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S2 Ep156: Talkcast - May 2021
79 Plays4 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they catch up on food, news, games, and more in this week's episode!
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/
Recommended
Transcript
Structuring Movie Nights for Socializing
00:00:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think like you need a structure around the movie. If you're going to go watch something, if you want to have the social aspect to it. Yeah, it's not like after a given movie and be like, oh, we definitely need to have like a length of duration over dinner afterwards. It just feels weird to drive as far as movie tavern was for us. Right. Have a thing and be like, all right, see, then you get home at like, I mean, usually movies are later in the evening. Imagine you get home at like nine, you're like,
00:01:03
Speaker
You guys play some games? Right. It's just a weird transition. I like if I go out when I went out to like this is the afternoon and this is the evening. It feels weird to come home and be alone with my thoughts or just.
00:01:22
Speaker
I don't know. It's, it's odd to try to fit a movie into an otherwise like social evening, unless it's the finale, right?
Cultural Norms in Movie-Going
00:01:31
Speaker
It's, it's kind of weird. It's usually dinner in a movie, not a movie. And then like, you guys still hungry? Roundtable, second dinner. Yeah, but that's also, I think.
00:01:42
Speaker
Part of the culture of movies is when they're typically are. It's like, oh, it's on an afternoon matinee. It's a, it's a movie, an evening event. When was the last time? Do you remember the last time you went to a matinee? Cause I was literally like a child.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, it was probably somewhere in my teens. Probably saw something I liked. There's like a budget theater, not far from like a Long John Silvers, where it's like a couple bucks, you go see something that was, that's been out for a very long time. Like a movie, whatever, something to do.
00:02:19
Speaker
I think it wasn't a matinee, but like we go in the opposite direction now. So I think the last movie I saw that was like not standard, you know, six, seven, eight o'clock timeframe was like, it might've been Avengers or something like that. Like it was infinity war or something. It was one of the ones that was really hard to get tickets for, for us locally. And so
Marvel Movie Excitement
00:02:40
Speaker
I think Zach was getting tickets and he's like, all right, 1130 or something. I'm like, uh, on a work day out of one of those. What I might've seen was infinity war, the first one.
00:02:52
Speaker
uh infinity war in the two part sort of like climax yeah yeah infinity war and then end game end game yeah okay so i did see infinity war with you guys because remember like we got home at like two and like what time is it like oh shit i'm very tired yeah that was freaking exhausting it's great to watch though very entertaining basically i think i like to
00:03:22
Speaker
Like I'm never like, Hey, remember the one time we saw a Marvel movie? Like they're very in the moment. It was fun. And then afterwards.
00:03:33
Speaker
Okay, like, it just doesn't stick with me. Does there exist, because I know my answer to this, does there exist a movie that you would see in theaters and then be like, oh man, I'm going to go watch that again? Or maybe even like I'm going to buy that on DVD or something like that.
Movies Worth Owning
00:03:51
Speaker
Blu-ray. I don't think there's ever a movie in theaters that I had that feeling for. There have definitely been some movies I've watched over time
00:04:02
Speaker
where immediately after I'm like, that was really good. I enjoyed it so much. I'm going to find other people to watch it with to share my enjoyment. I'm like, check out this awesome thing. Scott Pilgrim, probably watched like seven times in a week. Boondock Saints. I just watched at home alone and my parents, I'm like, you guys got to see this.
Cheap Eats Memories
00:04:24
Speaker
My parents are fairly conservative, but they enjoyed it.
00:04:29
Speaker
And I think phone booth I watched many times. I'm not familiar with that one.
00:04:35
Speaker
I'm not going to even try and sell it at this point. I enjoyed it. I haven't seen it in at least 15 years, but it's good. Yeah, I think so. Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, to let you answer, since you had a canned response ready, are you saying that you, I'm guessing, aren't that way? Yeah, I don't think I've seen a movie in theaters that I would.
00:05:02
Speaker
pick up even Scott Pilgrim. I don't even know if I saw that in theaters. It might have been on TV later at some point because it doesn't fit like the timeline of my life. Like this is a movie that my parents will take me to. So unless unless it like just happened to slide into the college years, like community college, it's just like, let's save up money and go watch a watch a movie. But like.
00:05:30
Speaker
We didn't have that kind of money like in community college. I remember my friend and I would go to Little Caesars and order their like four dollar large pizza or whatever. Five. Five dollars. Everything was five. Everything was five. And then split it.
00:05:47
Speaker
And so it's just like 250 a piece lunch of perfect deal. And, um, I don't actually know if it was a perfect deal. I think Taco Bell right now might still be competitive for the, like the dollar menu and nonsense, but at the time, like a full pizza, five bucks is pretty good. Yeah. Well, the thing is like you'd get the $5 hot and ready pepperoni because you wanted to poop yourself. Now let me elaborate. Right.
00:06:16
Speaker
you also wanted the wings. Ah, OK. The wings were also kind of, I remember them being like very juicy, not like crispy skin. Right. They're like five wings in there. Oh, very marinated. But like they were good enough for what I remember. And then when you finish the wings, you had this leftover sauce to like dip your pizza
Gummy Bears and Indulgences
00:06:39
Speaker
in. Oh, Buffalo sauce on top of like this pepperoni grease pizza. Hooray.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, Buffalo Pizza. You can do it wrong, but I'm specifically thinking of Pizza Pub. I remember being able to like ring out next or if I just like picked up my pizza, I always had to account for like the drip angles because it was going to drip. Sponge type pizza is uncommon compared to like Italian or something else, deep dish.
00:07:11
Speaker
I like it though. Like I miss a nice greasy slice. I feel like I always eat, I don't want to say healthier, but like kind of more boring now. Right. Cause like I'm not cooking fancy shit on a given day.
00:07:30
Speaker
I'm like, oh, I should probably get like a bag salad for like most of the week and maybe dinner, I'll cook up a meat or something. Or do like ad hoc, like, well, we can have some chips here, some kimchi, gummies, that's calories. Just that last one is basically the way I've lived my life recently. We need to go get groceries. I think the plan is to do that Saturday. But I've got like a box.
00:07:55
Speaker
with Rice Krispie treats and like gummy snacks and Like something else. I can't remember. Oh, yeah, like little little gummies. We got from like Trader Joe's Which are they're okay. The one flavor is better than the other but I'd like to imagine that from Trader Joe's are not packs of gummies anymore. It's either like
00:08:15
Speaker
Bag of multiple gummies or it's a gummy like it's one minute a bite of the bear Could you could you cut me off a slice? Thank you. Just give me like a paw paw of gummy Did you guys ever have like the five pound gummy bear
00:08:33
Speaker
Are you aware of it? I know it exists. I've seen it. I think I've seen it on Amazon or something. Yeah. It was like a purely novelty type thing. It's not practical, but I mean, I was a kid and I used my allowance money for like sugar and stuff. My parents wouldn't get me. Um, I really wish they would have been more strict with that because I was dumb. I still am. But like, I remember actually cutting off pieces of this giant gummy. Right.
00:09:01
Speaker
it's literally you're like carving a turkey or something at that point you're just like okay a portion of gummy for dessert
00:09:08
Speaker
See, that's the absurdity of it. That's the reason you need like the small gummies is so you can eat more than you ever intended to because they're just like bite size. Well, here's the thing, right? One, giant gummy, it has to be very gelatinous to hold its shape and kind of too chewy sticks in your teeth. Then there's like kind of like the more paraffin waxy stuff. Oh, yeah. And then there's like Welch's gummies, which I feel like are a good balance and I know you have.
Podcast Theme Evolution
00:09:35
Speaker
Yes. And that's what I'm currently
00:09:37
Speaker
Stocking in the cabinet, but I do like the waxy gummies though. That's my favorite type not the like a smile but like I think so that sounds that sounds right like they're like little races It's like the basic flavors of like strawberry grape lemon and orange Yeah, but I think that's my favorite texture on a gummy if you bit into one and like the back of your mouth You had to brush your teeth afterwards because it was it stayed it like filled all the gaps in your teeth
00:10:04
Speaker
Right. Dentists hate them for not because it helps your dental work, but just because it sticks around. What about Swedish Fish? We basically, it's a standby because generally I like Swedish Fish. So that's like a very waxy chewy type. Yeah. I think that's my favorite sort of consistency is something like that.
00:10:30
Speaker
Um, my other favorite sort of consistency though. This is a transition. I can see it in his face. I see the smile. How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Well, now I'm hungry. You fucker. Talked about food for 10 minutes and I already ate. Yeah. I handle, I might have some gummies after this.
00:10:56
Speaker
Some sort of noodles were presented for me. Um, I don't know exactly what type, but they tasted good. Were you blindfolded? You're like chicken stock. No, I'm just uncultured. Basically. It's like if you, if you took somebody and he dropped them in the middle of human civilization and they had no idea what any type of food is, this isn't an analogy. That's just me. Was it like buttered noodles? Was it ramen? Uh, it was probably buttered.
00:11:25
Speaker
It's got like a little bit of spice to it, a little bit of a kick. I'm not sure exactly. I'm just going to ask your wife later. Yeah, that's the best way. I'm not here. I won't have any hints. I'll be like, well, they were there some sort of grain or starch, you know, possibly a carbohydrate.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah. Sorry, I continue. No, that's it. I was just saying we have a podcast. Sometimes we talk about game stuff. We're phasing that out in favor of food, though. Legitimately, I have suggested it to you and other people. Foodcast. Yeah, I mean, we literally had a section for a good hot minute. It was like what you've been eating or something like that.
00:12:15
Speaker
Um, eating with soap or something like that, I think was a working title, working progress title. Um, I still like that one. I think that was pretty, pretty funny. I would want another section. I don't know what it would be for, but just for the name of the troubles with bubbles.
00:12:32
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. Just like an entire soap themed cast sort of thing. Yeah. Maybe the guest thing could be something like like like a ducky in the bathtub or something like that or whatever, you know, like a friend in the conversation. Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch. I can't really think of it. Red Science soap sound fits really freaking well in the dark, dark souls lawyer. So.
00:12:58
Speaker
I was pretty, we talked about the different types of episodes really early. Yeah, we had the long game in mind on episode two. For whatever reason. What if we have a guest someday and we're like, all right, no, but if we did, we'll use an invasion substone.
Podcast Previews and Promotion
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
Or I guess red is the voluntary invasion, right? You put down your soapstone and then someone activates it to have them invade your world. It's the PVP one. Right. Like the arena. The Justin Only episodes could just be orange? That's kind of funny, yeah. Which Justin Am I talking about? It doesn't matter. Yeah, yeah. Well, probably the only one that's been a guest on the podcast, I assume.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think I would need to be significantly more proficient with any sort of food in order to contribute to the discussion. I could just sit here and listen, you know, snack a little bit, write a little feedback like, oh, that sounds like something I have eaten. I mean, I could theory craft something throughout the week, make it for myself, send Jenny like, hey, here's the version of what I made and things good.
00:14:17
Speaker
And maybe she'll make that or she'll tweak it to something more to your tastes and then you try it. And then we talk about it. Gotcha. I mean, that could work. We basically don't advice first muffins. Yeah, I'll make the food. I'll customize it to your tastes. Send it over by tweak to your tastes. We're just going to like throw habaneros on it or something. Just like ghost pepper. Call it a day. I feel like I've built up a reputation.
00:14:46
Speaker
Mm hmm. Only you have 100%. Anytime you're like, it's not even spicy or like this is probably this, this would kill a person. It might, it wouldn't kill every person. That's what not even means, but it would kill a person. I've just ingested more hot sauce over time. So I built up a tolerance. It's definitely gone down though. Yeah.
00:15:12
Speaker
just due to, uh, not going as crazy with stuff. Can't go to pizza pub anymore and get the, uh, dragon dragon fire sauce. It's like, it would, it would destroy my insides and I would feel terrible the next day. Yeah. And it's like, Hey, what are you doing in quarantine? Eating the hot stuff alone. Yeah, indigestion. I don't know. It's, I do enjoy the thrill of a spice. I like a nice spice, but
00:15:41
Speaker
I don't know, maybe I'll order some Thai in the near future. Haven't had that in a bit. Right. Also, I'm pointing at the camera slash, actually I'll point out your picture in the monitor. Yeah. Presumably the listeners. I think you know, it's to you since I'm talking to you this whole time. Right. Next time you are in my area, we're going to get mama Wong's wings. Okay. All right.
00:16:09
Speaker
They're fucking delicious. That's the whole thing. They are their best wings. They're crispy. They got some garlic, some spice, some other stuff. They are some of the greasiest boys ever. But holy shit. That sounds pretty good.
00:16:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think I should have those when I visit next. And then when you come out, we can get like firebirds or something because I think that they're now the best in the area. I don't know if like.
00:16:41
Speaker
Like we were talking about Smokey Bones at one point, and I think they were inconsistent. Like they were good one time, not as good the next time. Firebirds has mostly been good, except last time they did forget a full gallon of Arnold Palmer with my order. And I didn't notice somehow. Where's the gallon of beverage? I got thirsty. Yeah.
00:17:08
Speaker
I mean, I'll definitely try them out. They're pretty good. I'm still pretty sold on. Doing what is it? Jewels Sunday. Oh yeah. Yeah. Jewels is pretty solid. Um, obviously no real contest.
00:17:24
Speaker
Just an old standby as far as food's concerned. I probably sound like so tired or something. I'm not really. I'm just like plodding along through the conversation. The tone feels like it at least. I don't know.
00:17:41
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like you're never the most energetic person, but also neither am I. I would like to point that out. I'm not saying I'm energetic by any means. Right. That's fair. I mean, if people have listened this far, then get on them, you know?
00:17:58
Speaker
That's basically the way I treat the podcast in general. You listen to an episode and then you listen to another episode.
Resident Evil Game Discussions
00:18:05
Speaker
Like what happened between episode one and two? That's just a little self-deprecating. Thank you to our listeners who continue to listen to the podcast. Statistics say you exist and that surprises me and I'm grateful for it, thankfully. For your existence, I mean.
00:18:26
Speaker
Thanks for doing an ad to our sponsors, the listing. I mean, so basically, if you have a Patreon or something like that, which we don't, that is any time you are like, hey, check out my Patreon, you are doing an advertisement for yourself, basically, in a way. Well, yeah, it's a self-promotion because you're like, hey, if you want to support me in what I do, here's a good channel to do that through. Right.
00:18:54
Speaker
It does sound better than like send me money. I don't want to give out my personal address, nor do I want to process, you know, checks or making deposits of any sort. Uh-huh. That's a good call. Um, I don't know. Do we talk about video games? Can if you want. Yeah. I thought we were doing that like nine minutes ago and then. Oh, okay. Uh, which one do you want to talk about first? I see you got some stuff on a list.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's just burning through some stuff that were that was that were on my radar. The first of which, obviously, a Resident Evil village came out recently. Seen a lot of articles, people talking about it. I thought it looked good from the trailers, so I wanted to kind of follow up. And I actually ended up just kind of binge watching a play through. No day. And I'm glad I didn't buy it, but I thought it was kind of kind of cool.
00:19:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think, yeah, definitely there's some games. I get this with like, um, uh, heavy rain, things like that, where honestly watching a play through can be just as gratifying. I feel like they're like playing a play through just if it's.
00:20:11
Speaker
There's not really choices, I guess, sort of to make along the way. Heverine's a terrible example for that because it's only choices. Like that's the only thing the game has as far as gameplay is concerned in like quick time events. But you know what I mean? You can get the experience of the game without you treat it like a show or something like that. And I find that as I grow more lazy and my old age slash tired, I'm just like, oh, yeah, I'll just I'll watch the youngins play games. It'll be fine.
00:20:39
Speaker
I mean, I definitely see an appeal to that too, but it depends what it is. Like if it's a Dark Souls type game, I really enjoy that journey of manually going through and figuring stuff out and just trying to buff like the one weapon I like using and not trying anything else or exploring. But having that firsthand versus watching somebody else do it.
00:21:00
Speaker
and then be like, why wouldn't build that way or try that out? But if I've already played through the game, I'll be like, oh yeah, I'll watch Ian do something and be like, okay, like what's his take on it? And I can like root for him to win because I've already gone through it. Like in Dark Souls though, so much of it is...
00:21:18
Speaker
individual experience like oh it really sucks watching that guy like miss a parry but you feel like you could have got or like failed to dodge or they like pick up a weapon that you're like i really like this weapon and they just like vendor it immediately or something right you're like you're like but i wanted to see a great size run well time to load up dark souls um
00:21:41
Speaker
Maybe that's also because you're more engaged in the Dark Souls game, but I feel like an aspect of it is also like, if you go through Resident Evil or one of these other games, it's like, are you using a gun? Are you beating the bosses? Yes, there is proficiency involved. Some people are way better at that than me. Most people are way better at that than I am.
00:22:08
Speaker
Um, but it kind of feels like completion sort of rather than experience, if that makes any sense. Well, yeah, it's the achievement of you doing it yourself. Yeah. Probably the best way to put it. If I were to play through resident evil, I would definitely feel achievement for having gone through and completing it, completed it, but I don't know. It's, I kind of like tagging along for.
00:22:37
Speaker
what's happening in the same way I got a point. I'm just like, I'm curious to see the other Harry Potter movies just to know what happens, but that's it. I don't give a fuck about Harry Potter. That's it. I feel the same way with Resident Evil. I think it's dumb, but it looks really pretty in the design. That seems cool.
00:23:00
Speaker
I kind of like the dumb though, like there is in Resident Evil 7, they kind of like made this, not that Resident Evil is ever like had a high focus on believability, but they kind of like tried a little bit more.
00:23:17
Speaker
in some ways until seven and then seven comes along and it's like you had your freaking hand cut off and you just like pick it up and you like just dump this like healing sauce over it and then like stretch your fingers and everything's like magically like like your Frankenstein's monster basically um in the game and does it make any actual realistic sense no not at all but they say consistent to it within the universe and that absurdity makes it fun
00:23:44
Speaker
like Metal Gear Solid or something like that. Doesn't make any sense. Absolutely doesn't make any sense. It's just a range of how much. But they play it straight in the universe.
00:24:02
Speaker
So I'll grant that there's definitely times where it's fine to suspend disbelief for fantastical stuff. Again, I watch anime. Again, I've been replaying near games. I fucking see it. I'm aware. And you're just like, what the fuck is this?
00:24:17
Speaker
But in the moment, you're like, yeah, she beat the guy. And it's fun. But more so when I was watching this, again, personal opinion, I haven't really followed the series outside of watching seven and eight to take it with a heavy grain of salt. But it just felt like certain things were just like, oh, why would you do that? It seemed almost inconsistent or
00:24:44
Speaker
not silly for like hammy or campy, just kind of like, that was stupid.
00:24:52
Speaker
I don't know. I just I got a lot of those vibes like personally. Right. I get that. I mean, it is pet peeve is sort of like the cutscene loss of loss of agency or control over the protagonist. Like that, I feel like that's not even a pet peeve. I think people who play games in general all have moments where it's like if I was not in a cutscene right now, that would be like reek and dead. Or why am I just like walking into this obvious trap or something like that?
00:25:21
Speaker
And in Resident Evil's case, I suspect it's more sort of like scripted segments, right? It's like, here's like a cannibal dinner or something like that. You're like, now you will sit down at the table because we need you to sit down at the table, right? Instead of like peace, like the F out of there. Let's see. It's like, I'm going to door dash something. Thanks, guys. Right.
00:25:49
Speaker
Sorry, I've been going on this whole tirade. Did you watch any trailers for it? Do you have any interest in getting at some point? What's your stance on the whole thing? I didn't finish seven. This is another thing where it's like, if I can use the argument for Monster Hunter, which is starting to look better, I checked out some content for it and I'm like, oof.
00:26:10
Speaker
Team Dark Side videos actually look ridiculous. They always look good though. Five people with the same weapon, executing the exact same combos on the exact same tempo, and it's just like, oh my gosh. That won't be us by the way. I know. I will never beat me.
00:26:26
Speaker
I won't be a single individual executing a combo properly, let alone a group. But yeah, I mean, I didn't finish 7 and I feel like it's still sort of a continuation of that style of gameplay and it was good. I just have been playing other things in like the four years or whatever since it came out, probably
Game Development Insights
00:26:50
Speaker
three. Three for you. Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
So I don't know. It's a perfect game for me to watch. So I'll probably like tune in for some streams. But I don't particularly have a lot of attachment to the series. I enjoyed five because it had co-op and I thought that was fun.
00:27:15
Speaker
But yeah. And you mentioned like you don't really follow the series. I don't think you necessarily need to follow the series because I don't believe that there's really a thread of continuity from like one all the way through. Yeah. Like I know seven and eight are both like.
00:27:34
Speaker
fairly abstracted away from Las Plagas or Albert Wesker or anything like that. Maybe there's a big reveal connection thing I don't know about, but I think it was intended to be kind of like a starting point for sort of the new generation of games.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yeah. I just wanted to say that as like a, I'm not a hardcore fan. Right. So I'm more of an outsider looking in, forming an opinion versus, well, compared to the previous games and like gone through and like, it doesn't hold a candle to Resident Evil two and here's why. Right. No, that's fair. Um, what about bio mutant? You seen trailers for that?
00:28:16
Speaker
I saw a trailer for that and it's like on your recommendation. And it looks like it has potential. The description is like kind of open world, jump around, fight enemies in a vaguely action, dodgy sort of way. I'm avoiding saying souls like, cause it's not really like you also, you get guns and powers. And a lot of the gameplay that was shown in the trailer I saw at least was like,
00:28:46
Speaker
kind of just staying out of the enemy's range and repeatedly using the gun, which sort of looks not particularly interesting if that's like an option, right? It's like, yeah, you can go into melee and like risk your life or just like stand back and like circle strafe the guy until the boss is dead. I assume it's not literally that, but they could have portrayed it better in the trailer, I think.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, the whole thing just doesn't seem to have enough content that they're showcasing in these trailers. It's like, here's the scenery. Here's the guy in a magic carpet for two seconds. I'm like, okay, there's a glide functionality. Awesome. But like, where's...
00:29:25
Speaker
the gameplay sort of. Give me like a 15 minute mission type thing where I'm like, okay, I'm willing to invest in open world again, even though I feel like I play it all the time. And I'm down to clown because it's just kind of like it looks kind of okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But like, that's it. There's not a hook per se.
00:29:43
Speaker
It's got to have more than good looks. It's got to have substance style. Shut up. I'm trying to work on myself. More than good looks. As perfectly handsome as I am. Yeah, one of the things that was a yellow flag sort of for me in the trailer was some of the one it was a pretty long trailer. That's fine. That's not bad. That just means you're kind of confident in what they're showing normally. But it was split between like walking around pretty, like pretty terrain.
00:30:12
Speaker
Which is fine, but it's not like a reason for me to pick up the game. And boss fights and like a good half of the boss fights looked like they were gimmick fights. It's like, oh, you have a turret for this section or in this one you're flying or like something else. And what that tells me is like.
00:30:30
Speaker
I already brought up Dark Souls, so we'll compare Dark Souls. In Dark Souls, you are always your character with your weapons, with your abilities. There are some gimmick fights where it's just like flip the switch and the boss just freaking dies. Or like Moonlight Butterfly where you can only be hit at certain times.
00:30:49
Speaker
And people don't usually like those fights. But for the most part, even in Dark Souls 2 that had like 30 bosses or whatever, you get to fight it using the mechanics that the game has established are going to be the mechanics for the game. And they don't put you on a turret, right? They're not like, okay, we're going to like do something novel.
00:31:12
Speaker
And this is, this is a rant I realized, but if you put someone on a turret, if you show some, show someone like flying through the air in this trailer, it's like, are you just not confident in the base gameplay? Like is the combat not engaging enough for this boss fight? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I would expect it more from like a ratchet and clank where.
00:31:35
Speaker
There is a lot of action combat platforming, what have you, but then like they'll pepper in novel things for the sake of novelty. Yeah. But it's done in like a, this is kind of fast action gameplay. We don't want to have you just be like, uh, go down this hallway and kill these guys with a wrench. Yeah. Like they'll mix it up along the way to keep it interesting and fresh. But if it was all just like, and now the vehicle sequence, it'd be like, Mm-hmm.
00:32:04
Speaker
Like guess what they didn't show in Halo? Just vehicle stuff. They showed like, oh, hey, there are vehicles with guns. You can like hop in that. But that was like a brief section. And they went into running through the level and the different combat type scenarios.
00:32:20
Speaker
They use it just to break up the pace a little bit, give you a little power gaming power trip for a little bit where you're making a lot of progress across a big map really rapidly, doing a lot of damage, and then put people back into the core gameplay. That's usually, that's a good way to do it, right?
00:32:39
Speaker
people would be like pissed in Sekiro if the final boss didn't involve actually fighting him with his sword. It's just like, okay, no, just throw poison at him. It's the only way you can beat him with it. Did you not call on the airstrike for the final boss? I definitely did call on some airstrikes for the final boss, but that was a- Actually, I'm not trying to think what power that was. Oh, is it the redirection? Redirect lightning, yeah. Yeah, everyone did that. Yeah.
00:33:04
Speaker
It's so good though. Oh, it's real good. We're not talking about Sekiro, but it feels so good to jump in the air and redirect lightning strikes. It's the most anime nonsense. No. Well, yes. But I was going to say when it's been long enough, slight spoilers, when he pulls out a fucking gun and then the next time you go back through and parry that shit with a sword. We haven't even said who it is, so it's not that much of a spoiler. It was pretty cool.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, it was like Cooper. The final boss was Sekiro, actually. So spoilers, I guess. If you don't have a linked PS2, it's actually a different boss. So don't worry about it. So you like to play Castlevane. Psycho maintenance. Brief side thing. One thing I kind of missed about the, quote unquote, console wars
00:33:58
Speaker
is when they had a release for Soul Calibur 2, they're like, hey, we're releasing it on all platforms. Why should you care? Well, hey, if you have GameCube, Link's a playable character. You're like, oh, shit. So it was really cool to have the mix up, because maybe you go over to a friend's house, they have a different console. You're like, oh, cool, now I can play as
00:34:17
Speaker
Spawn yeah, I was gonna expect got spawn because they didn't have anything. They really didn't have anything Microsoft just like who can we give money to real quick? That isn't Nintendo or Tekken. Mm-hmm Like I love spawn, but it's not Spawn is not x-men or Avengers or any sort of comic with a lot of a lot of reach Yeah But I mean
00:34:43
Speaker
I mean, it makes sense that they picked a one-off character when Soul Calibur is very much its own universe.
Gaming Exclusives and Pokémon Snap
00:34:49
Speaker
But now they have Geralt, they have 2B, so they've definitely spread the money around to other things.
00:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, Geralt in Monster Hunter. That's this. It's Capcom. And again, they have money, too. Yeah. Usually they'll do like their own Capcom shit. Yeah. It's like Mega Man event. You heard of Mega Man. We put him in every single game. We start making Mega Man games, though. We don't give a fuck about him. But you like him, right? Right. You'd love you'd love to have the blaster on him.
00:35:23
Speaker
Crap says something West. I want to say Adam West, but that's not right. The, um, the reporter from dead rising, Frank West. I remember we got there.
00:35:34
Speaker
I didn't play that, but yeah, I remember you could get a whole Mega Man outfit. Yeah. You only play as Frank for like some of them. Uh, other, other times you play as another generic sort of white guy. Steve East. Yeah. Right. West versus East. Yeah.
00:35:56
Speaker
Anyways, another thing that was on here that I can actually not talk that much about, but at least mention. New Pokemon Snap came out April 30th. I got that one as a birthday present for the Mrs. Because I was like, your birthday is like two days away and whatever I order is going to be late.
00:36:17
Speaker
And then what do you want? Digital download. You throw that in. In this case, it was actually a cartridge because we're getting cartridges for everything switch. But except maybe one thing, but I can't remember. But no, PlayStation, something I got the digital download for. But got that. And then you sneak in other gifts. You're like, sweet, I'll get your Pokemon Snap. And then you just like throw some other stuff in there. Be like, here you go.
00:36:41
Speaker
Actually, every time you give her something or just like, if you're getting dinner from the kitchen, you're handing it to her, just keep saying happy birthday throughout the year. So she's like, wow, you're really thoughtful. It's just these extensions of gifts throughout the entire year. I did for three days actually. Not the whole year, but I did say happy birthday in like three days.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't know. Uh, it seems like it's got like a bit more gameplay. If I remember correctly, the N64 Pokemon snap had like nothing for gameplay. Like you could beat it in 20 minutes or something. Very short for, I'm going to say Canon content. You obviously could go back for like different times, Apple, different creatures or some stuff, but yeah, there wasn't a whole lot in it. Right.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah. So this one, this one at least seems to have like a little bit more, I don't know how long she'll play it. I don't anticipate anywhere near like animal crossing time, but that's just, I mean, animal crossing is the outlier in that equation, right? Yeah. It's, it's the time sink. Yeah. But, uh, I don't know. I literally haven't seen it. I haven't watched it over your shoulder, but technically the household owns a copy. So that's my contribution to the discussion of Pokemon Snap.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah. It's not for me, but I'm also not like a huge Pokemon buff, but it's cool that they're revitalizing that for the people who are big fans of the N64 thing.
00:38:13
Speaker
She's definitely a Pokemon buff. Like she still plays Pokemon go sometimes. And that's been out for like forever now. So. It's a dead game, Jenny. Get over. Right. Yeah. Nobody plays. I'm going to play Dota 2 real quick. Don't worry about that. Let's see. Anything else here on the list?
Subnautica 2 Early Impressions
00:38:37
Speaker
So tomorrow or in the past?
00:38:40
Speaker
Subnautica is going to come out. Well, tomorrow in the past for the listeners, Subnautica has slash will come out and I'm playing it. Like right now, I'm just looking at the camera to make it focus. Make Dave think that I'm actually participating in the podcast.
00:39:07
Speaker
Do you have any interest in Subnautica? I know you played one. Did you complete one or did you just get toward like the end sort of exploration cliff? I think I got to the exploration cliff. Checked out our previous episode. But yeah, I was burning so much time trying to look for the next thing to do. And I'm fine with exploration, but it just got to a point where I lost interest and exploring further.
00:39:33
Speaker
So I kind of just Stopped so I probably missed the more interesting portions of the game, which would be the endgame type stuff
00:39:42
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think the in-game is necessarily super interesting. It's just the game is shaped like a reverse hourglass or I guess like a top where it's like very focused near the beginning or when you're getting all of those radio messages like hey go to this location and then there's like the middle where you have access to everything and they don't tell you what to do and as soon as you find
00:40:05
Speaker
the necessary piece of information or a location, it starts constricting back down to linear gameplay and is much more focused again. And that was the gripe, I think. I love Subnautica. It was my game of the year. But that cliff of there's a lot of people who just stop playing right here.
00:40:30
Speaker
because it's just go somewhere sort of arbitrary on the map and hope that you found the right location. Yeah. So I'm personally not going to be picking up to, I don't think it looks good. And I recommend it for anybody who really enjoyed Subnautica one. So I think it's a solid game. I just feel that I've gotten what I can from it for the time being.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yeah, I can't give a holistic view of two, just like early impressions, but I think it's, if you like Subnautica 1, then play Subnautica 2 because it has a lot in common and
00:41:11
Speaker
So far, it hasn't made the same mistakes. I think the first one did. It might cause some people to quit early. I want to still keep things fairly vague, but yeah, I'm not going to go into detail. But so far, it's worth getting to in addition to one or just getting to. Oh, that's interesting.
00:41:33
Speaker
I almost feel like certain parts of the gameplay are so divergent. Certain parts are divergent enough that if you get like really invested into, you should probably just go back and play one.
Modding Fallout and Nier Series
00:41:46
Speaker
But maybe I could make an argument. I think you could make a strong argument that if you haven't played the series at all, that you should play as technically not two is like below zero, like play below zero first.
00:41:59
Speaker
Okay, that's currently what I'm looking at because it'll keep you more interested in one, and it will, two, helps develop behaviors that are conducive to playing the game, that were available in one, but the game never really pushed you in that direction, if that makes any sense. I'm being very, very vague.
00:42:20
Speaker
fish. Got it. Yeah. Well, fish help. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's going to come out tomorrow. So I'm probably going to put some time in that, um, and finish the game. Forgot to request time off, but I'll live with it. There's always a weekend.
00:42:45
Speaker
He's also always quitting a job anyway. So that's pretty much where you've been playing recently. Yeah, that ends a tale of two wastelands, which is a mod that puts Fallout 3 into Fallout New Vegas.
00:43:04
Speaker
I don't even know anything about those games, so I'm just going to nod. Basically, because Bethesda has used the same engine for forever, and they were really close when Fallout 3 came out, and then New Vegas came out. Modders were able to take all of the assets, the quests, all of the content, the music, all of that.
00:43:23
Speaker
and just package it into main campaign files and load them as mods, in a quote, into New Vegas. So you can just jump between one game and the other game. And they combined all the weapons, the weapon pools, and the levels and perks and all of that. So it's ridiculous.
00:43:48
Speaker
And definitely not the way the game is meant to be played, because by the time I'm done with Fallout 3, I'm going to be a really freaking high level with a really good gear. And then I'll just wake up in New Vegas. The game's not going to be balanced. But that's all right. That's fun. That sounds good, at least as far as your experience so far. Yeah. If you wanted to play through all of the content again, it's an interesting option.
00:44:17
Speaker
Don't know if I recommend it overall just because of how broken the balance is going to be as soon as you switch to the other game. Like I have a prototype Chinese stealth armor from a DLC and one that is basically like every time you crouch, you turn invisible.
00:44:36
Speaker
New Vegas is not balanced to have that ever. To be honest, Fallout 3 was not balanced to have that ever. And so as soon as I start the game, like the challenge is right out the window. Just raffles down through everything. But it's still fun. I can't understand going back and playing a game.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah. What have you been doing recently? Oh, I've been replaying Nier Automata. I've been playing the new Nier, which is the old Nier. Oh, you actually went back to Automata, so that Discord status was foreshadowing. Yes. Gotcha. Okay. People check my Discord statuses. Oh, my God. I didn't want to comment on them. They all seem very personal. Bro, that's me in a nutshell. Are they having feelings?
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah. Better give him space. Don't talk to him. We don't like to engage when he's. Yeah, it's been good to go back and play that. Yeah. Mainly because the new near good enough.
00:45:42
Speaker
Like I definitely enjoyed parts of it, but like it really only made me miss playing automata. Gotcha. So automata has like a lot of stuff. Great. That was my first experience with near as a series. Um, there's just felt like a lot in it. And then when I went to play the revamped near, I'm like, where's all this stuff? Right.
00:46:08
Speaker
So I have to look because I feel like near replicant is on it is on the list as a game to potentially play in the future. Like for the podcast and I'm curious like if you're really playing through the game made you want to play automata.
00:46:28
Speaker
That's kind of, it's a weird take, right? Like this is the second, this is the more recent game. Correct. The Square Enix has come out with. And not that you should always like change the soul of a reboot, but you would think that like fundamentally, like Automata opened up the franchise to a lot of people in ways that obviously it never was before. Neither of us had played it and neither of us I think cared about it until Automata
00:46:57
Speaker
Do you think it's kind of a failure of a release that after bringing people into the franchise, Replicant makes people want to go back to Automata? No. Because years have passed, right? I really think this is my experience type thing and me just being me. Okay.
00:47:20
Speaker
Because I did not care about the plot of Nier. Maybe it's because I knew what it was several years ago, because I never thought I'd get a chance to play it. And there are still parts of it that were very engaging and very cool. Like the end game, really fucking awesome. But I just didn't care for whatever reason. But some of the things mechanically, I'm like,
00:47:47
Speaker
which is automata, which could do this. And I also hadn't played automata in like four years. So I kind of just wanted to go back and scratch that itch. I still recommend Nier if you like that type of thing. But also like, obviously Nier is the first game and then canonically automata happens same universe after. So it was cool to go back and connect some of the dots. I'm like, oh, they're referring to this thing.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah. It's kind of go back and meet your grandparents type situation. I guess that's a terrible example because most people, you know, at some point in their life, Oh, you were always racist. This explains so much. So I guess not to, not to derail too much, but if you had to pick, cause we actually have never done an episode on automata either. If you had to pick between an episode on automata or replicant, which would you prefer?
00:48:49
Speaker
And Jake's like, you get one. They're like, they're like 60 hour games. That's a tough one, huh? Personally for me, Replicant. Yeah. But it's again, I just have stronger ties to it. I've played more recently. Okay. Shit. Automata. Automata. I was going to say one thing. Automata. Play more recently. More ties to it. Yeah.
00:49:19
Speaker
And I feel like there's just more I like about it for like the analogies and such. I feel like they still overall touch on like the same theme in different ways. So maybe still go back and play Replicant if you like the style, but it sounds like Automata remains leader of the near gameplay experience.
00:49:49
Speaker
Nearly perfect.
00:49:51
Speaker
Not gonna know okay, that's fine, but like okay, so brief thing. Do you remember father servo? Yes, I think so I do remember this real quick summary friend, but he's not familiar father servo is a side quest you can do completely optional But he's a robot and essentially you fight him and whenever you beat him He's like hey, let's fight when I'm stronger. Could you go grab me these parts and come back right? So like you go on
00:50:21
Speaker
Basically, you do it kind of throughout time because you have to go away and come back even if you have everything. But it gets stronger and stronger. But the message is for always like, do you want to drink from the waters?
Gaming News Highlights
00:50:37
Speaker
And then you have the option of like, yes, drink from the waters or the option is like, no, go thirsty. It's just like stuff like that that I'm like, it's it's endearing to me. Right. Yeah.
00:50:48
Speaker
So that's a weird game, but it really is, but that's again, I can't talk because it is very, very anime at some points, but I think many points. It's pretty anime. It's basically like playing in an anime. Yeah. Basically the game. Um,
00:51:11
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, otherwise there's some other things you had had on the list too. I see hood, outlaws and legends. I don't think I'm familiar with that at all. Is that Robin Hood? I think I sent you a trailer once. Basically the premise is kind of medieval. You have a team kind of like Left 4 Dead where there are different roles. Um, but you have to steal something, kill some NPCs, but you're against another enemy team.
00:51:41
Speaker
Oh my gosh. So like the idea seems interesting enough. The gameplay honestly looks fine. But for me, it just, it screams not for me, for whatever reason. Like you ever see like a triple A trailer and it's like, wow. I have no idea. That's how I feel. Thank you for advertising so vocally and obviously that I am not the intended target for this content.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah, like maybe it would tickle something in you or it catches your interest. But for me, it just it's just one of those trailers. I'm like, why would anybody? Right. That's fair. But again, there's so much out there. Why spend time on stuff you don't care about?
00:52:29
Speaker
That's just relationship advice. Life advice perhaps. Work advice. There you go. Why'd you be somebody who you don't care about that much? Because they put out and that's the best I can do right now. They put out and I'm put out. I can't try any harder.
00:52:52
Speaker
No, that's fair. I'm going to rapid fire some of these things that I have put down for news. Bioshock four. I think we may have briefly touched on this, not on the episode, I think talked about it once, but they're hiring for an open world position, which is what?
00:53:13
Speaker
No, we did talk about this in the podcast because I think- All right, then what? Yeah, we might have. In either case, sus. Yeah. I think it was our result. And if that was a previous position, our position has remained strong. It's like, would you play an open-world Monopoly game? What the fuck?
00:53:34
Speaker
by definition it's open world you're going around the world or I guess not the world around some streets yeah dota 2 is going to have an international this year because I didn't last year due to reasons
00:53:52
Speaker
And it has currently, I checked the price tracker, over $40 million prize pool, which beats the previous Dota international of 2019 by $6 million. You're welcome Val, I helped contribute to that. Most of that money is contributed by Dave. I was once a very rich man.
00:54:17
Speaker
It's absolutely absurd. Like every single international has brought in more money. And I think we talked about it a little bit. Like I'm not I'm not a huge fan of like some of the stretch goals that Valve puts at like a really high contribution tiers. Oh, yeah, they're definitely doing it too.
00:54:38
Speaker
I was gonna say milk their customers, but I mean like in milk Like they definitely want money which is why they put like a really cool cosmetics at very high points on the I'm blanking on the word already on the the battle pass. Yeah, that'll pass So you can technically unlock things by playing but the amount of time it takes I guess compendiums the term they the specific term they use for it. But yeah, it's a battle pass. Oh
00:55:06
Speaker
But like I work, uh, an average job. So like, let's say 40 hour week. Right. And then I'll want to do some other things or a cord, maybe run some errands. Yeah, exactly. It's like maybe you find like a night or two to like play some games with people, maybe five to six hours.
00:55:30
Speaker
nowhere near where you need to be to fucking unlock some of these things. So you have to invest money into it or only play that game. Yeah, it's literally going back to like the episode we had on microtransactions and things like that. And my stance is really that they don't bother me too much as long as I'm playing the game and I'm having fun with it. If I'm not having fun with it or I'm not playing the game, that's when I really don't want to contribute money to the to the pool.
00:55:59
Speaker
But one way or another, like whether you're in favor of the compendium style or not, um, still really impressive. Uh, $40 million prize pool is absolutely absurd and it destroys any other prize pool that like exists for esports ever. But it's not a new task for, well, yeah, cause League doesn't have a compendium where the entire community is throwing money at it. There's cool stuff in there too.
00:56:29
Speaker
It's just interesting to see like how they marry each other for well, basically leagues must be copying everything that that is doing as far as like, Oh, is this a auto battler? Uh, we'll do that too. You don't have a, Oh, you're doing an anime.
00:56:46
Speaker
Oh, are you doing this? And it's like they just keep falling. To be fair, League may have already been anime. At least some of the music videos were anime. What's the thing? They definitely had a good budget for making a new character release hype. Whereas for Go2, it's like you have a three second animation of them showing up on the screen. It's like, these are their abilities. It's a cool animation, though. Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
Or as in league, you don't get the hero. That's true. You have to fucking buy them. Um, I don't know. I am expecting their anime to be better though. Cause don't as with such dog shit. Really? So not to get into it too much. I tell you about things that I like and recommend for you. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. If I don't talk about something, it's usually because it has a negative opinion. That's fair.
00:57:44
Speaker
That is fair. Some of this news I don't care about, but Final Fantasy is going to have their fan fest, or has had their fan fest. A lot of people who I play Final Fantasy with will be interested in that. There you go. And there's going to be a new expansion, whatever. Game keeps going. It's an MMO. They usually don't stop unless things are going pretty poorly. And most importantly, this is my highlight for news.
00:58:10
Speaker
Dwarf fortress apparently I posted some some screenshots to steam teasing adventure mode and The only reason I wanted to bring this up Is because if you would go to dwarf fortress on steam and you look at the release date It doesn't have a date. It just has the text time is subjective and I love that That's hilarious. That's pretty good. I
00:58:38
Speaker
Um, that's it. That's the whole bit. Are you going to pick up door fortress? Probably. I mean, yeah, if it's, if it's playable, that's basically the qualifier because it has not really been in the past. I like simulators are like.
00:58:57
Speaker
You know, basically the type of game Dwarf Fortress is,
Podcast Conclusion
00:59:01
Speaker
but I have a life and I have other things that I need to do sometimes, so I can't spend a month learning how to play the game. And as long as that's not a requirement, then I'll probably enjoy it.
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah. I love Dwarf Fortress just for the patch notes that have come out of it, or the styles that have come out of it. Have all your dwarves eat an AM around a table, and then have a waterfall behind them, and then put babies in the waterfall so they fall and they die. And everyone around the table is exposed to death, which makes them sad, but then inoculates them against being sad.
00:59:46
Speaker
So you have a more stable dwarf population where if somebody else dies, it doesn't cause like a catastrophic cascading failure. You basically like condition your dorms. It's freaking great. I don't think it's shooters that, uh, yeah, no dwarf was worried about the problem. It's like there's a patch to make it so like mermaid bones were less valuable or something like that. It's just nonsense. Absolute craziness.
01:00:14
Speaker
Just look up a dwarf dwarf fortress stories. Yeah, they're pretty good. It's like a nice long green text. Yes, that's all it is because the game is basically text. But the one on Steam should actually have graphics. So we'll see how it goes. And then I'm going to see if I'm going to see if this game called Foxhole is worth getting. It's early access. Oh, there you go. So it's a problem.
01:00:44
Speaker
but you like run around and you're soldiers and you shoot stuff and it's top down and you like dig holes in the ground, you work together. It looks interesting. Check it out. We're out of time.
01:00:54
Speaker
Google that shit. Right. I'm not here to tell you about games. I'm here to just spark the interest. So you develop the researching skills to find games yourself and then tell us about them. And if you want to tell us about them, you can always send in your thoughts to soapstone podcast at gmail.com, or you could join the discussion about games that you've discovered or others have discovered on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast.
01:01:22
Speaker
And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.