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GTA VI is HERE & What is the best game of the year?! - Add to Party 12.13.2023
7 Plays10 months ago
This week we discuss the game awards, the gta vi trailer, and the fantastic downfall of fntastic
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Add to Party'
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a news show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by... Oh, Andy Kay. And I've been joined by... Derek Castillo.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey, how are you guys?
Banter on Introductions and Habits
00:00:33
Speaker
You're doing a thing Charles used to do that annoys me. What? You're using the past tense in the opening. I've been joined by the podcast hasn't started yet. Yes, I'm being pedantic. No, I'm glad you called this out. Can we blame that I did it because he did it? Maybe.
00:00:52
Speaker
Cause I haven't been thinking about the 10s. So wait, what am I supposed to say? Oh, I'm joined by. Yes. Aw. We can also blame Charles for the pauses too, right? Okay. Well yeah, the pause was that I forgot it was me. No, Andy owns the pauses. That's on me.
00:01:13
Speaker
That's on me. Well, thank you. I'm taking notes, James. Listen, it's positive feedback. We all need to be told things sometimes. I appreciate it. I'm always willing to learn and grow.
Drama in the Fiber Arts World
00:01:31
Speaker
Can I tell you guys about the new thing I'm learning?
00:01:34
Speaker
Oh, God. All right. This is like five hours ago. Did you know there is.
00:01:45
Speaker
Okay, so something came across my YouTube feed. I think it's because one of my friends right now, he's getting into crocheting. And I was talking with him about it and learning about it, kind of how it's going for him. And what showed up in my YouTube feed is a channel for like crafting drama. Like, did you know that the world of knitting is called fiber arts?
00:02:11
Speaker
No, that is an awesome name. Isn't it? No, but I'm aware of a little bit of the drama. It's incredible. Well, I don't know what you heard, but I have been learning so much. These people get into so much. There was one about like a like a knitting convention that went horribly wrong and it was called Fiberfest off of Firefest.
00:02:34
Speaker
They made this like hour and a half long documentary about how everything went wrong, was over promised. There was another one about, I didn't know people die wool. I didn't know that's a thing, but someone ran their own wool dyeing business and then faked their death to get away with the money. And all these women organized and I learned, I didn't know this, but one of them tracked down their IP address by sending them a direct message with like a pixel
00:03:04
Speaker
picture in it and then they tracked down their IP and then they tracked down the IP of sock puppets accounts to like triangulate that a woman was still alive and running away with their money. There was another one where they got like, we're going to be sued by the Olympics because they were trying to do a knitting thing alongside the Olympics.
00:03:24
Speaker
You guys, there's so much drama when it comes to fiber arts and it's fascinating because it's like, like,
00:03:35
Speaker
It's wholesome and mundane, but like also just, you can't look away. You can't look away. I wanted to let you guys know about fiber arts, okay? Oh my God, about the amount of pH you use? Are you using citric acid when you're dyeing your wool? You better, otherwise it's gonna bleed in the wash. So Andy, since you went back to the dyeing, how did you think we got wool that wasn't black, white, or brown? Okay.
00:04:05
Speaker
Like Derek, that is a fair call out. If you see red wool, do you assume there was a red sheep? Up until now? Okay, I want to first call out. I never thought that, but I probably wasn't many steps away from it. Like that much ignorance. I should more so say, I guess there is a whole industry among like, um,
00:04:31
Speaker
just artists that they will like dye their own wool and like sell wool that they dye themselves. Like I don't know why, but for some reason I thought like you just go to the knitting store and they just have every yarn you could need, every variation you can think of. But what's that? That's what I thought.
00:04:52
Speaker
Right. But no, there is a whole industry built around making even more, I guess, like granular shades, which is then also very interesting to me because a wool's color. I don't know if it's always wool. I don't know the different type of fabrics, but it's always going to look different on your screen than it does in person.
00:05:12
Speaker
depending on your calibration. So I don't know I just like so I thought that was interesting that you can start all these online businesses about shades of colors you're making that can improve upon an experience that a store offers. But also you can like weave colors together or something I think. I don't know I'm like five hours new to this. But there's something called fiber arts and I'm obsessed and there's channels devoted to just drama.
00:05:42
Speaker
Are you going to knit, Andy? No, I have no interest in knitting. I like learning about how technical it can be. It's super interesting when they just start dropping all these techniques and stuff. I think that's interesting. But no, I have no interest in starting to knit. Well, I don't want to start a new conversation, but after this, Andy, I'm going to link you a good video on the company Pantone.
00:06:06
Speaker
Oh, I know Pantone and all the details of how they help companies coordinate the actual color something is when it's ordered and delivered. I actually used to have on one of my old work laptops, it had a little I don't know if it was like a little camera or something.
00:06:23
Speaker
But I had a little lens in the keyboard that would calibrate your screen to match Pantone colors. I don't know why. Maybe so I could have the most accurate notepad plus plus skin. I have no idea. But I have a Pantone calibration thing. But I would still be interested in that, Dirk. I think it's interesting, like, like, yeah, the amount of work that has to do into color matching.
00:06:49
Speaker
Um, but honestly, this has been lighting my brain on fire. This whole world of fiber arts and how these women go hard. Um, when it comes to the community and men, true, true, true. Sorry. Sorry. Um, even like the person though, like when they were interviewing all these people who were doing them, like a lot of them were women, but no, you are absolutely right. I don't want to non binary, non binary. Thank you, James. I appreciate that.
00:07:15
Speaker
Just checking your privilege, white man. Please do. Please do. But yeah, this community goes hard, I should say. But yeah, so that's what I learned. Fiber arts, you guys. I'm not getting anything, though. Is someone who painted? Why are you impressed about the color matching, though? You would just think similar, right? In terms of the paint, the paint, the gumplush ops are just magically provided fairies every night, hoarding bottles for them.
00:07:45
Speaker
God, I wish it was that easy. Andy, do you mix paints? I do. OK, why is this so surprising to you? I guess because on one hand, like my selection of paints is like a little rack in a hobby store, right? Well, one of my has more, but regardless of that, I always pictured knitting stores. I don't think I've ever been one, but just a giant thing of every color you can imagine, just every color.
00:08:13
Speaker
And then you just choose from what's available to you. I don't know why my brain just never made the next step that someone might want something different than what's in the store. It's only because I just never thought about it. But I want to recognize that I was surprised hearing about it.
00:08:32
Speaker
But because when you're starting to work on a project, it can become very personal in terms of, like, if you're investing that much time, you're going to want a very specific outcome. So I don't know, maybe when I thought committing to a color, there's a risk to doing it online. But then you just go to these conventions that then turn into Firefest. Oh my gosh, you guys, it's insane. It's insane. They crammed 3,000 people into a venue that's meant to host 500 people weddings. It's insane. It's insane.
00:09:02
Speaker
It's insane. That's all I have to share. I'm thinking I'll probably be over it today, though. This isn't a new puzzle venture, you guys. And I'm glad you're here to show this, you know, the corners of the Internet, whether it be fiber arts or long for long for.
00:09:21
Speaker
Oh, I forgot about long Furby. Oh, I love long Furby. Oh, I don't know how these things come across. I mean, we have to thank the algorithm. It's the algorithm. And I think in this case, Google listening to me, because I didn't Google crocheting. I didn't look anything up. I literally was just asking about my friend's hobby. I heard the conversations and what you know what, we can get him.
00:09:44
Speaker
We can get, well, you know, maybe, well, let's check my advertising. Let's go to Destructoid, where I get 30 ads every page and see what my advertising is right now. Or we can talk about the winners and losers of the game room. That's very true, James. Let's go in. Take us on that journey.
Baldur's Gate 3: Game of the Year
00:10:04
Speaker
Let's, let's just run it down real quick about who won game of the year. That's Baldur's Gate 3, baby. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Little, little, little double A. No, do we? This is an interesting conversation. Do we consider Baldur's Gate a double A or a triple A game?
00:10:20
Speaker
Oh, I think I think it's only in studios. I think by definition is a double A studio. Yeah, I think solidly the way it does matter how successful it is, like or even polished like it looks fantastic. Oh, I mean, it's yeah, that's there's nothing to do with the quality of the game. But I think it's just more about the size and investment of Larian Studios. Oh, that opens up another interesting question. I think we'll get to the winner.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, beating out Alan Wake to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Resident Evil 4 Super Mario Bros. Wonder and shoo in any other year. Legends of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah, can you? Oh my gosh. Just a technical Marvel Tears of the Kingdom. But I agree. Ballers Gate 3 should have won.
00:11:04
Speaker
Baldur's Gate 3 is a someone described it as being kind of like the Witcher 3 or the Skyrim of like CRPGs. It absolutely this feels like a land moon game. Like the winds shifted with this. It absolutely did.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, get ready. You're going to see like 18 fucking CRPGs in 2026. Oh, yeah. But weren't you guys not thinking it was going to win game of the year? I, I, I thought it should have won and I'm glad that it did. But it's one of those things where it's like.
00:11:41
Speaker
Fan vote only accounts for, like, I think 10 percent of the vote or something like that. Most of it comes from games, journalists and things like that. And, you know, games, journalists do not have 100 hours to play baller's key three. Yeah. Most of the time. Yeah. Except me, the best games journalist. You are sure. No, I haven't played Spider-Man 2 yet or Alan Week 2. I haven't played either.
00:12:06
Speaker
I think I only have five hours of any experience in Baldur's Gate 3. The only other exposure I have is to Mario Bros. Wonder and Zelda, but I need to keep getting farther in because I've just done the intro like twice and it's not super compelling. I just need to get poked. Well here's what I would say is the other interesting is winner of best game direction, best narrative, and best art direction.
00:12:34
Speaker
Alan, week two. So I don't wait to darling game that games aims in the games journalism industry loves. Just couldn't edge it out for Baldur's Gate three, though.
00:12:48
Speaker
God, how different this would have been. And Alan Wake 2, hold on. Alan Wake 2 was not even a contender for Player's Voice. Not even in the five for Player's Choice. And it won all those. Yeah, Player's Voice was between Baldur's Gate 3, which won Cyberpunk, Phantom of Liberty, Genshin Impact, Spider-Man 2, and Tears of the Kingdom. Baldur's Gate 3 winning. Yes. Do you think Cyberpunk deserved to be in that?
00:13:13
Speaker
I am still working my way against the Phantom Liberty. It's taking me time. But everything I've heard from everyone says that Phantom Liberty is a fantastic expansion. That really like, if it doesn't necessarily deliver everything that they promised, but it creates a realized world that is more of what it should have been at launch.
00:13:38
Speaker
I think the difficulty spike on the hardest difficulty between sections hurts it, but that's the only real valid criticism I've heard from it. I just didn't know if it was like, we have to like it because we have to, which I don't even know where I'm drawing that conclusion from. It's just a vibe I got. Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
There are a bunch of other games, one things, Best Indie went to Sea of Stars, not Dave the Diver, who was made by Tencent. Okay, that's what I wanted to bring up was I read, because I didn't know that, but I read a whole article on Detoy talking about Dave the Diver should not be considered an indie game.
00:14:17
Speaker
because it's developed. Well, the parent company is Tencent. Yeah. But it feels like we're just throwing indie game now at anything that has like pixel art, nostalgic vibes. Like, what do you mean? I mean, we've talked about, like, how do you define indie versus double A versus triple A? And I think it's very muddy. And I don't know. I think it should come down to. Well, what I liked what they explored was that we need to come up with a new name because indie means nothing.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah. And they were like, and it should really drill down to how it's published because indie should mean uplifting things that were financed and developed by a small studio. And they're thinking of
What Defines an Indie Game?
00:15:00
Speaker
like, maybe use the word like alternative.
00:15:03
Speaker
which I thought was interesting. They were making parallels to music, like it's using alternative means of publishing or developing. And I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. I think that's fine, but there shouldn't be any connotation with uplifting. It should be a very neutral term, just indicating where the source of the game was.
00:15:24
Speaker
That's fair. You know, and I don't know if I, I don't want to say they use that word, but uplifting isn't really the right word. It's, but to like call it out, right? To, to make it known that like, Hey, this is the context that this was developed. But like you said, neutrally, I agree with that. I agree. But it's information I'd like to know. Cause yeah, now indie means nothing. Uh, and David diver, when I looked at it, I immediately thought indie and I did not think it was made by 10 cent.
00:15:54
Speaker
Well, do you want to know the big losers of the game awards? Who's the big loser? Well, first of all, anybody who got to give a speech, we'll get to that in a second. Oh, yeah. But also Marvel, Spider-Man 2 and Jedi Survivor and Final Fantasy 16 won no awards. Wow. It was a packed year. Yeah, it was a packed year. It was a packed. Well, God of War, too. Wait, did God of War come out this year?
00:16:22
Speaker
God of War came out last year. And I believe that was between an Elden Ring last year. That's right. That's right. But Elden Ring last year. Elden Ring was last year. Yeah. Yeah. OK. I think it was because it was like February of last year. Yeah. So it's it feels like it's been two years, even though it's technically one year. Yeah.
00:16:51
Speaker
There was just too much. And I think it was because of COVID delays, right? It just stacked everything up. This was the year where all the COVID games just kind of got jumped on us. Yeah. But there was some other controversy. Oh. And that's because Jeff Keeley hates award speeches.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's like neo-nazis running up on stage. I don't know if he was a neo-nazi. But he's referring to the person who went on stage last
The Game Awards Critique
00:17:24
Speaker
year. But none of that should happen this year. Not that he would have had time.
00:17:30
Speaker
That's because maybe as a response to Christopher Judge's seven minute speech or something like that, or he was just fucking ignoring that play it off. Yeah, most people got like something like 30 to 45 seconds to give their award speech, including game of the year, Bowlers Gate 3.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yeah, but a lot of them were also pre-recorded ahead of time because they couldn't attend. So yeah, they're like the small, like the content creators, the esports athletes were asked to like pre-record. They didn't show those either most of the time. They would just kind of run through them. They would be like five, like you hear five words. Like one, I've heard people bring up as like best indie kind of just gotten like
00:18:23
Speaker
you know, thrown through like it was one of those like best content creator, best e-sport, best indie. It's like, you know, I feel like someone said, I mean, a lot to an indie developer to be able to come up on stage and win an award. Like that's a very, again, uplifting thing. Yeah. So.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's there's certainly a balance to be had. I think people say it swung much more to game conference this year because there were a lot of announcements. And I think it was a pretty good show in terms of that. But the awards side suffered for it where you had, you know, a lot of commercials, a lot of obviously like sponsored programming to pay the bills. So I mean, Jeff's got to pay the bills and everybody understands that. But also it's like you got to maybe, you know,
00:19:09
Speaker
Could we have cut something? Could you have spent a little less money here so that we could have these people give more speeches there? You know what I mean? I don't envy him having. Go ahead. What was that? Just separate the two events. One is to give awards to the group behind all of these great creations. And then the marketing dollars should be separate.
00:19:33
Speaker
Well, I mean, if you want a real award show, that's dice, but nobody watches dice because that's literally just for like the game developer community. Oh, sure, sure, sure. The dice awards, if you're unfamiliar with them. And if you are, I wouldn't be surprised because nobody watches. Is that like in Germany? No. What am I thinking of? Gamescom. Well, I don't. Yeah, I don't know why I thought Germany. I guess I don't know. The other thing I heard
00:20:02
Speaker
and more of an opinion piece, but it was like nothing was said about how the entire industry is just being wiped out or like everybody's being fired, right? The layoffs are insane. And Jeff didn't call any of that out.
00:20:17
Speaker
And then they made the parallel that Jeff isn't afraid to get political because I think they said they weren't allowing Activision to be at the game of words or Blizzard. Was that what it was? I hadn't heard about that.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's something about like, or at least they commented on it or something, but basically calling out like Blizzard, you know, stop being awful. They were calling that out and said there's no place for it. And then they just are like, hey, all these companies with record profits. Good job. Keep laying people off.
00:20:51
Speaker
Obviously, that's not his message, but I guess a lot of people were expecting him to say something. It didn't cross my mind that he would, but when it was brought up to me, I kind of agree. Probably something should have been said, or at least called out that this was devastating to the community this year, to all the people putting in all this hard work. So nothing was brought up. But do you want to bring up any bummers? I mean, talking about blizzards, a bummer. People got hurt.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah. So that was another thing I heard. But now that I've cast aspersions on the conference part of it, let's let's revel in it and let's talk about all the announcements that did happen during it. I'm just going to run through these real quick and you guys can pick and choose what you want. But sure.
Exciting Game Announcements
00:21:38
Speaker
I'm going to just pick out the ones that I think are particularly interesting.
00:21:42
Speaker
Daniel Mullen's next game, the creator of an inscription called Pony Island 2 Panda Circus, starring a live action sung one show of Pro-ZD fame as a character in the game. Oh, we also had Dead Cells Revealing Dead Cells Devs Revealing their next game called Windblown.
00:22:02
Speaker
It was just the anime trailer. You didn't really see a lot of it, but, you know, dead souls team. Great team. Matthew McConaughey came on stage and showed a game called Exodus, an RPG from X BioWare devs, of which he was nowhere in the trailer. And it seemed very much to Ape Interstellar in some ways. So I don't know. That was very weird. The face behind the helmet could be a younger Matthew McConaughey.
00:22:27
Speaker
Maybe. He said his voice will be in it, so we'll see. Was he trying to be... Why can't I remember his name? Who's John Wick?
00:22:37
Speaker
Keanu Reeves. That was Anthony Mackie, which we'll get to in a minute. Oh, OK. God of War Ragnarok announced a new DLC called Valhalla, which is a roguelike. It is out. It was out yesterday, so it's out now if you want to play it. Also, it's all over my tick tock. It is actually a story DLC, too. It's not just a roguelike. There is a continuing story of
00:23:02
Speaker
God of War. Wow. Ragnarok in there. So that's worth playing. But I don't have to play it because Tic Tac ruined it for me. Oh, yeah, that's fine. What else we got here? Oh, Visions of Mana, a new Secrets of Mana game coming out in 2024. I hope finally. Finally, are you a mana boy? I didn't know you like. I am a mana boy. Which ones did you play?
00:23:32
Speaker
Uh, the ones on PS1 that my friend who is also a Final Fantasy addict had. Oh, wait! That's the, I think it was Legend of Mana? Yes, I believe so. Or whatever. People are supposed to not like that one. I like it. It's beautiful, the soundtrack. If it was awful, I was a kid. That's my excuse.
00:23:53
Speaker
Honestly, I don't think it was that awful. It was just that weird non-linear kind of thing where you like piece together the map. People weren't the biggest fan. But going back to it, I think there's something to appreciate it. But I didn't know that. So I'm glad you're excited for this, too. I wasn't able to tell, though, if this was a multiplayer one, because Legend was multiplayer, right? You said you played with your friend. I played I basically played it and then he would just tell me where to go. Oh, OK. And then he'd watch me make mistakes and laugh.
00:24:22
Speaker
Fair, fair, fair, fair. We had our yearly Kojima update where he came out and showed his new horror game called OD, which was just a bunch of very disturbing motion capture graphics. I'm not remembering this one. That was where the people were just screaming while they were reciting a sentence, which I believe people confirmed is the sentence they use when they do mocap tests.
00:24:50
Speaker
Oh, is it? OK. Yeah. Also that he's working with Jordan Peele, director of Us Get Out. And what was the other one? Don't look.
00:25:03
Speaker
Don't let the newest one. No, don't look up the DiCaprio movie. Or is it nope or something? Nope. That's the other one. Nope. Yep. And nothing new about death training, too. But yeah, this will be a horror game, though. Jurassic Park survival announced, which is a single player Jurassic Park adventure game. Really looks like they're just doing Dino Crisis, baby. This is like Dino Crisis in Jurassic Park. OK.
00:25:33
Speaker
Uh, maybe they'll throw a nice little Easter again or whatever her name was for Andy. Don't not enough for Andy. Don't not announce their next game called lost records, bloom and rage coming late 2024. This is the newest game for the life of strange team.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah, I looked at it and I was like, is that a life is strange? And it's not called it, but you look at it and you know it is. And then you start the trailer and it's like two girls that you can totally tell her in love. You're like, yeah, here we go. Skull and Bones is finally coming out February 16th. It's happening. Skull and Bones. Wait, the Ubisoft one? That's right. Singapore, they made that deal with Singapore and by God, they'll uphold it.
00:26:17
Speaker
Uh, more interestingly, arcane lion revealed that they're making a blade game blade, the Marvel vampire hunter. This is the team that made deaf loop and dishonored. So, um, but instead of the normal New York city where blade usually is he's in Paris for some fucking reason. That reason being that arcane is a French studio. Oh, I didn't put that together. Okay.
00:26:41
Speaker
They're like, we're like, we know that he's tied deeply to New York City, but what if he was in Paris? I mean, New York's been done a couple of times. Yeah, I know. Yeah. As I was saying, Anthony Mackie came out doing his best Keanu Reeves announcing the Twisted Metal will be receiving a season two. Twisted Metal was actually good. You should watch it.
00:27:08
Speaker
Uh, do anything else. Uh, oh, hello games announced their next game called light no fire. Sean, where he was on stage and just did his best to not over promise and dammit, he failed again, but that's okay. We love you, Sean Murray.
00:27:24
Speaker
He said it's the first real open world something without boundaries. So instead of a universe They're creating kind of a magical planet that is procedurally generated and more or less endless With mountains taller than Everest and things like that and you can fly on dragons Okay, that sounds bold. I hope they didn't over promise
00:27:46
Speaker
There was a tweet that came out afterwards where it's like Sean Murray again over promises and he like retweeted it and just went fuck. So, you know, he gets it. Final Fantasy 16 is getting a DLC coming out in 2024 called Echoes of the Fallen. Actually, no, it came out that day. Yeah, Echoes of the Fallen. But the DLC is not out.
00:28:14
Speaker
Final Fantasy 16 DLC Echoes of the Fallen is available today while the Rising Tide is on its way. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't mean to wait. What is Echoes of the Fallen? Is that like a story DLC? I think I think that's a roguelike version, probably. Oh, OK. Sorry about that, because I kept reading like they shadow dropped and then they just kept talking about this future DLC. And I was like, I don't know if that's what shadow drop means.
00:28:38
Speaker
Uh, it will be taking place in story. So if you were wondering what happens after the end of the story, keep fucking wondering. Yeah. And then finally, Capcom revealed that it is, uh, it's next monster hunter game will be coming out in 2025. Not what we thought, but you're all like, this game's definitely coming out next year. Nope. It's coming out in 2025. It's called monster hunter wilds. It is more or less the spiritual successor to monster hunter world. Mm hmm.
00:29:06
Speaker
I don't think there's enough information out there to make that claim. Well, I mean, it would be weird if it wasn't.
00:29:14
Speaker
Worlds was like their best selling game ever. I mean, Worlds was their attempt to get new market share. But honestly, from the trailer, I'm scared that there's open world vibes. Oh, like that sort of scares me. But I mean, they were open world like the maps of Monster Hunter are always kinds of open worlds. Just you, you small open worlds. Yeah. Very.
00:29:40
Speaker
like memorable like you remember where every herb every stink musk everything is but I would say they're larger larger than the standard map though like
00:29:53
Speaker
I mean, either way, if it's coming out. Yeah, very good. And then since you said finally, I'll just bring up one that you skipped over. What's that gene? The finals. It's a first person shooter by Dystevs. Well, let's talk about it from the Bark Studios. It's available now free to play. Oh, it's very fast, much like apex, but much shorter rounds. So it's too clean. I don't like it.
00:30:21
Speaker
The art style of the I don't like the art style of it. I'm not a big fan. I'm not a big fan of how they. Have it set as like a game show, but the gameplay is fun. The environment is fully destructible. And it's very little investment because it's free to play and rounds don't last more than about 10 minutes. Yeah, it's three. It's three, three, three, three. So you're three teams of three. Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, I've been watching a lot of people play it and I was like, eh, I don't know. Have you played it, Derek? Yeah, I've put in a few hours yesterday on it. It's I would have if you told me this is an Ubisoft game, I would have believed you instantly. It looks like an Ubisoft game. Yeah, I don't like how you're using that as like a negative connotation. Well, hey, as someone who loves Rainbow Six Siege, Ubisoft does have a style.
00:31:20
Speaker
That's a good point. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out now why am I thinking it's an Ubisoft? It's too clean. It may be that that's what it's the clean. Like it looks nice. It looks nice. But maybe by clean it's that it doesn't have like it's not it doesn't it doesn't have a style. If that makes sense. Like there's no heart. It doesn't. Well, I mean, and to a certain extent, that makes sense for the.
00:31:46
Speaker
the plot of the game, because it's a game show. So it being clean makes sense. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. And I'm just going to give more fuel to your fire, James, do it to make it more like an Activision game. It is 16 gigabytes for what's essentially like four or five maps. Oh, dang. But again, I'm enjoying it. I'm going to play more of it. Oh, I'm glad you're liking it. But after.
00:32:14
Speaker
like 90 minutes to two hours, I was like, OK, let's go back to Lethal Company. Which one's Lethal Company? That's the one we played the other night. Oh, you were you weren't in. That's the one. It's the one where you are. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You for space for space guys going into monster filled dungeons to get scrap. It's fun or more with mods. It's it's it's less scary phasmophobia, honestly. OK.
00:32:43
Speaker
Uh, but yeah, that was the game awards. Wait, you missed another one. Oh my God, what? I thought this was a big reveal. Um, it's what the Persona team has been working on.
00:32:56
Speaker
Oh, I did miss that one. No, I actually don't think this was a reveal. It was a reveal to me. So maybe never mind. But there's a they were working on a fantasy RPG for years and years and years. And I actually thought it was almost a Mandela effect. I could have sworn they were making one. But like, I thought I was going crazy. I couldn't find anything on it. And it turns out it's called metaphor.
00:33:20
Speaker
Um, and it's based, it's just everybody from the persona team, not everybody, but, and it's going to be a fan. Oh, metaphor refanities. Yeah. That was announced a while ago. Yeah. I literally completely missed that. I didn't know that. Yeah.
00:33:34
Speaker
So I literally thought this was an announcement and it was in the pre-show. And as I was watching, I was like, this is a big deal. Why does no one care? Yeah. Metaphor refanticetazio was announced. I want to say at a state of play, maybe like a year ago. Yeah. Like a year ago.
00:33:55
Speaker
I'm looking at June 2023 is it looks like when it's revealed it was revealed at an Xbox game show. Oh, is that so that's why I didn't see it. And I remember after I saw this trailer, whatever the other day, it didn't mention PlayStation. It was only Xbox and PC.
00:34:15
Speaker
That doesn't necessarily mean it won't be on PlayStation. Yeah, I mean it true. It's and it's very not. Also, looking at the looking at the Shin Megatense, a Wiki page, it lists PS PS5, Steam, PlayStation 4. Oh, does it really? OK, so I think it's just they have marketing rates. That's what I was hoping. So, OK, I'm fine with that.
00:34:42
Speaker
I'm an old lady I have the fan conspiracy theory.
00:34:51
Speaker
Xbox, I feel like, is shifting into selling software, not their hardware. And I feel like the Game Pass might come to PlayStation. Shut up! I don't want to! Five years. The best deal in gaming. I don't want to think about how good Game Pass is. It makes me mad. No, but I'm saying that they just want to sell it to PlayStation and Nintendo users on top of PC users. Just think about, Andy, how I'm going to be playing with Ichiban and his friends in Honolulu for free with Game Pass. Is that on Game Pass?
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, it is. No, infinite wealth is on game pass. Get out. Yeah. So if you want to believe in one of my conspiracy theories for that one. Well, I am. I'd be fine with that if they put game pass on like PlayStation. I actually just sprung for the middle tier PlayStation. I figured why the heck not? There's like two games I wanted to try on it, so.
00:35:48
Speaker
I would get my money there if I play those. But and I have no I will gladly give 60 dollars to whatever that team is for the new like a dragon. All right. You're depriving them of money, James. OK, you're the enemy here. They also said it's going to be like maybe the biggest game since five, which I'm like five was a slog. I hope you guys do it better this time. Is the one that I like seven?
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, you like seven was gigantic. Five was still bigger. Oh, my God. Five, five is like their long. Seven is the second longest game. OK. Well, they created fantastic characters and I just want to hang out with them. So I'm absolutely thrilled and waiting for that game. Wait, when does it come out again? January 28th. Oh, my God. Yep. That's right around the border. Yeah.
00:36:43
Speaker
Andy, by the way, I finished like a Dragon Gaiden, and let me tell you, you'll cry. Oh, really? You'll ugly cry.
00:36:53
Speaker
Wait, I will personally, even with my knowledge of the lore. Yes. So sad. Oh, no. Oh, I mean, I cried at the end of Like a Dragon 7 just because they were such good friends. I was like, this is so beautiful.
00:37:15
Speaker
I can't imagine what's going to happen to me. He didn't know. He didn't know there was in the one thing that he was actually in the other. Oh, no. It was a great story. I love I love fucking like a dragon. So anyway, well, we'll talk about like a dragon seven next year. But we have big problems, big problems right now. We already talked about the big problems.
00:37:39
Speaker
Like a dragon comes out next month on the 28th. Yeah. And then rebirth comes out the following month. On the 29th, you have, you have, you have 30 days. That is impossible. I'll do it. Literally impossible for me. It takes me like two years to beat anything. You're going to have two large RPG cause seven rebirth is looking to be quite big as well.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah, and I was even thinking of replaying remake. That's not happening. Did you beat integrate, Andy? You guys do integrate, too. Yeah, I beat integrate. OK. Oh, no, I have to beat, but I want to take my time and enjoy Yakuza eight. Well, you're not done. Just take a leave of absence at work 40 hours a week. Take your time. I mean, honestly, Andy,
00:38:30
Speaker
What is the last time you took a week off? Take a week off. Well, I want to save up my vacations for all the vacations. That's vacation as a vacation, OK? Oh, no. Guys, this is the worst problem.
GTA 6 Trailer and Influencer Culture
00:38:47
Speaker
Well, you know, the dumbest problem to have. I'm like freaking out. I'm getting anxious about.
00:38:53
Speaker
trying to cram that much like a dragon into one month. I'll segue unless you no matter how much you try to stop me, God damn it. Oh, please do. Sorry. Sorry. I'm just having a little bit of crisis. I'm looking for a little bit of support, but please go on. No, you don't get support. What you get is the GTA six trailer that came out last week.
00:39:12
Speaker
100 million in one day. Yeah, it's currently sitting at 146 million views in its nine days that it's this is nine days since it was revealed, revealing what everybody knew that's going to be in Florida.
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah. Holy shit. Does this game look beautiful? Like, stupidly beautiful. Yeah. Like, they are just going nuts with this game. And it's definitely, I mean, hey, they did Red Dead Redemption 2. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a beautiful game. I kind of trust them.
00:39:49
Speaker
But after this, go back to the very first announcement for GTA 5 and then look at release footage. Oh, so what will I say there? I think it takes will be beautiful to T5 was, of course, six will be a better, but it wasn't in game graphics, obviously.
00:40:07
Speaker
Well, I think it is. I think a lot of it is in game cinematics. So, you know, you're getting like perfect reflections and everything like that. But I mean, there's a couple of scenes in here where it's like things look damn near real life. And some of these. It's pretty good. It was beautiful.
00:40:25
Speaker
Um, it also, it didn't reveal too much. Uh, basically it's going to be the story of a couple, uh, mostly focusing, it seems on the female part of it, Lucia. And did they ever say the name of her boyfriend lover partner? I don't believe so. Yeah, they didn't. Uh, so, but he will be a part of it too, but they fuck it. You know, they'd be fucking.
00:40:50
Speaker
And also it looks like it's going to be taking on streamer and influencer culture. Uh, cause a lot of it was presented in a way of kind of like Instagram reels or Tik TOKs. Um, so that'll be fun. See lock start with how everyone's trying to be an influencer. And especially when you think about it in terms of like Miami and stuff like that, where, I mean, next to LA, that's probably like the biggest place for that. So.
00:41:15
Speaker
I didn't even know that was a thing until like a year ago. Well, like Miami has that type of culture. Oh, yeah. I literally only considered I because obviously Florida is a monolith. It's just old people in Disney World. Right. But no, it's like this weird party scene that I just never knew existed. Eddie, Eddie, what did what did Will Smith tell you? Well, give me a second. I'm almost there.
00:41:45
Speaker
What was it? Welcome to Miami. Oh, that's right. But okay, we're being way too positive. So I want to bring up the one singular negative of all the news coming out in 2025. No, no, that was expected. They do not they've announced that they don't have the resources to do a concurrent PC launch.
00:42:09
Speaker
Yeah, they don't have the resources, air quotes that start cards made up. I want to say 70% of their total profits from GTA, which is in the millions of dollars. Let's be very clear here. Not only is it in the billions of dollars, it's also a 360 and it was on old gen consoles, then PC, then released on new consoles. And if they've released on switch, people would have bought four copies of it.
00:42:39
Speaker
I think someone said the attach rate between consoles and PC was something like 46%. Yeah. So it's like for every person who bought a console version of the game, 46% of it also bought it on PC. Yep. And that accounts for GTA. I'm one of those people, Andy. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:01
Speaker
what is like 50% of their total budgets on marketing. And that's marketing to get you down to Walmart and Target to buy Xbox One or PS5 right now.
00:43:11
Speaker
getting them all available because Xbox one was the last access plus one was last gen. Oh, it's like Xbox. It's the series generation series. Yes. I don't know what they are anymore for. Yeah, but get on down and get the latest console because you are going to consume GTA because why would you are? That's the only thing I worry about with this is that, um, man, I don't want to play games 30 frames per second anymore.
00:43:41
Speaker
Do you think you want to play GTA? Yeah, I'm gonna. But yeah, I can't imagine if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't seen the trailer, but if you haven't, go watch it. It's a great trailer. It's pretty good. And it's also very interesting. Again, it made records in terms of the amount of people who viewed it at its release. I think it really was like 100 million in 24 hours.
00:44:06
Speaker
But what's interesting is to go through the comments. And again, I guess it's it's one of the best selling games of all time, if not, but still, its reach just blows my mind. Like I think is huge. I think it's the second most selling game of all time just by Minecraft. Yeah. OK, and that makes sense. That makes sense. It's really Tetris still number one. No, it's just lost its don't bleed long ago.
00:44:33
Speaker
Pops only like four years ago, maybe. Yeah, it has to have. I think Tetris might be right. Yeah, Minecraft. It goes Minecraft, GTA five, then Tetris. OK. Yep. Just it's it's just insane. But then I bring that up because as I was reading through the comments, it was interesting to see how important this game was to so many people and how excited they were. And it was kind of special.
00:45:00
Speaker
If you can bind all if this is me shilling for Tetris, if you can bind all the versions of Tetris, it takes second place. Then what version are they using to consider a third place?
00:45:13
Speaker
Uh, they're using the EA mobile Tetris version, but the original Tetris sold 48 million copies. The Tetris EA version sold a hundred million copies. So that put it 148 million, which we put in second place. Now, what about the NES copies? Cause I contributed to that one.
00:45:33
Speaker
It's great. Listen, Tetris is a great game. Oh, listen, Tetris Effect Superior. I love it anyway. Yeah. I'm happy with what I saw. I'm sad that I have to wait potentially two years to play this game, but you've got enough games. I mean, yeah, I do. But I drop almost all of them play GTA six. It's listen, it's OK. You'll forget about it. Did you play GTA five on release day and day? I forgot.
00:46:03
Speaker
And my company, literally, we had like a day off to go play it. They were so excited. So yeah, I remember when it came out, I played it, I didn't beat it, but I like GTA, so I'm excited for the sixth one. I mean, I played it on the release day for PC. Are you going to get a PS5 for it, Derek? No.
00:46:27
Speaker
being an Xbox series. No, I mean, I have a coworker who upgraded to a better Xbox model and they could sell to me for like really cheap. But at this point in my actually, I think maybe for the rest of my life, I'm just not a console person. Well, I appreciate the game. But the rumor is that PS5 Pro developer consoles have gone out. So the specs may be leaking on them soon. So.
00:46:53
Speaker
I already PS. There might be a glue to PS5 is being sold in. I don't know if I'm going to get a PS5 Pro this time, although if that allows me to play GTA six at 60 frames per second. I barely. I don't know. I don't use my PS5 as much. And it's like everything already looks gorgeous. Like, I mean, for me, it's going to be next month. And then Final Fantasy are going to be busy times for me with that.
00:47:23
Speaker
But that's true. I'm going to play Yakuza on it or like a dragon on it. And then, yeah, Rebirth is going to look so good on it. I'm going to love games in the next couple of months. Yeah. I mean, great time unless you're trying to play the day before.
The Failure of 'The Day Before'
00:47:42
Speaker
Oh, this was interesting. Derek, do you want to take the lead on this? Because I think you know more about it than I do. Honestly, I don't know much at all about this.
00:47:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I'm just, it's very interesting. I, so there's, I don't know too much about it either. And this is a great thing as me as a games journalist to say, Hey, here's a story we're talking about. I don't know jack shit about it, but since we're here.
00:48:08
Speaker
I'll read this article from IGN. So in the oh, I think I read. Yeah. Yeah. The day before isn't upcoming. Not any longer. Post the popular open world RPG in which players must contend with zombies and other survivors at equal measure. It grabbed attention of those looking to fulfill their own walking dead or last of us ask fantasies. Now with the release date October 10th.
00:48:36
Speaker
Fantastic went quiet following their first release date. Yeah, so it's an MMO that has basically been very unsupported since its initial release. Probably, I think, February is when things started getting bad. Well, so the whole thing would kind of be- February was when it was released. February was when it was released. It was released only a couple days ago.
00:49:03
Speaker
I think it went early access in February. So it only went early access a couple of days ago. Oh, okay. Andy, you know more than I do. Yeah. So I was looking into it because I thought it was really interesting and.
00:49:15
Speaker
One of the reasons this is kind of remarkable and everybody was so burned by it is that development started a couple years ago. They had a nice trailer. I don't even really know what the gameplay was. It was like an MMO zombie shooter survival game. Something. I don't know. But like the trailer was just like you're dropped in a city and you're fighting against others for resources and zombies. Whoop-de-doo.
00:49:39
Speaker
But it was like one of the most wish listed games ever on Steam, or at least at that time, it was the most wish listed game. Everybody wanted this game and they were very interested in the development. And over the years, Fantastic Studio kept releasing trailers with more features and more features. They're like, oh, we're going to have a hub where players can hang out. Oh, you're going to have a place where you can build your own.
00:50:03
Speaker
uh residents and it's like they just kept going and this is a small studio that has not done a large game before so there were red flags and they kept over promising but it was the most wish-listed game everybody was super excited they thought they were going to be a winner and then they had a delay and then delay and then delay and people were worried but you know they kept giving it a pass and then when it went early access a couple days ago
00:50:27
Speaker
It was not the MMO zombie shooter. It did not have barely any of the features that were in all of the trailers. A lot of it looked like purchase assets and didn't look like environments shown in the trailers. And it ended up being like an extraction game. I don't even really know what that means. But those those are games where it's like PvP.
00:50:52
Speaker
and you're trying to escape with loot or items, but people can attack you as you try to leave. Okay, so then that makes sense. Yeah, because it sounded like there would be instance things where you would choose to do something, and then you gather resources, and you'd leave, and you'd lose a bunch of stuff that you even collected. Basically, it was nothing like it was, and then the servers were all overloaded and kept crashing, and then the game kept crashing, and then there was all these bugs and visual glitches and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:51:17
Speaker
So basically you release the most wish-listed game on Steam with years of hype. It ends up not being what they said. It was a huge buggy mess and it was just flooded with terrible reviews and tons of people asking for refunds. So much so that within like two or three days, they just announced they're closing. They're like, nope, we're done. The studio's out.
00:51:41
Speaker
A little bit of background also, this is a small, small company that's put out five titles in seven years. So they, and none of them have seemed to have been successful. So I'll just list them up because I personally hadn't heard of any of these until today. The wild eight dead dozen.
00:52:04
Speaker
Radiant One, Prop Knight, and The Day Before. I've never heard of anything. I have to imagine Prop Knight is like a prop hunt style game. Yes, and as a big fan of prop hunt games, I'm surprised I've never heard of it. What's up? I think it was shitty. Well, it originated on, I think TF2, honestly. It's like a modded server. I thought it was a Garry's Mod thing. It's also on Garry's Mod, but I think it started on TF2.
00:52:31
Speaker
But I played it first on Gary's mud also. But either way, people spawn as
00:52:37
Speaker
a type of prop, like a set piece on the map and the map will have all of those pieces. So like you could be like a bag of flour or cement or something and you could, you just plop down. And if you survive till the end, which is like so many minutes, then you win. And then the other team is just a bunch of a group of people that just are trying to kill, but they take slight damage when they try to identify a prop and unless they
00:53:08
Speaker
actually do. So TF2, they were pyros. They'd shoot their flamethrower and they'd take a little bit of damage unless they hit a prop that was hidden. I'd never heard of that. It's just an open hide and seek. Sure. That sounds fun. And it spread to some AAA studios games, as well as an alternate game mode. All duty, particularly. Yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
I've never heard of this before, this moment. It's fun. It's a fun game. Not not like the day before. Not like the day before. Yeah, they've been off way more than they can chew. A lot of people are really burned because they just over promise. And I think like their last tweet, I think was just like, I'm sorry, shit happens. Yeah, I think I might be misquoting or we tried our best. It's one of those.
00:53:54
Speaker
We just tried our best. It's like, oh, sorry. But yeah, so huge, huge, huge failure. I think it's one of the most overwhelmingly negative games on Steam. And I think it was because of the hype. It wasn't like this just didn't happen in a vacuum. But at the same time, I had never heard of this game before, like at all, before the last couple of days. And it blew my mind that it was one of the most wish listed games on Steam.
00:54:20
Speaker
It's another one of those cautionary tales of early access. Let me let me also add to this. This is the second game I'm aware of where you can steam will refund any customer no matter how many hours or days they've spent playing it. Oh, that I don't I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised that they tweeted that one hour ago. Oh, man. Was the other one cyberpunk? Yes, probably. Yeah.
00:54:45
Speaker
game of the year winner or whatever it was, ongoing game of the year. Okay, they had a rough launch. And I'm one in this group. I'm one of like, we had multiple people refund. I came in with full skepticism saying it's gonna be a pretty bad game. A great time. Yeah, I did too. At launch you did? Yeah.
00:55:05
Speaker
Yeah, I had one or two bugs that were horrible, but then just restart the game and it's fine. Like that's not a good launch experience at all.
Wrap-up and Farewell
00:55:14
Speaker
But I mean, all the big companies are having us alpha test their games nowadays. So it wasn't unexpected. I didn't know. Well, we'll talk about the next early access failure.
00:55:29
Speaker
Another episode of add to party is a friendship simulator masquerading is a new show I've been your host James Let the people talk during their award speeches. Don't play them off with music Jeff Keeley. You should know better heart. Well And I've been joined by see now the past tense. I Andy
00:55:53
Speaker
fiber art snarker. I don't have word to snark. There's snark communities. Okay. Um, okay. And I've been joined by Derek, the one person on the internet who hasn't beaten Baldur's Gate three yet. Andy hasn't to your, your annual never played it to be fair. Yeah. And you never will. I don't know. I thought AI probably won't. I'll get dragged through it.
00:56:23
Speaker
You'll have a good night, everyone. All right. Have a good night. Have a good morning, evening, whatever it is. Gosh darn consider it, Derek.