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S3 Ep238: 2022 in Review
74 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about everything that happened in 2022 in this week's episode!
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- Joel Corelitz - Eastward
- Sonic Forces - Battle with Infinite: Second Bout
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Transcript
Introductions and Humorous Banter
00:00:53
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Spen- Spentabular. Hmm. That's not a word, but it sounds positive.
00:01:09
Speaker
It was meant to be. No, it's good. It would be funny if it's like this actually just means horrible. There is nothing good going on. It's been it means they found it too. Oh, no. Actually, the way you said that reminds me of the the old phone call commercial. There's like for Verizon or something like that. And they would like call collect. And it's like
00:01:38
Speaker
It's like, who is this for? Or who's calling? And it's like, Mike, we had a baby, it's a boy. And then the dad or whoever, this one on the other side picks up and listens to the phone and just puts it down, doesn't accept the collect call. And the wife comes in and is like, oh, who was that? And it's like, Mike, he had a baby. It's a boy. And that was like the whole commercial.
00:02:06
Speaker
Very successful, because that one's pretty old and still stuck in my head. Can't say I recall that one. Yeah.
Postal Oddities and Consequences
00:02:15
Speaker
Well, I remember the days of calling collect, you're like, listen, it's going to cost me money. Do you want to accept the charges? It's like sending an envelope with no fucking stamp. And you're like, hey.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's and in the envelope you're actually asking for money I Love that you can do that. I think I'm intense
00:02:40
Speaker
I would say I've accidentally sent an envelope or two without stamps or with less stamps than I actually needed because they don't have like a great system online for, Hey, it's exactly this. Usually you can go to post office and be like, you need this many, right? Cool. I'll do that many. What is the process actually? I, what you're describing, I don't know. You can send, you can game the system. You can send mail without a stamp. So you're not paying the postage.
00:03:10
Speaker
But essentially puts the burden on the person who's now receiving the postage. Really? Yes. The mail carrier will walk up and be like, hey, it's that time again. I don't know how exactly that works. I wonder if they hold your mail. Maybe they would. They would hold it at the post office and be like, hey, you need to come in. Because the post office has everyone's information. That's true. It's very much there.
00:03:41
Speaker
Actually, you brought up the post office, Anikto. We were at a local post office a while back, probably like a month or so, and we were just waiting to be served, and the people ahead of us were the woman ahead of us. I have no idea what the context for their conversation was, but apparently Amazon had put the package in their mailbox.
00:04:03
Speaker
And the guy was just like nonchalant about it, perfectly friendly, but he's like, yeah, that's a felony. You can't just do that. And I was like, huh, I mean, that checks out. They don't want people putting random crap in mailboxes. But that's very funny.
00:04:21
Speaker
It just seems very extreme. It's like other felonies. It doesn't seem to be on the same tier scale. Yeah. I don't think it carries like a life sentence. Right. But it's it's probably has a fine. I didn't think of any felonies. Yes. And let me explain which one because it'll be a lot better for me than if I don't.
00:04:45
Speaker
If they ask you yes or no questions, fill in the form, you have to add a yes and put a comma immediately after that. You're like, there's other things going on here. Yes, but my yes, please inquire. Yeah, that's good. Do you have a do you have good holidays? Do you eat anything good? No, and no. No. Hmm.
COVID's Impact on Personal Lives
00:05:11
Speaker
Did you did you do anything? I was homesick for the whole time.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, we were home because someone else was sick. That was, that was our story as we were planning on going to a holiday get together, but someone who will not be named and I'm actually not going to name them. You probably shouldn't take a safe guess. Yes. Um, uh, caught, caught, caught COVID. And since they were there in the house and it had been, you know, a couple of days or what have you, we weren't sure about the health status of the other people.
00:05:46
Speaker
Um, and yeah, I mean, when you're immunosuppressed, you gotta sometimes not under those circumstances, but it did kind of suck because we did want to head out and resume that a little bit. Well, maybe future holidays is warming up a little bit. New year's right on the corner.
00:06:06
Speaker
That would kill it right off. Yeah. Just a little warm up in April. We have what, 14 cases now? Same old as zero. So I just mean like.
00:06:17
Speaker
If there's not like an active health risk, it is going to be nicer to travel versus like when it's been like sub 10 degrees. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking at my computer, the little temperature thing in the corner one time while doing something else, just glanced down and I was like, why does it just say four? That's like, oh, okay. That's the actual temperature outside. I don't like that.
00:06:39
Speaker
That's Fahrenheit, by the way, for the reason my computer's running and not how cold it is outside. Yeah. Yeah. And that is a, that is running pretty cool for a computer. Um, here actively pouring liquid nitrogen on it and not overclocking basically. Um, just put it in a nice bath.
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's, don't do that. It water cooling exactly once. So you know how, you know how sous-vise work, right? Yeah, I do now. We do that at a lower temperature. Gotcha, gotcha. You just take raw beef or something and put it in a bag and then drop it in an ice bucket. It'll be soon, it'll be ready to eat. No, I'm saying you seal the whole, you seal, you seal the machine.
00:07:30
Speaker
Okay, and you put it in the bath ah get that bath at a lower temperature hmm
00:07:37
Speaker
I don't know if that helps or not. I'm not like, uh, I'm not much on the, um, thermo thermo physics. I was going to say thermonuclear, but that's wrong. Thermodynamics. There you go. That's what I was trying to find. So like, you know, if you have something that can sense temperature and control temperatures, similar to how your AC works, like my AC works is like.
00:08:00
Speaker
if the AC is on, it's like, oh, you want it to cool down to a certain temperature. What is that number I need to meet for you to be happy? Right. So if it goes above outside and starts to heat up internally, it's like, oh, I need to turn on the air to cool it down to the magical 69, if you will. Right.
Creative Cooling and Tech Talk
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah. A good, comfortable temperature for anyone. It's just nice. Yeah, it's nice.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, I can't think of the logistics that would, this does seem a lot just strictly worse compared to water cooling, but that's fine. Whatever. I'm sure it's been done. There's a lot of novelty channels on YouTube and things like that for computer parts and cooling and whatnot.
00:08:42
Speaker
Well, I do lightly regret asking about the Christmas question then or the holiday question. Unfortunate that you didn't get to eat good food or hang out with people and that also I didn't. So there's no recovery to be made. That's just where the topic is. But I mean, obviously 2023 will be better.
Pandemic Reflections and Society's Shift
00:09:02
Speaker
I mean, statistically, right?
00:09:04
Speaker
Statistically, I'm willing to bank on the net average of 2023 being less shitty than 2022. Hands down. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, I think I saw it on Reddit or something. It's like, you know, we've had COVID, we've been in like
00:09:24
Speaker
pandemic for four years at this point. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I guess so. Um, I mean, 2023 is going to have like silk song. Oh yeah. There's going to be like a new summer anthem or whatever the fuck. Trying to think of what other things people would enjoy. What's the summer anthem?
00:09:49
Speaker
I don't know. Pop music does like the song that takes off. This is the song of the summer. Gotcha. It's not going to be in a genre that I listened to. So I'm fucked anyway. That's fair. That's fair.
00:10:02
Speaker
No, there's some good stuff coming out. Um, and some stuff that hopefully is good coming out. We'll see. Um, I have, I have hopes for next year. And I do think on the, on the, the COVID discussion, we've talked about it a lot, but you know what? I'm sure everybody else has. Like, I think it's going to reach a point where.
00:10:22
Speaker
It's people are inoculated. The people who are going to be vaccinated are going to be vaccinated. It's going to just be like the flu. It's going to be around. I think everyone's pretty much saying that now. There's no hope that it's just gone. Right. It's endemic. Right. And it's just going to be something that, you know.
00:10:41
Speaker
It, the literally the phrase is a new normal. And I know like the pushback from that is like no new normal, but like, that's what people want is to establish a new baseline and be like, Hey, this is where we should set our expectations. Cause that's, that's what we want going forward. So. Yeah. Be like anything else where you regularly get a vaccine type thing.
00:11:02
Speaker
We're not going to get rid of it entirely because it is impossible to wrangle that many cats. Yeah. Especially when a bunch of cats don't believe it exists or it's some other shit. Yeah. Um, so hopefully.
00:11:17
Speaker
people don't die and people don't get sick, but like, yeah, it's very much optimistic pissing in the wind. Uh-huh. The good thing is the next, the next one to come around, that's like not COVID and they'll be like, it's just the common COVID. It's just like, it's just the common COVID. It's not serious. Anyways, I digress. How was this year?
Year in Gaming: Highlights and Trends
00:11:39
Speaker
Overall, what were your impressions for this year? If you had to, uh, put a, put a flavor to it.
00:11:46
Speaker
blue raspberry, but very, very sour. Hmm. I like that. I'm still waiting for the sugar aftertaste at the end. It just, it's never hit. It's just sour. It's just an atomic warhead where they forgot to put like sweetness in the center. It's just more atomic. So it just replicates in your mouth indefinitely. Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
I don't know, like there were some good things that came out, definitely. If I look at games and I start thinking, stop thinking holistically about life. Uh-huh.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, to think of the specifics. It wasn't Elden Ring this year. It was. Yeah, Elden Ring. Honestly, 2022 was a great year. I don't know what to tell you. They won Game of the Year. So if it didn't come out this year, then the other games did not try very hard. So, I mean, that was honestly huge. Like, if nothing else happened this year, I would still be content with game releases.
00:12:45
Speaker
I haven't played in a bit. I should go back. I think I'm waiting for DLC group RP. I would still love to do that. Where it's like, we all have a different classes, different roles, naked tank guy with like dual wielding, cleric mage type of shit. Yeah.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah. Elden Ring was, Elden Ring was massive. Obviously we had, we actually had like, I think it's the first time we had a multi-episode series on one game. Yeah. Um, but there was, I wanted to keep doing them and you were just like, we can't only have episodes on Elden Ring. And then for several episodes after that, we kept talking about the game anyways, but it wasn't the dedicated topic. Um, so that was kind of funny. Yeah. It bled into a lot and even.
00:13:35
Speaker
It'll even come up in like a random episode where it's like the obligatory, we have to say something about Dark Souls, Elinorang Sekiro, but it honestly did consume a good portion of my playtime.
00:13:48
Speaker
Apparently not as much as some other stuff, according to Steam Replay. A lot of it was burned in Destiny 2 and Dota 2. You fucking time sinks. D2, yeah. Also Diablo 2 somehow. Yeah, I mean, same here, obviously. I think I'm going to have two massive Destiny Peaks for this year, going back to the game. But I saw, for people who played games pretty consistently around how much we did,
00:14:16
Speaker
And this year Elden Ring, and they also played Elden Ring, it clocked in at like 11% of their time. And 11% of your time for the year is actually a lot of time, right? Like, especially if you play games every night. Um, and it's a game where most of the play time was concentrated across like one to two months. So yeah, it was, uh, it was crazy.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I know we talked about this a little bit at the game awards as far as one of the reasons why Elden Ring won, in my opinion, is because of how much it expanded on the existing format. And they just had so much. I mean, obviously because it is an open world, so things got reused, et cetera. Like nobody's gonna say all the dungeons are like the best fucking thing in the world, but it built so much. There's so much in that fucking game. Yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
Uh, compared to some other stuff where like God of war, Ragnarok, great fucking game, very much a continuation of the first game. And that's fine. That's what I wanted. I didn't want them to like break the entire mold and do something new because I was enjoying what it was. But I don't think for 2022, I'd be for surprise for 2023, even if they have something that is that big of a jump in an existing franchise. Yeah. I mean.
00:15:37
Speaker
I could speculate about potential realities, but...
00:15:42
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, one of the we're going to have a dedicated episode, I think, to talk about some of the stuff we're looking forward to and in next year as well. But I mean, potentially, although honestly, do I believe it? I don't think so. But it's our podcast. We can click bait people in real time. It's the Starfield. Right. Yeah. If you wanted to be optimistic, Starfield could be drastically different. But
00:16:09
Speaker
Realistically, if you look at the kind of games Bethesda makes, they don't usually divert too far from the mold, right? They literally took a single player engine and they tried to make it a multiplayer for Fallout 76. So I don't expect massive changes there. And yeah, I mean, this is this is a Dark Souls podcast. What are they going to do that's going to really compete in that space? But I think. I don't know, really.
00:16:39
Speaker
I think the franchises that are revamping have been doing so well. So like God of War obviously had that big change in 2018. Doom with Doom 2016. Yep. Like they changed what they're doing a lot and kind of honestly rebranded but revitalized it. They did.
00:17:00
Speaker
Um, even like the remakes that they're doing for resident evil, I think you're being really well received because it's, Hey, not on old janky PlayStation one, PlayStation two shit. So it's bringing, re-bringing that story to life in a much more active way. Last of us two, they just keep remaking it without really any visual changes for a second. So, um,
00:17:22
Speaker
But those are kind of more recent additions. Let's talk about remakes, remasters versus God of War and Doom did actually change up what they were doing.
00:17:35
Speaker
I think if you go back a couple of years, I'm glad you brought up The Last of Us and Doom, but that's the phase we're at. If you were to look at this in phases, there's a phase of completely new IPs, and then there's the SQL phase where we have SQL for those IPs.
00:17:54
Speaker
And then, and when I say completely new IPs, you could also do like reboots and stuff like that there. And then you have the sequels. And we're going to go through that for a bit. And then there will be the introduction of yet more games. And I think right now we're coming up to the middle end of like the sequel phase for some of these like games usually have between two and three releases. Right. There's Final Fantasy, which isn't statistical outlier.
Evolution of Podcast Format and Indie Game Spotlight
00:18:22
Speaker
OK. But
00:18:24
Speaker
usually you get like up to two, and then maybe it's like, do we really want to put a three in the title? Or should we just change the subtitle entirely? Now it's infinite, right? It's not Bioshock 3, it's infinite. And I think we're coming up on that space. So after maybe next year, I would start to look for more IPs and things like that.
00:18:49
Speaker
I don't know. It could be a little bit further out for some of these games we're talking about because God of War has several years between each release. Same for Doom. And I don't think we have any enough follow up to Eternal. We don't have a follow up for God of War yet.
00:19:06
Speaker
No, and they can take their time and then just show up and clean house. Yes. Cause if like, if it's done really well, it lasts. Like I still tell people like you should check out dude 2016. Yeah. It's still a good game and you can usually get it on the cheap on a sale. So by all means. Yeah. It doesn't even cost that many means. Um,
00:19:32
Speaker
Yeah. So but I mean, this year overall was pretty good, I will say. So this year we stopped with our for people who track the format, which I think is zero people. But in case like, oh, it is zero people. It's zero people. Yeah. Even though we didn't have it's between one to two people. Yes. One to two. It's between zero and two sometimes.
00:19:56
Speaker
We used to have, uh, when we, we started off, you know, every video game, every episode basically was about a game. And we realized that was insane. At a point we started to sprinkle in other format episodes. And this year we actually removed the mandatory game format episode entirely.
00:20:13
Speaker
Because we're kind of playing different games, I don't always want to play the new shiny, fancy thing. Now that I've beaten, you know, not an actual spoiler alert. I don't want anyone to stop listening. I beat God of War. It would be great to have an episode on that. But we've kind of been doing them as they electively come back up here. So as part of our review here, I usually look through the episodes we made for a given year and say like, Oh, what games did we talk about?
00:20:40
Speaker
And we talked about like three games. Everything else had like a different title. I think it'll be better now that we've gotten kind of back to some descriptive titles, because we can talk, mention a game that we might have talked about, even if it wasn't primarily the focus there. And we'll always continue to have game focused episodes. It's just not as often.
00:21:04
Speaker
There wasn't really a point to this. I was just going to mention, I couldn't use that when coming up with material for this episode. Instead, I kind of like look back to the games that I actually played, regardless of whether we talked to them about them or not and the stuff that came out this year. So. That's a good, a good portion of what we played this year was stuff that came out this year. Yeah.
00:21:26
Speaker
Like you have on the list here, vampire survivors. I mean, that's been going on and off very strong for a while.
00:21:35
Speaker
I think I'm one achievement away because I just didn't feel like doing it. But I like that they keep doing stuff. They have a DLC that has spawned a genre. And again, it's like a random indie title that costs like two bucks and is just shot off. Go off, King. Proud of you. Yeah, the DLC for Vampire Survivors is literally $2, I think. It's literally $2.
00:22:03
Speaker
I would encourage people who have the base game and have no intention to buy the deal, like to play the DLC to still buy it, actually, because like the base game was like five dollars or something like that. I don't recall exactly, but it's incredibly inexpensive. Yeah, what a standout title. We talked about it a lot. You know, our friend Dice obviously also talked about it. Justin, I think we introduced him as such on the show.
00:22:34
Speaker
And yeah, no, it was kind of a darling. It wasn't like, it's not going to have Valheim level success or anything like that, but it was probably my India breakout for the year, for sure.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, it's fun to just like play and like burn some time. And then I'd talk with like Stevie and he's like, oh, I figured out this like gold farming thing, this one level, like how much did you get? I'm like, you sick of me. Like you can go off and like make crazy builds and experiment with stuff. And that part always felt really fun. So it has some good replayability to it, which is I think part of its success.
00:23:12
Speaker
Something I had, in my opinion, ass replayability, but I thought it was cute. Cult of the lamb. Yeah. I know that's something that we had our eyes on for an upcoming release in 2022. We finally got to check it out, have an episode on it. Right? Yes, we did. We did have an episode on it. The live fact checking to the real conversation.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, that was, it was a cute blip and then that was it. Yeah. For me, it had like the same vibes as Psychonauts 2 where like while I was playing, I'm like, yeah, after I was done playing it, I was like, and we'll probably never talk about it again. Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, I was kind of unfortunate in that. And the thing is, like, it's not even bad, right? Like, it's still a good game. There were things I think that could have been improved. You can go to the episode if you want, like, to hear a lot of details about such things. But specifically in the space of, like, staying power. I literally in our notes put Cult of the Lamb and then in parentheses Flash in the pan because, like, I didn't the same. I didn't play the game once I was done with it.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I feel a little bit bad for it because you don't need to make a game that people want to replay, right? Your goal should be to make a fun game.
00:24:34
Speaker
replayability is like a different angle to aim for compared to just fun. But we have these extraordinary examples that I'm going to say in the pseudo indie space of games like Hades that spoil us. They spoil us rotten, right? Like you could go back and play Hades right now. I know Ian is like probably at this moment actually playing Hades. And it's so much value.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it's not triple A and it's such a good experience and it's so fun. And then you contrast that to one of these other indie games that was fun for a single playthrough, but then you were done, you were done. And I mean, like you can't compare them the same way. So hear me out.
Debates on Game Time Investment
00:25:21
Speaker
Anything published by Devolver digital is usually a one and done. I mean, tell me I'm wrong.
00:25:30
Speaker
as I put you on the spot to think of games. Right. I know. So two example was a minute. Right. The whole game mechanic is based around you. You have a minute at a time to play through the game and then you get reset. And the whole thing is like you do progression things, you make unlocks so you can progress through the game in these minute segments. And it's a really cool idea. Very novel. But there's not really a reason for you to ever go back and do it again. Yeah. And that's fine because it's like it's a novel experience. Mm hmm.
00:25:59
Speaker
And I would argue a lot of the other Devolver digital published things are in a similar thing outside of Fall Guys. Okay. I was going to say I have one massive exception and the massive exception was going to be Fall Guys.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. The only other one I can think of that I wouldn't actually defend is hotline. Miami two had a level editor, but I never used it to run levels. Instead. I just stole the, the renders, the high level renders of custom levels. And I was like, Hey, look, this is a cyberpunk map for hotline. My everything mission. Let's go. Um, but that was really fun. Well, a little bit of Photoshop and fixed up and it was good to go. But yeah, I mean, I didn't, I didn't continue to play it once I was done with the story. Um,
00:26:44
Speaker
But I guess the point I'm trying to make is that's not bad, right? If every game wanted to be a replayable game, I think I would also find that frustrating. Because I can't afford, in my time, to have every game that I play be a game that's going to take a stupid amount of time.
00:27:03
Speaker
Right. Like I love Persona 5, and that is a 100 hour long game. I actually have excitement to play Persona 5 Royale or Royal, I don't know. And it's a casino or something. I don't know. And. I haven't done that because it's a 100 hour long game. Dave has graciously given me almost all the games I own, but one of them is Yakuza, like a dragon.
00:27:31
Speaker
I haven't picked it out because I know it's going to be a freaking long game. It's a JRPG. Also, sink your teeth into that. You'll just you'll be in it. Yeah, exactly. And I also know the game and it's like it's going to. Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
Yeah. So the most terrifying thing I can think of is to play one of these games that's like 100 hours long. And then it's like, hey, now that you're through, play New Game Plus in order to get the full story or something like that. There was a there was a JRPG. I think Scarlet Nexus. I didn't play it, but it was on my wish list and I removed it. Yeah. On my wish list, because I saw in a review, it's like once you finish the game,
00:28:10
Speaker
You'll need to go back and play through as a different character in order to like fully understand what's going on. And I was like, I, I just never do that near automata, but like, but you're not playing the same game with you. I know. Right. It's also different because.
00:28:27
Speaker
There are very few JRPGs I actually would like and appreciate. I would consider Nier Automata to be one of them. But I watched, I think, Rachel plays Carlet Nexus. It was something I was curious about. I'm like, oh, this might be something I could sink my teeth into. And then as soon as I saw it, I'm like, no, this isn't for me. Usually, I can spot a JRPG I'm not going to enjoy at a distance and be like, mm, that. Right.
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's that's fair. And that comes down to genre preference sometimes. I'm not saying it's a bad game, I just. If I'm going to spend time on a game right now, it's on a small set of games most of the time, I have like my my one single player style game and. Destiny 2. Sometimes it's Destiny 2. That's also my multiplayer game, so I get one single slash multiplayer game and then then a single player game.
00:29:22
Speaker
Smell yourself that did come out this year. I got a chance to play a little bit of Neon White recently. Thanks to Tyler, friend of the show. I don't think you don't personally. I might have played Dotom with it once. I think I've heard of him from the Dotosphere. Yeah.
00:29:40
Speaker
on the subreddit. Yeah, Gabe Newell called him out actually. It was really funny. I'm never going to work with him again. Jesus grace for the Li Jiang major. But yeah, Neon White has been like a, from what little I've played of it, haven't played too much so far, maybe an hour. I am getting vibes of
00:30:02
Speaker
not Blade Runner, Ghost Runner. Yeah. Yeah. To where it has a, hey, here's like your thing got to go through. You got to do some platforming, do some action, kill some stuff. I like Ghost Runner more because it's much more polished long form, cyber punky. But I like the quick nature of some of these neon white levels. Granted, I'm still fairly early on. I'm sure it gets much more complicated.
00:30:28
Speaker
But I like that little speed running thought process in my head of like, how can I optimize this? Yeah. And there was a level where I played it while Landon was watching on discord. And then I looked at the times that people had. I'm like, I have an idea. And then he watched me like shave off six seconds. Like, wow, you figured that one out quick. I'm like, and I like that puzzle solving two degree aspect of it. So that's pretty cool.
00:30:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't care for the theming though. Yeah. Like the anime style surrounding or like the bright light, like the bright aesthetically, it is appealing. I don't care about the characters of the story. Gotcha. So I cringed once and like, it's not for me to get into. I'll enjoy the gameplay and skip the rest. Yeah.
00:31:18
Speaker
I think that's fair. I mean, I haven't played it, but I've watched people play it. And I think the comparison to Ghost Runner seems pretty apt. I'm also a massive Ghost Runner fan, obviously, because I very rarely like games that have a time element at all. There's a few exceptions, Majora's Mask and Ghost Runner and something else that I can't think of.
00:31:43
Speaker
A lot of that came down to the aesthetic though. I freaking loved running through this post cyberpunk style world in Ghost Runner and the sheer violence and everything about it. It was just great.
00:32:02
Speaker
And I don't have that same poll for neon white. It seems like it brings in some more arcadey influences with the cards and ammo and stuff like that. Yeah. And that's absolutely fine. Um, and I would probably enjoy it, but it's not high on my list right now, personally. So I will say it's more directed to a degree because the guns you get essentially those are your movement options. Mm-hmm.
00:32:27
Speaker
So it kind of encourages you to do the level in a certain way for it to work for like the tools that they're giving you. Yeah, I'd say check it out at a point or like watch somebody play it. I think it's interesting.
Reflecting on Notable Game Experiences
00:32:43
Speaker
But yeah, I'll probably pick it up when it's on significant sale and I don't have a tremendous backlog of games that I haven't even launched that I also picked up from the same sale. Something else I do want you to play. I think about this year.
00:32:57
Speaker
Tunic. Right. Tunic. Tunic. I think we could handle, um, that came out on steam as well, right? Steven switch. Yes. Yeah. Um, you know, if it's a Nintendo first party.
00:33:11
Speaker
I guess it couldn't be if it came out on Steam. Nevermind. I mean, so initially it was always advertised as like a Microsoft thing. So I was hoping it was going to be on PC. So it's definitely at least on PC. That's fair. I was basically, I was leading to, is this a game that is going to, I guess it's, it just came out. So it's 10% off right now. Um.
00:33:31
Speaker
I think base is around like 30. Yeah, it's 30. So 10% off that until January 5th. I'll probably take a look at it once it goes on sale, because it did look really good. I like that tilt shift style. If you like, for me, it was very reticent of I miss the whole era of like Game Boy, Legend of Zelda stuff. Yeah. But like that's the type of vibe I get for it where, hey, you have a world map and you kind of have to go explore some stuff, figure some things out.
00:33:59
Speaker
And you have like some enemies and some abilities you can get over time. But all of it is like you're figuring it out as you go. But it's so pretty and like snappy. You're like, OK, I can get behind this. So for me, that was a lot of the big draw. And I did enjoy playing through it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we had an episode on Link's Awakening, which I think is probably something to draw a lot of correlation to. And that's not a bad thing to correlate against, honestly.
00:34:29
Speaker
I have it on the list, and I'll probably pick it up once it's a little bit more than 10% off. Though it does look pretty good. Was there anything else that came out this year where you're like, yo.
00:34:43
Speaker
People should check this out. So I had one, but I don't think I'm going to talk about it very long. Our group, or some people in our group, played very, very briefly. And that was Lost Ark, which was Amazon's MMO. And we played that for, I think, literally a month. Some people played it for two, and then
00:35:07
Speaker
all traffic like no one logged in and we had like a separate voice like a separate text channel for it in discord and stuff and like it's one of the first that i archived this year because there was no responses in it at all like i i don't know if i've ever seen an mmo be picked up and dropped as quickly as this one was
00:35:28
Speaker
I think because it was free, right? Uh-huh. I believe so. People were on board. I think I got drunk and bought like a founder's pack for something. Yes. And it seemed like, oh, everybody's going to hop on board and do this thing together, right? It's going to be our group venture. And then some stuff felt very samey or grindy. And then after you kind of went through something like the main story beats, like some of the boss fights and like levels were kind of cool.
00:35:55
Speaker
And then there were some other things where you were being an edgy demon lord. I'm like, what is this plot? And then you get to ride a beetle as a mount. And I'm like, I don't know where I stand with this game. To be fair, the beetle mount was a plus. That was something I had to work for. More games should have beetle mounts. They should. It's very fun.
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah, there just didn't seem to be any reasons to go back or like level up your gear or anything. It just seemed very arbitrary numbers at a point. People are like, I don't know.
00:36:29
Speaker
I have to check a release date for another game. Okay, that was last year. I was like, it felt kind of similar to New World to me, but it was even more, going back to that phrase, flash in the pan, because New World was September of last year. So I won't include it in this discussion, but I think it was also in Amazon, I don't know. One of these isn't in Amazon, MMO. Do your own research, figure out which it is. That's the tidbit we leave for the audience.
00:36:57
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I mean, it just didn't, it didn't compare to what we were playing right now. Um, I had a couple, I'm just, I'm honestly looking at the spoiler sheet of games that came out this year that I think were worth mentioning. Obviously we covered Elden ring, uh, total war Warhammer three came out, which I played some of the intro mission on, and then I kind of like shelved it. And I do plan to go back to it because it's really cool. Um,
00:37:24
Speaker
But that's it until I have more to say about it. I'm not going to spend too much time on it. Horizon Forbidden West. I think that's probably on both of our lists to play at some point. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at some point I want to play it. I really enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn. I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn, but even that I don't think I finished like it just came to a point where it's like I played an open world game.
00:37:54
Speaker
I don't know. It just, it didn't keep me through the whole way. Yeah. I don't know if it was because of my exposure to open world games at that point. Um, but forbidden West just seemed like, again, more of the same, but I'm not sure if that's something I want right now. Yeah. So maybe.
00:38:10
Speaker
I think that's fair to say. And you mentioned Psychonauts 2. And that was kind of the vibe I was getting a little bit from Ian, who played Forbidden West at launch. And he didn't have that much to say about it. It was like, yeah, it's more. It's more horizon. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but when there's novelty in other places, you're going to you're going to go to the other places first. And I think that's what happened with this game for me.
00:38:40
Speaker
Kind of wrapping out February real quick here. Uh, that is technically where destiny two, which queen expansion dropped, but we didn't play it until dig near the end of the year. So truck. Um, which queen is it anyway? There you go. You're gonna be sued by ABC now. I think they own that. I'm not sure. Um,
00:39:04
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not going to talk about destiny. We've spent a lot of time talking about it and no one's going to listen. Start talking about destiny. Stray came out this year. And that's true. Like cats a lot enough to buy that game. There did. There did seem to be a strong correlation between the people who had cats and the people who bought this game. I didn't buy the game, but I didn't have a cat at the time. So so it's true.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah, I could I could see you guys getting that game and playing it together and having a good time And then also now that you do have a cat like there would be that added. Okay, that's something a cat does. Yeah Yeah, I don't know I didn't This is this actually Dave and I were talking before starting the recording for this episode. We were talking about games where I
00:39:54
Speaker
It didn't share the appeal for us specifically, but we would understand it for other people. And that's what I put straight under. Um, the people who have played it, I think really, I've heard really good things about it. I just don't really have any interest in that type of game. I don't want anyone to hold that against me personally, but you could, if you want, I'll just hold that against you personally. Um, but yeah, I mean cat platformer doesn't do much for me.
00:40:21
Speaker
Catformer. No, that's not a transformer. Or I was going to say canines in disguise doesn't work there. Feline's in disguise. There you go. What's the... God, the Transformers, but they're animals. Beast Wars. Beast Wars, yeah. Transformers Beast Wars.
00:40:41
Speaker
Um, I don't know. Are you leading somewhere with that? No, I just wanted to mention that's fair. Um, also ghost wire Tokyo. Yeah. I forgot to mention it closer to ghost runner, but that's something that came out that looked vaguely interesting. It did. But it's mainly from like visually appealing, but none of the gameplay looked interesting to me in these slightest. Yeah.
00:41:08
Speaker
Yeah. Again, at some point I'll disagree with you probably in this episode, but not yet. That was the exact same impression I had for it because it was a game I was kind of excited for. I like this whole motif and everything. All the teasers looked really good, but gameplay wise, I was like, I don't need it with everything else. And this was the month right after Elden Ring. So like, good luck. Yeah, it was hard to be like, oh, I'm definitely going to pick this up and play it immediately. Yeah. Uh-huh. Not so much.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I'm looking through, I'm looking through the rest of this. April was a wash. Nothing I care about for April. Sorry, April games. Um,
00:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this is probably not the most engaging. I had the same from May. Really, this year didn't have a lot that stood out as we get to June. They had released a Switch version of Night City Old Republic 2. And the one piece of interesting news that came out around that space was there was a bug in the game at launch that prevented the game from being able to be completed. So if you just had the cartridge and you couldn't get a patch,
00:42:21
Speaker
The game was actually not beatable and that was bad. Um, I don't think Nintendo likes when people do that on their platform, right? Cause Nintendo usually tries to maintain. I don't think that kind of likes things that make things easier for other people. I mean, that's, that's true. Um, but yeah, there's, there's just this massive break in the middle of the, uh,
00:42:48
Speaker
In the middle of the year where I really wasn't looking at many of these new games, to be honest, what caught my eye at the game awards was this game immortality. Okay. Cause it was nominated for like so many different categories and I still don't know what the fuck it is. It seemed very much like video plays through and you have to kind of deduce something from the video. Okay. It's kind of like.
00:43:15
Speaker
spot who's lying or something else like a more story driven. Which that's usually not my bag, personally. Right. I just I want to know more about it at all because it got mentioned so many times, but I had never heard of it before the game awards. Yeah, I'll be honest, I think you mentioned it once prior to us starting the recording here, and I still wasn't convinced that I heard of it. And I watched the game awards.
00:43:44
Speaker
But I guess we'll see where it goes. I mean, I don't think they're going to have necessarily more. I mean, they could. It seemed very much like a novel idea. Like, do you remember back when they had board games with like video components was like, hey, put in this part of the VHS. That's what it felt like to me. That's the vibe I was getting. Gotcha.
00:44:10
Speaker
Or it's like, Hey, kind of watch along with the family. And it's like, we'll gamify you watching this video. I'm like, okay. Super seducer. Like it felt weird. I don't know. That to me doesn't translate as, as gamey as I would like. Yeah. Yeah. Even though I played a walking simulator or two.
00:44:30
Speaker
If you're talking about novel peripherals for games and things like that now, you could legitimately have like a little VHS player or something like that. It would make the game a lot more expensive, physical only. No one would do this from a publishing standpoint, but that would be hilarious. Have like a ring game or something like that. Uh, I think it's, I should have said the, the ring, right? Cause that's the proper part, but, um, a V ring game. There you go. And it has a VHS, a VHS player with it. Very funny.
00:45:01
Speaker
be some money to be made there. Yeah. Deathloop came out this year and I love Deathloop. I did for the Xbox series X and S apparently probably came out last year, didn't it? I would be curious to check it out if three people on discord didn't play it and didn't talk about it to death.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah. It's also September last year, official release date. That one doesn't really count. Still love death loop. I'm a, I'm a liar. That was just for other consoles. That's the problem with the list. I'm looking is sometimes it's like, Hey, it released for the switch platform. Yeah, exactly. Um, I was like, I could just, when we talked about that one, I know Bayonetta three was this year. Yeah. I want to want to play that game.
00:45:52
Speaker
But I don't. I like the concept of Bayonetta games. I'm not a beat rush combo person. I've never really gotten on board with Devil May Cry either. But I think it's cool from a distance. I like that it exists. But I don't think I'd ever really get into it too much. It didn't look as interesting to me as Devil May Cry, which is a little sad because I did enjoy DMC5.
00:46:21
Speaker
I didn't also play DMC five more after I beat it. I think I still have like on a list somewhere, like by the Virgil DLC and playing who was Virgil. Um, but I haven't done it yet. So Bayonetta is kind of still there. Also, she's not that viable and ultimate, like heavy nerfs over the previous version. So am I really going to play her, her title if they nerf her in smash brothers? I don't think so. Here's what's going to happen, right? We're going to have this conversation and we're going to play smashed after this and Jason be thinking.
00:46:48
Speaker
You know what? I should play Bayonetta again. We can make Bayonetta work, yeah. Two matches in. He's going to be like, I really got to figure out how to bind that extra jump to a trigger or something. It's hard to me how to get that through a jump. And then he's not going to play her again after I fucking demolish Bayonetta with any other character. Yeah, you don't competent with.
00:47:04
Speaker
You don't even have to demolish is the problem. If I get off stage, I'll try to recover. I'll bounce off the stage and die. It's a hard time. Overwatch 2. It's a cool franchise. It is. She's incredibly cool. Overwatch 2 coming out. It was a this year thing.
00:47:24
Speaker
And I'll be honest, I played it a little bit. It seemed fine. It seemed fun, but I'm kind of like, there's a lot of people who are very salty in the community and I don't want to discount their opinions. There's a lot of legitimate criticism you can have and should have about a game that is going to have like a battle pass and they're going to like nickel and dime me in the shop and all this other stuff, along with the free to play model.
00:47:47
Speaker
all legitimate criticism. There's also just a lot of people who are like tired with the game. And that's the one I kind of empathize with more personally. Right. Like the reason I'm not playing Overwatch isn't out of some moral outrage or an incompatible business model or something like that. It's because I've played years of Overwatch. Yeah. I'm kind of just good. Like I might enjoy occasionally played at LAN or something, but it's like it's not my night game. No, it feels.
00:48:19
Speaker
A lot of the matches feel like very, I don't want to say samey, but like there are other games I can go into and have a different approach with like Destiny.
00:48:28
Speaker
I can have a different build, different guns. Like I can choose how I play that character in Dota 2. I can always choose from a host of characters and then build that how I want. Right. So like match to match, it feels dynamic compared to, oh, I'm playing this character. This is how I have to play them. Right. And I don't want to be on that level. I just want to kind of right click on Moira and hang out.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, because because it feels like part of the difference in Overwatch is it's a very competitive game. Right. I mean, it literally is. It's team versus team. And that introduces a very different vibe. Some people, some for a lot of people, I think that's what makes it.
00:49:15
Speaker
have so much longevity, but I don't know. I just don't want to play it. Yeah. I feel that. Um, also Bludgeon can suck my fat cock. A little bit of the icing on the cake for that. Like, but yeah, I also feel that just the not, not feeling in the mood for it. Yeah.
00:49:37
Speaker
Definitely the main part for me. Scorn came out this year. That scares me. So I'm not going to play it, dude. That's another thing where like I was very excited going up to it, like, oh, the trailers look interesting. What's it going to be? And then I watched a couple reviews or like gameplay things and people and they're like, it's kind of just like a weird puzzle game. I'm like, oh, then no. I'm not going to pay for like a oh, it's an aesthetic puzzle game. Like give me.
00:50:06
Speaker
Give me something that's going to melt my brain. Not something that's just going to make me a little squeamish. Uh-huh. So I was a little bit disappointed by how that turned out. In a similar vein, Callisto protocol, a lot of hype going into it. And then I saw a couple of reviews. I was like, I don't know.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, those reviews, the reviews that went into mechanics and stuff like that absolutely just destroyed the game for me. It's like, so it also means so much more coming from like a content creator who I trust. It's not just like, you know, a random person or like a generic, oh, I'm there, you know, for whatever reviews, there's somebody like, I like their videos and they're like,
00:50:47
Speaker
that you're just showing me on the controller, like how it worked. I'm like, this is not fun. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's an unfortunate example of a game where as soon as it launched, it feels like everyone else could see like the bad idea that was core to the game. Thinking of the movement and the dodging in particular, which we talked about.
00:51:07
Speaker
in our Game Awards episode. Yeah, Dead Space had a lot of fun with it. I played all of the mainline Dead Space games, and I have no interest in Callisto Protocol, so sorry. Not for me. But when they do the remaster of Dead Space, if it's cheap enough, I'll probably check it out. Right. Because even that game still holds up in my eyes.
00:51:34
Speaker
It's actually really playable. Like the first game, I don't know what it is. It's something with the controls and how it all came together, but it's, it's incredibly playable.
00:51:45
Speaker
So, you know, fresh coat of paint. And I don't even say that about Dark Souls one, by the way. Yes. Certain things like you're like, you look back, oh, that's clunky as fuck. And then maybe that's because Dead Space is a very clunky game where you're just like, oh, this is just how it is. I'm Isaac Clarke. I'm not meant to be superhero. I'm just a fucking mechanic.
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah, the go to comparison I think of is Resident Evil. Like Resident Evil is supposed to have a certain amount of sluggishness to the controls, to the aiming, stuff like that, because it's not a first person shooter. You like hold a button in order to aim and then you're adjusting your aim kind of like wildly. And if it was just like snap to mouse controls, blap, blap, blap, it would feel completely different because you wouldn't be getting overwhelmed of tension if you don't have.
00:52:36
Speaker
Like it's difficult. You need like a limited supply of ammo health. And if you're in an encounter, each encounter needs to feel spooky and dire instead of just, oh, these are just the basic ads. Exactly. Yeah. So it's kind of unfortunate because I really wish Callisto protocol did well because I want to see people who split off from EA do well, but it's not an auto win. You still have to prove yourself.
00:53:03
Speaker
Yeah, so hopefully they can Take whatever feedback they got from that and hopefully still go on to do other things Yeah, because I again would love more stuff in that survival horror space Because I like a little bit of it Yeah, I would like to think I'm gonna eventually build a fear tolerance one day
00:53:24
Speaker
Uh-huh.
Industry Successes and Future Anticipations
00:53:26
Speaker
Yeah. Space horror games are not like, it's not an overpopulated genre, believe it or not. So there's still some room out there. Um, obviously got a war Ragnarok, which we shouldn't talk about a lot here for planning on happiness of having a separate episode for, but if you pay no attention to video games, it was a big one this year. So it won so many awards.
00:53:52
Speaker
It won a lot of awards and people, some people were legitimately disappointed. It didn't get game of the year. We've went into our rationale for that, but I respect their opinion on it, to be honest. Um, and I liked that they took the four years necessary between game one and game two to like really flash out game two for all the, for whatever criticism you can say about it. It has a lot of content. Like there's a lot you can do in that freaking game. So, um, yeah, I mean, if God of war three,
00:54:23
Speaker
for the new God of War, not the old God of War 3, um, keeps on like this after four years, this would put, put it what, 20, 26, I'll probably play and enjoy it. You just need to also release it, release it for PS4. So I don't know if they'll do that. I might, might have to get a PS5 by that point. Hopefully by then PS5s are cheap and affordable. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
Um, yeah, I mean, we're getting up towards the end of the year and that's, uh, dark tide, dark tide was obviously the last, uh, big one for me. Um, which was, uh, I mean, it's good. I don't know how much more I'm going to play of it right now, but I want them to add some stuff to the game and then I'll probably play some more with friends. It's fun for that.
00:55:13
Speaker
Um, and that was it, but we had some episodes on other things besides games that just came out this year.
Gaming Recommendations and Podcast Aspirations
00:55:21
Speaker
My standout was Amore. Um, I still think about Amore sometimes or Spotify will like be like, Hey, what kind of day are you having? Um, do you want to like, here's some of the Amore OST on shuffle? Cause that's going to dictate how your days, your days going. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh,
00:55:45
Speaker
It's still a lot. Yeah, I'm trying to get other people onto my depression bus. Shane said it's in his cart, so he's probably gonna check it out. I know Justin Rachel at some point do plan to play it.
00:56:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's just it's really good. It is really good. It is really good. It's from a gameplay standpoint, but also just everything else that went into it. Yeah, it is just for an indie game. Very polished. Yeah. And I have nothing but high praise for it.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really good. Yeah. I was at the gym today and on Spotify, I'm like, Oh, let me just go through my top songs of 2022. And of course there's like the three Amore songs in there. Vengeance, a no turn back and a trussle among the trees for my three standouts. Yeah.
00:56:49
Speaker
It's fucking good. It's so good. So people who haven't heard the previous episode, definitely consider going back and listening to that. But if you haven't, or you don't have the time for that, I understand. And you're considering it based off a recommendation here. Recommend the game. Take a look at the disclaimer page first, just so you know what you're going into on Steam. But it's incredible.
00:57:19
Speaker
I honestly would like to do, uh, two separate episodes, one to be like, Hey, here are top 10 games. Like we recommend for gamers, people who are like versed and kind of experienced in, I've played games before. And then also a top 10 for like, Hey, I haven't really ever ventured into gaming. What should I check out? Right.
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah, I am. I'm particularly interested in that second list. I think that would be a great one to talk about. Because like if you had, let's say a younger cousin or a nephew or niece, somebody who's growing up and like they're like, Oh, I hear gaming is like a cool thing. Check out. Yeah. What is good to check out? Because like, remember we had, is it Nate on?
00:58:02
Speaker
And he was fairly new to games. And we were just throwing in his jets, like, oh, you got to play this. You got to play that. Would we still put Portal 1 on there for somebody who's brand new to gaming? Possibly. But I think it'd be fun to theory craft that list for how do you take somebody who's outside the space and get them into the space comfortably. Right.
Social Gaming and Listener Appreciation
00:58:25
Speaker
And there's other countries. Yeah, Dota 2. That's the worst thing, how to get them out of the space as quick as possible.
00:58:32
Speaker
Um, yeah. And there's a lot of factors that would go into that second list. Like, um, you know, do you respect hand eye coordination, right? Like if you're not dropping someone in call of duty, if they have no idea how to play an FPS or something like that, for instance, I think that would be an interesting topic to have. We should get that one on the list for 2023.
00:58:54
Speaker
Another discount for not having Dota 2 be a first game. Literally tonight, in a game I played before we started recording, the enemy team said, like, dive fountain unless you are sexually attracted to children. So, game didn't go so well. You guys all dove fountain. Were you winning? I guess you were pushing them to their base and it's like, hey,
00:59:17
Speaker
Oh, they did this at the start of the game. Oh, OK. Interesting. Interesting. They also beat the fuck out of us. We did not play well. I mean, to be fair, they were they were in your heads. The psychological manipulation at that point.
00:59:31
Speaker
It's like, but how do they know I'm a pedophile? I'm not a VPN, God damn it. Nord. Nord. Maybe not the best advertisement for NordVPN. Yeah, they probably had worse. I know Seth didn't estimate advertising for them, so I know they've had worse. Fair point. Fair point.
00:59:55
Speaker
But yeah, all in all, not a bad year. Had some good memories with folks, you know, ran some raids in Destiny, played some games, talked about Elden Ring. Got to hang out a couple more times, I think, this year than the average is set for previous years, so that was nice. It's still, I would like to see it improve, hang out with people more in the coming year.
01:00:19
Speaker
I want to, oh, this is now documented. I'm going to play this for you. Uh-huh. Well, wait, wait, wait. You don't know where the strict numbers I hung out with. There was three distinct for four and be good. Uh, no, but I mean, it is legitimately what I want. Cause I think it is helpful to, to, you know, Break out of the bubble a little bit and, um,
01:00:41
Speaker
You know, now that once again, without, you know, doxxing any of us, several of us are within hangout distance, I think it'd be good to do. So I'm also going to verbally throw you one of the buzz for, uh, what are we doing to wing that motherfucker? Yeah. Well, I'm doing the next one by you guys so that you and Tom have no excuse to not show up. I didn't even know Tom was on this side, but yeah, he's fine. You guys didn't know that.
01:01:09
Speaker
Uh, I mean, yeah, if it's, if it's that close, if it's closer for us or for me, uh, than you, then I think I can commit to it. Um, it's going to be at your house. It'll be, you're making us wings. I'm actually just not there. I'm able that night. Text me like I'm not decades. What do you mean?
01:01:30
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah. All right. Well, I think, uh, I think it's been a pretty decent year, pretty solid. Thanks for sticking it through with us. Um, and, you know, looking forward, looking forward to next year. I think our next episode will probably be on some of the specifics in gaming we've got looking forward to next year.
01:01:50
Speaker
Um, but I'm just glad, glad you guys are still here, still listening. And, um, I mean, both of those equal importance, obviously that you're both here and listening to the podcast. Um, but you're here, but you're not here. Right. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's just, uh, I appreciate it. So.
01:02:11
Speaker
Looking forward, we'll see what comes, but thank you for the time so far. Thank you for listening to the podcast for one more year. We're up to so many. I can't count them on one disfigured hand anymore. I think we're at like four or five years or something at this point, probably four. It's at least four. Yeah, it's like four.
01:02:37
Speaker
But as always, well, actually, no, we should figure out what we've got. Uh, if you want to send in things for the podcast, uh, digital things, physical things, we don't want that. Keep, keep that to yourself. Uh, but physical, uh, digital things, you could send into soapstone podcast at gmail.com or join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good one. See you guys again in 2023.