Game Scoop! 819: This Scoop Is Bananas

22:45Justin Davis:For what it's worth, I was having fun right from the first level. Yeah, me too. I think those colored blocks, I think that's what I was told about, is where you're like, what the heck? Also, you get bananas because in the post-game, there's a reason to have a million bananas. And that's actually what I'm most excited for. I think I'm going to play the same way you guys are all playing, which is like, get to the end and then go back and start banana farming. I don't know how hard it gets, but I'll tell you enemies start to hit really hard. I'm regularly losing two hearts to one enemy hit now. You want...

23:20and the heart upgrades start costing a lot more bananas. To feel more comfortable in the difficulty level, I feel like I need to upgrade more hearts. It'll cost me 25 bananas to get the next heart upgrade now. It starts to add up.

23:36Justin Davis:I really like the level design Donkey Kong has like a ground pound move that he can use to collect items but I love the mechanic how it'll also reveal hidden items under the ground and then that creates its own little puzzle or challenge like how do we get to this thing? Maybe it's behind an unbreakable door I love all that and that's a good skill tree item is to increase the distance of things that you can see when you pound around It makes it where you're never walking in this game You're just always, you're always smashing or you're just doing the hand slap. Yeah, it is. That's part of what makes it feel like kind of an assault, like on the senses of like, it's, it's got a little bit of that Zelda thing of like, what was the design?

24:15I think they did a GDC talk where like, if you're at any shrine or anywhere important, you can see two to three other places to go. And like this game has a little bit of that of like, you know, Ooh, treasure, Ooh, a banana, Ooh, a fossil, Ooh, a new room. And like, but, but just very fast paced. I remember it was a Witcher 3 for CD Projekt Red where they said that when you're making an open world game, every interesting thing should never be more than 45 seconds away from the last thing. And in this game, it's like four to five seconds. Yeah, it is. I just came up with that. It's density.

24:52Mark Medina:And I don't think density necessarily is bad. I don't think it's what people don't want in games. I think that's probably pretty good. there's not like a good ratio of rewards for that density and like why you would stop and do that but maybe the end game is like that did any of you have to remap the jump button yes immediately i did and then i could never get used to it so then i switched it back and now i've screwed myself my brain doesn't know what to do anymore you just you can just switch them across the you could change a and b so it's like the structure is a playstation controller but it's like up you know forward and then down and then jump and so i changed i swapped a lot of people were swapping it yeah but i uh my brain couldn't calibrate so then i i because i'd already played too much before i realized you could swap it so i swapped it back and and that has only furthered the problem that means zelda mario and donkey kong all use a different jump button which is like yeah what is happening yeah yeah yeah it threw me for a loop at first i

25:56Justin Davis:understand the layout you know they're they're punching in three different directions x is to punch up y is punch straight ahead and b is to punch down so i get that but it was tripping me up but just like mark i i i played with it long enough the way it was designed that when i tried to remap it then i couldn't do it so i just went back i'm just jumping with b it's fine the fact

26:15Mark Medina:that talk and punch is the same button means you fuck up so many enemy or npcs in this game you walk up to these poor little crystal bastards and just just shatter them into oblivion and they They pop back. Yep. They don't mind. Doesn't hurt them. Or sometimes they turn it into a high five. Yeah, they do. Everything but the frack. If it's like a chimp or an ape or something. I love, Damon, you talked about this earlier. I like the music and I like how it's sort of English, but sort of gibberish. And the zebra one's my favorite because Pauline says zebra, zebra. Yeah. Da da da da da da da. It's so good.

26:53So good.

26:54Mark Medina:What about when you walk up to that door and she goes, oh, oh, oh. They could use a few more of those music cues because it's the same one every time. Screening our challenge room videos. And it's just that over and over. And this is how far has Nintendo come that Pauline is actually not jabbering puzzle solutions. Like, hey, Mario, I think we should try to go over there. Like, it's actually not annoying at all. like you know like she's got this cute little dialogue when you go to sleep but that's optional those are great she does and she doesn't point out a banana until literally like you're right on top of it like there's a banana yeah like nintendo or any other developer just the temptation like i think you should try beating the boss this way like they know like they know you'll figure it out like you don't need to do that yeah i'm pretty deep into the game i don't know why she's a rock

27:46Justin Davis:creature when she first shows up. I don't know what the point of that was. We'll find out. Maybe that'll come back around again at the end. I don't really know. But I like their relationship and I like the little dance they do together every time you finish a little bit. Is that from Yakuza? What?

28:02Mark Medina:That dance? You know that famous Yakuza dance where they're doing those kind of like co-moves like doot, doot, doot towards each other and they're like each posing? Yeah, I do want to see them side by side now like i i don't think i don't think it literally i mean they might both have a different right origin but i don't know what that is that's the yakuza gif that's what that is it does kind of seem like it it might yeah but that might be some kind of like you know deep cut japanese historical like funny 70s dance or something like i don't know

28:35Justin Davis:no idea where it came from everyone except pauline speaks like banjo kazooie style gibberish but I don't know like is it really easier than just recording dialogue because you still have to record all the gibberish

28:48Mark Medina:I guess just because you can use it in Japan and the US for the same amount of audio yeah I guess so

28:55Justin Davis:the one thing last thing I'll say is that just like Mario Odyssey every layer has its unique outfits that you can buy I don't think it goes nearly far enough with those they could be so much more creative like it's like you could turn Donkey Kongs for like pink but it's usually like here's a pair of black pants or I don't know. Here's a weather coat for Pauline. Donkey Kong should be able to wear Link's green tunic.

29:16Mark Medina:Yeah, that'd be cute. Or you should be able to give him really long flowing hair like a funny dog. Yeah, exactly. There's also the fact that since the clothing confers gameplay benefits, I don't feel like I found the tie. I have the treasure-seeking tie that I got in the first world. I don't ever want to switch off that. I'm just stuck with that tie for the whole game.

29:39Justin Davis:Anyway, I personally am loving Donkey Kong Bonanza Justin is too not resonating as much with Sam but obviously that's okay

29:48Mark Medina:or Mark you can't leave me yet Mark barely wants to play he's playing a game he hates instead Mark's stuck in Strya trying to get him back on I like it I'm going to play more I'll definitely do it I have so many flights ahead of me that means I have to play this what else am I going to play B-Switches and Mario Kart give me a break

30:08Justin Davis:oh that's the other thing it's insane that donkey kong costs 70 and mario kart is 80 like there's so much more game in donkey kong yeah it's crazy it's absolutely arbitrary they're like they're charging more because because f you that's yeah that's exactly right oh man

30:29Justin Davis:okay uh sam i know a couple weeks ago you were playing shadow labyrinth that review has gone up this is the grimdark Pac-Man game that's sort of also based on that secret level episode but anyway in our review we gave it a 5 out of 10 I just was wondering since you were playing what you had thought of it yeah

30:51Mark Medina:if it had just continued the way I played it and I read the review and the reviewer pans it but I really liked what I had played so far because it was a uh it was metroidvania it was in like a really you know a series of twisty little passages all like and um there was some some fun boss dodging enemy stuff like hollow knight right like there was like it was building and it sounds like it doesn't build past where i got but here's the cool thing is that just like yoku's island express when you get to certain areas you become a little pinball and you hit the flippers and it turns into a pinball game and this the little areas you get to you turn into pac-man and you go a bunch of bunch of dots and avoid enemies and kind of figure out how to get it's really funny it's like it works and what i played was like i just i couldn't wait to keep playing this game and it was really cool and i was like kind of like uh reading the um review notes while they were being made and stuff and i was like we're playing different games until like i was like i ran out of time to play it and then like the year kept going and it just sounded worse and worse so i'm disappointed that it couldn't hold it together but totally what i played i was like this is going to be a great little you know

32:03Justin Davis:castle droids yeah it's too bad it's it's it was an interesting way to bring pac-man back try to keep him relevant in 2025 and and also in other uh low score low review score news the lord of the rings license continues to just be completely squandered the latest is tales of the Shire, which the first crime committed is that the full name of the game is Tales of the Shire, A.V. Lord of the Rings game. Yeah, I thought that was a typo at first. A.V. Lord of the Rings game. I would like to submit an official complaint with the Tolkien estate. Like, let's just imagine, what if the game was just called A.

32:45Justin Davis:Lord of the Rings game? What would happen? Yeah. What would happen? Would everything be okay? What would they do? Well, okay, but I'm going to, look, I don't know this to be true, but I know a little bit about how the world works and it's probably the tolkien estate insisting you have to refer to it as the lord that's what i'm saying that's what i'm saying oh okay but i would ask them what if we did what if we just said a lord of the rings game would everything still be okay what if we

33:08Mark Medina:showed this ridiculous idol damon wants to ask the state if anything would go wrong if that happened yeah we know what would happen if this company did that they would all be imprisoned yeah um Look at all this does. Look at that. A Lord of the Rings. A Lord of the Rings. So, yeah, this game, like, the elevator pitch couldn't be better. And it couldn't be. And, like, actually, I do think, like, when you watch these little hobbits running or skipping around the Shire. And, you know, like, some of the design looks pretty good. And it just looks like what could possibly go wrong. Maybe two years of, you know, in the background, fixes and development will make this game amazing.

33:49but i don't know where they're gonna get that money from the two the two biggest things on the planet right now are like cozy games and like base building casual like you know hey build up your house and decorate it wherever you want kind of games yep and so what a what a no-brainer like

34:04Mark Medina:or even just like don't forget romanticy justin that's pretty big right now too like you know disney dreamlight valley but you're a hobbit in the shire like slam dunk yeah yeah this game almost feels like watching disney amanda's been playing and and i've been watching her play and yeah none of the characters talk nobody's voice acted so it does kind of give those disney dream life by disney dream like valley vibes but where people just go uh she she likes it i i'm i'm watching her play and i could tell the frame system she's playing on ps5 good and i can tell the frame rate is running at like 15 frames and she's just like i don't notice it and i'm like well if you're happy you're happy um but like then she served a meal and everybody ate it and they were like oh and then at the end they were like that was great what i was so confused um but i don't i don't really get it but what i will say is that she is enjoying her time with it She's a big Lord of the Rings fan.

35:11It doesn't look like a game a Mark Medina would play, but she's liking it.

35:18Mark Medina:You just need to have a dig button like Donkey Kong and you can make your own hole in the hill. Your own little hobbit hole.

35:26Justin Davis:I think PC Gamer's drop line was not hobbit forming. Pretty good. Hats off.

35:31Mark Medina:I have like a 60s button that says J.R.R. Tolkien is hobbit forming. That's an old button. That's pretty cool. uh yeah the criticisms of this game from our review were that you know it doesn't it it doesn't have like a redeeming loop it's kind of boring that but also the reviewer every time he'd have that meal which is ends your day and like distributes all of the good good rewards and everything at what they would crash mainly they're like full-on crash and so he had to replay the whole day and he said once he had to do it six times oh boy so half an hour half an hour half an hour, half an hour, something like that.

36:08Mark Medina:Yeah. It was like the review. It's like this crazy length of time replaying to get it to work. Now that stuff's fixable, right? But the gameplay loop is, is inherently not great. I mean, so the game, the game was made by Weta Workshop, obviously it's famous from the appendices of Lord of the Rings and, you know, does special effects for a lot of movies. And there's now some kind of behind the scenes stuff coming out that's still conjecture. so I don't need to get into it in details, but it turns out that, oh, we thought making a video game would be closer to making a movie, and maybe the craft of making video games was different than what we expected it to be.

36:43And there's kind of like, I just wonder if we're going to get more stories like that coming out behind the scenes of just growing pains of learning how to make art in a new medium, and that some of what was transferable from movies is maybe not as transferable into the discipline of video games as they thought.

37:00Justin Davis:Well, at a 4 out of 10, it's one of the worst reviewed games of the year from IGN. We haven't given anything lower than a 4 this year, but it puts it in the company of Mind's Eye and Hyper Light Breakers Early Access. And what's interesting is that Lord of the Rings Return to Moria and Lord of the Rings Gollum also got 4 out of 10 from IGN. Yeah. The consistency.

37:23Mark Medina:Yeah, 4 rings to bind them.

37:28there's still lord of the rings online that has a really good shire just go run around that shire instead you deliver pies to a bunch of different hobbits and you have to avoid when you see hungry hobbits you have to go avoid them otherwise they take your pie before you get it delivered that guy

37:41Mark Medina:eating cake or whatever he's eating with wheat in his mouth really bothers me every time i see it you see all these people and they're like oh well see he's happy but the lady was not happy that's just that's what they all did yesterday he was just moving his spoon through the pie

37:55Justin Davis:no no no yeah this looks pretty budget who is it embracer that owns the lord of the rings

38:02Mark Medina:license these days yeah but every time i bring that up there's like a qualification of it it's like well they don't actually have the the same rights as this and this this and yeah because

38:12Justin Davis:amazon has the like streaming rights right so it's it's like remember they were divided already

38:16Mark Medina:in a way so like you could make a hobbit game for gamecube but you couldn't make a lord of the rings game unless it was based on the movies and i don't know what i thought embracer bought was they just bought the lord that's what i thought they just own the whole thing now i think it's books what is amazon doing with rings of power then well but i think they've licensed it from embrace like embracer owns the whole thing now i think is my understanding that's just wild they

38:39Justin Davis:just yeah they bought the whole ip there's a new movie coming out yep yep the golem one that no one asked for and there was the anime the war of rohirim that i know you liked sam but i don't think anyone went to see it. So look, I love Lord of the Rings. I love it. I play the card game. I like the movie. I like the books. I like the video games. But it's like, it isn't and shouldn't be this like always on like, you know, okay, now Lord of the Rings, new movie every three years. It's not Star Wars. Neither is Star Wars. The story has been told. Like it's complete. But that's why something like this should have been like, you know, just be a hobbit, living your day-to-day in the Shire.

39:21Justin Davis:That game should make itself. Just like a Gremlins game. Just like the Sony style. You're walking around with your companion. You've just got Gizmo in your backpack. What's up, Giz? Oh, you see something over there, Giz? Come on.

39:35Mark Medina:What if they made a Lord of the Rings game like Dead Rising with unique bosses in every area? You had to control the bosses. You could pick up anything. Fight Gremlins with it. I just want to point out that that time was a Shadow of Mordor joke for everybody who's thinking about writing us. Yeah, the bosses could be leveled up and change and come back and get their revenge on you. They'll remember you. Yeah, they'll remember you. They'll remember you. I killed me last time, I'll get you next time, you bloody bugger. Greatest video gaming innovation of the last 20 years. Well, gouge his eyes out, I will.

40:17Justin Davis:Okay. Let's move on to this news item this week.

40:20Mark Medina:Wait, Damon, did you never play any more Death Stranding 2? I have not played any more since then. Oh, man. I don't have anything against it.

40:28Justin Davis:I'd like to, but...

40:29Mark Medina:I have so many doll man jokes, and I can only share them with Mark Medina now. I did buy it, by the way, so I can play the original... The only other person at IGN who played the game. The original Death Stranding was$50 when I was on the show last time, and I bought it on sale. It went on sale. It was$16 on Xbox. Wow. Heck yeah. So I will report back, but I have a backlog now because I got to finish DK and then I got to finish Zelda and then I'll get to Death Stranding. The great thing is Death Stranding is back on the menu, boys. Death Stranding is notoriously short, so you'll breeze through it.

41:00Good.

41:01Mark Medina:Is that a joke? Yes. Yes. It's very long. Yes. Have fun. Okay. Thinking about Death Stranding 1 after playing Death Stranding 2 sounds miserable. so just stop dude you'll have fun don't he hasn't yum come on but well i i'm not i'm not i just what mark's saying is maybe don't get a death stranding tattoo at this point okay well yeah no you the the problem with getting a death stranding tattoo is that it means you have to get the platinum for both games yeah and and i'm so tired i'll get a strand strand type tattoo yeah

41:43Justin Davis:sure okay okay long time listeners and viewers know we have a recurring segment called uh the nintendo seal of quantity oh no no no no no no no no no no no no we're not doing that right now it's just that you brought it up yeah it's just i'm reminded of that i'm reminded of that with this story that sony is suing tencent for just straight up copying horizon yeah that's a good trying to hide the fact. Like they told Sony, hey, we made a Horizon game. Is that okay? Can we have the license? And then Sony was like, no. And then they just kept making it and they're going to try and put it out. It's so crazy.

42:20Justin Davis:Can we have the license? So Sony is suing Tencent and what's crazy, they're the two biggest game publishers. That is a destiny dose right there. They are the two biggest game publishers in the world. Sony, number one is suing number two. That's some terminology. So yeah, Tencent has just made their own Horizon game. It has a female protagonist with red hair who has this sort of like focus-like earpiece. There are robot animals and dinosaurs and humans live in different tribes. And all the environments look like Horizon. And then it's like even like fonts. And so like everything has just been lifted.

43:00Justin Davis:The key art. Yeah. That's what's really. Look at the title screens for the two games. If anyone is on, well, whatever. We don't need to take sides. But if anyone doesn't see it or doesn't understand where the lawsuit is coming from, look at the two games title screens side by side and tell me that it's not shameless. Yeah. I mean, also Sony owns Sony owns Destiny. So it's it's pretty nuts that they also have a ghost. So per Sony's complaint, Tencent allegedly knew exactly what it was doing because Sony says that Tencent began developing this game Light of Motiram in 2023 and approached Sony at the 2024 Game Developers Conference to ask for a licensing deal to develop its own Horizon game.

43:43Justin Davis:Sony turned Tencent down, but Tencent kept developing the game anyway. Sony also claims it approached Tencent informally to resolve the copyright dispute once it became aware of the game. And when it did so, Sony says Tencent tried once again to license Horizon. Sony once again refused, and Tencent allegedly moved forward with the game's promotion and playtests. It's unbelievable. I mean, a tiny bit of inside baseball here is that this isn't, that part's not that crazy uncommon. It's like, hey, we would like to make a game based off, you know, your character. But then when they decline, what's normal is you change the art.

44:17You have to pivot somewhat.

44:19Mark Medina:Yeah, you say, hey lawyers, how different do we have to make this? And then they tell you. We're going to make it robot mammals instead of robot dinosaurs or something, right? Maybe they assume that Sony had forgotten about Horizon like the rest of us did by now. Maybe they'll just forget. I don't know.

44:38Justin Davis:It's so good. They'll just forget. It's so good. it doesn't seem like Tencent will have a leg to stand on if this goes to quarter. It all seems blatantly obvious to me. I don't know.

44:50Mark Medina:Yeah. I mean, of all the games, too, it's like this is the hill you're going to die on? Yeah. You're going to knock off Horizon? Well, it came out that they sold 38 million copies across the franchise. Right. So none of us are lawyers, right? And you can't copyright an idea. And obviously there's a long history going back to the 90s or even earlier of like two volcano movies came out the same summer like two asteroid movies came out the same summer like but but so again like the the legal like i would like to hear like a copyright lawyer's opinion on like you know when is it just like hey you shouldn't have done this because it's immoral to like no you actually broke a law this is too this is this is too close i think it depends yeah on like what they copyrighted it's funny i remember being i i was i was a young 18 year old working at hollywood video and i remember a trans more a train a movie called transmorphers came out and i was like oh that's funny um but like but like when it comes to like pow world and pokemon you would think that the blatant copy is the pals right is the pokemon but what what they actually went after was the use of the pokemon the balls the pokeballs right and And so it's like it kind of – I wonder if it – like what kind of copyrights they have.

46:11It's like, yeah, you can't call it Horizon, but also we have certain things copywritten, you know, maybe the use of the robot dinosaur. I mean, look at this footage you're watching now.

46:21Justin Davis:If we were watching a Sony State of Play right now, I would just think, oh, they're announcing Horizon 3. It looks like Horizon for sure. It looks like a Horizon kind of like mobile game. It doesn't look bad like Shovelware. Like it looks – it actually looks really good. Yeah, it certainly. Yeah, like, take all the weird stuff out of it. I would probably play this game. Like, this looks fine.

46:44Mark Medina:It's funny to think of, like, you know, the very origin of video games is, like, knocking off movies, right? Like, you just have, like, the NES is basically the action section of, you know, the VHS rental store from that time. Like, Contra, I mean, come on. Like, it's just, it's like Rambo and Alien. Like, that's all it is. You know? Like, it's just Commando. Commando. Yeah, it's very funny. And then there's the Game Commando.

47:09Justin Davis:Yeah, yeah. Like, it just... I mean, speaking of Kojima and Death Stranding, the original box art for Metal Gear, that dude's just traced from Kyle Reese in Terminator. Yep.

47:19Mark Medina:There's a lot of Breath of the Wild likes, right? Like, where you actually float around an area and, like, it's a bunch of Zelda-type things. Like, you just have to... You know when you see it, what the distinguishing factors is. And if you are fighting a robot with antlers with glowing orange tips, then it just looks like Horizon.

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51:37Justin Davis:See MintMobile.com. Okay, show and tell time. You may remember a few episodes ago, I was showing you my MiU Flip, which is my retro gaming handheld that's built like a Game Boy Advance SP. I was showing this off. Oh yeah, I was just playing a little Dragon's Curse on the TurboGrafx-16. Dragon's Curse. So I still like this device a lot, but of course it's got a 4x3 screen, which is already fairly small. So one handicap of this device is that any vertical monitored arcade games, like a lot of my beloved shmups or Nintendo DS games, they get pretty small on this little screen. So not ideal to play them there.

52:13Justin Davis:But whatever, I still like the device and it's great for all the 4x3 retro home consoles. So that's great, no problem there. But imagine my interest when I learned of a brand new retro gaming handheld that is built specifically for vertical monitor arcade games, shmups, and also Nintendo DS games. This is called the Magic X. Gosh, I forgot. It's got all these things have weird names. Anyway. The Magic X Zero. The Zero 40, I think, actually. Zero 40. The Magic X 040, and you can see I've got Battle Greg up here, which is one of the best arcade smops. So yeah, that's it. That's it. That's the device.

52:57Justin Davis:It has emulators for all the other NES, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, and all that stuff too. But really, it was built with the sort of vertical-oriented games in mind. You know, I might be good on that, Damon. I mean, I guess I don't know because I don't know how powerful it is in its emulator base. But what I'm getting at is virtual pinball would also potentially benefit. Right layout. Yep. benefit from a horizontal, excuse me, vertically oriented screen like that. How does it run 4x3? Does it just add black bars? Yeah, it has like a bezel on it. Yeah. I mean, there is some sort of a landscape mode.

53:32Justin Davis:It's a touchscreen because it also supports Nintendo DS games. But this is how I'll be using it for the most part. I like it.

53:40Mark Medina:That's good, too, because when you make a legal backup of something, in case your original floppy disk gets hurt, then you'll have a legal backup.

53:48Justin Davis:You know, I can't take my BattleGarega arcade cabinet with me everywhere. Yeah, so he's backed it up and he's put it on this. Yep, exactly. That's true. We've talked a lot about how we're in a real golden age for retro gaming handhelds. There's so many options available now and they've become so cheap. This thing is$75 plus$10 shipping from China. So, yeah. They've basically become an impulse buy at this point. So, I got my two handhelds. So, I got my handhelds basis covers there. I have another thing to show everyone here. You may remember a few years ago, I showed you the NES Endings Compendium Volume 1.

54:26Justin Davis:Oh, Volume 2 is out. Awesome. Yeah, Volume 2 is out. This guy, Ray Estevan, is collecting the endings to all the NES games. And the first volume went from 85 to 90. So this volume alone is just games that were released in 1990. Here's Little Nemo Dream Master. Wow, that's so many. So that shows you how many games were being released by the time the 90s got aired.

54:48Mark Medina:I remember CJ promised to show us the ending of that game, and then he just couldn't get to it. So what is the book? Is he just, like, discussing the ending?

54:58Justin Davis:Basically, just taking these. They've got really nice screenshots of the ending. This is Ninja Gaiden 2. Well, so, Mark, the thing that you need to understand is most NES games, it sounds like I'm making a joke, but I'm not, is, you know, the sprites were little teeny tiny little things, but then the endings usually would show you something amazing in some full screen piece of art. And it would be like overwhelmingly the biggest, coolest moment of the game would be the title screen and the ending screen.

55:23Mark Medina:Mega Man walking through the seasons. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. That's Skate or Die 2. The ending of Metroid. Do you think it took him so long to make the second one because he had to beat all the games? Maybe. Yeah. He had to play through. This is too hard. Ain't nobody ever beat Silver Surfer. I was going to say nobody's ever beaten Silver Surfer.

55:40Justin Davis:so the first one was published by limited run and this one is published by uh nintendo force which is an actual physical magazine an unofficial replacement for nintendo power right that's run by lucas thomas a frequently former uh frequently a former frequent contributor to ign if you look up almost any um virtual console game he probably wrote the review for that and now he's doing nintendo force and now he's getting into publishing other people's work and they published this one and he was very kind enough to send this to me. This is Deja Vu. I'm a Nintendo Force Patreon member, so I get the physical magazine every other month and it was mine for a long time and now my daughter has declared that it's just hers now.

56:21Oh, okay. And then she reads it and she knows I work at IGN, but she's like, Dad, did you know that they're making a new Splatoon game? I'm like, yes, yes. I'm happy to discuss this with you. I'm glad we have this shared in. You're not going to scoop me. But yeah, you're not going to share anything with me that I don't know. Yeah.

56:42Justin Davis:What's cool is that he rates the ending for each game out of five stars. So for example, Double Dragon 2 has four and a half stars a rating. Wow. And then he goes through any differences there are between the North American and Japanese releases too. That's good. It's full of just like lots of really fun little fun facts and details and everything. So it's an awesome little package. You can beat the game twice? This is the special edition. It comes with, or like the collector edition. It comes with some other goodies. These little cards that have little pro tips on the back. So they all have original artwork on the front.

57:18Justin Davis:This is Super Mario Bros. 3. And then there's a pro tip for how to beat Bowser at the end of the game there. You just got to move out of the way. Yeah, get out of the way. This is the challenge checklist, which I have to admit, I don't really understand what it's for. This is every game that's covered. and each game has a box for a D-pad, a dollar sign, and then a check mark. I don't know what all those challenges are supposed to mean. I think the D-pad is played it, the dollar sign is owned it, and then the last one is eat it. Oh, okay. Well, you are a wiser man than I. There's a nice little poster that it comes with featuring some of the original art for the games here.

57:53Justin Davis:Oh, yeah, I like that Double Dragon 2 right up there in the corner.

57:56Mark Medina:Oh, that's great.

57:57Justin Davis:Yeah, art is great. And this would be Castlevania III.

58:02Mark Medina:well it's a little bit of an amalgamation because that's also the final fantasy one art

58:06Justin Davis:yeah well that's not in this i don't think that's in this volume yeah that's 1990 in the u.s it was it also comes with a bookmark anyway it's available on the from nintendo forces uh official website it's also available on amazon but not just not the collector's edition you are correct sam page 130 is... I don't mess around. Final Fantasy. Yep. The game has a great ending.

58:33Mark Medina:The end. It also has probably the latest title screen drop. It's up there with Wolfenstein. Crossing that bridge.

58:41Justin Davis:I also just love... This is Formula 1, built to win. I would never play this game, but here I go. Now I know what the ending looks like. So I have that.

58:48Mark Medina:Bonanza has a late title screen, surprisingly. Yeah, you're right. It does have a very late title screen.

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1:01:19Justin Davis:Battle 3-826, while supplies last. Selection varies by location. I forgot to tell you something about my Magic X 040. So I was looking for a random button, like pick a game at random for me, because my old RetroPie used to do that. But these handles don't have that for some reason. So I asked my good friend, ChatGPT, who I just talked to now, because Google search is completely useless. so I just used ChatGPT to search the internet. So I asked, is there a way on Magic X 040 to pick a game at random? And this is what ChatGPT said to me, is that no, unfortunately, it doesn't include that with the out-of-the-box firmware, which is called Don.

1:02:01Justin Davis:So ChatGPT had a couple suggestions. It's a hard thing to say. Yeah. A couple suggestions. First, it offered to walk me through setting up a more custom firmware. And then it said, or you can close your eyes and hold down on the D-pad. And when you open your eyes, you'll have random games. The robots are smart. It's so stupid. It sounds like a human. Like, how can a robot be that stupid? Well, because it just plagiarized that answer from human sources. Yeah, exactly. Also, because... How many M dashes were in that? It's just so desperate to help be helpful and please you. Tragedy BT is like, you could ask it, what's five plus five?

1:02:44Justin Davis:And it'd be like, good question. Yeah. It's a little bit thirsty. It's simmered down. Yeah.

1:02:54Mark Medina:What if I don't have fingers?

1:02:57Justin Davis:Okay. Let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address, Gamescoop at IGN.com, just like Jake from Memphis, Tennessee did. Jake says, been listening for years. Absolutely love the team and Scoop Nation. Question, do you guys think we will ever see major first-party PlayStation games on the Xbox platform in the future? It seems Xbox has completely abandoned the exclusive first-party side of their business, which as an Xbox adopter and fan, I'm completely okay with. More games for more people. However, because I am financially locked into the Xbox platform and ecosystem, I have never been able to play a lot of games I would love to play like Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon, Ghost, etc.

1:03:37Justin Davis:Is there any hope for me, an Xbox lifer, that I can one day play Spider-Man 2 or the upcoming Wolverine on my Xbox? Scoop. Well, Jake. There's a scoop, right? Where was Mark going with this? Are you referring to the job listing? Yep, yep. I was just going to say. Yeah, the job listing that was amended to say smaller titles. Oh, I don't know. I just looked at it earlier. I didn't see that it had been amended. Sony has a job listing right now for a senior director, multi-platform and account management. And the job description reads, you will play a critical leadership role in shaping and executing the global commercial strategy for PlayStation Studios software titles across all digital platforms beyond PlayStation hardware, including Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox, Nintendo, and mobile.

1:04:28Justin Davis:And that this person will be leading a high-performing team focused on multi-platform expansion and platform partner management. I think that that can mean a lot of things. For one, I do think it... They've already said that live service will expand, right? Which Helldivers 2 is now coming to Xbox next month. And so I think it'll continue to be live service. I also think it could be smaller titles. I don't think you'll see AAA, but also that could be referring to Xbox on PC, which is, which is, um, even PlayStation on PC or, well, I, when they specifically say Xbox, they could be meaning the Xbox app that's on PC that you can already launch PlayStation games from.

1:05:15Yeah. But it also says,

1:05:16Justin Davis:it says switch to sure. Which, which like horizons on switch. I don't know. I, A lot of people took that to mean that they're going full third party. And I guess I just don't really see it yet. They list everything. They're hiring someone for this. It's going to be that person's job to say, no, we're not putting these games on Xbox. Job complete. But we are going to choose to put a game X, Y, and Z on Steam. I just, I can't. So like, like the, just to be clear, I don't, I don't actually care if, if Spider-Man's playable on Xbox, I'm just trying to like, think if Sony, so Xbox has always been kind of tied with PC, right?

1:06:03Because windows. Okay. So if Sony goes full third party, they're really going to kill their own hardware market, which is where they make most of their money. um xbox didn't care to kill their hardware market because they also own you know the biggest bc platform which is which is windows um but for playstation i just don't see the full and i don't see the incentive on them porting something like spider-man over to a platform that's only sold 30 million units like not to say that that's not very many but like when you when you look at like something like astrobot that only sold you know 2 million copies on a platform that has 70 million units like what hope do they actually have to admit they would be diminishing their own platform presence to get what could end up being 300 000 copies of spider-man sold because it's like they're not going to go on game pass so xbox peoples would have to xbox players would have to buy them and i don't know i just to me doesn't make logistical sense for them to do it but i'm not a businessman yeah no the answer is no those games are not going to be playable on xbox if if i forget his name who wrote in.

1:07:14What's possible is more and more of these games are going to come to Steam. I mean, Spider-Man 2 is on Steam. Horizon is on Steam. And then Steam is probably going to have some native baked in to the platform streaming option down the line, I would say. I would guess. So that's going to be your best hope. If you don't want to buy into the PlayStation ecosystem and you want to have access to these single-player games, the game streaming is going to get better and better and there might be an option that doesn't force you to buy a$500 PlayStation. Right now, they've integrated the Xbox app with other apps, right?

1:07:50So through the Xbox app, you can launch Spider-Man. You can't buy it through the Xbox app because you're getting the Steam version. So what you're doing is you're launching the Steam version. It's not an... So the new upcoming handheld Rogue Ally X is technically going to be... which has the Xbox button, is technically going to be able to play any PlayStation game that's on Steam. But you're not playing an Xbox version. You're playing the Steam PC version, right? But if the Rogue Ally X is where Xbox is heading with their console market, meaning that it is basically just a pre-built PC with a Xbox HUD that starts up when you start it, then sure, then yeah, you'll absolutely be playing PlayStation games on your Xbox because you'll be playing them through Steam.

1:08:37but like there's no world where you're playing wolverine or or anything like that day one probably not even year one yeah yeah no and i don't think that's that argument

1:08:49Justin Davis:yeah you know maybe that maybe they brought ghost of tsushima over to xbox right that's relatively easy for them to do and they sell another two three million copies i could see them wanting to do that maybe they'll do a trade z's yeah they could trade them yeah give you trade for what xbox is already giving them everything that's true that's a good point but i wish they were i like the idea like just a child's understanding of how the video game industry works where like the two presidents get in the room at e3 and they're like you give us master chief and we'll give you crash bandicoot he's like throw in spyro and you got yourself a deal uh yeah i don't know i don't know

1:09:31Mark Medina:definitely the times are changing well i so my solution to anybody who's stuck in the xbox ecosystem is to wait a few years and then those system that you want to play will just be free on the street the what now because right now i just see playstation 4 is free in boxes on the street already so you just have to wait interesting i remember the first time 15 years ago i saw an xbox 360 on the street i was like oh my gosh i can't believe this has already happened and then now you know there's ps3s and ps4s in the street so that 360 probably it's also tough the red light of death yeah it probably like develop development costs are are just so high now that anything is like precedented i guess you would say at this point obviously like gears of war is coming to is coming to PlayStation next month.

1:10:24And so it's like, if PlayStation is like, you know, looks back at something like Ghost of Tsushima and goes, you know what? We still, you know, to fund the next game, we do need to make another whatever. Like, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen?

1:10:46Justin Davis:Okay. That brings us to Video Game 20 Questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Liam, who says, hi, my name is Liam from Salisbury, Maryland. I have a suggestion for 20 questions. I used to watch my dad play this game, and with years of practice, I am a solid player in this game. And with that, let the questioning begin. That's a good hint. I bet it's a good hint. Yeah, we know it's a dad game.

1:11:10Mark Medina:And you can play for a while and get good at it, unlike, say, Yo, Noid, which nobody could ever get good at. Yeah. Was this game an arcade game at some point? No. Swing and a miss. Is this game, like, competitive at all? Yes. Okay, solid player. It's Fortnite. Yeah, Halo. Halo 2. Is this a multiplayer game? Yes. Is it a violent game? No. All right, Fall Guys. Hmm.

1:11:53Mark Medina:Was this ever available to play on a phone?

1:11:59Justin Davis:I can check. Don't know about that. So sorry, the hint was that her dad introduced her to the game and now she's a solid player at it? Yes, I think Liam's probably a guy, but yeah. Oh, sorry. I like spaced out for a second there. I'm good. Okay. I can answer the phone question if you'd like. What was it? Has it ever been playable on a phone? No. And that's five. It's not Angry Birds. Damn. Or Flappy Bird. Or Fortnite. Or Fortnite. I was trying to eliminate Fortnite, so that's good. Okay. Let's see. Not violent. Competitive. Has multiplayer. player is it helpful to know if it also has single player or do we just assume oh yeah that could be good yeah like can't can you play this offline by yourself yeah does this game have like a single player offline mode yes is this in the uh sports racing or puzzle genres yes i think it's a sports game it could be yeah it could be racing maybe puzzle let's see is this a sports game yeah yes yeah but racing is a sport it's okay okay so it's not a puzzle game okay um could be gran turismo yeah that has a pretty robust single player offline mode does this involve a ball yes sports balls oh i was thinking super monkey ball your thing makes way more sense

1:13:49Mark Medina:is the ball spherical hold on wait don't answer that have you guys ever heard of American football okay that's true that's a good point not a sports group here I was not with you for a second I'm like a frisbee is clearly not a ball we don't need to ask it picking up what you're putting down I think it's rocket league I was going to say, I want to know if there's like anything. It's got to be something that's been around long enough that a kid, you know, has practiced and gotten better at it. Is this a fantastical sports game? Yeah, that's 10. Okay. I think it's Rocket League. I think so, too.

1:14:32It probably is. Did you drive a car in this? Yes. Does the car hit a ball? We already established the balls. In a soccer-like fashion. It has balls and cars.

1:14:48Mark Medina:That's all we need to know. We got this. Yeah, that's probably true.

1:14:51Justin Davis:Go for it. That's probably it. I'm not asking. Is it Rocket League? It is Rocket League, yes. Hey! 12 questions. Yeah, I just thought that was an interesting pick because it's 10 years old. It was out in 2015. Yeah, that is interesting. And Liam used to watch his dad play, and then he had years of practice. So maybe Liam is on the younger side. I remember we had one of the first flags in that game I remember being happy I remember that now too, I forgot about that I have a nephew that is in town, there's some family in town and he's 21 or 20 and I'm like, oh, do you play any video games? and he said, no, he's not a gamer at all but he plays Rocket League every night that's it that's his game but not a gamer though and I told him, I'm like, did you know that there's a new Rocket League game where you're running around on foot that's rematch yeah rematch yeah he was not aware yeah fun fact did you know this is actually a sequel to a game I did know that yep I didn't know that super battle whatever supersonic acrobatic rocket powered battle cars it was out in 2008 we reviewed it gave it a 6.5 yeah wow yep I remember that now what a rebrand right and I'm sure everybody was like really mad like oh this is so generic doesn't have any personality and it's like well if you want your game to be a decade long platform that's what you gotta do don't hear as much about Rocket League these days but I'm sure it's still popular I mean it's owned by Epic now right now it's Epic yeah I think so so isn't it just like in Fortnite I just assume I don't even know I mean you're probably right since everything is just in Fortnite anyway yeah are we in fortnight yes is this is are we does is game scoop all just in fortnight now yep that's fine dead rising in fortnight well nice job thank you liam for the suggestion viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions

1:16:54Mark Medina:oh i have a suggestion they should port this to mobile yeah yeah yeah they probably should

1:17:03Justin Davis:I was surprised to see that is not available on mobile. It's available on everything else. Email your suggestions to me at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Let me give you a spiel before I say goodbye to everyone. Now is a great time to score some incredible games through Humble. Live now through August 5th, grab Warhammer 40K, Rogue Trader, Damian X Machina, Death's Door, Cat Quest 3, and more. Whether you're building your backlog or discovering something new, It's the perfect time to pick up these fan favorites. Plus, every purchase supports a good cause.

1:17:33Justin Davis:This month, your Humble Choice membership supports Covenant House. Get a curated mix of PC games every month, all for just$14.99. Skip a month or cancel anytime and know that 5 % of your membership goes to charity. And a special bonus, Humble is actually running a deal on this bundle, so use code JULY25 to get this month's selection for only$10. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Jobert, everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. It's good to be back. My name is Damon. This is IGN Game Scoop, and we're out.

1:18:23Justin Davis:Okay, Jobbert, we can switch back. Okay. Ooh, banana.

1:18:34Mark Medina:there's so many there's one of those like pauline things where she just is like yeah you know like when you're going through a doorway there's one where she just like legit it's like the voice actor is just chuckling because something goofy happens it's pretty she's like

1:18:50Justin Davis:this episode of game soup was produced by myself damon hadfield and joebert audienza Technical direction is handled by Jobert Atienza Technical production is by Mariah 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 Kaganpin GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network

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