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FromSoftware’s Very Strange Week | Firelink Podcast
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This week on Firelink, Marty, Nick, and KC chat about The Game Award nominations, along with the news that Sony is interested in acquiring FromSoftware's parent company.
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00:00:00
Speaker
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Welcome to Firelink Podcast Episode 45
00:01:00
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Firelink Podcast, episode number 45 for Wednesday, November 20th, 2024. I'm Marty Sleva, joined by Casey Woese, Nick Calandran, of course, producer Eric, and have we got a humdinger for you all.
Half-Life 2 Anniversary and Sony's Potential Acquisition of Kadokawa
00:01:14
Speaker
We got a big old HBD that just happened, Half-Life 2 Turn 20, and Valve celebrated by releasing a bunch of different, uh, cool Half-Life shit.
00:01:23
Speaker
You know, we're not going to make a new Half-Life, but we'll keep releasing cool Half-Life shit. um And then obviously we'll be chatting about ah games and movies we've been playing and watching. And the the big topic is kind of like two topics in one that we're going to Voltron. And the first is that Sony has expressed quite a bit of interest in purchasing Kadokawa, which is the the umbrella parent company of a ton of things, including anime ah anime companies, light novel companies, manga companies, ah but as well as a couple of video game developers, including From Software.
Game Awards Nominations and Controversies
00:01:55
Speaker
um And sticking with From Software, the Game Award nominations went out earlier this week and it felt like
00:02:03
Speaker
A lot of great games got nominated, but also a lot of people were very angry that Shadow of the Year entry was nominated ah for a Game of the Year, considering its expansion slash DLC status. So um we'll kind of unpack that. see i'm I'm curious to see how you guys feel, because I don't think we've like actually talked about that at all. And we just kind of glossed over it on Monday. I think we were just kind of like, whatever. And so it's interesting to see that that was the topic that everyone started clutching their pearls about. ah but How are you guys doing? Happy, happy Wednesday. Happy Wednesday. Yeah, I'm doing okay. Yeah. All right. Yeah. No, no big news ah for me throughout the week. I'm not angry about any video game news that has come out recently.
00:02:47
Speaker
That's great. That's great. That's great. Yeah. Did you get those crazy wins this week, Marty? ah Not crazy wins. No, but it did. We have our first snowfall today when I went on my jog. I went on a jog and mid jog and started snowing. I'm like, the fuck is going on?
00:03:02
Speaker
me like A bunch of green leaves on our trees in Kansas City. This weather, this fall. I think we're just skipping fall and going straight to winter. Yeah, weather is screwed. It's been hot as hell in my house all day, but it's like 54 degrees outside. like i done and Nothing, like no air or heat is on. I don't know what's happening. nothing but and may so ver still bottom It's not been like cold enough at night to go out and be like, yeah, we're going to do a bonfire tonight because it's been 50, 60 degrees and needs to be 40. You know what? Bonfire, you can what if you do a cold fire?
00:03:33
Speaker
Do like a real little bonfire. Small bonfire.
Reflecting on Major Game Releases of 2004
00:03:36
Speaker
Series of small bonfires. Think about that. A series of small bonfires and that just a brush fire. No, that's just a, that's a dark, so that's a large ran. a series of Small bonfires a little wolf so got us back on track after a little bit of banter. Um, but yeah, we're in that, we're in that final stretch of the year, only only five ish weeks, six ish weeks left in the year. Most of the big games have come out. I think the last couple of stragglers know that stalkers here is are going to be Marvel rivals.
00:04:05
Speaker
and indian Indiana Jones. Those seem like the two biggies. Um, so it's, it's nice. It's a good, it's a good time for, for people to be going through their lists, playing the things they've meant to play, but then get a chance to, um, I played a little bit of stalker too. We'll talk about later. I played very, I'm not stalker two's audience. And I also played a small enough amount to where my, my opinion should not even be listened to. I'm going to make you anyways. So think about that.
00:04:26
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, a game that takes place in dystopian future that I have played is Half-Life 2. And just two days ago, Half-Life 2 celebrated its big old 20th HBD. I believe it was November 18th, 2004. That was good. Oh my goodness. That was a good November. You know what else came out in November, 2004, Nick? Halo 2. Well, two came out. Yeah. Couple of days. Arguably the better 2 game. H2. I just came out here so we could say that Halo 2 is absolutely the better H2. Don't tell him I said it. It's fine. It'll to his way. We'll know. He just like smacked his food across the table. like and He doesn't know why he just felt it in the air. felt The tremor in the force.
Valve Celebrates Half-Life 2's Anniversary
00:05:10
Speaker
But ah yeah, obviously Half-Life 2 is one of the the most influential games of the aughts, I would say. And celebrated its 20th anniversary the other day ah with a handful of different things, including a big ol' no-clip documentary ah from Danny O'Dwyer and the team. Secret tape documentary. Secret tape documentary, excuse me. That's that's no no no clips.
00:05:32
Speaker
oh axiliaries auxiliary yeah yeah ah funded ah They added commentary, like over, I think it was like three hours of commentary to Half-Life 2, which I think is the way Valve does commentary is really great where it's almost node-based commentary. So you're playing the game and then you'll see a little icon in the world that pertains to that exact thing. Cause you know, like a movie commentary, they're obviously, tough when or when we like goof on a movie night, it's easy to speak about everything is watching this, but in a game, you're like, well, how do I know where the player is right now? So there are no days. And Valve, if I am not mistaken, started doing this forever ago. Like they did this twitter ah left for 4 Dead. They did it for Portal games. Yeah, yeah. I'm not surprised like it didn't like.
00:06:17
Speaker
take off like we don't see this anywhere else like that's what he does there big game that did it this exact same way was fire watch and that team ended up getting bought by valve so maybe the secret to getting bought by valve is that you just do your commentary that way Um, but then they, uh, added, uh,
Diversity and Challenges in Game Awards Nominations
00:06:34
Speaker
updates to the game, including just packaging. It is all one game now, which is interesting. Like it is no longer half-life to episode one and episode two. They're all from the same launcher from the same window and everything. Like they've kind of like created a single journey. and clean it up
00:06:47
Speaker
They cleaned it up a little bit. And then, yeah, some interesting little tidbits as well about, um like, ideas they had for, because, like, there was an Episode 3 or a Half-Life 3 that was in some form of development several times over the past 20 years. um And, like, some of the ideas were being like, oh, it was going to, like, use heat and ice as a major thing, as, like, a tool for combat and puzzle solving and survival and everything. Also showcase some cool slime enemies. We could have lived in a world where we were just fighting slimes.
00:07:17
Speaker
Which is, I mean, that's, you can just fight slime tickets in every other game. It's not like we're lacking slimes to fight in games. But a bad game goes on. You pass on the slimes. I'm not surprised I decided to not go forward with that. You're like, I think we're the first game with slimes ever. And then they're like, oh, let's just check out what Japan's doing. Like, oh, every fucking game in Japan has slimes. But, uh, yeah, it's, uh, yeah, interesting that, uh,
00:07:43
Speaker
Valve continues to to celebrate their legacy and their past while still being extremely cryptic about what they are actually working on and what they are going for. But I do like celebrating an anniversary of a big game like this. I think it's cool. I mean, hey we didn't mention it the other week, but speaking of Halo 2, didn't they celebrate the 20th anniversary by releasing a playable version of that original demo that they like showed off at E3?
00:08:08
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, they did that and then they ah remade all the Halo 2 maps in Forge and brought those back for a playlist and and like a playlist like with Halo 2 game settings as well. I keep meaning I go play it. I just busy with other stuff. Yeah. So, but yeah, no, no, no, like big document or anything.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah. No. All right. Yeah. Because you don't have that. g if' if's Somebody's listening. Let me come film that thing, please. You might need to ask them. I don't know if they're going to ask us. It's also tough because like who that's up to. Is that a and they're all over the is that a Microsoft project. yeah that Yeah. Yeah. They're all over. They're all over the industry. Marty O'Donnell's gone off the rails a bit.
00:08:54
Speaker
and jesus Yeah. Valve is still mostly Valve from 20 years ago. Sure. You would think. yeah I mean, I think a lot of folks have left, but... Yeah, a lot of folks that worked on it have life but like... two are there The Half-Life IP hasn't changed hands. The studio hasn't changed hands. It's always been under that umbrella. Yeah. yeah But yeah, HPD, HPD to Half-Life 2. Do you like did you play the Half-Life game stick? I know you do not play Portal 2, but ah I played Half-Life 1 and Half-Life 2 two years ago, played Half-Life Alyx. I have not gone back and played Episode 1. And I think I played I think I played Episode 2 back on the Orange Box when it came out. I just don't remember it because it was so long ago. Yes, sir. but what That was that was like the almost 2007. Yeah, 2007. That was a long time ago. Yeah. um
00:09:46
Speaker
Cool. He's pretty. A couple of super chats before we move on. ah We're getting to our main topic quick, but don't worry. It's a big, it's a big old angley topic. It's going to take us a while. So Arthur, thank you so much for the don't know. Mow indeed. Meow indeed. Mow. How did I mispronounce meow? What?
00:10:07
Speaker
Oh, did that happen? There was a cool cat in the intro that Eric had, which was great. And I don't know the sound cats make because I'm allergic to them. And they're down with the $5 don't know thing. So obligatory. Screw you, Sony, for ruining things that they get their grubby hands on. I was literally going to say counterpoint and then think of a company that's better off.
00:10:30
Speaker
ah Insomniac seems like they're fine. They're making Spider-Man games. It seems nice. it' So all they get to make now is licensed games. They were able to loan their control over Spider-Man to Insomniac and they did what they did with it. So, you know, look good on them. Yeah. No, that's what happens. Insomniac was too good at its job on the first day. Like they were too good at Spider-Man. They're like, you gotta to make Spider-Man forever.
00:10:52
Speaker
I'm sorry, fred like in the film Gladiator, which I'm gonna talk about later. Guys, I did a Gladiator rewatch for the first time in 24 years, in my opinion. I thought Gladiator was bad. And then I watched Gladiator. And it turns out Gladiator is really good. That's weird that you thought that. I don't know what was going on. I saw it in theaters and I think I was angry or something or i like wanted gangs in New York. I don't know what I was angry at. But Maximus, too good of a general. He just wants to retire. Go be a farmer with his family. But then ah Fucking Joaquin Phoenix is like, no, you're too good. You can't retire. Samiaks is the Maximus in this allegory.
00:11:31
Speaker
There you go. You brought it back around. What? No, Insomniac. No, Insomniac is Maximus. Sony is Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. okay yeah you Remember his name. Johnimus. Johnimus Maximus. Johnimus. And Zarathir, thank you so much for the donation. Completely unrelated, but happy Black Consciousness Day, a Brazilian holiday to commemorate. Well, Black Consciousness. Well, there you go. right I've never heard of this. I don't know. Yeah.
00:11:59
Speaker
Excellent. And then, Blenda, thank you so much for gifting a sub over in YouTube. The Red King. Oh no, the Red King? That's a villain in the Dark Tower. We can't let the Red King in here. The Crimson King? Get out of here. I don't think it's actually the Crimson King because that's a fictional character and he probably doesn't have a YouTube account.
00:12:17
Speaker
um All right, we're main topic. And this is it. This is a record 15 minutes. The main topic. This might be a 21 minute podcast. God, how great would that be? We're going to complain. How could you possibly? We'll see. No, this is going to be about an hour of a topic. OK, so from soft, very strange week. Do you guys want to start with the Sony news or do you guys want to start with the Game Awards?
00:12:44
Speaker
or start with the the game awards. I think that's the meatier one because we think we don't know a whole lot about the acquisition just yet. Oh, I know everything. I'm in center. Martha. did you Did you know that ah that parent company is big on anime and magnet? man
00:13:00
Speaker
ah but Game award nominations went out. ah Monday morning. And and the Keely Awards, which are going to be held three weeks from today. No, three weeks from tomorrow. We'll be doing the live stream, obviously, on on on December 12th. And the nominations went out, including the actual Game of the Year nominees, six of them this year, which included Astrobot, Bellatro, Final Fantasy VII
Aspirations and Predictions for Game Awards
00:13:30
Speaker
Rebirth, Metaphor Refentazio, Black Myth, Wukong, and Elden Ring, Shadow of the Earth Tree. ah Now, we can go over specific categories if we feel like there are snubs, games that got overlooked, trends or anything. ah But let's just start with the the... big story online, which seemed to be people ruffing at the mouth, angry, um saying that a DLC like Shadow of the Year Tree should not be in contention for game of the year. um So how do you guys feel about that? I think you go ahead, Nick. Yeah, I mean. Personally, I don't particularly care, but I also think I lean more on the side of no.
00:14:15
Speaker
Uh, because like no, no other expansion has been up there. Like, uh, separate like Phantom Liberty wasn't up there. I can't remember. I don't think blood and wine was up there for for the Witcher.
00:14:27
Speaker
remember no d No DLC or expansion has ever been nominated for the ah Best Game Award, although they could have always. In the rules, it always stated, and everyone keeps screaming at Jeff, and I don't know why I'm defending Jeff here. Jeff does not select the nominees. The judges select the nominees, which Jeff is not one of.
00:14:46
Speaker
um So if you want to be mad at anyone, I guess be mad at the judges. Or don't be mad at anyone because everything's hard. Life's terrible. Be nice to them. I don't know. I think I think it takes away a nomination from a game that probably could have been up there instead of a DLC and expansion. Not to like downplay the work that went into that thing. But I don't I don't think like it's not.
00:15:07
Speaker
A whole stand alone game on its own is continuing what was already made i don't i don't know it's it's a weird one i like i'm not angry over it i don't particularly care but i also would have liked to see the spot gone to going to go into something like animal well or or whatever i don't know it' just a I don't know. Every year the Game Awards has some something that something somebody doesn't like. Yeah, literally that that was a tweet I saw with someone trying to predict what the the controversy about the Game Awards thing would be. They're like, oh, last year was this the year before it was that. I wonder what this year will be. We we have our answer is the DLC thing. ah But I think it's super interesting that this apparently has always been in the rules.
00:15:48
Speaker
And ah they preempted this announcement by reminding everyone, like, hey, just remember, these are the rules. Like, like over their hands yeah, i was like we knew this was coming, right? Yeah. But I, again, same like, same as Nick, like I don't feel like particularly strongly one way or another about this, especially in Elden Ring's case, because like, yeah, From Software does amazing work and it makes sense to recognize them for the work they do. But this does feel a little out of place.
00:16:18
Speaker
but not just because it's a DLC, but because of the kind of DLC it is. like yeah There is a barrier to entry for this. ah if it If it was something that felt like a full game almost on its own, but just happens to be DLC, where someone who maybe finished the whole game, or they just purchased the whole game, or maybe it's a standalone thing,
00:16:40
Speaker
And then you can just jump in and just play to completion. And like, it feels like this amazing thing and it's a standalone, like it feels standalone enough, even though it's technically DLC. I wouldn't have an issue with that being nominated. That just, it feels like a technicality that it wouldn't be if it was that good. This definitely feels like you like You can't get to this game. like like this is ah This is like a leg on piece of a larger body. So like how is this game of the year? like it The game is Elden Ring. Elden Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree is is a piece of that. like It's like double dipping because Elden Ring won last year, right? Two years ago. Two years ago.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of the point really is like you have to play Elden Ring to play Shadow of the Urgery, whereas something like Miles Morales was standing several hours worth of Elden Ring. Yeah, lots of hours worth of Elden Ring. ah And yeah, it is like it's just a new area within Elden Ring. It's not really its own game.
00:17:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like, I mean, argument can be made because of how, like the, the value you get out of it or just kind of how, how much time you spend with it. Um, ah or just what you get out of it personally, like those are all super subjective, yeah but like, yeah, like this particular case feels like all those subjective parameters don't make the argument for it. and So like, yeah, it it does feel a little shaky.
00:18:09
Speaker
<unk> It's fun. I wrote about this earlier in the week for my weekly Patreon column that folks at the $5 tier and above are able to read every Tuesday. And um I didn't come on... Jesus. I didn't land on one side or another at the end of it. I kind of just like lay down like, I think it's a complicated thing. I actually don't feel strongly one way or the other, but um ah it's interesting to me that No one seems to bat an eye that remakes get nominated, right? um I don't think we have any this year. Well, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, but I mean, that's another thing of like, what is a remake? But last year, Resident Evil 4 Remake was nominated for Game of the Year. um We've seen remakes in the past get nominated. Silent Hill Remake got nominated for a bunch of stuff. It's also funny that
00:18:57
Speaker
we get ah everyone seems angry and then everyone is like, how dare they nominate Air Tree because Blank clearly should have been the other nominee. And then there's a hundred other blanks. They're like, because clearly Stellar Blade should have been there, because clearly Call of Duty should have been there, because clearly Animal Well should have been there, because clearly Zelda should have been there. um So it doesn't feel like there is a yeah Like something particular has been shunned here. Like, yeah yeah, it doesn't feel like that. Yeah, it doesn't feel like there's a singular, egregious um thing they left out because like ah me personally, Astrobot found his seven rebirth and metaphor. Three of my favorite games of the year. Blacho, everyone but me loves. Blacksmith Wukong. I don't know what's going on here. I still don't understand. I feel like this feels like a Horizon Zero Dawn Psyop and I don't think it's a real game, but whatever.
00:19:50
Speaker
I'm not gonna get mad. I got all my weeb shit in there, so that's fine. That one feels a little strategic. Yeah. But again, yeah, Jeff has nothing to do with that as a pick, right? Like, it's the judges, what? Yeah, yeah. And maybe that's another thing of like, maybe the judges need refreshing, because a lot of the judges are from older traditional media, like IGN gets a vote, GameSpot gets a vote, ah Polygon gets, you know, that that kind of thing. So maybe maybe there needs a freshening up there. um You know, but I don't, there's never gonna be, ah people are never gonna be happy.
00:20:19
Speaker
Like, no one's ever happy with the Oscars. have been going on for 80-some years and no one's happy with it. So, like, there is no perfect way to do this. Like, to me, it is like a...
00:20:32
Speaker
This is a celebration that comes around once a year that doesn't get everything right But I think it's some things right and I'd like I like focusing on the things that does get right I do you think I think you like Without getting yelled at again like a yell at me every year that we should reach out to be on the judges panel that I have to reach out um It's I wish they would Yeah, like refresh the judges and like reach out to other creators because when you do look at the the Indie Game Awards, which we just announced this week from the guys that run six on Indie, a much better variety of experiences in there across the board that aren't you know just the AAA games. And ah the the part to me that I think like, I think what people need to understand like why
00:21:24
Speaker
those nominations are the way they are at the Game Awards, because like when you are looking at all the legacy media, they're all tied to ah SEO and driving traffic. And what games drive the most traffic? Well, the games that are on those lists. So when do they have time to go through and cover all these other games in that way, right? Like most of these people probably haven't even gotten a chance to play a lot of the games that are, you know, up on the board.
00:21:48
Speaker
a few people from a place like IGN yeah will be like going to bat for an animal well, but like everyone there played Astro Bot, that kind of thing. So you get, you know, the games that are sort of part of the, the, um, the big conversation, which a lot of times like we, you know, people, people get, uh, not get mad at us, but people point out that there are certain games we don't talk about because none of us play them. They're not in our wheelhouse, like big games, big strategy and Forex games and and and shit like satisfactory will come out. and MMOs, like stuff that we just aren't.
00:22:23
Speaker
interested in and so like we could cover it the coverage would fucking suck and then you'd get mad because you'd be like why do you not know what the fuck you're talking about in fact Oreo and I'm like because I don't like this I don't know what's going on like enough shop pokemon but there people like every every other league are like you need to play RTS games like I will suck at them so yeah like there's plenty of people who are like killing it covering those things but you kind of want someone yeah You want people to have like specialized coverage. You want people to be like knowledgeable and and passionate about the things they they cover. I'm curious. I do think like if they widen out, widen out the judges pool out of just because even even if you ask, like you probably have to be a certain size to get on their judges pool to be quite frank, like. And and so that's why like we look at the judges pool for the game awards and then the indie game awards used like
00:23:17
Speaker
But very little crossover in between outlets that are judging. So I feel like if you did bring in the other outlets to the judges for the game, would you get much bigger variety of nominations rather than just the expected games every year from the the big size of the big studios? But pretty much like what do you think? So a bunch of like indie champions come. OK, so what are the six nominees then?
00:23:43
Speaker
Do you take off Astro Bot? Do you take off Final Fantasy? Do you take off Metaphor? Well, I don't know. Black Myth of Wukong isn't there in Animal Well is. I don't know, literally the only difference. Right. And we don't know until we see it, I think. I think that's one way to get around these kind of things and just widen the judging pool.
00:24:04
Speaker
we We say that as industry insiders for the most part, right? And if we were to do what we're suggesting here, and like a lot more of these indie experiences show up in these awards ceremony, what I think we'd get is a lot of the general public being like, what the F is this game? I've never heard of this. This means nothing to me. Where's my Astro Bot? Where's my Erdtree? And so like that side,
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, arguably has like a much louder, much more disturbing voice in in terms of like the space would then be peoed and pissed off. So like, you really can't make anyone happy. Like there's there's really no solving this. um Honestly, it does make the more sense to to ostracize, well, maybe not directly ostracize, but to kind of play down like the importance of the critics, of the people who are essentially tastemakers, and appeal to that wider base because like that just hits more people. like We'll understand the reasoning for it. like Average Joe won't.
00:25:07
Speaker
So like they won't, like they they'll lose their mind over over their stuff not showing up. Whereas we like we can understand what's going on. Yeah, Tyrael brings up a good point. like um i imagine like Occasionally, a friend of mine, a normie friend, I bring up these these amorphous normie friends of mine, will tune into the Game Awards. If Game of the Year came up and UFO 50 popped up, they'd be like, why the fuck is that up there? of why isn't called? Like and know legitimacy of people yeah the legitimacy of these awards would be called into question immediately by so many people. But it's just like they just don't know like they like that pop culture thing matters to something that's as forward facing as an award show.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah. and Well, that's, you know, where I'm working on my unpacked piece. We're like, just stop expecting more from the game awards. It's a, it's a hype show. First and foremost, uh, words or words are secondary to it.
Public Perception and Representation in Game Awards
00:26:02
Speaker
And pretty much, you know, every year what games are going to get nominated. Yes. And so I have to give it all some irritable medic on it.
00:26:10
Speaker
And as a hype show, it's really entertaining. Like, I really like watching the Game Awards every year. Like, for what it is and what it is trying to do, I think it succeeds better than any other similar awards show. Like, it copied that formula and, like, put its own ah spin on it. And, like, it's from beginning to end, I am engrossed. I like what I'm seeing. Sure, it can be improved one way or another, but, like, it's so it's a fun time. Yeah. But when you look at, like, when you go down the categories,
00:26:37
Speaker
pretty good nominations. I'm going to be honest. Best indie game, animal. Well, blotro, Loreline, the laser eyes, never. And UFO 50, we have my favorite indie games of the year I represented there. So that's going to, I haven't played never yet, but that would probably be up there. Blotros, whatever. He's got a fucking ton of money. He doesn't need my opinion. Snub to nine souls. That's the dinas like i so nice got knows that she never together person. I mean, they, it got, it showed up somewhere on the list, right? or am i You.
00:27:03
Speaker
No, it's not a debut. I don't know if it's on the list like anywhere. No, it's not a it's not an action game. It's not as good of an action game as Space Marine 2, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Blacksmith Wukong. All right. Here's here's my tin foil hat. Right. Because Blacksmith Wukong is in game of the year contention. but That's Chinese made. True. Nine Souls has beef with China because that's like a Taiwanese studio.
00:27:30
Speaker
Is that what you think is going on here? I don't know. I'm just asking the questions. I'm just asking questions. We born segments just like JMA just asking. I'm just putting that out to the ether. I'm not saying nothing one way or the other.
00:27:43
Speaker
um Yeah, I just also think it's like ah it was a pretty fucking tough and punishing game. And unless a tough and punishing game is making its way into the um general conversation like FromSoft games have, I think most most of these judges probably don't have the time, patience, or skill to get into those super punishing games, right? Yeah. And like it's only just now coming to Game Pass. So like the the opportunity for it to get into that conversation is a little too late. huh
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, nobody. I didn't see a lot of talk about nine souls after it released. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it feels like the people who played it all love it. Like um yeah you and Yahtzee just from people I know know, like I saw Jacob Geller talk about how it was one of his favorite games of the year. And then I was like, a you know, the the people who like sat down with it and met it at its level were like, oh, this is incredible. um I think it having kind of a boring name isn't great. like yeah i mean like like We got we gotta to stop using the word souls. um even if you use so don't you Even if you don't even if you got in there. it Still gotta so got do that. um Yeah. And then when I look over the rest of the nominees, like there's nothing, you know, egregious. There's certain like silly categories. One thing people couldn't understand is why the college football game wasn't nominated for best sports game.
00:29:06
Speaker
Um, which I forgot that the only sports game this year and it seemed like the only sports game I ever heard people talk about. Cause they're like, finally college football is back and it's good. And then it just didn't get nominated. Um, what did get nominated?
00:29:18
Speaker
and how much do you have a polar trash idea that pulled up F1 24 FC 25 FD 37 F not know F1 the first two are real. I'm about to bug out. I'm like, what? The one's got cars. One's got soccer NBA 2K top spin 2K and WWE 2K.
00:29:42
Speaker
I asked if we could get cold for top spin. Also, WWE is not as in my opinion, that's a fighting game, not a sports game. But wouldn't like if you have a boxing game came out, that would be a fighting game and a sports game, right? Oh, Casey, on the speed, I guess. So there's two separate categories. Would you put on a fighting game? It probably doesn't belong in that category. it'spo but i call we're fighting inra sports game a box Well, if there's a category for fighting him in a category for sport that I mean, it's part of also these categories are dumb because action adventure is like, right? everything everything every bunch And then they're like, well, but it's got some puzzle solving. Oh, like I spent a fucking hour doing puzzles in black ops six. I wanted to get into all my drawers in my house.
00:30:25
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, good, I don't know. Good guy scrolled down. Like, it was nice to see unicorn overlord and kunitsugami getting best sims slash strategy game noms. Like that was all they got to go up against each other. They do. I feel I hope unicorn overload wins that game. I've not been addicted to anything to that degree other than maybe ZZZ. But like unicorn overlord felt bad. Like it felt like I was hurting by myself.
00:30:52
Speaker
Other than CCC that at this point for me, the controversies around the game awards are just as ah predictable as the game awards. And I honestly, I think in a time with the developers, I think it's just a slowish news period. And people are like, well, we got to fucking do something. so Let's just let's just be mad about this. And everyone will be mad about it. And then no one will give a shit. Do you think all the ring will win?
00:31:17
Speaker
No, great question. I don't think. che the when no Yeah, I do not think it'll win. I still think it'll be a metaphor. Yeah, what that predict? Bellatro, right? I think Bellatro will win games a year. Years ago, we predicted there's no way we still remember. It was so long ago. I still think Final Fantasy going.
00:31:38
Speaker
Generally, when was, as you think, please wrap it up, we'll make a comeback. Uh, no, I don't think that will happen this year because that was mean to hell and it made the show look really bad. yeah If anything, Jeff is pretty, uh, cognizant of the conversation. So, uh, what do you think about the five picks for, uh, anticipating game that straining to ghost of Yota GTA six Metroid prime for beyond and, uh, monster hunter wilds.
00:32:01
Speaker
Doesn't feel fair. Yeah. Doesn't feel fair. Should be just a category for Grand Theft Auto and then most anticipated game. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's got to be GTA six. Yeah. I mean, that game just literally they just print money with that thing. Unless Jeff's about to read the envelope and just goes off script and says that's training to. yeah He's just going to say, look, I already know what the most interesting to get him in. So here's the runner up. Yeah, this for this is the only.
00:32:29
Speaker
There's none of these are ah objective except for this. Objectively, Grand Theft Auto 6 is collectively the most anticipated game in the game. This is the only category that has a right answer. Also, best esports athlete is obviously Chovy. Chovy, Chovy, Chovy. Chovy.
00:32:50
Speaker
I don't know. I believe that I wrote it down as chovy. I don't know if that's a person or not. There's also z and a faker, which I'm not sure if that's real or not. So all very interesting. Well, at least at least we know so we're not getting. ah trending gamer of the year award, because every time they do that, it turns out that person's bad. Yeah, i don't say that that's sounds great. That's matter yeah probably not true. Yeah, yeah. it And like yeah they trips didn't add any categories, but they trimmed a few trimmed a few. and Well, there's content greater of the year, which is kind of like trending gamer.
00:33:21
Speaker
Wasn't um wasn't the wasn't the reason for that because they're whole like fresh on the block. I don't know what the the category is called. i like richman Was a freshman class. Yes. Whatever that thing is called. That category of just future games. They all kind of banded together to say, hey, we're not participating in this or like we're we're going to do something to show solidarity with the events in in Gaza. Yeah. And Jeff was a man like that. Yeah, and I just kind of put Jeff in a position where he's like, I don't know what to do with this.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, i need to I need to pay my employees, so I'm going to stick with the advertisers here. like as As much as video games are art and are a vehicle for political conversations, like the game awards don't necessarily feel like the best place to make political statements. Or if you do that, you have to go rogue and do it, right? like you like Yeah, do an individual Use it as ah as a method to do your protest. That works. yeah Well, don't ask Jeff, who is a piece of this corporate entity, to do the Activision activism for you. Yeah. That's activism, Think about that. you can just that you get it You get to take photos of Bill Clinton and Black Ops 6, I'm just saying. um Also, best esports game. Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant. Four games I've heard of, makes perfect sense. Fifth game, Mobile Legends, Bang Bang.
00:34:52
Speaker
I'm sorry, what? Mobile Legends, Bang Bang. Mobile Legends, Bang Bang. Mobile Legends, Bang Bang. Honestly, this looks like some shit. Casey would start playing. No, yeah I'm surprised. Mobile Legends, Bang Bang. I'm surprised Rainbow Six Siege isn't in that category for best esports game. Like, what did they do wrong? I wonder. This is a gacha game. Oh, I'm freaking Zealand's own zero is nominated for best mobile game.
00:35:22
Speaker
No. Mm hmm. Are you excited now? No, because it's up against Bellattro. Oh, no. I feel like if you are nominated for best game of the year, you're clearly going to like sweep the undercategories that don't have those. But yeah, it just didn't. Was you have any final game awards thoughts other than Animal Well was robbed?
00:35:45
Speaker
You know what? You know who didn't get any big noms? Nintendo. They got a couple of scraps thrown at them, like, best family game. Here you go, babies. Because they they really weren't active. Like, it's not a surprise. No, they released a bunch of fine games this year. Like, totally fine. For the eighth year of a console.
00:36:01
Speaker
You were, you were fine. It's like, you don't expect a lot. You don't expect a lot from your grandpa. Like when they're like 90 years old, like Jess, you didn't die this year. That's phenomenal. Like con clap it off for grandpa. But i up for grandpa they'll hanging in there let him fall asleep. you Let him just sleep through dinner. It's fine. He doesn't, we don't need to call him to the table for the turkey. Um, I'm assuming next year will, uh, I would be willing to bet we'll have one or two Nintendo games on maybe for game of the year.
00:36:25
Speaker
Honestly, probably winning. Whenever the Mario game is, the 3D Mario game next year, we'll probably win game of the year, a year from now. So if someone remembered to clip this and then fucking the year from now, when I'm right, we could do all this stuff. good Did Odyssey launch with Switch? No, it came out about six months later, same calendar year. Switch launched with Breath of the Wild and Odyssey came out in October. October 27th. It's been a while, actually, since a console has launched with a Mario game.
00:36:53
Speaker
Uh, yeah, we, you had that shit like Mario deluxe 3d my yeah, but a 3d Mario game now it's been since 64. I guess it happened once. Oh schma yeah. Yeah. I did put out a post on blue sky about, um, an interesting thing I noticed is that basically, uh, on the, uh, game of the year nominations, besides Bellatro, all Japanese or Chinese developers.
00:37:19
Speaker
And then when I looked at and Eric, maybe maybe you can pull up my Blue Sky posts with the Metacritic. I looked through like the top 25 games of the year, almost all from Japanese and Chinese developers as well in their indie games and the only like Western AAA games in their remakes or the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster in the top 25 of the Metacritic of the year is like, that's a kind of damning indictment of the current Western AAA market.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah, but ah well, last I mean, I think things move in ebbs and flows. You know, last year, just four of the six nominees literally going to our last two points. The six nominees were Alan Wake to Western Dev Ballers K3, Western Dev Resi for remake. Oh, not a Western Dev Spider-Man to Western Dev and then to Nintendo games and Mario wonders and in Zelda.
00:38:09
Speaker
Also last year, all six of those games, part of long running franchises, um, whereas this year, several new IP, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of my point is like, it's either long running franchises that get nominated for Western. Cause like, when's the last time like a big new original IP was nominated for a Western dev?
00:38:30
Speaker
Well, the last time they released one. but Yeah. Horizon 2017. Yeah. That's right. most so so ah Probably in 2020. Yeah. Yeah. So Sony, Microsoft, you got some, you got some work to do. They've been doing that work for so long. guys you Wait till next year.
00:38:47
Speaker
knowy it's all me tell you South of midnight. archchi macci There you go. That looks, that looks so good. the next really look Really good. I just hope the gameplay holds up because that was some of the previews are a bit lower on the gameplay, but I honestly had no faith in compulsion. Like they have not produced good stuff up to this point, but South of midnight looks really freaking good. And like I was fully sold in terms of anticipation based on that. Dev doc, they released. It looks like they're putting a lot of effort into it. So I do hope that that comes out and is is a ah treat. They're their first game. Contrast was a indie hit. I like I like. Oh, actually, yes, I know. I don't play contrast. Yeah, that was a PS4 launch game or Xbox one launch game launched with one of those one of those big fucking blocks. You know, we have a few just kind of was one of those games that suffered development trouble, but also like immediate comparisons to Bioshock.
00:39:39
Speaker
and And when they released that demo, that was not going to be what the game was about. Oh, shit. That game is cool. And they're like, I guess it looks just like Bioshock. Yeah, it's funny. A bunch of a bunch of Super Chats came in. A lot of them related to this. I believe in doo doo man with a two dollar don't know. Thank you so much. Overwatch Classic is back. It's 2016 and Urgery winning. It could.
00:40:04
Speaker
It was really good. Earthtree was really good. I don't want this to be a thing. We shouldn't take this out on Earthtree. This isn't Earthtree's fault. Earthtree, this isn't FromSoft did everything. They what they they fucking knocked it out of the park. but The one fault might be, you got to make it easier to get new DLCs. Someone who played like hundreds of dollars ah hundreds of hours in Elden Ring, like you got to just have it be from a menu. like What are we doing?
00:40:28
Speaker
Casey, you you were an Overwatch player. Have you gone back to try the 2016 stuff? but I have been tempted, but now I have not gone back. um yeah It is bad. I remember early Overwatch and they did change a lot of shit that was bad at the time, like the ability to like just pick the same character for all six slots of your team. Yeah, that's what I saw on social media. Like people like were like, oh,
00:40:51
Speaker
This isn't great. I don't know if there's a reason in the game evolved from this point. Yeah, like it got much better in like those posts launch days, but like it is. It is a fun sort of. um Like time capsule to to look at that sort of nonsense. Yeah, Fortnite Fortnite just brought back their original stuff, too. And it comes with a separate battle pass like. Oh my God. How much money do you need epic? What are you doing?
00:41:19
Speaker
hold it's Call of Duty is going to absolutely do that now. Just keep watch. Yeah. The Overwatch one is temporary. That Fortnite thing sounds like they they're going to keep it. They are. Yeah. It's it's here to stay and it it gets its own battle pass. That's what I did. The same thing with Vanilla Wild Classic or whatever. Like, yeah. Yeah. I think people are just. Always nostalgic, like the grass is always greener kind of thing, like maybe rose tinted glasses, everything.
00:41:48
Speaker
But yeah. ah Inverse guys with 15 Australian dollars. Thank you so much. Inverse guys. We need a DLC definition. Does an expansion pack like Starcraft brood war constitute a separate game? Is it just DLC? Can DLC be considered a separate game? If not, shouldn't be nominated. but That's the thing is there's no everyone's definition for all this shit is different.
00:42:09
Speaker
That's why it's always funny when people get mad and argue because then you get into their arguments. The arguments are different. And so it's like we can get over this hill and then there just be another hill to argue on. um To me, there's DLC, which would be like a new map pack for Halo. And there's expansions, which would be like ah burning shores for ah Horizon Forbidden West, War Shadow of the Urchery. And then there's standalone like Dandelone expansions like, uh, like Spider-Man. Yeah. Where you don't need to have the base game to play that game. But it's basically a whole new game, I guess. I think these awards are all about vibes. Yeah. I think they're all about vibing. And And moneyd had money.
00:42:56
Speaker
um Yeah, I was like, but that's the thing is no one will ever agree on these definitions. They don't have to just know that I'm right. And then there's microtransactions like horse armor. That can't be true. Michael transaction. Can't believe they allowed Michael transaction back. ah William Gibbs of the $5 demo. Thank you so much, William. If you feel urge tree should count, ask yourself if shadow of the urge tree would be valid if base Elden Ring had been less good. Also 25th trans day of merit remembrance.
00:43:27
Speaker
Is that on the 25th or today is the 25th. I think I saw on social media was today. Oh, okay. I'm not, maybe this is the 25th, but yeah, that's great. Have a try and stay in remembrance.
00:43:38
Speaker
um
00:43:41
Speaker
I'm not going to ask myself that I'm not going to live in a hypothetical world where fucking Elden Ring didn't rule because Elden Ring ruled. That's the world I want to live in. Yeah. I don't think anyone's making the argument that Elden Ring didn't rule.
Debate on DLC Eligibility for Awards
00:43:50
Speaker
Elden Ring is a victim here. It's the parents are fighting victim and the the the child is the one who's suffering for this. Elden Ring is the child. Yeah. um And yes, award shows are jazz. That's exactly how award shows work.
00:44:04
Speaker
um
00:44:07
Speaker
Like what other DLC should have been, what other situation, I guess last year, the Cyberpunk. Yeah. It seems like the Cyberpunk thing feels the most similar to what's happening with our, uh, Erdrick and that one, something, didn't it? I think it wanted best expansion or ongoing or something. sort be showing Game.
00:44:27
Speaker
Cause I remember, yeah, they on I think it was ongoing games. We were like, what? because yeah So then why, so then that's what confuses and muddies this stuff, right? So then why isn't her tree in the category for best ongoing game? If you're looking at it like that, because that nominat is it enough enough people didn't play it. Whereas like Eldering, it's ah partly a popularity contest of who's played these games. Yeah.
00:44:49
Speaker
And so that's why it's ah it's ah unlike the Oscars, I mentioned this on Monday, unlike the Oscars where um so many of the winners and the nominees tend to come out right at the end of the year, like in the fall and winter prestige awards season in games, shit comes out all across the year. And honestly, coming out earlier might benefit because people have time to play these things. Like people had time to play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. If you go back a couple of years, games like ah games like ah Zelda Breath of the Wild and God of War 2018 and The Last of Us Part II all released in the first half of the year, which meant people had like nine to six months to play these things, which is good. Not not too early. Right. you don't just Because then they forget entirely because then people are like, what about like a dragon? And I was like, that could have been this year. There's no way that was this year. um And then there's also always the silly thing of there's a cut off. So if Indiana Jones comes out and is a fucking banger,
00:45:47
Speaker
But too bad. Think about it next year. No, I'm not going to be thinking about it next year. I'm going to be thinking about new games next year. you know yeah um Metal Synapse with 5 Australian dollars. If they called it Elden Ring 2 and released it separately, would you consider it Godi material, even if it was the same engine and assets? I would not. I mean, it's also not my favorite game of the year.
00:46:07
Speaker
but also same same engine and assets being, like and then sticking a two on it, that's fine. like That's normal. like that's That's usually what happens with sequels. The issue with this is that you can't do that with this game because it's so it's sewn into the middle of the first game in such a way that like you it's you can't separate them in that way.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah, they're like conjoined twins. Yeah. Which I'm sure one of the bosses in Elden Ring is a set of conjoined twins. And they probably killed me so many fucking times. Jomly, you've been a member for a year. Thank you so much, Jomly. I can tell you are a non- I can tell you a non-controversial snub I feel strongly about. Content creator of the year. Where's my second wind? By the way, HPD party. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. I think if Java had released his Metal Gear video a little sooner, could have been on there.
00:47:01
Speaker
Go watch something. Go share that thing. Nick, I already watched it. I already shared it. Stop yelling at me. I'm going to send you a strongly word letter now. Oh, no. I don't know how to read. Written. ah ah Joel Ryle, thank you so much for a two year old don't know. Ooh, I got Stalker 2 is buggy, but damn fun as heck. What do you think that Ooga was? Is it like a horn? i Yeah, I think they're only for Stalker 2's graphics.
00:47:25
Speaker
o laga ah was it is pretty but i'm gonna be honest i got some stalker two bugs already and i'm still in the fucking rock zone ah yeah it's to I was hoping it wasn't going to be that that or the case with that, but I think much like Cyberpunk, I will wait until I hear it is ready to play. Well, aside from streaming it tomorrow, I don't have a choice, but.
00:47:44
Speaker
when I want to play it on my own time. And then a sovereign with a 50 euro don't know. Thank you so much sovereign. Not too much. yeah I was listening to this while walking the dog and i had to run home to send this. How dare you compare Half-Life 2 to a goddamn Halo game you will be hearing from my lawyers, sir. What's next? Comparing the Godfather Part 2 to Transformers for ah and That is not a fair comp comparison at all. Much like Yeltsin probably threw his food across the room. You didn't kick your dog, did you? Also, that's not fair because Coppola was able to make a Godfather part three and God knows Valve can't. So so there you go. um Comparing Halo 2 to Transformers Revenge of the Fallen. Halo 2 is not some like big dumb action flick.
00:48:35
Speaker
And Halo 2 was like a masterpiece of a video game. like our like are We're not gonna rewrite history here and try to play Halo 2. That game was a phenomenal video game. Yellow KC glowed over at a pretty good time instead of me. like like I love Halo 2 and like the truth is,
00:48:56
Speaker
Like it's a really good, like it it was the kind of game that when it released, it changed a lot about everything about video games. Like Half-Life 2 did that? Well, Half-Life did that. And then Halo, you know, got the ground running. in Halo 2 did that, right? So like, like over Half-Life 2, like Half-Life 1 was the game changer. Half-Life 2 was more of the same. Halo 2 was the game changer. So I'm looking at it that way.
00:49:23
Speaker
Boom. Also, that Halo 3 came out and it was also good. And you're like, are they just, are these games just going to keep getting better? And the answer was no, they will not. They will start to get worse. They're going to hurt me like this. They're going to start getting worse right now. It was wild. It was like, oh, you're just going to keep getting better. You're like, that's good. No, you're just going to keep getting better. Don't forget about Reach. Reach was a good swan song. Yeah, Reach was good.
00:49:45
Speaker
Also, ODST was good. like It was a really unique experience in that universe. Big fan of a big fan of ODST. no so It was almost like Bungie was really good in making those games. Yeah. And it was kind of just like Valve looked at a Halo 2 and was like, let's just copy this all for Half-Life 2. That's what they did. look Halo 2 came out and Valve's like, all right, we still got like a week or two before Half-Life 2 comes out. Let's just try to copy all the good elements.
00:50:11
Speaker
And Marty, you were you were trying to get clipped out of context and destroyed on the Internet. Man, whatever. He's boring. He's in the industry, the whole goddamn thing. He's boring. That's our prime rules. Was it Half-Life 2 or was it Half-Life 2? Episode one, that was boring. Two was good. Episode one is bad. Episode two is boring. Yeah. Episode one is boring.
00:50:40
Speaker
Episode one is good from this conversation. I'm not part of this. Episode two proper is good. Episode one is bad. Episode two is good. Yeah, I'm forgetting which one, but yeah, one of those like sequel games was like legit bad and boring. Yeah. I think it was like two episode one. Unlike Halo, never had a bad game as Fred.
00:50:58
Speaker
yeah Uh, Fat Cock with us when y'all are don't know. Go get your DP while we talk about Fat Cock. Fat Cock with us when y'all are don't know. Thank you so much. Don't let the fact that Usada Pekora is nominated for Content Creator of the Year distract you from the fact that she bought a monkey.
00:51:18
Speaker
What? Huh? Sada Picara, I believe, is a VTuber who I think met Kojima took a picture with the other day, which I'm not sure how any of that works because they're not real. They're like pictures. But Kojima has a picture with her. um Apparently, she bought a monkey. Great. Outstreamer is going to twitch streamer. I mean, you said don't let the fact distract you from the fact she bought a monkey. Like, is buying a monkey supposed to be a bad thing? Because like. Yeah, is that a crime where she's at?
00:51:47
Speaker
Yeah, like on a character level, I think buying a monkey, assuming you're taking care of it, is pretty cool. Probably, probably better than that streamer that was driving their Ferrari or something like that, McLaren and crashed it on the highway because they were trying to stream and drive. Yeah, they were trying to avoid Usada Pecora's monkey that had ran up the road.
00:52:08
Speaker
ah Oh, it's a meme says Fat Cock. I don't understand any of that. I don't know what's going on. This is weird. These are the first time I ever said any of these words. Yeah, that also didn't look like a monkey in the picture that Eric is putting up. Like someone said that's a lemur. Yeah, like that look like a monkey. I don't listen. People just pay us and I just fucking read it. I don't know what's going on. The meme has only existed in the movie Dinosaur.
00:52:31
Speaker
lean Lemurs do not only exist in the movie Dinosaurs. I can i can attest. Do you own that broken closet of yours Marty? We talked about this this morning. What do you have in there?
00:52:43
Speaker
It's just a bunch of like boxes and shit. No, it all closed. This is a bubble box. Boxes full of lemurs. yeah yeah What does anyone have in a closet? thiss way Is anyone's closet interesting? That's why he's got that corg up in the ceiling, Casey, because lemurs are climbing up there. Oh, it's so I can get my football because I need to watch the big tackle and men put their tantrums.
00:53:04
Speaker
um Which is insane because I have like several better TVs in this house than the one in this office. and Snake of the Garden, been in the tip jar for 12 months. Thank you so much, Snake. HPD to your tip jar. Okay. From soft story number two.
00:53:21
Speaker
ah So, ah news went out ah over over the weekend late ah Sunday night and then was confirmed by both parties that ah Sony, the company Sony, not PlayStation, the company Sony is ah interested in ah purchasing Karakawa.
00:53:41
Speaker
which is the Japanese ah company that has a shit ton of tentacles and and and fingers in a bunch of different pies. ah Those pies are huge in the anime world, including the anime, the manga, the light novel industry, ah Cloverworks and A1. They own Niko Niko, which is like Japanese YouTube.
00:54:02
Speaker
Uh, they also own, uh, majority stake in several video game companies, including, uh, acquire who were the developers of, uh, Mario and Luigi brothership, uh, spike Chunsoft who developed like dung and romp and ra on stuff like that. And, uh, from soft who made shadow of the air tree. We tied it, tied it all together. Um, and it sounds like this is, might be happening that this,
00:54:32
Speaker
Like, maybe go was it about six or so months ago that we were hearing something similar to this? Like, Sony was... was like fishing for like an acquisition of specifically FromSoft, but everything was coming back to me like, no, they can't do that because Katakawa owns them. So like, it would be a conversation between Katakawa and Sony and FromSoft doesn't have interest in like, they wouldn't have interest in being, you know, like a tie to a a single ah platform because of like the success of things like Elden Ring, right? yeah So like, so this now coming up feels like, okay, so maybe there was some validity to that.
00:55:10
Speaker
But also, like does that still stand? like Does FromSoft have any say at all in this? like I don't know what their relationship, like what they're their contract is like if they're able or have the potential to like say buy themselves out of a deal like this if they don't want to be part of it. Or if it's like, well, they they just go with everything else and Sony gets full control of one of the most prolific video game developers in the industry today.
00:55:34
Speaker
so Obviously, I think to us, the FromSoft thing is the most interesting aspect of it. I do think for Sony, they want the the anime portion of this, because Sony already owns Crunchyroll, and these would be Funimation. They acquired that not that long ago. Yeah, Aniplex.
00:55:55
Speaker
like this would be almost, i've this feels like it would be a monopoly on that entire industry. um And ah from what I've heard, some of Kadokawa's practices and their companies are i but anti-artist, are kind of, ah let's squeeze these creators for as much blood as we can. And and let's you know ah while they're like young and naive, we can get them to sign contracts, and and that'll give us full control over these IP that we can then spread everywhere else.
00:56:27
Speaker
Um, and so at this point, like this would ostensibly feel like a monopoly over an entire medium, which isn't good, just bad. That sounds bad. Yeah. Hasn't like, but this is, this is a deal between two Japanese companies.
00:56:48
Speaker
Right. So this has nothing to do with US law, FTC. What entities exist to combat this? Are there any? Is there pushback in terms of government regulation to stop a monopoly like this in the making? If I'm going to be perfectly honest, I don't know if we have a point of comparison for this. And I also do not know. I don't know American law. Doesn't know Japanese law. But yeah, all the things I was reading, it just sounds like this is like,
00:57:16
Speaker
moving through. If they wanted to happen, like it'll just happen. right like Yeah, I don't know like what the equivalent of like antitrust laws are over there or if like the government will step in at at any point. um But, so yeah, that's the, you know, the anime portion of it, but the games portion, yeah, would be from software, which, no, I don't want anyone buying from software. I want, also, I want from software to not be owned by anyone. I think in a perfect world, they would gain autonomy.
00:57:46
Speaker
and like almost like IO interactive, you know, where they like bought their freedom from from Square Enix after the after the hit man. It's got to be a conversation they're having because after Elden, I mean, their games are in guaranteed sale at this point. Yeah. Or if you would you would want to keep them happy. Right. And like this, this has a potential to rock the boat in a way that they may not be comfortable with.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's also crazy because like FromSoft feels like one of the few studios who've managed to like run a triple-A company that produces games in a relatively timely manner of really high quality. um You know, so many of these other teams as we moved into this this the past 10 years of gaming, all of a sudden they're taking five, six, seven years, an entire generation to make a thing, or it comes out and it's middling, or it feels trend chasing and instead of trend setting.
00:58:46
Speaker
where um despite some people's thoughts on Dark Souls 2, like FromSoft as just the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, and Armored Core, just in the corner of fucking beloved. And Elden Ring, like, is mainstream, broken the mainstream. but not The Normies know about it. um So yeah, I don't...
00:59:10
Speaker
I'm not thrilled if this goes through and you know, not knowing the specifics of what would happen. Um, obviously Sony would be thrilled. Like this would be, yeah, real nice feather in their cap of acquisitions, picking up the rock star of the Japanese games industry. Yeah. And I want to point out, um, that this,
00:59:32
Speaker
Because prior to this, like the big acquisition stuff was Microsoft and ah Activision Blizzard, right? And the energy around that was very different from us, from other critics and whatnot. The reason for that, I think, is specifically because of the existence of Game Pass.
00:59:48
Speaker
like the the ability for the stuff that they're acquiring to essentially show up in a package for consumers to get easy access to and the history with Microsoft of of of acquiring like very, very big franchises and keeping them multi platform like Minecraft kind of gave people also like the just a bad stink around ah Blizzard and Activision specifically, like their leadership and whatnot, like just a shake up of that nature. All of that kind of lined up to make it feel like this was a good thing. Even though, you know, ultimately all like giant corporate acquisitions are not great, but like it still felt like this was a good choice given the circumstances like Sony's version of this.
01:00:30
Speaker
um It feels like all the options are bad. like what is like What is the upside for anyone involved in this particular sort of acquisition? yeah like it It feels like it's harder to see if there's any. and think there's yeah i mean I think there was more interest and excitement around the act act era acquisitions before all these layoffs started happening. you know like and and the And just the complete failure of Concorde and the shutting down of Firewalk and the way that Bungee has been handled yeah the bungee thing like really sticks out yeah even though bungee has a lot of its own internal issues and you know sony's. I don't know taking advantage of that to take more control or what not but yeah i mean like from from software is just doing fine i think it's just one of those two days like.
01:01:11
Speaker
Don't don't mess with them. Just let them do their thing where like a lot of the studios that Xbox and Sony picked up have been kind of like they're good. They could be better. This may work out better. It may not. Like, you know, there's not as much certainty, I think, around around those studios that Xbox and Sony picked up compared to, you know, from software where it's just, yeah, they're the reliable studio to produce quality content and corporate meddling that
01:01:40
Speaker
I'm gonna be real though, how funny would it be if Sony bought from an elevated Miyazaki to like a Herman Hulst level to where he got to come into every game and just give the weirdest advice?
Sony's Interest in Acquiring FromSoftware
01:01:54
Speaker
like I'm like, oh Spider-Man 3 is like, this character should laugh strangely for 15 seconds. Don't explain why. And then it's like, oh, we're making a new Last of Us game. Oh yeah, don't put any of the story in the game. No, it's just an items. You just gotta read the items. No, Vati will take care of it. He'll make the story for you. How great would that be? Like fucking Horizon 3 has patches kicking in the ass, like trying to dino well.
01:02:24
Speaker
Every game would have some sort of poison swamp in it. Oh, my God. that At every game. They need them. If we're being honest, they need them. No, they don't. Multiclare that just doesn't make sense. I would love it. All the DLC requires 40 hours of gameplay. It is kind of funny, though, thinking of like Herman Hulse right now, though, and just like the you know, we've talked about a couple of times the absolute focus on the Horizon IP. Yeah. And now that Lego Horizon game just apparently is not very good. Yeah.
01:02:52
Speaker
like Oh, is it? That's I haven't heard. and I haven't heard great things about it now. I don't know anyone say anything about it. I forget that that game came out for me. unless It sounds like it's like a kids game that's even too easy for kids. It's the the avatar of the video game world. Oh, no. Last Airbender or no. Definitely not Last Airbender. a Last Airbender is beloved. Is it two billion dollars beloved? No. When is his money? and When he's not love.
01:03:18
Speaker
As far as fara from so from software goes like, yeah, imagine I have to imagine they're definitely ever having conversations about buying themselves out of that contract, if that's an option for them. Again, I don't know if this is something they can do. No. Yeah, like it may not even be an option, but it's also it like like Marty says, like they've done no wrong. It's in everyone's best interest to leave them alone, even if they come along with this deal.
01:03:44
Speaker
They might just leave them alone. They might just be like, do whatever you want to do. Yes, we'll release it on aiming. You want to release it on. What if this is a real monkey's paw where it's like, this is the only way we'll give you bloodborne on PS5 and PC? it's um only wet but all of he is the kind of cow and force them to give another but This is how we get, this is how we get bloodborne on PC. Uh, and then fat cock with a $10 don't know. Thank you so much. So Japanese ah competition law consists of anti-monopoly act, the Dokusen Kenshio AMA officially the act on prohibition of private monopolization and maintenance of fair trade. I said all the words.
01:04:24
Speaker
I don't know what they mean, but I said them. I said all of them, including the quote AMA, which I don't know what that it's good what's going on over there. No, but that's good information because I will i will look up more on that. you and Look at that. Get into bird law. Bird law, maritime law, Japanese law. Three laws you need to learn. Get yourself out of every pickle. Bird law is very important. Why did we need to look up bird law? did i just start chart Wait three and a half years from now and you're going to know once the birds take over.
01:04:52
Speaker
Um, I'm just saying, I'm not saying I'm just saying, what are you saying? I feel like I just like left the conversation and my head came back in and now I have no idea where we are. Guys, hear me out. I'm just saying, uh, I'm pretty hungry too, for being honest. You know what? Let's talk about what we've been playing. What we did. We had any final thoughts, any final thoughts for your school bird law. There you go. That's where we're going to go. Um, any final thoughts on this before we move on to this stuff would be blank.
01:05:24
Speaker
Bloodborne on PC and the 60 frames update on PS5. Make it happen. Then we'll all forgive you. Yeah. yeah
01:05:33
Speaker
Sony also owns, I believe the Sony own Illumination, the Minions Studio. Can we get the Minions team? That doesn't sound right. I just make that up. I don't think they own Illumination because they have their own animation studio. awesome my Universal Pictures and NBC own Illumination.
01:05:53
Speaker
great Fact-checked. Why'd you say it like that? Why? Like you're gonna turn around behind the behind a back slam dunk? Being right over me isn't a dunk. I'm wrong so often. like that's not ah like That's not a win for you.
01:06:14
Speaker
Going back to the early days of Snopes. Okay, let's talk about what been playing. What we've been playing. Casey, let's start let's let' start with you. yeah's Let's stick on this FromSoft train, because I heard you had a dilly of a pickle of an Armored Core 6 stream. so Yeah, I've been left alone ah these past two weeks because my fiance is traveling. um So instead of our wedding stream last Friday, I just played a smattering of games that are
Gaming Challenges and Streaming Experiences
01:06:39
Speaker
in my backlog. I'm still not finished Armored Core 6, but I went back after several months to basically just go into just late, uh, for the late armored course six levels. And that was a bit of a mistake. Like I forgot how to play the game for like the first 20 minutes.
01:06:54
Speaker
um But once I did get my bearings, god damn is that game so hard to shit. So hard. It's so hard. Like the and and we already know this about how that game functions like the levels are like real baby mode. It's like practice for you to like just see what your mech setup does. And then you get like ah a cool checkpoint. And then the the actual game is the boss fight. And that's what took literally like two hours of the stream was me just beating my head against this fight. And they punish you by saying whatever you show up with, you have to fight with like if you want to change your loadout to try and adapt to what that scenario is after you now know what it is, you have to back out and do the whole level before it again. But you guys know me like I'm not leaving.
01:07:39
Speaker
I'm good. Whatever I have on hand is what I have on hand. So yeah, it took about two hours to change. um wow What boss was it even? It was like, it wasn't even like a ah big named boss. It was a ah but scenario with where a bunch of enemies dropped.
01:07:54
Speaker
ah One in particular was especially difficult. Like he was just one of those fast moving guys who was about my size. But then there was also a massive like mothership in the sky that had this awesome freaking laser attack that like just destroyed everything that was on the field before these other guys dropped. And then was shooting at me from far in the distance while I was fighting the other guy the whole time. So like that was a bitch. But like that that, oh my God, that game is so cinematic. It feels so effing good to play. If it didn't take me,
01:08:24
Speaker
like as long as it did to go through that, like I probably would just stuck with it. But I figured I would just change pace because because I was I was streaming to people. And so I didn't want them to see me continuously do the same thing over in Oregon. But goddamn, I'm of course, it's amazing. I'm going to finish it. I love that. They live when I do that. Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, like games like this, like in this like what you suffer. That's that's what they're here for. They're here to watch us being paying and suffer all the time.
01:08:54
Speaker
I guess. And it's fun. Like that's the thing. It's fun the whole way through. like Like you'll hear me curse it and yelling when I die. But like, it's so fun. You played it when you were alone. so You can scream at the top of your books, but it's still fun. Like it's still fun. Like that, like that challenge of being pushed back, but then knowing I have to do better and what can I do better? And like, here's my strategy. Let me execute it. Like that, that does not,
01:09:19
Speaker
getting old to me. So like, even, yes, it's the same encounter and I'm trying it again and again and again. Like that, like chasing that feeling, like it's, it's a real high that from soft has absolutely perfected. And he has shout outs and nine souls because they replicate that in bite size package. And like, they are not being recognized for it. Oh,
Space Marine 2 and Co-op Gaming Experience
01:09:38
Speaker
no, it's not enough anyway. It's your, uh, your tunic this year. Isn't it? It's my new tuning. Oh, speaking of key um but you see that trailer for the Sifu.
01:09:50
Speaker
I don't know, the seafood secret levels, uh, the secret level episode of seafood, not seafood. Okay. No, no, no. I did not look sick. Yeah. I can imagine that'd be really sick. They yeah did like a live action thing when the game first launched. And that was also like pretty good. Yeah.
01:10:05
Speaker
What else did you play? But yeah, after after closing that up, I jumped back to Space Marine 2 as well. I only really like played the opening level for that in order to do that co-op stream that we did, which was a good time. So I went back to see how that game's hanging. It's fun. Like, not that much more to say, but like, I don't know what's going on in that game world. Like, it is not an interesting story whatsoever.
01:10:27
Speaker
ah But it is, ah it's it's really fun, like, horde fighting mechanics like shooting and and attacking like the way they mix in like parrying and blocking and like, melee combat alongside that it's just fun and it works really, really well like it's very, very polished feeling.
01:10:45
Speaker
um And while it's fun solo, I think that game shines and co-op like, like it you're you're not going to get the same level of experience if you just play that whole campaign solo. So like that, that's something I would like to like do with a group of friends, whatever the whole way through. And that'd probably be the best way to get through it. Have you played much of Darktide?
01:11:06
Speaker
Dark a little bit. Very if you if you like the and craziness of of the space man, you would love dark type, probably. That makes sense. Yeah, that that game. Yeah, that game feels really good, too, if I remember correctly. It's called it's got yes for kids soundtrack and it is so fucking good. I listen to that in the car when I need to get hyped up for pickleball like a weirdo. That's not how I thought that sentence.
01:11:31
Speaker
ah But yeah, that's all I've been ah playing, really. um I finished, also in my backlog, I finished the the Netflix series, Disenchantment, which was the Matt Groening series, which is essentially Futurama, but in Fairy Tail Land. Like that's how I like
Review of Disenchantment Series
01:11:51
Speaker
to describe that show. It's like using the same playbook, but just a very different setting.
01:11:56
Speaker
um And when this first launched several years ago on Netflix, I don't think people were very high on it. um It got five seasons and I got to season three before I took a break. But just randomly, I decided to go back and finish it up and forgot literally everything that happened in the season before. So I rewatch season three, which I rarely do. But it was it was a pretty easy quick watch. And I just basically four and five. And I really like this show. Like this disenchantment is not as good as Futurama.
01:12:26
Speaker
um but it it feels close enough in that like, like Like I still really like all the characters. It has a ah lot of very funny secondary characters that reoccur throughout the show. And the thing with um like the main difference I want to say between Futurama and Disenchantment is like Futurama for the most part is episodic. Like they'll just go on wacky space adventures every episode. ah Disenchantment follows like a a narrative that like builds and builds and builds.
01:12:58
Speaker
And it has a lot of like fun twists. There's a lot of like character building and stuff that happens over the course of it. But the pacing is way off. like You'll get a bunch of episodes in the middle of a season that feel like they don't know what to do yet, or like they're waiting for something to happen while characters are like spending time talking to each other. or like It just felt like they had a little too much time to get their story done in certain places. And that that really kind of tanks the momentum because there there are good sections where it's like, oh, this is a buildup and this is a good payoff to the stuff that was happening. But like, they feel a little further further in between than they should in a lot of cases.
01:13:35
Speaker
It also does something that one of my favorite sitcoms of all time does really, really well, which is Arrested Development, where like it builds on running jokes in a way where like certain sets of running jokes will then run into new ones and then become new running jokes. yeah yeah like They do that sort of thing. and It's one of my favorite kinds of ways jokes exist in like a continuous thing.
01:14:02
Speaker
and like comparing it to Arrested Development doesn't feel fair because that's probably like just a masterclass and that sort of thing. Theirs is less good, but it's okay. You know what I mean? Like it's it's it's fun for what it is. So like by the end of the series, um they do wrap up a lot of ah like the story threads, a lot of characters like get proper endings. um they they They have a running joke where like there's a character who like comes out of his window and like will complain about all of the running plot holes that have not been resolved yet. So like they like they're very fourth wall breaking like that. um And like, it they introduced characters at such a clip, like you'll get a brand new character who's been around the whole time.
01:14:48
Speaker
And then all of a sudden, they're they're like very important to the story. And now they have dialogue. And now they're running around with the main cast. And now they have it. And like that just that sort of stuff feels out of left field. But they still make those characters likable. like So like now that you know who this character is, they they are part of the team, even though like they kind of showed up at the last second. But not really, because they've been in the background the whole time.
01:15:10
Speaker
It feels like it feels like what The Simpsons has done over decades of like you see these characters around, but because they're in season 27, Lenny gets a whole episode to himself. Sure. Sure. You know, like stuff like that. But like they did it in like a much more condensed matter. So like it feels a little strange, but like ultimately it did leave me feeling like really, really ah positive on the show. So like I'm i'm a fan. Oh, yeah.
01:15:38
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, I think, oh, that's just actually not it for me. I started a new Hulu series actually just dropped very recently. All of it's out. I'm bigoted right now. I'm not done yet, but uh, interior Chinatown. Yeah. A couple of people have recommended this to me. I have not
Exploring Interior Chinatown Series
01:15:51
Speaker
watched it yet though.
01:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a real ah high concept series where essentially like you're you're playing a guy who like is down, not down his luck, but like is kind of bored of his life and he wants to be part of something bigger. Like he's a, ah you know, the Chinese kid living in Chinatown, working in a Chinese restaurant.
01:16:14
Speaker
um But the the truth of the world, is that he's a background character in like a police procedural. So like on TV, he'll see like these two cops who are like rockstar superstars and like well known to everybody. And those are the main characters of the show he's a background character in. But no one addresses the fact that it's a TV show. Everyone seems sort of like they're they're like just close enough to realize that something's wrong with the way things happen. And like the the show does really cool um visual aids where like
01:16:54
Speaker
Like the the lead detectives, whatever, that's what they call them, showed up at the Chinese restaurant and all the lighting changes. Like all the lights in the restaurant like go off and then come back and it's like sort of blue fluorescent light. And then they go in there, they're doing their lines and they're ignoring all the people in there because those people don't matter to their scene that's happening. And like they can watch that happening and they can try to say something to them, but they'll just they'll just be ignored and like they won't know or understand why.
01:17:21
Speaker
and like Or he'll he'll try to break out of the fact that he's a background character, like something's happening out on the street, but it's not for him to be involved in. So him trying to go outside to like see what's going on, the door is just inexplicably locked. and like And there's no explanation for that. like they don't like they're They're aware, like that's weird that the door was locked, but like they don't like go and say, like why was the door locked? How do we figure this out? like they're They're working around like the limitations of the world because he is ah he is trying to become a bigger part of the story.
01:17:52
Speaker
So like he'll he'll find a way to be like, all right, well, I can't get into the police station, but I work at a Chinese food restaurant. So what if I pretended to deliver food? like That would be a logical reason why someone like me would be here. And then that sort of logical conclusion will allow him to enter places where he's not supposed to be. And so it's him figuring out stuff like that, but still never really addressing the fact that like this is a TV show, right? Like that that just lives in the meta world. And like we all know, yeah but like the characters themselves are just kind of working with these rules, which it's it's a really interesting series. And like the the regular story that's happening is ah a bit of a sort of cut and dry mystery. Like that that doesn't feel anywhere near as um interesting as this this sort of meta concept. But I'm hoping that they'll converge at some point and like and like become a ah better part of a,
01:18:46
Speaker
like a stronger part of the the narrative. Because like i like I like what the premise is, but like that story feels very secondary to all of this this meta happenings. Yeah. Yeah, it got, ah I mean, it's it's based on a book that came out a couple of years ago that won like a shit ton of awards and came out like the first year ah of of COVID and the author of it is like the show runner and main writer charles she woo ah Charles. Charles you, I think. Yeah. Um, but, uh, who is also apparently writing cause this is produced by Taika Waititi. Yes. And he's, uh, Taika said he's writing the screenplay for Taika's upcoming Akira movie, which I still don't think will ever happen, but we'll see.
01:19:26
Speaker
Maybe we should do a live action Akira. What if we just keep Akira as an anime? What if we did that? I don't think we need a live action Akira. Yeah. um We already got we already got that sick motorcycle slide. and Nope. That's fine. That's close. I think we don't need to go anywhere else. We got sick motorcycle slide. But yeah, that's cool. This is this out now. i'm I'm excited to watch this. I feel like I'm going to watch for something. You can binge it immediately on Hulu. Hell yeah. Cool. Anything else? Nope. That's it for me. I had.
Silent Hill 2 Remake and Signalis
01:19:54
Speaker
Nick, what are you even playing?
01:19:55
Speaker
Well, after I finished Resident Evil 4, a remake last two weeks ago? Last week? I don't know. Times a construct. ah I've been working on more survival horror games. I've been making my way through Silent Hill 2 remake because I had started it when I came out and then other stuff came up. So I stopped it. um So I just got done. I'm in the prison section now, which, boy, is that kind of spooky.
01:20:18
Speaker
ah jump in any holes Yeah, I'm at two now. The game continuously ah gets more intense the farther you get into it, which I have, like, my horror games like that because, like, yeah, Dead Space starts off really intense.
01:20:32
Speaker
eight but Oh, no. It's very squeaking his toy over there. Dead Space for me, like Dead Space start off very intense. And as you go through the game, like you kind of get used to it and things like don't keep getting weirder. And you and you also get like stronger and more ability. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sentinel two like does a really good job of it's intense starting out and then it kind of slows down a bit. You know, the the first ah dungeon, if you want to call it that, you know, you start learning the mechanics of the game and all that in the combat and the game over time just kind of keeps getting more and more intense. And one of the things I really like, I haven't played the original, but one of the things I really like about the remake is the game continually gets keeps taking things away from you, um specifically the the the light of the game and especially in the remake, especially in the remake.
01:21:28
Speaker
Once you get out of the hospital and into the streets, holy moly, with ray tracing does that look good. like I don't know, Marty, you've obviously played through all of it, but I don't know if you played it with ray tracing anything on the PlayStation, but.
01:21:42
Speaker
I mean, I just I played on this little I played it all on stream. So it was on the ship where games are meant to be played on a piece of ship monitor in this room. with This is like one of those games where like it having ray tracing makes a big difference because all the light and everything bounces around. So when you're running through the streets and like a light is flickering in the corner, you see it like reflecting off the cars and off the the the puddles and everything, it's really, really atmospheric ah like nothing. Yeah, it's a it's a great looking. yeah Yeah, nothing quite like it, especially especially when you're going down into the yeah ah the prison for the first time, like, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I'm really I'm really enjoying it. It feels like I'm getting pretty close to wrapping it up. I'm assuming this is the last section of the game.
01:22:27
Speaker
No, there's, I mean, you're, you're, you're past the halfway point. You're probably like, twothirs through um there's there's one biggest prison is very long. And then there's one biggest dungeon afterwards. oh Yeah. I'm having a good time with it. But the, uh, the other game, the other game I'm playing is obviously directly inspired by it. Uh, signal is finally pick, repick that up. I tried it a couple of different times. I just never.
01:22:49
Speaker
I guess I never really sat with it and got stuck with it, so I've been playing. Basically, I play Silent Hill 2 on my computer and I go upstairs on my Steam Deck and keep playing signalos until I fall. Just having the weirdest nightmares. Yeah, pretty much. Just lots of weird stuff going on. but ah It's been cool like seeing the design of signalis and reflected straight from Silent Hill and even the save screen and all that's obviously inspired by it and everything. Yeah. ah So it it plays similar, you're saying, but like it was inspired by it. Does it copy like gameplay mechanics? I mean, it's survival horror. So, you know, they all share those types of mechanics. But like signalis definitely plays with light the way like Silent Hill does ah and
01:23:34
Speaker
kind of narratively has a lot of echoes of sound Hill. I think and yeah I'm not, I'm not too far on the signal as I am only in like chapter two, three chapters. I never finished it. Not out. Not like me. It just got busy and I need to go back and and yeah.
01:23:51
Speaker
but I was wondering if I should try this because it's this was like a more modern representation of those older horror games that I've never played or seemed to like get into. So I was wondering if this was something that would appeal to me actually. Yeah, I'm i'm really enjoying it. Like it's is's incredibly atmospheric.
01:24:07
Speaker
Uh, weirdly, like ah for most,
Wayfinder's Transition and Arcane Season 2
01:24:09
Speaker
most like top down kind of horror stuff like this, I never actually get like really immersed and in like tense playing it. But the sound design of this is so good that it's actually getting to me, which is an accomplishment all its own. Yeah. So I definitely plan on continuing to play and finish it. And so to go to something spooky afterwards, are you going to?
01:24:30
Speaker
No, the next thing, the next thing I want to ah get back to you while we've got time over the break, because I was going to play Stalker 2, but, you know, hearing how buggy it is, I think I'll wait. um Aside from, you know, we're going to Jay and I are going to stream it tomorrow i'm from 3 to Yep. 3 to 5 p.m. Central. So we'll be checking it out tomorrow. But ah the next thing I want to jump back into is a Wayfinder from Airship Syndicate. Now that it's in 1.0. So if you don't know what happened with that game,
01:24:58
Speaker
It was originally wi ah was originally published by ah the the developers of Warframe, blanking on their name for a second here, but Digital digital Extremes.
01:25:13
Speaker
And then after, after a while, like it didn't, it didn't have like the biggest launch. And so digital extremes actually like deep and like unpublished the game. They dropped the game as its publisher. And so the developers at Airship Syndicate were kind of left with like, Oh shit, what do we do? Well,
01:25:29
Speaker
You know, because they they're a smaller studio in Austin, Texas. They're only like at the time they're like 50 something people. um So that's not that's not a big enough team to like host a whole ah games as a service um MMO. So they took it back to the drawing board and and like removed all the microtransactions and everything and turned it into a co-op ARPG experience that you just buy and play now. And it has a beginning and end.
01:25:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting to see but games on live servicing. yeah Obviously, Dragon Age seemed to have done that at some point in development to become Vale Guard. We're seeing it here, even like Nintendo is doing it with that Animal Crossing pocket camp. It's like just releasing the complete edition. It's $20, put it on your phone. This is it. No more live service, microtransaction things.
01:26:17
Speaker
Yeah. ah So yeah if you like the combat of Darksiders and everything from what I've played of Wayfinder, very, very similar. Obviously a lot of the same people worked on Darksiders. Art design is Joe Madera. So if you like his art, you like the art of Darksiders, you would really like this. So yeah, I'm excited to jump back more into it. I think I might need to like just restart with a fresh character because I don't I remember what I was supposed to be doing, and but, uh, from what I did play, like they did when it was a live service game, the opening was really long and drawn out. You had to call the, all the merchants. You had to go to do all this live service. shit but it's so boring yeah course All of that. And you just get right into the game now. And it's great. Like it used, it took like an hour before to get to like the meat of the game. Now it takes like 20 minutes.
01:27:02
Speaker
Feel free to just get to the hub area and go. You're done. Fantastic. So that's that's what I want to play more of and then. Got caught up with Arkane. So watch the second part of season two. Not going to spoil anything because I know people are waiting for it all to be out to watch it. But damn, that's some hard hitting emotional stuff. That's going to be great. Yeah, I love that. I love that. There's anything like this is just the stories done after this and they're going to like do more stories in the universe because there's a billion characters, but feels like it's not being dragged out.
01:27:34
Speaker
It feels a little rushed to me. I don't like it's not not not Game of Thrones like season eight rushed, but definitely a show like I want to spend more time with the characters. And i'm I'm sad that it's ending after just two seasons because it feels like there's a lot more world building and story to tell. um But.
01:27:54
Speaker
So now they've confirmed like this is like you we will just never get more arcane after this or we just won't get this this plot line of arcane after this. Well, Mike, my gut says it's going to be called something else, that it's going to be a League of Legends story from the same creative team.
01:28:14
Speaker
About right, but like it just shifts to like 10 of the other 100 characters. So yeah i gotten into different yeah, different time period, a different thing. Yeah, and that would that would just make sense. And it it also like frees them up to not get bogged down by.
01:28:28
Speaker
you know, like trying to keep the same story going forever. Like give these characters arcs and finish their their plot and then like move on to elsewhere in the world. That feels like a good thing. Yeah, no, yeah is it's definitely a good thing. It's like ah it's so good. I want more of it complaint. Yeah.
01:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, I also know when we asked for more and more and more ah yeah than you. would What if we do several star wars and Marvel shows a year? All right. Here you go. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So so once, you know, once I'm prepped up with this, though, my God, my TV backlog has grown immensely. ah I want to I know the dude show isn't great. I still want to check it out. I have no interest in watching this dude show. I don't need any.
Upcoming TV Shows and Streaming Services
01:29:09
Speaker
if I don't fucking care about these Benny Jezzerits. I'm going to be the first one to say I don't give a shit about these witches.
01:29:14
Speaker
These sandwiches. i mean youre like Oh, sandwiches. That's pretty good. Oh, wow. That's good. Apple has not marketed it at all for some reason, but Bad Sisters got it season two. That's a What? That's actually like Amy it was like raving about a couple of years ago. That's about some Bad Sisters or something. and I watched the first season. It was fantastic. I remember this. There you go. More Bad Sisters. ah Silo get a second season. I want to watch that. Yeah. So like I got just got a second season get get fucking and Jason Segal and Harrison Ford in all sorts of predicaments together. Love it when a couple dudes getting predicaments. And then what you might call it as somebody mentioned ched earlier from as a third season.
01:29:59
Speaker
on It's not even called the epics anymore. I don't even want know if fucking service is on anymore. MGM Plus, I remembered the only thing I subscribed to that service for when From has a new season. Yeah, both those names are bad names for a streaming service. Yeah, those are all terrible names. Yeah. So I've
Gaming Preferences and Replay Plans
01:30:16
Speaker
got ah i've got a nice bag of local shows for our winter break when we get there. Here we go. Nice. Honestly, I don't really i don't really have any. I fuck a much gladiator. Literally, my gladiator was it's good.
01:30:29
Speaker
and Just hear your very few thoughts you have on stalker two. I don't even want to get my stalker two thoughts yet because I played the game so little and I was doing it while answering emails. And I feel like me saying the game sucks. but It's just going to get people angry at me. You still said that anyway. But no, no, no, I didn't say. I said, if you were to say that game sucks, people are getting angry at me. yeah And have you haven't given it a fair, a fair shake yet. I haven't given it a fair shake. Also, this is not a game for me.
01:30:56
Speaker
No, like it's like you got to survive and I'm like, I'm i'm out.
01:31:03
Speaker
If I click on a body and all of a sudden a menu with everything they're holding comes up and it's like, which of these do you want to take over your inventory? I'm immediately like, I don't want to play this game. This is ah this is the least Marty game of Marty games. I don't want to play this game. that'slarru That's because all I want.
01:31:21
Speaker
is nice, short, cinematic, single player shooter campaigns. I'm not gonna play Metro. It's got to be, it seems too much like Stalker, if I'm gonna be honest. It's Stalker. They're in the same universe apparently. No, with that, it's not. It's all the same universe. They are the same universe. No, that was the same universe. A really insane, long time Stalker fan told me that they were in the same universe. A Stalker. No, that person was the actual Stalker.
01:31:48
Speaker
Oreo games was formed by a lot of former GSC developers. but they're not okay. So they have a lineage. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, they're like, like three splinter studios that formed off of GSC for a games as one of them. There was another one. Oh man. It's in the account. It's a game from so long ago. I can't, I can't remember what it is right now, but there's another apocalyptic like multiplayer game that I think had a big Kickstarter and then just didn't go anywhere. Uh, so that like, I think only for a games out of those studios survived long-term.
01:32:22
Speaker
somebody in chat's gonna remember it. But yeah, and Led Foote says GSC was terrible to work at back in the day. Yeah, they're like, everybody left, all the talent left GSC. So that's why when like Stalker 2 was announced out of nowhere under GSC, I was like, huh? Who's working here now? Where'd the studio come from?
01:32:39
Speaker
You can't say that they're two very different separate series. They are two different separate so series. I'm on Casey's team. You can't say very. They kind of seem like the same thing. Oh no, my quote's down there. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Why is it in red? It seems like funereal. Is that a word? Funereal. That's crazy.
01:33:01
Speaker
Anyways, I played a good single player shooter and it's called 2014's Wolfenstein The New Order. Let me tell you guys that we used to be a country and folks used to make a game that was just six hours long and you just killed a bunch of fucking Nazis and the cut scenes were awesome. But then they moved very quickly and you get kind of confused over how the next thing is happening. But it doesn't matter because the performances are great. The levels are great. The set pieces are great. The characters are great. Wolfenstein is fucking great. And I am a. excited to play through Old Blood and New Colossus because New Colossus in my memory was the superior of the games. About what? I'm not going to play Young Blood. I'm going to play Young Blood. That's probably one of those games where when you click on a dead body, a menu comes up with all the shit in the pockets. I'm not playing any of those games. I forget. What is Old Blood?
01:33:50
Speaker
Oblod is an expansion or was that a separate game standalone? It was a standalone, it was a standalone, ah short standalone expansion prequel that came out I believe the year after um New Colossus. So it's like what BJ was doing beforehand. It's got like a little bit more of an occult tinge to it.
01:34:09
Speaker
like with with Zombos and whatnot. um But I'm doing this because these are all developed by machine games who are are making Indiana Jones, which comes out in a few weeks. So I'm very excited for that. Why didn't you add a the Chronicles of Riddick games to to this replay list? I could, because that was before machine games was Starbreeze.
01:34:29
Speaker
but I gotta be in, like I got my brain tantrums and I gotta to be in control of them somewhat. So I had to like put a flag in. I also had to think like logistically, I'm like, I think I could, I think I could beat a couple of these Wolfenstein games before Indy, but then he started attacking more games onto it. I don't know if I could do that.
01:34:48
Speaker
Just keep that's literally every Final Fantasy fake. like Yeah, but i was it wasn't a week beforehand. Like
Game Design Elements and Viewer Feedback
01:34:56
Speaker
I gave myself and the same thing with all the Zelda games, but I gave myself a big old running head start. I didn't give myself a big old running head start because I didn't know I wanted to do this until like a week ago. We put that little showcase out for India. I'm like, damn, I'm going to I'm going to whip so many of these fools of all sorts of puzzles. I'm like, I can colonize this place. That's cool. You know, some art effects.
01:35:15
Speaker
I've reinstalled Youngblood like four different times. It's like the trailer looks good. Well, aside from the dialogue, I can't stand the dialogue in those games. But I was like, it's Wolfenstein. It looks fun. And then I get in there. I'm like, I know. You click on the first dead Nazi and all of a sudden you see everything in his pockets.
01:35:32
Speaker
I don't want to be here at all. The health bars and both spongy enemies. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Why'd you do it? Well, since I know I need to play at least the new Colossus because I. Did you not play in the new order or the new class? No, I did play a new order and I liked it a lot, but I just never got around to like continuing. Yeah. So I got really good at the very least. Yeah. had New Colossus. I want to jump into.
01:35:56
Speaker
So I really like their, you know, before they were machine games, there was Starbreeze. No, not Starbreeze. Yeah, Starbreeze. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking of the studio that does payday. um Also, Starbreeze. What? Did they also. Fuck. That syndicate game that they made under EA, though, still has some of like the best shooting but feeling shooting in any. Yeah, that's like a little cult classic. That's syndicate game. I think there's a couple of those forgotten games, syndicate, Shadowrun, all those like a little, all those little shooters that I just. Sprinkle out there in the. Shadowrun multiplayer game was so far ahead of its time, much like the a I could do it. I should do a topic on that. Maggie. Crap. What was that game that had like these? No.
01:36:43
Speaker
the It was like, oh, we we have like first person parkour in our shooter brain and then a break. Yes. Yeah, I remember that. We spent all these like like AI ah controlled. And I just came out and just nothing was what I promised. I remember. I was so excited for break. Yeah. I remember picking that game up, putting it in the Xbox. And I was like, what the fuck is this? And I just did not. I immediately returned it.
01:37:13
Speaker
shame You're a lot of those weird multiplayer FPS games that came out like frontline. Uh, I had Jesse put it in the, in the view up and Yoda video I just did, but like for the, the Brown and gray shooters, but nobody pointed it out in the comments. Like, uh, frontline fields of war, like sounds like a made up game. It was supposed to be a big thing. That's not like a real game. Sounds like a faker, classic faker gamer of the year, faker. Um,
01:37:39
Speaker
Okay, before we wrap up, a couple soup chats came in. I believe in Doo Doo Man with a $2 dono. Thank you so much, Kay. But Pokemon the card game app, do or don't, you choose. I have slowed down my Pokemon aggressively this week. I'll check it in the morning, and I'll check it at night, and just open up a few packs. That's all I do. I was excited for it, but I do not like the battle system. I do. Battling is bad. I just want to collect cards. I don't care. I'm looking at it now. I just haven't clicked on it to start. Even the energy system doesn't make sense to me.
01:38:16
Speaker
says to me It just feels like you can't you can't like have a deck like Marvel Snapper. It's a bunch of mixed stuff together. You have to like optimize your deck around specific energies. I mean, that was that's on the market. Yeah. Yeah. I just i don't like that. Give me free for you. Give me Marvel Snapper. Marvel Snapper is marvel snap' not going anywhere. Don't don't you worry? I didn't plan a couple months now. ah Denmark with a two dollar don't know. I believe going back to disenchantment. Way too much time spent on steam land. Yeah. Like stuff like that. That was one of my complaints, like And like there was there wasn't like a huge payoff for the time spent there. Well, here's a fun thing. When they first got to Steam Land, there's like a like a carnival area where like different people like different people are like displayed as like freak show attractions.
01:39:04
Speaker
That happens to one of the main characters, and like there's a whole sequence where like they go in and save that character. They go back to Steam Land in an entirely different season, and the same thing happens to multiple characters, and they have to free multiple characters from the same freak show that they freed the one character from in the first place. And it's like, you just did it again? What the fuck? That's so weird. like They were just stalling for time, and I don't understand how that happens. It was just very, very odd.
01:39:33
Speaker
about 16 million. One of the, one of the true steam land mysteries. Um, kind of thought they were talking about like a steam like computer land. So that valve land every time I sit down on my computer, I'm about to log into steam land. Let me queue up. Uh, I don't know whose voice that was. Um, so my apologies to anyone who felt like I was mocking them there.
01:39:57
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, that about
Conclusion and Future Content Discussion
01:39:59
Speaker
do it. Uh, for us this episode, we did great. That's wonderful. Uh, Casey, what do you guys don't know? What should folks check out? Uh, you know, the usual, you can find me on all the social medias at Sigma Gears 9. Uh, tomorrow, Marty and I will be continuing Metroid Prime. Uh, Friday, I'll be continuing something. I probably, maybe I'll go back to Armacore 6 for a little bit and then jump to something else. Cause like, I really like Armacore 6. Uh, I probably won't return to, uh,
01:40:27
Speaker
Space Marine 2 on stream. like I'll just play that here and there on my own if I get a chance. um But yeah, like I'm a core six and a mystery game. We'll see. um Super Smash Sunday on my personal channel on Sunday to 30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. um I'm trying to think.
01:40:46
Speaker
There's a couple of things that will be edited, but I don't know when they'll go up. So just keep an eye on the second one channel in general, and you'll just see fun stuff pop up here and there, not necessarily featuring me, but produced by me more than likely. There you go.
01:41:00
Speaker
Fingers in the pies. Speaking of the streams tomorrow, ah we got a triple decker. At noon, Central, ah Jack and Jess starting their Liza P adventure. Can we? An hour later at 3 p.m. Central, as Nick mentioned, Nick and Jamaite will be playing soccer too for a couple hours. And then like Casey mentioned, 7 p.m. at night, more Metroid. Maybe-ish getting into the back half of the game. Will we finish it before the end of the calendar year? We'll see.
01:41:26
Speaker
We'll see. ah And of course, Jay and the crew have dev heads on Friday with Mandalore gaming. So that should be fun. and then Nick, what else do you got? Obviously, ah you you got stream tomorrow, but then you mentioned Unpacked? Yep. I had Unpacked go up on Monday on Viva Benyatta because I had nothing else to talk about that week, this week. But ah I'm glad I got to make it because it's a fun video.
01:41:49
Speaker
ah And then next week, Tuesday, starting from ah five to seven p.m. Central, ah Tina and I will be streaming on Twitch only. So go subscribe there. That's going to be our new FPS Tuesdays, what we're calling it. To be playing some Rainbow Six Siege this week, she wants to play some Trappang. Oh, did you hear that they they make a Rainbow Seven?
01:42:11
Speaker
hmm no yeah i got a guy who told me to make them make the seventh one which is fuck i'm gonna have to go back and play all six of those fuckers remember new vegas that game was cool ah no not new vegas regular vegas old vegas because vin too there were there would be two of those Yeah. Yeah. That could one should have been called me. Tina would have obviously worked on the Call of Duty franchise and everything. So she's big FPS player, Call of Duty and Apex. So we will be, I will be teaching her how to play room and succeed. Yeah. And I told, I told her that Casey's not invited because he likes to shoot me in the back. I'm not inviting cause i'm anyway not but because I want to eat dinner on Tuesday night. Um,
01:42:59
Speaker
Excellent. So yeah, all that stuff, uh, some are emblematic tomorrow, all the good stuff. And yeah, as a housekeeping note, uh, next week, obviously we will not be streaming on Thursday and Friday for the holiday. I think we're going to be doing something in this slot next week, depending if Casey's not there, maybe maybe we'll do an episode. If it's interesting, maybe we'll just play a game or something. Um, but we should be back in this slot, even though it's right before the holiday. Um, but stay tuned for that. And then new battle masters on Monday.
01:43:26
Speaker
Can I say that? Battlemasters on Monday Battlemasters, and it's a good one Guys, this one's real funny You need to watch this one What did I say? Yeah, boy. Did not win. The shock of everyone. So funny. It's our longest one yet. And I was laughing through the whole, almost the whole 30 minutes. It's great. I'm excited for everyone to get the full runs because everyone has a full hour run. And let me tell you, it's very dumb. Very dumb video game. Yeah. I know my run was very dumb, but I really want to see everyone else's. Yeah. Only ton of fun.
01:44:01
Speaker
ah Excellent. So for Eric, for Nick, for Casey, this was Marty. This was Firelink episode number 45. Thank you so much, everyone in chat who who joined us live on YouTube, folks who are are listening on Patreon, folks who are listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, your your podcast service of choice. We appreciate you all, especially those patrons. We have a lot of cool stuff planned, especially at that $5 tier and above, everything from weekly columns from Darren and myself, new monthly experimental videos, which you can see the first one from Javed. If you're at that tier or above about how he branded, secondly, all of your favorite shows and then the site as a whole or the channel as a whole. Do that. And of course, if you're a member at the at the Phoenix tier, we're going to be doing our got to send that message out Monday. We're going to be doing moving out of Monday.
01:44:50
Speaker
I'll send that message out. so because but I know that soon. i just a fuck I just remember now. Thank you guys. Uh, everyone have a great rest of your Wednesdays and we'll see y'all tomorrow for a big old day of streaming. Later.