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BattleTech (2018) - Ep 90
33 Plays5 months ago
There have been many BattleTechs over the years, but this one is special, and it's the only one James has played so he's gonna talk about that one right now.
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Music is "Fork and Spoon" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Transcript
Introductions and Game Love
00:00:05
Speaker
What is happening? All my mech heads out there. What's up? It's me. I'm talking about fighting robots again. I'm James. That's Allison. I like the fighting robots. Hell yeah. In this house, we love and respect fighting robots.
00:00:24
Speaker
We love and respect Lancer. We love and respect Armored Core. And we're about to love and respect and a Hot New.
Getting into BattleTech
00:00:31
Speaker
And by Hot New, I mean pretty old in the grand scheme of things um game that I have been playing recently. um Actually, partly ah at as a request that that someone reached out a while ago and said, hey, because if you talked about this game, it was already on my docket before then. And it is a pretty It's it's a little unapproachable if I'm being entirely honest, I'm going to get into that. It is. It's something that you got to kind of like warm up to and and get used to. But if you do, it's it's definitely worth giving a try. I'm talking about Battle Tech Battle Tech.
00:01:09
Speaker
Which is ah that may ring a bell because I actually in the name of this episode, I'm probably going to have to specify I'm talking about the twenty eighteen video game battle tech developed by hair brain schemes published by Paradox Interactive. um It is but actually only on computers, only on PC, Mac and Linux. um It's not even really controller verified, so I don't know that a steam deck is going to handle it all that well.
00:01:39
Speaker
um It's probably doable, I'm sure, but um it is. and So so BattleTech, the video game from 2018, it's still perfectly playable and has had a couple updates since then.
BattleTech's Rich History
00:01:54
Speaker
That is actually based on a huge old like war gaming franchise that started back in 1984. If you can. Wow. We're talking ancient history.
00:02:07
Speaker
We're we're we're talking dinosaurs and cave people and the big bang practically. They have like TV's back then. They didn't. TV's did not exist in 1984. And you can quote me on that.
00:02:24
Speaker
Damn, that maybe that player was playing like a board game. Exactly. that that's the So this started long long before it was ever video games, although i I do. I remember coming across this earlier when I was getting ready for this episode, I couldn't find anything ah that really was that told the story again, so I don't know how true it is. But I want to say the original one of the original conceptions for maybe not the first battle tech game, but like one of the earlier battle tech games was basically, hey, we want to make this a really immersive like battling sim video game, but the technology is just not really there for it because it's 1984. And so that idea was kind of like co-opted into this like miniatures, like big sprawling map war game.
00:03:13
Speaker
Warhammer kind of style. Yeah, kind of similar vibes. They're originally actually called battle droids, which I thought was kind of fun. That's good. Yeah, but it was always the same franchise. But yeah, the the original game was, yeah, very, very Warhammer where you have like your little ah you you pilot. So, OK, in battle tech, you pilot battle mechs. And that's definitely not confusing.
Complexity and Gameplay Appeal
00:03:39
Speaker
And it's not going to get more confusing from there.
00:03:42
Speaker
ah So you have these battle mechs as well. Exactly. You shouldn't be. And if you are, shame on you. um No, absolutely not. i ah yeah so So in that original game, you had like, yeah, your little figures you put on a sheet. ah It was very complicated, very like punishingly random and very just like in depth, as was the style for a lot of those games at the time.
00:04:08
Speaker
because it was very much a like, this is for nerds, not in like the way you think of a nerd now, where it's like, oh, kind of like tapped into pop culture. No, this was for like grimy, sweaty, do not see the sun basement dwellers. Hell yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Just this a whole episode on World of Warcraft, my people. ah Exactly. This was for the mole people.
00:04:35
Speaker
um And it's it's kept a lot of that same feel through all its different iterations. There's been ah tabletop RPGs since then where there were um RPGs called Mech Warrior, which is the name of a pilot of a battle mech and was also the name of the RPG where you play as a Mech Warrior.
00:04:53
Speaker
um But there were also other RPGs that were just BattleTech and not Mech Warrior. There's also been a there was a collectible card game at one point. I don't know how long that one lasted, but it was a thing. um But there have been so many more iterations of the actual like minifigures war game itself.
00:05:11
Speaker
There have been so many video games before this too. There have been battle tech video games for like ah kind of strategy games, for sim games where you're an actual pilot, there's been mech warrior games where you're the actual pilot, um all all kinds of different ways that this franchise has been represented.
00:05:33
Speaker
And I am a much more recent inductee into this world here. um And I started a little bit with the the board game itself. It's been updated, kind of re-released and republished. um it It's evolved somewhat since the the original battle droids, but um not much, I have to say. Okay.
00:05:56
Speaker
um Or maybe it has, I'm not too familiar with with how all that works, but it it still very much has that feel of like an old time, like really needlessly complicated, randomized and kind of overly crunchy game that a lot of people love and a lot of other people are just like, how could this possibly be any fun?
00:06:17
Speaker
um The video game, the one I'm talking about today is a somewhat kind of simplification of that. It's still by no means a simple game. It keeps a lot of the same stuff, but it is a turn based strategy game, much like what you'd see um in a it kind of.
00:06:38
Speaker
I haven't played XCOM much, but there are a lot of similarities to XCOM there that I've seen people talking about. Some similar kind of approach where you have a you have a squad of four mechs and in in all of these games and all of these different the ways that you can interact with the franchise, but especially here as well.
00:07:00
Speaker
you You have these mechs that are different sizes. They they have different armor plating and ratings for their different pieces. um Some of them will have like arms or legs. Some of them won't. And some of them will have like one or the other. um There are all kinds of different weapons that you can have attached to your mech. You have heat sinks and other various parts that you have to worry about adding on as well, like different systems that come into play.
00:07:27
Speaker
And like I mentioned earlier, you have the actual mech warriors, the pilots that are in your mechs. In this game, those pilots have different um pretty pretty reduced, I believe, only like four different ah skills or or ability trees that they kind of pursue. um But they they do have different skills that you kind of level up and grow. And that leads to like how you use your mechs as well. um But all of that leads into this really clunky, like gritty, detailed strategy game.
00:07:57
Speaker
okay uh that this sounds stressful but also like really interesting like it i like ah a strategy game that has a lot of grit to it and having uh like an xcom style game, like whenever I was thinking, because I asked you a couple of questions about this before we started recording, um I was like, is it turn based? Like I was thinking of a different game that plays a lot differently than this sounds like it plays.
Challenges and Mechanics
00:08:27
Speaker
um i We ended up i it was a mecha simul fight, something like that. Simul tactics, mecha simul tactics, mecha simul tactics, which also looks like a fantastic sick haven't played it. but
00:08:38
Speaker
plays a little bit faster. um Much faster. I'm sure this is not a fast game. This seems to be a little bit more detailed and that is really interesting for me, especially for like, I've always liked the idea of Mecca, but like the idea of like piloting this giant suit to make it do anything, the number of like steps and little things that you have to like consider and think about.
00:09:03
Speaker
and Just have to be mind boggling for a machine of that size, but this is like the weird little like engineer ah ah the Brain and me of like I just It is a very large, very complex machine with so many moving parts and like keeping things from overheating or bursting at joints and like ah hydraulics and like whatever. There's a lot that has to go into that. A lot of thought and a lot of foresight that needs to go into piloting, something like that. so I've always been interested in and someone actually showing what that would be like, and this seems like it would be some somewhere near a
00:09:37
Speaker
the better simulation of what it would be like to actually try and pilot a giant Mecca. Yeah, exactly. And in that kind of that fits the vibes of this this game and this kind of world that you're in as well. It's a very it's a sci fi future, but very like industrial and kind of ah when when you talk about hard sci fi, this is one of the things that comes to mind.
00:10:00
Speaker
The mechs in this game are not like your Gundams or really your your armored core. It's not like these these fantastical, really super cool, like a ah whole lot of add ons, like moving at jet speeds and things like that. This is like if someone imagined like, OK, what if just like an M1 Abrams tank had legs?
00:10:22
Speaker
um and just kind of like built like something approaching a little bit more quote unquote realistic design. Like all the mechs you have, even the small fast ones are really just like clunky and rattling and like hissing steam out of their pneumatic joints and things. It's just it's a very chunky um and that's where that that kind of vibe fits into it here. So every part of it is like engineering level, like complex.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, my analogy for that is that like a Gundam or something along that lines would be like an iPhone and this is like a the Motorola bag phone, like the brick phone that like very first, like first gen where we're just getting into figuring out what this thing actually is and how they like function. we We're first, yeah first, maybe third gen Mecca, not like We've had Mecca for years and we know how this works. We're like, no, we're we're still like in the early days of like establishing our Mecca.
00:11:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think that may not even be necessarily fair because actually the the original mechs that they used in in some of the original material for BattleTech was just fully poached from other anime and properties that had kind of dubious trademarking on them. So they were in a a gray area where they could just kind of like take those designs and put them in here. um That got fixed pretty quickly.
00:11:48
Speaker
but um But yeah, so its it's not like this thing was like a new invention or anything, but it it was much more kind of grounded and less like fantasy fantastical. OK. But yeah, and that's that's what a lot of people want out of this kind of thing as well. um And the the gameplay really reflects that, too. You you were talking about like kind of imagining all the the different systems that go into this and oh, baby, it's that it's so.
00:12:17
Speaker
So your your mech will have different parts and pieces of it and it will have like the actual core that is that piece like you have your actual arm leg torso Shoulder whatever it may be um and then you have armor around that so you have to take into account how much healthier armor has versus the actual piece and Your parts will be differently armored depending on your orientation. So you can have a lot of armor. Most mechs are more heavily armored towards the front. um So you really want to make sure that you don't have your back to the enemy like you don't get snuck up on. Because if you do, guaranteed they're going to hit you hard a lot harder than they could if they were facing you from the f front.
00:12:56
Speaker
and your weapons can only fire in certain arcs. that You have like mostly forward-facing weapons, some side weapons. I don't know that there are many rear-facing weapons because, again, like your orientation matters a lot through all of this. Okay, I'm pan. Does that does that change anything? ah Fundamentally, yes. Okay.
00:13:17
Speaker
I can't tell you how because I didn't unlock that part of the game. You said orientation like three times. I was like really biting my lip not to make a gay joke. and Right. Yeah. Third time's a try. I couldn't help it any further. You were like, your orientation really matters and you don't want them to get behind you. I'm like,
00:13:36
Speaker
James, James, James. Listen, I know how it's I'm too lost in the sauce right now. You can't distract me with jokes like this. But because it's like, that's just one part of it. You also have to worry about, like I mentioned, managing your heat, every like attack you make, every weapon you fire, um you you can choose which of your weapon. You don't have to fire all of your weapons on a turn.
00:13:59
Speaker
And if you do, there's a good chance, depending on how you've built your mech, that it's going to take up more heat than you can recover. So you have to take into account, OK, how how much can I actually do in this turn without like damaging myself? Because the more heat you get, the the worse it'll affect you and things will start like malfunctioning. You'll be less effective. You can really damage yourself if you let your heat get too, too high.
00:14:23
Speaker
ah The terrain really strongly affects what you're having to do here. The this game, I mean, it's a very wonderful looking game. Like there's all these detailed maps that you go through all these missions with different set pieces, buildings, mountains, trees, like roads that you you think about. And all of those pieces of the terrain matter. Roads you can travel faster on. It takes less movement to or you you have more movement in a turn to to go over a road.
00:14:53
Speaker
um The different like trees and forests you can wander through give you cover so you're harder to hit. You also get ah harder to hit if you've moved a lot more on your turn. The more you move, the the higher your evasion is. um you If you stand in water, like if you get to a river or something and you stand in there, it will cool you. So you have to worry a lot less about your heat sinks. All few kinds of stuff like that.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's really there's there's so many little details that will make or break how successful you are in your mission. um Line of sight and knowing where an enemy is versus being able to see them is such a like important and kind of complicated aspect too, because even if you don't have line of sight to someone,
00:15:38
Speaker
you can still send one of your other mix out to kind of see them and spot them and that means you know where they are and you can still fire some weapons at them like you have your long range missiles that you can kind of garage from from afar without necessarily having to see.
00:15:53
Speaker
But you can't necessarily do the same thing with, say, a close and personal like laser or repeating just automatic weapons, something like that. um All these different weapons and types of weapons have all these different properties. Some of them have the chance. Like if you use short range missiles, there's a good chance you'll knock your whatever mech you're attacking down um just from like the force of like a a point blank missile barrage. That's kind of sick like that. And yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker
It is it's great. And there is a steep, steep learning curve and it is easy to fall off of that curve if you are not super into it. But I promise it's absolutely worth conquering that curve. I'm sure it sounds like such a such an interesting combination of systems to like kind of come together and make this like a really complex
00:16:48
Speaker
game that sounds really neat and very fun to play and very satisfying once you've kind of figured out how to pilot a mech, but first you really need to figure out how to pilot a mech, which is not a small undertaking in itself, which is kind of an interesting like prerequisite to like really It feels like enjoying yourself within this game, not necessarily like enjoying the game, but like really like getting into it would take like a little bit of time just getting a grip on how do I actually pilot this thing? And then once you have that down, you get to like really just go ham and like enjoy yourself.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, it it very well may take some time. I mean, personally, for me, it did take me so I'll i'll get into kind of like the the progression and the the the story, the campaign of it in a little bit. um But just know, having having in your mind this whole time while I'm talking about it,
00:17:44
Speaker
i I played the first couple of levels just for the couple of maps just fine, um kind of getting used to it. And then the first one, we're really just kind of like throws you into the deep end and lets you take care of everything just fully on your own. I had a full squad wipe like four or five times before I even really understood why.
00:18:06
Speaker
oh And part of that is my fault because I have holes in my brain. But part of that is just because there's so many different things to balance and keep aware of. So many different optional objectives and like partial successes and complicated things that can happen. um and And that kinda leads into the the one thing that I think is just fully frustrating ah about this game. And it's not this game's fault. the I mean, this this thing was made in 2018. The bones of this process here were built all the way back before this millennium.
00:18:43
Speaker
And that's where that holdover comes from here there is a frustrating amount of randomness that you just kinda can't do anything about regardless of how much you plan to put thought into it how much you've mastered all the systems um you still have.
00:19:04
Speaker
a chance to hit with one of your attacks. And then when you hit, there is a chance of what part of the the mech that you're you're going to hit. So if if you're attacking an enemy, you you you have that, you know, your first kind of virtual kind of roll of the dice to see if you even hit them. and Then after that, it's like, OK, well, I want to focus down this part or the other. And I can kind of do that to some extent.
00:19:29
Speaker
But to really narrow that down and focus up, um you have to use a pretty important and hard to come by resource. um It's not the end of the world. you'll You'll get it back eventually. But you also get a bonus to all of your your squad for not using if you get it and then don't use it, you get a little bonus. So you have to kind of take into account, OK, how can I increase the chances for myself beyond what I've already done with my positioning, choosing my weapon, choosing which mech is going to handle this task?
00:19:59
Speaker
um yeah to really focus in on the final part of the equation, it can be challenging. and And that wouldn't be too bad on its own, except one other part of the game that is and otherwise really well fleshed out and and worth taking a look at, um you have the chance to salvage these mechs after you explode them. Oh.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, and and that's another fun part of it as well. Every every mech you take down, you can if if you take it down correctly, you can kind of but almost harvest it for parts and how well you can do that is based on how which parts of it and how badly you destroyed it during the fight. So if you say blew up the entire like central torso of the thing, you're not going to get a whole lot of salvage from that versus if you like knocked it out and made it like incapacitated the thing by like taking out its legs or like disabling its weapons. But you didn't fully like tear the thing apart. Then you you get more salvage out of that. um So it's a really good thing to do. And it's a really fun and and effective way to like build your your arsenal of mechs that you have for for the next missions. But the amount of control you have over that is just a little bit too ah limited.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That kind of stinks. that's That's interesting as like a drawback and it does seem like ah a holdover of kind of ah an older system but that is interesting that like Like, I feel like that is realism taking a little bit too far to the point where it's not fun anymore. It's like, yeah, in real life, it would be kind of hard to aim a missile at a mech as it's like moving at me or something like that. But also. I'm not I'm playing a video game. I want it to be a game time where I can like shoot things and do the the I'm trying to do because I'm trying to do something. um So I was always going to be ah sorry to do.
00:22:06
Speaker
No, I was just going to say there's I've had that experience with several other games where it's like, yeah, I get that you're trying to be realistic, but the realistic situation here isn't. ah That was the thing that I remember coming up with Starfield a lot of like, there was nothing on the moon and they had a good time there. And it's like, yeah, right. Because no one had been to the moon before. Yeah. But like an empty planet in a video game. Well, if I were going to explore an empty planet in real life, I'd be really fascinated.
00:22:34
Speaker
But if I am going in a video game, like that's kind of dumb. And like, yeah, it's real. The Sahara Desert's freaking empty, but I'm not going to have a fun time walking from one end of it to the other. Oh, OK, Todd. Yeah, you tell me how much fun I'm having right now. OK, that's great. Yeah. Oh, it's realistic. OK, super cool. all Yeah, I know. So like I feel like realism can get in the way of video games sometimes when they're like, yeah, we're trying to make the most realistic sense.
00:23:02
Speaker
uh simulation or like simulacra of this thing it's like yeah that's great but also is it fun because like that's the main point of a video game and if it's all based on rng it gets to be a lot less fun that's like one of the things that i love speedruns but all of my favorite games that i want to play that i would love to speedrun are all rng based like id ah ah pokemon fully RNG-based speedrun. Minecraft, fully RNG-based speedrun. They're fun to watch when someone really pops off. Super cool. But the RNG kind of takes a lot of the fun out of some of those systems. And I know it's a very niche like wish, but like still,
00:23:48
Speaker
RNG can have its limitations on its it's fun application. I have for sure. Exactly. And that that's something we've talked about. I mean, I remember talking about input versus output randomness like way back in one of our earlier like the citizen yeah so that I was talking about. Yeah. Randomness can be good and then it can be frustrating.
00:24:07
Speaker
um In this case, there's there's a good bit of, honestly, both. There are ways that you can kind of make it work to your advantage, and then there are and like there are ways you can manipulate that and prepare for it and things like that, but there's also a good amount that you just kind of like can't do anything about no matter what you do or can't do enough about it.
00:24:28
Speaker
like hands in the air. I guess this is what happened. What's happening now? Like, yeah, nothing I can do about it. Exactly. Yeah. And to to be fair, that's my only like real gripe with the game. I have more coming up, but those are just personal preferences.
00:24:43
Speaker
um We all have just right. That's just who I am as a person. um But other like that's not even necessarily like disconnected with how the rest of the game works. It's very fitting for like this. It's kind of brutal, somewhat realism like of this, this system, this game, that this feeling from the setting and all that. But it is it's just it it was a sticking point.
00:25:09
Speaker
for me enough times while playing through this game. And I haven't gotten super far into this game. I've made more progress since the the full party wipe that I was talking about earlier. Yeah, but i I haven't like I haven't gotten to the end. I haven't really seen the entire thing that this game has to offer, but I've gotten to see enough that I want to kind of like talk about it, get more people interested in it if they want to to check it out.
Strategies and Storyline
00:25:31
Speaker
um But all of that aside, that that system of like gathering parts and like destroying the right parts in the the right way to kind of get salvage that you want um kind of carries you into the between missions of this game.
00:25:48
Speaker
which is also surprisingly well built and well thought out for something that is just kind of like not part of the the the standard battle tech experience, at least to my knowledge. I don't know exactly how a war game like that plays, but it's it doesn't have a like.
00:26:07
Speaker
it It doesn't quite have this kind of system to it. So it ah it surprised me a little bit how well it all slots together because in this game, the story of it is that you are a mercenary. um There's more to it than that. It's actually the this fairly well written, well thought out kind of political intrigue story of like how you became a mercenary and the characters from your past and what they're they're doing now in different plots and schemes and things like that. um Again, I haven't gotten far enough into it that I can really speak to like how that all resolves and how that works out, but it's it's pretty well put together. But in the meantime, you are a mercenary working with a company of of mech warrior mercenaries that have to take different jobs. You have a mission board where you have to choose, okay,
00:26:55
Speaker
Which combat do I want to take part in next? How many days is it going to take me and my spaceship full of these mechs and their pilots to get there? How much like fuel do we have? how How long until the next month where I have to like pay to keep the lights on? How much is it going to take to buy new mech parts, repair the parts I have, um train pilots and things like that?
00:27:19
Speaker
um And, sorry, can you hear her in the background? Yeah, she is so unhappy. Swear to god, I'm going to finish this episode.
00:27:32
Speaker
I heard that. I heard you. Poor baby needs a hug. Poor baby needs a hug and ah a CBD gummy. But that's. Yeah, that's what I do. We'll figure it out. We've got plenty of those dog friendly. have I have a dog friendly CBD from my dog as well that helps her with anxiety. She gets a little anxious and worked out.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, but all that being said, so you you have that system there and that's something I've never really loved about games where the main draw is like the mission to mission, like, OK, get me into the game, like, get me into the combat. I didn't love the the the money management, the the system management part of it as much. But that's a me thing. That is despite how like well thought out and cohesive that is.
00:28:24
Speaker
that kind of brings everything together. um And that's also where that salvage comes into play. That's where you can take if you have I ah believe the number is three. Don't don't quote me on that if I'm wrong. But if you have three pieces of salvage from the same mech that you've like previously destroyed, you can just take those to put together a new one that now you own and you can put a pilot in there and then you have the chance to kind of like refit it, swap out weapons and and mounts and and make some adjustments, things like that.
00:28:52
Speaker
um So it's a a management game almost as much as it is a like strategy tactics game, which I thought was really, really cool. Yeah. um not Not that I you know personally enjoyed it, but I think it's a really cool concept and yeah most people that aren't me are going to love that part of it. It's really hard selling somebody on something that I don't personally like believe in.
00:29:18
Speaker
But it's yeah it's because of my own shortcomings. In no way should that dissuade you from thinking that's a ah very excellent part of the game. Sorry,
00:29:28
Speaker
sorry my my dog I think might hear yours through my headphones or something and is like, oh attention. Yeah, I don't know what's going on right now. The dogs are speaking. It's dog time. They demand to be acknowledged. um That's why you should dog this game. That's why dog dog. But but yet there's there's not. Yeah, much more I have to say about like the the gameplay or really much else about it unless you have any kind of questions of anything that I mentioned here.
Game Critiques and Praise
00:29:59
Speaker
But i I think truly that's why you should play this game is how um
00:30:05
Speaker
just kind of immersive in the details that it is, how much you have to really think about all these different details and aspects and positioning and like thinking three turns ahead of like what you can use, why you should or shouldn't use it, who you can send into danger.
00:30:23
Speaker
um I didn't even touch really on the initiative system or like how your size affects your speed ah because there are smaller mechs that are really good for like maybe not necessarily attacking but maybe skirmishing or going and scouting and things like that where there are like medium sized mechs that have like a good balance of okay you can move but you can also hold your own in a fight.
00:30:43
Speaker
versus these big huge like assault platforms that are just like missile canisters that will blow you up from afar. But if anyone gets close, you don't really have great defenses for that and and all kinds of stuff in between. um You also can like kick and and like melee attack with, i I think, most of your mechs, if not all.
00:31:06
Speaker
But that is effective in some cases. It is not effective in others. One thing I thought was really fun was those kind of melee like stomping or or whatever attacks are more effective against like ground vehicles. So you do sometimes get to live out your your childhood fantasy of like having just a giant robot rampaging through like normal sized people's like vehicles and like transports and things just kind of like stomping them down. um But yeah, aside from that, it's it can be strategic sometimes because that helps you like that can knock people down better than some other weapons can. And that's a good thing to do because if someone's knocked down, it gives you a bonus to kind of like target some of their parts and and mess them up better.
00:31:51
Speaker
Um, but it's, it's just, it's so much in almost entirely a good way. You will get lost in all the different things you have to consider where all of it at the end of the day comes together into, okay, how can I pilot these giant robots to destroy the other robots in a barrage of missiles and lasers? And I think that's honestly great.
00:32:16
Speaker
That sounds so fun. I definitely want to check it out. It seems heavy. Yes. um Is the way that my brain decided it wanted to describe it it. It seems like a heavy meal that would be very satisfying and enjoyable to have. But afterwards, I would definitely need a nap.
00:32:36
Speaker
um That is maybe the perfect way to put it. It does definitely seem like a fun time. It does seem enjoyable. It does seem like something that I would want to like, like get through and like see what's what. But yeah, afterwards, I feel like I would be like, all right, well, my brain is full. I need to purge for a little bit and like scroll through. to Yeah, that that's very fair. And that's part of why it took me so long to even get to a point where I felt comfortable talking about it here, because it's it's
00:33:08
Speaker
I'm not going to say it's best played sparingly, but it is definitely like you need some time to kind of absorb everything, get into it and decide, OK, is this the game for me? Am I going to go for it? How am I going to go forward? What's the plan from here? Kind of making a strategy about everything.
00:33:27
Speaker
It's kind of a reason why you have TTRPG night like once a week at most instead of like every day. Exactly. It lets you chew on the the bite that you got. you you You got a lot and you're like, oh, I definitely want more. But like having that feeling still is great because that means that next session you're going to be excited. Whereas it's like, all right, cool.
00:33:48
Speaker
Can I go home now is not the feeling you want because it means that the next thing we show up, we're going to be like, man, all I wanted last time was just to like go home. So like yeah you want to end it on the on a high moment when you're like, all right, cool. Let me get another bite. But now I need to chew on this and I'm going to like work through that through the week. And then whenever I show back up, I'm going to be excited to get more. Oh, yeah. This game is definitely easy to overeat. Yeah.
00:34:15
Speaker
I could definitely see it with a ah kind of heavy simulation style game like this. um It seems like the the right type of game where like if you bite off a little bit more than you can chew, you're going to feel a little sick i to continue the same analogy. But it yeah does still seem like a really interesting game. I definitely want to check it out. I really do like Mecha. I would really like to see what this game has to offer for sure.
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah. And in this sort of more kind of grounded, hard approach to Mecca, I think is something that I didn't have a ton of experience with. I'm much more used to the kind of like flashy anime bunch of like laser swords and things, which is I mean, it kicks out with tactics. Right. Exactly. But it's not it's not this. This is a a a different approach to Mecca and sci fi than I'm necessarily used to. And I really did enjoy. I know that's the kind of thing a lot of people are looking for out of something like this. And that's why I think it's definitely, definitely worth giving a try. Just be prepared for what it is and isn't going into it.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. But yeah, i I think that's honestly about all I've got unless you have more. I think we can go ahead and um just just call this one. We're done. No outro. End of episode. Bye.
00:35:42
Speaker
Wait, no, that can't be true. I hated it so much. Oh, that was the worst feeling. I was like, wait, is he serious? No, I wanted so badly to commit to that. But it was like when you're in the car and you're like listening to your favorite song and you get to the best part, you get like a phone call or something. It's like, this has been ruined. I need I need to I need to ramble about something for at least five minutes. Exactly.
Future Engagement Plans
00:36:10
Speaker
It's not right if there's no just utter chaos at the end. Yeah, that was way too clean. Oh, yeah. Hi, how high I'm doing great.
00:36:23
Speaker
if you want to talk with me about how great I am. i For the time being, I suppose you can reach out to us at ah Twitter at yspdg underscore pod. um It's is it been a has been a dry spell as far as times that I've opened up Twitter recently. but Um, I'm it's, it's definitely still worth, uh, kind of letting us know, Hey, what's up. Um, I was also working on a tech talk at some point. So that might be something in the future that I feel like would be better to engage with. I would really like to have something where I could like actually talk back. So.
00:36:57
Speaker
yeah Or like talking a little bit shorter form instead of like an hour to half hour to an hour long episode being able to just say something real quick would be nice or something about a game that hasn't come out that I haven't tried yet. I definitely want to like have a format for that. So keep an eye out for that. Maybe we'll we'll look into that and kind of pivot away from Twitter because I know that that whole site is just kind of messy. Garbage is a dumpster fire. Yeah.
00:37:24
Speaker
So um perhaps if Twitter doesn't get banned or tough. Yeah, I think it's in danger. Yeah. um The Twitter did get banned in Brazil. If TikTok doesn't get banned in America, um ah check us out there in the future. We'll figure out a handle and all that. And this whole thing is just constantly changing. We're picking up ideas. We're dropping ideas. We're trying to stay somewhat consistent sometimes. Who cares? We're doing this for fun. We've got like 20 regular listeners, so we've got a place to play in here. Yeah, exactly. like ah I really do ah appreciate that. everyone like Those of you who who keep coming back and listening, i I love doing this, love talking about it. yeah We're going to try some more stuff out. We're going to try some stuff that doesn't work. We're seeing right now if Twitter is just not going to work for for various reasons, internal and external. Yeah, both of us kind of
00:38:21
Speaker
are terrible at social media, but I do really like TikTok and I have been i've been a little grumbling on there. So yeah, it would give me a good place to talk about video games. I like talking about video games. I don't know if y'all have noticed that part. um i I don't think I knew that.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah, um, you can always check me if you want it like actually if you want video evidence about me enjoying video games You can come and see me play them live at twitch dot.tv slash pika pew p-i-k-a-p-e-w-w I stream video games sometimes I don't really have a set schedule anymore. I was Saturdays at 4 p.m. Central. I don't think that's gonna happen right now. I got a new job and things are... I moved, I got a new job. Things are weird right now. I'm working on getting my schedule reset up. Well, as soon as I have something more established, I will speak it into truth here. but
00:39:22
Speaker
Right now, oh whenever I get some free time, I'll be streaming. Come in, come in. Give me a follow. and It'll notify you. Turn your notifications on. You'll you'll know when I stream um until I get something kind of more established. Yeah. But ah yeah, i think I think that might be... I think that might be the thing. I think so. But yeah, again, thank you all so much for listening so much for being here. I love talking about needlessly complicated games. I love talking about robots fighting each other, or in this case, mechs, because there's little people in there then fighting each other um and and blowing each other up. And I feel like I'm of four years old again, just smashing little action figures together. And this is ah the best feeling in the world. So we'll. We'll be back at it again. um But in in the meantime, until that happens next week and however long forward from there, I've been James. I've been Alison. And we will see you here from You Speak At You, whatever the case may be later. Bye.