Episode 52 - PlayStation Takes the Stage

Transcript

neocharge: What's up, everybody, and welcome Shapes Gaming, the weekly conversational podcast video games unedited, unfiltered, always unhinged. I'm one hosts, Matt Stenson, NeoCharge joining for episode 52, always, Gaming Encyclopedia, Bob Harriman, Lionheart, and and Leon, Leon, and Leon, Leon, and and Leon, and Leon, and and Leon, Leon, Leon, Leon, and and and Leon, Leon, and Leon, Leon, Leon, and and and Leon, and and Leon, and Leon, Leon, Leon, and Leon, and and Leon,

Leon Lionheartly: Did you just call me unhinged?

neocharge: Leon, and Leon,

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, good. I'll take that as a compliment.

neocharge: You're in good company. Don't worry.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, man.

neocharge: ah

Leon Lionheartly: No, it's it's doing good. ah Life has been like super busy, man. ah Just everything that's going on. As folks noticed, we missed a week ah and we can we can talk about that.

Leon Lionheartly: But there's been a very valid reason for that.

neocharge: Yep.

neocharge: Yep. i I'm moving. I'm moving into a new place. You got a lot going on with life and work. We you know just had too much going on. And quite frankly, we both wanted to play Hades, too.

neocharge: So...

Leon Lionheartly: You are not wrong, sir.

neocharge: which we're going to talk all about. ah But we also did a very special podcast as well. So we still recorded something. We're going to get that out there for you. I don't know, maybe Monday. I'm not sure. But we have a Progmodus spoiler cast for you all.

neocharge: ah We recorded that, and that was fun. ah we have a special guest on there. we We'll keep that a little secret, a little secret secret for the special guest. But you know him well. Let's just say that. And we are broke Pragmata pragmaticta open, just wide open, talked all about it.

neocharge: And ah you can check out that spoiler cast coming soon. ah We hit under the four-hour mark this time, and we hit like three hours and 55 minutes.

Leon Lionheartly: Right.

neocharge: But we had a lot talk about, and we had a blast.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's zero I mean, I was really shocked. I thought it was going to be shorter because Pragmata is a it's a shorter game, but yet there was so much.

neocharge: It is.

Leon Lionheartly: That's how good this game is. you know Preview is there's so much depth to it that we could talk for almost four hours about a game that, quite frankly, takes about 12 to 15 to beat on a single playthrough, first playthrough.

neocharge: Exactly.

Leon Lionheartly: So absolutely good. Look forward to checking that out, folks.

neocharge: Yep. Yeah. We went real philosophical and we talked about what life means and what that game means. And that game's a fucking gem. So that's coming soon.

neocharge: But of course, we're back for episode 52. Beer in hand. About to talk some video games. About talk some pretty awesome news. What are we drinking, Bob?

Leon Lionheartly: Just right into it. No, I am drinking a favorite and OG of mine um from Living the Dream this evening.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: It is the Classic Base Powder Run, which is that white cream ale.

neocharge: Hell yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: it's I tell people it's like drinking a cream soda, but that's a beer.

neocharge: Dude, it's just a smooth beer. Just an all-around great drinker. I love it. I love it. So it's a staple of the cast at this point. We got fucking have them sponsor us or something.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, right? and it's And it tastes even better when you win it

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah

neocharge: That's true. That's true. oh yeah. I still have to post that picture on Discord of you holding all the all three six-packs, just happy as a lark. ah yeah i Stinson always pays his debts, sir. And I ah made good on my side of the bet, and i bought you i was down three six-packs. I think one was for like a fucking concert ticket or something, too, but whatever.

Leon Lionheartly: I don't even remember. That's how much I care care.

neocharge: don't know.

Leon Lionheartly: I was just happy I had a bunch of beer that I don't have to buy now.

neocharge: You are well stocked up.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah.

neocharge: ah I am drinking a first for the cast, and it is a staple of Colorado. And I have a really cool story behind this one, dude. So I am drinking Fat Tire Ale.

neocharge: One lone can.

Leon Lionheartly: o

neocharge: This is from New Belgium, of course, up in Fort Collins, Colorado. This is their staple flagship. It's just a smooth, ah like almost a ah golden brown ale.

neocharge: And The funny thing about this can, I have a lone can, right? So I was in Breckenridge snowboarding. It's been in my fridge for a while. And I was like, you know what? I i got to drink this and got to tell the story.

neocharge: I was in Breck, had snowboarded for the day. It was when I blew out the edge on my Rossi board. i was super bummed. I was just in the parking lot fucking just moping around.

neocharge: And i was like looking at the edge and I was like, oh man, is this fixable? I had a couple next to me and they're just sitting in the back of their fucking four runner with a cooler. And they're like, Hey man, you look like you need a beer. Here you go.

neocharge: And I'm like, I fucking love Colorado.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah That's some shit you get from back home where I'm at. I love i love stories like that, man.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: um

neocharge: know sir

Leon Lionheartly: You know, I do have a beer story, and it's just not a happy one, but I i figure it's it's relevant, to at least to the fact we're drinking beer.

neocharge: Oh,

Leon Lionheartly: um I don't know if you know the name, ah but a ah ah Milwaukee, Wisconsin staple, Schlitz Beer,

neocharge: yeah

neocharge: Okay.

Leon Lionheartly: is shutting down after...

neocharge: No. Ah.

Leon Lionheartly: here's Here's the thing. This is what makes it hurt really hurt because it's a blue-collar beer.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: It's been around for 177 years.

neocharge: Damn. Wow. Okay. Why are they fucking shutting down?

Leon Lionheartly: Uh, because, uh, they noted that it's due to the lack of, it's a blue collar drink. It's like your general, like a natty, uh, like, uh, old Milwaukee's best, uh, perhaps blue ribbon. Um, if I'm saying some names and you're like, Ooh, you're old.

Leon Lionheartly: Congratulations. You're old and from in the Midwest. Um, but craft beer has kind of like encumbered.

neocharge: you

Leon Lionheartly: It's two parts. Craft beer has taken over the beer scene and I'm not arguing. I love craft beer. Just an IPA.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I can't do, i don't want to lick tree bark.

neocharge: Nah, no.

Leon Lionheartly: ah And then more importantly, I don't know if you've heard about this, but ah Gen Z is actually ah turning away from alcohol.

neocharge: Yep. Yeah. I, uh, I have some Gen Z friends, Gen Z roommates. Uh, well not anymore. I live on my own now, but previous roommates and no one drinks anymore. I'm like, let's go to a brewery. they're like, uh, we don't drink.

neocharge: And I've met a lot of people that are like, yeah I don't drink. And that's a choice. No, no shade on it. Uh, but it's interesting.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I'll throw shade. I don't fucking care.

neocharge: Yeah. I mean, I love a good beer. So I don't understand that choice, but it's usually health concern. And I'm like, okay, so... your're You're concerned about drinking a beer, but you're going to be sedentary and on your phone, just laying down on the couch for like four hours at a time.

neocharge: Same as like when people give me shit for playing video games. I'm like, let me see your fucking screen time on your phone. Oh, you're on TikTok. You're on Instagram. What's different? I'll tell you what's different. I'm using my brain. I'm solving puzzles. I'm using deduction skills. I'm doing math and I'm controlling the entertainment rather than the entertainment just... numbing my brain. But yeah, a lot of people don't drink because of ah health reasons. And I mean, in moderation, drinking is okay. I definitely don't overdo it.

neocharge: There's a huge stigma with alcohol. People usually overdo it because they get a beer and they're like oh that feels good. I'm going to keep drinking. but but bla blah bla Then they get drunk. I don't think I've been drunk in a while, actually. Well, that's not true.

neocharge: ah My birthday, I was pretty rough. But Yeah, I don't get drunk a lot, and we drink beer in moderation, but a lot of ah young kids and a lot of people are choosing not to for health reasons. That's their choice.

neocharge: i don't understand it. I don't agree with it, but I'm not saying either one of us is right or wrong. I just like beer. i like taste of it, and it makes me feel funny, and I like it.

Leon Lionheartly: It makes me feel funny in my pants.

neocharge: It makes me feel funny.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah but

neocharge: It makes my thighs all warm like a like a golden hawk.

Leon Lionheartly: Bring your fat ass over here, boy. That's amazing.

neocharge: Oh, I can do i could do the Herbert impression. You're starting to piss me off, you little sumbitch.

Leon Lionheartly: ah ah it's amazing

neocharge: Come on down to my base. Let's play who can swallow the most Tylenol PM.

Leon Lionheartly: ah Oh, man. You remember when that that that stuff used to be a funny joke and now it's like scared reality?

neocharge: Yeah, that's fun.

neocharge: it's yeah Yeah. It's still funny, but the yeah the reality of it. Yeah. Woo.

Leon Lionheartly: But we're not here to be depressed. We're here to drink beer and talk about games.

neocharge: Now, talk video games for sure and share beer stories. ah But yeah, other than that, how's life been, man? ah Pretty hectic for you as well.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's been kind of chaotic. where i'm Work has ramped up, and that's a good thing considering, well, I mean, this economy's fucked anyway, so i'm happy to take I'm happy to be busy rather than idle.

Leon Lionheartly: um And then, you know, I've got my wife's birthday coming up soon, so I got to ramp into that, and we're getting into summer break.

neocharge: Oh, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: But I will tell you, Matt... i I finally got around to, I just took a break from games for a while and I just decompressed and I said, screw it. And I started catching back up on the boys.

Leon Lionheartly: um And I caught the series finale.

neocharge: Mm.

Leon Lionheartly: And I am here, I don't care if this is a hot take or not, I'm here to say that the the online community needs to pull its head out of its...

neocharge: Nice.

Leon Lionheartly: fourth, ah it's rectum. You're being being fart smellers, analyzing every little thing and be like, well, that doesn't make sense and why is this?

neocharge: yeah

Leon Lionheartly: and um A lot of the takes, I'm like, did you even watch the show? Did you watch the same thing as me?

neocharge: Dude, don't even pay attention to the people online. I swear to God.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: It's like they just sometimes they're trolls for the sake of being trolls for the clicks and negativity is encouraged because it gets you more engagement. I don't even fucking look at the stuff online anymore.

neocharge: It's depressing. And if I like something, I'm like, cool, that's awesome.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you're you're right. And I agree with you. i avoid the I've got to go through the sit for the news, folks. right I'm dealing with a lot of stupid takes.

neocharge: m

Leon Lionheartly: And you can tell who's being a ah a troll, who's been doing this for engagement bank.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: The problem, and this is the part that really still to this day I struggle with, is yeah there are people who legitimately support and think these these things that are the engagement bank.

Leon Lionheartly: And I'm like, what kind of room temperature IQ do you have that you're falling for this stuff, dude? i mean

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah i don't I don't get it. i I look at your profile. You are definitely not a 12-year-old boy.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: You're 20-something-year-old man and or or woman or whatever, and you you still think, I don't know, pick a lane. That's all i'm saying. But at the end of the day,

Leon Lionheartly: Series finale. It's a C. It's a C+. plus Maybe a B. It's not great, but it's not the world ender. This is not lost. This is not... pick your Pick the worst takes of the world. It's not the greatest, but it's also... They played it safe.

neocharge: is it better than the game of thrones series finale okay that's all i need i mean game thrones series finale was good but mid uh

Leon Lionheartly: I think so.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So yeah, I like boys.

Leon Lionheartly: There were

neocharge: I so i need to i need to watch that. i need to watch that.

Leon Lionheartly: there There were two big glaring things that were missing and you're like, I don't understand. You didn't wrap that up. But if you just it kind of not think about it and then you look at like Anthony Starr, his performance for for that final, amazing.

neocharge: Right.

neocharge: Oh yeah. Kills it.

Leon Lionheartly: I loved his performance in that final episode.

neocharge: He needs to be Wesker. He needs to be Wesker.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes. Seven minutes.

neocharge: Yeah. Right. Oh man.

Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, man, no, just just other than that, playing games.

neocharge: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. i ah I'm glad you finished the boys. It's crazy that they ended it, but I need to watch that. I've been so fucking busy. I'm setting up a new place. I moved to a new place. My own place got a got a house. So that's cool. Renting out this place. But currently, and when I say this place, I'm currently using one of the rooms here as an office kind of while migrating over to the new place. So I've just been

neocharge: i don't I didn't want to like move in a weekend or just like a day or something. you know I was like, I'll just do it over a month. But then you have to like move little shit every day. And I'm like, hmm, I didn't think this through.

neocharge: so oh ah yeah i've been a Dude, I've been setting up so much home automation stuff.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah

neocharge: I'm i'm big into home automation. I always have been. I i liked home automation before it was cool. okay ah Back in the day where you had Zigbee all kinds of shit, running shit off...

neocharge: like Linux boxes and Raspberry Pis, but now it's it's pretty mainstream. And i spent ah too long way too long that I'd like to admit setting up a fucking smart doorbell.

neocharge: And apparently I had to get my ah transformer, the doorbell transformer, replaced So yeah, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: What?

neocharge: So it didn't have enough voltage. Met a really cool guy though. And he might be listening to the podcast too. So he might be part of the community. So welcome if you're listening and ah thank you for fixing my shit.

neocharge: And, uh, ah So yeah, and I still have a lot to set up. And now I have a hard date because we're going to have a watch party for a specific event we're going to talk about in the news. So ah the first thing I got set up was my game room and game theater, I like to call it because I mean, I i have some pretty like crazy shit video and sound. I have an 83 inch OLED and like a 9.2 surround sound system, but got that set up. It's looking good. It's sounding good. Fired up Hades 2. Oh, it's good to have my home theater sound back because I've been on headphones because I've had roommates. So yeah, that's set up and I'm slowly getting everything set up.

neocharge: So yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: That's awesome, dude. Yeah, set up the game room first.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: That's that's like priority number one.

neocharge: Oh, it's It's the first thing to get, it's the last thing to get packed and the first thing to get unpacked and set up.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes.

neocharge: 100%.

neocharge: yeah, but in the process, I got delayed a little bit because my dumb ass was like, oh, I'm hungry and I don't have anything here. i don't have anything to cook with. I don't even have a fucking glass.

neocharge: ah So I'm going to go get some gas station food and say, fuck it 11 p.m. at night. I got food poisoning and it put me down for about two days. So fully recovered from that. That sucked. But it was literally the night I had moved all the big stuff in. And I was like, well, fuck, I'm sick now. And dude, food poisoning sucks. It puts you on your ass. Your body is just like...

neocharge: just hurting everywhere because your your gut is literally trying to heal itself as much as possible. And yeah, that sucks. So past that, got most of the home automat home automation stuff set up, but dude, home automation takes so much tinkering. I got smart thermostats. I got smart blinds. I got a smart lock on the inside only. So it's not like...

neocharge: It's pretty secure. ah And I got smart lights. I got smart TVs. i got I got smart everything. And it's fun. It's fun to link stuff together. So like if you link the TV, the blinds and the lights together, when I turn on my PlayStation, it turns on my TV, which ah closes the blinds and turns off the lights. It's fucking sweet.

Leon Lionheartly: I mean, that sounds good.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm ah not to be the old guy yelling at clouds, but I refuse to. um I have a printer and it's not even hooked up to my fucking internet. Like i am a analog guy all day long, but I respect it.

neocharge: yeah

neocharge: I hear you.

Leon Lionheartly: I respect it.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. So it's been fun setting everything up and yeah, I'm, I'm getting there. I'm not, I'm not rushing it. And I want to still like game as much as I usually do in the process.

neocharge: So still, still diving into Hades two, which all we're going talk all about, uh, spoiler free, of course, but, uh, our thoughts on it. So,

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, wait, this isn't the spoiler cast? Shit.

neocharge: ah Hey, yeah, we could do 80s to spoiler cast, but it's been out for a while. ah Yeah, we've that's what we've been doing. Sorry we missed an episode. We had so many messages like where's the episode? Oh, my God.

neocharge: I'm just kidding. No one no one cared.

Leon Lionheartly: No one cares.

neocharge: We care. And that's why we're here recording for you all. If you are a part of the community, thank you so much. Our Discord is still growing. It's it's good. ah And we got a lot of people there. where We're talking a lot of cool shit on there, nerdy stuff. If you're not part of the Discord, Bob.

neocharge: Where can people join us? Where can they subscribe the podcast? Where can they see all the cool posts that Alex does on social media and then join the discord and be part of the community? What

Leon Lionheartly: And you ask me every week and I forget every week.

neocharge: what was that? What was that URL again?

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, right. ah No, you ah just go to that URL like Matt hit indicated and you go to shapes of gaming dot com. It'll take you ah to the awesome landing page with all of the links to make everything easy for you to come out, be a member of the discord, check out the Twitch channel, check out the socials, come listen to us with your podcast service of choice um and all of that good stuff. ah Come say hi, leave us those nice comments, likes, thumbs up, hearts, all of that good stuff. um We only have ah you know one rule. Don't be a dick. um So yeah, once again, come check us out at shapesagaming.com.

neocharge: Exactly. Yeah. Everything's free. If you subscribe, it's all free. You just, and you get our podcasts as soon as they go live. So we don't ask for any money and ah we're just, we're just chilling, drinking beer, talking games.

neocharge: and You can listen, listen to us when you'd like. So ah we have merch shapes of gaming.com slash Merton. No, I'm kidding. We don't have merch.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah We don't have merch.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: we only ask We don't even ask for your money. We only ask for the one, the most important thing you can provide, and that's your time.

neocharge: Yep, time and attention. So, yeah, if you like us, ah leave us a good review. it It really helps us, you know, grow and gain exposure and be part of the Discord. So we have some announcements on Discord sometimes. We have spoilers channels. We have all kinds of channels for nerdy shit. And we're on there. And we reply. And, like, if you if you like us and you're like, oh, these guys are cool, like, we'll engage on Discord with you. It's kind of just a cool place for us to chat about video games and Pretty much everything nerddom. So, yeah. ah What do you say we dive into the news, Bob? We got a lot.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I'd say let's knock out these news items first, and we'll continue as we always do with what we're playing. But um yeah, let's go ahead and...

neocharge: Indeed.

Leon Lionheartly: and Excuse me. um Oh, you know what?

neocharge: you.

Leon Lionheartly: There we go, Matt. I think we are...

neocharge: Hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: We got an erroneous one from yeah from a previous episode here on our document about the DRM issue. Go listen to that. i was episode, what, 50, I want to say?

Leon Lionheartly: and We talked about that.

neocharge: Yeah, sounds like it.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. But yeah, let's go ahead and let's get the sad news out of the way first, if we will.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Okay.

neocharge: Yeah, well, it's on positive note.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, we'll end on a positive note. So we'll start with the first one. ah And that is ah news for you that have PlayStation Plus ah or don't rather, should ah should I say, don't have PlayStation Plus subscriptions.

Leon Lionheartly: um PlayStation Plus is increasing for all new memberships that will be on the one month in the three month plans. ah So this does not affect

neocharge: Hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: Current subscriptions, this does not affect annual subscriptions. So if you pay once a year versus the the monthly or three-month cycles. um And the original article said it was only for the extra and premium, but this does include essentials as well now, um I found. um And they're going up not terribly. We're talking $2, $3 tier. But these will continuously happen. So if you're on, if you're getting ready to subscribe or you're not, and you're the kind of person that dips in and out, Sony is PlayStation is taking note and they're saying, well, you're going to have to pay more to read ah for the reentry on this.

neocharge: Yep. Yep. Uh, get on that annual, you know, usually you save money. You don't, I mean, every fine, everybody's financial situation is different. You know, if you can get on that annual, uh, to save some money and save even more money now, it sounds like. So I don't know. Premium, it depends on how you play, right? If you, if you stream a lot of games, older games or the PS, uh, one PS two, three catalogs, pretty cool on premium.

neocharge: Uh, But I only have premium because I'm grandfathered in because some crazy deal. I don't know, dude. Like, have have I talked about that on this cast? I don't think I have.

Leon Lionheartly: i I know you've mentioned it, but I think ahead and tell people who haven't heard it before.

neocharge: Yeah. So... Yeah, I used to stack PSN. I used to get like $25 cards off CD keys legally. It was all legal. And I would stack like two or three years every time I upgraded. And I had like 10 years stacked.

neocharge: And then they changed all the tiers and they changed all the prices significantly. and i got an email one time and it was like, hey, do you want to convert your 10 years of PS Plus Premium for $186? And I'm like, Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah

neocharge: and Math didn't math. And I think it was like an error or something, but I'm a PS plus premium member till 2036. Uh, yeah. yeah So right.

Leon Lionheartly: If it's still even around.

neocharge: Yeah. No premiums around. It's the highest tier.

Leon Lionheartly: No, I'm talking about in 2036. AI took over.

neocharge: oh we were right. Oh yeah. PSN is still around. If we're not like vaporized by a fucking meteor and nukes, uh, or AI, yeah the clankers, uh,

Leon Lionheartly: ai took over

neocharge: Yeah. So it's... ah Yeah, i'm I'm fortunate that I had that opportunity. And like I told all my friends, I was like, dude, stack those PSN. It's just... It's going to i keep raising in price. But I'd say if I didn't have premium, I probably do...

neocharge: I don't know. Essentials are extra. Because i I don't really like renting my games from a subscription service. I would just buy them. So any PS1 games, I would just buy digitally. And i'm I'm fortunate that I can do that. I'm in a position to do that. Not a lot of... but Not...

neocharge: ah other people might not be in that position and renting games and having that subscription service is the best value for them. So it's all really depends on your situation. And you know, everyone has a unique situation, but i'm unfortunate that I'm in a situation where I can just, I just buy my shit and I don't really like the subscription service. The only reason I'm on premium is because I got fucking like 10 years stacked and I got a crazy deal to upgrade it. yeah,

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: that's ah That's a bummer when prices raise anywhere. It is a minuscule amount. It is on the one month and three months. So that's ah not as bad. And honestly, if you can if you if you can swing it, right we know the economy sucks.

neocharge: We know finances are tight for some people. We get it. But if you can, annual subscriptions, if on a instead of a monthly basis is usually saves you like 10 20 percent so uh yeah playstation's like get on that annual we're gonna we're gonna price gouge you so some people don't like that that huge amount coming out at at the end of the year do it if you if you get taxes back at the end of the year that's what i do uh just do it when you get your taxes back and

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: Like do it the annual renewal then, but everyone's situation is different. ah Let us know if it affects you in discord.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's that's a really good point. I never thought about that, doing it with the texture. And I don't get them personally because of my situation. But yeah, no, that that's a good call. I will say, so i i've heard I've heard the community and some of the discourse and you've got the usual people who are coming out.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, greedy PlayStation, you know, death to to PlayStation and the, you know, all, think the end of the world enders.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: I will say there is a little bit about this greediness. And you know what? I think I know why, Matt.

neocharge: Hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: And i I think it's the smart move if you're a capital capitalist, if you support capitalism and you you really want to, say you you'll get it. This starts in May. We know next month is going to be the ramp up of the summer season, which is going to include media blitzes for a game that comes out November nineteenth which if you want to play online, you're going to need a PlayStation Essentials subscription.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, and by the way, it's only releasing on PlayStation and Xbox, and Xbox is quite frankly struggling and practically dead. This is Sony looking at the market and going...

Leon Lionheartly: You know, we can get 30% rips of GTA 6 when it hits. But you know what else we can do? We can an extra $2 per month for people that are just like in for GTA and say, no, no, pay up. And guess what?

neocharge: People will.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it because people will.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And number two, if you are jumping onto a PlayStation now because of GTA 6, the PlayStation 5 has been out. for six years at this point,

neocharge: Sure has.

Leon Lionheartly: um ah I'm okay. I'm good. And if you already have a subscription that's reoccurring at one month, guess what? Your price hasn't increased. um If they ever get to that point, that's okay. But ah I got in when the gi good was ah when it was good and I'm okay. This may be gatekeeping, but at the end of the day, I was here first. Getting the cheaper legacy price is part of early adoption and should be considered.

neocharge: yeah i I would agree with you. ah There's a balance with capitalism, and I think i think it's ran rampant. I think it needs cold badly, and the the scales are tipping very much, and I think they need to tip back, honestly, especially with the economy and everything. But I agree with this, and it's like I think they're – I wouldn't say punishing, but they are – gouging the newer players that they're like, okay, you're not the fans.

neocharge: You're you're coming over for GTA because it's going to be the best place to play it. Let's be honest.

Leon Lionheartly: Yep.

neocharge: And they're like, you know what? you're You're going to just pay a little bit extra. But they aren't ah punishing the older fans that you know bought a PS5 Switch.

neocharge: when it released and ah created their PSN and have bad PS plus when it released with the PS three or PSN on PS three and then PS plus on, i think PS four or something like that.

Leon Lionheartly: PS4, yep.

neocharge: But yeah. So yeah, I, I, I get it.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, it's it's for it's for it's for the yeah it's for the short-term tourists. like You are being a tourist in this in this because if you do a three-month plan and you're going to be around for maybe six months or whatever, you're going to be here for GTA 6.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: You're going to come in for six months and then probably most people are going to fall off and that's all they're going to do. that's it ah that's it i'm I'm sorry that makes you a tourist in this. um i i don't And I don't mean it in a mean way, ah but it makes you a tourist and you pay tourist prices.

neocharge: 100%. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And I'm okay with that.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. yeah Me too.

Leon Lionheartly: If not, just buy the yearly.

neocharge: When you put it that way, that's probably why.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's probably why it happened. But hey, hopefully GTA catches their eye, they get a PS5 to play it, and then they're like, oh, what other games are on this system? Well, have we got a fucking library for you?

Leon Lionheartly: Right. You could pay an annual subscription, which is now, I don't know, let's say let's say premium, right? um and And you're saying $120. Factor in taxes, $130.

Leon Lionheartly: You get access to a library of games and you would not have to buy another new game practically for the rest of your fucking subscription.

neocharge: So much.

Leon Lionheartly: And $120 games.

neocharge: Right?

Leon Lionheartly: One, if you get the deluxe edition of GTA 6, which we know it's going to push that bar, guess what?

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: you arere getting You're saving money in the long run if you just do that. And I i would kill to be a to be a young gamer now, dude, to experience all of the games again and be able to do it for practically free.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: ah

neocharge: It's, yeah, it's it's kind of a double-edged sword there because i would I would kill to experience some of these games fresh for the first time again. But also, your backlog would be fucking horrendous.

Leon Lionheartly: oh Like 35, 37 years of gaming a backlog. Dude, I, yeah that'd be nuts.

neocharge: Shit. Yeah, I've probably played fucking 400 games since the PlayStation release.

Leon Lionheartly: Uh,

neocharge: and I mean, maybe more. I'd have to look. so But yeah, sucks when they price increase. But I totally understand. um i get it. And this is a good business move. And ah the the the let's say the fans of PlayStation that already have PS5, already have PS Plus aren't affected. So whatever.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, exactly. No, you're good. I agree. um All right. Well, anything else to say? Because if not, we're going to move on to a very sad thing that I know is near and dear to your heart.

Leon Lionheartly: um This actually just literally broke today, um ah but two hours before we were recording.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: No, maybe closer. Just a couple hours.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: But um out on Bungie's... uh, official Bungie not net, uh, announcements page, um, destiny to every end is a new beginning.

Leon Lionheartly: Um, so as of the end of this month, destiny is pulling the plug on updates, um, and support for destiny to, um, rather, should I say Bungie is pulling that, um, So I don't believe I saw an official shutdown of servers ah ah tamed, but no more updates means that's that's usually when a game is getting ready to sunset.

Leon Lionheartly: So Destiny 2, after what, nine years?

neocharge: Mm-hmm. 12.

Leon Lionheartly: It is 12.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: twelve Holy shit.

neocharge: yeah

Leon Lionheartly: Looks like it's coming to an end.

neocharge: like It released in 2014. um I was there. i played the alpha. I played the beta. I was one of the first few to complete the first raid, Vaults of a Glass. One of the first few to get level 30. Dude, Destiny's my jam. ah But it released differently than what it turned into, for sure.

neocharge: And i kind of fell off around... um Shadowkeep in 2019. And then i came back for the final shape 2024, which was 10 years. They said it was a 10 year plan of the light and darkness saga.

neocharge: um And they, man, they went to a subscription base. They, they went to, or sorry, they went to a free to play ah based and they just kind of when they opened, ah they they didn't ever have microtransactions in the fucking game, Bob.

neocharge: There were never microtransactions. There was never an Eververse. This game released as a three-player co-op ah and MMO that was way different than it is now. And they kind of fortnighted it, fortnightified it.

neocharge: And I kind of fell off, but the final shape was a good like little bow on the light and darkness saga.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: And they should have done this then. It's kind of been on its last legs for a while, the last two years. And then they they did Star Wars content that kind of just like, I don't know.

neocharge: ah IP whoring, whoring out the IP. I'm not, I wasn't too interested in that. It's cool to have lightsabers in his desk. Destiny has always been inspired by Star Wars. Like, Gull in Destiny 2, the Red War campaign was straight up Darth Vader.

neocharge: And, oh yeah, they just, dude, incredible.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh.

neocharge: Bungie's an incredible storyteller. ah The lore, mean, there's like 10 fucking huge books on the lore. The Grimoire, they call it. ah Destiny's always been near and dear to my heart. It's my most played game of all time and will probably be my ah forever most played game of all time because I'm not dumping...

neocharge: as many hours as ever into another game as I dumped into destiny, uh, across destiny one and destiny two PS4, PS five, I probably have about 3000 hours.

neocharge: So, and yeah, I know league you have way more, but whatever. Uh, it's my most played game of all time and it's going to sit there forever. a I don't think anything's ever going to top it.

neocharge: So it's it's sad to see this, but it needs to happen. And I have my eye on Bungie to see if they're going to do Destiny 3. But I'm cautiously optimistic. if Here's the thing, Bob.

neocharge: okay Did you ever play Destiny at all?

Leon Lionheartly: I played OG Vanilla Destiny 1.

neocharge: Okay. Gotcha.

Leon Lionheartly: So I understand that Destiny was like ah ah more of a like an MMO looter shooter. I get it now.

neocharge: yeah With no microtransactions, no cosmetics, it was more like old school Halo, Halo 3. like But with a Star Wars-esque story, three-player co-op, and just and like multi-planet badassery. It amazing. You were a space wizard, right? Yeah.

neocharge: If Destiny 3 gets announced, I will be very interested in what they're doing. If they do the same thing as they did Destiny 2 First Light, I probably won't play it.

Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, was it that rough?

neocharge: I probably, it was bad. They Fortnite-ified it and they did seasons and they did a battle pass and they did all kinds of shit and it was not good.

Leon Lionheartly: Eh...

neocharge: If they come out and they're like, hey, we're a PlayStation studio now. We're really going to focus on the narrative-driven storytelling. We're going to do three-player co-op. It's not free to play.

neocharge: It's a AAA game, ah maybe starting another 10-year saga. Who knows? There's no microtransactions. There's no battle pass. And they go back to what Destiny 1 was. I will be there fucking day one.

Leon Lionheartly: Okay. No, that's that's fair. i could see that. And i I would keep an eye out for it um just to to see.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: um It's not that Destiny. I mean, Destiny 1 vanilla. It was pretty rough. Let's be honest. It was a little barren. Let's leave it like that. um But

neocharge: Destiny peaked in Destiny 1, The Taken King.

Leon Lionheartly: exactly.

neocharge: ah

Leon Lionheartly: offboarded pretty early on this.

neocharge: Okay, yeah. And then Destiny 2 was great. They had a lot of quality of life stuff, and Forsaken was one of the the best. I was with Cayde 6. One of the best... ah expansions, but then after that they went like shadow keeping then first light like free to play it kind of just all went downhill I Stayed in it for a while man, and then I really i saw it through with light fall I even played beyond light and And then Witch Queen, Witch Queen was incredible. Witch Queen had the best campaign on the level of Halo. Everyone says that, and I agree. But the endgame was lacking. And then first lighter ah Lightfall had a It was an okay campaign. Very fun, but really cool endgame stuff and after the fact. So I was there for all the major expansions. I wasn't there for most of the seasons, but then, yeah, I was there for the last season. And it really, like...

neocharge: gave an ode to like the 10 year light and darkness cycle of destiny. And that last boss like made you feel like, holy shit, we have built up to this for 10 fucking years.

neocharge: And, uh, it was, it was something and they did something they've never done in any expansion. And honestly, any game, I think I could say it. I don't care. I'm going to say it. It was a 24 person boss in boss on the raid where they, we all come together and we drop the boss.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So,

Leon Lionheartly: Dude, that's that's awesome.

neocharge: And it was like, yeah, this is it's all culminated to this. And man, it's just, dude, the the Destiny story is crazy. So ah rest in peace, Bozo.

Leon Lionheartly: RIP and peace, Bozo.

neocharge: RIP in peace, Bozo, because Destiny evolved into something that ah when Activision, I think, kind of bought them, it evolved into something that just kind of like stained it in my opinion. So Bungie goes back to its roots, goes back to the original destiny. We get the quality of life stuff that we got in destiny too, but they say, Hey, we're going back to what we initially, uh, created in our initial vision. I will be there day one, support them. But if they continue this destiny to free to play battle pass season, cosmetic bullshit, I will not, I'm not going back.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, i i would respect I would respect that and understand that.

neocharge: so

Leon Lionheartly: I think from my, as an outsider's perspective, I think what you, what would be really good is Bungie has a sci-fi shooter that's an online perpetual thing in Marathon.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And

neocharge: Exactly.

Leon Lionheartly: i it

neocharge: They have that.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, they have that. And Marathon's great, by the way. um It's not something I can always dedicate time to, but it is amazing. Let Bungie spread their creative wings, man.

neocharge: Oh.

Leon Lionheartly: like Let's see what see what you can do. Your gunplay is top tier. Nobody can nobody can beat it.

neocharge: Yeah, it is.

Leon Lionheartly: um See what you can flex with that, man. like Could you imagine if we got a Borderlands game in it ah from them guys?

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh! Yeah.

neocharge: That's what I'm saying.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: Destiny was inspired by Borderlands.

Leon Lionheartly: oh yeah I would be there. um But yeah, let him let them go creative.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Do something different. let let let it Let it be.

neocharge: Yes.

Leon Lionheartly: Let people miss it before you bring it back.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah, a few years. So, yeah. Yeah. It sucks for people that still play Destiny, but I mean, writing was on the wall for this. The player count has dived, and yeah, it's it's only a matter of time before they shut down servers and pull content. So ah my time with it was fun. I look back on it very fondly, and I i have given my Viking funeral to Destiny with the the final shape. So I have already grieved for Destiny. It died with me two years ago.

neocharge: So...

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. All right. Well, RIP and peace Bozo um for that.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah

Leon Lionheartly: Well, I guess we can move on to the next thing. This going to a deep one, man. going to take, give me a minute to set this up here before we bring this down. So i want to end on a high note.

Leon Lionheartly: we'll talk about the good shit at the very end.

neocharge: m

Leon Lionheartly: um This game has been reported on, but I was following it through the direct account of the individual over on Twitter, X, pick your poison.

neocharge: yeah

Leon Lionheartly: A prominent PlayStation podcaster, an inspiration for us, and a very keen-minded individual, Colin Moriarty over at Sacred Symbols at Last Giant Media, posted to Twitter earlier this week that his PSN account had been hacked, and ah he confirmed that he did not he wasn't phished, which I believe, because he is a smart individual.

neocharge: e

Leon Lionheartly: He had MFA turned on on his account, um but suddenly he received emails that his password has been had been changed and his MFA on his account had been disabled.

Leon Lionheartly: um This turned into a spiraling of update after update after update. um and People within the PlayStation Studios were reaching out, trying to put pressure into this because this is was part of his job, all of this. This account just literally was hijacked. um the The person that had access to the account was threatening other people on the friends list, threaten saying, you're you'd like your're next. um All kinds of wild stuff. um But at the end of the day,

Leon Lionheartly: His account has been recovered. He acknowledged that this was due ah it was as quickly resolved, as quickly as it was because of ah ah connections within the ah PlayStation Network and Sony Network, which we all i'll get.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: That's part of your privilege. He acknowledges that. But he has now gotten access and has updated and said he's going to address this in in talks with people because, and here's the catch, um like I said in the beginning, He had MFA on his account.

Leon Lionheartly: He knows he was not was not clicking on links and sending gift cards. So Sony has a huge problem um within their PlayStation support network of people taking advantage of things and gaining access to PlayStation accounts.

Leon Lionheartly: And this has been going on for several years now.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They have a security hole. After I heard about this, after he said his account got hacked, and he straight up said, if I don't get my account recovered, I think I'm retiring from gaming.

neocharge: And I was like, what would I? was like, hmm, me? No, I don't know. But I called PlayStation Support. And because with my bank, I have a ah a passcode, a passphrase that I have to say for them to even talk to me.

neocharge: And ah that passphrase is, no, I'm kidding. ah

Leon Lionheartly: It's a banana. it's ah

neocharge: I called, right.

Leon Lionheartly: banana

neocharge: Yeah, no, I've been keeping my account very secure. i have a unique email that I don't use for anything else that I use for PSN. I have a passkey setup. So if you have passkey setup, it's encrypted, it's on device. They don't share your credentials with the site. It's linked with a unique URL that you can't like get a fake yeah URL and put your credentials in because the passkey won't recognize it.

neocharge: ah So it's more than MFA. and But i so I called him and I was like, hey, do i is my account like as secure as possible? And they're like, yes. And I was like, okay, can I can i put a a can i add a passphrase or a password so if anyone calls in they have to say that for you to talk to them? And they're like, we don't have that feature. And I was like, okay, I'd like to put in a feature request for that.

neocharge: ah to maybe make the accounts more secure. And I was like, okay, what else can we do? And they're like, well, we can put in the notes that if it's if someone calls and it's not this number, which is my cell number, ah that we won't talk to them. And I was like, okay, cool, let's do that.

neocharge: And I was like, let's ah yeah, i was like but I want to make a feature request to you know harden the security of of PSN accounts. Because dude, you have purchase content linked with your PSN. You have credit card numbers linked and payment methods linked with your PSN. You have friends linked with you. you have You have your game history and your trophies. And basically, your entire gaming identity is linked with this one fucking login. And he was pretty secure. he had ah multi-factor authentication. But I have heard about this before. And ah people can just call in if they if they know the email linked with your account.

neocharge: That's all they need. And they can mimic you. And they can say, hi, I'm Matt Stenson. My email is blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And they'll be like okay, cool. And they're like, I want to i want to change password on my account.

neocharge: And they'll send a link to whatever fucking number and they'll change it. Or they can do it digitally. I don't know how these individuals did it, but ah Places just... ah Security for PSN needs some fucking work. And I'm i'm so glad Colin is using his his journalism chops. And he's probably one of the best in the fucking industry. Honestly, I've been following Colin Moriarty for a while. ah He's one of the best podcasters, one of the best journalists, and ah he's been doing it for a while. And he's using his, he's he used his privilege to get his PSN back, but he's also kind of using his privilege and his position to make it better for all of us, which I respect the hell out of. So good on him. And man, I hope this gets some fires burning under the security team at the ah PSN show.

neocharge: i but I don't know, section of PlayStation, and they they really make some changes because this is serious stuff.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, you're right. and And to be clear, this is how easy it was. As you said, you the email address and all that person needs is a transaction number from something that was purchased.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: So you can, it can be anything, which is a receipt, whatever that happens, as long as that person gains access to that piece of information.

neocharge: Shit.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: These two pieces of information, that person can impersonate and social engineer a support person who has the authority and power to override every bit of security onto that account, and they have just given the king's ah keys to the castle, which is scary because you're talking about passkey, MFA.

neocharge: Dude.

Leon Lionheartly: um You're doing everything you can to hide that information and do your protection, and then to have all of that rugged underneath you by... and I don't want to be mean, but by somebody who's probably doesn't understand information security, um who is just, they're just doing what the the script tells them, is is kind of, as it's asinine.

neocharge: dude

Leon Lionheartly: it's It's psychotic. I don't have any other way to put it

neocharge: Yeah, I've called in a PlayStation support before for a couple things, and like it sounds like like this is this shit's outsourced to like fans, because sometimes i knew more shit than them.

neocharge: And I was like, what is going on? these I don't think these guys are qualified. They're super nice. They're always super nice when I talk to them. i But yeah, they shouldn't have that power. And honestly, there should be more security protocols. Granted, if you have a passkey setup, you're pretty solid. Like passkeys are real fucking hard to to break. um But I mean, if that... I don't know if you can get around that if you have the email and you're like, oh, I want to turn off my pass key and I want to turn off or turn on multi-factor authentication. The only thing I would suggest to harden your account at the moment is call PlayStation support and say, hey, I want in the notes that if I don't call from this phone number, you do not talk to the to that person.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah i

neocharge: So, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I agree. sim Now, now we as we know, SIM ah ah duplication or cloning is a is a very well-known tactic for bypassing MFA, and that's the best you can do as a consumer.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah. move

Leon Lionheartly: And we encourage you to take those steps.

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: but i just did The thing that really bothers me, if I can rant one more time here, this is but from an IT perspective.

neocharge: Please.

Leon Lionheartly: I've been doing this for 20-something years. It is...

neocharge: Me too.

Leon Lionheartly: Typically, when you call and say, I lost my phone, so I don't have access to my MFA. um I need to restore access to my account because all of my passwords are on my phone. I don't have access to anything. They'll ask you, all right, well, okay, cool. We'll reset it. We can do all of that. We have that authority, which is fine.

Leon Lionheartly: But in order to retrieve your password... We need you to log into your associated email address and take the steps following the following link. And now that person's allowed to initiate.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: If somebody can call into a support representative and get an account, not only reset, but then gain access to that account, which means that password was handed out to the individual, that password makes me, quite frankly, I think people should go after Sony because that is a class action lawsuit.

Leon Lionheartly: All liability is on Sony and they are open themselves up.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And you're talking about an organization that has old lawyers that didn't even think about this. You have, this is how Sony loses out on money real fast.

neocharge: yeah

neocharge: Yeah, that's true. That's true. They just need to harden their security. And I'm glad Colin is really digging into this um because I think he has some power to make some changes, honestly.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.

neocharge: So ah he's going to have a whole entire podcast on it about his experience and his plans this Friday, I believe.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So today, are you listening to our podcast? Go listen. No, I'm kidding. um But yeah go check it out.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So find them on Sacred Symbols.

Leon Lionheartly: yet

Leon Lionheartly: You're right. Sacred Symbols. ah That's actually been noted. is ah typically they So they release on Friday, and as a Patreon member, we get to listen to it, but their free feed goes on Monday. This week's episode is so important that it is going on to free feeds immediately, um so that's that's why we which is amazing.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah. Which is awesome.

Leon Lionheartly: That's why we're bringing this up, folks. um I can speak to it from a technical level, but um go hear the the really smart guys talk about this and listen to the frustration um about that.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Right. Yeah. He and his crew were one of the biggest inspirations for our podcast. So we, that they're kind of an inspiration to us and something we're, we're trying to achieve. So.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.

neocharge: Go check them out.

Leon Lionheartly: Absolutely. Go check it out. um Well, the sad shit's out of the way. Shall we talk about the good stuff, Matt?

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: let's let's Let's get the let's see this going. ah This broke just today as well. um A lot of news on Thursday.

neocharge: let's what Let's save the best for last.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, that's what this is. This is the best for last.

neocharge: I know. I want to talk about the theme, though.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, you want to talk about that?

neocharge: Yeah, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: All right. I'll let you rant about that for a little bit, but let's let's first cover this, um ah if you you don't mind.

neocharge: I do.

neocharge: Okay.

Leon Lionheartly: ah So, as of PlayStation Blog...

neocharge: Sure.

Leon Lionheartly: We are getting a state of play. It is officially confirmed.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah This is coming Tuesday, June 2nd, so right before Summer Game Fest. They did this last year, by the way, if you remember.

neocharge: see Sure did.

Leon Lionheartly: um It'll be at 2 p.m.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: Pacific time, ah so 5 p.m. Eastern time, which is amazing for for a lot of people, but they're working.

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: 3PMR time, which is not bad, but it's still a little dicey.

Leon Lionheartly: bad

Leon Lionheartly: It's not 7 a.m. m Mountain Time, Nintendo. I'm looking at you. ah But this is getting yeah a over 60 minutes of coverage of ah of many games that are upcoming to include a focus on a very special game coming out September 15th, Marvel's Wolverine over ah by Insomniac.

neocharge: Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: So ah go check it.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm excited to go check this out, man. I'm like...

neocharge: We're having a watch party.

Leon Lionheartly: We're having a watch party for this. I want to just predictions, predictions, predictions, because we know Wolverine's there, but I want to give a wild, it's not happening, but I want to just throw it into the universe anyways.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

neocharge: Okay. Yeah. um Just a, yeah, it's ah the longest state of play we've ever had, i think. 60 minutes. ah Other than showcases. And...

neocharge: Yeah, it sounds like Marvel's Wolverine is going to kick it off and then they're going to talk about other games. So that's kind of cool. We don't know the closer, what the closer is going to be. um

Leon Lionheartly: Oh,

neocharge: I don't. So predictions. Hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: oh can i nice can I set something out for you as well?

neocharge: I sure. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah This is how important this is, folks. This is a first for the State of Play is in a collaboration with drafthouse Alamo Drafthouse Theaters.

neocharge: Hmm. Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: in the If you live in the areas of Raleigh, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, or New York City, you can potentially reserve tickets to watch it live in those theaters for free, minus your drinks and food and stuff.

Leon Lionheartly: um So that's huge.

neocharge: Sure.

Leon Lionheartly: this They haven't done this before.

neocharge: ah For a state of play, no. But I...

Leon Lionheartly: Not for stay-to-play.

neocharge: yeah I went to their E3 showcase ah or ah in a theater one time. It was awesome.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude, I'd love to see that. I was pissed because there's a draft house in Denver.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And i was like, please show up. Please show up because we'd go. I'd like i can I call off at work and everything.

neocharge: Oh, yeah. 100%. hundred percent

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah, make a day trip out of it. That'd be so fun. ah Yeah, no, the state of play has never been in the theater. So this is exciting. And PlayStation's like, hey, we're just letting you know this one's important. So I think we're going to see one of two games either close the show. It's going to be one of the two.

neocharge: Okay. And the other one might be a Summer Game Fest closing the show. We're either going to see if it's a PlayStation focused state of play. i'd Well, it's a state of play. ah We're probably going to see Intergalactic, ah the Heretic Prophet.

neocharge: Yeah. I think that's going to close this state of play, and I think... Or it's going to be Final Fantasy Part 3. Final Fantasy VII Part 3.

Leon Lionheartly: That's good guesses. That's not what I was thinking.

neocharge: Okay. what What else were you thinking? The new God of War game?

Leon Lionheartly: We're going to... Oh, we're going to get a release date for something that's supposed to come out this year.

neocharge: ah What? What?

Leon Lionheartly: Remedy?

neocharge: Oh, Control Resonant. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I think we're going to get that.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I think we'll get that release date.

neocharge: You think they're going close with third party?

Leon Lionheartly: They absolutely could.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Absolutely. Now, I...

neocharge: Usually they close with first party.

Leon Lionheartly: Okay, so they could close with... I could see them control...

neocharge: Or second.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I could see them closing with ah Intergalactic, but I'm pretty...

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: like i'm I'd be willing to bet 100% that we're going to get the release date for ah Control Resonant um at this date of...

neocharge: Oh, we're doing, yeah. I think so. I don't know if that'll be the closer, though. But it could be.

Leon Lionheartly: You know what I would see? I'd love to see, and this is a knock I know it's not going to happen, but I'm going to put it into the universe so that way if it does happen, I can jump up and down and you can laugh at me.

neocharge: What?

neocharge: What?

Leon Lionheartly: ken Ken Levine's going to come out.

neocharge: Ooh!

Leon Lionheartly: ah We get Judas.

neocharge: Fuck yeah! Judas!

Leon Lionheartly: Dude, I'd pee my pants because I'd be so happy, dude.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes.

neocharge: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. ah I think we'll get a couple other release dates for some games. I think we'll get the Kena release date, Scars of Cosmora.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes.

neocharge: I think we'll get the Castlevania Belmont's Curse release date. I think they're going to dig into some Konami stuff again. um I don't know. Other surprises. Maybe the new God of War game Barlog is working on.

Leon Lionheartly: do you Do you think, um because Sony is obviously in partnership with the marketing, um um do you think we're going to get trailer three or four or whatever of GTA 6 with the ah with ah the pre-order announcement?

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.

neocharge: e That would line up. And if, if they are in bed with rockstar as much as we think they are, that would, that would maybe line up. So yeah.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: like Sony's got to be positioned. We know they're positioning. You're only getting two consoles and one has almost 100 million install base and the other one has 20 million.

neocharge: Oh yeah.

neocharge: Exactly. Oh yeah. Yeah. So they might, they might announce some GTA six stuff there. Uh, What else? Maybe some Onimusha news from Capcom. Maybe a release date for that.

Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, please, please give it to me.

neocharge: Right. Right. So yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: mean, shit, we might even we might even get the, it's a long shot, but we might even get the ah DLC for Silksong.

neocharge: Oh yeah. See you sorrow.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, and we could see that too.

neocharge: Hmm. That'd be interesting. Yeah. It's so, I don't even know, man. I don't know what to expect. Uh, it's I know we're going to expect Wolverine.

neocharge: Intergalactic's probably got to be there. if it's If it's not there, I would be very surprised.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, because that was announced what the Game Awards of 2024 or 2020.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: or twenty s money Yeah, it was 2024. Yeah, because it was the same year as Astropot.

neocharge: Yeah, because we closed with High Guard last year. We closed with High Guard.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So it's been a couple years, and Naughty Dog's been cooking. So I do i think it's ah very, very likely that we see Intergalactic close out this show.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you know what? i I think you're you may be right, but we could that could also be saved for the state of play in the fall, which is usually September ah time frame.

neocharge: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah, that's true. But yeah. And I think Summer Game Fest...

Leon Lionheartly: Because Intergalactic is going to 2027. Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah, that is true. But give us like a gameplay trailer or something. Just a a quick overview. I don't know. But if if Final Fantasy Part 3 is not... Like, they're ready. They're ready to announce stuff. They they got the name. ah If Final Fantasy 7 Reborn is not at this event, it's going to close out the the Summer Game Fest.

neocharge: Mark of my words. Okay?

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I'm with you. i'm I'm not betting against that one.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: i already i don't need to lose any beer.

neocharge: Damn it. I wanted a six-pack. ah

Leon Lionheartly: the

neocharge: But yeah, this is exciting. It came out and i mean it kind of it came out of nowhere. where The announcement came out of nowhere. ah But this is a pretty long lead-up. Usually they announce these state of plays like two days, three days before.

neocharge: We're getting like a couple weeks. So this is exciting, and it's going to be a big one. I think it might even be on the level of a showcase. And I think there's going to be some unexpected things here.

neocharge: There's rumors of an infamous remake. Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, that would be awesome to see.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: um

neocharge: Coming this September. No, I'm kidding.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, right? Please, please. wait There's nothing else coming out, right? We're we're good.

neocharge: Right, right. ah Maybe some Turok news. Maybe we'll get some Turok news. who know that That sounds like a...

Leon Lionheartly: now you're just so Now you're just hoping for your your draft.

neocharge: That sounds like Summer Game Fest. ah could Well, we might get we're getting Dragon Quest news end of this month. So maybe another trailer for a potential 12?

neocharge: twelve

Leon Lionheartly: Please.

neocharge: Ooh, you know what else could be there with a release date? Tides of annihilation.

Leon Lionheartly: Now there's one. Yes. And you know what else?

neocharge: Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: We're almost guaranteed to see, even though we have the release date, we're going to see Marvel token fighters.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Maybe some, the announcement of some new characters, uh, Yeah, maybe some Tomb Raider stuff. ah The Tomb Raider Legacy of Atlantis, the remake that has a release year of this year, and we're halfway through the years, so this will be the place to so show it.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: I think a ah big surprise might be that God of War spinoff following Fae.

Leon Lionheartly: Mmm, that's a good one. that could I could see that, because some of these I'd like, i'm like ah but those are third party.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: You know, Judas is third is going to end ultimately be third party, and you have Summer Game Fest, what, three days later?

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: ah

neocharge: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: So this feels first party focused, but ah we have been wrong. Sony has been given the red carpet to reveal some games before that you're like, why?

Leon Lionheartly: Why would you let Sony do it? ah So... ah Yeah, i ah ah like who knows? Anything could happen at this point.

neocharge: Yep, yep. And let's do the obligatory ah check the box Bloodborne, either sequel or remake. It's going to be there. it's Now's the time and Half-Life 3.

neocharge: We're all excited for it.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, Gabe Newell's going to come out and be like, hey, PlayStation fans.

neocharge: Yeah, so ah I'm umm super excited. I'm always excited with these events. It sounds like Sony's hyping it up, and that is hyping me up. So we're going to have a watch party. going have some some beers, some brats or burgers. I don't know. And ah we're going to watch it.

neocharge: We won't do live reactions. Maybe. i don't know. I will talk to Alex, see if we can do ah a reaction video after the fact. Maybe. Who knows? I don't know. We'll see.

Leon Lionheartly: Brats. You know what?

neocharge: Right?

Leon Lionheartly: Let's do it.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: i don I'll make us some beer brats.

neocharge: Hell yeah. Have some like salt vinegar chips. Maybe like some some kale slaw. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Kale slaw.

neocharge: Yeah, you got gotta get some fiber in there, man. We're old.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, coleslaw. is I love coleslaw, but the it's got to be done right.

neocharge: Yeah. Right. Get some, do coleslaw, a little bit of vinegar, a little bit of sweetness, salt, pepper, and then throw some shreds of kale in there just to get your deep fucking fiber in there.

neocharge: Yeah,

Leon Lionheartly: you lost You lost the plot. I'm sorry, man. You ah you know, you you know if you if you use coconut oil with your kale to cook it, it makes it easier to scrape in the trash.

neocharge: yeah it's sliding the trash. ye Yeah. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So, yeah. gotta be Got to be, health is wealth. But yeah, or beer brats and beer and more beer.

Leon Lionheartly: i'm ah

neocharge: It'll be fun either way.

Leon Lionheartly: Awesome. Thanks, man. I come from the land of beer, cheese, and brats.

neocharge: Oh, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Come on now.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. So ah I won't have my smoker over there, so you have to pan fry them. And then we'll get some good buns, ah get some sauerkraut, get some stone ground mustard.

neocharge: ah maybe some ketchup, some green onions, dice up those green onions, the whites and the greens, dice them up real fine, throw them on there. Yeah. Dude, I'll have to send you a picture of the elk brat I got up in a basin when I snowboarded for the last time.

Leon Lionheartly: Okay.

neocharge: Oh my God. It was so good. So good. Maybe some mac and cheese too.

Leon Lionheartly: how will

neocharge: Who knows? Now I'm getting fucking hungry.

Leon Lionheartly: wo

neocharge: I haven't eaten dinner.

Leon Lionheartly: Now I'm hungry. Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: It's like little six o'clock here. We started early so for recording to get this knocked out. and Now I'm like, oh, I'm hungry.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah

neocharge: But yeah, if you're if you're local and you want to you want come over, hang out, hit us up on Discord. I got a whole ass house and it's a fucking bachelor pad and I got a nice viewing area, all good. so And if you're not local, we'll pick you up at the airport. Let us know.

Leon Lionheartly: We'll see you at the airport, Caleb.

neocharge: Yeah, exactly. Well,

Leon Lionheartly: Uh...

neocharge: ah yeah. So very exciting. Can't wait. And we will do a podcast probably that night ah covering it. Right.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, um I think that's probably for the best as we do that. And then that way we can make sure we, excuse me, seal up Summer Game Fest in its own its own podcast. Because that's going to be between Summer Game Fest and the Xbox showcase.

Leon Lionheartly: That's...

neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Leon Lionheartly: That's its own own thing. So i I like that. We'll plan that. Maybe we'll make it up to you guys. We'll work overtime so you get two two sessions in ah in a week or hour.

neocharge: We're here to serve you all.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, man. No, I'm excited.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah You're excited. let's ah But I know there's one last thing.

neocharge: Very.

Leon Lionheartly: You've been chomping at the bet. I know you want to talk about it.

neocharge: I know you're fucking excited too.

Leon Lionheartly: so

neocharge: Don't don't act like you're not excited.

Leon Lionheartly: Who? Me?

neocharge: Uh-huh.

Leon Lionheartly: Me? meet Me? meat that's Yeah. yeah ah You know what? I'll let you take it away, man, because you found you saw the news first.

neocharge: Yeah, it broke and on Discord. And I was like, oh holy shit. And this is kind of niche news. Not a lot of people know about this event. If you're listening this podcast, you know about the event because we went this fucking winter, ah this this year, early this year, MAGFest, the Music and Games Festival ah in National Harbor, Maryland.

Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.

neocharge: had they They announced their theme. So the last theme we went to was Mega Man X. And we had a blast there. It's a four-day event. Think Comic-Con meets a music festival with all it surrounded around games and a ton of gamers, cosplayers, merch booths, indie dev section, and a free arcade the size of Walmart that that's open 24-7.

neocharge: That's MagFest. And they always have a theme every year. So one year was Metroid Prime. One year was Sonic. Last year was Mega Man X. This year is The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.

neocharge: And I lost my shit. I'm just saying. Because Ocarina of Time has some goaded music. Zelda is one of my favorite IPs of all time. And I think this is going to be lining up with the rumored Ocarina of Time remake for Switch 2.

neocharge: ah This, I don't think there could have been a better theme for me other than Final Fantasy 7. Honestly. i i Or Twilight Princess. like Zelda's king for me.

neocharge: So... I couldn't be more excited.

Leon Lionheartly: right.

neocharge: So yeah, we got a theme. MagFest is happening January 7th through the 10th at the Gaylord National Resort in National Harbor, Maryland.

neocharge: It's a great time. If you're interested, hit us up. We'll give you some details, but we're going and we'll be there. And it's ah it's just a fun time. And there's a fucking, there's a nightclub lounge up on the top floor that they just play video game electronic synth music the whole time and overpriced beers.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: but You had a blast last time you went and it's going to be my fourth year going. So.

Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, absolutely. This is this is exciting ass news. um this yeah so zell i I have a hard time when we're talking about it.

Leon Lionheartly: like I have a hard time saying what's my favorite of the video game IPs because you're going to hit me on any day and it could be different.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: We're you know we're talking from Final Fantasy to Zelda to Mario to Mega Man to fucking Metal Gear Solid right and everything in between.

neocharge: Sure. Sure.

neocharge: Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: um But to This does not take away from the fact that you are right. Zelda is in that top tier. That is in that conversation. um This makes me so fucking happy because all of the different... Like when they do the play themes. Last year made sense. You had Mega Ran. You had Bit Brigade. You had all of these awesome bands that were they did Mega Man music as part of what they're doing in their theme.

Leon Lionheartly: Here, that means... You know who's it guaranteed to be there next year, Matt?

neocharge: ah Triforce Quartet.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes.

neocharge: Yep. They'll be there.

Leon Lionheartly: We're going to 100% get them. And you know who else could also be there? And I would shit my pants if this happened, and I hope so. Who is very famous, as solo act, very famous because of her ability to do a lot of Zelda music.

neocharge: Lindsey Sterling.

Leon Lionheartly: God damn it. It's almost like we're on the same wavelength. Yeah.

neocharge: I've actually seen Lindsay Sterling live and she performed a lot of Zelda stuff up in Denver. So yeah, she's a huge fan of Zelda too.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: And ah Descendants of Erdrich might be there again. They do a lot of

Leon Lionheartly: wo

neocharge: Yeah. So I know they're ah Dragon Quest, but they actually do a lot of Zelda stuff. So they every performer there, regardless of you know their name, they usually do a lot of Zelda stuff. I mean, hell, do we still have to see the ah the fan orchestra in the atrium? They did like One Winged Angel.

neocharge: They did Lon Lon Ranch one year. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I love that.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, so your staples are usually like Pokemon, Final Fantasy, Zelda, but dude, it being Zelda prominent and specifically Ocarina of Time, and it's going to be hot and in the conversation if we get that remake.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah

neocharge: Oh, it's going to be a fucking good time, dude.

Leon Lionheartly: You know what I think would be really fun is I got to get one ah one of those little creaky outfits and just like hide in spots so when people walk up or own likewise up but just be like, ha ha

neocharge: yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah ah

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. The Koroks is so cute.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's that's good shit, dude. I'm i'm all for this.

neocharge: Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: um i Like I said, the only thing that... I didn't say it earlier, but the only thing that's kind of like, eh, is going to be the the the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It's prominent. It's the new Zelda, and I'm going to be back like grumpy old man and going, back in my day, Zelda ah was a 2D side-scroller in its sequel.

neocharge: Yep.

neocharge: Right. Yeah. What if Bit Brigade did Zelda 2, the Adventure of Link?

Leon Lionheartly: That'd be good. I would not argue with that.

neocharge: Yeah, because that's a pretty quick game to get through if you speedrun it. I don't know if they're going to do Ocarina of Time, but maybe. Who knows?

Leon Lionheartly: I mean, if you're really trying to speed run, you could break it with Link with link to the Past. You can beat that game in like three minutes.

neocharge: Oh, yeah. That's true. They might. They're always there, usually with the theme. ah So we'll see. We'll see. Maybe some Power Glove. Who knows? I'm so excited.

Leon Lionheartly: oh Oh, yes. i see Now you got me excited again.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Ocarina of Time theme for MAGFest next year, ah January 7th through the 10th. And yeah, if you want more information on it, it's probably the best gaming event I've ever been to.

neocharge: So other than PSX, ah just because it was such a niche theme, close to my heart. But MAGFest is such a good time, and I look forward to going on every year. So ah very, very early theme announcement. Usually we get theme announcements around August, September.

neocharge: ah We got it in May. So... They are, uh, they, they're gearing up for a big show, so I can't wait.

Leon Lionheartly: That's awesome.

neocharge: We'll be there. All right. That was a lot of news, lot of unfortunate news, lot of good news. And now we're on to what we're playing.

neocharge: And I'm, I'm playing a game that I've been wanting to play for a while and you're playing an amalgamation of games, quite a few.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I definitely am. So if you want, I'll just start this so then we can kind of finish together on Hades 2. yeah ah

neocharge: yeah Let's do it.

Leon Lionheartly: All right, cool. um So I have been ADHD-ing, just finding shit that's fun to play, and I i finished Hades 2. We'll get to that. um And then I said, you know what? I'm going check out DQ7. We'll start there. Dragon Quest 7 Reimagine. This came out ah earlier this year, February, I want to say. um this is So i'm ah I'm pretty early on ah in this. I still haven't even unlocked the job system. I know the joke. You've got to get 30 hours in.

Leon Lionheartly: And what I can say about this game is if you like Dragon Quest um and you know know what you're getting into, this is a warm cup of hot cocoa on Christmas Day. Don't expect...

Leon Lionheartly: Don't expect a banger. Don't expect Endgame or infinity ah you know Avengers Infinity or anything like that. This is just comfort food through and through. um This looks gorgeous, Matt.

neocharge: Sure does. Sure does. Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: This is high-definition cartoons. like That's the best way I can describe this.

neocharge: Mm hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: i I can't fucking believe how good this looks considering it's the cartoon um fantasy cartoon aesthetics. ah Some of the character designs are funny, ah even though they're ridiculous.

Leon Lionheartly: ah Like Kiefer, his head is way too fucking big for his character model, and it may it makes me laugh every time. ah So I just like... i Every time I see him, I'm laughing, but I'm enjoying the fact that I'm i'm laughing at this and not groaning over it. um But yeah, this is a fun game, dude. I love it.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm not saying it's a game of the year. i know people's shortcomings with it. um I totally get that. But when I need a place to reset and I just need a couple hours to to feel back at home, hearing that battle music, booting i booted up i booted it up and I just listened to the soundtrack, that opening game while I was just dancing and just

neocharge: That's awesome.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah.

neocharge: oh but that um du du but don yeah

Leon Lionheartly: I love it. um So, yeah, it's a it's been a great time. um I'm going to continue to play this in the background on and off um for a while. um So expect me to eventually, yeah, expect me eventually report back on it and I'll let everybody know, but this is a beefy ass game.

neocharge: awesome

Leon Lionheartly: So don't expect ah don't expect to hear me talk about it every week because if not, it's going to be six to eight weeks before I'm finally finished.

neocharge: It sure is.

neocharge: Yeah, I'm so glad you're loving it. Sometimes you need those games, honestly, those little cozy games. Vesperia was that for me. No Kuni was that for me. I just didn't know it yet. wow But i I did like my time with Dragon Quest VII Reimagined.

Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.

neocharge: I just couldn't play it a lot. i had to I have to play it in chunks, you know, just because there's a lot of reused stuff. ah And that's just a me thing. If you if you like listening to the music on loop, that's awesome.

neocharge: ah And i I intend to get back to it too. Like the story arc that we were talking about yesterday, i really enjoyed. And it introduced a new playable character, which I really like him. He's cool. So I do want to get back to it as well.

neocharge: It's not a game i put down permanently. It's just a game I needed a break from after 10 hours, unfortunately.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I totally get that. that's Some games are like that.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: You go in spurts and little sprints for them and you come back to them. and I respect it, man. um So definitely, I look forward to hearing your your thoughts when you get back to it as well.

neocharge: Yeah, same with you. I can't wait to to hear it. Although I think you're where I stopped, so I can't really talk about a lot more.

Leon Lionheartly: fair Fair enough. Well, um I'm cranking.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm hankering for it probably tonight, to be honest. I'm there's something about it and I just, I want to keep going for a bit.

neocharge: Yeah. Nice.

Leon Lionheartly: um

neocharge: Heck yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: But speaking of comfort, um I then finally got around to, I only got about an hour in on this. I will come back to it, ah but it reminded me it was a coming back to my roots. um And that's ah over at Lillimo games. I drafted this cause I believed in it and that's St. Slayer spear of sacrilege. Uh, I saw the reviews.

Leon Lionheartly: i I'll tell you this much, Matt. And we talked about it ah over text. This is the most and NES ass game in 2026 you're ever going to play.

neocharge: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: And what I mean by this is when we're talking about 8-bit retro and any NES inspired Castlevania or Link's Awakening ah or rather Zelda 2 Link's Adventure kind of games, Shovel Knight's a good example of this.

Leon Lionheartly: It looks and feels like it could come from the and NES era, but in a modern-day standard. um the the animmate ah The pixel art is a little bit crip more crisp.

neocharge: you know

Leon Lionheartly: It's cleaner. It controls ah a little bit more fluidly um and more rapidly. ah And that's good. i love that inspired. But Saint Slayer holds the en NES...

Leon Lionheartly: ah side of things, both good and bad ah to its heart. And I respect the hell out of it. um The jumping, people complain about the jumping being stiff. um If you complain about the jumping being, yeah, yeah but if you're if you're like, oh, this is terrible because the jumping's stiff, come back to me.

neocharge: Oh, it is. don't know.

Leon Lionheartly: Come sit down to me, little tyke, because you did not play an NES game back in the day.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Go play a Mega Man.

neocharge: Exactly.

Leon Lionheartly: Go play a Link's Adventure and I'll show you what it was like back then. Yeah.

neocharge: It's like that meme, first time.

Leon Lionheartly: Yes! First time. But...

neocharge: Yeah. It's meant to be stiff.

Leon Lionheartly: but

neocharge: It's meant to play like an old school NES game.

Leon Lionheartly: it It really is. And there's a there's a flow to it. Once I realized, I was like, oh, I see. Because part of this, you can do the DuckTales down attack, which resurged with Shovel Knight.

Leon Lionheartly: But there are certain parts of the game, if you know what you're doing, you can hit a lamppost or something and down attack, and it keeps your momentum.

neocharge: Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: So you then just ride it out, and you hit the next enemy who who hits the next thing.

neocharge: Yep.

Leon Lionheartly: And you hit like four or five of those jumps, and suddenly you don't feel so slow and clunky. Yeah.

neocharge: you know Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: So it's it's awesome in that regard.

neocharge: yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah Story is... it's It's good if you like your Christian mythology, like real early Eastern European Christian mythology. Go check some of that out. But the music in this game does a lot of fucking heavy lifting, man.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, this this is just like...

neocharge: I know.

neocharge: It's so good. what What level did you get to?

Leon Lionheartly: i got I finished level 10, so I'm on level 11. And I think there's 21 stages, I think.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. So level 10.

Leon Lionheartly: and i again Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah, we'll we'll we'll talk off the after the podcast. I think I know what one that is.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: um The music slaps, dude.

Leon Lionheartly: it's It fucking hits hard.

neocharge: It just keeps getting better too.

Leon Lionheartly: ah It does.

neocharge: It just keeps getting, have a favorite, which you, i don't think have heard yet. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, look forward to it. um

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I just kind of laugh because there's that level that everybody ah if you've played the game or heard about it you know what i'm talking about. It's the carriage ah seat level.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: People complain about it. I got it in the first try. ah But there...

neocharge: Oh, I died a lot on that one. That was a learning curve for me. Mm-hmm.

Leon Lionheartly: But there was at another level, I think it was, i want to say it was like eight or nine, like right before I was done. I got my ass handed to me several times on that level.

neocharge: Mmm.

Leon Lionheartly: ah So that's what's really great about this is if you are old school like me and you and and some of our community members, man, i heard ah Go check this out.

neocharge: enemies

Leon Lionheartly: It's not going to be your game of the year, but if you miss the era and of what it was like to be six years old with a bowl of cereal with an NES rectangular controller, go check this out.

Leon Lionheartly: It's very fucking good. It's very simple, and the only complaint I really truly have about it from a gameplay or a technical standpoint is the hitboxes are a little wonky.

neocharge: Yeah, it's it's hard, and it's ah it's a relic of its time, honestly.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: ah may and May I interject here and talk about my experience with it as well?

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, please go ahead.

neocharge: Yeah, I talked about it a lot on the last podcast. I don't know if I ah had platinumed it, though, but I i recently platinumed it.

Leon Lionheartly: Hell yeah, dude. That takes like nine or ten playthroughs or some shit.

neocharge: So 20. 20.

neocharge: twenty twenty

Leon Lionheartly: Jesus.

neocharge: So I like it so much that I i played the PS4 version ah because I like that trophy list just a little bit better. i i am thinking about Platinum and the PS5 version as well because it's a different trophy list.

Leon Lionheartly: Do it. That's awesome, by the way.

neocharge: I know. Yeah, because I i was wanting to compare mine with yours, and I was like, ah, fuck.

Leon Lionheartly: Two different girls.

neocharge: You're playing the PS5 version. I played the PS4 version. I can't do it. but So I i like was creeping on your trophies, and none of them are hidden. And I was like, oh, I know what all these mean, and that sounds fun.

neocharge: Because there's ah there's collectibles in this game and has a password system. So when you get the collectible, it gives you the password and then you can put the password in and it modifies the entire game for the playthrough.

neocharge: And there are about five trophies that require you to put the password in and finish the entire game with that password and that modified version of the game.

Leon Lionheartly: Yep.

neocharge: So... Yeah, it's a hard-ass game. And the more time you spend with it, the more you learn it, and the more you can just... I mean, I was finishing it in 40 minutes.

neocharge: So, sometimes sooner.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: But I'm so glad you love it. You're you're halfway there. i i think I know which...

Leon Lionheartly: Woo!

neocharge: Living on a prayer... ah I think I know what level you're on, but I'll have to verify with you after the cast. I want to talk more about it because this this game ah sat with me a little bit. And it's just such a simple game, but they put a lot of love and care into it. And you can tell that Colin, we know he's an awesome gamer and he he loves the the retro style older games. But you know this has Legend of Zelda Adventure of Link, Legend of Zelda 2. Castlevania 3, DuckTales, maybe a little bit of Super Mario in there.

neocharge: a lot of cool shit. So it's kind of an ode to all the retro classics and you can play it on PS4, PS5. It's $10. It's such a good deal. i think I like...

neocharge: put like 25 hours, 20 hours into it, I think, or something like that. I don't know. It's a, it's a great value. And I'm even thinking about going through it again, just to, cause I just had a blast with it. I just had a blast going through the entire game. And, uh, You know, ah ah some stuff carries over. Like it kind of has a new game. Plus some of the currency carries over.

neocharge: It's got a really cool story. Like in the story unfolds, the more you beat it. So it's really cool.

Leon Lionheartly: That's awesome. Yeah.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I look forward to it in terms of that with that story. And I will say it's really cool. I know mechanical spoiler if you think. But when you die, your body's still there and you like you can stab your body.

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: And I'm like, that's fucking cool, dude. I love that kind of shit.

neocharge: And you can, yeah. And you can also pray over it.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I think I'll check that out.

neocharge: So yeah. So there's so many cool hidden things. There's so many, odes to the retro classics.

Leon Lionheartly: you.

neocharge: And, uh, it is hard as nails at first. It is frustratingly hard. I, I was almost put it down because of how hard it was, especially stage five and a specific stage.

Leon Lionheartly: perfect

neocharge: We'll talk about off cast. Uh, it is fucking ridiculously hard. And even on normal. And I mean, I was like, yeah I beat it on hard and and then I beat it on classic, which there's no continues on classic. There's lives, but there's no continues. So when you lose lives, you can continue with a specific amount of a collectible that carries over, which is nice. But dude, classic was tough. Unless you know what, how to play it.

neocharge: And ah yeah, there's some secrets in that game that, that are funny. And there's some jokes that are nineties. Let's just say that.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, there are. There's some good stuff in there. I appreciate it.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah,

neocharge: Yeah. There's a straight up ending i associated with the pretty, a joke that probably wouldn't land and nowadays. It lands with us, but wouldn't land ah the politically correct, a you know, environment.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah I know what you're saying.

neocharge: Let's just say that.

Leon Lionheartly: yeah

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: So, but I love it.

Leon Lionheartly: I look forward to it. yeah

neocharge: Yeah. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, definitely go check it out if you if you like old school. um And then continue...

neocharge: Yeah, Saint Slayer, Spear of Sacrilege.

Leon Lionheartly: acrilegge Yeah, it's $10. You can afford that.

neocharge: And books. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: ah All right. Well, and then speaking of comfort, I thought, you know what? I'm going to come back to a game series that's comforting, but I'm going to come to the newest one because I put it down for a while. um And that was Civilization 7.

Leon Lionheartly: ah This came out last year. i put probably 60 hours into it, give or take. um And I had mixed feelings about it. um And let me set up ah set this up for you guys.

Leon Lionheartly: So... ah May 19th, they had what was called the test of time update. This is a big update because in Civilization 7, the thing that stands out apart from the other civilizations is everything was broken into three eras. And during that era...

Leon Lionheartly: and Not the whole board reset, like you kept your towns, but resources would change. You would have to select a new civilization. You could keep your leader, but you would have to select a new civilization.

neocharge: Thank you.

Leon Lionheartly: um And the civilizations were unlocked based on certain progression requirements and things like that. It was very convoluted, very terrible. Well, Firaxis actually listened to the community and has been actively listening to feedback, and they pushed out an update that allows you to, um excuse me, change your leader if you want at ERAs. um And that was always several months ago. And that sounds cool, but that didn't address the big issue that people wanted to play is Rome, for example, or Hungary or whatever, right? Or the USA throughout the entire from being beginning to end. Here, with the test of time update, you can now keep that consistency. Where if I, like I play was playing as I think it was Teddy Roosevelt and I'm America playing as America from the start of antiquities to the modern age, you can now do that and you don't have to change.

Leon Lionheartly: Sounds great.

neocharge: Right.

Leon Lionheartly: Here's my problem. I'm at I got two big things. One. This game on a PlayStation 5 Pro still struggles with some of its frame rate because, and this is, I'm going to rant, I need 10 seconds to rain here, 30 seconds, because, no, it's not that.

neocharge: Okay. What?

neocharge: Not optimized.

Leon Lionheartly: It's because we have gotten to a point in the industry where we need PSSR2 for games like Resident Evil 9 that are GPU intensive. But when you need a game like a Musou or a Civilization that's CPU intensive,

Leon Lionheartly: We're the guys that like game players like me that need that are getting fucked because people need to be able to see the strands of hair off of Leon's face.

neocharge: yeah

Leon Lionheartly: And that's frustrating ah because I shouldn't have to have, ah you know, server CPU levels to be able to play this game smoothly because the hardware that's being built for this is all about the GPU because I want to be able to see the pores on Aloy's face.

neocharge: hmm they don't give you the option they can't be like oh yeah 1080p 60 oh at least give the option that's that's a sin

Leon Lionheartly: No, it's not in there. um and And I... Yeah, i I give a little bit to where I'm like, all right, for Axis, you should be able to at least do this. But at the end of the day, i still don't think it would be anything because the hardware on the PS5 Pro, while GPU ah performance is there, the CPU performance was what, like 3%? And it's just not enough to keep up with some of these games. And I think for $700, that's criminal, personally.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: um But...

neocharge: Yeah, that should just be baseline. And this game came out last fucking year.

Leon Lionheartly: um I agree.

neocharge: Okay.

Leon Lionheartly: um but But that's my rant about the industry. My my biggest my biggest true concern ah problem with this game ah is still comes down to the eras.

Leon Lionheartly: um When you play a civilization game, you're standing the test of time, hence the test of time update. You're taking something from the beginning and you're expanding it out until you're done until you're finally done right or you win the game.

neocharge: Bye.

Leon Lionheartly: What Firaxis did is they said, we noticed 80% of people didn't fit wouldn't finish a game of ah of Civilization from start to back. Well, here's the thing there, folks. You tried to solve for a problem.

Leon Lionheartly: that quite frankly didn't exist. Nobody plays civilized... People sputtered out, but I've never heard about complaints of, oh, well, I really wish they had fixed endgame or what have you to to let me continue to play. No, it was people go, oh, this was a lot of fun.

Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to restart and I'm going to try something different and then I'm going to play and I'll see how it takes. They play it free flow. And I know there's a competitive scene and all that, but I'm talking about me as a general player. You try to solve for something. So now when I'm building out my cities and I'm doing all of this cool stuff, up in the top left-hand corner of the screen, there's a percentage bar and it says 20%.

Leon Lionheartly: And then two or three turns later, it says 21%, which is that era bar. And that era bar is going to be, ah this is the end of the era. every ah ah The board's going to reset, and I'm going to have to do new science discoveries, new culture discoveries, new whatever. And that takes me out of the game every time because it gives me anxiety.

neocharge: right yeah that's i i don't like time games uh at all not not great that's why i don't play animal crossing because it's timed and when you're not

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's...

neocharge: like even playing it when your system is in fucking rest mode weeds grow. Nah, nah, I'm good. That already happens in real life. No, thank you.

Leon Lionheartly: Yep. that's exactly And that's exactly it. It gives me anxiety, and then I put the game down. I fit i appreciate the boldness to try something different, and I i love the idea of of expanding on ideas.

Leon Lionheartly: But do not... You try to solve for a problem that truly didn't exist, and that's where you fell off the rails.

neocharge: okay

Leon Lionheartly: So Civilization VII...

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: i put and And this is not a, Bob, you are part of the community of people who hate civilization at first and you come back to it three years later. No, I've been playing civilization since Civ 2.

Leon Lionheartly: um I know what that discourse looks like. And I can tell you right now, this game is fundamentally broken at a DNA level. um And if you love it, awesome. But for a person who's been playing as long as I have, this one is a skip it and move on.

neocharge: Wow. Dang. Because I know you loved CIF-6. So, like, you put like 400 hours into it.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah. i but I got the platinum. That's a 0.2% platinum.

neocharge: ah

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: That's crazy, man. That sucks. that It was such a ah deviation. they're They're trying to fix what ain't broke. It's just stupid.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's exactly it.

neocharge: So, yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: Tried to solve for a problem that didn't exist, and you kind of put kind of put your ah palm in your face. But...

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: That being said, the big game of of this evening. I platinum this.

neocharge: Oh, boy.

Leon Lionheartly: Or I didn't platinum this. I finished ah and went through the prologue of Hades 2.

neocharge: Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: I will put it to you like this, and then I'm going to let you gush all over it.

neocharge: Okay. Okay.

Leon Lionheartly: I love Hades 2. It is better than Hades 1, in my opinion, for my tastes. I think it truly is. I will not be going... If I go for the Platinum, it's going to be a six-month project because the Platinum is that grindy.

neocharge: yeah yeah

Leon Lionheartly: like I have finished the prologue, and I'm at 60% of the trophies. ah So that's where it's at.

neocharge: Dang. Yeah.

Leon Lionheartly: But I'm going to let you talk about it because I want to hear your thoughts, man. I've been waiting to hear this.

neocharge: Okay. Yeah, I did a clear of the game and I'm at 14% trophies. so Yeah, um I think Hades 2 is better than Hades 1 as well.

neocharge: ah There's so much to this game. They ah have improved on every aspect of Hades. We all love Zagreus, but Melanoi is really growing on me and she's an incredible character. ah The story is opening up. ah Just all kinds of stuff.

neocharge: i they I can't really get into... it's The layout's different than Hades 1. Let me just say that. And I'm in the second part. And I'm going through that. So in Hades 1, you have a a straight path of just one. You go, you fight the last boss. Hades 2, you have two paths.

neocharge: We'll just put it like that. So um' ah I'm doing the second path, and I'm trying... It's really fucking hard. I'm stuck on the third boss.

Leon Lionheartly: Oh.

neocharge: I'll let you in.

Leon Lionheartly: ah yeah

neocharge: Yeah, yeah. It just... That boss is just... yeah I am getting eaten alive by that thing. ah So, yeah, I love it.

neocharge: All the, I mean, all the stuff from what you loved in Hades 1 is here. i didn't think they could do it because I think if you remember correctly, I was like, this you know, I hope Hades 2 just brings everything we love from Hades 1 and I hope they don't leave anything out.

neocharge: Well, they didn't, except, well, it yeah, they didn't leave anything out. They just...

Leon Lionheartly: We can chat after the cast and you can ask a question.

neocharge: Yeah, exactly. I don't want to spoil. They didn't leave anything out. They improved on everything. they They kind of drip feed it to you a little bit more now. like Stuff that was available in Hades just off the bat ah going through, they make unlockable, which I appreciate. you got to You got to earn it now. And you have a cauldron that you can conjure different abilities and different environmental ah manipulation.

neocharge: ah aspects, if you will. You have your weapons. I just unlocked my last weapon. Can't wait to use it.

Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.

neocharge: I still haven't used it. And I really, i was like, oh, ah I just unlocked the the aspects. They returned from Hades 1. ah All the characters are super i interesting and engaging. And all the character portraits are next level artistic design.