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Zelda's Shattered Space Marine
11 Plays7 months ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about teeth (sorry), Zelda carving out a space in her own type of game, Space Marine 2, Satisfactory 1.0, Tiny Glade, our thoughts on demos for games, Starfield's Shattered Space DLC, and more in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Septerra Core OST - 1998 Promotional Trailer
Outro:
- Ed Harrison - Departure [Neotokyo OST]
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Updates
00:00:37
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I am Jordan, but my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going so good. Yeah. It's not September anymore. It's not, which I'm fine with because October, the better month. It's true. Arguably the best month. If it wasn't for 9-11, would you still say that?
00:01:02
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. That's very, I don't want to change the date of Halloween. Um, they just pushed it back for convenience more. It used to be in September, they're like, Oh, I don't know. Yeah. It feels, it feels bad that we're celebrating right now. Hand out candy, say never forget. Yeah. Specifically making gingerbread houses to crash a plane into the hotel. Yeah.
00:01:32
Speaker
A second gumdrop has hit the house, yeah. But no, October's going to be good. yeah A lot of lot of stuff planned, most of which are doctor's appointments. ah Hooray. um But also, ah by the end of October, should have a new tattoo.
00:01:51
Speaker
oh dang unless it's unless it's secret um what uh or elicit i guess well now we we have we we mark every episode as explicit so uh what what type of tattoo are you getting so upper cheek lower cheek i think currently it's slated for my thigh okay uh for sizing and just just to keep a lot of the detail but uh you might know the artist who designed this Mm-hmm. Your wife. Yeah, that's fair, yeah. But no, ah Mango, friend of the show, a special guest. We did a commission a while ago, and it's going to be of Lord Nito from Dark Souls. Gotcha. OK, so this is what this is for. I didn't know that this is being turned to a tattoo. I have seen it. It is really cool. It's not a one-to-one of Lord Nito. It's like I gave her some references, and I trust your art direction and style. like
00:02:50
Speaker
Just hit me with something. We'll go from there. Um, yeah. And it's just been really cool. Oh yeah. It is. And I like it. I think it'll be good. Pretty spry for a thigh guy. Um, I wasn't sure what the first word was going to be there, but it was definitely ending with thigh guy. So sly. Yeah. Pretty sly. There you go. Pretty fly fly fly is way better actually. I don't know if the next generation, if Jen alpha knows what fly means anymore though.
Music and Generational Gaps
00:03:18
Speaker
No, probably not. They also probably haven't heard that song statistically. Yeah. you Yeah. Yeah. Fly for a rabbi weirdo. Is that an actual weirdo parody of it? Cause I would believe it. I mean, if the original is pretty fly for a white guy, I think weirdos is pretty fly for a rabbi. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I could hear it. Um,
00:03:46
Speaker
Okay. I confirmed. Yes, I'm right. Nice. Nice. Um, that'll be the only fact checking we do everything else right off the cuff. Um, our best not to talk about politics. We got that out of the first system. Well, it's just cause you said fact checking. Ah, yeah. No, you don't, we don't use those here. Bring down the vibes.
00:04:12
Speaker
Um, but speaking of health stuff, I'm also, I'm getting a ah tooth extraction this month around Halloween, actually. So that'll be great. Are you going to incorporate the, this, this sec separate tooth into your costume? I think it would be cool to apparently like, well, the problem is it's going to be a multi-stage process to get like a replacement. You can't just be like, all right.
00:04:40
Speaker
swap this one out, hot swapping another one, right? There's not like a, a NASCAR team just perform it. It's like, all right, we're going to take that one out. We're going to let you heal. We're going to do an implant. Then you can get an actual replacement too. But I'm looking at the, the high noble metals is what they're called as a replacement. Cause that sounds pretty, pretty good. That does sound kind of cool. Right.
00:05:06
Speaker
Do they actually try and mold it off of your other teeth? Yeah. and They'll, they'll try to make it. It's a very similar situation to kind of like getting a crown. So, um, which funnily enough is actually what this tooth is being extracted. They just didn't do a super great job the first time. So that's where I've been in life. Um,
00:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, I remember this was way way back when we were working together. I think you first had an issue with on that tooth. And I want to say it was McDonald's. There was one of them. Yeah, I had a crown that broke when I was eating a crispy chicken sandwich, um which I've had
Dental Adventures and Health Reflections
00:05:48
Speaker
McDonald's. It's not that crispy. So somebody fucked up. So they they really did. In fact, they realized I liked the dentist I had back then. They were um They were very except like they accepted the responsibility. Basically, I told them I was like, hey, I was eating a crispy chicken sandwich and the crown broke and they're like, OK, we'll take care of it. We'll cover it. Like they didn't charge anything for the fix, which was nice. I was I was sucking on a marshmallow and like oh, OK. Yeah. No, in this other case, it's actually I had a ah root canal, but they. um
00:06:22
Speaker
they had to put in stents basically like guideposts for the canal and Apparently they put too much pressure on those stents and so it caused like a fracture in my tooth and I went to I went to the ah Orthodontist for like a minute. Well, okay I was waiting and then the assistant was helping and stuff and then they took an x-ray the order orthodontist walks in he just kind of like looks at it He's like, yep this right here this bad like you're gonna have to have the whole thing extracted uh sorry i had to tell you this or whatever then you just left it was like it was like a minute and a half interaction and i'm like well thanks i i would have a little bit more faith if i had the opportunity to ask questions or anything like that but i guess we just ship it at this point so
00:07:12
Speaker
He's like, this is the correct high level diagnosis. If you have any questions, ask her Stacy. Well, they're not even that really. I was just like I had to ask as they were pretty much ushering me out of the chair, just be like, what what do I do? Right. What are the next steps here? What is the extraction look like in current year? But I did get the information eventually. So thanks, Google. um And yeah, we'll see where it goes. But anything to not have a.
00:07:41
Speaker
Uh, recurring infection that requires antibiotics every so like five months is good for me. Yeah. It's like, you should really only be taking day to day medications for chronic stuff. You're like, we can't fix this. It is what it is. Sucks. yeah Here's how we deal with it versus. Oh, this is a brand new problem that keeps occurring. Um.
00:08:10
Speaker
And then addressing the root of the issue. Ah, yeah. You just get rid of all that. Love some tree humor. That's the key. But the main downside, it's going to be around when Halloween happens. Right. So I don't know if I'm going to be like, I don't know how many jawbreakers are going to be able to throw back this year, given this is like the week. It's happening like the week before Halloween.
00:08:37
Speaker
so Well I will say I do have some candy for you so at some point let's hang out before that so I can give it to you you can appreciate it uh versus afterwards you're staring at it going yeah uh yeah the the the forbidden the forbidden candy um I don't think it'll be that bad too long but modern medicine's pretty good and and It's like they say um from one of those Rocky movies, right? If he dies, he dies. So we'll play play however it like.
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, fingers crossed for your put stuff going on and my stuff going on that we will still be able to continue to podcast ah come November. Mm hmm. That's actually what you're not supposed to do for November, actually, from what I've heard. Um, but a lot of, a lot of games, a lot of games for September
Gaming Highlights and New Releases
00:09:36
Speaker
came out. Um, some of these I even know about your list. Almost completely encompass the list that I had. So I only post the difference. What was the highlight for you for September? What was the the big, the moment in gaming?
00:09:54
Speaker
Oh, sorry. ah The moment of gaming where um for me, it has to be echoes of wisdom. Hmm. OK. Because again, it's like the a link to the past that they did in that um more updated. Not isometric, but it's tilt shift, right? Like a tilt shift style. A little bit, yeah. The edges are kind of blurry and it it looks like you're playing with toys. Well, it's not full on tilt shift like um
00:10:26
Speaker
It doesn't actually look tiny. It's just like a very kind of chibi gamified style. OK. Yeah. But ah this is an entirely new thing. So this is Zelda as a main character, not a side character. And you're specifically only playing as Zelda and doing Zelda stuff. um And the echoes of wisdom is you basically get a power where You get the copy objects, and once you've copied the object, you have it in your thing forever. gottra um So you have like a certain resource. I'm just going to call them pips. I'm not sure what it actually is, but different items will cost a different amount of pips. okay um But then you're using those to either fight enemies,
00:11:16
Speaker
So like you'll summon like the the Kree like the little bats and they will go and fight and if one of them dies, you're like, I'm going to summon it again. ah So it's kind of cool. Like you're basically playing like a little necromancer almost going around, but then also you might need to solve puzzles.
00:11:33
Speaker
um i'm sure you saw the bed thing in the trailer where zelda needs to cross this gap and just did like a stack of beds that ascended and just kind of like jumped across it that's an example of a puzzle solving but I'm really enjoying it. It's been so good. Yeah. Well, i'm I'm glad to hear it. You mentioned going around like a necromancer, and that's where I that's where I started trying to like interrupt you like rudely. um Be very funny if Zelda just had access to necromancy for the entire adventure. They were just like, yeah, we're just re we're rebranding Zelda. The wisdom was all under necromancy, apparently. Yeah.
00:12:17
Speaker
um But yeah I think for that reason that Because I know you like to play as an necromancer in games. That's true. Because we share that edge of the Lordiness a little bit But I think you would like that aspect of it and Yeah, yeah, I kind of also you can Like, let's say you spawned in ah a goblin or a moblin, whatever they're called. um And you're like, oh, that's I didn't want to I want to spawn him closer and he's not really noticing the enemy. You can just pick him up, throw him. Get over there. No, that's kind of incredible. So is it like you mentioned the pips? Is it like that's kind of your your budget for solving puzzles and stuff? Like here are the number of active entities you can be creating or summoning at one time.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yes. And then it's going to overwrite the last one. Gotcha. Gotcha. So I think starting out in the game, you have three pips. Currently I have four. I know that number goes up because I explored some places I shouldn't have and found some things that cost six. wo That's pricey. Yeah. Inflation in Hyrule.
00:13:24
Speaker
um It is cool, though. Like, ah I wasn't sure exactly. but The first time I saw this, I wasn't sure what to expect because there's kind of like there's different directions they can take for Zelda as a character. Right. Like, Sheik is kind of the cop out sort of thing. It's like we still want to make an action game. So Zelda Sheik for this one. Right.
00:13:45
Speaker
um I guess spoilers for ocarina of time was close to it. I think it was like 98 or 97 something like that um But no it's like since then She's done some things, I guess, but like Zelda and Peach, I think is kind of like the correlation. Peach has done a lot more in the games than like Zelda has. Yes. um So I was kind of curious to see what her kit would be, like what direction that they go with this. um I mean, yeah, I never would have guessed this. um But yeah, it's just it's been,
00:14:28
Speaker
Very fun. Because one of the things I really enjoy about certain video games is when it gives the player a large tool set. It's like you figure it out. Right. Or like you don't really gain power as much as you gain more options. Exactly. Yeah. So like there was definitely a boss I encountered it at the end of a dungeon where I'm like,
00:14:55
Speaker
What if I use this and that didn't work out like, Hmm, what if I use this? Um, and I think a lot of it will work as far as if you think about how two things would interact naturally in the world. You're like, okay, this might make sense as something I could leverage. right Um,
00:15:14
Speaker
Or you can just keep spawning in people to attack and then just run around crazy crazily. Uh-huh. The intended way to play the game, obviously. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think it my my personal thought is all of this, this entire game just came from Zelda's down special in Smash. That's all. Oh, you summon a suit of armor? There you go. Her thing is somebody. No. That's all it's going to be.
00:15:39
Speaker
ah
00:15:41
Speaker
It is, it is good to see though. Um, I've seen some reviews of it where it's a more positive somewhere. It's like a little bit less positive, but I think that people that are more critical of it are people that are looking for more of like a traditional.
00:15:59
Speaker
um, Zelda game, um ironically, ah um, where you're playing as link and it's very action oriented. And that's kind of just the vibe you're going for and a little bit less using your brain beyond lighting some torches, moving a rock, something like that. Yeah, it's definitely not nonstop action, but it definitely has action in it. Okay. Yeah.
00:16:26
Speaker
But like old, old Zelda type, like I don't think it's going to be an insanely difficult game. Like I think it'll be. It's a game for kids. Yeah, it's made by Nintendo, right? Yeah. Like we've talked about no one for just difficulties.
00:16:45
Speaker
making things hard versus making a fun experience. right and That's what this has been. You haven't found Emerald Weapon yet is what you're saying. it's like The number of beds that you bring in the fight, for each bed you take 10,000 damages to start it up. One thing I thought was cute.
00:17:02
Speaker
um And I didn't realize it until I was just kind of goofing around. If you summon a bed and you're not at full health, you can lay down in the bed. Okay. It will recover half a heart. Oh, that's amazing. And then I can get out of the bed and get back in the bed.
00:17:19
Speaker
That's it's not the the most efficient way to heal by any means but it is an option that kind of reminds me of like Kirby crystal shards um Electric and ice to make like the refrigerator. I'm pretty sure it was electric and ice that's to make the refrigerator and You're just like, oh, what's your power? Well, the door opens and food just flings out and you can just go grab it It's very funny But I'm glad that they're mixing it up. I do recommend it. I think it's going to be a highly talked about game at least. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's good to see Nintendo kind of continuing to to diversify it a little bit here. Cause I mean, like the, the main line in quotes, Zelda games are definitely the, the open world ones right now. Um, but they're not the only series, right? They've been, they've been doing remakes. They've been making, um, some of these smaller games are doing some of the traditional stuff. Um, and they're really good. Like they're really good classic RPGs.
00:18:24
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes I just want a straightforward, tighter experience. So on like one of the reasons I never got into Breath of the Wild is just thinking about, oh, I have to go explore and find stuff. And then you realize it's going to be a time sink. Even if you're enjoying it, it's just sometimes there's that mental hurdle of I know it's going to be a long thing and I need to. Mm hmm.
00:18:49
Speaker
grind through it or whatever yeah if it's not as moment to moment something like Baldur's Gate 3 I think really Keeps your attention all the time, right? There's always something right in front of you for you to do there's still decisions to be made but the decisions are right in front of you. It's not go somewhere else. and make I don't have to explore in Baldur's Gate 3 to find like a puzzle that I would then solve to get like a fourth of a heart, you know? Right. yeah I mean, there's a little bit of a cheap shot. Some other rewards are worth it, but other times, yes. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that like in an open world thing like that, that could be something that I would spend time doing.
00:19:30
Speaker
And it's fair to say that open world games oftentimes dilute the experience or the rewards because they need to populate the open world. um I think the Zelda games do a decent job of avoiding that.
00:19:47
Speaker
But not always. So it's definitely something they need to be on the lookout for. But I'm there with you. I know a friend of the show and special guest, Ian. He also doesn't get into the the open world um Zelda games, and he loves the traditional Zelda games. So like I get that. I completely get it. um For me, I'm on like kind of the opposite side of the the the street where I'm like,
00:20:16
Speaker
literally just driven by curiosity, I guess, in these games. And I'm just like, oh, that's weird. Like, what's over there? Can I go over there? Can I do this? I was like, oh, I catch on fire if I enter this area. I bet I can figure that I can come up with a solution to that and things like that. And that's that's the way that they want you to play. But if you can't get into that headspace, you're going to have a bad time. Like, it's not the game for you. And I'm never going to say that it says immediately action packed as like a more linear type experience. Yeah.
00:20:46
Speaker
and they knew it, right? Like that's the reason that they have dungeons and things like that. There's like three or four of them, I think, four of them for ah Breath of the Wild. And it's literally like, how do we get our open world player into this and like balance everything and not make it broken? And we have no idea when they arrive either, right? This could be the first thing they do. So, um harder, but.
00:21:12
Speaker
Yeah, definitely hard to balance and manage that experience. I mean, I'm not technically forced into a linear thing in this game. Right. um It will have kind of like guideposts as far as like, here's the next quest marker. I don't have to go over there. But if I want to progress in the natural path for like the next step of the main mission, that's where I go. Exactly. Like you mentioned that there was a ah six pip type scenario where it's like, OK, that summon this, you need to have these resources or whatever. And that's the way you would traditionally kind of gate in a Zelda game. It's just like, oh, you just do not have the tool for this yet. um You don't have the hook shot. You don't have the fire arrows, the light arrows, whatever bombs or something. um i I will say, as a ah brief spoiler, for anybody who wants to abuse getting around, I have found that the water block is really strong. Nice. Ride the wave. Be the Zora.
00:22:09
Speaker
You just keep putting it in the same place and it stacks, and then you have this water elevator. It helps a lot. These are the Minecraft strats, basically. Yeah. That's great. We definitely recommend checking that out. I do want to ask, is there anything else in September that you were like, whoo.
00:22:30
Speaker
I've had, i so I don't think I bought anything in September, which I'll open with that. There were a lot of games that I'm tracking to some extent and I have thoughts on, but I'm not going to come at them from a review perspective. brown Like.
00:22:47
Speaker
space marine 2 warhammer 40k space marine 2 it was on your list it's on mine um i think i think it's good the impressions i've gotten have been that it's good i just am not in a place where i want to play it yet and i'm basically kind of waiting for a sale yeah that's fair but i know somebody else who can check it out and it's very much that up their alley so i think they really enjoyed it um But I feel like for the average person, if you're not into Warhammer, it might be a bit of a jump. Right. Yeah, I don't think it's a tremendously long game. And it's also one of the games where almost all of the content you can do like co-op. And so we've said it before, kicking like a rock in a back alley would be fun in co-op. But if the game is good, it'll be even better in co-op a lot of the times, unless it's horror. And so, yeah, it's got plenty of good impressions. It's not on a
00:23:42
Speaker
I saw the reviews I'm no longer interested list. It's I'm I'm playing other games. I'll come back to it when it's on sale. I'll try to coordinate with one other person picking it up so we can play through together. Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
um clearly it's not me otherwise he would have phrased that differently well i was just i'm just leaving options open in case you want to play with someone else um but yeah that's that was one of the ones on my list uh the other one that was worth mentioning i think was satisfactory 1.0 this is kind of a I'm not playing it. I own it. This one I own. So I have even less excuses to not be playing it right now, but um they have their official launch after an eternity, basically in early access, but not like.
00:24:33
Speaker
ah seven days to die in time. um And I really enjoyed all the time that I was playing previously in the game and I expect that there's even more of that from what I've seen. So I'm glad that they ah they were able to launch it.
00:24:49
Speaker
Um, but I know that you don't like dip your toe into a logistics crafting game I will say like I don't think I Was ever gonna be somebody who liked anything like that. Mm-hmm. Because i'd watch people play factory i'm like this is boring as shit to me but for whatever reason with satisfactory it has enough of I can kind of do like my idle button mashing like I can run around my factory and kind of like jump on the it's gonna say the treadmill the conveyor belts that are moving these resources to move from like one point in the base to another point in the base or a remote site yeah um and I do like
00:25:32
Speaker
some of that problem solving of, oh, I need to generate these to get to the next tier of technology, more to build a certain thing. How do I do that? OK, how do I do that faster or better? Oh, I might have to redesign part of my base. I might have to go grab another node, make sure I have enough iron production, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, it it definitely got its hooks in me when I played.
00:25:58
Speaker
um I don't think I have a current interest in necessarily going back for 1.0, but I will say it is a very, very good game. Yeah, very good. And you you hit on the thing that I think Satisfactory does, that like Factorio does not, which is like how it feels to move around.
00:26:19
Speaker
like matters and satisfactory as part of it is because it's a first-person perspective versus like just like a top-down but they recognize that it's just actually super fun to make a a launch tube that's just like a vacuum that propels you out the other side right like I was watching Ian play and he made like a launch belt off of some flying factory. He essentially has above the ground that took him across the map with like a jet pack and it was like feathering the jet pack. He could make it to another platform on the opposite side of the world, basically. And it's like, yeah, you can't do that. In fact, that's very fun. It's kind of like it's a little bit of a roller coaster simulator. Do you remember Line Rider?
00:27:06
Speaker
Yes, I do actually remember Line Rider. So it it kind of gives me some of those vibes where like you'd make this really fun jump. So like there are specific things you can make um for these launch tubes like it's built into the game. It's like, oh, I landed here. OK, if I'm going to land here, this would be the next part that I'm going to build. And then you have like this giant. I wouldn't call it a.
00:27:35
Speaker
God, I'm blanking on the name. What is the... A Rude Goldberg machine? Oh, a Rube. Yeah, Rude Goldberg machine. No, Rude. Rude Goldberg. Oh, Rude Goldberg, yeah. He comes in, he doesn't compliment my monster. He breaks a bunch of stuff but ah starting with one item and then leaves. There goes that Rude Goldberg again.
00:27:57
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's just it's that thing of like, OK, this brings me here. I'm going to connect and keep building off of this. Yeah. and Until you have this giant like, hey, come check this. And then you have like a two minute line writer video for your friend to watch. Exactly. Yeah, it just feels cool to interact with the environment, um terraform a little bit, make your base, design your base.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, there is a a wealth of content in that game where I feel like you could get somebody that game and that could be their only game. ah They could never get around to Skyrim. Like, you know of there was a LAN party in the past and we got a particular person to play Factorio.
00:28:48
Speaker
And like a year passed and we came back to land party and that person was still playing factorial. I wasn't sure who you met when you started it. And then I connected the dots. oh yeah And it's like. That is these are very similar games, right? Like in many ways, but factorial is the pure logistics and sort of simulation. And because it is not it's lower res, it's top down, it's all this stuff.
00:29:16
Speaker
um If you're in it just for the logistics, it's the better game, in my opinion. It just is. just it But if you like seeing the monstrosity, the the the very affront to the nature that God has provided, then, like, satisfactory is unbeatable for that. Like, you you see the Borg cube and know that inside of it is all of your sins. All of the spaghetti. Yeah.
00:29:45
Speaker
yeah it's
00:29:49
Speaker
It's always interesting to measure like the mental point of where you stop, Karen. Because I think early on, you're like, oh, I want to make this look nice. And you're like, well, I just got to connect to one thing. And then you have like all these wires crossing. You're like, where the fuck does this connect to? And then you lose power for something. You're like, who's draining extra power? And just, I don't know, all of that stuff feels a lot more active because you're in that first person space and you can see it. Yeah, it's not like a little PNG. g That's like six by six pixels. That's like blinking. Exactly. Like it's ah it's a whole thing that you see the power switch flip or whatever. But it's a good game. ah If you were interested in this, you probably already own it. um It's been around for a long time. But if not, there you go. One point of the launch. Check
Game Reviews and Critiques
00:30:38
Speaker
it out. It'll probably be on sale for the holidays.
00:30:40
Speaker
Uh, was there anything else for September that really stood out to you? Uh, so I feel like I should mention the plucky squire. Um, cause I did purchase it. I did play it. I did beat it. It is very good. Um, those were three facts and two of them related to the game. I will say the, so the overall synopsis is.
00:31:04
Speaker
ah Basically, you're a character in a story. um It's like a 2D world. And basically, like you're going through the pages to like the next thing that happens. um and Blah, blah, blah. Major event happens, and the story changes. And you basically get to leverage the third dimension as part of your puzzle solving.
00:31:28
Speaker
So it's really fun in that aspect. Again, I really like the the toy ish aesthetic. Right. It is very much has nostalgic like playing with toys and reading I spy books vibe. um The only downside I would say with it is it felt a little short for me. Gosh, like I kind of wish they would have added a little bit more. But do you recall how long it was?
00:31:58
Speaker
Ruffler.
00:32:01
Speaker
I want to say somewhere between like six to eight. Yeah, that's which that's not bad. I mean, for a single player RPG type game, though, that's pretty short. Like, that's what I expect for Call of Duty single player campaign. Like, I kind of wish that it would have grown a little bit more as far as like maybe adding some more mechanics, right more areas um or having some other like sub sub games. Mm hmm.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah, because I really liked all the stuff that they experimented with. I just I wanted more of it. That's how much I enjoyed it. Yeah, I wanted more in that space. Right.
00:32:39
Speaker
sometimes games overstay their welcome. So it's not the worst thing either to like to go out while people are still interested. But sometimes you you've also got the friend that's like, I know that there's more ideas in there, right? Like I can crack your skull. Like they're going to come out. um I think that's the expression.
00:32:59
Speaker
But I could also see if I wanted to introduce somebody to gaming, I'm not going to put them into Elden Ring. I'm going to put them into something a little more inoffensive and fun. And I think this really fits that very well.
00:33:15
Speaker
That's fair. That is fair. Yeah, I got to see Dave play this game a bit and it did look very compelling. I like some of the humor. I like the dialogue and some of those characters. It was very witty. It seemed like for the ideas that were in play, they were all very sharp. Yes. There wasn't there wasn't a lot of of ah fat on the bone in this game. it was It knew what it was doing and put you right into it.
00:33:40
Speaker
Um, so that's pretty good. Yeah. I know you've been looking forward to this one too, for a while. So glad it got to see it's uh, it's, it's 1.0 and glad it finally got released. Hey, we live in a world with, uh, Duke, Newcomb forever. Anything gets released. sick yes That's true.
00:34:01
Speaker
The other one, if I could steal the mic again, go for yeah I played the demo of this, but tiny glade. Okay. I don't think it's a huge release by any means. It's very much like a an indie developer, but it's like a small little space that you get. I think it actually is specifically using tilt shift um camera. Gotcha. But you get to basically take or essentially build a small little scene. Like you can do some stuff with terraforming, putting flowers,
00:34:38
Speaker
Uh, change the day night cycle. Oh, but basically it's kind of like building like your own little diorama. Okay. And I think it's very much supposed to be for chillaxing. Gotcha. Like it's a little fun thing to design, but like it's not anything overly grand or intricate, but like you could mess around with it and be like, Oh, this is nice. I feel good about this. I'm going to look at this later. Right.
00:35:06
Speaker
And the only criticism I've really seen of it so far is just that it felt a little small to some people. the The glade was actually too tiny. Right. You wanted to do more with it. Or or in just like a bigger area, like maybe making a small village um versus just a scene. butm Right.
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's there's clearly an interest in like this type of game, chill games in general, but also like designing games, things like that. like People put time into Animal Crossing. People put time into The Sims.
00:35:43
Speaker
like
00:35:45
Speaker
Legitimately, just designing in games is a perfectly valid way to go about it, and it's a perfectly well valid way to get a player base. Yes. up The combination of chill plus design is probably the right call. But this is something that again, if you're like, I don't know, it's not crazily expensive, but hey, there also is a free demo. That is really nice. And free demos are great for dipping your toes in the water without any financial responsibility. I really am a proponent of demos. Like some of the games I've played that have had demos recently are closer to like the boomer shooter types and things like that. and
00:36:26
Speaker
I don't understand why demos went away. It's like, I don't know if people were afraid that if they played it, they'd be like, oh, this game's not for me, therefore I won't buy it. So much more often it's like I play a game, I play the demo and I'm like, okay, I see what you're cooking, right? Like I know i know what you got going on here. And then I would turn around and and buy it where I might've been on the fence before actually playing the demo. So so this technically wasn't a demo's, I guess it was a demo.
00:37:00
Speaker
Get your stories traded. Before Nier Automata had fully released, ahha um our friend Shane was like, oh, come over. There's this. I think I'm just going to call it a demo. I remember what else it would have been. But it's just like the first section of the game. Right. And I didn't know what to expect at all.
00:37:21
Speaker
And I had a good time and it really blew my expectations out of the water. I'm like, this is cool as shit. I'm waiting. Very excited it for the game to release. And then it did. And it was awesome. It's my favorite and I love it. um But yeah, that whole interest hook was solely because I got to try some of the stuff early versus.
00:37:42
Speaker
trying to guess off of the back of a box that has two paragraphs and like four pictures. Is this for me? Right. Yeah. Thankfully, we live in a um modern day of technology where you're probably going to look up a YouTube video of somebody playing it. Maybe you watch somebody stream it on Twitch for a little bit to see if it's your type of thing. Right. But. Yeah, I do miss having that as an option for games. Yeah, I'm kind of curious. It's.
00:38:13
Speaker
I'm not entirely certain why they fell out of favor, right? Cause there was a time where demos were very prevalent in like the, um, what was the term for it? Shareware, shareware days where it's like, oh, everyone basically has access to the full version of the game on a floppy disk or something like that. But if you want to get past the first level, you have to unlock it by mailing five bucks to this address and they'll mail you back a code or something like that. um And in those days, like everything was basically a demo almost by necessity and how things could be distributed.
00:38:51
Speaker
And then you get to like where CDs and things were out and you're like, okay, well if you're buying your games at Walmart, it's hard to get a demo because like you either buy the game or you don't have it, right? Yeah. Um, and then we got to like digital distribution, which you think would be perfect for demos because like there's no barrier of entry at all to trying to sell somebody through a demo. Um,
00:39:19
Speaker
You can just do it, right? They're just there on Steam. You can search for demos, I think, on Steam. I think, honestly, for... I'm going to make a ah vague blanket statement of every game because I can't think of a counter example. But just have like the first 20 minutes or the first mission or the first chunk of something where it makes sense. Like it's not cutting off mid-dialogue. Like we hit that 20 minute mark. yeah You'll never know what King Xerxes was going to say next. But... just having like a small thing of like, hey, this is kind of the vibe. Right. Because if I was interested enough to download and play the demo, I'm probably going to be interested in the game unless there's something severely glaring in the demo. Like, oh, it's very buggy. Oh, this is being misrepresented. Something else. And there's a little bit of like, you know, how people can like plead the fifth and it's a very important right in the United States.
00:40:16
Speaker
but there's a little bit of a perception that if you plead the fifth, people are gonna think you're guilty. It's like, if you had the option to make a demo and games start releasing demos again, and you just kind of choose not to, it's gonna be like, okay, well, you just don't have any faith in your game, right? You want me to just ground floor open up by spending money, which I guess is the argument against demos in the modern space is like, in Steam, you get two hours to return a game. So you could just buy the full game and then return it.
00:40:45
Speaker
But I'll be honest, even for me, maybe I'm just an old man. um That's not the way I think about buying and playing games on Steam. I'm not like, oh, I could refund this in two hours. I'll just try it like a demo, right?
00:40:57
Speaker
Um, my brain still wants to filter into the demo space. If I'm going to do that, I get that because it feels back when I sold knives, uh, for cut Co don't do that. Anybody at please find a more normal means of getting income. But.
00:41:17
Speaker
I remember I sold to a family who I knew. I was like, oh, cool, like I'm going to be getting this is my commission, blah, blah, blah. I felt very cool. And then I found out later that they rescinded their purchase or they got it refunded.
00:41:36
Speaker
Cause either maybe financially something changed for them or they're like, we were doing it to be nice and it's not actually something we want to spend money on whatever it was. It felt shitty in the moments. Right. So I wouldn't want someone to be like, Oh, I bought your game. It's like, the new hit with yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, um,
00:42:01
Speaker
Uh, freaking Concord, right? Not that everything comes back to Concord. That wasn't September news, but that's the most extreme example of that. I can imagine when you're publisher, it's like, Hey, we're going to give everyone their money back. Um, but, but yeah, that's our our mini demo discussion. I, um,
00:42:23
Speaker
I'm a fan. More games should have them. Definitely. I have a couple things I wanted to mention that had come out um last month. Again, haven't played them. So one of them was the casting of Frank Stone, which I have to mention as a Dead by Daylight aficionado. I think I have two minutes of play time to redeem a code.
00:42:45
Speaker
Um, but I've watched so much gameplay and that is basically this game is what it looks like. Like it's a different type of game, but it's sort of like a pre cursor to the setup for dead lit by daylight. It seems like, like it's an origin story, I guess is the term I'm trying to say. Um,
00:43:08
Speaker
And they tried to kind of make it its own thing, but it's absolutely chock full of like fourth wall breaking references to just the game itself. And um I watched popular streamer Otstarva go through it and he was just like, I hate i hate this. He was like, I really just wanted to play a game that could stand on its own merits. And it's just constantly tearing itself down because it can't escape its source material.
00:43:36
Speaker
the It also has it falls into that old decision-making trap in games where it's like Clementine will remember this or whatever right but like none of your decisions really matter like you could Despite how far it looks like everything branches, it's just like someone else will be in this position to say this line, right? yeah Someone else will be the old mentor in Act 2, depending on your choices in Act 1. I don't like the the illusion of choice and lawsuits.
00:44:09
Speaker
a part of the game design ahhu like where you find out oh none of this matters and here's why and it's important to the story or integral um because otherwise i just feel like i'm being cheated yeah Like if you said, like, Dave, which top should I wear, the pink or the red? And I'm like, the red. And then you're wearing the pink. I'm like, why the fuck did you ask me then? Uh-huh. Exactly. If my opinion doesn't actually matter, just tell me what's happening now. I was just here to hurt you, Dave. I was going to pick whatever you don't pick.
00:44:42
Speaker
um Yeah, it's it's very kind of it's very egregious like he went back and did a lot of different decisions and it has the option for like the collector's edition or something to actually jump to a point in the story and change the line you're basically on and that I gotta give him credit, like that is a ballsy move to do if your game decisions don't actually matter, right? Allow people to skip around and see it. um yeah But yeah, it is, it is really, it is unfortunate because it did look pretty and it is a cool, we're, we're like you said, we're approaching Halloween, right? Like it's a great time for a Halloween story and
00:45:28
Speaker
The world building for Dead by Daylight is actually pretty slasher-fic awesome. um But this game made it, chief. That was my take, as someone who hasn't played it, but watch the one else play it. I think if you launch as far as i getting in the vibe for what it is, ah what is the gameplay like? Is it like Dead by Daylight, or is it just like a third person? It's a lot closer to like Life is Strange or the Telltale games and things like that.
00:45:54
Speaker
Oh, it's like there are mo without jumping into spoilers. There are two main like time frames. There's something back in like it was like the 80s or something like that. And then present day. um And you play as two different groups um or some of the same people, depending on what you're doing. um And shenanigans and Sue kind of haunted how sort of set up and stuff like that. But If I didn't have the context of you saying the casting of Frank Stone, I'd be like, is he just talking about it? yeah He's talking about it. Uh huh.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah, it's also kind of a, it is a pun because cast is stone, right? But also Frank Stone, like involvement with film is a big part of it from like a plot perspective. So there's like literally four layers of puns. Also casting, like you're casting iron. Uh-huh. Yep. And that's, that's also ah one of the early scenes in it. Like the introductory scene involves like a smeltery. So.
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah, they pretty much took as many angles as they could on that in English and we're like, yep, all of these, all of these entendres. Frank, he's going to be direct. Uh-huh, exactly. Which is unfair um unfortunate because like on first playthrough, if you think that your decisions matter, it is actually a more compelling game.
00:47:26
Speaker
but as soon as you peer behind the curtain and you realize that it's like actually this flat, there it goes, right, so. Unfortunate. Imagine if the Telltale games were like that. o Yeah. Everybody decided this, though it didn't matter. I mean, that was that was kind of the issue I had with Walking Dead. is It's like, I saved this guy. And the game's like, all right, well, we're going to kill him off by the end of the chapter, because we're not having this we're not having your choice carry through two chapters. That's insane, right? We're not going to do that. I mean, I i don't hate that.
00:48:04
Speaker
I mean, I would definitely appreciate some some of the things were a lot longer lasting, like, oh, I want to keep this person in the the party throughout the story. I'm always going to try and save them for stuff.
00:48:16
Speaker
um But maybe there is like a a good story reason for why that character dies off and it just. You constantly put in new situations with new people and you're like, how do I try and to be a good human while also protecting my own and surviving through the apocalypse day zombies? Right. I mean, it is just it's just so much more impactful. I know it comes down to like budgetary concerns and things like that, but like it is so much more impactful when you know that the choices matter. Right. Like poop on them for many, many things, but
00:48:55
Speaker
Bioware Mass Effect. You could lose Ashley or Caden in Mass Effect 1, and that choice of which one to let die persists through the entire game, and they don't kill off the other one just cause, right? like um And then Mass Effect 3 can have everyone in it, basically, that I remember at least, but at the ending for Mass Effect 2, you could be the sole survivor, right? So like, it's a very, I have to assume, barren game if all of your companions have died. And so like, imagine like pre-mission, you're just kind of like on the spaceship, you're like,
00:49:40
Speaker
yeah uh-huh yeah just just popping his bubble gum and uh reading a book if i remember correctly that was literally the criteria for shepherd dying at the end of mass effect two is if none of your other squad mates made it and it's like we're not letting you go with literally zero here is the canonical end like you can't import the save game to mass effect three um Because you let them you let everyone die. But if you get like one person through, then you're good. um and Very funny.
00:50:14
Speaker
um Yeah, so that was casting the Frank Stone. And the other one, and the last one I think I have on my list to mention was Starfield. It's DLC came out ah called Shattered Space. And I have read some impressions of it, some reviews and stuff like that. And my understanding is it changes nothing. The most, can now I think it's, I think it's mostly negative right now on Steam was my understanding.
00:50:44
Speaker
Uh, which is not, you know, what you want if you think that you're a good developer. Um, sorry about that. But like mostly negative and the positive ones were still like, you will like this if you liked starfield, right? But it's not moving the needle at all.
00:51:07
Speaker
that's yeah i think i mean granted i'm biased but like i really like how from soft does dlc because you you know it's going to be new content yeah you know that's going to add a bunch of other stuff it's going to add a lot to the lore and it gets you excited from when it comes out because there's all this new stuff in it it's not Oh, hey, we, uh, we're reusing this one area. We're putting in a different MPZ and he's going to give you a specific me mission to go collect. No, Kermit. No, this far and no further. I'm not sure why like my, uh, my triple A voice goes through Kermit.
00:51:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, from from what I saw, so it introduces, it takes one of the factions in the game and basically gives them their home world and there's quests and stuff around that. but the issue is really is that it's all just taking place in Starfield, right? Like, that's kind of the problem. There's no new area. It's just, well, there is, but the game is still Starfield. That's kind of the, that's kind of it. Cause the issue with Starfield at launch, is it just kind of like it felt like,
00:52:23
Speaker
It was all procedurally generated outside of like the set pieces. And there was so much you could do, but how much of it really mattered? And there there was like all these kinds of critiques. It just felt felt like there wasn't that much weight behind anything that you did.
00:52:40
Speaker
um And so this DLC is kind of undercut right out the gate because yes, they give you a new home world. It actually gives you like bespoke locations and stuff like that, but you're still fighting the enemies in starfield. You're still talking to NPCs in starfield. Like these systems are still critiqued for the way that they were implemented. Right. So.
00:53:03
Speaker
From that perspective, how could they do better unless they literally just give it like a reboot type situation where it's like, oh, you know, all your gear is stolen and now it's a rogue like, and we made the combat different. Like, right? Like they couldn't really do that, but I feel like you probably should at least try and improve on some stuff. That's probably it. Yeah. Like if your horse riding was really buggy,
00:53:29
Speaker
Maybe fix it in the dlc if you're not gonna patch the base game Um And you called it out something that's the that's that's what people wanted Was for people who played starfield and were like all of this stuff is mediocre and mediocre just does not pass in 2024 Which is pretty much where I was and I put like 100 hours in the starfield like I put a lot of time in that game but I was still like at the end of it, I was like, I have given it a fair shake. No one can claim that I have not. So much of this stuff is mediocre and undercut by its other systems and stuff like that. And what people wanted was they wanted a reason to come back to Starfield and discover that it was actually a good game or that it had become a good game, right? ah They were looking for the,
00:54:21
Speaker
What's the Sean Murray game? No Man's Sky. No Man's Sky. Now granted, that was the base game. And they just kept updating it. Yeah, they didn't charge anybody for the fixes to that one. Yeah. And that changed a lot over time. And they did listen to community feedback.
00:54:41
Speaker
um But also, like it's Bethesda. And I don't know what you expect. I know. yeah I feel like. You keep voting for like the same politician who never supports any of the policies. He's going to learn. He's going to learn.
00:55:00
Speaker
And yeah, it's literally the same thing every time. It's just a different flavor. It's the same thing with like Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty. Like they're not needle pushing studios. They're never going to try and do something beyond their means. They're not going to experiment and fail. Yeah. They're going to be like, this is what we've done. People like this enough. We're going to keep, I mean, Pokemon as well, right?
00:55:28
Speaker
I mean, I'm glad they did get into more of a 3D space and they are doing more with that. um I still feel like they have a ways to go ah to be a little actually modern and not right have things run like shit, but.
00:55:45
Speaker
i think I think Starfield for me pretty much lines up to what you're saying, right? You're the friend who I'm like the addict that keeps going back to something that doesn't help me. And it's not improving my life at all. But I feel like it's going to be different this time or something. But like even for me, like,
00:56:05
Speaker
Like there was stuff in Fallout 4 that I thought was absolutely the wrong direction from Bethesda. And then I was like, but I think the combat's way better, right? I think the combat's way better than it was in Fallout 3 or Fallout New Vegas, just cause like it's more like an action game. It feels more like a shooter, right? It was, it was legitimate improvement in that space. I liked the settlements and stuff like that. And then like Starfield came out and I was like every piece of this,
00:56:35
Speaker
is just the incestuous offspring of the last two to three games that you've made. Like almost every piece of this, like, and not in a, there was a genetic mutation and now they have superpowers ways, like, like old royalty ways where you hide the child away because they're a cripple. yeah And like the light of the sun burns them because their capillaries are visible through their skin. And it's like, can we do something else? Right? Yeah. it's
00:57:10
Speaker
Again, I'm always going to tout from soft. ah Love them. Love them to death. Definitely biased. But. Prepared when you're saying it's like the incestuous ah child of like the several previous games. Yeah. Elden Ring did do that to a degree, but I think they kind of.
00:57:32
Speaker
picked mechanics that they experimented with and like, oh, this is good. This works as far as like the verticality in Sekiro. um Power stancing from Dark Souls 2, which is the only good thing to come out of it. Whoa, there's build diversity in Dark Souls 2. Heck but hex builds, Dave. Don't even exist in the other series. Anyways, that's true.
00:57:54
Speaker
Adaptability doesn't either crazy but but I feel like they basically Learned and we're looking to improve each way and it sounds like Bethesda at least through the Fallout games Has not done it that much Mm-hmm cuz like 76 was after Fallout 4. Yeah, 76 was their most recent game my understanding before Starfield But like did they actually add stuff or like, oh, this was really good. Everyone liked this in Fallout 3. Did it actually carry over as far as a system or mechanic? I mean, I i i only played Fallout 76 for like two weeks, but they had a couple new ideas and then they just like threw so much stuff away.
00:58:40
Speaker
But that game was almost fundamentally like undercut by the fact that they made it multiplayer. Right. They really were making a live service game regardless of what it costs. Right. Like people are falling off the wagon. It's just like negative 30 degrees temperature. And like the Donner Party is not going to make it, guys. like We're not going to make it. And I'm fine if the Donner Party doesn't make it.
00:59:05
Speaker
um but But yeah, it was it was severely undercut. And the good ideas that they had were pretty much undermined. And that's the same issue, honestly, that Starfield has. Because if a Bethesda employee was right here, they'd be like, Fallout 4 didn't have shipbuilding. Skyrim didn't have shipbuilding. I'd be like, technically correct. However, what does shipbuilding actually do for me in this game? Yeah, I can make a colony.
00:59:32
Speaker
It's literally entirely replaced by me just hitting the wait 24 hours button next to a vendor that will sell me everything that I want without building a colony, right? like it's They just are constantly shooting themselves in both feet.
00:59:47
Speaker
as fast as they can while trying to move forward. like I have so many expressions. they're in it Some people say they smell their own farts. right That's kind of the expression for they really like their own ideas. yeah um They have suffocated in a chamber, a compression chamber of their own farts at this point. like I apparently feel strongly about this.
01:00:10
Speaker
i Most of Howard is very much a promoter. um And that's kind of it. Yeah, I mean, I can't even just blame. I wish I could blame it all on him, right? He could just be the scapegoat for the entire thing. And to a certain nice extent, yes, be responsible. You're in leadership. But.
01:00:34
Speaker
it's also so It also seems to be a company where they said in an interview that it took them like six years of development before they found the fun in Starfield.
01:00:46
Speaker
What does that mean? How did you work on something for six years before you determined whether it was fun or not? You're not making a game, you're making a PowerPoint presentation or something. Like what is this, right? you know like yeah Could you think of starting a game with ah but an idea that was so bad that it wasn't fun after six years?
01:01:08
Speaker
No. ah Yeah, I feel like successful games or successful game studios are like, this is the fun part. We want to make something around this. Exactly. And then they will occasionally be like, hey, are we still on course? Oh, as the idea evolved into this. Right. Can we add to it or did we go too far off course? And it's not what we're originally intending or something's detracting from it.
01:01:37
Speaker
Do we make it more or less fun once we started tacking things onto it? Exactly. Instead of like, we have a monolith. How do we like, how do we just pump fun into this to make it good? Give people a reason to do this. Oh, it's a space monolith. Oh, that's not bad. That's good. Yeah, that's a good reference.
01:02:00
Speaker
um So anyways b base game was mediocre. That's my review. I don't know if you ever had an episode on starfield, but there you go Base game was mediocre. Glad I played it on game pass Glad I don't have to play the DLC nor do I feel compelled to because I don't own the base game. So Sorry, Bethesda do better Agreed But if you guys want to do better, and there was there anything else that you want to cover?
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:02:28
Speaker
Is that it? or Can we ship September? I'm good. All right. I appreciated your your transition. We'll do what we can. ah But if you guys have better ideas, honestly, just send us the ideas for what you want Bethesda to do and we'll forward them because they have to be listening at this point to us. Obviously, we're very respected in the industry.
01:02:51
Speaker
Soapstone Podcast at gmail dot.com or join the discussion on Facebook, which I think is the only place that they spend their time, probably based off of complete absence of feedback. Anyways, Facebook dot.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have have a good night. Wait, that was yours. OK, now you go. He's not going to say. Have a good night.