Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
RedFall reviews are in the red & Armored Core 6 news! - Add to Party 05.02.2023
7 Plays1 year ago
This week we discuss Microsoft's woes, Jedi Survivor running like trash, WOTC sending the Pinkertons after you, Armored Core 6 release date, and more!
Recommended
Transcript
Meet the Hosts of 'Add to Party'
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Jamod, and I'm joined by Andy K. Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening.
00:00:29
Speaker
Good evening.
Candy Craze: Sugar Highs and Portion Control
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm on a sugar high. I just eat 12 lifesavers and bam, I can feel that the insulin is running through. I basically just ate a roll of lifesavers. What's the serving size on a roll of lifesavers?
00:00:50
Speaker
It's not like you can pack that up and put it away, right? Oh, no, no. But here's the thing. I bought the bag that's individually. Each one is individually packaged, which makes me feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world. Oh, now you have no excuse. I'm just sitting here with my giant package of little sulfine wrappers.
Seafood Chowder and Intuitive Eating
00:01:11
Speaker
I want the other way, James. Yesterday, I made an entire pot of seafood chowder.
00:01:19
Speaker
And by today, I only had enough for two servings of seafood chow. I had a lot. I enjoyed it too much. And guess what? Those two servings, I ate both at once today. And now I am warm and sleepy. Oh, absolutely. That decision of adding another stick of butter.
00:01:45
Speaker
Perfect. Oh, it always freaks. Listen, Charles, that's called intuitive eating. Okay. In the age of daddy. Yes. I've decided you intuitively, intuitively knew to eat a lot. So I support you. Yeah. You have to listen to your body. Yeah. My body said I want a crunch on some life series. Oh, you ate intuitively. I'm proud of you guys. Yeah.
00:02:14
Speaker
I don't know how it becomes healthy. I don't know when intuitive eating becomes healthy, but I just know. When you stop listening. That's what I have with the sweet, sweet injectable ozempic is coursing through my veins.
Ozempic: Appetite and Controversy
00:02:34
Speaker
What is ozempic? Have you not heard about this, Andy? Is this the diabetes one that all the rich people are stealing? That's right. As you know, I am rich.
00:02:45
Speaker
You're a part of the problem. I am. No. So it is a diabetes medication originally, much like Viagra was for, you know, blood pressure. But I didn't know that. But no, no, no. But it is it is a diabetes medication. And one of the I don't know the exact science of it, but really what it does is it kind of messes with your satiation response. So it's the way my doctor described it when she prescribed it to me was essentially like,
00:03:15
Speaker
Oh, it's like getting lap band surgery. Except you don't have surgery. You just have to take a shot once a week.
00:03:24
Speaker
And yeah, it's crazy. It's like, um, I don't know about you two, but like before I was taking it, like how much of your brain power is, is constantly just on like thinking about what your next meal is going to be depends on how bored I am. Yeah. I don't have that really anymore. Oh, that's good. That's awesome. It kind of just takes that voice out of your head. Yeah.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yeah. As you took it away from all those diabetics, James. Well, as we discussed and you saw in Hawaii, I was on the larger size.
00:03:59
Speaker
Uh, so it was, it was well prescribed in my case. That's fair. I know. I don't know. My exposure is of course, an NPR article about it. Um, and it was talking about how problematic it is in terms of like people paying doctors to get prescriptions when they don't need it. And I didn't mean to put that on you. Oh no. I mean, don't worry. Tik TOK does that for me too, but, um,
Snack Talk: Discovering New Foods
00:04:25
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I mean, it's because it's not like, I want to lose 10 pounds before swimsuit season. It's like, it's like, I want to not have my back and knees hurt when I go up down the stairs. You know what? That's fair. Yeah. And I'm glad it's letting you live your best life. It is. Suitably eating life savers. Yeah. Listen, you still get to do it.
00:04:51
Speaker
I mean, this is like my one snack that I've had today. Honestly, I have lunch, dinner and lifesavers. That's all I've had today. Snacking is important. I'm still trying to find a good snack. I haven't found it. I guess lifesavers is what I'm missing. I might I recommend something Andy and I both discovered at the same time. Thanks to one of my that's at my best friend. That's pretzels. I didn't tell you anything.
00:05:19
Speaker
This is a little awkward. Ots pretzels? Is this like mall pretzels? No, no, no. It's just a brand of pretzels that are in grocery stores. They are in the Midwest, but they are also
00:05:39
Speaker
to my delight, also in the West Coast. Frozen, unfrozen? No, they are unfrozen. They're like, you know, like, you know how like those like bags of rolled gold would be just pretzels on them. So dots pretzels are also like that, but instead of like the traditional pretzel shape, they are just pretzel bread in sticks.
00:05:59
Speaker
And they have a lot of different flavors. The original is my favorite. I don't recommend the Southwest style because it's a little too strong. But original, still good. And then you pair that with dip. Here's what I do when I have the urge to snack. I get a small handful, open up the dip, eat the dip.
00:06:23
Speaker
with the, with the handful I have. And that's it. Cause I'm full now. And it's women owned, isn't it? It is. Oh, look at that. Guild free. You're a double good person.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, I thought those ladies are back in the kitchen where they get it. I guess that is one way of looking at as long as they choose to be okay. True. That's true. Okay. Tradlight isn't necessarily problematic. It's problematic, but whatever. No, no, no.
00:06:54
Speaker
It's always nice. It's always nice when a new company you find is either female or minority owned. It's like, oh, good. I'm not supporting just broad evil by buying this. Exactly. Broad evil. I like it. Yeah, those pretzels are great. Thank you for reminding me. I'm going to put them on my grocery list. I was trying to eat chickpeas like roasted ones.
00:07:21
Speaker
That's not my thing. I am walking back from work.
Shopping at Amazon Fresh: A New Experience
00:07:27
Speaker
I am.
00:07:28
Speaker
I stopped by an Amazon fresh, which is those are meant to be closing at some point. I believe Amazon is finally giving up on them. Really? They gave up, huh? Yeah, which is a shame because the idea of contact is grocery shopping. Seattle's not going to have what you would call it grocery stores in like three years at this point. Yeah. Well, news stories about how it's closing its grocery stores. It's weird. Why is that showing up for me? I don't know.
00:07:57
Speaker
But you know, I think I've only ever done this, like this is probably my second time or third time I've ever done, gone into an Amazon fresh. Well, this one was a little different. Like this is the one where you don't have to pay at all. Like you don't have to like stop at the cashier at all. I think when I went with you, we were into an Amazon go. Yeah, we did the one where the cart scanned it, but you could just walk out. Yeah.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, so the Amazon Fresh is the one where you just don't have to talk to anybody. You just walk in, you scan in using the Amazon app, and then you just pick up your groceries from the shelves, and then you walk out without having an opinion. And let me tell you...
00:08:44
Speaker
That is a good experience. Just walk over, grab what you need, and leave. It feels like you're stealing. Sure. I make sure I have my hand on my wallet just already in case somebody stops me. Like, did you pay for that? And I'm just going, ah, here you go.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, there's a whole SNL skit about that. You know that. No, no. You know, I'll be honest, I haven't been watching SNL. Oh, there's this. I mean, it's old at this point. I'll find it for you. But it's basically like a bunch of like the minority cast members being like, this is this is a trap, right? Yeah, you just pick it up and walk out. Sure, you do. True. It's all true.
00:09:28
Speaker
But it was nice. The only problem is I don't know whether this is the average size of an Amazon fresh or whatever. The selection is a little limited. Okay. Like a corner store? Is it just for your steak and booze? Well, it's meant to be grocery. Like it has an entire fruit section. There's like
00:09:51
Speaker
Two, well, one and a half frozen aisles and all this other stuff. There's also booze and all that stuff. Is there frozen pizza? Yes. Yeah. Like my thing with it is just that I want I wanted to get like some crystal light or equivalent like, you know, being to make plain water not taste just like water. I went through a couple of months of just drinking water at home and then I kind of went.
00:10:20
Speaker
I want a break from that. Yeah. And I started getting back to getting like soda and everything else. Sure. But yeah, they just don't have everything. And I was like in the liquid IV train, Charles. Yeah. What is that like try hard gamer fuel stuff? I mean, sort of. It's it's really just like an electrolyte powder that you put into water. Oh, a friend of mine got salt poisoning because they
00:10:49
Speaker
They drank too many of them. You're not supposed to drink many at all, right? It's like maybe do one or two servings a day. I don't remember how she did it, but she's like, oh, I got salt poison. How did you do that? I tried doing gamer sup for a little bit, but that was too much work. You got little floaty bits in the water and you're like,
00:11:17
Speaker
I don't want to taste that. I don't want to think about tasting that. You want chewy water, Andy? Chewy water? Why? Because then you're like, ugh, I'm going to have like a little bit of like burst of flavor and just no, no, not about it. Now I just drink coffee.
00:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, literally, that's exactly how I felt right there. Just audio listeners, a character played by Keenan Thompson. Thompson. Yes. Yeah. He's holding a bag of chips and holding his money out, scared to just cross the line to walk out of the store, just waiting to get stopped.
00:12:04
Speaker
If you look up Amazon Go, SNL comes up. It's dangerous, guys. It's a dangerous game. Do you know what else is a dangerous game? Uh-oh, what?
Microsoft's Activision Deal: Cloud Gaming Impact
00:12:19
Speaker
Expecting Microsoft to do anything. Oh. Yeah, Microsoft's had some rough go this week. Wait, in terms of? Everything.
00:12:33
Speaker
I mean, multiple things, but yes. So first, earlier last week, the CMA, which what does it stand for again? The Competitive and Markets Authority of the UK denied or forbade, however you want to put it, Microsoft's proposed purchase of Activision, basically the first ruling to come out negatively,
00:12:59
Speaker
And, you know, basically means that if Microsoft wants to do business in the UK, they can buy Activision. Otherwise, they can't do that. So this is interesting because this is kind of a death knell for it. Also, earlier the other day, either yesterday or today, the CMA also said that Microsoft can appeal that decision in 10 years. What?
00:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, cool. Just as long as they're theoretical signing of cloud ownership.
00:13:37
Speaker
Yeah. And if you say like, oh, why did they do it? Why would they do it? It's again, because of cloud gaming. According to the panel chair of the CMA, quote, cloud gaming means a free competitive market to drive innovation and choice. Basically saying that Microsoft's Azure cloud plus X cloud gaming platform, you know,
00:14:00
Speaker
is just too powerful. And then when you add too many games that Activision provides, it gives it too much of a competitive advantage. Yeah, in the article here from gov.uk, Microsoft already accounts for an estimated 60 to 70% of global cloud gaming services, has other important strengths in cloud gaming from owning Xbox and a global cloud infrastructure, which is Azure.
00:14:29
Speaker
The deal would reinforce Microsoft's advantage in the market by giving it control over important gaming content such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of War and World of Warcraft. The evidence available to CMA indicates that absent of the merger, Activision would start providing games via cloud platforms in the foreseeable future. Basically saying it's like, well, if they didn't sign up with Microsoft, Activision would start doing cloud gaming of their own. And this is actually kind of
00:14:54
Speaker
that interesting discussion about how the whole industry is moving towards cloud gaming, despite the fact no one can fucking do it. Microsoft so far, as Google Stadia has failed, Amazon has Luna, which is okay, but no one really talks about. And then you also have, whatchamacallit, GeForce now, which works pretty well, but again, kind of on the lower side. Hey, so I think that's PlayStation now.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, they do, buddy. Yeah, they do. Which does work, but not for any plebs, let me tell you. It does work for me. Wink, wink.
00:15:30
Speaker
That's the thing too though is that like the infrastructure that you need to support cloud gaming is bananas Not everybody has that yeah, so I think so this I don't know it I know we've all came to talk like this is happening This is happening. This is the first one where it's gonna be like I don't know this happening It's certainly gonna be very interesting if
00:15:54
Speaker
Um, other regional, like the, if the EU says no, then it's over. Um, but like the FTC is in America is kind of toothless. So it's, I know they came out and said, Oh, we're not going to do it. But then you Sue and our, our judicial system is very pro business. So who knows? Um, but I, I see in a world where if everyone else gets to agree and that the CMA goes, well, if everyone else
00:16:23
Speaker
maybe we'll change your mind. But because the UK is now a small market due to Brexit. Oh, that's true. Yeah. However, the EU, if the EU says no, then that's going to be the death knell. So however, this is basically giving a template for other countries that want to say no. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know if this is going to happen now, which
00:16:47
Speaker
Again, makes me a little sad because, God, I want Bobby Kotick out of Activision. Would Activision really make their own cloud gaming service?
00:17:01
Speaker
I mean, I think everyone's going to make their own cloud gaming services. The irony of this is they would probably just contract either Amazon or Microsoft to do it anyway. Oh, sure. Instead of building their own. That's the weird peacock and Hulu and Pluto or whatever it's called. All these different subscription services for our games.
Gaming Subscription Services: Industry Impact
00:17:28
Speaker
And then we're gonna have ad supported tiers. I mean you already do technically have that right? There's Ubisoft Plus. There's oh, I guess you're right What is it EA? I can't remember what EA premium past I think it's called and then Xbox game pass Sony has PlayStation now Or PlayStation Plus or whatever the fuck they renamed it to. What's the dumb name they renamed it to Charles?
00:17:54
Speaker
Well, so they renamed it also again recently, I thought, right? I forget. Well, there's essentials, there's plus and then there's extra. Yeah, that's right. And then Nintendo has Nintendo Online. So, I mean, they're already, already kind, just already twice in a row doing that. So.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's weird, right? In some ways, it's better when you have all these separated because then it makes them compete against each other because monopolies are not good for consumers. But at the same time, monopolies can be good in some cases. Which is like, I need to not pay 10.99 a month to five different things.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah. It's too much. I'm too lazy. Yeah. I guess is Steam a monopoly and does Steam do it well? Steam isn't a monopoly because Steam. It's a distribution platform. Yeah. Right. Like so you could buy your game on Steam. You can buy it on Amazon. You can buy it anywhere. Really. You could also buy games off of Steam that you can redeem on Steam too.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah. So like you buy games at key resellers and then redeem that on Steam. So that also prevents Steam from being a monopoly. Okay. Yeah. I just know everybody uses Steam. Who long is using EA? What was it called? Origin. Origins. I mean, that's probably when I play strict games to only be able to be played on those platforms, a la Epic Game Launcher. Yeah. It can be times that you will be restricted. Yep.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, honestly, like almost all EA games on Steam launched the EA origin launcher. Oh, really? Yep. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I've noticed that, too. It's so fucking annoying. Like I was like, I'm already in Steam and then it takes forever to launch the EA one. I was like, you guys are bitches. I knew it. Ubisoft does the same thing. Yep.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, this is not good for Microsoft. No. I don't know. I think I've also heard Phil Spencer awfully quiet this week. Yeah. Besides the initial response, or that wasn't even Phil Spencer at the time. That was just a Microsoft rep, right, from the response about it. It's not great. And I mean, Microsoft really needs Activision because
00:20:34
Speaker
Ooh, boy. Redfall came out today, and the critics came out swinging today.
00:20:45
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of things about games, you're almost like they're not, they're afraid to give AAA games, anything below a 70. Hmm. Not always. Wait, wait, wait. Even IGN. Let's see. Let's see. IGN. I got to give it a four out of 10. Whoa. That, then you know, you're bad. Let's, let's go to open credit care. IGN. So it looks like it has a review in progress. Detroit has a review in progress as well. Yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
I don't think... yeah it kind of like... GameSpot did. Yeah. But GameSpot had the whole... Oh, that was a while ago, whatever. But anyway, get back to the point. Redfall, the four co-op single player, always online shooter from Arkane Studios, where you fight vampires in this weird little town, came out today and
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's rough. It's rough. I actually did play a little bit of it today so I can give some feedback on it. Wait, was it on? Because it is free on game pass. Of course it is. Gosh darn it. Andy, why wouldn't it be? Microsoft owns Arkane and Bethesda. Yeah, they own Bethesda. Yeah. Yeah. And this was kind of one of those things of like, all right, this is going to be, listen, this is going to be the turning point for Microsoft AAA games. Oops.
00:22:08
Speaker
uh yeah redfall currently sitting at a 64 on open critic with only 23 of critics recommending it currently let's let's look at some of these reviews from game spot the four out of ten mark delaney says arcane takes a stab at fusing the genre du jour with the signature style
00:22:28
Speaker
but the end results are a bloody mess. He had too much fun writing that. VG247's Jeremy Peele writes, an echo of Arkane's past glories, one in which the studio's neat voice can still be heard, but more than more than faintly than we've come to expect. And then Kristin Bognar from Attack of the Fanboy, in no way is Redfall groundbreaking, but sometimes all a game needs to be is fun to play. And Arkane is creating an experience that is a hell of a good time. So slightly more positive on that side.
00:22:56
Speaker
Um, legacy. Are they the dishonored people? Dishonored. Dishonored. Deaf loop and pray. Yep.
00:23:04
Speaker
Yeah. They had good games. Yes. Every one of those are good games. Even Deathloop, which I don't love, is still a good game. So it's like the B team? Sorry, B team. I don't think so, honestly. This is Arkane Austin. Let's see, who made... Yeah, actually. Yeah.
Redfall Critique: Gameplay and Immersion Issues
00:23:22
Speaker
Isn't it? This is supposed to be the good team. I thought we talked about this before. Yeah, Arkane Austin. What's a bummer? Yeah, developed by Arkane Austin. Yep.
00:23:34
Speaker
Deaf Loop was Arkane Lyon, the French studio. Prey was developed by Arkane Austin. Yep. There you go. Yeah. So what, James, you played it for a little bit. Yeah. What? For like two or three hours. It's not done. It's not done, which is they delayed that game a year. Okay. It's
00:24:00
Speaker
Arcane games in general usually have such a very good how to describe it like world building aspect that you can play a game and be just so immersed in it for this game feels empty. Oh, like I didn't want to like I'm running around shooting things and I'm like, I don't feel connected to this world at all. Like I feel like a player in a game.
00:24:29
Speaker
You know what I mean? I don't feel like a character in the game. I feel like a person playing a game, if that makes sense. I hear that. I have no experience with their games, but I understand why entering with that expectation and then not having that wrong. Yeah. And I mean, the thing I would say, too, is AI is very bad. You can more or less run up to people and shoot them in the head, even on the harder difficulties.
00:24:57
Speaker
Uh, the gun plays okay. Um, I just, when I stopped playing, I actually just got the AR. Um, and it was, it was fun to shoot and it felt good, but the problem is the care, like, so there's normal human enemies that have terrible AI, just awful AI. Um, and then there's vampire enemies that have similarly bad AI, but they kind of dodge a lot.
00:25:21
Speaker
which is fine. However, their one mode of attack is basically teleport and rush you. And I think the way they mess with the difficulty is just add a lot of them. And the other thing, too, is with vampires, you have to have a weapon that has a wooden stake attached to it to kill them. And you would think, oh, this is the big mechanic of your game, which is staking vampires.
00:25:46
Speaker
Um, it doesn't feel good when you do it Like it's not like a fun execution It's like I stab them and then they melt and then I move on to kill the next one Yeah, not like I feel like doom did a really good job with like me. Yeah, that's actually that is a great that is a great comparison, right when you get like a Critical kill and doom. It's always fun and always satisfying amazing. It's always fun
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah, and it's visually satisfying. So this is not this is very I got very bored of that animation very quickly. Also, the town is kind of I mean, again, I'm only a couple hours in, but the town feels very clean and very boring. Like it doesn't feel like a world. Sure. I feel like I'm kind of just moving from like nest of enemies of nest of enemies to kill things. And it's just not like it.
00:26:40
Speaker
There's no interconnecting material in between those encounters, right? It's like you get quests, go do those quests, but like it's not a living world or anything like that. It's just this weird kind of shooting gallery. That's kind of plain and boring. Like that's the thing. Like you could have fun in this game. And I think that's where some of the reviews come in, where it's like, there's nothing wrong with this game outside of some weird bugs. Um, but those are, I mean, compared to Jedi survivor, which we'll talk about in a minute.
00:27:09
Speaker
Perfectly fine, right? Well, it's just there's a lot of good games now. Like you have to be better. Yeah, I don't know. It's just it's not it. There's nothing into this game like this was supposed to be Microsoft's like big AAA like this is the start. This feels like another kind of like I rented this game from Blockbuster and it was a fun weekend. Oh, I know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah. And honestly, that's an interesting discussion too, right? Which is just like, I think, you know, Microsoft has not had many good games. None. And the answer to that is none. It was high fire rush. High fire rush was good. And I would say the last good game before that was Sunset Overdrive, which is on the Xbox One. Yeah.
00:28:00
Speaker
So, like, you know, and the idea of Microsoft bought these studios, they bought Bethesda and all the studios that go underneath it. And then they are trying to buy Activision and everything underneath that. And if the stuff you buy doesn't turn out to be great, what are you doing? Like, like Microsoft's Goodwill right now is purely on Game Pass, which this was on. And like I've seen comments that go, that wasn't even where pressing the install button.
00:28:30
Speaker
I wouldn't give it that bad. Right. But that's the thing, right? It's still not winning people over. Game Pass's current strong points is that there are other games that Microsoft doesn't make that are worth playing.
00:28:48
Speaker
So it's like there's no incentive necessarily even get a 360. It is like play things on PC instead. Yeah. So like a certain corner like of their of their market. But yeah, go ahead and keep going, James. I was just saying, I mean, I don't think we covered this, too. But on console, there is Redfall is 30 FPS only. Oh, what the fuck, dude? Yeah, it couldn't get performance mode working for launch.
00:29:17
Speaker
So it's basically locked to, you know, quote unquote, quality mode. So it's only it's locked to 30 FPS. And this was delayed by a year.
00:29:26
Speaker
more or less a year, I'd have to double check the exact timing, but it's definitely been delayed almost a year. Like Andy, this game got announced before the acquisition and I was like, okay, I'd be interested in playing this on PlayStation. They got acquired and I was like, well, I guess I'm playing this on PC. And then now I'm like, I'm not playing this.
00:29:47
Speaker
Well, it's just got me thinking because I mean, obviously, this is outside looking in but like Microsoft has the money to give them the space and time. Well, they gave them a lot of space and time. Yeah. And that's what's like has me thinking now is that is this a game that was ever going to be good?
00:30:07
Speaker
And like, is, is Microsoft just having to because they're inheriting these projects, right? Like, and I can understand Microsoft just saying release it, you know, we gave you a year more release it.
00:30:20
Speaker
And I don't know. And man, that game could use six months to a year. Yeah, I don't know. So just to flesh out the world. Yeah. Sure. Would that make it more compelling even with? Yes, I think it would make me feel less like I'm just walking around like a weird Hollywood horror show town instead of like a real world that's been taken over by vampires. Yes, I think that would go a long way to making this game something special.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if more time would have done it or if they just needed to end it and move on. Well, I mean, yeah, there's there's there is a sunk cost fallacy. Yeah. I don't. But they have such pedigree. They do such a good job. I don't know. I don't know. But it's got me thinking now because they had to do the same thing with that game. I keep thinking as Mass Effect. I don't remember what it's called. Star Citizen. Star fields.
00:31:15
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Starfield. Yeah. And the problem with Starfield now is just like anything that's first party Microsoft that keeps failing puts more of the weight and pressure onto Starfield.
Starfield's High Stakes for Microsoft
00:31:28
Speaker
Yeah. And they're delaying that a bunch and it doesn't sound like it. It's like you can't get delayed again. It's coming out in November or this November. It's this year, right? It's this year. It's this year. It's this fall or yeah. So
00:31:44
Speaker
Here's the thing I'll say. If Starfield doesn't do it, which I mean, like people are talking like Starfield's got to be like game of the generation. You know what I mean? Like, well, I mean, here's the thing, right? You're talking about this is Todd Howard, right? And Todd Howard made Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, you know, like.
00:32:09
Speaker
He walked right up in that stage and was defending it. So I'm going to make it. Oh yeah. Cause he's a good, if, if anything, Todd Howard is a good marketer, but he's kind of like a Peter Molyneux now. Like you just say like, okay buddy. And you let them run away.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like the producer, not the same as director, but he was executive producer. Yeah. I know, like with Starfield, they've talked a lot about fixing the things from Fallout 4 people didn't like. So like in terms of how a Bethesda open world RPG game works,
00:32:51
Speaker
So that's good, but it's just one of those things like if Starfield comes out and it's anything less than like mid to high 90s game, right? Like how long does Phil Spencer keep his job?
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah. Like it's so, like Phil's done such a great job of like building the brand and building the good will. But like, and I think like, you know, Microsoft took some bad financials. I think recently they just released their financials last week too. Um, they were under expectation. Um, well, expectation is infinite, right? Oh yeah, I know. But still, I mean, there's, there's, there's forecasts, right? Um,
00:33:33
Speaker
So it's like, you know, I like Phil Spencer. And I think we've often talked about how like, I think, you know, to be a billionaire, it's impossible not to be a sociopath, but Phil Spencer is probably like
00:33:46
Speaker
the least sociopath person that could be in those roles. But he's not getting the job done. Like, if I was Microsoft, I'd be like, go take a blank check and just hire the highest person from PlayStation Studios you can get. Like a Herman, like, you know, Herman Holst level, right? Like, how do you just sit there and watch PlayStation Studios release
00:34:10
Speaker
You know, even at its worst mid 80s reviewed games on like a regular cadence year after year. You know, that's a great point. Why are they doing it so much better consistently? Yeah. Leadership and like what's different with that leadership? Well, we know we know that, you know, what has been said about the Microsoft acquisitions is that they are hands off.
00:34:36
Speaker
with the studios they acquire. And if they're hands-off, that means all the good and bad of hands-off, which is if you're already not necessarily a good studio, you don't get any support from all the other studios' Microsoft phones. And famously, we know that the other studios help each other out in PlayStation.
00:34:58
Speaker
But I mean, that's I mean, that's the it's very armchair quarterback to be like, well, if I was the president of my. Yeah, it's it's hard to judge too much. You know, but it it's just it's it's just it's so weird to see Microsoft keep falling on their face. Weird is and then play stations over there just going, hey, another great game. Here you go. Yeah, they just keep releasing great games. Yeah.
00:35:25
Speaker
And even if they're not great, they're like at least more than like, yeah, good. Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like what was their worst game that motor's gone? Days gone. Days gone. And that was still a good game. And here's the thing. The only reason it was reviewed badly is because it was a long game. Yeah. There's like one extra section it didn't need to have. Too much value. But I get it. Sometimes games overstay.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's just the reviewer, I think it was a busy time and reviewers were like, I want to just finish this game and it didn't end. And then they took it out on it. Because if you played Days Gone, it's a pretty fun game. But it is long, I will say. So yeah, I don't know. Microsoft needs something. And man, if Starfield does not pay off. What do they have left? That's it. What's the next Skyrim called?
00:36:20
Speaker
Oh, Elder Scrolls six. They haven't really named it yet. That's how far out it is. Yeah. They can't mess up with that one.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't I don't know Microsoft's in a precarious because like man if they got Activision that really would have that would have given them a nice little lifeblood be like alright we got Call of Duty we're good Yeah, now it's like shit Activision and starfield is not you know a genre-defying game We're in a lot of like Phil Spencer is in a lot of trouble
00:36:55
Speaker
I did not picture it turning out like this. Yeah, I like it again. We all like Phil. Like Phil says the right things. He's a gamer. He knows like what people want, but it's just not transitioning into good games. Yeah. Like even me as a PlayStation person go like I feel bad for the Xbox people. I'm like, I mean, come on, guys. Got to make start feel good, right? Make this a game. I don't think it's going to be good.
00:37:23
Speaker
I mean, like, that's the other thing, right? We know the traditional buggy releases of Bethesda. So it's kind of like... Does anyone have patience for that anymore? Right. So we'll see. Depending on how, again, that's why they probably delayed it so much to be like, all right, you can't, you cannot. It's not cute.
00:37:43
Speaker
It's not funny anymore. Well, we've we've done a lot of shitting on Microsoft. Let's move to another more popular shitting topic
Star Wars Jedi Survivor: Performance vs. Storytelling
00:37:51
Speaker
topic. That's EA. Oh, Boo. Yeah. I or excuse me. Star Wars Jedi Survivor came out on Friday and it's a good game that you can't play. Why? Because it has terrible
00:38:11
Speaker
terrible performance it's so weird it's so weird it's so weird because you see like
00:38:19
Speaker
You can see the rose colored glasses of people reviewing these games to be like, listen, this game has so many problems. Wait, but also it's such a good game. Yeah, I loved it. Yeah. Currently sitting at a 86 on open critic with 97% of critics recommending you play it. 86 is a good score. Yeah.
00:38:45
Speaker
Uh, from IGN, Dan Stapleton says, if Respawn makes a third game like Star Wars Jedi survivor and fall in order to complete the best Star Wars trilogy in 30 years, hands down. Ooh, take that sequels and prequels. PC gamers board, Morgan park gave it an 80 out of 100 things. Star Wars, Jay survivors, excellent sequel for enough fun. Star Wars stories, but maybe wait for better performance.
00:39:06
Speaker
Um, and then jordan romay at a game spot gave an ad 10 saying star wars jerry survivor improves upon his predecessors gameplay and storytelling to deliver an engrossing story of a jedi grappling with morality Yeah, so
00:39:20
Speaker
Here's the thing, based on everyone's reviews of playing it, Jedi Fallen Order had a lot of problems. It was Respawn's first attempt at making like an action game, right? So they were cutting their teeth on it and they learned and they really learned and they fixed a lot of those problems with Jedi Survivor.
00:39:39
Speaker
The problem is they didn't fix the performance issue. They released a note on was it yesterday? No, it was it was the same day. So they in a classic tweet longer post here, they released a Star Wars release this.
00:40:00
Speaker
we are aware that Star Wars Jedi survivor isn't performing to our standards for a percentage of PC players, in particular, those with ion machines or certain specific configurations. While there is no single comprehensive solution for PC performance, the team has been working on fixes we believe will improve performance across the spectrum of configurations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're not addressing the performance issues on console as well, which are also there.
00:40:27
Speaker
But on PC, yeah, I mean like people with 40, so 40, 90 is basically like the top tier graphics card you could have right now.
00:40:36
Speaker
Um, people weren't getting 60 frames per second with their 40. Okay. That's pretty bad. Yeah. Um, I was going to say like part of the problem and I mean, maybe it's an old idea now, but like PC is hard to get like good performance or consistency across so many different configurations, but I thought, yeah, you can listen 40, 90 should be able to brute force. I agree with that, but that's the same. Like even, um, what was that bad game?
00:41:04
Speaker
the cyberpunk one. Oh, it's called cyberpunk. Cyberpunk, yeah. Yeah, even that was able to. Yeah, I brute force that with my 30 night. Yeah. But you were able to get at least good performance out of it. Yeah, I had a great time with cyberpunk. I was the only one. Yeah, you're the only one.
00:41:22
Speaker
That's too bad, honestly. Yeah. All this started coming out on Tuesday last week, Tuesday or Wednesday, when the reviews started coming out of people being like, oh, it's a great game, but maybe wait. So I do think I'll be waiting until this game gets to a good place, although it's going to take a while. I remember Fallen Order even took a long time to get to a good performance place.
00:41:45
Speaker
Um, which is so weird cause like respawn in general is like good most of the time at like PC performance, especially when you think of like, you know, um, Titanfall and good Titanfall, right? I'm not crazy.
00:41:59
Speaker
No, they did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and these games are just so big and complicated now. It just feels like it's almost like, of course, it's going to be buggy. This isn't easy, right? Well, Andy, but that's when they're asking you to pay like $70 for these. Oh.
00:42:18
Speaker
Hmm. I see what you're saying. And I maybe I should frame it as sympathetic because if you're taking our money, we should have something to dependable. But I also don't want to take away that it's not difficult for that team, right? Oh, yes, everything. Yes, things are difficult. No one's saying like I couldn't fucking optimize. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Yeah, exactly. But also I don't work in that.
00:42:41
Speaker
Exactly. But yeah, if you're increasing prices to $70 now, like, come on, man, you're asking more from us that take a couple more months to iron things out. Digital Foundry, by the way, this is always a good sign when your game has poor performance. It was Digital Foundry did not get a review code.
00:43:03
Speaker
Oh, no. They put out their review three days ago titled Star Wars Jedi Survivor PC Review, the worst AAA PC port of 2023 so far. Even worse than Last of Us? Yeah, even worse than Last of Us. Wow. Well, it's too bad having a good game have that on it. Yeah.
00:43:27
Speaker
Too bad. Well, you know what else is too bad, Andy? A lot of things. So help me God if you get sent magic cards that aren't released. I swear to God, Andy, if I ever catch you with unreleased Magic Gathering cards, you know what I'm going to do?
00:43:45
Speaker
Wait, what? I'm scared. Well, I'm not going to tell you now, but tell me. I'm going to call the motherfucking Pinkerton. What's a Pinkerton? I keep hearing this. All right. That's an AP history or play Red Dead Redemption 2.
00:44:04
Speaker
I'm not going to give a history lesson, but the Pinkertons were essentially a they are a basis for what policing became in America.
Magic Cards Controversy: Pinkerton Agents' Role
00:44:20
Speaker
They were a they were a four hire organization that basically was the basis for what became policing. Nowadays, they are problematic policing.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yes, very much problematic. Yes, Andy, very much problematic. That's why I don't want to get into the history lesson. OK, OK, OK. But but now they act as a private security organization, which is always so weird when you think about it, right? This that this company from the eighteen hundred seventy three years. Yeah, it was founded in 1850.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah. So just to just to catch if you don't know what we're talking about in this article from Gizmodo. Over the past week or so, a YouTuber known as Old School MTG has been uploading videos of himself opening packs of the new unreleased Magic the Gathering set March of the Machine. Hold on. March of the Magic. What is it? Magic? What's the two dots?
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah. So you just ignore all that, James. Start at March. No, no, no. But I want to say how many times that I forgot. What's this colon colon? Thank you. Magic colon, the gathering set colon March of the madness colon the aftermath. Forgot the word colon. He uploaded three videos which were widely shared on Reddit and the MTG communities, even making headlines at IGN and other sites. He alleged to have 22 boxes and upload multiple videos last week.
00:45:51
Speaker
It's estimated that old-schooled MGG leaked about 75% of the entire set, or about 36 of the set's 50 cards. The set is scheduled to release just in a few weeks on May 12th, with the official reveal set to begin at the start of the month.
00:46:06
Speaker
And then, on Sunday, April 23rd, Old School MTBG uploaded a video titled, How the Aftermath of the Aftermath Everything is Gone. He described how Pinkerton agents allegedly showed up at his door that morning demanding the return of the magic cards. But what they kill him.
00:46:25
Speaker
Like actually, according to his YouTube video, the thinker allegedly asked Old School MGG to turn over the quote unquote stolen product, which in this case, magic cards, they collected the cards, the box and even foil booster sets. He say the agents counted the cards, make sure they retrieved all of them. In the video, Old School MGG said the agents also mentioned jail time while they're speaking to him and his wife. The agents gave Old School MGG a name and number of Wizards coach as he told him to delete the videos he posted on YouTube and left. Yeah.
00:46:55
Speaker
Oh, you know how, like, when you get a game shipped to you early, like, oh, I pre-ordered this game. Hey, it showed up a couple of weeks early because global logistics are weird like that. Fair. And you know how most companies are just like, ah, shit, that happens. Wizards of the Coast is like, send the thugs. Wow.
00:47:21
Speaker
Huh? Yeah. Because this whole thing, the reason the way he procured it wasn't like he was soliciting to get illegal. He didn't like go to Target and steal them or anything. Yeah. Yeah. No, he ordered a product and then somebody mistakenly sent them something else. So again, not illegal.
00:47:39
Speaker
Why didn't they just turn it into a goof? Like, wizards could have played along with it. Yeah. I mean, people have brought this up. What's the Warhammer company, Charles? Games Workshop. Games Workshop. This has happened to Games Workshop a few times where like unreleased models have gotten sent to people early.
00:48:00
Speaker
And they, you know, as much as Games Workshop is like, not a fun company by all accounts, still rolled with the punches and was just like, ah, it happens. Yeah, it's, let's see, further article, IO9 reached out to old school MGG and gave some additional information about this, quoting, as soon as my wife answered the door, they aggressively asked for me by my full name, announced themselves as the Pickerton Agency,
00:48:28
Speaker
and said they were there to recover stolen goods after his wife asked to wait them outside. Kan says they forced themselves at least partially through the door and prevented her from closing the door all the way. When Kan eventually got to the door, he said he assertively moved everyone outside until the ages didn't treat the Kans to respect. They did eventually dial it back and became more civil after that. It is becoming like cyberpunk in a way. It's like, you have our products. Your life is forfeit.
00:48:56
Speaker
What the heck? It's magic cards. Yeah, baby. Well, to Wizards, it's profit. Okay, Andy. They have a multi-level marketing strategy, Andy. Oh my goodness. Forerunners to the secrets. Sorry, I just pulled up the wiki page. Andy, just remember the next time you get, maybe next time you get something in the mail before you actually are supposed to have it, maybe keep your mouth fucking shut, all right?
00:49:27
Speaker
This is kind of you guys are scaring me about is this what Nintendo sent for the Pokemon cards? Nintendo just sends lawyers, which is some people would say is almost scary. I will sue you so that your grandchildren will be paying spent.
00:49:46
Speaker
But like what like I'm just curious to like what wizards think the optics of this is or are they? Well, they're idiots. They blew up their D&D goodwill. Like everybody already hates them about magic. Yeah, they're really speed running becoming the most hated company in gaming. These people who are paid so much to make the decisions are idiots. There's so many idiots. Oh, my God. Well, thanks for the education on Pinkerton. Yeah, look it up sometime and play right there too. It's a great game.
00:50:16
Speaker
Hey, let's talk about some happy news. Oh, I love it. Armored Core is coming out this August.
Armored Core 6: Fast Gameplay and Boss Battles
00:50:23
Speaker
Yeah, right? Yeah, baby. What was it? Tuesday morning drop last week or it was Tuesday or Thursday. They dropped a new gameplay trailer for Armored Core 6 Fires of Rubicon and a PlayStation blog post detailing a lot of more information.
00:50:41
Speaker
If you haven't seen the trailer, you should go look at it. It looks super cool. It does look cool. Didn't show us any of how the customization works though. No, it is very much not a menus. It is early gameplay. Yeah, they did not want to show you how you make it look that cool.
00:50:59
Speaker
But I will say in the PlayStation blog post, they said while Armored Core is staying a mission-based game, so it's not going open world, like say Dark Souls or something like that, they did talk about how they are trying to speed up the game for babies. I want to say like new FromSoft players coming from say a Bloodborne or a Sekiro, so they feel more comfortable in it. And those games are already too much for me. I don't want to assign points to anything.
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like there's there's going to kind of make like class systems almost where you kind of go like, oh, I'm a mage. So I have this armor set. You know what I mean? And that plays as like a long range character. They also said there's this new feature called assault boost. One of the biggest new features. Normal court six is an instantaneous switch between long range gun fighting and close range melee. Thanks to an activated movement skill called assault. OK. Honestly, the trailer looked very impressive. It looked very, very cool.
00:51:58
Speaker
I just have no idea also what is Rubicon mean the Rubicon was the Rubicon is a It's a river
00:52:11
Speaker
Well, actually, was it a river in Greece, too? It's like in American history, in American history, there is a Rubicon River that George Washington sailed over. But I think Greek is all Roman has. Yeah, there's also the one in Italy is probably the one the Greek Roman one. Yeah, that's reference. Yeah, it basically when you cross the Rubicon, there means there's no going back.
00:52:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. Basically you're committing to something. Yeah. And the, the Webster definition is now just saying that the Rubicon is the bound or limit line.
00:52:48
Speaker
Yes. So what a literary way to say something. They're also saying there will be more focus, at least the trailer has a big focus on the boss encounters, which again seems again trying to lean into that kind of how people look at from software games these days, which is right, the boss encounters.
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah, and especially big, cool, like, robots. It's just I hope it's good. I don't know if I could play it, though. I mean, it'll be coming out August 25th, which again, that's a sick statue. I'm in. We're buying that premium edition. Oh, yeah. Well, there's there's two Charles. If you didn't see it, there's the collector's edition where it's just the statue. And then there's the premium edition where the statue gets a garage.
00:53:43
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no. That's what I'm talking about. That premium edition. Give me a hanger. Yeah. Maybe don't order it on the Bandai website. Yeah, I know. And die from the shop sticker shock. I'll fuck you over like they did me, remember? Oh, yeah, that's right. That too. Yeah. And so my thing with the trailer, the gameplay trailer for it was,
00:54:07
Speaker
It absolutely looked like armored core, like all the movement felt the same or at least, you know, seemed like it. I think the like my thing being a person that loved and played armored core is that everything looks like it's mostly the same, like the movements and everything else. It's I think where you're going to make changes is going to be on button controls themselves that will probably combine a bunch of stuff to make things simpler.
00:54:35
Speaker
Like, um, like the, you know, the boosting in forward melee, this assault boost stuff, like it seems like it's combining a lot of manual controls and making it into one thing, which should be, we should make things easier overall. And I get that. That should probably be, that's like falls into updating controls, right? So I'm, I'm hope I'm hopeful for this because it seems like they are on the right track.
00:54:56
Speaker
In that blog, PlayStation Post, the director talked about how the speed of the game was somewhere in between Armor Corps 3 and 5, if that means anything to you. The one thing that I thought was fun is, I think they also mentioned that controls for long-range weapons aren't going to be as annoying, which is perfect.
00:55:18
Speaker
Cause normally there used to be like buttons to go into a long range mode. And like if you moved, you would kick yourself out of long range mode. And it's like an animation that's like to go between the modes. And it's slow.
00:55:34
Speaker
to go into those moments. Yeah, exactly. So it sounds like they're like fixing that and making it simpler and doing all this other stuff. That's also good. The one thing that I'm also excited about is they're keeping Ravens, the term Ravens like they mentioned in the trailer, which is basically mercenaries, which you are, you are a Raven. And
00:55:57
Speaker
There are going to be rival Ravens around like the person you just met that was like, Hey, you ready to break this wall? And it's you and them working together. But you know, my money traditionally that Raven's going to betray you. Oh, I had to fight them. Wait, this is how they're going to have other people drop into your game. Do you think they're going to have that?
00:56:18
Speaker
Um, like, I mean, I mean, I think they could, they could fit that in. I don't see how that, I don't think that's necessarily be a problem to integrate and still feel like armored core, but you know, am I going to believe, am I going to be able to leave messages for people that says, fry finger butt hole? You're in the know, right? I say,
00:56:46
Speaker
Try great fist. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. I'm looking for this to be my first Armor Corps game. And August 25th is not a bad time for a game to come out.
00:57:02
Speaker
Although, what is it? That'll be... Just before PAX. Just before PAX, so we'll all be playing. We'll have to take a break. Charles, you have to bring your PS5 with you. I mean, that is doable. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Elvin Ring played great on Steam Deck on release, so... Oh. So they know how to do PC ports. They do. And I mean, this game is coming to PS4, so...
00:57:27
Speaker
OK. OK. Yep. So, yeah, I mean, you know, Steam Deck capability will probably be pretty good for that, too. But yeah, I'm looking for it. And and here's the thing. So I think we are all kind of being like sort of December for this game. Yeah. And it's like, oh, August. All right. Does that mean the Elvin Ring DLC is going to come out this year? We'll have to say it'll be cool if it does. If it does, like, I think I'm
00:57:56
Speaker
I would say my chances of winning our fantasy league goes drastically high. But yeah, it would also be just a general treat. I could imagine a DLC and a major game from FromSoft releasing the same year and not feel like I'm being spoiled. Sure. I mean, the thing with Armor Corps 6 is right. This game has been like weirdly almost done for like two years. Like it's been leaked for so long. Yeah.
00:58:25
Speaker
Yeah. Two small pieces of news before we end the show tonight.
Tears of the Kingdom: Spoilers and Leaks
00:58:32
Speaker
One, hey, do you care about spoilers? Maybe stay off the internet. Tears of the Kingdom has been leaked. Oh, that's right. People have got, again, the Pinkertons are out and they're hunting right now.
00:58:49
Speaker
The, uh, no, uh, some people, uh, have received their copies of Tears of the Kingdom. They have, uh, dumped the carts, uh, basically dumped the ROMs off the physical carts and are playing on emulators, Tears of the Kingdom right now, or modded switches. Um, why did the tryhards have to get the early copies? I mean, I don't know how to do that. Um, there was,
00:59:18
Speaker
I haven't watched any of them yet, but I have read some of the descriptions of people who've been watching the people streaming it, which is like, why are the hardcore fans, the people who set up these weird emulators with hack switches, they have so much energy and then they're trying to beat a tree down with a stick.
00:59:41
Speaker
Like they have all this knowledge how to get all this very complicated shit going, but they're just terrible gamers. I'm not going to go any of the spoilers. I again have read some of them. I will say they reinforce some of the things I have been saying. But they yeah, it's just keep an eye out. I'm sure as the weeks goes on and we get closer to February, May 12th.
01:00:08
Speaker
Um, the entire sports story will be probably on TikTok and I will probably get spoiled for me at some point. Oh my God, that's next Friday, you guys. Yeah, I know, baby. One more, one more Tuesday. Oh my goodness. I'm still trying to beat Alundra. Oh, hurry the fuck up. And then I got Zeno. Uh-oh.
01:00:26
Speaker
alongside it. And there was one more game released last week.
Honkai Star Rail Success: Downloads and Revenue
01:00:31
Speaker
That was Honkai star rail came out. Charles and I are playing it and it made $40 million in the first 14 with 14 million downloads in the first five and six days. Wow. Oh yeah.
01:00:45
Speaker
It's just another money printer for Honkai Star Rail, let me tell you. If you're unfamiliar, Honkai Star Rail is a new game from Nihoyo Games, the Genshin Impact Studio. This is a sci-fi based JRPG game. And honestly, pretty fucking fun.
01:01:06
Speaker
Even I played this one, but then I... As resident gacha, I will say give your opinions. So the gacha system, I think there needs to be some further confirmation on this one. It might have regressed compared to gacha impact.
01:01:25
Speaker
So right now it's about 1,600 gems, same as Genshin Impact, to pull for 10 chances of getting a character.
01:01:37
Speaker
Um, what I, what has been told is seemingly that there is not a pity system necessarily. So, um, so, so, hold on. There's not a pity system for, um, getting the special character you want necessarily. Um, so like for the weapon, which is in this game called light cones. Why? Cause the future.
01:02:03
Speaker
Um, that if you are to try to spend money on weapons for your characters, which this game has divided their gacha in such a way that you either, you have to get the character and the special weapon for them are separate. You have to try to pay money to get that too.
01:02:19
Speaker
The weapon is not guaranteed no matter how much money you get to get it to pull for. However, the character, there might be a system there that if you don't, if you get a five star character and you don't get it the first time, the second time it will be that five star.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah. There is also, their soft pity rate is still believed to be the same as Genshin Impact, which is around 70 pulls. You start hitting soft pity, and then hard pity is at double that, so 160. And is that pretty bad? It is. So for context, if 1600 is for 10 pulls,
01:02:59
Speaker
How, and I said soft pitties at 70, how many gems do you get for $100? The answer is 6,480, which is the equivalent to about 40 pulls. Only on the first time you buy 100 gems. No, you get double if you do it. So yeah, so after that, so every $100 is 40. If you had your absolute worst luck, you need to spend $400.
01:03:28
Speaker
to get the character you want. The best thing about the game though, you don't need it. The difficulty is literally set that it assumes you're dumb and you're mashing your face against a keyboard.
01:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, it really does. You could up the difficulty to make it a little bit harder and go do other stuff. But like the main story is easy. It does not require you to do anything special or try very hard. You will get through it. And the story surprisingly is fun, if only because the dialogue from the writers is really funny.
01:04:04
Speaker
You could make your main character as dumb or smart as you want. And it's amusing. It's just a fun time going through it. Go ahead, James. It's a lot like Tales of Arise. Oh. How is that, though? Oh, in terms of the writing and stuff? I mean, just in terms of, in general, how the game plays. Well, this is turn-based, though.
01:04:28
Speaker
I'm sorry that plays I mean how it like the story like the story like it feels good like I was very engaged playing Tales of Arise okay I've engaged in the story this is a good JRPG story yeah and you know comparatively it is free
01:04:44
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, if you were to be a free to play player to just download this game and play through the story, you will not have regretted your decision. It is a very fun story to play. The characters are likable and there's cool designs and the animations are really good. Oh my God. Yeah. Charles, I got Clara too. I do. I love Claire. Yeah. Claire is adorable. I love her so much. Well, the robot guardian. Oh, it's so great.
01:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, Clara listeners is a character that is like, uh, I don't know, early teenage girl, little girl that is very kind and smart to be able to repair robots. And then she has a gigantic robot guardian and that robot does not fuck around. It is so fun to be like.
01:05:29
Speaker
And the way the tank was just hilarious. Yeah. The funny part in the game, she plays as a tank so that whenever she gets attacked, the giant robot appears and beats the shit out of whatever just hit her. It is so funny every time it's like her ultimate is she starts crying and then the robot appears behind her as a giant shadow. And it's so fucking cool. What the fuck do you say? Who did this? It's so funny.
01:05:56
Speaker
I've been playing on my phone a little bit. It's not available on Steam. It's only available on the Epic Game Store. It's also not available on the Steam Deck. If I get set up on the Steam Deck, you have to install Windows if you want to play it on your Steam Deck.
01:06:13
Speaker
Um, but although there are some non-approved workarounds to that, I am not, I am not going to spend that much time to play. Leave that for the Zelda leakers. Yeah, there you go. Exactly. But yeah, it's a pretty, again, if you have even a passing interest in JRPGs, this is a pretty fun game. I mean, I'm, Charles, what phone do you have? You have an iPhone, right? So which one do you have? I have an iPhone 12.
01:06:41
Speaker
12. Okay. I have a Pixel 7 Pro. It runs really well on my phone. How's it doing on your phone? Oh, yeah, it runs really well, too. I think there is a weird bug on it, though, if I try to play while charging. I think it's jumping between a performance mode and a normal battery saver mode.
01:07:04
Speaker
And then so it jumps between it and starts glitching a little bit. But then if I just go into settings and say, keep it here, it tends to fix itself. But honestly, not that bad of a bug. Yeah. Yeah. We are spoiled for games. Mm-hmm. Yeah, when I realized I wasn't going to play Jedi Star of Survivor, I was like, why don't you have a story? And I was like, hey, it's not a bad time. Yeah. Get it together, red foam.
01:07:32
Speaker
Redfall, Redfall, Redfall may be a good game someday, but we'll find out on another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I have been your host, James. I'm crashing from the sugar high, Hartwell, and I've been joined by. That's Charles Clara, Guardian, Yamant, and I've been joined by Andy.
01:08:00
Speaker
I only got two weeks till Zelda blessing. No, don't say less. I mean, you're right. Yeah, you do have less. I do have. But beat those games. You guys have a good night. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not good. Well, say it was just a simple. Let's say listeners put your guess and vote on on the at the party pod Twitter on whether or not Andy actually started Zelda on time.
01:08:28
Speaker
Hey, I might. I know my guess. I'm going to beat Alundra by then. The fuck is Alundra? Have a good night. Have a good night. That I bartered for and it was uncomfortable. And I just, I don't know you guys. Some game.