Game Scoop! 817: Well, That Sucks

24:31And like the sequel, like, man, like this, I was really sold on what we saw today. I thought it looked awesome. Like they're saying Vista. Holy crap. Like just the wide open spaces. Like they're saying things like, you know, it's not a checklist. Play at your own pace. Play in your own way. Like, I think, I think this is really appealing. I think it's really admirable. I also look, I, I don't think that's realistic at all. Like gamer brain is a real thing. And they're like you know it's not a checklist like you know just for the world and that's fine you know in an experiential way but like you know gamers want like gamers want to see a relationship bar fill up with every member of your wolf pack and when the bar fills confetti shoots out and then they give you a new spear with which to go enact your revenge and like you know and then there's a cool animation that accompanies that so like it's it's what's interesting and maybe no one is going to make this connection but me but like to me it felt a little bit breath of the wild-esque in the sense that a lot of games looked at breath of the wild and they said let's make it you can climb everything and that you have physics and a glider but i feel like sucker punch you know took some inspiration in a more sucker punch way and they said we're gonna let people play how you want we're gonna focus on the journey we're gonna focus on wide open spaces and i feel some of that kind of like player freedom and flexibility they really seem to emphasize and i thought that that seemed awesome to me like i loved it yeah yeah sam how disappointed were you to learn that there are cards in this game i saw i know that's the first thing i thought of when i when i saw that you know so the um it's always so funny when a game comes out in a year with another game that you just have to compare it to and then the devs are just like damn it you know you can just think like eternally they're just like why do we have to be compared and then the recency bias helps a lot and stuff like that it's just it's just interesting it's the same plot as assassin's creed shadows which is like really funny too and you know similarly said the weapon list is exactly the same i thought that was funny too um i think that like this game i i like it doesn't assassin's creed shadows is the prettiest game i've ever played this doesn't quite look like it's gonna beat that and let me mentioned that the vistas and the nature and everything looks maybe better than Assassin's Creed Shadows, but the towns don't.

26:55And the fights don't. And there's things that just don't look as good as that. So it'll be an interesting comparison in the end. I can't wait to side-by-side stuff and everything. This is just the Breath of the Wild scene here. And they talk about open worlds right at this point. I thought that was really funny that they did a little Breath of the Wild reference in their promotional material for this. I think you're right to point out like town density and animations like look this game doesn't look bad but on the scale of like big triple a the biggest of the big budget games i don't think it's quite up there the castles like the castles were really interesting and fun in assassin's creed like that just they just were i mean you didn't need to do 25 of them but there were 25 to do and i don't blame the game for that you know there was a lot to do the first five were amazing so like yeah it's got that going for it i think i think it's gonna look really good and be really fun um there's uh it's just really funny to me that we're gonna only compare this to another game i just i just think it's like it's just just that type of year it's the okami um uh zelda year well it was twilight princess year just like that's all you talk about and then the factions just choose one and well i mean assassin's creed also has a lot of detractors for like a bunch of like shitty reasons right so you know i don't know if this is gonna win out although i already saw comments accusing this game of this of similar stuff which is like it's a game about into japan what are you what are y 'all talking about here yeah but the what the premise is that your brother is died and you're going on a revenge mission against these six you know people right i'm gonna call it now the brother's not dead oh my god one of the six he's the final boss that's my that's my prediction i thought it was your whole family got killed whole family's dead though so maybe the whole family is the six so that worked.

28:36Justin Davis:You're the one that killed your whole family at the end of the game. Oh, wow. So I like the... Sorry to spoil that for everyone. The, like, super, like, attempts at, like, putting Japanese culture from, like, all eras in this. Like, the music stuff was just, like, I don't care too much, but, like, just showing that they have the modes for the other directors, including one that's just, like, a lo-fi mode from Samurai Champloo. Yeah, the Samurai Champloo audio. It's hilarious. It's awesome. And the Kurosawa mode, And they said like, you know, with permission from the Kurosawa estate. And so I love, I love the idea that they reached out to, you know, his daughter, whomever.

29:11And they're like, can we call it Kurosawa mode? And they're like, yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah. But I do, but I do want to say that, and I like that Tsushima did this too. It's a, it's a bugbear of mine when someone has, you know, like we know that people like these black and white samurai movies. So we have a black and white mode, but it's like, no, like Kurosawa, like there's an actual like art to like, yeah, it's not just black and white. Like the shading and shadows. And I, you know, I unfortunately. Kuroskuro is what they call that in black and white film. Yeah, sure. So yeah, like exactly.

29:41That's where Claire Obskure comes from. So it's like, but I, and I don't know, it just feels like, like I'm a little bit of a fake fan. I can't identify this is just black and white and this is more adhering to like the Kurosawa, you know, vibe. But it definitely came across in the footage that we saw. It was very striking and very beautiful. So I like the gameplay of what I did in Assassin's Creed. i know i'm doing the thing that i said that was funny you know but i liked my gameplay loops in that game i did like infiltration of castles and stuff like that some of that didn't work as well and you know and and the original um or tsushima tsushima yeah um so like sneaking around and infiltration stuff like that like i i don't know like i'm worried when i saw like oh that the bird is back and it leads you to a thing and the fox is back like i don't really want to do that 50 more times and i'm saying that saying like i got sick of that in assassin's creed also like i like how they changed up the japanese assassin's created and did different stuff in it like it was cool so anyway i'm a little worried that like i will not have for because it's only been five years i will not have forgotten the time i've had with ghost and it might be a little samey um but maybe my amnesia will be complete and it'll be really fun i'll probably ride the horse in this one i was gonna ask you that like that distance looks like a long run and the other the other horses are like kind of like taunting you right so you're like well i wish i could be as fast as

31:06Justin Davis:those horses yeah exactly now so you're talking about the uh the different modes the director modes there's also a mike mode for takashi mike uh which just it just makes the game grosser it adds gore adds more blood and stuff to it so okay i mean okay and a little bit of like a film grainy light exposure in addition to the zoom. It also changes the camera placement. It's just interesting. But that lo-fi beats mode, I think, is hilarious. I don't know if it was intended to be humorous, but I thought it had a humorous effect on me when I was watching it. So, Justin, you just mentioned Climb Everything and the revolution of that.

31:48In our interview about Donkey Kong today, the team talks about they use a term over and over again, but they talk about how they have voxel created levels and they kind of came up with the idea of like, so that's just a level that can be fully destroyed. And they came up with that technology and then somebody asked them to make a Donkey Kong game and they're like, well, that's where the, just being right on its face, like let's make a voxel game, we have to make a Donkey Kong game, so let's just combine them. That's where it came from. It's really cool getting an origin like that from Nintendo because you just never hear stuff like that.

32:21But the Voxel thing is kind of like, it's like climb everywhere, and that is like destroy everything, which is like exactly what that game is tripping up to look like, you know? I just think that's an interesting Nintendo thing. Take a philosophy to its like super conclusion, you know?

32:38Justin Davis:Agreed. Beginning back to Ghost of Yotei, what was this feature, with a click of the button, you can like switch to the past to revisit your family, and they said that would increase the sort of emotional connection to your journey. I was a little unclear on what all that was for and how extensive that would be used in the game. Yeah, maybe it's like you control when you do the flashbacks or something. Yeah, please be excited. You'll learn more when the game comes out this fall. I mean, I don't really like, you know, they said they showed the footage of like, you know, flashing back to the past in real time.

33:13And I was like, oh, okay. Can you do that anytime, anywhere?

33:17Justin Davis:Anytime. only yeah do you do that just in the beginning of the game i don't know i thought that was weird um but another thing you've got blinding powder as one of your sort of like tools that you can use and i just thought that looks great the way the the way the smoke like sort of clung to their body as they moved away it looked very very realistic and very cool yeah i like that lip syncing for the japanese voice jack will be there from launch it was not if i remember right it was not there so that's why they clarified that huh is that it's just and you were really into that in multiple games.

33:47Was that a game you waited to play it in?

33:49Justin Davis:No, I played it in Japanese, but it wasn't lip-synced to Japanese. So even though I was hearing the right language, their mouths were not plenty of. So it's the lip-syncing specifically that was played. Okay, got it. So now we'll have it. I'm pretty staunchly anti-AI in most contexts, but I feel like surely there must be some software solution that could handle lip-sync. Now, I don't know that we need humans going in and hand-matching just dozens of hours of cut scenes and lips. Yeah. But that's how we ended up with Mass Effect Andromeda. So what do I know? Well. Just the horrific faces in that game use some software to be matched to the audio, if I recall.

34:30At least of which the one you designed yourself.

34:33Justin Davis:And then there's a limited edition console, which I think looks very nice, but I was surprised. I think it's just a base PS5. It's not for the PS5 Pro. Yeah, base PS5. but they did, you know, they do have the PS5 plates if you already have a PS5 but you want the style. I thought that was at least nice. Yeah, the gold looked really I thought that looked really cool. What an awesome system design I was in the market for buying multiple systems. I might at least try to pick up the controller although they're also bringing back that limited edition Astro Bot controller later this year and I really need to get that one too.

35:08They announced a new Astro Bot so there's a little cloud bot. Yep.

35:12Justin Davis:It's got a big buster sword. It's great. There are new levels out today. So that's my evening sorted. That'll be fun. That's great. What about Death Stranding? Can you go back to that? I haven't. I like to play more Death Stranding. I mean, I was on vacation. But now that I'm home, I'm going to start up Tony Hawk 3 and 4 tomorrow. Oh, yeah. I should give that a try. I'm on Chapter 15 of Death Stranding. I still haven't beat it. I spent a lot of time doing some infrastructure building that was very cozy game. I liked it a lot. How many chapters are there? There's 17, but the back five are all just talkies and boss fights and stuff.

35:51You know, it's like that kind of weird pile on that happens at the end of a lot of video games just because you put chapters in. Yeah, cool. Especially his games.

35:59Justin Davis:Let's be honest. Are you going to play Death Stranding, Justin? yeah I talked about it on the show last week when you weren't on of I want to go back and play one and I don't own one so at some point you know actually because I'm going on vacation tomorrow maybe when I get back that would be a good time to run through the first one and then I would put the second one on my backlog I love it every moment it's been great everyone does seem to love it we gave it a 9 in our review and I haven't heard anyone speak an ill word of Death's Stirring 2. Yeah. I mean, the original, we talked about this a little last week, like the original is something that sort of like is not universally beloved, right?

36:43It's divisive. Yeah, a little bit divisive, whereas the sequel seems to have a little bit more mainstream appeal and you know, more polish, which is always exciting to hear. You know, sometimes there's like Kojima moments, which you can kind of describe as like unhinged because they're kind of like humorous or freaky or whatever. This game has a lot more of that than I expected. A lot more. And there's just whole routines and stuff that you would not expect to be in the game. It's just very, very strange. Interesting stuff.

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40:59Justin Davis:Well, speaking of Death Stranding 2 then, Sam, and how much you like it, that's a good segue into talking about the first half of the year being wrapped up and sort of taking stock of all the good games that have come out this year so far. Previously, you had said that Assassin's Creed Shadows was your game of the year so far. Has Death Stranding 2 done anything to change that? No, I think I still like Shadows best. That's a tough call, but I have to beat Death Stranding, but I don't know. That's a tough one. They're not too close for me right now, but maybe I will like Death Stranding more after sitting on it for a little bit.

41:35Justin Davis:Well, it'll be even more interesting to see how Ghost of Yotei then lines up for you. Justin, do you say Claire Obscure would be the best game you've played this year? Oh, good question. I mean, the game that I was the most obsessed with and completely took over my life was Kingdom Come 1, which is obviously not eligible for Game of the Year this year. But I think I'm getting that urge. Like I said, I absolutely know life to that game. And I'm like, I need to take a break before I jump into the sequel. And it's been like three or four months now. And I'm getting there. And if you like the first one that much, then maybe two is going to be your easy win.

42:12Right, for sure. And I did just start. I can't talk about it yet because the review embargo isn't up when it comes out, but there's a new Zachtronics game called Kaizen, a factory story. So that's the developer.

42:24Justin Davis:Wait, you said Zachtronics game? I don't know what that is. So they made Space Cam and they made Opus Magnum. And they're kind of like, they get described as factory games, but they're not actually really factory games. They're like puzzle games, but where you get to invent your own solution. It's like, make this thing. And then you get to flip it and twist it and combine different parts. And there's not a set solution, but you can just make it however you want. And I really, really... Opus Magnum is the one that really went over with the mainstream press and everybody loved. Space Cam was his first game, and that was the one that I spent the most time with.

43:01And I've been playing this, and you can ask for my full impressions in a week or two when I'm back on GameScoop. But, you know, I loved the other games, and so I've spent a lot of time with this so far as well. That looks cool.

43:15Justin Davis:Well, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is the what? It's the sixth best-selling game of the year so far. So the top ten best-selling games of 2025 so far are, starting at number one, Monster Hunter Wilds, Oblivion Remastered, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Black Ops 6, MLB The Show, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, WWE, Split Fiction, NBA, 2K, and Civilization. 7. So some notable entries in there. I just think it's funny that Monster Hunter Wilds is still the best-selling game of the year. Of course, World is Capcom's best-selling game of all time. It just didn't feel like Wilds made as big a splash. I mean, Wilds is really seen as a failure, right?

43:55Like, the community all moved on and was kind of upset about some of that. I mean, I'm not a Mon Hun guy, so I can't, you know, articulate why, but I know that Wilds wasn't really liked and hasn't had sort of service game staying power like World did. But like what what a what an environment where you can have the best selling game of the year and then it can be seen broadly as a disappointment commercially and critically. And I think it reviewed well, too. But like the tricky thing about reviewing a game like this is like it can be great for that first 50 hours, but then like they want Monster Hunter to be a 5000 hour game.

44:31Right. And sometimes that those nuances don't reveal themselves until you continue putting the reps in. And again, I'm not a Mon Hun guy, but I believe that there's this history of DLC cleaning up and fixing a lot of what people don't like about Monster Hunter games. So I would characterize this as a good candidate for sort of having a renaissance eventually if they release some paid add-ons.

44:53Justin Davis:Yeah, they could Final Fantasy XIV this. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm not surprised, but it's worth noting that Oblivion Remaster is a top seller. for a couple reasons. Number two? Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. I mean, first of all, About is not even on the list, right? Oh, no, it's not in the top ten. Yeah, so that's sad. But great game. Yeah, so it's a remake of an old game. Surprise launched, you know, with no hype except for leaks. There were rumors, yeah, yeah, yeah. For many, many years. You know, they didn't have to go through the cycle of like, this is our game and this is what we're doing.

45:30Like, surprise launched. And then also, it was launched into Game Pass. you know and like i think everybody i knew at work especially played it through game pass and then moved on i'm shocked to hear that there's sales especially in the face of some uh news this week about you know developers um one developer arcane uh person from our former x arcane complaining about game pass not selling games i'm not saying this contradicts that person or anything like that there's just there's just seems to be a lot of like fluctuations and nuance to how much Game Pass affects your game sales.

46:03Justin Davis:Yeah. Sure. I mean, I don't know. The game sales data comes from Serkana, which used to be NPD, and they track dollar sales. So these aren't like unit sales of games. It's what games generated the most money. And so I don't know if Xbox is still reporting them and somehow it was downloaded and played this many times on Game Pass. So we're estimating. Oh, I hope that's not in the data. I mean, I just don't know. We're estimating this dollar value is going to be included. I don't know. like that game had hundreds of thousands of concurrence on steam right so those are all paid purchases and i think that's funny because you could have just bought a you know 15 game pass subscription and played on your pc but everybody wanted to play on steam it's interesting yeah a remaster of oblivion from it's 20 years old uh how how does xbox look at bethesda and just like why are you doing anything but making elder scroll 6 why are you doing anything else yeah or or uh skyrim remaster right or just like a remaster a year i mean that's nintendo's magic too is that they just they'll just remaster stuff and sell a shit ton you know they'll like they'll like give something a gloss over and and sell a lot of copies and then you know you just think these these companies like we get annoyed with all the remakes and remasters but like there's some big targets out there that are not getting remakes and remasters from bethesda i mean i said this i put this on you know blue sky of like arkham knight came out 10 years ago and i don't need video games to look any better than that ever again if we can get single player big triple a video games every three to four years just make them look as good as arkham knight and then i'm good for the rest of my life like that that's enough for me like oblivion remaster like fallout 3 like it doesn't look as good as that like you need to get fallout 3 fixed a little bit and put it up at the level of oblivion i completely agree correct there's there's a threshold by which okay this is the limit and now we don't need games to look better.

47:57And if someone wants to do that, if you're a rock star or a naughty dog, more power to you, but for everyone else, you don't need to do all that. You needn't bother. And it turns out that you can probably just design all your stuff for Xbox Series S and switch too. And then they, they're completely portable.

48:14Justin Davis:Yeah. It's interesting that the top 10 bestselling games of the year are bookended by two games that people apparently don't like monster hunter wilds. and then Civilization 7 into number 10? My first Civ. I don't know what I'm supposed to like. Civ 7 is also a game that will be supporting it for eight years and it will also eventually get to a better state. I don't even think it's in a bad state now. It's the Civ cycle of they add all these indispensable features in DLCs and then the next game comes out and is more bare bones and everybody's mad and then they have to add those indispensable features back in its DLC.

48:53I mean, this one just had like just completely obscured menus and features. Like physically, you couldn't see the menus you're supposed to use or like sending a merchant somewhere. It just didn't make any sense. And I think they started fixing that stuff right away. But I was long done with it by the time that happened. And it was just funny because I was just, one of our guides leads in the UK, Jen, she's a huge Civ fan and was covering this game. And I just had like an open just chat with her. I was just like, I think I'm supposed to be able to do this. She's like, yes, you are supposed to be able to do that, but it doesn't look like it's a very roundabout way.

49:26And she'd explain it. I couldn't have played the game without that. Like, that's how bad it was at telling me what to do, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Great game, though. I really ended up liking it. Like, you know, just like in terms of like Civ, I like Civ. You know, it was fun. I get it now.

49:41Justin Davis:Check out, oh, I don't know how you would. That's another game they really need to like remaster or like just dust off and polish up. Civilization Revolution. Civ Rev. Make a Civ Rev 3. What is Revolution? What's different about it? It's a little bit more stripped down. Yeah. I'd say arcade-y, but it's still much more involved than an arcade game. It's a streamlined, sort of simplified version of Civ that worked really well. And it came out on Switch and iPads. And maybe other things, but I think that's how most people played it. It was originally like a 360-era game. Oh, really? Even beyond a remaster, that just seemed like something that could have been made into like an occasional series right like a game that comes exactly so civ rev 3 would be a great would be very well received now i think really yep it would yeah the time is right for it put it on and all this oh there's always a handheld pcs now you know steam decks yep yep well for me my my game of the year so far is easily monster trained too i know i've talked about a lot uh justin have you checked it out yet it's so good it's so good i played a lot of it on my trip uh i have now i've unlocked all 10 clans, leveled them all up to their max level.

50:51Justin Davis:I've unlocked all the Pyre Hearts. I've defeated the three titans, the final bosses multiple times with different combinations. I'm at a place where I feel like I've probably gotten enough out of it right now. I could keep playing it. Like Bellatro, every clan, you can beat it at increasing difficulty levels. It's the same way. That's what I could do right now. But I'll probably set it aside. There's going to be DLC coming out for it, I think, later on this year. Both monsters and trains in Death Stranding. Yeah. These monsters are on a train, though. Yeah, these monsters. If monsters got on your train or tram in Death Stranding, that would be bad.

51:26A bad thing.

51:27Justin Davis:Yep, yep, yep, yep. But I have enjoyed several other games this year. I do want to get, we were talking about Avowed. I'd like to get back to Avowed. I'd like to play more Death Stranding 2. I still have not played Claire Obscure yet, so I need to check that out at some point. It's on, I don't know how long it's going to be on Game Pass, but it's still on Game Pass for now. Yeah, yeah, it's there. I mean, it's on PlayStation Plus as well. Oh, okay. It's worth noting. I haven't, I'm probably three quarters of the way through Doom the Dark Ages, so I should probably just knock that out and finish that, since that's a little bit shorter.

51:57Wait, where was Claire on the for sale list?

52:01Justin Davis:It's not in the top 10. Oh, it's not in the top 10? Yeah, I don't have the full data, but it's not in the top 10. Man, that game had a lot of kind of hype around it, although when you have games like NBA 2K from last year, and FC from last year. In Black Ops 6, yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, they had announced what they announced, a million in sales, and then two. And then I think the last update we got was 3.3, and I don't know that they've done a big, splashy social media thing since then. What's this year's Call of Duty going to be? Have there been any leaks about that or rumors? It's another Black Ops, isn't it?

52:36Justin Davis:It's another Black Ops 4? I think so. Did I dream that? I don't know. Something was announced, I feel like. It wasn't that interesting. Yeah, there's like some kind of thing. Black Ops 7 is the next Call of Duty. Oh, yeah. 6 was the last. Okay, well, anyway, what I did mostly on the plane was play Monster Train 2, but then I also watched Your Friends and Neighbors on Apple TV+. Ooh, do you like it? It's very good. I watched the first two episodes. I haven't seen the rest yet. I think I'm going to make Murderbot my airplane thing. I watched the first two episodes of that as well. Yeah. Well, so which has the better first two episodes?

53:13Neither have good first two episodes. I didn't think Friends and Neighbors had a great start at all, so I stopped watching it. Murderbot, I have to just keep on watching anyway. But neither of them have great starts.

53:22Justin Davis:I don't know if I agree about Your Friends and Neighbors. I definitely liked it more the more I watched. It's 10 episodes. They definitely make Jon Hamm unlikable, which is hard to do. Oh, I totally disagree. I think the whole show... Well, I mean, but you've seen the whole season now. I mean, yeah. I mean, so maybe, yeah. This show is about liking Jon Hamm's character and rooting for him. I think that's what the whole show is about. So if anyone doesn't know, the basic premise is that he's this big hedge fund manager who is blindsided and gets fired from his job. And he doesn't, he feels lost and he's also going to run into some money troubles.

53:52Justin Davis:So he starts breaking into the homes of his friends and neighbors and just stealing random things like a watch or an expensive bottle of wine. But it's about a lot more than that. There are a lot of great characters, a lot of well-written characters, very funny. It's this whole, you know, wealthy community surrounded or sort of focused on this country club. I love him. A lot of things happen. It's good. It's really, really good. It's definitely like an antihero. It's like rooting for this guy who's a little bit shady, you know, in the tradition of your Breaking Bads and Sopranos, although it's not nearly as violent as those shows.

54:27Yeah. I haven't heard a lot of chatter about it, but the new Poker Face season has been really enjoyable. I just finished that. There's a bunch of just kind of, you know, knives out, Rian Johnson style direction. He directs a few episodes and plotting and stuff. It's really well done. Like it's a, it's a murder a week show, but it's knows about its formula and plays to that. I really like it. I loved season one. Yeah, it works great. I couldn't stop watching. I haven't stopped watching it. I just finished it. And then I love the bear season. It was awesome. Oh, you watched the bear. Yeah. I haven't heard anything about that.

54:59Justin Davis:That's interesting. It's so good. Okay. It's so much like more fulfilling than the last season, which didn't have a kind of a plot finisher. This, this season's a lot of plot. it's like a lot of like this is what's happening with their restaurant day to day and what's what's happening and it works really well for it because i didn't even watch last season because everyone seemed to be like me well it kind of works as like a two-parter you know so you could kind of like stack them now but i don't know that's that's what i've heard from folks it's like season three you know because it's so slow paced it's like well now you can binge it yeah yeah and season three has great a couple of great episodes and some flashbacks the flashbacks would slow it down the season doesn't do that in that same way where they have like that whole you know pocket episode that's all flashback as it's very differently it's just what justin's saying it's just a different pace to it but it works all together and like again just like the characters are so there it's i know everybody's not a comedy it shouldn't be nominated for comedy it's just so funny though everybody's so funny in it and everybody's just clearly having so much fun on that set and like playing like you know kind of dramatic roles but just are are just great funny people to watch yeah that chicago accent man yeah and when i was in amsterdam i was thinking about that season two episode where yeah the pastry chef goes to amsterdam and he's living on the houseboat yeah there's some interesting stuff with that that plot line it goes a place in this season it's really good but yeah that that whole day in the life that that part is amazing little house boat and stuff but definitely andor is the best show that i've watched this year and don't know any any just it's such a miracle that that show exists and turned out so well i that's probably gonna it'll be hard to dethrone that star wars thing ever i mean i guess there's this grogo movie yeah grog yeah i liked i liked me and the family like skeleton crew yeah i like that show i like the first episode well enough and i just never i don't know i just never continue with it yeah and then on the movie side i think sinners is probably the best movie i've seen this year I think a lot of people would probably agree with that.

57:01Justin Davis:Sinners was very good. I'm seeing Superman this weekend. We'll see. Yeah, I want to see Superman. It's such a challenge. I would love to take Kingo to see Superman, but I have to show restraint. Because me, I'm excited to do that with him, and that sounds like fun for me, but I also know that he's still only five years old. No, no, no. I have to hold back and show restraint there. I saw 28 years. so I liked it. 28 years later. I hear good things about that. I want to see that one too. A lot of castles and zombies. What's not to like? Yeah, there you go. Castles and zombies.

57:46Justin Davis:Okay, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Remember, you can always reach us at the email address. What is it? Oh yeah, I've already forgot. It's gamescoop at IGN.com. Just like our boy from Boston, Adam, did. And Adam says, I'm playing through God of War 2018 for the first time. Overall, I'm loving it, but I find that searching for collectibles and money feels in conflict with the story. It feels odd to have Atreus calling for me to join him, but instead I'm running in a different direction looking for trinkets. I know this helps pad out the game time, and when I was younger and I had three money and no kids, I was fine with that.

58:19Justin Davis:But now I have no money and three kids. Please tell me you get the reference. I don't know the reference, but I did think it was funny. And I sometimes would prefer to experience the game story uninterrupted. I've had the same experience in the new Doom games. So what do the Omega Cops think? Do collectibles enhance or detract from the experience of the game for you? Well, Adam. That game specifically has the stuff where Kratos is like, hold on a minute. When you go the other way, Trace is like, oh, why don't you go this way? He's like, oh, give me a second. Yeah, I mean, that's the eternal video game things, right?

58:51Like, you know, I think sometimes podcasters or developers get given a hard time for using terms like this, but it's ludonarrative dissonance. And that's where, like what the gameplay wants of you is in conflict with like what the narrative wants of you. Like Cyberpunk is a good example of this. It's like, you are going to die. You have a literal ticking bomb in your head. But then what the gameplay wants you to do is go do stunt jumps for like, you know, literally an entire evening. And so, you know, I don't know. Like this is part of why video games have their juvenile reputation right and why people sort of roll their eyes at them sometimes but like and like me as a lifelong gamer it's just in my dna i don't even like notice anymore like someone's like isn't that weird that that's happening i'm like yeah i guess i don't know i don't think about it it's the same as the it's the same as the you know the very serious japanese girl getting your revenge plot and then there's a loot pinata where you get a new plus two sphere.

59:51Like it's the same thing. Um, so yeah, I mean, this is part of why, like Sam, you've said this before and, and, um, you know, that video games, in my opinion, can't really tell stories as well as televisions or movies. And that's because they can be controlled down to the second of like what you want you feeling and using the camera angles and using the lighting where it's a game, you're in control of it. Right. So, you know, if you want to rub up against a wall to try to find secrets for 30 minutes you can right but it it controls the narrative pacing of any kind of story you're trying to tell yeah it's not a problem for me

1:00:27Justin Davis:it's well documented i just i just don't really care about stories in video games even in something like god of war i'm not there for the story but i am there to explore and look for secrets and collectibles what you may be noticing is how serious that game takes itself and that's why it's hard for it to break out of the and there's and i'm not saying the game doesn't have humor in it and some of the stuff i just mentioned where kratus kind of you know acknowledges that you're wandering and exploring like that's all like you know they try a little bit there but that game is like that game got across to people because it's like this father son story that made players weepy like that's like that's the way that that game got across but then there's a lot of people that didn't feel that way and liked the game because it had a good puzzles in it and like it took you out of your life and you know and you got to explore this like world of Valhalla and stuff but what you heard the most was like how amazing it was that Kratos frowns the whole time and then it turns out to be a good dad like that's what you heard because that's like that was the most neat resonant thing for a lot of people but it wasn't the neat resonant thing for me and it wasn't the neat resonant thing for uh some people some a lot of people it doesn't have to be for you yeah I mean I will say like video game stories are more than just their cut scenes and like the script it's it's the vibes and it's where you're going and what you're exploring and what you're doing so like it is story and narrative of like i'm in a cave and i'm going to choose to go down this path and like i think it has a secret down it because i don't think it's the main chart like you murder 500 people right yeah so it's like you know you like just the act of playing the game is storytelling and narrative and the narrative is not just the words that come out of a character's mouth it's like where where are you and what are you doing and what's the space you're exploring and how is it making you feel um so you know like in that context like there's a total you know journey that atreus and kratos go on separate from sort of the interpersonal conflict of the storyline that's being told and and all the exploration then contributes to that right one thing that's nice about that this and i can say nice things about god of war as you can all tell um the collectibles actually give you power-ups and there's a end run of bosses the valkyries that are like really really hard yeah and so like you do like gain advantage by like taking a time and opening those ridiculous nornier chests right that are really good puzzles that are like hard to open you know and like there's that that's awesome i like that like mini bosses and stuff like that like where you get loot and like oh that's great because when you play a game like Mario Kart World and like it doesn't give you anything for getting 1200 collectibles like that sucks so it's like at least it's incorporated into like the DNA of the combat of the game it's just all of that it has the dissonance that Justin pointed out with the story so it's like just kind of weird yeah man watching this footage I haven't played this game since 2018 since it came out like what a game I hope this is the remake and it didn't look this good originally yeah it's hard to tell man So seven years ago, this is what I was saying with Arkham Knight.

1:03:36This is, we don't need like God of War. Just make your game look this good and you can release the game like this forever.

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1:07:10Justin Davis:Okay, and that brings us to Video Game 20 Questions, and I'm excited for this one. We've got a good one this week. It comes from Nick from Emmitsburg, Maryland. And Nick says, been listening to you guys for many years now. I don't think I've ever heard this game used before on 20 Questions. I sank hours upon hours into this game redacted. Thanks for making my commute awesome during the week. Do you run that when people mention that especially, do you run this through the spreadsheet search that one of our fans made? Yep. I did that last week. It was great. ours was submitted by Mark Medina, fan and friend of the show interesting, what was the game?

1:07:50I already forget there's no way to know he didn't think we would get dark we were going to do Final Fantasy 9 and then he got in a text thread with everybody on the show and started asking them about Final Fantasy games and I was like, okay can't do that one now something like that happened, I don't know what was it Justin, you guessed it I already don't remember, I've said it many times on this show we record it and I have a good time and then I black out and don't remember anything that happened while we were making it. PlayStation 1 RPG. Is that right? Oh. I don't know. It's gone. Alright.

1:08:25Justin Davis:Let the questioning begin. Does this game have multiplayer? Yes. Okay. Keep going. I'm going to look up my show notes from last week. Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s, or 90s? Yes. Yeah. So it's actually an early game for once, which is great for us. Yeah. Did this game, is this game a first person shooter or sports game? No. Hey, so a 90s multiplayer game. It was Infamous Second Son. Oh, we were way off. Not a PlayStation 1 RPG. No. No, but I'd ask Justin about a PlayStation 1 RPG if he would have gotten that, I think is what happened there. Remember that? It was like some game I'd never heard of.

1:09:15And Nick was like, that's my favorite game of all time. It was Dark Cloud, right? Dark Cloud. Yeah, I'd never heard of that. Would you have picked Dark Cloud to give us, Damon?

1:09:22Justin Davis:I might if Nick Limon were on. Yeah, yeah. But Justin got it right away. He said he could have gotten it. Well, and there's a conspiracy. Like, I know for a fact I own that game and it's in that closet right back there. But it's not in that closet. And so now I don't know. Yeah. I don't know what that means. You lost a bunch of games. I did lose when I moved here. I lost a box that had my GameCube and OG Xbox in it. And so like that, and I packed up my consoles by generation for no reason at all. It's an insane thing to do in hindsight, but I'm like, this is my NES. This is my 16 bit box. This is my third box.

1:10:00And that box went missing the, the GameCube Xbox PS2 box. um anyway where are we so uh 90s 80s 70s 80s or 90s game has multiplayer not sports or fps okay so uh did this come out in arcades yes okay did it come out before 1988 yes that's five

1:10:27is there a version on the nes yes is this uh is i want to do a couple more genres what's another multiplayer genre besides beat-em-up uh well shooter or like i was thinking like contra or like um space shooters is this a beat-em-up or space shooter no is this a is this a shooter of some sort yes yeah yeah okay so um is this game made by kanami yes they made them all got jackal a couple of Contras. Yeah, it does eliminate what they make, because it's not like Life Force or anything like that. Gradius. But it has co-op, which is cool. Yeah, so that leaves us, so Contra is still in the mix. Although I feel like we've had that on the show before.

1:11:21I don't know how else to narrow it down. I don't know. The Contra is really the only one I can think of in Jackal, I guess, now that you mentioned it. Is this the first in a series of games? no that's 10 cool so it's not Contra straight up it could be Super C what about Ikari Warriors yeah but that's who made that game was that not Konami I don't know Ikari is like Romstar Trade West or some shit let's do remind me of the end and tell you who made yeah yeah Yeah, I know what it is. I can picture it. So why is it not? Could it be Jackal? Yeah, because it's not the first of I mean, there's no series for Jackal.

1:12:11Right. But you said, is this the first in a series? And the answer was no. Oh, so it could be like there's no series. Correct. That's kind of cool. I don't like that. Do you drive a Jeep in this game?

1:12:22Justin Davis:Yes. OK. This game is really great because it has cut scenes where it's like a bunch of guys sitting in the jeep and a guy's pointing at a map that says here here yeah does this game have what i just described in it yes all right is it jackal it is jackal yep great game yep great it actually actually is a great game i think i think this is a hidden gem on the nes yeah a hundred percent hidden gem so fun to play with a friend collect the people you can't kill the p.o. p.o.w.s there's the two different firing modes it's great because this is from the golden age of konami so yeah it's like it's got i've never seen the like arcade rom for this i would love to see the arcade version because i've only i was gonna say i feel like either my dentist or someone i've only seen the arcade that's awesome wow yeah that's cool you can shoot down the pillars but yeah the konami adaptions of this though the adaptations for nes are like generally better for this and contra and stuff like that like they they just did a better job putting them in this aspect ratio of four by three on its side and stuff like that i just think they're they're better co-op experiences it's weird because you can drive in you know eight directions around the map and you can shoot your missiles and grenades in any direction but you can only shoot your gun straight up yeah that is only shoot up dude these freaking greek medusa heads are trying to kill you in world war ii this is the thing other than that this game is grounded in reality it's like a military game with like except for the Greek level tanks and helicopters in a battleship and then there's these Greek statues that are shooting missiles out of their mouths it's really weird well damn it in the business we call that ludonarrative business yeah that's right chiaroscuro yeah yeah in between stages I think it's if you this is a chop lifter like so you have to rescue hostages POWs it is yeah and if it's if you if you don't rescue all of them you get the screen of them pointing to the map saying here here if you get them all it's different it's a different message.

1:14:20Justin Davis:Gotcha. I think it says, yeah. Great. And then right at the beginning, get there. Yeah. Yeah. He got them all. Oh, and the map. Look how cool that is. I know that map. Like my little kid brain, like for this and ghosts and goblins was like obsessed, you know? I, I love that. Yeah. Bring back those maps. Bring back showing us the map of the entire game in between each level. Yeah. How cool. Like, and there's certain games like God of war 2018 would be a perfect candidate for that. Like a tapestry. Yeah, like you're going through the teleport gate or whatever, and then the loading screen is like, you are here, and then it shows the whole journey that you're on.

1:14:57Like your house is way back at the beginning on the left. I mean, that and cheat codes should just be in everything. Cheat codes are so fun. You know, the new Tony Hawk game, I don't think, has cheat codes in it. I was reading in a review, it has unlockable characters, but I think you just get them in menus. Big head mode. Big head.

1:15:14Justin Davis:And then at the very beginning of Jackal, there's a little story explanation, and then it ends with something great. It says, this is a quote from the game. You'll need a pocket full of miracles and the ferocity of a wild jackal. This battle will make your blood boil. That's how it ends. That's how it sends you out into the game. Wow. Look how when there's little humans in this game, they have weapons still and they shoot little tiny bullets at you. That's so funny. I think some of them lob grenades. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Jackal is totally good. Hidden gem on the NES and I don't think it's ever been ported to anything.

1:15:48Justin Davis:It's not on any of the recent Konami collections that they've done. The only thing it's missing is you can't get out as a little guy and go inside buildings and do stuff and then get back out. It'd be a Blaster Master. It's because Blaster Master, yeah, has the... I love that. ...the trademark on that. Ninja Turtles, and it would be the Ninja Turtles level three-like. That's right, that's right. And then my favorite SNES game, Metal Warriors, is all about that. You get inside of mechs and out of them as a little guy. Cool. That's great. Well, nicely job. Thank you for the suggestion, Nick in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

1:16:20Justin Davis:Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for Video Game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address, gamescoop at igin.com. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you to both Sam and Justin. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. It's good to be back here on Game Scoop. I missed everyone out there in Scoop Nation. And we're out.

1:17:13Justin Davis:This episode of Game Soup was produced by myself, Damon Hatfield, and Jobert Audienza. Technical direction is handled by Jobert Audienza. Technical production is by Morian Franzen and Amir Aqib. Audio engineering is by Amir Aqib, and post-production editing is by, yours truly, Damon Hatfield. Graphic design is by Nicole Cagampin. GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.

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1:18:58Justin Davis:So, Justin, I'll see you at Comic-Con? Yeah, I'll be there. Cool.