07:20
Speaker
I like when things go in other directions besides, uh, this is like the straight normal and true thing. And like that's really been done. Yeah. And it can still be done really well, but I'm so curious to see things outside of that.
01:07:34
Speaker
If your game has choice in it and the only choice is be the hero, be the good guy, then that choice doesn't mean anything. Yes. Like if you put someone in night city and they choose to be a benevolent person and not grow jaded as they're screwed over by everyone else who takes advantage of that. Um, and just continues to, you know, have this positive outlook in the world and like,
01:08:00
Speaker
Give away your money to the poor do whatever like that means something because you're not forced into that course Yes, so if you want to play as a good guy in cyberpunk Like good on you. I'm sure it's gonna be tough. You know, like yeah, you're gonna get ahead way more by screwing other people over guaranteed it just looks like super cool universe I've liked their other stuff before
01:08:25
Speaker
This is not a we'll see this is uh, yeah, i'm taking time off Yeah, already planning on taking a week off for this in april. So This is this is my top anticipated game And I was kind of surprised that it was actually coming out Uh next year like the turnaround was sort of that quick. Yeah, I realized it was announced in like 2016 but still
01:08:48
Speaker
Four years, it'll take me longer, huh? It's been in development for like seven years, it's absurd. But that's the way CD Projekt Red actually works. They're like, hey, kind of working on something. People are like, oh my gosh, they lose their minds years past, generations even, right? And then they're like, all right, it's done.
01:09:07
Speaker
people lose their, the generations, their grandchildren lose their minds. I was joking, um, that, uh, the really state was actually in the title of the game. But, uh, thankfully I was very wrong. Even if it did come out in 2077, they still could have had Keanu announce it. Am I right? Yeah, he is immortal. So yeah, that is the, uh, the popular take.
01:09:35
Speaker
But yeah, everything, all of the developer interactions, the talks that the creator of Cyberpunk 2020 was the original, like everything they've said about the game, about how they're treating the character interactions and the overarching like themes.
01:09:55
Speaker
as far as transhumanism and corporations versus personal opinions and power, essentially. The whole dynamic is really interesting in ways that other games in this dystopic future
01:10:16
Speaker
Uh, in particular, like Deus Ex is really the only modern example I can think of. Like they don't go into it. That game goes into conspiracy and all of this. It's kind of like, this is universe. This is in place. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so anyways.
01:10:33
Speaker
We'll see. All right. Yeah. And with that, I would like to thank everybody for listening to another episode of soapstone. Uh, as always, you can reach out to us at soapstone podcast at gmail.com or directly on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And we live here. We look forward to hearing
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:10:56
Speaker
from you. And until next time, we'll see you in the next one.
01:11:01
Speaker
Have a good evening and thank you for listening.
01:11:34
Speaker
I am the coda. It's good time.