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S2 Ep130: Broken Succession
80 Plays5 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about game releases that caused turmoil in their franchises and may have ended the series outright!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction and Banter
00:00:32
Speaker
How do I sound? Pretty good. Can we just go with the harmonized intro? Yeah. I mean, you're doing the edit, so you can cut out however much of this you want to. You know how lazy I am.
00:00:54
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going pretty zippity, dude. I don't know what that means.
00:01:08
Speaker
I don't know either. I was trying to think of a word that wasn't good or okay. Exceptionally adequate. What was the, the nerd, uh, character, whatever he said in the, the video was like, Oh, this is sufficiently recuperated. Oh, yeah. Oh, callbacks. That's, that's what we're here for.
Dislike for Reaction Videos
00:01:32
Speaker
Hey guys, we want to talk about the debut of our new video. We had a reaction video for our own thing. I fucking hate reaction videos in general, but it's even worse where it's like, I want to check out my own stuff. And like, uh, yeah, a little bit cringe friend. The one time I've seen that like really work.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I kind of enjoyed it was I don't really watch Hearthstone anymore. But if people were playing like online card games or something like that, a lot of times when there's a new expansion, they'll do a ranking video where they go over like all of the shown cards and they're like, this is probably going to be really good because blah, blah, blah, blah. This is trash because blah, blah, blah.
00:02:18
Speaker
And then they come back and they re-review. I think Trump, no affiliation to the politician as far as I know, does this, where he'll re-review his old video. And he's just like, I was so dumb. This is all garbage. Why do you guys listen to me?
Game Patches and Theory Crafting
00:02:37
Speaker
And it's kind of funny. I appreciate it.
00:02:40
Speaker
I do enjoy a good theory craft, but I'm not enough in any given game to really have an accurate guess. Because I can look at the new sets of magic. These cards are cool. This would be good for my one singular deck. But outside of that, I'm not thinking current meta. We have these three sets in. OK. This would probably be really good because I could synergize with this. This would be really common because people are running these decks. Stuff like that.
00:03:10
Speaker
I'm so far out of the math scene. Yeah, there's numbers flying around. I think the closest I've gotten was probably for Dota and nowhere near what obviously the peak is, which is Purge and his nine hour long patch analysis videos. But I think one time I put a lot of time into it.
00:03:35
Speaker
And I got upset because of the people who were skipping ahead in the patch to like characters they cared about. I'm like, I'm just going to leave channel and go back to looking. It is fun though to have like a patch notes sesh with the boys. Cause you're just kind of like, okay, that might affect some things or I don't really play him. Yeah. Or you find somebody like, Oh, maybe we could abuse that. Like, did we tell you about the blade mail patch? I don't think so.
00:03:59
Speaker
I forget which patch it was. It was a couple of minor patches ago, but they introduced a rework to blade mail. One thing they fucked up on it, though, is it's stacked. So we tried it out in a game and we like everybody just got like six blade mails. We'd have a team fight. They'd right click us once and fucking die.
00:04:22
Speaker
Because it returns a certain amount of flat damage and then if you activate it, it does that but also returns 80% of incoming damage. Right. But you just stack multiple effects on there per character. Jeez.
00:04:39
Speaker
And I don't know if the enemy team figured it out until like way late when they might have like picked up a blade mail on like a strength character because it's part of their build. Whereas they're like, why does the support have fucking six plate?
Video Game Interests and Podcast Content
00:04:53
Speaker
Oh, that's funny. They stacked on the individual. You could activate multiples of them. Yes. So you can be returning like six hundred percent damage. And the person's like, why am I dead? I thought you were just like actually piling together, which I was like, I think that always worked.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, it is literally it lasted one game before they figured out and patched. I think they like put up a patch while we were in our game. So once our game finished, like you got to update the game client. Like, wow, I found that shit quick. Yeah. Good time. It's ridiculous. No, I think it's fun. It's fun to collaborative collaboratively go over some of that stuff in theory craft.
00:05:33
Speaker
It's good to have interests. One of our interests is video games, which we periodically talk about. But not all the time. Recent examples. Everything, I guess. Well, don't do the video game. That counts. But to segue, video games aren't always good.
00:06:00
Speaker
I referenced the segue just to see Dave recoil in pain. This is the equivalent of real life. I made an active decision to like, I'm going to leave him here for a minute and let him do whatever. And it's just, it's interesting to watch.
Theme: Broken Succession
00:06:14
Speaker
Yeah. I think it would just be a descent into insanity if there wasn't somebody to like reel me back in. Like if you had a solo podcast, you mean?
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, it would be pretty crazy. It would not be nearly as interesting. I'm glad I got you here after three years before you were just like, fuck that guy. As opposed to this podcast, which we started on a whim. I made a joke and Dave's like, do it. That's how I've actually gotten into most three ways. Hmm.
00:06:49
Speaker
And they're like, you won't. Bet you won't have a three-way. Things happen by dares. That's how the American economy moves along. My car's broken. Bet you won't pick me up for work. I'm at the airport. Bitch. Oh, man.
00:07:11
Speaker
Anyway, today's topic is labeled as broken succession.
Critique: Metal Gear Survive
00:07:18
Speaker
We're discussing this ahead of time like we do with most episodes. The ones that we don't discuss ahead of time are blatantly obvious. We wanted to initially call this
00:07:34
Speaker
like failed sequels, or you have a game in a franchise, you're like, oh, it's the next edition of this. And it's, oh, they kind of shit the bed. But there's sometimes games that just come out where it's just changed the series so much, or it's just never coming back. Whether or not it's the fault of the sequel itself, maybe the franchise is just dead.
00:07:57
Speaker
So we're going to take a look at some of those and maybe offer some suggestions for where they could have turned if we're a fan of the series or just I don't fucking care about that game and they deserve to die. Right. As we know, Dave is an armchair game developer. My chair actually has no arms. It is a folding chair. Legit, I could not do that. Like I need some degree of elbow support. Hmm.
00:08:23
Speaker
I would just cross my arms a lot if I didn't have armrest, I think. Right. Huh. I used to do that, like lean against things. I don't know if I crossed my arms, probably. Yeah. That was weird. Weird time in the life. First game on the list is Metal Gear Survive. This is a good one to kick it off with because I think most people have at least heard of the Metal Gear series and probably survived too, right?
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, this was, we've mentioned it before, it's a classic example of, I would argue that the Metal Gear series is pretty popular, well received, and the entries have been good. I haven't played all of them, but the ones I have, I've enjoyed. Revengeance, particularly good, received really well.
00:09:10
Speaker
weird spin off. The first one I played was three. So that was where all my nostalgia lay. And there's like the weird, dumb things you could do in it. It was just fun.
00:09:23
Speaker
But Metal Gear Survive really changed it up in that it wasn't a stealth espionage, doing some janky stuff, and going through a really obtuse but entertaining storyline. This is like a, hey, defend yourself from zombies. Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
And they took some Metal Gear assets from, I think, MGS5. The last MGS game. By the way, they had a falling out Konami and Kojima, but I mean fuck Konami. Kojima went out, made Kojima productions, invented a new genre of strand type games.
00:10:05
Speaker
I can't, I can't shit talk it too much. I'm not even saying it's bad. I haven't, I haven't played Death Stranding. I just, I'm just embracing the joke. That's all. But yeah, I mean, regardless of, I mean, the series should have stopped after five, right? Like five didn't even get fully made. We've never had an episode on five, but maybe we will Sunday. Um,
00:10:30
Speaker
But spoilers, not spoilers. The game isn't really complete. There's literally incomplete content on the disk for stuff they never got to. And it's really disrespectful to the franchise to come off of that and be like, all right, now that the creator is out of the picture and he's off doing his own thing, let's make the next entry in the series.
Silent Hills PT and Starcraft Ghost
00:10:54
Speaker
And we'll make it a cash grab. Yeah. But like I said, it wasn't necessarily like another entry in the series because it didn't have any of the canonical characters. It was literally just you defending against waves of zombies when you get resources and stab them in the head, which is their weak spot or something. Right. You can watch footage of it on YouTube. People should talk a lot. And also notoriously, it had paid save slots. Yeah.
00:11:24
Speaker
Which I mean, most games go with the model of three or more, but they've never fucking charged for them. Cause it doesn't make any sense. No, it really doesn't. You're just like, we're going to make a new file on your hard drive and you're going to pay us money for it.
00:11:43
Speaker
That doesn't make any sense. No one should accept that. No. So it's just such a blasphemous twist from what originally was. And it's just, I'm sad to see the series go in that way. Like you said, I kind of wish they would have just stopped after Five. Five had some cool things and enjoyed playing it. It was definitely a bit different, but leave it be.
00:12:10
Speaker
Right. Yeah, it's like for I haven't played most of MGS, but I played Revengence. Obviously, I played five and I've seen a fair amount of gameplay and including some joke compilations of clips from previous games. And like I get the impression that four was really where a lot of people think the series peaked and it had a lot of resolution.
00:12:34
Speaker
And I mean, some jokes that there's like a lot of cut scenes and things like that, but.
00:12:41
Speaker
It's clear that there was a lot of personal investment on like Kojima's part into the development of this story and where it was all heading. And yeah, to just introduce another game right afterwards that has nothing to do with it, steals the name. That's what it feels like. It feels like they just stole the name from more sales. Um, they should have just stuck to Plinko machines. That's basically what I'm saying. Yeah.
00:13:09
Speaker
You know what's funny here is this isn't even just the only Konami entry on the list.
00:13:14
Speaker
Um, yeah, I see what other, what other ones are there on the 11th hour here, but silent Hills. Um, silent Hills PT is the, uh, one of the broken succession entries here. Cause this was a game that never actually got created. We just had the playable teaser, but it is Konami, which means it'll probably never come out in a good capacity. Okay.
Disappointment in Spore
00:13:40
Speaker
No. That's something I think we talked about at least once before briefly. We never played it because I am a coward. I cannot do spoopy stuff. And if I do, I am white knuckling the whole way.
00:13:54
Speaker
But it was really interesting to see, but then it fucking disappeared. And now like a few PlayStation that still have it installed are being sold and touted as, hey, still has PT on it. But yeah, it has been nice to see where that fucking went because it was Guillermo and Hideo. And they know what they're doing as far as their space. Yeah. So.
00:14:19
Speaker
If only they'd caught- Oh wait, they did in Death Stranding. A little bit, but not in the same way. So what you're saying is fan theory. Death Stranding is actually just Silent Hills PT, but fully developed.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yes, but less less spooky. Yeah. Yeah, it's like this is an example. The reason it's on the list isn't because the PT was bad. In this case, it was just this was the this was the progenitor of the end for Silent Hill. The fact that a game could get this much critical, a teaser could get this much critical coverage.
00:14:55
Speaker
It was really graphically impressive. It was disturbingly scary. It was a return to actual horror. And everybody I saw talk about it was like, this is really good. And then the game never got made. I don't think you can get more of an indicator that it's dead than that, where it's like, here's the sample product. And then everyone runs by and grabs it off the table and you're like,
00:15:23
Speaker
not making that anymore. You guys are just going to like love it so much. You know, I hate making money. Yeah, that's it. It sucks to see like projects like that die that are promising. I know we've also talked about a bit about Starcraft goes before. Yeah. Now, I know it was I don't want to say promising,
00:15:49
Speaker
I think people were looking forward to it for what it possibly could have been, but they tried to jam way too much stuff into it. Shitty development structure as far as how they're going about and what they want to put in. So it just kind of fell off and then never got made.
00:16:05
Speaker
But that was one of those things I remember as a kid, I'm like, this thing's gonna come out in the future, it's gonna blow my fucking mind. Like, do you remember being a kid and thinking like, they're never gonna make it to Diablo 3, that'd be too cool. Yeah. And it was like, it had that like, blizzard polish on it, you're like, this isn't the same.
00:16:26
Speaker
I like that you said woe. You just changed the emphasis. Like, you did say the word woe. You just changed the emphasis on the o to show disappointment. What? Oh. That's a nice touch. Yeah, I mean, like, Starcraft goes. It doesn't really break the succession of Starcraft, but.
00:16:45
Speaker
At the same time I mean there was this is some somewhat related I guess the recent announcement that they're stopping development on Starcraft 2 Outside of just like balance patches. They're not making new content for it anymore I guess it kind of doesn't count for broken succession because they were developing that game for like forever and they released like co-op commanders for a decade, you know, they did a lot of content for that and
00:17:12
Speaker
I don't know where that's going to end up. I'm going to assume there's going to be more Starcraft content, given that it's Starcraft. In the same way, I still think they're going to do more things with Warcraft, whether it's just in the world of Warcraft universe. Sure. But like those IPs are so fucking, everybody knows it.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's financially irresponsible to just straight up drop this, but I thought it was financially irresponsible to drop Silent Hill and to butcher the MGS franchise, but what do I know? If only you were a AAA publisher, then you'd see the light. Yeah, some of these titles have that AAA publisher energy and vibe. Gassing, Gassing, go ahead.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah,
Importance of Game Mechanics
00:18:03
Speaker
I have. I may actually say Spore for this one, which is so Spore was made by Maxis, who were basically the creators of all of the sim games, like The Sims, Sim Farm, Sim Life, all of that stuff. All those CDs you saw in Walmart. And Spore was supposed to be real good.
00:18:27
Speaker
And there was a ton of hype for it. Oh yeah. That was huge in my high school days. The one friend who could have it on their computer like, whoa. Yeah. This one's interesting because most of the things here are sequels or something like that. Because in order for there to be succession, you need multiple games.
00:18:46
Speaker
But I threw it on the list just because I think that it was disappointing enough to ensure it never had children, to use our analogy, right? Like there was no follow up chance for Spore because people were just kind of disappointed after all the hype.
00:19:06
Speaker
And it's like, I guess we haven't really talked about what the games would have looked like if we wanted them to be good. But like in sports case, they just, the game stopped being fun once you were done with the sell life stage. And there was so much more of the game left to go. I mean, that kind of feels like the classic example of, Hey, we have a good idea for a thing. We have run out of ideas, uh, to the narrow hallway with you, sir. Right. And it kind of just, it narrows down that.
00:19:37
Speaker
Oh, I have the possibility to do anything and be creative and explore. And it's just like, and we ran out of ideas for like what we can let you do. So you have to do this now. Here you go. Eat your peas, son.
00:19:53
Speaker
Yeah. So I guess just not that it feels better in any type of game to have the progression where you feel like you're advancing. Right. Like with MGS5, you're like, oh, I now have the hand of Jehudi? Let's find some dumb ways to use this. Yeah. So you like- Wormhole Fulton.
00:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, like you're just looking for like fun shit to do. Yeah. And exploring your possibilities. But anytime you get railroaded into just a single line of like, you got to do this now, whether that's like, hey, here's a forced cutscene, or you have to play exactly this way. You're like,
00:20:31
Speaker
Ah, cutting. Yeah, I think the brakes on it for me in any genre. I think back to like for MGS, Dunkey's video on it and basically every scene in that video is a sign of why that game was so good. And the fact that that can't be brought over into survive is a sign that that game is so bad. Like it's just like all of the meaningful interactions with just playing around with people, confusing people, screwing with the environment, like.
00:21:01
Speaker
Sliding down a hill in a box. This is content, Dave. This is content. And also, I'm literally dead rising. Dead rising fucking did it first. Yeah. And it was really popular for that. Because it's like, hey, here's your classic spin on zombies. Fuck around a whole bunch.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, because everyone's had that in the same way that like lava games were so nostalgic and fun.
Mega Man Series Evolution
00:21:25
Speaker
You're like, imagine a possibility where you just can't touch the floor. Let's explore that space. It's like, hey, what if you were just trapped in a mall? What do you use as a weapon?
00:21:34
Speaker
In the same way, everyone's had that thought of if the world were to end, what would I do? Would I fasten a knife to a loaf of bread? No, it'd make for a shitty handle. They just could have done something in that space to make it fun.
00:21:54
Speaker
Because a lot of those things where it's just, you are fucking around, you get to fuck around with your friends or like show it off like, hey, wasn't this fun? It doesn't need to necessarily be the gameplay loop. I don't know. I'm ranting now. It's fair. I'm in rant pose. Yeah. I'm actually going to interject for giving Dead Rising an honorable mention on this list and it like Dead Rising probably should.
00:22:18
Speaker
be a broken succession game by this point. The last one was Dead Rising 4, I believe, and it got 74 on Metacritic, which is pretty bad for a triple-A game. It's technically good, but it just means you haven't done anything with it recently.
00:22:37
Speaker
I don't think I played any of them after two and I felt like I pretty much had the full experience. So that's a sign that you got to change your game up a little bit. But Capcom loves to do that. Capcom is just like, we're going to keep making games. Oh, Capcom also loves to be like, hey, did you know we made Mega Man?
00:22:53
Speaker
We're like, yes, holy shit. They'll pipe that into fucking everything. Oh, by the way, Monster Hunter, which I've been playing a little bit again. Yeah. They have fucking like Mega Man sets you can get for like your palico because it's an event because Capcom.
00:23:10
Speaker
Mm-hmm. There's almost definitely stuff from Devil May Cry in there, too. They love to cross-pollinate across all the games. I see Mega Man's on the list. Do you want to rant about Mega Man broken succession? Because are they actually done making Mega Man games? At this point, I haven't followed it in a bit. I think the last I heard about was X8, which was more of a return to the old Mega Man series before the X series.
00:23:36
Speaker
But my lines of broken succession were like X6 and X7 because classic Mega Man, everyone knows, simple jump and shoot man. The X series added like dash boots and some other cool things. And it was like you being a teenager versus being in middle school. We're in high school now, we got the cool armor and shit.
00:23:57
Speaker
And it went hype. And so as they did X1 through X5, it kind of kept true to that form. They added some mechs here and there. They added some other playable characters like Zero, which are really fun.
00:24:11
Speaker
But it was loosely still the same. Right. Then X6 started doing some like really weird design choices, like adding in characters you had to save. But if you fucked up or if they died off screen, you could just never access them. And then they gave you items to like help you progress. And just bosses were weird. Like the whole play style felt different and it was just
00:24:40
Speaker
It sucked. It sucked a huge pile of pee. And then X7, I think they went into like a 3D approach. And that was just fucking weird. Because sometimes it was first person. Other times it was third person 3D. But it also fucking sucked.
00:25:00
Speaker
So I feel like, I should say between that and mighty number nine, I don't know how they fucking lost the formula. I mean, I know they're made by two different people, but like classic Mega Man, like you can look at it and be like, Oh, I understand what people enjoy about this. And you can make something similar to it, which is what people did in fucking
00:25:23
Speaker
What is that game? Well, you're thinking about it. I'm going to jump into a shout randomly. Sorry. No, I think that's I think that's fair. Like there's some games on this list where like significant formulaic changes. So like Mega Man's an interesting example because they went five games or what have you of, you know, gradual improvement, probably not too many formula changes.
00:25:51
Speaker
Same core gameplay. And then they came in with these changes that actually screw it all up. 20XX by the way. Okay. Catch you guys. The weird thing to me is like when you have an established franchise that's as popular as this,
00:26:07
Speaker
changes are okay, and if you have a bunch of games like Capcom does and will never stop doing, change is
Dawn of War 3's Missteps
00:26:14
Speaker
necessary, or else you just turn into the situation where you're just releasing the same game. You turn into a sports game. And that's not an acceptable answer either, but do quality control or something. Throw the game at some testers, and if they're just like, no part of this is fun,
00:26:35
Speaker
Maybe it's a bad idea. But like so many other franchises, I've kind of only modified the formula slightly like Pokemon. Those games are all the fucking same. They just kept like adding in like, here's a new series of Pokemon. I hear some other mechanics we've added and it keeps building on itself. Same with Animal Crossing. That's pretty much the same fucking gameplay across all games. They just keep adding more stuff. Right. And people still like it for what it is because it hasn't changed.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, the loop is intact and you're getting the same positive reinforcement out of playing the game. Just looks better now. It looks better. You might have like slightly more features or some things opened up, but I mean, I don't know. I think that if you make dramatic changes to the formula, you've got to justify it. Like I've got, I've got a game on here that was another dramatic change formula type game. This is a big jump from Animal Crossing, but
00:27:33
Speaker
Animal Crossing is not on the list. At least. That's just a comparison game. I think Animal Crossing is still a pretty good game and I don't want to be killed by my closest friends so... Thumbs up! Just like back away. But I'm going to throw this one on here. I know a lot of my...
00:27:51
Speaker
Friendbase hasn't really played it, but Warhammer 40K, Dawn of War 3, which is kind of a mouthful. This game started out, Dawn of War was an RTS, like a strict RTS, kind of like Company of Heroes. And number two was like a squad-based, still top-down. More tactical? Tactics. Like XCOM type? Yeah. Pretty similar to XCOM, just real time.
00:28:18
Speaker
Um, but a lot of those things in play and both of those genres were implemented like pretty strongly I like the macro rts a little bit more but I play starcraft in co-op at least and um The squad based stuff was really cool. There was some looting like these both got really good reviews. So for the third game they're like, hey we're gonna like rip off mobas and
00:28:49
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense Dave. There's a lot of cool stuff in 40k but having hero type units in basically lanes
00:29:03
Speaker
Attacking towers to eventually destroy the core is like, that's the description of a MOBA. Are you saying it just didn't fit the universe? Because Blizzard did this with, what was that shitty game that failed? Hotz, Heroes of the Storm? Wow. I mean, it's all around. Heroes of the Storm.
00:29:28
Speaker
Right, but like they did that and it fit for them. Right. Well, I mean, like, I guess the core difference here is this was a game that was an RTS and then it's kind of a strategy game and there's some overlap there. But as soon as like. So they removed a lot of the base building.
00:29:45
Speaker
from the RTS part. And the heroes are designed to kind of just get stronger over time, get more abilities, things like that. But what you started with was like these armies clashing against each other, or this is like a squad in enemy territory trying to like fight through for an objective. And they got rid of like all of that motivation by stripping the game down. My main gripe
00:30:14
Speaker
is that the game wasn't fun. And it reviewed okay, like 70s, I think, from critics, and players hated it, like mostly negative on Steam for a while.
00:30:25
Speaker
So it sounds like your issue is the combination of the shitty gameplay, because like obviously if you do like a shitty mobile, it's becomes pretty obvious. Like we've seen some Chinese spinoffs of Dota light type things. But I think the other part of it is because of Warhammer being Warhammer, it's about the fucking factions.
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's about like the space Marines fighting. I can't think of another faction at the moment. Orcs, Eldar. Thank you. Chaos space Marines. Yeah, space Marines fighting space Marines. Various space Marines. Technically correct. But it's like these armies clash where they have like these specific units. So to have just like
00:31:04
Speaker
Oh, my team's going to be Space Marine Jim and Ork Terry over here. Yeah. I'm battling it out to like destroy a circle on the other side of the map. It does feel kind of weird. Yeah. You literally would find yourself in situations where you controlled fewer impactful units than the squad based game, which was kind of funny.
00:31:27
Speaker
I don't know. I love 40K and I only got like a few missions into this game before I was like, someday I'm going to make a podcast episode. I'm going to rant about it. So check. I haven't really played any of the Total War series. I haven't played any war series in a long time. Total War is pretty good. That one's actually different than this. This is Dawn of War. Understandable.
Failure of Perfect Dark Zero
00:31:51
Speaker
A more Total War style game for Warhammer.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yes, oh my gosh if I could get Warhammer 40k total war
00:32:03
Speaker
I'm just shaking my hands back and forth right now. The Warhammer 40K. The game's right there. It's right there. It'd be super amazing. And I would pick it up, snap it up in a heartbeat. But that's a good series. That doesn't belong on the list. OK. This one definitely does, though. 40K, for some reason, is just struggling real hard. Like, mechanics came out when I think that one was actually pretty good. But there's a lot of crappy 40K games. I still want to try that at some point.
00:32:32
Speaker
If it's like on the cheap, just for the music. The music's actually really good. I think very similar to XCOM. Is there another title on the list you'd like to transition to before you start talking about mechanics? I'm just going to shotgun out my next one that I feel I need to. Perfect Dark Zero. OK.
00:32:53
Speaker
Bro, fucking Perfect Dart came out at like the golden times of Goldeneye and other early N64 shooters. Yeah. But it had such a fucking style about it where you felt like cool and espionagey and it had some sci-fi elements in there. And I just remember playing so much of that game with my cousin and being very bad at it outside of like the farsight because I like to cheat.
00:33:23
Speaker
Perfectly legitimate weapon. Yeah. But when Perfect Dark Zero came out on Xbox, I was initially excited. I'm like, oh, no, it's Xbox 360. It's like, oh, this game has now entered the future of gaming. Right. And then it's just reviewed so, so poorly. And I like watched some clips of him like, this isn't
00:33:45
Speaker
It had a full on identity crisis. It did like a Britney shaved head type thing where I'm like, I'm concerned about where this is going. And it just kind of dropped off.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's really sad to hear because I didn't have an Xbox, so I didn't even follow up with the base game or the follow up game. But like Perfect Dark for N64, I loved. Like there was this like sci-fi, futuristic, dark future, dystopia, corporate nonsense going on. Like it felt in some ways like it would have fit into like the day sex universe. Like it's got a lot of those vibes. The music was freaking great.
00:34:25
Speaker
The multiplayer basically single handedly made GoldenEye pointless to play because they had a lot of the same levels because they were both made by Rare. And but on top of that, they like had you can actually play co-op versus bots, which is something you could never do in GoldenEye. They actually use the expansion pack had the laptop gun.
00:34:51
Speaker
Ah, good stuff. It's disappointing. I haven't played a game like that really since Perfect Dark, where it's just like the same type of...
Criticism of Fallout 76
00:35:05
Speaker
Deus Ex is the closest I can get, and it's an immersive sim where Perfect Dark was not a still shooter.
00:35:11
Speaker
What if you had multiplayer maps of Deus Ex and then you got into dialogue options with your enemies? Meanwhile, a third anime was sneaking behind and chokes you out. Right. I'm just imagining it's like human revolution or something where it's like you're in dialogue with another player and you're like, I think this person's an alpha personality, so I'm going to hit this and use the implant that like releases hormones or whatever to influence them. That would have been good.
00:35:41
Speaker
That's how you make a game that ends up on this list for the Deus Ex series. I understand when people sometimes want to shake up the formula because it's good to add some spice into the mix because maybe it does need a fresh twist. But if you look at something like Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, I didn't grow up on that series, but I can tell you it did not review well.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much killed the series up until Smash, right? He finally had his recovery. Was there anything like that you were really looking forward to? You were like, oh my god, they're making a sequel. I'm so fucking hyped. I love this base series. I played all the games. They're coming out with a new one. And then you're just like,
00:36:29
Speaker
What happens? I mean, even on this list, there's a couple of things probably like that. I don't want to harp on it because I've already talked a lot about it, but Fallout 76 matches the closest for me because I love Fallout. I'm looking at the massive Fallout poster I have right above my shelving. Is it one of the.
00:36:57
Speaker
Who's the boy from Fallout? Vault Boy. Vault Boy. Is it a Vault Boy poster? It's Vault Boy with a thumbs up, some ghouls in the background, and it says surface never, vault forever. There you go. It's also basically the way that I live in my apartment. But these are the times for that.
00:37:17
Speaker
To Fallout 76, though, I hope. And I would be kind of surprised if this legitimately kills the series, but it really shows a lack of respect for what fans like about Fallout to the extent that it wouldn't surprise me if it signals the end unless they really learn from their mistakes.
00:37:42
Speaker
It's like if you took out all of the main single-player features that people actually cared about, if you took out role-playing, if you took out NPC interactions, took out companions, if you took out all of that stuff you've been developing in Fallout, it's not Fallout anymore.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah. But you can temporarily build a base for as long as the server's up. Yeah. Or until you get kicked or you're, you suffer a disconnection, then you lose it all. Do you have too many items? We're going to ban you. Yeah. I mean,
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah, you can look up stuff on Fallout 76, but I'm really hoping Bethesda turns some of this stuff around. I honestly think they pushed their announcement of their other games just because of so much backlash to 76. Like, I don't think they really wanted to talk about Elder Scrolls. This is just fan theory. This is my theory.
00:38:38
Speaker
But I don't think they want to talk about Elder Scrolls 6 before they even really started working on it. I don't think they want to talk about their space game. I can't remember the name of. But much like the Blizzard phone thing,
00:38:53
Speaker
the phone Diablo game where they're like, uh, overwatch too. I think this is a similar deal. Like we're making other things. Forgive us for this. You know? Yeah. Um, I could still see them being like, okay, that was a major fuck up. Let's just make fallout five. Yeah. I mean, they should.
00:39:12
Speaker
Would you want, I guess, more of like a Fallout 3 or a Fallout 4 if they were to kind of continue the franchise? Yeah, I mean, I could talk about this longer than I really should. I know, I know. It's a very dark hole to go down. There's a lot there. But I mean, there's still different games because Fallout 3, Bethesda, Bethesda defies things, which means they make it more accessible.
Dead Space's Decline
00:39:39
Speaker
And that's not always a bad thing, but sometimes it dumbs down systems. I would love if they came in at like somewhere between New Vegas and Fallout 4. Like good gunplay, as opposed to really, really bad modern gunplay, but also meaningful interactions and role-playing and stuff like that. And 76 had like neither of those things because it was online and the skill system was super weird.
00:40:10
Speaker
I don't know, not technically dead yet, but they need to defib fallout with an injection of actually having respect for what the series means.
00:40:23
Speaker
Maybe they'll have like Fallout 5, parentheses Skyrim. Yeah, right. It's just Skyrim with guns. I mean, that's how Fallout 4 was described, actually. A lot of people call it Skyrim with guns.
00:40:41
Speaker
Not a really accurate thing, but a great tagline in an article, right? I just like saying it, so that's fair. No, it's fun to say. Let's see, what else do we have on the list here? I see Dead Space 3.
00:40:55
Speaker
Did I add that? I added that just because I know I think you and Dan were playing it. I played some of the original Dead Space, but that's it. So I can't really comment as much. I can. I was trying to hand one off for you to rant about a little bit.
00:41:12
Speaker
This one's, I think, shorter than my Fallout rant, which I meant to be short. Dead Space was at its best, I think, in Dead Space 1 and 2, for different reasons. 2 was co-op, and playing with a friend that you enjoy playing with
00:41:31
Speaker
it's pretty much always better than literally not doing that right like any game no matter how crappy it can be and if it's crappy enough it actually gets better in co-op because you're experiencing that with somebody uh can be made like that um like it can be made more enjoyable in co-op and dead space one was just
00:41:52
Speaker
super immersive, terrifying. You're a slow mechanic who has to like stomp the yard to survive. Yeah. Dead Space 3 was the real issues, I think, where the story didn't really make any sense and they tried to interject like personal drama.
00:42:17
Speaker
Um, when there's like macro life threatening forces at play, which is always kind of weird for me. You're just like, what about our relationship? And you're like, they're threatening the planet, you know? Um, but it was also the complete end of anything scary in dead space.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's another series where they kind of just like said, Hey, we're a horror game. And then it became like very horror light. Yeah. I mean, did you play any of the games past the first Amnesia? I only played the first. I played the first and I think probably half of the second game.
00:43:00
Speaker
Yeah. Did it fall under that? Well, um, cause the first was scary until I manned up and just started staring at things. So I died. What I liked about the first one is it, it was scary initially because of like the suspense and not knowing, but then it was like the story. Like there was a part later on in the game where
00:43:26
Speaker
they're describing what the main character did before he forced himself to lose his memories because he didn't want to remember what he did. And it was some really fucked up stuff. I'm like, oh, this is just really a dark twist. So even me hearing about it was scary and unsettling. And the second one went into a weird
00:43:45
Speaker
morality, existential stuff, and it had a lot of pig people. Yeah. Oh, this was a machine for pigs, right? Machine for pigs is the second one. Yeah. And then the third one, just watching the trailer, I'm like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. It doesn't look scary. It's a different setting. Cool. You're a pregnant lady. Okay. Maybe her baby's evil. I don't know. But even from what I had watched of it,
00:44:09
Speaker
It doesn't look scary until it's like, hey, something's chasing you. It just seems like a shitty puzzle game that is used to just kind of like draw out a story. Big shrug. I really like when people can wrap up their plot lines and not have to like
00:44:31
Speaker
not have to revisit the same well, but at the same time, like Black Mirror, I think is probably a good example of this. Like a lot of good ideas, so they don't have to make pieces connected, and they also don't have to just inject a bunch of filler.
00:44:48
Speaker
Now, Black Mirror may actually have a lot of filler. I have not watched a lot of it, but at the same point, like there's a lot of good stuff in there too. So you don't have to, um, like, I don't know why there are still amnesia games. Like are they, do they still have a story to tell? Maybe I haven't played the last one. So I couldn't, I couldn't say it, but.
00:45:10
Speaker
I think they're just kind of writing the coattails of the first one is very popular. I'm not sure where it falls in the timeline of like, oh, people are playing, getting into and streaming spoopy games. But I think it's just landed at a good time.
00:45:28
Speaker
I don't know if it could ever be as impactful as the first. Like, legitimate mystery and not knowing is significantly scarier than knowing. That's the lesson from amnesia. Amnesia too. I still don't know what's going on. In amnesia too, I refuse to remember. Or amnesia three, I refuse to remember. Yeah, forgetful bugaloo.
00:45:56
Speaker
Also, if you ever have to be like, here's a heavy handed story, your story sucks because you're forcing me to listen to it versus encouraging me to. That's true. Yeah.
00:46:07
Speaker
In the same way, when you have beer commercials is a great fucking example. Do you know who has beer commercials? Bud Light Coors. The people who need to fucking market to be like, hey, please buy our beer. You know the people who don't? Smaller breweries who probably can't afford it, but also they're known for like, oh, they're a good beer. Dogfish? Dogfish is always going to be doing okay.
00:46:32
Speaker
people know who they are, they like their beer, they like their taste. Yeah. And it kind of passes around through word of mouth. It speaks quietly, so you'll kind of lean in and listen, you know? Yeah. I think that's a fair way to put it. It's also, it's hard to continually make scary games in the same series with the same impact.
Sonic's 3D Challenges
00:46:55
Speaker
It is, because
00:46:57
Speaker
Like let's say you start out jump scare. You can't do jump scare in the second one. You kind of have to mix it up. Oh, let's go more cerebral. Let's go like psychological horror. Cool. Now what? Right. I don't know. It's a weird line to try and walk for sure. I just don't think this is the route to go. Yeah.
00:47:22
Speaker
There's definitely still cool, narratively interesting experiences like to be had that, I mean, we've covered a lot of them. Soma jumps to mind immediately. Like doesn't always have to be scary, but sometimes just like psychological questions are scary too. Cause I don't like to think.
00:47:43
Speaker
How's it going today, Dave? Oh, bro. I'm spiraling. Starting on hard mode tonight. Yeah. I guess this is probably lighter though, unless you always also classify it as psychological horror. I see you put Sonic as a whole.
00:48:02
Speaker
Yeah. Sonic fucking sucks. I've never been a huge fan of the series. Sonic Adventure Battle 2 will always be a weird, fun, nostalgic memory for me. And it's me, me as all hell.
00:48:15
Speaker
But if you remember classic Sonic, it was side-scrolling, jumpy, had to upbeat, cool music. And they're like, hey, what if we went to a 3D space? And now you start putting a persona on the character of Sonic and you start doing these like janky fucking plot lines. You're like, oh, well, I mean, if Sonic can speak, so can fucking everybody else. And it just goes in like this weird fucking direction. Do you remember Sonic 06?
00:48:43
Speaker
Yeah. Do you remember Game Grumps playing that for like 100 and 60 something episodes? Jump skipping. Jump pause skipping through levels. It was, it's fucking insane. Like I don't even know what that IP is anymore or was. It just, I feel like it tried to modernize, but then fucked up consistently and just has people who were like, I like Sonic more than I like Mario. And you're like, cool.
00:49:14
Speaker
Then they put them in Smash Ultimate and that's his revitalization. If your game series dies and you need revitalization, Snake, Banjo-Kazooie, Sonic, come to Smash. We'll take your broken. We'll take your unwashed and unwanted. Fucking A. Oh my gosh. Just Mario is Statue of Liberty right up there.
00:49:34
Speaker
Inviting people to New Donk City. Hear me out, Minecraft Steve, Min Min, Terry, Byleth. Say goodbye, Fire Emblem. I think you're done. Also, sorry, Persona. And, you know, having released the most successful game you've ever released. I don't know, Jake. Have they made a Persona 6? I don't think so. Oh, it's probably in the works that will come out 17 years from now.
00:50:06
Speaker
Do you have anything? I mean, I'm just talking about things that like, I remember liking it upon a time or rating and then it just kind of went off the rails. Yeah. I was still thinking about Sonic honestly. Like I like Sonic, but most of my happy experiences are in past Sonic. I don't like him in Smash. What's the last Sonic game you played that you enjoyed? Generations? Like actually played?
00:50:30
Speaker
I mean, I played the Steam re-release with some of their stuff, which was like Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 Tales of Knuckles. Sonic 3 and Knuckles. And Knuckles. And Knuckles, yeah. So you're talking about like the Sega Mega Library?
00:50:46
Speaker
I do like the Sega ones. If I go back far enough, like I've also played Sonic R and I thought that was fine, I feel like if I went back now, I may have a different impression than I had at the time when I was like 13 years old or whatever. Come on, now race, everybody.
00:51:07
Speaker
Great songs great unlocks, but man not like a good game. No, like holy shit. I remember that music Yeah, no, it's it's good stuff
00:51:19
Speaker
But I mean, Sonic has kind of been in that space of, in the same way Mario has kind of been put into like many different hats. They've tried to do a lot of things with Sonic. Like they had a Sonic fighting game, they had Sonic racing, they had Sonic racing, but they're in cars this time. Sonic and Mario with the Olympics. It was popular enough of a thing, they tried to put it into different spaces and kind of see where it landed, but it still had enough of a following where it couldn't really fail. Right.
00:51:48
Speaker
It was nice that after Nintendo murdered Sonic's parents in the form of Sega, Mario came along and was like, no, you come with me.
Bioware's Quality Struggles
00:51:59
Speaker
And now Sonic's basically in Nintendo's game.
00:52:06
Speaker
There's a meta story going on between a lot of these characters. Let's theory craft a video game plot for what is actually canon in the video game universe. Not now. OK. We'll have like a whole rancy episode and I will be off my tits. That's fair. That's fair. Speaking of off of your tits. I'd love to see your age. It was going to go to literally anything in the list.
00:52:37
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, Dragon Age. Dragon Age 2, an Inquisition I put on this list. Dragon Age Origins was amazing because usually BioWare makes pretty good games when they start in IP.
00:52:51
Speaker
I'm not counting anthem in this, but it was like super great. We were trying to classic RPGs, isometric. I felt kind of like a D and D type game or like Baldur's Gate. Honestly, this is in the modern age, the closest thing that's come to divinity for actually being a like workable single player RPG that represents those old types of games.
00:53:20
Speaker
We don't like that anymore. What do they fuck up so bad in Inquisition? Well, first they went to two, which was, um, instead of this kind of open world sort of, well, not open world, but pick where you want to go and these small areas type game.
00:53:37
Speaker
two takes place entirely in a city and it's an interesting idea where they're like, Hey, we're just going to have time progress in the city as you do stuff. But it meant like you weren't going at any point outside of or under the city to explore interesting locations or explore the world or anything like that. Um, and they focus more on like combat and I dunno, there's a lot of reasons to didn't do so great.
00:54:08
Speaker
Um, and inquisitions is the continuation of that. They kind of tried to bring it all together and I think it's an okay game. Uh, one of the friends of the show, uh, lost his save midway through and lost like 30 hours of play time or whatever. So maybe he has a different opinion on it, but, um, I don't know. I think it could have been.
00:54:32
Speaker
A contender? Yeah, it could have been a contender. Divinity kind of shook things up a little bit, I think. And I don't know if people would go back to this kind of game anymore. Because it's just not really as good.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like any of those types of single player RPGs need to have first good writing. Holy shit. I will play some janky ass games if the writing is good. And then if you just have decent mechanics on top of that. Oh, great choice. Yeah. I mean, by the way, it's usually had pretty good writing, but like they started condensing all of their choices into this like
00:55:14
Speaker
stoic, sarcastic, or antagonistic personality thing. And as I've said before, sarcastic is always the right answer. Did Bioware also do Mass Effect? They did, yes. And I honestly think Mass Effect, even with the crap the last one got for the ending, is a much better smooth arc for a series than Dragon Age was.
00:55:41
Speaker
But like I've heard about Dragon Age and they had, they went through a lot of crunch, uh, for the end of it. And they were kind of disappointed when it actually sold better than two. Uh, some of the developers were cause they're like, Oof, higher ups are just going to see this and think crunch works. Yeah. And so there's a cost there, but yeah, mass effect is mass effect is also there for, um,
00:56:10
Speaker
basically like having a full-on victory lap where everyone was with you and then just like collapsing right before the end. Just like tripping over their legs, rolling comically, and then just falling flat. So much so that they came back and actually changed the ending for the game. If you ever have to go back and revise something, it's because you really fucked up the first time.
00:56:37
Speaker
Cause usually companies do not operate that way unless they have a lot of fucking backlash from people who are their perspective buyers or clientele. Yeah. So that's pretty, pretty huge. Cause usually it's kind of be like, man, fuck you. You buy it anyway. I didn't even think of Andromeda. I was thinking of Mass Effect three, but like I was thinking of Andromeda. I actually played in beat Andromeda and it's got pretty good combat, but man,
00:57:04
Speaker
There's a lot of problems with that game. And it unfortunately just didn't really bring enough together that I think that there will be more Mass Effect games. I think legitimately that could just be the end of the Mass Effect series. Ready to be wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong and they make good games, but yeah.
Lessons and Hopes for Game Franchises
00:57:24
Speaker
Well, I think Bioware is now making
00:57:28
Speaker
They were calling it like a mix of like, uh, Halo and destiny. Sorry, not Halo, um, Diablo and destiny. This isn't Anthem though. It was a type of looter shooter. Hmm. It might be Anthem. Might be something else. Um, yeah, the last I heard of was Anthem. Apparently they have, I just looked it up real quick. They have a bunch of games in the pipe.
00:57:56
Speaker
Um, about all of the genre, the games we just listed, actually Dragon Age, new mass effect, TVA. But yeah, I mean, you could almost, you could kind of put broken succession game company, Bioware on the list a little bit. Um, EA's sort of continued the habit of picking up game developers and then,
00:58:24
Speaker
them not releasing their best stuff ever again. Although to be fair Mass Effect 2 was really good. 3 was also pretty good.
00:58:35
Speaker
I almost feel like a parent in a way, kind of looking at these. Cause like you have somebody who like achieves something great and you're like, I expect great things from you. And then you watch them continue to fuck up their life again and again and again. I'm like, this is my childhood. Right. Yeah. You're like, I want to support you, but.
00:58:55
Speaker
You need to step toward to me. You gotta meet me halfway, meet me in the middle. Yeah, I'm just gonna leave you on your own. I'm gonna give you some pamphlets. This is not how to parent, by the way, as a little disclaimer, but you come here for video game advice, not parenting advice. These are opposite sides of the spectrum.
00:59:16
Speaker
For parenting advice, please visit our other podcast, Snopestone Popcast. I need to better get there. No, that's fair. I think mediocre games happen sometimes.
00:59:38
Speaker
It's just, I don't know. I'm trying to think of an overarching good summary point to kind of wrap out on and things in common here. Everybody fucks up sometimes. But as I've said time and time again, listen to your fucking audience.
00:59:58
Speaker
Because the people who enjoy a certain series, like what I was talking about with Mega Man, it's fun action, cool bosses, tight platforming. That's all it's been. It's been a pretty short game overall, but they've repeated that model and people like that.
01:00:16
Speaker
Keep doing that, build upon it. Same with Pokemon, same with Animal Crossing, same with like Dark Souls and FromSoft games. They know what they're doing and they keep doing that and they do it well and they keep expanding upon it. Don't make hard right fucking turns for no fucking reason. Also maybe QA your shit, I don't know.
01:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, I guess that's really what that's it that I would, I would second that. Like if you're going to, if you're going to do a hard right turn, think about how it could be a different IP. I get that like in the back financial stuff is like, if we put mega man's face on this, it's going to sell more than if we put like.
01:00:57
Speaker
KK Slider's face on it or whatever. I don't know. Oh, bro, that is not true. Make and fucking bank. All right. Insert a character who is also in the Dr. Light. There you go. Like it can be a different IP if you're going to like massively divert from the gameplay, and that's OK.
01:01:19
Speaker
But, you know, always make sure that you're developing with respect to everything that's come up to that point. If people are playing the previous game in the series, they probably enjoyed the mechanics and they want to see elaboration on that, not a racing game instead of, you know, your your stealth espionage game. Yeah. I would almost say try not to culturally appropriate an IP. Hmm.
01:01:48
Speaker
Like, you know when somebody's doing like a shallow imitation of something, or they're just using the namesake? Yeah. No, that's fair. That is entirely fair. We're back to Metal Gear Survive. I know, I know. Yeah. You can always come back to shitting on certain games because it was that bad.
Audience Engagement and Feedback
01:02:08
Speaker
It's pretty much, it's the best example on this list by far.
01:02:12
Speaker
I still have hope for a lot of the IPs that we covered. I hope that they come back and have really cool entries and good ideas. But make sure the good idea exists first. Make sure the gameplay loop is fun and is respectful to the type of tone that you've already set in the series. And make sure that you're not dumbing everything down for no reason.
01:02:39
Speaker
Don't Game of Thrones final season again. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. That's good advice. Freebie. Unless you want to sponsor us, in which case, you know, there's always an option too. We'll change our opinion on a dime. Instantly. As a dime is a form of payment. We will change our opinion for a dime. That's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah, gotcha. But question, did we miss any? You tell us.
01:03:06
Speaker
We don't know what you're fucking thinking unless you communicate, which is what we've been talking about at our therapist. Thanks for going with us. We really appreciate you coming with us for our combined growth as a couple and as a community. I truly do appreciate that. It's real nice.
01:03:26
Speaker
Do you want me to do it? I'll do it. If you want to send in thoughts about episodes, if you want to publicly or privately, in this case, criticize us, you could do so at our Gmail. It's up some podcast at gmail.com. Just be like,
01:03:42
Speaker
I'm not here for you guys crapping all over my franchises. I love Mass Effect. That's fine. You can send that into us there. If you want to publicly state an opinion that is acceptable socially, widely, you can do so on Facebook at facebook.com. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:04:31
Speaker
Thanks for watching!