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28. Poorly Reviewed Games We Love feat. Ben Smith
42 Plays1 month ago
Are these games really as bad as they say? Join us and our special guest Ben Smith to discuss 20 games that we don't think deserve they hate they've received!
00:00:00- Show Start
00:08:00- Overwatch 2
00:11:00- Hunt Showdown 1896
00:17:45- Marvel Rivals
00:27:10- Walkabout Mini Golf
00:33:25- Pistol Whip
00:35:30- Avowed
00:48:45- Disco Elysium
00:49:30- Ys VIII- Lacrimosa of Dana
00:53:00- Sleeping Dogs
00:59:00- Astro Bot
01:02:50- Trails Through Daybreak II
01:10:00- Midnight’s Number 5
01:13:55- Hodge’s Number 5
01:17:40- Ben’s Number 5
01:21:30- Sean’s Number 5
01:24:15- Midnight’s Number 4
01:27:38- Hodge’s Number 4
01:28:45- Ben’s Number 4
01:32:45- Sean’s Number 4
01:36:15- Midnight’s Number 3
01:40:30- Hodge’s Number 3
01:42:40- Ben’s Number 3
01:46:40- Sean’s Number 3
01:50:15- Midnight’s Number 2
01:52:33- Hodge’s Number 2
01:54:45- Ben’s Number 2
01:59:15- Sean’s Number 2
02:02:40- Midnight’s Number 1
02:05:10- Hodge’s Number 1
02:08:00- Ben’s Number 1
02:13:00- Sean’s Number 1
Find Ben Online - https://x.com/BenSmith2588
The Handsome Phantom Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@HandsomePhantom
Follow us on X/Twitter
Podcast - http://www.x.com/gameoverplastic
Midnight- http://www.x.com/midnightdt
Sean- http://www.x.com/seanlikestobake
Hodge - http://www.x.com/hodgebaba57
Video and Audio edited by: Hodge
Intro and Graphics by: Hodge
Intro music credits:
Epic Cinematic Trailer | ELITE by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/
Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/
Creative Commons CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:29
Speaker
And welcome everybody. This is games over plastic episode. I think this is 28. Is this 28 guys? I think so. yeah I'm not good at keeping track of the numbers. I am midnight.
00:00:40
Speaker
As always, I am joined by my two amazing co-hosts and an extra, extra special guest. um Let's go ahead and start as we do with the man, the myth, the legend, Sean Mason.
00:00:51
Speaker
How you doing, sir? Good. Coming off. ah So I had this week off school vacation week. i Really much enjoyed myself. Did... Didn't do a lot. I kind of just gamed a lot and just hung out. We had basketball practice, you know, every day this week, but our basketball team's terrible. So we're not going to make the state tournament.
00:01:08
Speaker
ah We have but next week's our last week of games. We have two games left and I'm ready for the season to be over. Very ready. Right on. Good stuff.
00:01:19
Speaker
um And of course, I would say last but not least, but we have
Co-hosts' Weekly Updates
00:01:23
Speaker
someone else. We have Hodge, master of graphics. How you doing, sir? I'm good. I'm tired. I was out late last night at a bar. And so I slept in until like 730 or eight today, which is late for me. So I'm groggy, but I'm ready to go.
00:01:36
Speaker
Let's do this. Groggy Haji with a Grogu. Is it Grogu behind you? that Was that his name? Yeah, i I've had that for years. My little baby Yoda.
00:01:48
Speaker
feel Felt like he's a he can chill here and watch the camera. Baby Yoda's cool. We like baby Yoda.
Guest Setup and Podcast Promotion
00:01:54
Speaker
And then last but not least, Lord Benjamin. Hello.
00:01:59
Speaker
I don't know why I called you a Lord, but you are. So you're royalty. Welcome back. are you doing? I was a little stunned by that. I wasn't really sure how to how to receive it. I thought maybe it was like a case of mistaken identity or something. But it wouldn't be the first time somebody's confused me for somebody else. so The Lord of Pennsylvania.
00:02:14
Speaker
There you go. I'll take it. Mayor Butler. Yeah. Former. butler former forever you're You're forever the mayor. Forever. yeah You're forever the mayor in my book. hi Your background.
00:02:25
Speaker
Is your background new? Because you moved recently. Yeah. Yeah. I just moved in here in December. So, yeah, I wanted to go all out with the background. This was supposed to be a guest room, but it's so small that I couldn't fit a bed in here. So i was like, screw It's just going to be a decked out office instead.
00:02:40
Speaker
ah when i Whenever I see people's backgrounds, I just assume they're kind of like mine where I'm like, yeah, I have some stuff behind me. And people are like, oh, that's a nice background. And then you look at the rest of the room and you're like, oh, there's just a bunch of stuff in there.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. well I feel like that's how everybody who is on camera is. Yeah. Off camera, it's just a closet and there's like three posters hung up. So it's really not that exciting off camera. But yeah, no. Yeah.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah. Hodge has enough decorations for the whole show. Like I have a little bit and Sean has nothing. So I just carry in the squad. I'm just in a white room. My newest addition to my background is Alan Wake 2 lamp.
00:03:22
Speaker
but forgot it When I got the collector's edition, the only time I was ever going to support LRG because that company sucks. but yeah so I'm too obsessed with Alan Wake 2. so I very nearly bought that as well, but decided not to at the last minute. It looks like a deluminator from Harry Potter.
00:03:41
Speaker
Kinda. I mean, that's what it does in the game. It turns on and off lights to change the scenery. So I love that game. Everyone knows it, but I love that game. But ah Ben, I had to ask you, i guess I've never asked you this. would Not to get you know political, but what kind of shit would you have to have gone through as mayor if you were mayor during the infamous assassination attempt?
00:04:03
Speaker
Um... I don't know. So technically that, I mean, it was like a couple miles from me that it happened, but technically it was outside the city limits. Now, of course, you know, all the publicity and everything said Butler, Butler, Butler. So you're going to get all sorts of calls and emails and everything.
00:04:20
Speaker
But I think that probably most of the actual like, groundwork probably would have been performed by fed states and made probably not even that much the local police and i don't even know if that's true or not but i'm just i'm guessing um i imagine i probably would have had to do a lot of pr uh and i don't mean like spin i mean like yeah talking with people interacting um getting lots to hate calls or joyful calls you know depending on people um
00:04:51
Speaker
But it it wouldn't have been fun no matter what it was. So I'm glad I didn't have to. Yeah. That that was, i I mean, obviously the whole thing is crazy. It's a presidential candidate almost getting killed. But the fact that it was in Butler, i was just like, I know people from there. Yeah.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah. wouldn would happened Under Ben's watch. Wouldn't it happened? No, that's right. When the motorcade went by because they, you know, they took him to the hospital. I live in between where it happened and the hospital and they drove like right past my house. So, oh, that's crazy. Yeah.
00:05:21
Speaker
yeah I was power washing my house that day. Like for real? Like not the simulator? like actually I was actually power washing, yeah. and Nice, look at you. all right I can't believe they made that in real life. I thought it was just a video game.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, they took it from the game, huh? Made it a real thing? Yeah, they should. ive I've been thinking like all the power washers, like you can go on Amazon buy like a pressure washer. They should just brand them all with the game and they'd probably sell better. Like tie-ins. In real life.
00:05:47
Speaker
The collector's edition with a real power washer. All right, boys. Well, we're happy. We're thrilled to have you back again. um As I mentioned before, this is year number two, or as I like to call it, Games Over Plastic Year One Remastered. Sony sony would be proud. We had Lockmord on last last week.
00:06:06
Speaker
And just like in year one, we're following up with Ben. So we're remastering this. Like I said, PlayStation would be proud of us here. ah We're really happy to have you here. On this episode, folks, we're going to be doing our top five games with a score below 70. So 69 and below on Metacritic or OpenCritic or both.
00:06:25
Speaker
Games that are mid or bad that we love that aren't actually mid or bad. That's what we're going tell you about. ah Let me get the administrative BS out of the way. So this is Games Over Plastic. We're on all audio
Gaming Habits and Trends
00:06:35
Speaker
platforms, Amazon,
00:06:37
Speaker
Why did I say Amazon? um We're not um on Amazon. We're on Apple and Spotify and Overcast, Pocket Cast and everything else. If you're listening to this on audio platforms, know that this is available on YouTube with cams and graphics, everything at youtube.com slash at games over plastic.
00:06:54
Speaker
So check us out there. Leave us a subscription. Leave us a like. Leave us comments. We like those. It helps us move up the algorithm. Maybe get a couple new listeners. um If you're listening on audio platforms, please feel free to rate the podcast five stars. It doesn't cost anything.
00:07:08
Speaker
Assuming you like it, of course. If it sucks, then, you know, just just don't rate it. That'd be good. um Leave five stars and we appreciate blame why you. We appreciate you. Yeah, put five stars and be like, these guys suck.
00:07:20
Speaker
Hodges' background looks terrible. He's got too much lights. You know, whatever. Um, but yeah, we're, we're thrilled to have Ben back. He's not feeling the best, but he still showed up for the boys to, uh, to put on a great show. and So we're very happy.
00:07:31
Speaker
This is just my new normal now. Yeah. Yeah. You're getting, I've been sick for so long. Like I've had a mild cold for so long that I just feel like this is my new baseline. So, Hey, feel great comparatively.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and let's, why don't we start with you, Ben? You get those vocal cords going, let's get into what we've been playing. Let's do that. Ben, you want to start us off? What have you been up to? Sure, i will do that.
00:07:55
Speaker
I've been kind of stuck in a rut of live service. And I get stuck in a rut of live service. I like playing with friends. I like playing, you know, I'm a very social gamer. I love single-player games, too. People who have known me in the past know that, but...
00:08:10
Speaker
um So lately I've been playing Overwatch 2 a good bit with the boys. ah Just not like I played a lot of Overwatch 1 originally the first couple of years it was out.
00:08:22
Speaker
Then I came back to it occasionally. And then when Overwatch 2 came out, of course, I went in and checked it out. But then ah sometime in the last, I don't know, four or five months, ah Some guys were like, hey, let's play Overwatch 2. And I was like, sure.
00:08:33
Speaker
And then basically it turned into like ah almost every night kind of thing. Sometimes only for like half an hour, 45 minutes. Sometimes it's for a little longer. ah But, you know, just playing a lot of that. And of course, they've just redone a lot of stuff for season. I think it's 15.
00:08:47
Speaker
ah to modify things. i haven't I've only played once since Season 15 started, so and which was only a couple days, but admittedly, I don't know a lot about it, other than that the perk system is in place, and the perk system's really cool.
00:09:03
Speaker
um It adds a lot of you know, versatility to your characters. Basically when you're playing, once you play for a little while, you know how you like in hero shooters, your ultimate builds up and eventually you have an ultimate and it changed. It can change the flow of the game.
00:09:17
Speaker
Well, the perks ah build up over time. I think to some extent they build up on a similar trajectory how, ultimates build up and they give you, um you know, just different things that your character does. So for instance, Reinhardt, who's a tank ah with Reinhardt, one of your perks that you, and every, every so often you have two levels and each level you can choose one or the other of the perks that are, that are there.
00:09:41
Speaker
There's two different sets. So the first level might be, I can't remember what the options are because I always just click them so fast because I'm running in and out. But for Reinhardt, like the first one is, you know, your fire strike. Whenever Reinhardt throws his axe and or like swings his axe and he shoots a thing of fire, however much he shoots can heal you for that amount based on how much damage it does.
00:10:04
Speaker
And then the second level, the one I always pick, is like ah with Reinhardt's shield, you can knock people backwards. Instead of just like protecting yourself, it actually acts as ah as a weapon. So that's just and one example or two examples, really, of like an overall system rehaul that they've done ah for this season.
00:10:21
Speaker
And I haven't really checked out too many characters because I tend to have my three or four that I usually stick to. um But it seems like every character has something that is um is's unique to them that really changes the flow of the game a little bit.
00:10:35
Speaker
Maybe not dramatically as much as an ultimate would, but it gives you some more versatility for sure. So that's the first thing. That's kind of like an always constant thing um that I'm playing a little bit here, a little bit there.
00:10:48
Speaker
ah The other thing is another thing that I'm almost always playing. It's it's Hunt Showdown. um I think I've talked to about Hunt Showdown with you guys before, but I can't remember for sure. But Hunt Showdown 1896, they recently, within the last and eight or 10 months, rebranded it and um totally did an engine re redo an overhaul they updated to the new uh the new cry engine um and this is a it's an extraction shooter first person extraction shooter uh set in 1896 and so all the weapons are older uh the you know a lot of them are based on real weapons that are out there rifles and and pistols and bows and everything and essentially you
00:11:30
Speaker
go in whether it's solo or duo or trio or a mix of all of them and you have a bounty target which is like a monster there's zombies everywhere you know it's the whole thing it's it's the zombie thing this is like an eight seven or eight year old game at this point but people you know you go in to go to a bounty you find clues to figure out where the bounty is you eventually get to the bounty you fight it you banish it you know witchcraft whatever i don't know And then you take the bounty from it.
00:11:58
Speaker
And then you try to get out. Of course, during that whole thing, it's PvP. So there's there's other players around ah that can come and, of course, try to steal the bounty from you. Or and maybe you just get in a fight in a random field before you ever get there.
00:12:11
Speaker
ah So it's um always a little bit different of a game. No matter how the game is going, it's always going to be a little bit different. ah One game, you may not see anybody. You may be able to go in.
00:12:24
Speaker
Get all the clues, kill the boss, get the bounty, get out, never see another soul. Other times, everybody is on your ass immediately, it feels like. um So it's just it's just cool that every game is a little bit different and dynamic.
00:12:37
Speaker
How's the player base Because you said it was like a seven, eight-year-old game. Is it yeah pretty active? or Yeah, yeah. It still is pretty active. Um, it's starting to, you know, get a little less active over time. I think the, the refresh of the engine really helped bring a lot of people back.
00:12:53
Speaker
Uh, and of course, you know, there's always people being like, ah, I'm tired of the, tired of this game. They haven't fixed this. And I was like, okay, you've got 5,000 hours in the game. It's fine. Like you've got your $40 worth.
00:13:05
Speaker
You can move on now if you want to. Um, it's, uh, I'd say, well, so there's no cross play and there's no cross progression. So, you know, you've got your console base separate than your PC base.
00:13:18
Speaker
um But even with that said, if you look at steam on a, on a random day um during the heights of the player, but you know, probably looking at like 10 to 15,000 on steam, ah which for a game where you have a maximum of 10 to 12 people in a lobby, no that's fine.
00:13:34
Speaker
That's totally fine. Um, That's solid. Yeah. funny Is this the one that had the Post Malone thing? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just did. um They just finished that event up actually maybe like two weeks ago.
00:13:49
Speaker
ah they They run events from time to time and each event will have a theme. And of course it comes with an attached battle pass. That's the only time they run battle passes is during events. So you may not have one. for months of the year, but then you'll have one that goes for a couple months as well.
00:14:01
Speaker
um But yeah, Post Malone, they had him. he He's a fan of the game, and they found that out. And so I think they were working on a concept already and just put him in. It was called Post Malone's Murder Circus. And really what that consisted of is a circus with a new enemy type and ah some new mechanics. But the main thing, the Post Malone part, is he he was the ringleader of the circus.
00:14:21
Speaker
uh, in the lore and they just made some skins with Post Malone, which, you know, Post Malone, uh, shockingly fits well into 1896 apocalypse. Um, yeah really well. Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
yeah yeah And then um that's cool. He's a he's a fan of the game. So it's organic, if you will. Not just a paid show. Yeah, right. Right. ah Speaking of post one, I still got to buy his Oreos. I keep thinking about that. I actually bought a pack. They were really good.
00:14:50
Speaker
Really? Yeah. Someone I work with is like obsessed with Oreos. Like she's yeah literally obsessed with them and buys like all the different special edition. She said those are the best ones she's ever had. really they were Really? Really? They're really good. I mean, my favorite flavor. flavor are they?
00:15:02
Speaker
Oh, sorry. it's ah there's two It's one side is like a vanilla cookie. The other is a chocolate cookie. And then on the inside, it's like a swirl of, I can't remember what it is, but it's a swirl of two different flavors. And it's it's really good. I mean, my favorite Oreo is the Halloween ones just because I love the buying the orange creamed Oreo at the at the that part of the year. But yeah, those of flavored Oreos, those are ah really freaking good. so Nice.
00:15:27
Speaker
Maybe I'll pick some up. yeah Yeah, I love Oreos and I love Post Malone. So I got to check it out. um Real quick here. Are you are you done with a showdown there? You good on that?
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah. One thing I forgot to do. Shame on me. ah We forgot to plug where people can find you, Ben. you You've got the HP podcast, right? The Handsome Phantom podcast. Um, what else has been up with you? Is anything you want to plug or anything going on with you that you want to talk about?
00:15:53
Speaker
I was just tell people go, they can go to my Twitter if they want to find me. And if they don't want to find me there, then I'm probably not worth finding. Honestly, like you can find me Ben Smith, two, five, eight, eight, because my name is Ben Smith and I can't come up with anything original. So, so you can find me on Twitter.
00:16:07
Speaker
Um, it's a very, uh, very different name. like don't see anyone having that name. Yeah. It's really unique. My dad's name is John. He's even more unique. So John Smith.
00:16:18
Speaker
Yeah. I think I've only known one John Smith ever. Maybe. Yeah. The really good part. Like, I mean, I've lived a very public life, so I'm a little easier to find, but the really good part before that about having a name like Ben Smith is that people can't really figure out who you are because there's so many of you.
00:16:35
Speaker
So, you know, there's an advantage, I guess. all right There you go. You should try it sometime if you want. Check out Ben on Twitter and check out his awesome podcast, the HP podcast, um which you can find on YouTube and audio platforms and everything. And it's good.
00:16:49
Speaker
I have listened to it several times and it's good. I don't have a lot of time for podcasts, but I have checked out the HP podcast at least on more than one occasion. And it has been quite a good listen. appreciate that Ben, what else are you playing? I didn't mean to cut in like that.
00:17:04
Speaker
So I've played it. I'm just going very briefly mention these. I didn't write them down. I've played them just like a couple hours uh,
00:17:15
Speaker
A couple different games. So I played a couple hours of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 so far. i don't really have a lot to to say about it just because I haven't done a lot. But I can tell you that the little bit I played of Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, it's a dramatic improvement over that.
00:17:30
Speaker
um And then I also played just a little bit of Civ 7. I'm planning on getting pretty deep into Civ 7. I just haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. ah But then the final thing I've been playing a lot of is Marvel Rivals.
00:17:42
Speaker
And again, I'm a hero shooter lover. I love Marvel. um I love, you know, I've loved Marvel since I was a little kid. That doesn't mean I think everything they put out now is good as far as movies, ah but I love the characters. They they're so like meaningful to me.
00:17:58
Speaker
um So when Marvel Rivals was coming out, was like, great, that's awesome. And then I've been grinding this game. I play at least a couple matches. every night, maybe since it came out other than the week I was away.
00:18:12
Speaker
like I was away from home for a week. Other than that, I have played at least two matches every night. And of course, most of that has been ranked. Um, so this current season, I am in, um, mid plat range so far, still climbing cause they just, um,
00:18:30
Speaker
are still climbing and trying to figure out where I'm actually going to finish out. um They, they start everybody at the bottom and Marvel rivals, which is an interesting idea. They start everybody at bronze three and you got to work your way up.
00:18:44
Speaker
um And then of course, you know, there's all the way up to like 7,000 levels of eternity. I don't even know what, what they all are because I don't look at the rankings that high because I probably, I'm not going to get there. I don't belong up there. It's fine.
00:18:56
Speaker
I'm okay with it. ah But yeah, it's It's really ah fascinating game. They have taken so much that they that they learned from Overwatch, stolen a lot of it directly, which, you know, there's no such thing as something new under the sun. So I'm okay with it, personally.
00:19:14
Speaker
ah They've added in the Marvel flair. They've got so much potential. they They just added four new characters this season, two at the beginning, two just this week in the middle of the season. And they've got the entire Marvel universe to work with and continue to grow that and expand it.
00:19:29
Speaker
The one thing that I'll say that Marvel Rivals has that makes it pretty cool. So you might play a game with five different characters that have no associations in the comics. Maybe they've never even met before.
00:19:41
Speaker
And you know you'll just play a game with five different heroes or six different heroes and you know you fight. Other times, though, you can choose. you know If you and your teammates so choose, you can um get characters that do have more of an affiliation and they have team-up abilities. And the team-up abilities are what really make Rivals pop. If you get a whole team that knows how to use utilize their team up abilities, it can be, you can be a real powerhouse.
00:20:08
Speaker
Just a very brief, for instance, ah the fantastic four, all four of them are in the game now. And one of the things that happens is if you have, you know, invisible woman alongside of any of the other three fantastic four, ah she can actually give them an extra advantage.
00:20:23
Speaker
uh buff to their shield so you can get i think it's like 200 i think it's almost 200 more hp it's brief periods of time throughout the game they have to be activated and everything but if you figure that like that happens during a giant team but team fight you have 200 more hp out of your potential four well some of the characters only have 250 some of them have 700 so you know the thing has way more um johnny storm has way less but if you figure With Johnny Storm, you're doubling your health for a couple seconds during a big firefight. Like it totally does dramatically shift the game.
00:20:55
Speaker
Others have different things like, you know, Magneto and ah Scarlet Witch have an ability where if Scarlet Witch is playing, Magneto gets a sword that like goes way far out and can slash people way across the map. So.
00:21:09
Speaker
It adds a lot of different dynamics and one match you could be playing against Magneto and totally roll him. And the next match he has Scarlet Witch and he's just going to absolutely decimate you because he has, has those extra abilities.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so it keeps the game interesting, keeps it lively. You kind of got to keep an eye on what everybody's running. got to strategize on your own. But as the game progresses, just more and more strategies are coming out. It's becoming less and less chaotic. It was very chaotic at the beginning of any new a live service game like that.
00:21:36
Speaker
And so, um yeah, I'm enjoying it. I do think even I'm sure I have a little bit of a bias towards it just because it's characters I love, as we all would. um But I think that the more and more it goes on, it's just becoming very clear that this is a well-made game.
00:21:50
Speaker
And I think it's going to be around for a while. They're doing big you know cash tournaments
VR Gaming Experiences
00:21:54
Speaker
and everything. And it's a giant, it's Netties. I'm sorry I'm feeding the the giant Chinese machine, but you know, it's a game I love, so I can't really, ah I'm going to compromise every now and then. That's fine.
00:22:05
Speaker
It's fine. Who do you like to play as, Ben? i I tend to be more of a fill person. I don't mean to fill the character. I mean, like, I will fill in the role that is needed or the the character that's needed.
00:22:18
Speaker
ah So if I'm playing and, you know, most of the time people want to grab ah the damage characters first and they'll jump in and pick those. um But generally, i will go if I go tank, I go in as Magneto or Thor.
00:22:34
Speaker
Now that was true up until they added the Thing, which I just played for the first time um yesterday. or yeah yesterday, because it just came out yesterday. And so Thing from the Fantastic Four, I'm learning how to play them.
00:22:46
Speaker
ah They're a bit of ah more of a dive tank that just gets in there and brawls. um But otherwise, generally, my my two main ah tank characters would be Magneto or Thor.
00:22:57
Speaker
And then the second most common that I'm playing is Support. ah which generally I will play as either Luna snow, who was a newer character from a, from a tie in just a couple of years ago. Never even heard of that character. Yeah. Yeah. She's like a famous kid pop star, not kids. He's, you know, young adult, I guess.
00:23:15
Speaker
um Who's, uh, Really interesting to play. She's got a cool kit and she's very easy to play too. ah So she's very powerful and very, ah very easy to play. So she's very, almost always you're going to see Luna Snow playing against or on your team.
00:23:34
Speaker
or I will play cloak and dagger, which is interesting because there are two different characters in one, one heals, one does damage. um But you can quickly swap between the two while you're playing.
00:23:45
Speaker
ah It's kind of like, you know, some, most characters have like a shift ability in hero shooters where it's a movement based ability. A cloak and dagger shift is switching from cloak to dagger. And then once you do that, you end up having a different set of abilities based on which character is displayed on the screen.
00:24:00
Speaker
And then for, um, For DPS, which I very rarely get to play because there's already too many too many DPS on the team, ah there's no role queue or anything, which I'm mixed on. I think that teams should just learn the best team composition for them and not be put into one, but I wouldn't mind an option to play in role queue as well as an option to play open queue. But ah when I'm playing that, it just that 100% depends on the the team we're going up against. you know There's some...
00:24:28
Speaker
ah some DPS characters that are really good against guarding against ah dive characters, such as you know Wolverine or Spider-Man or something. that's People who are going try to get in your back line. ah Or maybe you need a little bit more range. And so I'll pick that. So that could be anything from Winter Soldier to Namor to Squirrel Girl. Those are probably the three most common ones that I've played.
00:24:50
Speaker
um But I've played a ah lot of different DPS characters because it's... That one, I think, is the most demanding of needing to know how to defeat the opposing team composition. And um yeah, but that's that's kind of my lineup.
00:25:06
Speaker
All right. Good stuff. Good stuff. Good games. Yeah. i ah Wait, really quick. I ah i played with you that one time. That's the only time I've played. Oh, that's right. Yeah. yeah But yeah, when we played with a bunch of guys from the Spank Bank and that was a lot of fun. But yeah, I'm i'm the I liked Overwatch also back. and I played it. I remember they had like a free weekend one year on Xbox. And so I just played it. and I really liked it. So I bought it every free weekend every weekend now.
00:25:31
Speaker
um yeah I was going to say, is Overwatch 2 free to play now? overwat is Overwatch 2 is free now. yeah okay yeah i haven't but I haven't played that. I i should. but yeah because i was i was really big into... like dad damn what's I always call him Zendaya, but I know that's not his name. Zenyatta?
00:25:44
Speaker
Is that what he was? The healer guy? I almost put up my coffee. Zendaya. I would always play as him because I liked the healing and he was yeah he was good at attack, but I liked the healing part too. and that But Marvel Rivals, I was just playing as a Punisher because I just don't know about that. I was not good at it. You literally downloaded it like while we were playing, I think. yeah but those but I got to hop back in with you guys because I know a lot of guys in the Discord are always asking like who wants to hop on. so I got to that.
00:26:13
Speaker
again. sure was fun. I was really stoned last time, so I don't remember it that well, but remember having Yeah. Yeah. so yeah
00:26:23
Speaker
yeah yeah All right. Good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah, I've played Rivals. I can't really get into it too much, sadly. um It's probably a me issue. I think there's too many heroes. It's it's too much to keep you up with.
00:26:36
Speaker
I'm not. I have too many options. Oh, no. Too many options. i'm the I'm the same as Ben, though, where i'm ah I'm a social gamer, so I will put off games to play live service games instead. Like, I do Cod a lot, or I'll play... um fortnight with people or fall guys or hell divers like i'm i'm the same person where it's like if friends are online i'm gonna hop on and play that instead of do a single player game as you guys always say i'm the live service guru or whatever on the show so yes you are all right Hodge, you
Avowed Game Discussion
00:27:03
Speaker
want to go ahead and get into what you're playing now?
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Speaking speaking of with of playing games online, ah me and a couple guys in the and Discord have gotten really into playing PSVR 2 together. We've been playing a game called Walkabout Mini Golf, which is just this really fun mini golf game where you're you know you're either in Japan or you're up on the cliffs of Scotland or you're like...
00:27:25
Speaker
There's a Wallace and Gromit level where you're at Wallace and Gromit's house. That's freaking awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, there's one of Labyrinth, the Jim Henson movie. And there's there's all these. The only one I don't have is there's an Elvis level, which I'll get eventually. But it's free to play if you have ah PlayStation. i don't know if it's premium you need or if it's essential or elite or whatever the fucking terms are called.
00:27:46
Speaker
I got premium. Yeah, so I have premium, so it was free on that. But then you can buy like you can buy each level for $4 or you can buy the entire thing for 50. So I think there's like 20 levels. So it's cheaper to buy obviously 50 than spend $80 on buying each level.
00:28:03
Speaker
um So I bought that and we've been just been playing. There's one that looks straight up like Rivendell from Lord of the Rings. It's called Alfheim, but we did, we played in Atlantis yesterday. it' It's a really, really fun game. And when you're hopping on with, we had a group of four playing, just playing mini golf together online. It's, it's just a blast. So um we've been trying to get, we've actually had a couple of people like, going to wait for the PSVR two to go back on sale. Cause I really want to play this. I'm like, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
00:28:30
Speaker
So, ah yeah, that's the the first game I've been playing. And I've won almost every round except our buddy Eric. He ah won one round, so... is Is that game at PlayStation exclusive or is it on MetaQuest 2 and stuff? It's on ah it's on Quest. Is it a crossplay?
00:28:44
Speaker
I believe so. we We looked it up and i think when it launched it wasn't, but I'm pretty sure they've updated it because our buddy Zach has it on, or he's going to get it on Quest and join us. so And then we just use the Discord voice chat to talk to each other.
00:28:57
Speaker
ah yeah it's it's It's a blast. so I was just wondering because that's like a... slightly cheaper entry point for people. yeah Yeah. Yeah. So if anyone has a quest, you could play it on that as well. Cause it's funny the, ah when you like start a room, you just basically start a room and they have to join it And when it says invite at the bottom, it has the Oculus logo. They didn't update it to have the PlayStation logo.
00:29:19
Speaker
but So it's shocking and got through it got through their QA because they usually won't a allow that. Yeah. So it has the Oculus logo. And i I wonder if because it's the old one where it's literally just that oval.
00:29:30
Speaker
So I wonder if they just didn't even notice that it was the logo. They thought it just a button or something. So. someone yeah Someone messed up, so it says that. But the invite button doesn't even work, so it doesn't even matter. You just tell people, hey, this is the room name. Join it.
00:29:43
Speaker
But, yeah, it's ah it's a lot of fun to play with multiple. I mean, I've played a couple on my own, obviously, but it's so much more fun when you're just golfing with the bros. So, it's yeah, it's of a hell lot of fun. i don't know if you guys have anything to add to that before I...
00:29:57
Speaker
that sounds like a lot of fun i used to play those golf type games not in vr just regular ones with your friends um and those were those were a lot of fun good party games um you ever played golf with your friends i did yeah that was one of them yeah yeah that was the human stuff yeah i think it's on game pass i've we've played that one it's fun that's a fun game yeah yeah and in vr i bet it would be even more fun more immersive more enjoyable Well, because the bet, I mean, I love this game, but on ah when I bought the first PSVR, I bought it because when I, it it was finally on sale for like 300 bucks. Like they'd finally dropped the price enough and it was a bundle that came with the joy con or like the joysticks and then the camera and it came with games and it was all that for 300
00:30:38
Speaker
And I had to work one weekend because I got a promotion because we're so busy that I got promoted to a ah better you know job. And ah they told me, like, we need you to start at this position on Monday. Like, we can't train you over the course of a few weeks. So if you come in Saturday, we'll pay you $100 an hour to train. I'm like, well, I'm not turning down $100 So, um so I went and I worked for like five hours.
00:31:02
Speaker
And so even though I didn't have the money in my pocket, I was like, I'm going to go buy a PSVR. And so I bought it and it came with a game called everybody's golf VR, which I know have. Yeah. They have a non VR version, which I know everyone loves, but the VR version, because that was actual golf where you had to tee off and everything. So that one was amazing. I wish they would have updated it, but I'm pretty sure that company got bought by meta if I remember right. So did they, there's no way they were going to update it for PSVR too.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah, they quit they quit um updating it probably like two years ago now, almost. Yeah, which it's it sucks because that game was awesome. So I'd love a real golf game on PSVR 2, but the the mini putt one is just as fun. Do you have a PSVR 2, Ben? I'm not sure.
00:31:45
Speaker
No, I don't have a PSVR 2. I have a Quest 2 I have a PSVR 1, but I realize i love VR and I really believe in the medium, but I i personally just I get excited. i buy and a buy a VR system, and then I just don't play it as much as I should.
00:32:03
Speaker
yeah Honestly, I do the same with my consoles. I mostly game on PC. um So I'll buy everything because it's new and shiny, and I want it. I'm the same. um But then I end up not utilizing it as much as I should. So this time I actually did the smart thing and didn't buy a VR 2 for PlayStation. Well, if you if you ever want to join us on Quest, you are welcome to. I literally just looked it up and put it on my wish list.
00:32:24
Speaker
Oh, nice. Yeah, it's it's so because you can have up to eight people golfing at the same time. So it's it's we've we're we're looking forward to eventually getting like eight people to join. know But ah yeah, it's I'm the same, though. I like I don't utilize especially VR as much as I should. Like when I have i had a quest, I have the i have the original and it's basically just a brick now because nothing plays on it.
00:32:46
Speaker
But I would play Beat Saber. like as a If I was going to do a home workout, I would just hop in and kind of warm up by yeah and flailing my arms, playing Beat Saber. But yeah, I did not use it as much as I should. But so I i remember Pweb, who's one of the guys who who one of our buddies who I was golfing with this. He goes, thank you for telling me about this game because i bought this thing. I haven't used it in like a year. So yeah it's a good reason to dust it off. And I'm like, yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
So every almost every weekend we're getting people to be like, hey, let's tea time it. You know, a half hour. Let's do it. So, yeah, you should you should definitely join us sometime. It'd be a whole lot of fun.
00:33:23
Speaker
But the other game, i actually just started playing it this morning, was because I did it as a little warmup warm-up before a workout as well, is Pistol Whip, which is another VR game. And that that one is just like John Wick Simulator. It's like Beat Saber, but you're John Wick shooting people. And it's so much fun.
00:33:39
Speaker
ah And I'm surprised because it's one where you're constantly moving forward, but I'm not getting the motion sickness. Like... i I remember on the original PSVR, I tried playing at Astro Bot Rescue because I obviously, as everyone knows, I love Astro Bot and I love platformers.
00:33:54
Speaker
But when you're playing as Astro Bot, like it's just an overview and you're controlling Astro Bot run around. And when you move forward on the screen, your screen starts moving forward with it. And I get motion sickness with that.
00:34:05
Speaker
So I'm very lucky that with pi Pistol Whip, i'm not I'm not getting that motion sickness. and But it's such a, I, yeah, it's one of those things where I'm happy that ah PlayStation offers PSVR games on their subscription service because it opens doors to actually try new games. And I love that.
00:34:26
Speaker
So it's cool that this is free with this, with the service. And obviously I'm sure there's DLC packs or whatever in it, but yeah, I just, I love, I'm happy that I'm forcing myself to use my VR more because Yeah, I spent three under 50 bucks on it and I shouldn't just let it collect us.
00:34:43
Speaker
Pistol whip is top tier. It's great. Oh, yeah, it's yeah. I actually i think my brother bought it on my quest back like years ago because I brought it home for. That's the one thing I love about Quest is how portable it is because it's literally just the headset. You don't have to plug it into anything.
00:34:57
Speaker
So I'd bring it home for my Christmas and my brothers would always play it. I was actually going to give my old Quest to my brother for Christmas this last year, but I turned it on to update it. And yeah, it's basically a brick at this point because I have the OG one and that thing does not play many games very well anymore. So i was like, well, sorry, I didn't get you one for Christmas because it was it's a brick.
00:35:16
Speaker
But yeah. But yeah, that was the other game. ah And then obviously the big game of the week is I've been playing Avowed. ah i As people know, I'm not the biggest fantasy RPG kind of person, but I am actually loving this game.
00:35:30
Speaker
It is a beautiful game. I'm playing on journalism mode because that's just who I am at this point in my life. ah But it's... just a beautiful game. the The writing is, I can see where people are like, it's not that well written, but ah the lore is pretty cool. Like the, you're the godlike or whatever it's called and all this. And so people are kind of skeptical of you and it's kind of like the last of us fungus takeover kind of enemy. It's, it's really, it's a
Game Reviews: Disco Elysium and Ys VIII
00:35:55
Speaker
really cool concept. And I'm loving the, the fact you can do like one hand, you're a mage and the other hand, you have your sword and the the combo, the combination of that kind of stuff. It's,
00:36:04
Speaker
Very, I love the just run up to people. They got the, you know, the exclamation point above their head. And you're like can you go find my brother? He's lost in the woods. And like, yep, let's go do it. Fuck it. And just doing these side missions. And yes, as someone who's not really a huge open world RPG person, obviously I know a lot of people like now KCD two is the best game of the year, or it's not as good as Skyrim or I'm like, I don't care.
00:36:26
Speaker
i like it for what it is. I'm not going to compare it to other fantasy RPGs because I'm not an authority on fantasy RPGs. It's just a fun game. And I think for casuals who just want to play a game, they're going to love it. Obviously, like our buddy Locke is, he's already basically said Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is going to be his game of the year. Like there's nothing, there's nothing going to top that for him. Just like I think Baldur's Gate 3 was his favorite of that year. and So it's I know for the hardcore RPG fans like this, like KCD is the one that everyone's like this. This is one of the best games I've ever played. But for me, who's not that but big into those games, I'm really loving about and I'm excited to keep playing it.
00:37:06
Speaker
Are you playing in first or third person? I've been mostly playing in first. I did try third for a little bit. I like it because you can see around you better. But when you're doing the actual like spells and stuff, you look kind of goofy in third person. Like it just doesn't look as fun. So I kind of like having the first person where I see my hand, like throw the flame and all that kind of stuff. I I've been enjoying that. And it's a little easier to pick up items when you have your crosshairs in front of you rather than kind of behind you and over your head.
00:37:35
Speaker
So it's a little easier to pick up items and stuff, but I prefer playing games in third person over first was in games like this, but it controls a better in first person. So I've just been sticking to that and I'm playing it in the balanced mode ah where I think it's like 40 FPS or something.
00:37:52
Speaker
ah So I, so I can have enjoy the better graphics, but let it play. And then I have like the VR or whatever. And, unlocked frame rate. So I think it hops up here, here and there, but obviously I'm playing on series X, so it's not as powerful a PC, but yeah, it's still a gorgeous game playing on that mode. And yeah, first person is my way to go.
00:38:12
Speaker
I'm not gonna lie, i'm I'm a little bit worried about a vowed for me. I'm a big, you know, guys, Obsidian's never let me down. But hearing the writing, and I've heard that from multiple people, the writing is not like the top tier Obsidian that we're used to.
00:38:25
Speaker
It's kind of got me nervous, because that's what I really love about Obsidian. And again, Hodge, I'm like, you I'm not the big fantasy RPG. I'm more of like the, you know, i like like I said, I didn't like Skyrim. I know everyone hates me for that.
00:38:36
Speaker
Um, but I'm not an Ellis Rose guy, but I'm a fallout guy and I love the outer worlds. So I'm a little worried that if the writing's not there that, and I'm not so into the, um, you know, fantasy aspects of it, that this game's not going to, you know, catch me, but don't know. I am going to give it a shot.
00:38:53
Speaker
Uh, I got plenty other stuff I'm playing right now, but I will be giving it a shot. And, um, first person combat for me, like first person melee combat is always felt weird to me using like a sword or like magic. It's always been off to me.
00:39:08
Speaker
So I don't know. I'm going to give a shot, but here in the writing is God, got me a little worried. Yeah, well, it's guns. Sean, there's guns in the game if you want. There's pistols. There's like muskets. Yeah, they're cool.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, our our buddy Locke was, as
Sean's Gaming Highlights
00:39:24
Speaker
i everyone knows who listens, he was on it or if you know him, but ah ah he was saying like some stuff, you know, you'll pick up a note and it's this beautiful like Shakespearean lore almost written down. And then you talk to some person, he's like,
00:39:37
Speaker
well, gosh darn it, my cat ran away. And it's just like, what what is, why, how do we have such like, so it's obviously that the main writers of the game know what they're doing and then they hired people to like fill in writing and that's just not good.
00:39:50
Speaker
So it's very, it's very hit or miss, but I like the lore of it so far. So I'm excited to learn more about what's going on. And, but yeah, I'm, I'm enjoying it overall. is Yeah. Like I said, especially as someone who's not huge in a fantasy RPG. So yeah. Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
So that's what Hodge has been playing. Midnight, why don't you continue with Avowed? I was already going to do it. Already on it. So that's what Hodge has been playing. Let me get into what I've been playing, and I also am playing Avowed.
00:40:18
Speaker
um So we'll keep the conversation going. um i have been enjoying this game much. ah Very much. um I've been having a lot of fun with this game. I'm about six to eight hours in.
00:40:31
Speaker
um I'm a level eight. um I'm a mage is what I went with mainly. um But I also do. You can have two loadouts like you can just press the wire triangle button or it's not on PlayStation yet. But anyway.
00:40:43
Speaker
you know you can switch to your loadout right so my main loadout is i have a wand you know you could just kind of flip little magic at people that doesn't use any mana or essence they call it um and then i have a grimoire spell book in my ah left hand which has four different spells in it that you can cast from the grip the grimoire you have to actually have the grimoire in your hand to be able to cast those spells spend a skill point to permanently unlock it then you can use it whenever um But yeah, no, it's it's really good.
00:41:10
Speaker
The graphics, I'm playing on PC. The graphics are insanely great. um They are really good, especially the environments. Like it's colorful, the water, the effects, the rocks, the plants.
Easy Mode and Gaming Preferences
00:41:21
Speaker
Dude, it looks really good. The character models and their armor and stuff, it looks really good. um The combat is really fun, I think. um The parkour in this game is great. like You run and jump from ledge to ledge and climb, and it's really fast and fluid and smooth. um the the Probably the downside of this game is, one, the interactivity. This is what people have been showing.
00:41:43
Speaker
The game doesn't have a ton of interactivity. Like the guards don't really care if you're grabbing items. um there are There are like just random fill in items in the world that aren't really, you can't like you attack them and nothing happens.
00:41:55
Speaker
Like I saw a boar walking around the field and I attacked it and like nothing happened. So he's just like window dressing. It's like not really a real boar. um So you could tell that there were budget and time constraints that they put into this. you know there They are working on three games at once, Obsidian is.
00:42:09
Speaker
So I give them a pass on that. But people comparing it to Skyrim, I think it's stupid because Obsidian literally came out a year and a half ago and they said, we decided we're not trying to make a Skyrim game.
00:42:21
Speaker
They were like, we're going to stick to what we do, which is small scale um RPGs. um So, ah you know, I think it's kind of disingenuous and dumb to compare it to Elder Scrolls games when they literally said we're not we're not doing that.
00:42:34
Speaker
But. In any case, the the other the other weakness slightly, I would say, is the writing, Sean. um But I am still enjoying the the story quite a bit. um The side quests have been surprisingly good. um Like, I've enjoyed each side quest has, like, a little story to it.
00:42:50
Speaker
Some of them are just, like, random fetch quests. Some of them are, like, a bounty. Like, you just go kill someone and then turn in and get gold, right? There's really little to no story there. But there are actual, like, side quests that I've done where you delve into, like, this deep cave and then you rescue someone and then you fight a boss and then you get a cool weapon.
00:43:05
Speaker
And then you have a choice at the end, whether to spare or save so or kill someone and, you know, this and that. And those maybe will have ah implications later. I'm not sure. We'll find out, um but it's cool. And, Aj, you are doing sword, right?
00:43:18
Speaker
So one thing that I'm, no spoilers, one thing I'm going to recommend to you is you need to do that side quest where you go ah try to save the expedition team. You should get that soon if you don't already have it in the city.
00:43:29
Speaker
um Because when you finish that quest, you will get an awesome sword. um And it's a good quest. So I would prioritize that soon if you want a cool sword. It's a really, really awesome sword. Yeah. But yeah, no, it's it's really good. As far as the main story, um you know, the the main story, which this is not really a spoiler.
00:43:46
Speaker
um They kind of have advertised this is there's like a dream scourge going on. So you're sent to this area, the living lands, which is like ah an island full of rogues and like people who don't like the government. um They don't like they don't like the empire. they They don't like you because they want to live free and the empire is coming in. You know, they don't want laws.
00:44:04
Speaker
um So. Basically, you're set to find out what's going on with the Dreams Gorge and try to stop it. um So it's kind of like a obtuse, like kind of high arching plot that really hasn't paid off yet. You know, I don't we don't know what's going on yet.
00:44:17
Speaker
um So I would say the story is not hitting as much as it has in previous games yet. But it might get better as you get deeper into like what's actually happening with the Dreams Gorge. um But like the side quest writing, I think has been quite good.
00:44:29
Speaker
um And the main quest has been okay. It's been fine. um But I'm having a lot of fun though, because the world, the combat and everything like it's cool. um I think you'll probably enjoy it.
00:44:40
Speaker
um You know, you don't like first person combat. They do have guns. um They have musket. They have, I just got a pistol that like has lightning. So it's like a lightning pistol too. So you shock and shoot them, which is pretty cool.
00:44:51
Speaker
And a lot of people like the spears. Spears for the melee are really good because you have long range, so you can just kind of stab at people, which is which is nice. ah That feels more fluid than just like, you know what I mean?
00:45:02
Speaker
It feels more impactful, I think. So you might enjoy spears and guns and stuff, Sean. The other thing about... I'm on i'm honestly, i'm like I said, i i'm not a first I don't like first person melee either, but there is In the options, there's an option to turn on where once you attack with a melee, you lunge at the enemy, so it's not like you're awkwardly missing.
00:45:24
Speaker
he'll It'll auto kind of lunge at the enemy for you, which is nice. So I turned to that on because, yeah, like I agree. i'm not I don't like... First person melee just feels weird to me. ah So I'm in the same way about that, but...
00:45:36
Speaker
Really quickly before anyone else hops in or whatever, i agree with the the stealing thing because i just walked into someone's house and started picking shit up and no one cares. And after just playing Indiana Jones, where if you go into like a Nazi camp, whatever, they will, they even like you're a disguised whatever, they will attack you if you take something.
00:45:54
Speaker
And so I was, and they'll say like on you know on the screen, steal instead of like take. And so I was expecting that when I walked into someone's house, but nope, I just robbed him blind and walked around. Hearing that is so odd for an Obsidian game because if you play the Outer Worlds, you play Fallout New Vegas, you go anywhere and you take something that you're not supposed to take.
00:46:14
Speaker
Everyone starts basically attacking you, trying to kill you. So it's like, yeah that is very odd to hear. Yeah, it was weird. Yeah, it's obvious that there were some budget and time constraints in this game. um You know implementing a whole crime and punishment system is is this is an Unreal Engine, too. So it's not in like the creation engine like New Vegas was and stuff. I don't know what Outer Worlds is, but yeah, it it doesn't have that.
00:46:36
Speaker
But not every game has that. There are a lot of RPGs where you just walk into his house and steal shit and nobody says anything. um in fact in the witcher 3 it does have a crime and punishment system but for a lot of the games you can just walk in anybody's house and take anything even when they're right there and they won't say or do shit um so in the big cities though where there's guards they will harass you a bit but like in a lot of the witcher 3 it's also like it's whatever i i don't care i'm enjoying the combat the graphics the world and the and and the story has been you know decent enough um In ah Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, I haven't actually experienced this, but I read someone else talking about it.
00:47:12
Speaker
And it says like you can go in like most games that you can steal stuff, even if they do catch you. Like as long as they're not looking, they won't know. um But in Kingdom Come, they said that actually you can steal stuff. And if people don't see it, you're fine for now. But later, if they notice that it's missing or that you have it.
00:47:30
Speaker
or they suspect that you have it, they can actually raise suspicion and you have to like deal with that at that point. I thought that was really interesting, though, that like the characters could know that something you have used to be theirs.
00:47:41
Speaker
yeah well that that's I remember ah our buddy GJ was saying that like he stole a like a shirt or something from a house, and then he came back to the house wearing it They're like, hey, that's mine. like They noticed. like I'm like, that's actually really cool that they have that much like knowledge about it.
00:47:58
Speaker
Yeah, Kingdom Come is a very deep like simulation, like immersive sim type game. Yeah, they will literally, if you're wearing their stuff, they will they'll be like, that's my stuff, you thief. like Yeah, yeah like they they really build it around that. I put my name in my underwear.
00:48:11
Speaker
let me see the Let me see the band there. It says Steve. All right, so that's Avowed. Anyone have any other thoughts here before I move on? No. I recommend it. I think it's pretty good, especially if you have Game Pass. You can try it out ah for free.
00:48:27
Speaker
Essentially. um That's what I'm doing. I'm a fraud. I said I was going to buy this game. I didn't buy it. um I'm playing it on Game Pass. I started investing my money, so um I want to save money where I can and put it in the market instead. But... ah But yeah, shout out to about it's good.
00:48:42
Speaker
um Next, real quick, I'll get into a game that I forgot. I actually beat this game like three, four weeks ago, but I never mentioned that I beat it on the show. So Disco Elysium, I'll keep this short. I know Hodge is not a fan of this game, um but I beat the game.
00:48:55
Speaker
It's pretty decent. I would give it like a 7.5 out of 10. It's very unique because it is very just narrative based. There's just a ton of text. um It's like a book. um But overall, I thought the story was pretty good. I thought a lot of the characters were pretty cool. I enjoyed the ending. I got, you know, I would say ah the good ending, I would say.
00:49:12
Speaker
um And yeah, I definitely enjoyed it. I'll keep it at that. I'm not gonna talk about it too much. um But yeah, that Disco Elysium was beaten and I did enjoy it. And if you are a fan of like super narrative based games, like there's not a lot of gameplay at all.
00:49:25
Speaker
um And you don't mind that the writer apparently is a communist. There you go. um and i only spent four bucks on the game so um anyone have any thoughts on this before i move on no okay moving on to the bigger one here uh east eight east eight whatever it's called lacrimosa of dana i think yeah i beat this game i beat this game and it was perfectly okay It was perfectly all right. I don't think this game was amazing.
00:49:57
Speaker
um This was one of, you know, part of my weeb experience here. One of the JRPGs I'm trying to play this year to see what I've been missing. And this one was no Octopath Traveler 2. Octopath Traveler 2 was like almost masterpiece level.
00:50:09
Speaker
This one was very mid. It wasn't bad in any way. It was perfectly serviceable in every way. Like the story was serviceable. The combat was ah combat was actually pretty good. The combat was one of the high points, I would say.
00:50:21
Speaker
um But like the story was just OK. The graphics are just OK. The map is horrible. Like I was constantly getting lost trying to figure out like which exit I'm supposed to take to get places. um The ending, the ending. I got the normal ending, Sean, and the normal ending is so bad Like literally I felt so unfulfilled and so unrewarded from this ending, like without spoiling much anything. The, the main, the normal ending is literally just like, you you know, most of the people live and you sail off.
00:50:50
Speaker
Like they didn't do an epilogue really at all where it says like, you know, so-and-so went off to do this afterwards. I like when games do that. mean, like this character went on to do this and the, you know, I like that close. The East games don't do that. So while they did on, they do on the true ending.
00:51:04
Speaker
um on the On the true ending, they do have a short one of those. That's why you're supposed to get the true ending. Yeah, well, i didn't. And it was I watched the true ending on YouTube because I was like, this is so unrewarding. like I've got to see the good ending.
00:51:19
Speaker
And the good ending was quite a bit better, but it was still just kind of eh. So I would probably give this game about like a 7 out of 10, you know. I don't know. it was It was not bad, but it also wasn't awesome. It doesn't make me super excited to play more East games, but I think I still will play East 10 because that's the new one. And I've heard better things about that one. And Sean, you liked it, right?
00:51:39
Speaker
Yeah, I like Ys X. I don't know. So if you wanted to go into your WiiBery, I don't know why you choose a series like Ys because Ys is not like this, like, oh my gosh, this is an amazing JRPG WiiB game here. I mean, i like Ys, but I don't think it's like, you know, God's Gift to Earth. I think there's, I could probably name 10 other series that I'd play over Ys.
00:52:00
Speaker
I do like the games, but, you know. maybe Maybe you just picked the wrong one. Maybe. I'm trying a little bit of everything. you know Should have played Trails. I actually don't own it. It was on PlayStation Plus Premium is where I played it. So shout out to PS Plus.
00:52:17
Speaker
Should have played Trails. you know Just like a thousand hours of gameplay there. No problem. yeah trails Listen, I'm going to get into that in a little bit. yeah you been that You should have played Trails. you know There's 12 games. They're like 100 hours a each. What's your problem, dude?
00:52:30
Speaker
$100 each. They're like $50, depending. Okay. All right. Well, as we have discussed, Sean, you know I'm going to be playing Tits first chapter, Trails in the Sky remake. I'm looking forward to that. So that will be my entry point into Trails. So Ys VIII was a perfectly okay game.
00:52:45
Speaker
um I wasn't mad at it, but it didn't wow me. Avowed, I'm enjoying way more. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. Random aside. um Any thoughts, anyone on Ys here before we move on?
00:52:58
Speaker
All right. Sean, Last but not least, what have you been playing, sir? All right. I'm just going to get right into this. I'm going to update us with my Sleeping Dogs playthrough. It is complete. I played it. So I have fulfilled my gift from Midnight, my Secret Santa gift.
00:53:13
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. Like I said last week, I only was only a couple hours in, but now that I'm done the game, this game is freaking awesome. I think that it is right there with like GTA 4 for me. I like I like GTA 5 better than 4 and Sleeping Dogs, but I think it's right there with GTA 4. I think the stories, oh I think it's better than GTA 4s.
00:53:34
Speaker
I also think when I'm in Sleeping Dogs, I'm not as tempted to just run around and have fun. as like I am in GTA where I'm just gonna go off and just, you know, I'm gonna go steal these cars and, you know, drive through here and get a five star, you know, rating here and, you know, run away from the cops.
00:53:49
Speaker
Whereas in Sleeping Dogs, I'm more likely to like, all right, what do I want to do with the main story? Or what do I want to do some side missions? um The combat is phenomenal. This is the best combat I've played in like a sandbox type of game, like like a GTA-like game.
00:54:04
Speaker
It is insane. like I've seen so many different animations and so many different ways to take down enemies. It's really, really amazing. As far as the mission-wise, I thought almost all of the main missions were really compelling and really like you're you're interested, you're you really want to know what's going to happen next, and there's some twists and turns.
00:54:26
Speaker
ah Shout out to the wedding mission. That wedding mission is insane, and that's where the game kind of really starts taking off. Also, the funeral mission, that's like later on in the game. you get ah You get a grenade launcher, that's pretty awesome. i am and i was That was pretty cool.
00:54:40
Speaker
Overall, the game was really fun. i'm I'm really glad I played it. I'm really sad they're not goingnna make a sequel to this, because it's really disappointing, because It is so awesome, but I did i didn't realize this until ah probably like earlier this week that it was part of a series called um True Crime.
00:54:59
Speaker
True Crime. So I actually ordered the True Crime New York game for PS2, and I am going to try to play that. So I'm going to bust out the old PS2 and play that. But overall, really cool. I love the Hong Kong setting. Love the, like I said, the undercover cop slash you know gangster vibes here going, getting caught up in that life.
00:55:18
Speaker
Really fun game. Yeah, i'm dude, I'm so glad that you love this game. I knew you would. I knew you would. That's why that's why I gave it to you as the as the as the gift. I knew you would like it. Dude, this game is so slept on. Although lately, it's been i know Maddie and some other people have been talking about this game. I've seen a lot more people talking about Sleeping Dogs.
00:55:36
Speaker
um It's having like a renaissance, if you will. um yeah i was a movie Probably because of the movie talk. Probably, yeah, which I'm excited about. I really love this game. The combat is so fun. The world is so unique and immersive, I i felt like.
00:55:50
Speaker
The voice acting is top tier. The characters are great, like Jackie Ma and Wei Shen and everybody was just awesome, dude.
00:56:01
Speaker
And there's like a DDR minigame in it in one of the missions you go to the nightclub. There you go. um I need to replay this at some point because I played it way back in like 2012 or something. So I don't even remember like everything that happened. I just I just know I absolutely adored this game and it sucks. Yeah, this was from United Front Games, I think was the studio.
00:56:19
Speaker
um This game came out. it was well received. english Yeah, Square Enix published. Yeah. So this game was really well liked by people and we thought we would get a sequel, but instead they tried to make like some open world, like MMO light type crap.
00:56:34
Speaker
And then they ended up just shuttering it. And I was, I was really sad as far as true crime. This is not really true crime. It's not really the same universe. So I don't expect like tie-ins or anything. um But this game, sleeping dogs was originally supposed to be a true crime game and they spun it off into its own thing.
00:56:49
Speaker
So, yeah. But yeah, the true crime games are okay. I played true crime Streets of LA back in the day, and I enjoyed that game quite a bit, but it's probably aged considerably, but that's okay. All right, so that was Sleeping Dogs. Anyone have thoughts on that before he moves on?
00:57:05
Speaker
Yeah, just quickly, when you told me that it was only about a 15-hour completion, I looked into it, and I did have it from placed or ah Xbox Gold, so I do have it, and I downloaded it, so once I'm done with Avowed, I'm going to play this game, because Really, it's one of those things of it was a turnoff just because usually that style of game is like a 60-hour kind of game. And I was like, I don't really feel like doing that. But when you told me it's only 15 hours, I'm like, actually, I do want it. Especially hearing how Sean loves it and obviously how you recommended it to him.
00:57:33
Speaker
i was like, you know what? Fuck I'm going to give this one a try. But yeah, I just want to beat a Valor first. But I think this is going to be the next game I play. So I'm excited to jump in and play it. And for everyone who says I hate Xbox, I played it on Xbox, guys.
00:57:47
Speaker
There you go, guys. not Not an Xbox hater. Ben, did you ever play Sleeping Dogs? I played the first one. I don't remember if I played the second one or not. There's only one, I think. Well, they like played it. The definitive edition.
00:57:58
Speaker
ah thought there was a Sleeping Dogs, too. It's just the definitive edition. No, they never made a sequel. Well, i played I played Sleeping Dogs then, yeah, back in the day. Long time ago. i like That was like before I was married, i think. So when did it come out? 2012-ish. Okay, that that's the year I got married. So that makes sense.
00:58:15
Speaker
um I remember liking it, but I don't remember much about the game, honestly. I just know that I i played it. It's on my... I know I have occasionally when I like scroll back through my Xbox ah achievements and everything, I see the gamer score there has has at least started.
00:58:30
Speaker
um So i know I know I played it, but yeah, if you asked me to name anything about the game, it be it'd be a tough stretch for me. ah Sean, real quick, I just have a question and then yep you can proceed.
00:58:42
Speaker
um I remember I mentioned how like later on in the game when you get more comfortable with the combat, like you start busting out combos and it's really fluid and fun. Was that also your experience? Yeah, I had mentioned that. have like I've seen so many there's so many animations in the game for combat. and makes like It makes GTA's combat look like child's play.
00:58:59
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Take it away. What else is going on next up? I jumped into those new Astro Bot levels. The two new levels that they released. Tick tock. Yeah. Tick tock shock and thrust or bust. And um they're not speed run levels. I mean, they give you a time at the end of the level.
00:59:18
Speaker
um They're not like extremely difficult. There's no checkpoints in them. So if you die to start all the way over, but they're not long and there's only one bot in each one. i'm not going spoil what the Astro Bot are that you can rescue. Um, there's only one bot and you get it for finishing it overall. Pretty fun. There's, you know, one, uh, tick tock shock utilizes as the slowdown mechanic.
00:59:36
Speaker
Oh, I remember that we put like that. Essentially you put like the VR thing on your head and it kind of slows down. And then the other one is like the, but like the, the rocket jet pack that you not know one that you don't go up, but you go like,
00:59:48
Speaker
yeah like diagonal, almost like in a vertical line. um Pretty fun levels overall. Astro Bot's great. I'm going to keep it on. going to play the next one when it comes out. I think they're releasing one like every week. So, yeah.
01:00:01
Speaker
So that was Astro Bot. Highly suggested it. yeah i didn't I haven't hopped into those because I don't really care about like those speedrun type levels. I know that's not like technically what it is, but I just i don't care about those like race ones. Because you're bad.
01:00:16
Speaker
but What? ah Because you're bad. Well, yeah. Of course. I love the platforming part of like the like the Christmas level that they had. I loved that so much because it was just an adventure little playroom. You go around you rescue everything and you utilize all the powers and stuff again. And I loved that. But yeah, the ones where the it's just, it's cause like, it's not, i guess that I don't like those levels. It's the fact that when I don't play the game for months on end and then they release it, I have to remember how to play it. And I'm just not good anymore because I just haven't played it in forever.
01:00:48
Speaker
So I get in there and I, I, my timing's off or something and it's just, I keep dying and it's like, I have to get good at this game again. Like, When I was playing it, you know, and then you do those levels, like the speed run levels in each universe or whatever i had been playing. So I was able to complete them all because I, you know, have the powers down. But yeah, when I, when I haven't played it for two months and they're like, Hey, here's two levels where it's all skill based. I'm like, I'm not going to be able to beat it.
01:01:16
Speaker
but You just reminded me actually, when we talked about Hodge being bad, um when we were He mentioned on Avowed that he's playing on journalism mode. I am not. I'm playing on the default or a normal difficulty. I think there's five difficulties. i don't know. I'm playing in the middle one.
01:01:29
Speaker
um And this game's actually, Avowed is actually pretty difficult. I've died a couple times. There's been some really tough fights when you're fighting bosses and a whole bunch of mobs where like I'm burning through potions, like really struggling to stay alive. But then you finally beat it and you're like, woo.
01:01:42
Speaker
ah But yeah, actually Avowed has some difficulty to it. I'll just say that real quick. But anyway. I'm assuming they don't call it journalism mode. No, it's story mode is what it's called. where if you just want to tell the story. Journalism mode. That's like that's our most early journalism. That'd awesome.
01:01:57
Speaker
yeah There have been games that did that. Oh, really? Well, I remember when the journalist would dock them. well No, I remember when the journalist bitched because Dooms was like the easy mode was called like baby mode or whatever. and Yeah. yeah yeahs fair You call people who want to play easy babies. I could have sworn there was a game.
01:02:14
Speaker
It's probably been five plus years ago now that was it was called journal. Like the the difficulty was called journalist mode, but I don't remember what it was or if that just was a joke and I adapted it into reality somehow. But yeah.
01:02:26
Speaker
yeah I'm not sure. But yeah, thats i I joke because I play every game on journalism mode now because I just don't have that much time for gaming anymore. I'm all about it, man. Yeah, i'm I'm not trying to struggle through games anymore. I just want to enjoy the experience and move on. So I play everything on easy now. I don't and don't care.
01:02:42
Speaker
all right. I apologize. I sidetracked us. Sean, what else were you playing here? You got another game I'm excited to hear
Trails Through Daybreak 2 Discussion
01:02:48
Speaker
about. Yep. Last game on my list is one of those Trails games, Trails Through Daybreak 2. This came out last about eight days ago. i've put about 17 hours into it.
01:02:57
Speaker
um Oh, my gosh. This game is freaking amazing. I absolutely am loving this game. It's my trail series. So, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to a little, little biased towards it, but ah it is really, really great so far. It's a continuation of trails through daybreak one, you know, picks up a couple months after the events of the first game and you,
01:03:19
Speaker
You have same cast of characters. We have our Van Arkrod, who is a Spriggan. So he goes around doing like you know simple little tasks that people don't want to go to the police for or the Bracer Guild in their universe.
01:03:31
Speaker
um And you you can make choices in the game, too. Like, oh, you... you um you take this little task on and then you get to the end of it and you're like, okay, well, what should we do? Should we turn them over to the police or should we handle it ourselves?
01:03:43
Speaker
Stuff like that. But overall, the game is so far so good. I'm through. So I did the, so it starts out with a prelude and then your cat really likes that trails as well. um du He loves trails. He's thrilled.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. um It starts out and starts you writing in the prelude, but I'm through two acts now, and what's really cool is they introduced two... I'm not going to say who the characters are, but they introduced two characters from ah previous Trails arc that I was not expecting to show up in this game, and they are playable, and the acts are broken down. they There's like...
01:04:12
Speaker
Like you can give a selection. Say you're in act one, it'll be like act one, a act one B, and you can choose which one you want to do in any order. They take place simultaneously, but ones with one group of characters and ones with the other group of characters, um which is really, which that they did that in trails of reverie, which was like the game two games ago.
01:04:31
Speaker
um So it was really cool. was really surprising. There is a huge shock that I audibly gasped right during the prelude. I was like, no way they're doing this. Absolutely no they're doing this. And they did it. And I was like, no I couldn't believe it.
01:04:45
Speaker
um Dialogue's awesome. I talk to every single NPC when I play these games. Like I go around to every single one because one thing that I really like about trails is they, every single character is named. It's not like, um, stage crew worker or, um, uh, store shop assistant. They all have unique names and they all have like unique dialogue for each day.
01:05:04
Speaker
ah game takes, um, it starts out actually, it released on February 14th, Valentine's day. And actually the game starts out on that date, which is kind of funny. and ironic ironica Um, of, um,
01:05:18
Speaker
But yeah, overall, I'm really enjoying where the story is going. You're back in the Calvary Republic, which is um this is the first time we've ever experienced the Calvary Republic was in Trails Through Daybreak 1. So we're seeing like the whole other you know aspect of Zemiria, which is like the giant world they're in.
01:05:34
Speaker
uh overall i'm really liking it they're introducing characters from the previous games that's why i last last year when trust your daybreak one came out and people like you can jump right into this game if you never played a trails game like there's no way you can they make references back to the older games still and yeah it's great um i can't wait to get more of it done like i said i'm about 17 hours in i'm gonna be playing it again on nightmare mode after this so i can go get that platinum run there is a there are side quests that are exclusively locked to like your new game plus nightmare road playthrough um so i'm excited for that the combat is awesome too they they the combat in the first one was really good but they made subtle upgrades now it's like quality of life things that just make it a little bit easier like you have a
01:06:17
Speaker
quick access menu to heal yourself so when you're out of combat if you like don't want to have to go into the pause menu and select like your heal spell to heal your party you can there's like a quick action you can kind of like map it to a button you can just do it like that so uh writing is great side quests are great and they um you can go to like movie theaters in the game like when you're off time to like watch a movie too it's like and in then the Trails Universe movies, because some of the characters are like actors, but one of the characters in your party is an actor.
01:06:47
Speaker
And you can watch some of her movies, and it's just really funny to like actually sit there. You watch like a six-minute clip of it, and they talk about it afterwards, and like some of the characters are like, you can tell like your main character, Van, he's really into film, and he's like, he gets down to like the mind. It's like talking to someone who's like super into it. Like they go to film festivals and they're like, they know all the ins and outs of the industry. And then like some of your other party members are like, Oh, I love the action scene where they went boom, boom, pow.
01:07:12
Speaker
Not like that. So like, like Lock Morton. Yes. Yes. um So it was, it's, it's, it's overall, it's great. I'm, I'm loving it. And I, I'm constantly thinking about it. Nice.
01:07:25
Speaker
Game number 12 in the series. I love it. There you go. When Trails in the Sky first chapter comes out, I will play it and who knows, maybe I'll turn into Sean. I have feeling you're not going to like it. do say that? It's very weebish. Very, anime weeb. like Persona.
01:07:40
Speaker
why why do you think why do you say that i don't think you're goingnna it's very we it's very weedish like very very anime we like yeah it's i like persona I like Fire
Anime and Weeb Game References
01:07:54
Speaker
Emblem. It's more than Fire Emblem. Persona is mainstream weeb, though. Yeah, this is like this is like deep, deep weebery. Uh-oh, uh-oh.
01:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think you're going to see this. Well, I did go through a brief period from like 2012 to like 2015 or something where I watched a ton of anime. So I was a weeb back then. So I don't know. Maybe I'll enjoy it We'll see. I may give it a fair chance. I'm going to try. I hope you like it. You know, the good thing about, I don't know, Sky Sky has some pretty, pretty cringe, not cringe, but cringe for non weebs moments that you'd be like, oh, that's really cringe. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is awesome.
01:08:28
Speaker
I'm going to go into it with an open mind and actually with an intention to to want to like it. I'm going to try my best to like it. So
Fantasy Baseball Memories
01:08:35
Speaker
we'll see. You better talk i get to every single NPC. You better talk to every single NPC. That probably won't happen. don't want to talk about that. You're going to miss out all the lore. to read all the documents. Why would I talk to some random person sitting in front of a store? Who cares?
01:08:47
Speaker
Like I, um they that you can, at the beginning of each like chapter or act, you get like a, it's called like a, it's like a newspaper issue called the Tyrell times. And like they're like 15 to 20 pages. I'm sitting there reading them all.
01:09:00
Speaker
I'm sitting there going through it, reading through them all. oh And also the Calvert Republic is like more advanced technology
MLB 2K12 versus MLB The Show
01:09:07
Speaker
wise. They just released what they call the T-Phone. it's It's like a rip off of the iPhone. It's so funny.
01:09:12
Speaker
It's hilarious. It's great. Is the Trails series your favorite game series of all time? No, it's my third favorite. Third? Wow. Yeah. Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. Wow. Wow. Okay.
01:09:24
Speaker
So Trails is worse than Weave Trash? No, they're not worse. No, they're not worse. They're all pretty amazing. I think like Trails is better than anything you play. david There's no chance.
01:09:35
Speaker
all All right. well All right. Are you satisfied with Trails for Daybreak, sir? I am. Well, I'm not satisfied with the game. I mean, I'm i'm overly satisfied with the I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm glad you're enjoying it.
01:09:47
Speaker
um All right, guys. So that has been what we are playing. Let's go ahead and get into the main topic of discussion. An hour and 10 minutes in. Let's go. um This is going to be a good one. So we are going to get into our five favorite games, if you will, semi-ranked. It doesn't really matter.
01:10:03
Speaker
That were 70 or less. Well, less than 70. So 69 or less on Metacritic and OpenCritic. And we're going to go Midnight, Hodge, Ben, and Sean is the order. um So I'll go ahead and start us off here.
01:10:14
Speaker
My number five games. I didn't really put these in a super order, but whatever. i'll try to So I ordered mine in like score like highest to lowest. So I'm to start out with my highest score and go to all of them in my lowest.
01:10:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'm doing the same. I didn't really do that, but I'll just... know either I'll try to rank them kind of. The last one will probably be the one I like the most, but I'll try to do like that. So I'm going to go ahead it started with a game that I actually have talked about on this show quite a few times. The other ones I haven't really talked about hardly at all.
01:10:43
Speaker
um And this is going to be MLB 2K12. This game, I think, has a 66 or something on Metacritic. It wasn't very well liked. I love these games. I already talked about the true motion pitching that they did with the analog stick is so amazing.
01:10:57
Speaker
I really felt like I was throwing a pitch because the motion like kind of makes sense to like what the ball does in the air, and I don't know. And it was just awesome, and it was a great baseball sim, in my opinion,
01:11:08
Speaker
um It was funny. ml MLB 2K13 was the last one and had David Price on the cover. I'm sure you remember him, Sean, from the Rays. um Well, he was on know he played on the Tigers and the Blue Jays and the Red Sox and the Dodgers as well. so it's Wow, he got around, huh?
01:11:23
Speaker
um I remember he was like he was like a big prospect when ah at the time. like He was like a superstar prospect that was going to do big things. Did he do big things? I don't know. Are you kidding? He won a Cy Young won a World Series. baseball so Insanely critical to the Red Sox World Series run in 2018. Awesome. Don't watch baseball.
01:11:41
Speaker
But yeah, freaking loser. Midnight. Uh, MLB 2K13 had like a 44 or something. It was a horrible score and I don't remember it being that bad, but anyway, MLB 2K12, I enjoyed I'm going to keep it at that. I'm gonna keep it short because I have talked about this many times, but, uh, you know, great game.
01:11:59
Speaker
Deserved more than a 68. Well, really quickly. Why do you think it got that low of a rating? I don't know. I didn't read the reviews. Probably because MLB The Show was better, um I'm assuming. You know, MLB The Show was out, and MLB The Show has been the superior baseball sim.
01:12:14
Speaker
But the pitching, which is what I enjoyed, I did my MyPlayer as a pitcher, was way superior to MLB The Show and is still better than MLB The Show today. um i had have a question. Midnight, real quick, without looking anything up. Who's the cover athlete, 2K12?
01:12:27
Speaker
Of 2K12? I have no clue. I don't Justin Verlander, come on! Hey, I know Justin Verlander from the Detroit... ah Tigers. Yep. Yep. He was. I know him. I remember I did a fantasy baseball and I had ah one year I had ah Verlander and I had Granke and this was Granke's like breakout Cy Young year.
01:12:46
Speaker
Dude, I won that league. I won that league. two Dude, I don't know. 2008, nine, I think. 2009, Greg, you won the Cy Young with the Royals. I can't. I cannot. John is on my back on my neck about these baseball stuff. Don't get me into the sports stuff. Come on. You know me. I could never do fantasy baseball. I did fantasy hockey once. Dude, it was so fun.
01:13:05
Speaker
Every single day. yeah Every day. I'm like, don't want to do it. Fantasy hockey is rough. I've been in the fantasy baseball dynasty league since I was a freshman in high school. And we have this it's insane. I love it.
01:13:17
Speaker
What was so odd from about fantasy baseball is that there's so many stats um and it really made watching the games fun. I loved watching my pitchers and like every time they got a strikeout, your numbers went up. If they had a complete game or a complete game shutout, those were their own stats that are super rare. And you're like, oh I won. that That's a point for me, baby.
01:13:34
Speaker
Oh, it was fun, dude. But yeah, that's my MLB 2K12 is mine. um Any thoughts on this? Otherwise, Hodge, you're up.
01:13:42
Speaker
Nope. right All right. My number five. Yeah, I'm doing it the way Sean. I had it ranked, but I actually like Sean's idea better. So I'm doing that. ah So my fifth number five is my highest rated crappy game.
01:13:56
Speaker
It has a 68 on both open critic and Metacritic. And that is a game actually Ben, I know, has played because you did it. You did a review of it on your short lived YouTube channel. And that is Ravenlock.
01:14:07
Speaker
I actually really enjoyed this. It's not it's not a perfect game. so Some of these games are ones that I actually do love, but this is probably the one on the list where it's like... i didn't It wasn't like a game I was obsessed with, but I enjoyed my time with it. I got every single achievement or trophy. i don't remember which...
01:14:24
Speaker
system I played it on, but it's just, ah it's one of those where as an art nerd, like I am, as you guys know, I love games that have very stylistic looks to them. And it's this really cool, like cubic, but 3d pixelated graphics. It's, it's obviously like a kid's game. It's not, um,
01:14:47
Speaker
It's not like high art of game. It's obviously meant for a younger audience, but it's a very cool, like Alice in Wonderland type game. And it just it had a very awesome ah setting and and it just that's what's kind of carried it for me. The gameplay was it was fine.
01:15:06
Speaker
It was good. It was serviceable. But the world and the look of the game really sold it for me. I remember when it was unveiled. I think it might have been an Xbox showcase and I was, um yeah, I was obsessed with it up until it released and I beat it because it it was a game pass game. So I beat it within the first week. It's a, you know, it's a five hour game or something. It's a really, really short game, but loved it. It, or I really liked it. It was a very fun game and I recommend it to people, but it's not going to be,
01:15:33
Speaker
you know, Eliza P game that blows you away. Like you think like it's an it's ah it's not an unknown game that it's like everyone's missing out. I just really enjoyed it. And I think it's deserves better than a 68, but I guess I can see, I think it should have been in the seventies, not, not a 68, but yeah.
01:15:49
Speaker
yeah ah todge Thanks for reminding me about that game because you i did really enjoy it. If I recall, I'm sure I had some gripes with it, but yeah if you had given me an hour to name like without look without looking at anything to name every game I've played in the last three years to completion.
01:16:09
Speaker
Or how about this? If you would ask me to name every video I made and that like year that I did reviews and stuff on that channel, ah couldn't have I would not have named it maybe it does deserve less than a 70, but i did enjoy it now that you mentioned it.
01:16:22
Speaker
Absolutely. I really like this game. This is a game I considered Hodge for mine. I really liked Ravenlock as well. I love the art of this game. It reminded me of Alice in wonder worldl i wonder world alice in Wonderland. And I'm a big Alice in Wonderland fan. That was one of my go-to movies as a kid. so They reminded you because it straight up ripped it off.
01:16:39
Speaker
yeah yeah It was like, this is Bob in Wonderland, not Alice. like It was that on the nose, I think. yeah yeah But that's okay. I remember Hodge was upset with me because I had Ravenlock as like my least liked game when I did my 2023 games that I beat.
01:16:57
Speaker
It was the last one, but it was still good. I still enjoy it. Oh, yeah. I do remember. Yeah. Because, yeah, the video starts you're like, number 23, Ravenlock. I'm like, damn you.
01:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's just the other games were better, but it it was good, though. um And I don't know. I was i was looking up scores, so I was kind of zoning out. I don't know if you mentioned this, but the developers gave you a shout out, Ben. Did you mention that? They put you in their trailer, right?
01:17:22
Speaker
I don't remember that. yeah the The developers put together like a, uh, like a critic score. trail like idea thing Yeah. Ben and Ben is handsome was there with your review. Cool. See, they, the developers shouted out my, my video and I still don't remember it barely.
01:17:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:42
Speaker
All right. Well, Ben, you are up next. All right. My first one, and I didn't really put these in any particular order, but let's say this is my least favorite bad game that I picked out of these five. um Mad Max, 2015's Mad Max.
01:17:56
Speaker
I think it was Avalanche that put it out. um If you know Mad Max, the franchise at all, you kind of understand what this game is all about. um You know, you're very much in an apocalyptic world, post-apocalyptic world.
01:18:09
Speaker
And most of the game is based on vehicular combat. And the thing I thought was the coolest part about this game was just the fact that you could like scrap other vehicles and and destroy them and stuff and then use those upgrades ah for your own vehicle.
01:18:23
Speaker
ah The the magnum Magnus Magnus Magnum Opus. Yeah, the Magnum Opus. And um there's so little remarkable about this game.
01:18:35
Speaker
It's hard to really recall like any other specific points other than the exploration and you know the fact that it's like kind of open world and stuff. um But it was still just like a good, fun, clean game. like It was just it was great. And I actually do think, I think it, I don't even know what it's what it scored, but I looked it up. Yes, 68.
01:18:53
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I think that's perfectly fine. ah Like, you know, generally, if a game's like below a seven, I have to really want to play it to play um And I don't really pay that much attention to review scores as it is most of the time.
01:19:06
Speaker
ah But I think this is like perfectly placed around the seven because it's, you know, it's nothing special. It's not great. It didn't wow anybody. It didn't change the game. It didn't didn't come up with a new system, whatever.
01:19:18
Speaker
It's based on an existing IP. It's a tie-in game. But it wasn't bad. Everything about it was perfectly fine. There's a little gripes here and there. But hey, what games aren't there little gripes in? And for me, um it just, you know, it filled a spot where I needed the game to play. And here you go.
01:19:36
Speaker
I think this is right around the time my second son was born. um So I was probably like holding him at night and playing it, if I remember correctly. um so it was just like, hey, junk food for the brain while I need something to play.
01:19:50
Speaker
And that filled that spot vertically. I considered Mad Max as well for this. This came out right when I was about to start my sophomore year at college. It was like September of 2015. I'm not having kids and you're partying college. It came out like the same day. I'm pretty sure the same day as Metal Gear 5.
01:20:06
Speaker
I think you're right. Yeah, and I remember I picked this up. I'm not that you guys all know. i'm not the film guy here, but I do like matt the Mad Max series I really enjoy. So I was really looking forward to this game.
01:20:17
Speaker
But Ben, I think you said it perfectly. This is like a junk food game. It's like, oh, but I don't really have to pay attention to much. I'm just going to run around, explore, maybe get in some combat, vehicle combat. And yeah, I remember my dad calling me when i was And he'd be like, so you play Metal Gear Solid 5? I'm like, no, I'm playing Mad Max. He goes, freaking loser and just hung up the phone. Yeah. He was right.
01:20:39
Speaker
He was right. I didn't play Metal Gear Solid 5 either. so I haven't played it either. Yeah, I do remember... i felt like this game was one of those... i remember, i think the biggest complaint i remember from it was that the... Obviously, it's a desert, so i don't know what people expected, but they said like the open world is very bare bones, if I remember right, is you're basically just driving from point to point, and the world part just was not that great.
01:21:01
Speaker
But I also remember... Yeah, I also remember it. I kind of got the vibe that it was rated a little lower than what people kind of expected because it did come out around better open world games. And so I think I kind of remember that part of people being like, no, it's just not as good as this game that also came out this year. And it might have even been Metal Gear Solid five I'm not sure, but I just kind of remember it.
01:21:24
Speaker
It was more of ah the critics were of it's just not as good as recent other recent games in the same genre kind of thing, rather than it being about the game itself. But I mean, yeah, if you guys are saying, yeah, a seven out of 10 makes sense, then that, yeah, I think I have it because of PlayStation Plus, but I've never played it.
01:21:44
Speaker
OK, good stuff. Sean Mason, you're up. Alright, next up, here we go for me. Star Ocean, The Divine Force. I was shocked to find out this game has a 69 on MetaQuirc, so it just kind of just gets um into our criteria here. I was shocked because I really enjoy this game, and from Star Ocean fans...
01:22:06
Speaker
like rave about this game. They did they they they think this is like ah one of their, not the best ones in the series, but in that mid-tier of the series. and some of the series and Some of the games in the series are really good. um I like this whole aspect of um you have two different stories going on with Rey and Letitia. You can choose who you want to be at the beginning of the game. and Depending on who you pick, at certain points, the party will split up. and Whoever you picked at the beginning, that's who you roll with.
01:22:31
Speaker
um This is very different. um like You're on you're on like a you're on like a planet and obviously Star Ocean is going to be like you know um stuff that's involved with space and everything. But I found this game to be really fun. The combat was fun. The story wasn't too memorable.
01:22:48
Speaker
um I do remember some aspects of it, don't remember everything about it, but I found the characters to be really um intriguing. like You have Rey and Letitia, and you have Albert, who is like this like knight who's supposed to be protecting Letitia, and he was a really cool character, really cool backstory.
01:23:03
Speaker
ah Very vast and vast different environments. There's one area you're in this huge desert, almost kind of like Mad Max, where it's kind of like you know this big open wasteland almost, and then you have another one where you're like a tropical forest.
01:23:16
Speaker
So I really enjoyed my time with star ocean divine force. I couldn't believe when I saw it was, I thought it would be, I thought it was like up clear, like 75 or maybe, maybe I got 76, but yeah, it was a 69. I was a little shocked, but yeah, star ocean, the device. Yeah.
01:23:32
Speaker
yeah I've never, I've never played a star ocean game. This is just one of those that I've heard of and I've never had any desire to go play them. I mean, if you're going to play one, I wouldn't play this one. I'd play one of the 2d ones.
01:23:44
Speaker
Sean, should I play a Star Ocean game? You gave me a hard time for playing East. Should I play Star Ocean? I would have suggested playing ah Star Ocean before East.
01:23:55
Speaker
The one that came out in 2023 that I played, the remake of the second one, I can't remember the exact title of the remake. Second Story R, I think was called. Second Story R.
01:24:07
Speaker
What is the JRPGs and their names? Yeah. I would you highly suggest that one. Really cool art style. Gives all the Octopath vibes with the art style. And there's a lot of different cast members and the story's much better.
01:24:19
Speaker
So yeah, play that one. um Where does that fit though? Like in the timeline? Because I was going to play the first one chronologically. It doesn't matter. They're not connected? They all take place in the same universe.
01:24:31
Speaker
Different characters. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. Alright, well yeah, because in my backlog here, I'm pulling it up now, I have The Last Hope ah is the first one that I was going to play.
01:24:41
Speaker
It honestly does not matter which one you play first. Is The Last Hope good, or should I avoid that one? It's good, but it's i don't think it's I think you should start with the second story R, because I think that's the best one you can play.
01:24:54
Speaker
Alright, I think I already own The Last Hope, though. We'll see. We'll see. Alright, anyone else have thoughts on Star Ocean before we move on? Nope. All right.
01:25:05
Speaker
I'm up next with my number four here, I guess. So we're going what? Highest score to lowest is what we're going with here. I'm doing. I'll do whatever you want. All right, fine. I'll do that. That's fine. right, so this one I kind of mentioned earlier, but it's actually Golf With Your Friends. Golf With Your Friends is a 68 on the Metacritics, and I played this a lot on Steam with friends, um and it was a lot of fun. It's mini golf, putt-putt, whatever, you know just just all these different holes and and courses, and I think you could create your own too, if I remember correctly, and it was just a good time, a nice party experience.
01:25:38
Speaker
get competitive, you know see who can win and have the best scores. um I had a lot of fun. I put in many ah hours of that on Steam, um and I would be interested in playing stuff like that again in the future. So maybe one day I will get on the VR train and stuff like that. but Golf with your friends, short and sweet. What more can you say about mini golf?
01:25:57
Speaker
That was my pick there. That one was a 69. I thought it was a 68. I couldn't, write I didn't remember what you said. So I just wrote that down. i think it was a 68. But anyway, but yeah, that's, ah that's my pick there.
01:26:08
Speaker
Anyone got thoughts on that? I love the game. Yeah. Like I said before, I loved it too. It's it's I understand why it has a low rating because it is a very bare bones, like in terms of gameplay, it's very simplistic. And I remember the, the online, like getting your friends into the game is very like, it's very not easy. It's complicated for no reason.
01:26:30
Speaker
And I remember that part of it, but the game itself, it's, it's very fun, but yeah, it's very bare bones. So it makes sense that it's kind of a 60, whatever. I'd be willing to bet that game has made a monumental amount of money, though.
01:26:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. It was because it's already so cheap and then it's got all the DLCs and like, you know, how many games are there? You can just casually play any it. takes You know, if you want to play Call of Duty or you want to play Overwatch or whatever, like with your buddies, you have to be kind of into that specific genre.
01:26:57
Speaker
And to have fun, you need to at least be somewhat decent at the game. Yeah. But to play golf, it's like, I'm just to hang out. yeah You're basically in a chat room clicking a button. Yeah.
01:27:08
Speaker
To hit a ball. Like that's. Yeah. Yeah. Like obviously the the VR one takes a little bit of skill. You just have to not. sure but But it is. It is still simple of you. You're chatting with your friends. Then you go stroke once. And then, yeah, you chat with your friends some more. So, yeah, it's they're they're cool for that reason, especially.
01:27:27
Speaker
All right. Hodge, number four. So mine, this is honestly the biggest surprise that this is on the list. So ah it's not the original because they didn't have a rating for it, but it is the 360 arcade just re-release.
01:27:41
Speaker
And it had a 66 on Metacritic, and that's Wolfenstein three d I don't understand how this game has this low of a rating. I fucking love that. It's actually, i was surprised it's on, I mean, it was on my top 10 of all time list that we did with lock way back in the day.
01:27:59
Speaker
And so I love this game. And the fact that it has a 66 blew my mind because it's what doom came from. It it was like the, the, the, it laid the ground for doom future later on. And,
01:28:13
Speaker
i I loved every moment of this game. So the fact that it's that, like I didn't expect to be a 95 or anything, but the fact that it's a blow a 70 was fascinating to me because I adore this game.
01:28:25
Speaker
But yeah, Wolfenstein 3D. I can't believe it.
01:28:29
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, I don't have much to say about that. og game played it way back in the day but don't remember much you know i love it uh not much hitler go around and shoot people yeah yeah all right um ben you're up uh my next one is game called brink do you guys remember brink at all this game came out like around 2000 was 2011 actually sure that
01:28:57
Speaker
um Oh, little backstory to this game. I was... And this is probably part of the reason I, like, actually ended up playing it, because I don't know that would have otherwise. i was at PAX East in 2011 as media. had a website and podcast and everything, and...
01:29:14
Speaker
um We got invited to like this private event for a game that Bethesda was putting on. and It was Brink. It was in this kind of weird part of Boston. I don't even know if that part of Boston is still like kind of sketch anymore. But there were some warehouses and stuff. They had rented like bought out a whole warehouse, set up a whole bunch of computers, and had a bunch of people come in, bunch of the press people come in and play the game because there's a multiplayer component to it.
01:29:39
Speaker
um that was just a cool experience because it was like this you know they blew this thing out um but i remember specifically after the fact somebody was like hey guys be careful somebody just got stabbed outside and they're like police everywhere and everything um so that just adds to the memory of it uh for me but i'm i don't remember what this has it has under a 70 i made sure that i mean i didn't write anything down but i made sure that it had 68 okay um but break is basically um So forgettable that if it weren't for the fact that it's attached to that memory of of that event in my head, that I probably wouldn't really remember it that well.
01:30:16
Speaker
It's a first-person shooter. It's got single player as well. i mean, it's got single player as well as multiplayer. um You can highly customize your character, if I remember correctly. like That was one of the big things about this game was that you were able to highly customize your character.
01:30:30
Speaker
ah You're in this... um floating city ah that is like they had to go to this floating city because they basically destroyed Earth and then they were on the brink of like a civil war on the floating city as well which is a rough place to be. It's hard to get away from people ah when you're on a floating city.
01:30:48
Speaker
um But yeah there was like infinite customization with your character probably in hindsight now that it would be nothing comparatively. um But you could fight as part of the resistance or the I don't know what they called them the not the Empire but the other side as well.
01:31:05
Speaker
um You could kind of dip in and out of online play, which is pretty impressive considering the time period. and you know Not that online play was new, but it still wasn't as advanced as it is now. So you kind of dip in and out and play one mission and multiplayer and then do the next thing solo if you wanted to.
01:31:23
Speaker
um They had this ability that was called the smart button, um which basically would like evaluate what you needed to do to get to the next spot you wanted to be. And then um somehow organize everything in that manner.
01:31:40
Speaker
So the the details are all a little bit hazy part. Like I remember those things about it, but if you wanted me to go any more depth, I couldn't, but I just remember Brink being like a fun game that did not score well.
01:31:52
Speaker
And I had fun with it, but I think honestly, the the biggest part of it is I just have that memory of like going to that private event where they, you know, went all out for us and then somebody got stabbed outside. So that's why I remember Brink.
01:32:05
Speaker
Awesome. Dude, I, yeah, I never played this game, but that i have very clear memories of seeing that box art. ah Yeah. yeah of It's such, a yeah I love the box art of that game.
01:32:16
Speaker
I think this game is free on Steam, technically. I don't know if servers are still up or anything, but like it's free on Steam if you wanted to hop in and just check out the single player for a minute. It has some cool mechanics to it, for sure.
01:32:27
Speaker
I don't know that I'd tell you to spend your time playing the entire campaign or anything, but you know for free, for an hour, probably worth it. Yeah, nice.
01:32:38
Speaker
Okay, good stuff. yeah It is free on Steam, and I see it has a... Recent reviews have it at a mostly positive 76, so there you
01:32:47
Speaker
um All right, Sean, you're up.
01:32:51
Speaker
You are also muted, sir. Come on now.
01:32:56
Speaker
my next up my game is crash twin sanity an incredibly underrated crash bandicoot game uh for those of you don't know crash twin sanity you play as crash but you also spin off spin here you get to play as cortex as well and there's a the sequences where you play with them together and it introduces nina cortex to the crash universe um for those of you who have never played this this game is incredibly broken um it was in development. It was in development hell. And they had to rush it out because in order to keep the crash license, they had to release a game like every year.
01:33:29
Speaker
So they had to get it out in 2004. And when it was released, it was immediately like everyone's like, this game is so broken. You can like go through walls. You can um basically skip huge portions of the game and basically be the game in like an hour and a half.
01:33:44
Speaker
um It's very different than other Crash Bandicoot games. It's not like a giant warp room. You're running around Twin Sanity Island and you're going all these different aspects. And they act as like pseudo levels. So there's like, um you know, you have Papu Papu's little like um Native American area.
01:34:00
Speaker
You have like engines like laboratory, which is like in like an ice iceberg, like an ice location. um It is pretty crazy. The game is incredibly broken, but it is so much fun to play. And I think I really I remember getting this game. I was so hyped for it, like super hyped and coming home and being like, wow, this game is not what I expected.
01:34:23
Speaker
yeah. I still had fun with it. It was really cool. This is when they made Cortex kind of like really weird. Like they started getting like really like not like just an evil scientist, but like doing these weird, yeah, creepy, doing weird dance moves, dressing up as Coco to try to like, I never forget that opening. He dresses as Coco to try to like lure you to, um,
01:34:43
Speaker
like basically lure you somewhere and it is so bizarre. Crash is an idiot like usual, but he's not like... um don't know. Crash 1 through 3 and then Bash and Wrath of Cordis. He had a cool aspect to him.
01:34:56
Speaker
Now he's kind of just like a dope. He's like itching his head, like not knowing what's going on. i don't know. But I really enjoyed this game. This was a mainline game, I'm pretty sure. And I remember i remember it being a big... Because I played pretty much every Crash game. me too.
01:35:13
Speaker
And I remember this game causing waves because Crash was in a wedding dress in some of the promo art. Yeah. it was we i don't remember I don't remember much more about it than that, but it was very weird. But yeah, this is this game deserves less than a 70, even though I love ah love Crash. I freaking love Crash to Insanity. It definitely does. Oh my god, the game is so broken now.
01:35:35
Speaker
um Hodge, there is also a Spyro cameo in it. Hell yeah. Speaking of which, I am still just so devastated that they canceled the Crash Spyro game that was in development. That just makes me so sad.
01:35:51
Speaker
But yeah. I just shared the picture of ah him in the wedding dress. That is oh very, very weird. ah yeah Getting spanked. I forgot about that part. Yep.
01:36:02
Speaker
yups It's very, very odd. But very 2004. Wow. That's funny.
01:36:09
Speaker
it's funny Good stuff. Good stuff. I have nothing to say about that. I haven't played a whole lot of Crash stuff. um I played some, but... Well, you suck. They're more worth your time then they were more worth your time than anything Sean recommends.
01:36:25
Speaker
That's anime crap. That might be true. That might be true. All right. So my number three... Oh, go ahead, Sean. Defend yourself. Crash Bandicoot is my like fourth favorite video game series of all time.
01:36:37
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Okay. So my number three is going to be Star Wars Battlefront II from 2017. think it was a 68 or something like that.
01:36:48
Speaker
um This game came out and it was actually pretty decent, but I think the reason why it got hated on so much was the... really aggressive like loot box and pricing models i think they were really price gouging people hard like trying to get them to spend a lot of money um but yeah i thought this game was really fun it's a competent shooter it's a lot of fun to get in there and blast people down with your laser rifles pe pe pew pew pew And also, it's really cool when you like ah you earn the right, you power up enough to like turn into one of the heroes. You can turn into Darth Vader, turn into Yoda, turn into the Emperor running around shooting lightning at people or cutting them up with a lightsaber. Dude, it's awesome. You feel overpowered and you get to mess people up.
01:37:29
Speaker
That's a lot of fun. I think it's a good game. I've put in ah a fair amount of hours on this. I think it deserves better than a 68. But at the same time, I understand why it got a 68, because they were they were shady and greedy as hell with this.
01:37:41
Speaker
um And you've got to punish shady, greedy people. so They did some significant upgrades to it ah along over the years, and eventually they ended up offering it like for limited times for free. And I would hop in and play, and I was like, wow.
01:37:53
Speaker
i mean i had I bought it like the day it came out um for the Xbox One. But... I remember playing it on PC like years later. I was like, wow, this is way better than it and it was when it released for sure.
01:38:05
Speaker
So it's nice that they kept working on it. I'm sure it was a cash cow in some sense, but really great graphics, too. Really good graphics. Yeah, it's one of those games that when it came out. Yeah, like you said, it was all it was either it was busted and they were all greedy about it. So it just came out with a poor taste. But it was one of those that where they eventually got it to be a really good game. But the fan base had already moved on.
01:38:25
Speaker
But i mean, i i didn't mind either of these Battlefront games or but the OGs were so much better. The ones for OG Xbox and PS2. Those ones were so good yeah that these ones just never lived up to it. And this one was also the one where they had the campaign and it was the very typical.
01:38:43
Speaker
Oh, you get to play as the Empire. Oh, now she she's a turncoat. and She becomes a rebel. And guess what? Fucking Han Solo and Lando and Luke Skywalker all here because, you know,
01:38:54
Speaker
Gotta have the member berries. So it was it was one of those where the story was not very good. Even though I guess some people liked it, but I i played it and I thought it was not not good. had the original Battlefront 2 on PC.
01:39:05
Speaker
the original battlefront two on pc And this is when you still needed discs for PC because, you know, yeah download speeds weren't what they are now. yeah And it came instead of being on like a, it must've been the era right when they were switching over because it came on CD-ROM instead of Blu-ray.
01:39:22
Speaker
And I think that it was five discs. Wow. Jeez. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, I had the i the OG Battlefront 2 and 1 on PS2. Actually, they're they're playable through Back and Pat on Xbox still, and I played them with cousin. They were also re-released last year They what?
01:39:42
Speaker
They were also re-released last year. okay. Yeah, I played it with my cousin. was a disaster. yeah yeah Oh, yeah, because the multiplayer was completely busted, basically. i er Something was wrong with it.
01:39:55
Speaker
Four servers for the entire world to play on. Yeah, that's it. But you can play you can actually just play the old old old ones, Back and Pat, on Xbox, and that's what we were playing. We didn't play those remastered ones, but ah it it still holds up. It's so much fun. I love those games so much. they're But yeah, this one, um these these never held up to me, but yeah, they're definitely, it's probably better than a 68, but yeah, the OGs were just perfect games. I love them so much.
01:40:22
Speaker
Yeah. All right, Hodge. Yeah. So next up is I've talked about this game a bunch, but I still love it. And I'm going to say it anyway. It had a 63 on Metacritic, 62 on OpenCritic, but going by Metacritic score ah is the Order 1886. I love this game. The only problem I really have with it is that it's a QTE game. I hate QTEs. It's the one thing I hate about the old God of War.
01:40:49
Speaker
I guess the new God Wars, too, is... ah I hate QTEs. They're stupid and dumb, but ah this game, it's still a graphical powerhouse. The third, person I think the gameplay fun. It's the third person Gears of War type gameplay.
01:41:04
Speaker
The story is incredible. And obviously, as you guys know, I love short games. So the fact that it's only a five or six hour game that. I like that about it because it's like watching a long movie instead of, you know, having to play it for three weeks.
01:41:18
Speaker
So I, I really love this game. Uh, and I think it deserves it's way better than a 63. It's not an 80, but it's better than a 63, I think. And I think it was overhated, but, uh, and it says shame. We'll never get the sequel. The, the developer, I think they were also bought by meta. So they don't even make these. And I, if I remember right, they said they had a sequel,
01:41:41
Speaker
ah that they, I think it came out recently that they pitched a sequel, but Sony turned it down um because it just didn't sell well and it wasn't well received, which sucks because it ends on a cliffhanger, which is a really cool cliffhanger that I would have loved to see resolved. I would love to see them put it out in a comic or a movie or show or something like,
01:41:59
Speaker
this This universe should live on. It's that awesome steampunk alternate history kind of ah world. And it's it's incredible. I love this game. it's um yeah Obviously, I'm not trying to sell it to everyone and whatnot. it's A lot of people didn't like it, but I really, really loved this game.
01:42:16
Speaker
So yeah, Order 1886. By the way, Oculus bought Ready at Dawn and then now they're closed. Oh, yeah. I closed them. I forgot about that last year. Yeah, that's that sucks because, yeah, I think this this game deserved more.
01:42:30
Speaker
ah It deserved to be improved in a sequel. it The world deserved to live on, but we'll never see it, which sucks.
01:42:38
Speaker
All right. No one else has thoughts. Ben, number three, sir. Number three. This one's a little more recent than some of the ones we've been talking about. And that's, um excuse me, High on Life.
01:42:52
Speaker
This game, I think, got like a 66 or 68, somewhere in there. 67. Yeah. And it's not a real mention. I'm sorry. I said I had it as an honorable mention. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:43:04
Speaker
i and There was nothing like surprising or amazing about this game, but I just thought it was funny, and it was fun, and I enjoyed playing it. And it didn't hurt that, of course, you know you recognize some of the voices and everything from various different media that's out there, um but I just thought that this was a solid game, and it wasn't very long. I had a fun time playing it.
01:43:25
Speaker
The only thing I remember hating about this game is that there was like a... I'm not an Achievement Hunter by any means, but if I'm playing a game, I'm going to try to get the achievements that are easy to get while I'm playing it. And there was a missable achievement. And it ended up being the only one I didn't get for the completion. And it was like at the very end of the game and I was not going back to play it. But other than that, I thought it was a pretty solid game.
01:43:45
Speaker
and never played the DLC that they put out. And I know there was a lot of controversy with Justin Roiland after the fact It really affect my perception of the game because I played it, you know, before that, any of that happened. And I don't even remember what there was controversy. I remember there was controversy. i don't even remember what the controversy was. It's one of those that came out to be bullshit and he was kind of fired ah before. Yeah. um Okay. well Well, whatever the case was, I, I don't know if that affected the longterm view of the game, but i don't know. I had fun with high on life and it was maybe, maybe you have to be ah a fan of a certain style of comedy. They really, really get it. But it,
01:44:17
Speaker
It didn't like make me sit there and laugh out loud or anything. Very few things do for that matter. But um it was fun. And that's really all I need for a game to be is fun and not broken, or at least mostly not broken.
01:44:31
Speaker
Yeah, this game, I i did enjoy it too. I didn't finish it because I think one level bugged out for me and I just kind of fell off of it. I got pretty far into the game though, but like the knife is Australian. He's hilarious and then there' all the weapons are voiced. it's It's very Justin Roiland humor. Like if you like Rick and Morty or Solar Opposites, you're going to like it, but it wasn't as good as Trover Saves the Universe. That game was awesome. that I loved that game and I looked it up just to see and it had a 76 on Metacritic, so it wouldn't have obviously uh been included on this list anyway but i loved that game yeah this game didn't live up to that for me but it's still it was funny and it played it played like a xbox 360 era shooter like it was a little dated but it's not in a bad way it just it wasn't you know it wasn't reinventing the wheel it was just doing what it did and it was obviously the the focus of the game is the humor not the gameplay so
01:45:23
Speaker
It was I thought it. Yeah, I think it's definitely better than 67. But yeah, it wasn't incredible by any means. But i agree. This game. This game is a fun one. Yeah, I almost put this on my list because I did play and enjoy this game, but I actually made a choice not to put this on my list because I didn't want to give it any publicity.
01:45:41
Speaker
And the reason why is because i was I'm very disappointed with the studio and how they treated Justin Roiland. It really rubbed me the wrong way because they completely threw him to the wolves, kicked him out of the studio, threw dirt on his name.
01:45:54
Speaker
um And even after the fact, he was basically exonerated. like It came out that like, the people who had accused him of those crimes, not only did they retract their statement, but they had to give him money. So it wasn't like he paid them off.
01:46:06
Speaker
They had to pay him. like So it was like completely BS allegations as far as I understand. And they they never apologized. They never offered him his job back at the studio that he created that I know of. And I just feel like I don't want to support a team that would do that.
01:46:20
Speaker
yeah um But I don't know. I mean, maybe, maybe he really is a piece of shit who knows. But as far as I know, I think he was in the clear. I'm sure he's not an angel, but yeah. You don't make Rick and Morty and be an angel. Like it's a, yeah, exactly.
01:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So Sean, if you have any thoughts and otherwise you're next. Alright, here's my game. You guys are going to like, how does he have two games lower than this? But it's Balan Wonderworld at 51.
01:46:47
Speaker
ah Metacritic score 51. I love this game. I really, really love this game. Like, ironically? no I really enjoy this game. I spent 80 hours in this game. I got the Platinum.
01:47:01
Speaker
um Okay, that's not how you spell. It's not Ball in Wonderland. Let me do let me do it. Let me cook. all right Let me cook.
01:47:10
Speaker
Ball in Wonderland. not basketball game? No. This game is, by by no means is it, um ah ah good it's not even a good game. it is It's not as bad as people say. People like to freaking destroy this game.
01:47:26
Speaker
And mainly probably because it comes from the guy who created Sonic and then he got arrested and did all this other stuff. Um, the draw distance is not good. Obviously you're, you're running and all sudden there's enemies in front of you.
01:47:37
Speaker
um but I did find that there are different costumes you get throughout the game and they give you different power-ups and there are a lot of different levels. Um, and they're very different and very diverse.
01:47:49
Speaker
Now the game is very simple. It is like two button controls and that can be a detriment to the experience sometimes. Um, but yeah, like For example, Hodge, you're gonna you would hate this game.
01:48:01
Speaker
you you would five shot You would absolutely hate this game. I mean, I hated Lucky's tail or what is it lucky Tale. The Xbox One, I hated that one, and this one's even worse. so yeah i probably oh It is very frustrating because you put on certain costumes, then you can't jump.
01:48:15
Speaker
um there there are bosses at the end of each chapter that can be very frustrating if you don't have the certain costume you want because then they don't tell you you need that costume so then you have to leave and go back and go into a level and get the costume and then go all the way back and if you get hit you lose the costume and then you're like my gosh so there are many things that will bring this game down but I enjoyed it it was a challenge and i will say I got the platinum 80 hours and 40 of that were spent on the final trophy of the game farming farming these little, I don't even know what they were called, these little creatures you had to get and you had to basically feed them and make them into certain things and they, i don't know, they contributed to this like giant like, um... ah you know yeah You ever see those things at airports where like, it's like the kids section where like, they they drop a ball and you kind of just watch the ball go down, like like down these like tracks?
01:49:05
Speaker
don't even know how to explain it. you know i'm talking You guys know what i'm talking about. Yeah, yeah you had you basically created a giant one of that. It was very odd. But yeah, I liked Alan Wonderworld. Good game. Did you just say you spent 40 hours doing that to get a flat?
01:49:20
Speaker
yeah Sean, stop it. Get some help. so it was right before It was right before PAX East 2023. And when I got there, I had just got it. And um Cog had known that I had um just gone for it. And he looked at me and said, brother, you need a ah you need a new life.
01:49:38
Speaker
It was so funny. I just laughed. But yeah, Alan Wonderworld. I too, I'm a big fan of, of the ball in wonderland, uh, which is what I put in our doc.
01:49:49
Speaker
Now I've obviously have not played this game. So anyway, um, anyone else have thoughts on that before I go with mine? No. Okay. So tell me if this counts guys. I don't know if this counts. If not, I haven't, I have an alternate.
01:50:00
Speaker
Okay. So this was a port, basically ah a remastered port to a newer console. Fable anniversary, uh, was a 68 on Metacritic. Are we going to count that or do I have to pick another?
01:50:10
Speaker
I mean, I had, I did, uh, I did a remaster Wolfenstein. Awesome, because the original Fable was like an 83 or an 85, but for whatever reason, Fable Anniversary got a 68 on Metacritic. oo It's different, though.
01:50:24
Speaker
What? See yours. What's different? ho Hodges Wolfenstein got ported in. It was the same game. Yours got ported in and it was a worse version. That's different. I don't care. i'm so It scored worse. I wouldn't say that it was. It was the same game, but with better graphics.
01:50:39
Speaker
I think people were complaining that like it felt really dated and they didn't like the controls. They didn't remake the controls. They just remastered the graphics. um But I played it on Xbox 360 when it came out and I had a great time. I thought it was awesome.
01:50:51
Speaker
um I didn't mind that the controls were slightly dated, you know? Yeah, that's a weird problem. All right. Just play the damn game. Losers. Yeah. But ah yeah Fable Remastered. Fable Anniversary. Not Remastered.
01:51:03
Speaker
He wrote Remastered. Come on now. Great game. Great game. Fable is awesome. Fable 1. Fable 2 is the best. Fable 3 is good too. Fable Anniversary deserves much better than a 68. It's a great game.
01:51:14
Speaker
Awesome story. Cool interactivity. Be good or evil. You know, we all know about Fable. You guys have any thoughts on that one? I love all the Fable games. And i played ah played the original Fable.
01:51:26
Speaker
Then I played Fable Anniversary. Wait, The Lost Chapters. And then I played Fable Anniversary. And I've since played it again, of course. But yeah, i've I've played that original Fable game probably five to six times, if I had to guess.
01:51:40
Speaker
You know, I don't know if I've ever played The Lost Chapters. And I know people love it. Is that DLC or what is that? Yeah, it's a DLC. Maybe I need to play that one in these days because I don't think I have.
01:51:53
Speaker
yeah I'll play him eventually. Yeah, you will. That's the ongoing joke. Yeah, we know that All right. Hodge. You are up, sir. And if you have bars for Fables, feel free.
01:52:04
Speaker
Yeah, Fable, it was one of those, ah one of my buddies in high school really loved it. So I hopped into like the co-op a few times with him to do that kind of stuff. I think that was Fable 2, maybe. um And I played it a little bit, but I was never huge in these games. I'm very excited to try the Playground one when it comes out, the reboot kind of of the series. So I'm excited for that. But yeah, this is not one of those series that is so beloved to me like it is to others. But I understand why people love this series.
01:52:31
Speaker
But my game is what are about number two. ah This one is also one that shocked me that it was this low. Like I didn't expect it to be 80 or anything, but I did not expect it this low. And that is the Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD collection, which had a 63 on Metacritic.
01:52:48
Speaker
Wow, my cat is really mad about that score. Yeah, right? No, like, I did not expect it because, I i mean, the original Dragon Ball Z Budokai, the PS2 one, it had a 67 on Metacritic, so I don't know why this HD collection where they improved it and bundled two together has a worse Metacritic. It's...
01:53:07
Speaker
a 63, but yeah, I, I'm not a huge fighter game person, but the Buddha Kai series was always my favorite growing up. I was obsessed with these games. And so when they had the HD remaster, which sadly didn't include Buddha Kai two, which I think is underrated, people didn't like it cause it was like a board game campaign. So it was kind of, was kind of weird for that, but freaking off yeah, I, I love, I really loved it. And the, the, it has my favorite opening song to the like series.
01:53:34
Speaker
ah But yeah, i Yes, a 63. It just did not. It's not that bad. I don't understand why it was so low. um i yeah I love these games. The first one was just a very basic go watch. They make the show into cut scenes, basically, and then you do the fights and then the third one.
01:53:50
Speaker
you have to fly around the world and stuff and go to different locations. And that I really love that. So yeah, I don't know how this got a 63. I have, I remember it was my first game that I got a hundred percent of the achievements in. I had never achievement hunted or trophy hunted or anything.
01:54:07
Speaker
And this was the very first Xbox game where I got all 100% of the achievements, a thousand gamer score or whatever it is. So yeah, I love, I love this game. Does not deserve a 63. It's probably because only 14 outlets reviewed it, and most of the reviews are saying, we can't play this in widescreen, so they gave it like a really low review. o That's stupid. The user score, though, is like an 85. Okay, that's good. Yeah, because this game's awesome. so Critics suck. Yeah, exactly.
01:54:35
Speaker
yeah But yeah, I'll have to say about it. So if anyone has anything, otherwise, Ben. Ben Jammin, you're up. My next game is the very unfortunate Duke Nukem Forever.
01:54:49
Speaker
And this game ah had like terrible humor. The gameplay was not that satisfying. But I'm such a huge Duke Nukem fan that I still loved it. i I want to say this game got like low 60s, but I could be mistaken.
01:55:05
Speaker
I remember the lead up to this game and it was in development hell for forever was very long and we were all looking forward to it. All all us Duke Nukem fans. And it ended up just not being good. And and really the biggest travesty of Duke Nukem Forever is not that it was a bad game, because it was it was a bad game. i Again, want reiterate, I had fun with it, which made it a good game to me.
01:55:27
Speaker
But I know that it was not a good game. But the biggest travesty about this game, other than the fact that it just wasn't that good, was the fact that it permanently damaged... the, don't want to say reputation of, but the perception of Duke Nukem forever, at least until the next one comes out. That's good because the first few games, you know, in the series were really good.
01:55:51
Speaker
but You had the old side scrollers, then you had, Duke Nukem 3D, which completely upended a lot of different things in the industry. ah You had the ability to you know make maps for it, and they would they put all sorts of map packs. Then you had a couple of games that were middling, whatever, on on the PlayStation 2.
01:56:09
Speaker
um I think there were even a few on hand. I know there were a few on handheld. And, you know, Duke Nukem has had its opposite downs. But Duke Nukem Forever, basically, with the...
01:56:22
Speaker
changes they made to his character. He was always a macho man, always appreciated beautiful women, always, you know, whatever. But Duke Nukem Forever to just turned him into basically a pig that made potty jokes. um and And it just, whenever you mention Duke Nukem, people think about Duke Nukem Forever.
01:56:39
Speaker
And that's the thing like that they mention, and they're like, oh, yeah that was I got that for $3 over here if you want it, like when you're looking for retro games and stuff. And it's like no, no, I already have every possible version of that game. I don't want that one.
01:56:50
Speaker
um But that's that's my biggest problem with that game is that it is not that it was a bad game because I still had fun with it. It was just that it tarnished the decades long reputation that that character had.
01:57:02
Speaker
and made it into something nobody wants to touch because yeah, the, the humor in the old games was not necessarily like pious or anything. Um, but it certainly wasn't like, ha farts.
01:57:14
Speaker
That's funny. Right. yeahre Like, you know, oh look boobs. Like it was, yeah, it it ah hurt the image and probably made it so that people don't want to touch it anymore ever.
01:57:26
Speaker
And I don't even know. i think, I think the gearbox owned the rights for Duke Nukem at one point recently, um I don't know who has it now, if it went to 2K or if it stayed with Gearbox or whatever.
01:57:37
Speaker
They're never going to touch it. They should go back to Apogee and they could make it ah an old boomer shooter again with Duke in it. And that'd be great. But I digress. I remember I played the demo for this game and yeah, it wasn't I didn't.
01:57:51
Speaker
enjoy it that much. But the, I remember the reviews were basically like they kept him as a nineties character, but in an unironic way. So it just, the humor felt dated immediately.
01:58:03
Speaker
Whereas like they could bring him back and have him be like a stuck in the nineties kind of guy. And everyone'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like kind of, they they could do that easily, but yeah, I remember them saying humor just just felt dated and it just didn't, they, they,
01:58:19
Speaker
it for it being in development for what wasn't it the record holder for longest not anymore not anymore like i remember it was for a while yeah i think like final fantasy 15 made it or something but um yeah i remember beyond good and evil 2 i think is currently oh yeah yeah i forgot that one passed it uh but yeah i remember that was kind of the biggest complaint was like In all that time, they didn't take the time to upgrade that part of it. They just kept the story basically the same and didn't update the humor at all.
01:58:49
Speaker
But yeah. And like I said, the old Duke was like ah little perverted, but not like. Yeah. I'm bathing in women. Yeah, exactly. His goal was to... I'm very passionate about this. His goal in the old ones was to save the women of Earth from the aliens.
01:59:06
Speaker
yeah And in this one, it was like, let's see how many of them get into bed at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Alright, I'm going to move on to my number two. Alright, my number two comes in a whopping score of a 48 on Metacritic, and that is Digimon World 4. I mentioned this game last DLC episode, so this game is a huge... huge departure from the regular Digimon series, Digimon World series. The first three were turn-based RPGs. This is more of an action hack-and-slash combat game. and You can play up to four players.
01:59:43
Speaker
You get play is Agumon, Gimon, Doramon, and Vimon. always was a big Vimon fan. And whichever Digimon you picked, you had like a certain um kind of like...
01:59:55
Speaker
weapon and a certain kind of kind of but almost like a class. Now, the reason why this game is so bad um for the critics, not for me, of course, this is a good game. The critics and the critics eyes is that the process to Digivolve was really Not really explained, and it kind of just like very ambiguous.
02:00:15
Speaker
um the enemy The game is very unforgiving when you die. You lose a lot of... so It was almost like Souls-like before Souls-like became a thing. ah No, I'm just saying that. um The combat, the hitboxes on the enemies were like really inconsistent.
02:00:30
Speaker
um It was really difficult to revive your party members to. it was It made you do a lot of tedious things, and you spent a lot of time doing things that not... no crucial to the plot or not crucial to the gameplay.
02:00:44
Speaker
As far as the plot goes, i I really couldn't tell you. I know you're trying to save um the DigiWorld from something. I don't know who the... The final boss is ridiculously hard. Like, insane. I remember getting to it... like one Me and my friend would just... Me and my friend would play. was just me and my friend.
02:01:00
Speaker
And his name was... He would name his character... Something, I think it was like Mr. M and I was Kryn, C-R-I-N. We just go through, i know Leomon dies in the game and that was like, we're like, oh my God, Leomon! It's like in the, it's like the prelude and it was, it was pretty crazy, but yeah, Digimon World 4, highly suggested. 48 on Metacritic.
02:01:23
Speaker
Jeez. I gotta say, i love that ah it's the same as when we did our adaptations episode with Locke. like We pick all these mainstream things that were just kind of bad, and then you find just these random-ass just pieces of crap in the nooks and crannies of the world. like we had like border like Borderlands was Locke's least favorite like adaptation, and then ah Sean comes out with some Donkey Kong country show that no one's ever heard of. just So you're coming out with these things that are
02:01:55
Speaker
You're coming out with these games that are 40 on Metacritic and we're all sitting in the 60s. You honestly have no idea how many hours I put into Digimon World 4 on GameCube. This is the game we would play all the time. and I even brought it to college and me and me and my roommate did a run through of it my junior year college.
02:02:13
Speaker
That's so funny. Vmon, best mon! vimon bestal
02:02:18
Speaker
Alright, so I'm next yep with the number one game. I got nothing to say about Digimon. never played it. um So for this one here, this one was a 66, and it was Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII. Now, this was obviously the third game in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy, the final game, and it was an action RPG instead of turn-based, so it was a bit different. Lightning running around, cutting people up with their sword,
02:02:43
Speaker
It was fun. It was good. I think it deserved better than a 66. It's the worst game of the trilogy, probably. ah Two is by far the best, in my opinion. um I probably liked Lightning Returns more than the first game, but I know that's an unpopular opinion. I know Sean likes the first game quite a bit.
02:03:00
Speaker
so But yeah, Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII. It was a good game. It was a decent story. It was fun to go around as lightning and cut people up in an action combat system instead of the normal paradigm shift.
02:03:11
Speaker
turn-based. um It has been a long time since I played this. I played this on the 360 when it came out in like 2013 or whenever it was. So I'm not going lie to you and pretend that I remember what happens in the story. I don't remember a damn thing.
02:03:23
Speaker
But I do remember that I had fun and that I enjoyed it. um So shout out to Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII. I think the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy is slept on and underrated. um I think it's something that if you're a Final Fantasy fan or a weeb and if you did skip this trilogy for some reason because of the negative publicity probably, it's Play it.
02:03:42
Speaker
It's not bad. Especially Part 2 is awesome. But yeah, shout out Lightning Returns. Final Fantasy XIII is my number one pick. Thoughts anyone? I said this yesterday in one of the discords I'm in that when Final Fantasy XIII trilogy gets inevitably re-released as the trilogy on PS4, PS5, Xbox, Switch, people are going to look at this game more, are going to look at the series a lot more fondly.
02:04:04
Speaker
just People criticized it for being really linear when in reality most a lot of the mainline 3D Final Fantasy games up to that point were linear. ah People just wanted to hate on it, I think, because it released on Xbox. I think people were like, what? Final Fantasy is not a PS2 exclusive anymore. PlayStation exclusive. It's on Xbox. No, no.
02:04:26
Speaker
So you're saying the Sony ponies ruined the rep? No, I think it was the more of the Final Fantasy ponies like myself. But I loved it when it came out. I didn't give a crap. I thought it was a 10 when it came out. But of course, I was 13 when it came out. so Yeah, as an X-Bot at that time, um I was thrilled to have Final Fantasy on the 360. So yeah, definitely. It was like the first Final Fantasy that I really jumped in, I think.
02:04:52
Speaker
So yeah. Anyone else have thoughts? Otherwise, Hodge, you are up. No. Before I go with my number one, I do want to say my honorable mention really quick because it had no reviews, but I guarantee it would be well under a 70 because this game is hated by everyone except me.
02:05:09
Speaker
And that is Sonic R. It is a racing game that was on Sega Saturn. I loved this game so much. And I know it was hated by most people, but I enjoyed every moment of it.
02:05:20
Speaker
Unlocking like Robo Sonic and Super Sonic was awesome and I loved it, but it has no reviews. So I don't know how it scored, but I know it was not a liked game. So that's an honorable mention. But my, I guess, can I guess what your number one is?
02:05:33
Speaker
What? Dustborne. Dustborne was 68. I saw it on the list yeah and I thought of you. i you won Yeah. The oh yeah trigger and bully your enemies. um But no, my number one is a 60 on Metacritic. I think it's a severely underrated game, but it really was a tech demo for the Xbox one. And that is rise son of Rome.
Game Story versus Gameplay Balance
02:05:53
Speaker
I loved this game. The story is so cool. Really? The only problem with this game is the combat is insanely repetitive. There's only like two or three enemy types and you have to defeat them all the exact same way. So it was a very,
02:06:07
Speaker
bad kind of gameplay. And I do remember there was also ah like you, had there's a catapult part of the game or where you, i yeah I don't know. It was some aerial kind of combat thing. And you had to say into the connect, like catapult or something like that. And, or like release or something. like I camera't remember what you had to, you had to yell into the connect and,
02:06:27
Speaker
to do commands ah during the battle. And it was so stupid, but it was obviously because Xbox made the bonehead decision of forcing the connect into everything. So i that kind of brought it down.
02:06:39
Speaker
I think eventually they patched it to one when they got rid of the... you Because i when the Xbox One launched, for those who don't remember, you had to have the Kinect attached. You couldn't disconnect it. It would break the system.
02:06:52
Speaker
And so i think once they patched it to where you didn't have to have the Kinect anymore, you were able to just hit a button to do those commands. But yeah, when it launched, you had to say into the Kinect, and it was so stupid.
02:07:03
Speaker
But I loved the story of this game, and it's still a gorgeous game. It was an Xbox One launch game, and 12 years later, it still looks really good. And the story is awesome. So I understand why it got a 60, because like I said, it was pretty much a tech demo to say like, here's the power of the Xbox one. This is what it can look like kind of thing. But the story was so good and people will sleep on that part of it. So I think it's better than a 60, but it's, yeah, it's definitely not an eight out of, it's not even an eight out of 10. I'd give it a 70 at worst, but yeah, I
Crackdown 3: Anticipation and Reality
02:07:36
Speaker
really liked this game. So rise son of Rome.
02:07:40
Speaker
Great pick. This would have been on my list too, but I knew that you were going to pick it. So I didn't, I knew this would be your pick. yeah I've talked about this game a bunch. So we both have, we love this game. It's great. It's very slept on.
02:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. um Anyone else have thoughts? Otherwise Ben, take it away. My number one, again, in no particular order, but this one's probably lower on there is crackdown three.
02:08:04
Speaker
And probably 2008 ish 2009. Maybe my buddy was like, hey, you got to check out this game called Crackdown with me. It's so much fun to play in multiplayer.
02:08:14
Speaker
And so I missed the initial like launch of Crackdown. ah Didn't even hear about it. I think that a lot of people heard about Crackdown, too, because there was a Halo demo on the disc. Yeah, it was like the i think I think there was a Halo demo on one one of the disc. Anyway, it was a demo.
02:08:33
Speaker
Okay. Okay. And, um but Crackdown was so much fun just to play in the environment and play multiplayer. You could place like sort like barrels and, you know, explosive barrels and run cars over them. And, you it was a sandbox game.
02:08:47
Speaker
Crackdown 2 came along and it was fine. It was good. We still had a lot of fun with it. We played the heck out of it. And then there were nine long years of waiting for Crackdown 3. until 2019 when it launched on Game Pass. And this was one of those games that had been in development hell for so long. had been rebooted multiple times.
02:09:03
Speaker
They talked about all the new cloud technology they were going to do They eventually started putting out commercials with Terry Crews because Terry Crews was in the game. And of course, that was going to make the game you know phenomenal. I cracked down three came out and it was just fine.
02:09:18
Speaker
Like it was fun. ah We had a lot of fun with it and we had been looking forward to it and we played it on Game Pass. I think I i do own it now, but um We had played it on Game Pass because, you know, that's where it was.
02:09:31
Speaker
And we had a blast with it, but nobody else did. Anybody who didn't have love for the series didn't because it didn't iterate. It didn't change anything dramatically. It didn't. you know it was so dated by that point. By the time it released, it was already like out of date because so many things had moved forward in giant sandbox games like that.
02:09:47
Speaker
And it was very repetitive, a lot of you know a lot of doing the same thing over and over. But the point was, it we were having fun doing the same thing over and over. And we were having fun playing the multiplayer. And we were enjoying it ah quite a bit.
02:09:59
Speaker
Not a great story. Not a great, you know, it didn't move the industry forward or anything. But it's just so much fun that it was worth playing. And we waited so long that we couldn't help it. ah There seems to be a theme with me in playing and like waiting for a long time for a game and then it being bad. So maybe I got to stop doing that.
02:10:16
Speaker
um But anyway, yeah, Crackdown 3, definitely one of my, maybe not best games of all time, but one of my favorite games of all time, just because of all the memories around it and all the, you know, the ability to play with friends. And and I really, i don't often like describe myself as a social gamer, but when I really think about some of my favorite gaming experiences, they've been social gaming.
02:10:39
Speaker
And so, you know, Crackdown 3, check it out. By the way, Crackdown 1, when I went to buy it, it didn't exist in like stores anymore because it had been, like I don't know, a year since it came out, and it was already a more limited release, I think.
02:10:53
Speaker
ah So I ended up going to my local video rental store, and they had it for sale because you know less people were renting it. they needed They only needed one copy, so they were just selling off all the other ones.
02:11:04
Speaker
And I think i I know I still have my original Crackdown game in the... um rental store box they you know how they like take the game out of the out of the main packaging and put it in their own packaging i still have it in the original box and uh i was at one point i was like maybe i should get a complete version of this i was like no this is this is the way i played it this is what i want so yeah and okay uh ben i noticed you didn't take the low-hanging fruit uh in this which is nice you're one of your favorite games of all time scored below a 70 were you aware of that
02:11:42
Speaker
What is it? Sea of Thieves 69. Oh, Metacritic. Very nice. Yeah. I don't, I don't put a lot of stock in. um i don't put a lot of stock in review scores for live service games.
02:11:58
Speaker
Yeah. Because that game at one point, probably if a couple of years ago, probably would have scored closer to a 90. Honestly. Now I think it would probably score lower than it did originally when it came out just because, you know,
02:12:11
Speaker
So many server issues. It's a dated game. Everybody's figured out they exploits and hacks and stuff like that. So, um but no, I don't even, i didn't even think of it because yeah, I love live service, but I just don't, I don't really consider live service review scores any form of valid because they change week to week.
02:12:30
Speaker
So, yeah. Yeah. speaking Speaking of that kind of thing, with you, Midnight, obviously we we can do another episode, so I don't know if maybe this was your way. I know what you're going to Top 10 was X Defiant was below a 70. Yeah.
02:12:43
Speaker
side It was on my list. Yeah. Yeah. But, and, well, I guess we'll see what, because there's one that I was thinking about with Sean, but I guess he we has he hasn't done his last one yet, so it might be his number one. but Yeah, Sean. I'll see.
02:12:56
Speaker
Wait, no, it's not, because it's lower than this, so never mind, because the other one was the PS2 port of Chain of Memories. This is going to like 13, huh? What? All right. My number one is ah whopping score of a 19 on Metacritic.
Nostalgic Game Memories
02:13:10
Speaker
oh my And this is Nickelodeon Party Blast, the PC game from, I think it was 2001, 2002.
02:13:17
Speaker
I played so many hours of this game on PC. Um... To the point where me and that same person who would play through Digimon World 4 would play on the same keyboard. I would use the arrow keys and the space bar and the enter. He would use WASD and i think shift and C. And it is just a collection of minigames. You get to play as various Nickelodeon characters hosted by CatDog, but he's not a playable character.
02:13:42
Speaker
um the different mini games are very different than each other um you had a food fighting game where you could go through like the crusty crab was one level um tommy pickle's house was one level um remember who who's ever seen invader zoom oh yeah i love that show remember the like like i don't know it's like a restaurant they used to go to and like the the food would be like kind of like almost like come alive Well, there was there there was ah one of the fighting, one of the um areas was that. There was a slime game where you'd score each other with slime. Now that I say that out loud, it's really weird.
02:14:13
Speaker
um But yeah, it was really fun. Graphics are horrendous, but I'll never forget that opening cinematic. That hit for a little little three and four year old Sean and Trevor. That really hit.
02:14:24
Speaker
Nickelodeon Party Blast. One of the greatest, most underrated games of all time. Love this game. A 19? Jesus Christ. Yep, 19 on Metacritic.
02:14:34
Speaker
And that's the Xbox version, but they didn't, I don't think they reviewed the PC version, but it was essentially the same exact game. Wow. Runs like... That's the Xbox tax. That's why it was 19, Sean. Yeah, it must be. There you go.
02:14:46
Speaker
Just kidding. All right. i didn't None of us played that, I'm sure. You never played Nickelodeon Party Blast? No, I did not. But I actually just looked up. I wanted i was curious because I was thinking like those old Nickelodeon games were always just trash, but they wanted to obviously sell them to kids and you know make some money off it.
02:15:02
Speaker
So I looked up, and it doesn't have a review, which makes me sad, but I loved as a kid SpongeBob SquarePants Employee of the Month. and that game was Oh, my God. That was a great game as well. there was a really great point-and-click adventure game.
02:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, but I don't know if it... It doesn't have any reviews, so I don't know how it would have scored. It it has a high rating now, because I'm sure people look back and nostalgically and with it, but at the time, I don't know how it was received.
02:15:26
Speaker
Well, IGN gave Party Blast a 1.1. Jesus. Which, it's not broken. You can still play the game. You can beat the game. Like, don't know.
02:15:37
Speaker
That's crazy, though. That's so low, yeah. Yeah, 19. It's great. I love it. Like the game would have to like blue screen your computer to like ah to give it a 1.1. Like what's going on here? Yeah, right.
02:15:48
Speaker
All right. So that does it. That is our five favorite games with the score below 70. um Let's go through for the audio listeners real quick. Let's go through and recap our list. So I'll start us off.
02:16:00
Speaker
um I had MLB 2K12, Golf With Your Friends, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Fable Anniversary, and Lightning Returns. Final Fantasy 13. thirteen Hodge, what did you have?
02:16:11
Speaker
Ravenlock, Wolfenstein 3D, Xbox Arcade, I guess, technically version. Order 1886, the Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD Collection, and Rise Son of Rome. Ben?
02:16:24
Speaker
Mad Max, 68. Brink, 68. High on Life, 67. Crackdown 3, 60. Duke Nukem Forever, 58. Excellent. And Sean?
02:16:35
Speaker
Star Ocean the Divine Force, 69. Crash Twin Sanity, 64. Balan Wonderworld, 51. Digimon World Nickelodeon Party 19. and nickeonian party blast nineteen Woo.
02:16:49
Speaker
19. All
Podcast Conclusion and Audience Engagement
02:16:50
Speaker
right. So some great games. Let us know in the comments, folks, what you guys thought, if you played any of these games and what horrible games do you love? Let us know. um But yeah, that's going to go ahead and do it for us. Let's go around the horn and do our final thoughts, shall we? And let's go ahead and start with our extra, extra special guest.
02:17:06
Speaker
Ben, final thoughts for episode number, whatever this is, I think 28. I'm about to sneeze. So I'll make this quick. Thanks for having me. enjoyed it. I always like talking video games, um period. like that's That's just what I want to do. So, um yeah, it's always fun to hang out with you guys, too.
02:17:22
Speaker
I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Thanks for your time. um Sean Mason, final thoughts for the episode, sir. Great episode. Happy to have Ben here. It was really fun talking games, talking about bad games we enjoy.
02:17:35
Speaker
um Midnight, cover athlete, MLB Who was it? um You already told me it was Verlander. ah What's his first name? Justin.
02:17:46
Speaker
How many teams did he play for? I know he played for the Tigers, and I think he went to the Astros, and I don't know it beyond that. right Don't worry about it. Wasn't he close it enough? or am i I get part partial credit.
02:17:58
Speaker
Um... All right. So you're done with your final thoughts. You just wanted to roast me. Okay. you Gotcha. My final thoughts, as always, just thank you guys. Leave us like support our show. We appreciate you.
02:18:09
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ben, for showing up and giving us two hours and 20 minutes, basically of your time when you're not feeling good. We hope you feel better soon. You are awesome. We appreciate you. um Hodge final thoughts, sir.
02:18:21
Speaker
Just ah happy to be here. This is, I, yeah, I love talking about games that people hate that I'm like, I liked it. So shut up. What kind of thing? So, i like i like i like liking things that are hated by everyone. It makes makes the conversation fun.
02:18:36
Speaker
Yeah. Because everyone else has bad opinions. you know Our opinions are good. Other people's opinions aren't. yeah And of course, thank you, Ben, for joining us because it's always fun chatting games with you. For sure, man.
02:18:47
Speaker
Always welcome. Always welcome. All right. Well, we're going to go ahead and get up out of here, guys. Hope you guys enjoy your day. um This is, by the way, if you might have noticed this, this is going to start going live an hour earlier. We're going to start putting these out at 7 Eastern instead of 8 Eastern.
02:19:01
Speaker
That way, you early commuters will have a better chance of being able to listen to this on your commute. And please do. Let us brighten your Monday. All right. Give us some give us some some listen time, okay? We're here to entertain.
02:19:13
Speaker
And we're going to get out of here. This has been Games Over Plastic, Episode 28. everyone. Bye. bye everyone b See ya. Why am I making pudding at 4am? Because I've lost control of my life.
02:19:26
Speaker
Is that Rugrats? Yes it is. It is Rugrats.