Game Scoop! 826: Real Mature, Wolverine

9:41Justin Davis:We will see. Couldn't be better, though.

9:43Mark Medina:We talked last week about showing off a game and getting you hyped and showing you the right stuff. Yeah. Nailed it. 10 out of 10. IGN.com.

9:52Justin Davis:That's next fall. We give this trailer a 10 out of 10. Next fall. I think the state of play was good. I think it's a sign of PlayStation getting back on track because they finally showed Wolverine, big fall game, but they also showed Saros, which is in the first half of the year. Yep. which is the follow-up from house mark uh the follow-up to returnal which mark i believe you're

10:11Sam Claiborn:a fan of returnal i'm a i'm a fan of house mark i love everything they make they only make good games except for matterfall was like not not their best but other than that they only make good games resogun next machina uh was alienation they they make very good games yeah this is just this is Returnal with a guy.

10:33Justin Davis:It looks very much like Returnal, which

10:34Sam Claiborn:it looks great. I like that it's not just Returnal 2 because I don't think that Returnal had a very specific story, right? Which was like that planet was an endless loop. And while this game does seem like it's going to have roguelike mechanics. They said that again.

10:52Mark Medina:They said an endless shifting planet. It kind of

10:57Sam Claiborn:just feels like, you know, I like that they can kind of tell a different story without just sticking to this one franchise over and over and over. This game's also very orange. Very, very orange. Probably one of the orangest games I've ever seen.

11:10Justin Davis:At least this particular biome that they're showing, right?

11:13Mark Medina:Maybe that'll be the color of 2026. Muddy Brown is the color of the Gears of Wolverine.

11:18Daemon Hatfield:GTA, Florida's pretty orange. It is the new iPhone hero color. Exactly. Wolverine is yellow. Justin, did you get the

11:28Sam Claiborn:orange iPhone? I got the blue one. I chickened out. I keep seeing people with the orange iPhone, but then they're getting the green case. It looks like Master Chief. It's the ugliest phone I've ever seen in my life, but I chuckle at it.

11:41Mark Medina:Yeah.

11:41Sam Claiborn:I would probably get the blue one as well.

11:43Mark Medina:What about those Garfield phones from the 80s? Those are ugly.

11:45Justin Davis:You are hijacking the show to talk about iPhones.

11:47Mark Medina:Yeah, we are.

11:49Justin Davis:Back to Sorrows. Mark, I think it's interesting. Their whole sort of messaging about this game seems to be, don't worry, it's easier this time. because the tagline is the tagline is come back stronger that's great yeah well because the big

12:04Sam Claiborn:thing of a returnal like the whole point of a roguelike is you're supposed to every run you do you come back more powerful right not necessarily you got far enough not necessarily i don't know that i yep i agree yes wait sorry what oh right whatever returnal there wasn't a lot of holdover between, you know, between your death and the next mission. There wasn't a lot of it. And so the game never really got much easier. Oh, yeah. And the runs were super long. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I like Returnal. I liked its formula. I'd be fine with more of that. But if they are going to make it a little bit easier, that's probably fine, too.

12:45Mark Medina:Is the point you're making with roguelikes is that the thing that's getting better is you, like with the witness puzzles, where it's like that's the key to the game. That's spelunky.

12:54Daemon Hatfield:We actually talked about this in, I don't remember if it was a staff slack or poll or something, but like rogue light versus rogue light. And then we were split. Like we were split on like, what does light mean that the genre change? Like we made it a card game or we made it this.

13:11Mark Medina:Yeah, I thought light just meant you shuffled the elements in the game. That's all it was. It's just the shuffles in the game. Not the whole rogue light stuff.

13:18Daemon Hatfield:The shuffling is the rogue part. That's true. the like versus light the argument was some people thought a rogue light was you kept permanent progression run to run and you got stronger and stronger and stronger and some people thought the light was no it's just any genre that takes those randomized runs and you know skill power ups that reset between runs but puts it in a different genre other than a dungeon crawler no those people are wrong

13:42Justin Davis:no way I have no idea the former the former is correct

13:46Mark Medina:anyway well we get I'm lauded for our definitions of video game technical turns on this show.

13:52Justin Davis:So we'll just give people away next week. The tagline is come back stronger. They showcase the whole second chance mechanic. And then in the PlayStation blog, the write-up says, you'll have the ability to upgrade your advanced combat suit and abilities if you choose to do so. So for people who don't want it to be easier, it seems like they're speaking to them too. Goodness.

14:12Mark Medina:I just wanted to throw out there that the audience reaction to this was not great.

14:16Justin Davis:No. Oh, really? What, really?

14:17Mark Medina:People aren't into this? I know you two are excited, Mark and Damon, but we were watching those YouTube comments.

14:23Justin Davis:Well, I mean, okay. What YouTube comments during a live, any sort of live stream are positive? Well, if it's about Silksong. If it's about Silksong, yeah, sure. I don't know. People like Returnal. This looks like Returnal. I would imagine people would be.

14:36Mark Medina:People liked Wolverine to contrast them.

14:39Justin Davis:Yeah.

14:40Sam Claiborn:But why didn't they like this?

14:43Mark Medina:I think it doesn't look graphically impressive and it looks a little janky. and as a weird name.

14:49Daemon Hatfield:I mean, Mark, don't ask us. I don't know. That's what people are saying. The gamers are upset is like an evergreen statement. You can just apply 90 % of the time.

15:00Mark Medina:I'm happy to channel their frustrations. I don't really know anything about this game and don't care, so I didn't really pay attention. But I saw that that was the reaction.

15:10Sam Claiborn:Housemarque just has a style and this looks like a Housemarque game. So I think it's... I don't know. It could be just from people... not knowing the kind of game Housemarque makes.

15:20Mark Medina:It's because they're true fans who only like Rezogun. Oh, wow. Okay. I mean, if they had announced Rezogun 2.

15:27Justin Davis:PS4 launch title, Rezogun. I would be a lot more excited for Rezogun 2, to be fair.

15:31Mark Medina:You could have saved them lots of money, Damon, if you were their only audience.

15:35Justin Davis:Yeah, just show up. Just make Rezogun 2. Okay, bye. I also just think it's cool that PlayStation actually has two games coming out next year. That's nice. Wow.

15:45Sam Claiborn:Woo! We did it. Well, okay. PlayStation First Party. There's a lot of other games.

15:50Justin Davis:Yeah, First Party is what we're talking about. Xeros is out March 20th next year.

15:59Justin Davis:And then in the state of play, I thought it was remarkable that they showcased Microsoft Flight Sim 2024 coming to PS5. I just don't think they've ever... It's not new for Xbox games to come to PlayStation, but they've never taken time up out of a state of play to showcase an Xbox game.

16:17Mark Medina:I still haven't put a game on PlayStation.

16:20Justin Davis:Nah. Yeah. What the scares are for? But besides that.

16:26Sam Claiborn:No, I just thought it was crazy. I mean, what? I was also surprised that somebody from Microsoft had to be like, hey, guys, can we be in your state of play? Like, I'm not surprised.

16:37Justin Davis:I mean, they have to talk. The companies have to talk and work together to make this happen, right? Of course, like Forza Horizon 5, huge hit on PS5. the best-selling PS5 game of the year. Is it over? The console war between these two companies is over, right?

16:54Sam Claiborn:Well, the console war is over because Microsoft is leaving the console market. So then I guess you could say the console war is over.

17:02Daemon Hatfield:Who do we think is more excited about Forza Horizon 5 being the best-selling PS5 game of the year? Is Microsoft or Sony more pumped about that? I would assume Microsoft. off but like what's so funny is that's so embarrassing to both companies in different

17:18Sam Claiborn:ways you're right that's really good but mark they're also announced yeah well go ahead they they also announced forza horizon 6 today and said that it is coming to playstation yeah just not at launch yeah of course it is i'm excited for that it's set in japan

17:35Mark Medina:yeah what a setting for a forza i cannot wait that will be fantastic

17:41Justin Davis:holy smokes microsoft flight sim is coming december 8th so not too long and then they

17:47Mark Medina:showed that i was like oh is this james bond that plane looks really good because they have that plane level that they showed james bond and then they showed the malaysia airlines thing and i was like oh this is going to be like a game about that really horrible incident but no it was just

18:00Justin Davis:flight simulator then don't make a game about that well there was a disappeared malaysia

18:04Mark Medina:airlines flight it's like famous i was surprised they showed that airliner and then they announced

18:10Justin Davis:they announced Deus Ex Remastered which I was excited for, I've never played Deus Ex I would love to, you know, play it in a modernized version, it is coming from our old friends at Aspire though who announced the, what is that Star Wars game? Star Wars? Guild Republic, Knights of the Old Republic they announced that at the same state of play that Wolverine was announced at back in 2021

18:36Mark Medina:So do we have to pull like a George R.R. Martin and be like, finish the books with anything that they work on that's not Star Wars?

18:45Sam Claiborn:I think they went to go work on Star Wars and then they were like, oh, no, we've been working on Deus Ex all this time.

18:50Mark Medina:If Republicans are looking like this, though, I don't think we want it, right?

18:54Daemon Hatfield:No. I mean, this game is not very remastered. It is not. It looks like Half-Life 2 now. which you know is interesting like i don't even know that that's like the wrong call like they talked a lot about like you know quality of life improvements and just some basic stuff like that that i think might go a long way to make that game feel more playable in 2020 that's like those

19:19Mark Medina:banjo kazooie measure two year remakes it's like you know make them widescreen you make them you know play well and you have this game preservation reason for it i've never played this game but i i played the third one i thought it was pretty boring so i don't think i'm gonna go back to this

19:33Justin Davis:I liked both Mankind Divided and Human Revolution. Is that what it was? Revolution, yeah. I liked them. Good time. This one's coming February 5th, which means it actually misses the 25th anniversary, which is this year. And then they announced these Pulse speakers, which I thought were a little... Okay. They're desktop speakers. I don't really know what the market is, the demand for that. Obviously, PlayStation games come to PC, but I would think any serious PC gamer already has an audio setup. So I don't really know who that's for, but then again, people ended up liking the PlayStation portal.

20:10Justin Davis:So what do I know?

20:12Daemon Hatfield:I know they really did. It is. I mean, you make a good point. I honestly hadn't really thought about it too much. I just kind of glossed over this part of the presentation, but like gaming accessories in general remain like a really big business. So, you know, I don't know. Like, yeah, it's strange. Where did this come from? Right. Like how does a product like this exist? but like someone at Sony is like figuring out like, wow, we sold a lot of PS portals. We're selling a lot of like accessories and extra controllers and other stuff like that. So the brand, yeah, maybe that's where this came from.

20:42Mark Medina:I bet they sound great. I mean, Sony knows how to make speakers. That's one nice thing about it.

20:48Sam Claiborn:Well, and given that like soundbars are the thing, right? Like I don't know anybody who uses their TV speakers. I do. Do you?

20:58Mark Medina:I do not. yeah it's weird I know but like I'm just to be stood I don't want a sound system um I uh do you remember when PlayStation released a 3D television yeah yeah yeah I want one so bad the

21:12Justin Davis:one specifically for PS4 you want one today yeah yeah yeah I want one in the box that I could keep

21:18Mark Medina:forever okay that's such a cool piece of hardware they're just like they're they have like 3D the

21:23Sam Claiborn:3D glasses era of everything I just I love it gosh you remember 3D TVs what it's on it was it

21:29Daemon Hatfield:It was like the last CES. Well, no, because I went back to CES. The last one I went to, you know, before I started going back, was like 2012. And 3D TVs were everywhere that year. And they were just trying so hard to make them happen. And then they did not.

21:45Mark Medina:The Hobbit was in theaters. You couldn't avoid 3D.

21:48Sam Claiborn:Yeah, my father-in-law watched Superman in 3D. He's like, yeah, I watched it in 3D. And I was like.

21:53Justin Davis:Oh, wow. Which Superman?

21:56Sam Claiborn:The new one. The one that just came out. yeah i i was i was taken aback that it exists and that people are paying to go watch it in 3d

22:07Daemon Hatfield:i would go out of my way to not see that a movie in 3d yeah i i thought well yeah you have to do

22:12Mark Medina:that all the megaplexes in california they'll still have 3d that and then they have the worst

22:15Sam Claiborn:one which is 4d which is where they where they shake your seats and spray water on you yeah i've I've seen one movie in 40. There it is. There's the TV. Oh, it's so cool. The rounded sides on the side. Yeah, it's not very big. It's cool. It looks like a PSP. Oh, it was so small.

22:35Mark Medina:And the big deal, the big deal is that it had the two views. Yeah, that's why it was expensive and small is because it has two screens. You can't sit.

22:43Sam Claiborn:They can't screen peak.

22:45Mark Medina:Yeah, you get both person gets a full screen. It's a total dorm room play, and I think that's funny.

22:50Sam Claiborn:That's great.

22:52Mark Medina:Look, that guy could really use some Sony desktop speakers around his bio. He really could, yeah. His bio, his Sony printer, his Sony television, and probably a Sony lamp. Good.

23:04Justin Davis:Okay, that was the state of play, which I thought was pretty good. Now we can finally talk about Ghost of Yote. IGN's review is out now. Sorry, real quick.

23:13Sam Claiborn:I love that it ended with it saying super sleek, slim design. It's all that thick.

23:20Justin Davis:Four inches thick.

23:21Mark Medina:Yeah, do you remember their era? They figured out how to get the sides of the TV slim and maybe the top, but then there was a big chonk on the back of it. And like whatever size that was, sometimes it was like, you know, three by three feet of like chonk. And so it's like every instance of television didn't mean anything. It just meant that you had a thin TV three inches off your wall.

23:42Sam Claiborn:Yeah. Yeah.

23:44Mark Medina:Sorry. What a world.

23:46Justin Davis:Good time.

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26:56Mark Medina:Own the dream.

26:57Justin Davis:Okay, Ghost of Yotei. 75 % of us are playing it well first of all I love it it's everything I wanted it's everything I wanted in a Tsushima sequel it's a lot like Ghost of Tsushima but man I love the open world it's so pretty to look at absolutely one of the prettiest games I've ever played the setup this time is pretty straightforward you're on a quest of revenge there's these six dudes you gotta hunt down and kill it's not really doing anything new it's kind of a cliche It's Lady Snowblood, which heavily inspired Kill Bill. It's got a lot of Blue-Eyed Samurai in it. You know, Japanese woman on a tale of revenge.

27:34Justin Davis:But that's fine. It's straightforward. Works well for a video game. I like how each of the Yotei 6 you're hunting down, each one is their whole, like a standalone quest line that'll take you to different areas of the map. Takes several hours to work your way through. But then in between all that, the open world is just packed with just hundreds, thousands of things to do. Not too much for me. Not too much for me, Mark. I love it because this is exactly what I want to do. I want to run around in a pretty fun-to-explore open world where there's just a million things to get me distracted and keep me from pushing the story forward until I'm like, okay, I'm ready now.

28:11Justin Davis:Let's go hunt down one of these six.

28:13Sam Claiborn:And that's all that's happening to me. My clock says I played 28 hours, and I am not very far at all. I can't help it. But you like it? Oh, yeah. I have a lot of skill points because that's how you get them in this game is by finding the altars and stuff like that. Yeah, I think we'll start with graphics. It's gorgeous. I'm playing on PS5 Pro, which has a pro ray tracing mode, and it is jaw dropping. I would say that like I would say that Death Stranding probably edges it out a little only because this game is like, you know, it's kind of like Kingdom Come Deliverance. right really really pretty open grass fields where it's like death stranding probably had a little bit more going on not to say this looks bad at all it looks fantastic uh it plays a lot like tsushima they change stances for weapons which is great uh and yeah i really like atsu i think she's great i think she's like they they kind of took away a lot of the like kind of samurai stuff like he has his like honor and doesn't want to like assassinate stuff they just give her a knife right at the beginning she just kills everybody she doesn't care um i know i think she's great erica ishi did a really good job looks just like her um and uh yeah i really like uh the hat the the chance things that happen right you stumbling upon a vendor or you creating a camp and somebody like rolling up and being like can i share some fish with you and stuff like that sit down they do and then you sing them a song it's great um yeah no i like it a lot i think it's really really really fun you can't skip any dialogue and so when when people do sit down at

29:56Mark Medina:your camp i'm like please please no no people this time and they sit down they're like i was just walking by and i smelled the scent of fish would you like to hear my life story nope nope

30:06Sam Claiborn:nope oh i also like that the game has kind of like baby stealth like it's very forgiving stealth

30:13Mark Medina:I played a lot of this game and I've not really stealthed at all. Or if I do, like, I just like, yeah, I'd rather combat in this game. So I'm surprised to hear myself say that because the combat's super fun.

30:23Justin Davis:The combat is sort of fun.

30:24Mark Medina:And I just want to, like, get in it, you know, and I'm pretty good at it. I feel like I'm good at countering in this game compared to other games because I guess I still have my training wheels from the first one. Like, it all feels familiar, but, like, something about it. Yeah, I've been pairing well. And so some of those duels are really hard and you have to work towards them. how does it compare to Assassin's Creed? Well, Justin, I'm glad you asked. It's the one thing that nobody will want to hear us talk about. It's not as pretty. I think it's the exact same story, so that's interesting to see them.

30:56Mark Medina:It has the same opening. Yes, well, but the Assassin's Creed opening, we all came here and talked about how awesome it was. They played that cool surf song, and it was really fun. It drew you through it. This game doesn't, it's not as good as that. um i liked the switching between the characters in the end in assassins and i liked the infiltration of castles and stuff in that game this game has some edges in combat just general just like um uh the interest of stopping in the open world i think it just has a little bit of a slight edge even though all that's always good in assassin's creed um yeah they're very comparable and and there's parts in this where i'm like this is really pretty for a different reason but in terms of like what they're both doing it's really interesting like assassin's creed does the thing where you change the seasons change and like it's like it's that's remarkable that the entire game has four maps and they all are immaculate in their changes right this game has regions that kind of substitute for that there's a fall like region and there's a snowy region looks great i'm in that right now like it's totally good so that's not as impressive though but that's fine it doesn't matter like but if you if you have to like really like put these side by side like they're so i would say they're just so similar like it's kind of surprising you know i mean like it's not a bad thing they're just similar this one has exploration a lot more

32:17Sam Claiborn:like tsushima than assassin's creed right so it's like assassin's creed you climb up you do the eagle thing and it tells you where everything is and then you just go and do the things where this game mostly the same concept but it happens a little bit more naturally where it's like you get map fragments and then you're like okay i'll go there or like a bird will fly in front of you and you're like oh i gotta follow this bird see where he's gonna take me or a fox so it's like it's less about opening a map and just seeing a trillion question marks and more about just kind of roaming around and getting lost it feels a little bit more organic if if nature was like pretty close

32:53Mark Medina:to comparable which i don't think it is i think assassin's creed has the edge on that this has amazing nature it's like it's unbelievable like these games that people make now are just incredible This is a 10 out of 10 graphics. Assassin's Creed is better, but it's also a 10 out of 10 graphics, right? Like, it's just amazing. What Assassin's Creed also had was just it had better facial animation. Like, we all talked about it at the time. It just has the edge on stuff like that. I don't know why. Like, this game still, like, if you had never seen Assassin's Creed in your life, you'd be like, this is the most amazing, you know, Japanese set game ever made.

33:25Mark Medina:You know, it's just a weird year.

33:28Sam Claiborn:Shadows was really good at doing that. Like, I've never been to Japan. so maybe it's not or it is like this but who knows uh it has that like idea of what japan is like where it's like there's just like poppy flowers just flying there's just leaves everywhere and that's that's that doesn't happen as much in this game unless you go into the photo mode you

33:48Mark Medina:turn on leaves and when it does though it does it just as well like it's really amazing when you're going through a field and you join a pack of horses and you're running with them across like a field of flowers it's it's unbelievable there's no other game that's ever done anything like that you know and you it makes you like look at this and be like you know why a zelda like this would be even better right like this is a combat focused game about exploration you know there's we're just getting to the point where like open world is getting really exciting and i think witcher is going to be really exciting stuff but what um the the there's there's elements of this game which I think pushed the limits of just why you want to stop and do stuff.

34:29Mark Medina:I actually want to go, just the reviewers said this too, but I want to stop at the villages that are combat villages just because there's pretty good rewards in them and it's really fun to fight. I die a lot and I think that's cool. That's different than a lot of open world games where I take it easy and explore. It makes me want to go get into conflicts and do the standoffs and the wolf standoffs are so cool.

34:52Sam Claiborn:i just love the wolf is cool i love picking things up and throwing i was just gonna say

34:56Mark Medina:there's random weapons lying around that you can pick up those are great throw on someone for an instant kill it's so good did you see that there's a perk where you can do that and it

35:05Sam Claiborn:happens to summon the wolf sometimes oh funny i do like when you die and the wolf shows up and he's like yeah i i don't actually know what triggers it and so every time i die i'm like yeah it's a random chance and then the dude rolls up and stabs me and i'm like oh well wolf didn't

35:22Mark Medina:save me from that one yeah in the have you done any of the wolf tree yet yeah yeah so some of those have like it's so funny because every time i'm talking it shows like these things we're talking about but um it's very well matched b-roll but uh the wolf tree has a little bit of like unlockable i think it's like the the blanket ones that are like makes the wolf appear more often for different things and one of them is like throwing spare weapons and one of them is just an appearance and yeah it's great I'm playing in Japanese me too

35:51Sam Claiborn:I am playing in English as I revealed

35:54Justin Davis:earlier I like the new weapons I like the variety that you get out of weapons you got single katana double katana a huge sword that's good

36:04Mark Medina:for brutes a real big katana

36:06Justin Davis:real big sword kind of like whatever clouds what's the name of clouds sword buster sword yeah the buster sword Japanese buster sword and then the spear yeah you have a spear and then i don't have the sickle the and chain yet that one that's what i don't have and i don't have a rifle or a musket but apparently the guns are fun to use as well oh i don't have a musket either i didn't even know i have the kasaragama kasaragama um

36:33Mark Medina:yeah that it has a um uh that's apparently the the the used for shields is what you learn when you get that one so it's like the ball end you like smash shields with and then the stabby and do you finish them off with so i thought that was a cool balance thing yeah i mean i'm excited to

36:49Daemon Hatfield:check it out like i i bounced off of shadows um for a couple of reasons one i found that the main character in the storyline was just absolutely utterly humorless with just like i was just not interested in that revenge story very much at all um and i also found the open world and shadows to just be a little bit boring and a little bit unrewarding to be like oh i wonder what's over there and like there was just a couple too many times of like okay there's nothing interesting over there and then i ended up i ended up bouncing or if it's this it's the same thing that's in

37:18Mark Medina:every assassin's creed game right like yeah it's like oh it's one of those again i i love now way

37:23Sam Claiborn:but i i do think atsu is a little bit better of a protagonist i think she's got a lot more

37:28Justin Davis:personality i think i actually prefer now a little bit more but you know but justin i well now we did

37:34Mark Medina:those little jumps that damon and damon loves so much you know every once in a while you just jump

37:38Justin Davis:really cool yeah she just do a flip over a fence or something oh yeah that's great you go hold circle and make her do all sorts of things in yote there's not just like a a forest of trees that i can't get through like there's in shadows all the time i just can't get through these trees although i i do i do scoop nation will be happy to hear i ride my horse a lot in yote okay oh yeah

37:59Mark Medina:you have to ride yours well i disagree with what you just said like as azen's creeds a lot is actually an open world where this game has a billion parts of it which are not open you just hit the wall i don't and sometimes that's a forest i don't think i mean if you look at the map the map is like it's like this weird channeled like it's like this big island but the island is not the open world the island it's like this channeled part of the island that's the open world so if you hit those edges it's like these weird false edges but what you're talking about is a different issue assassin's creed where you're like you can just run either into trees because they're thick or the size of a cliff or whatever but you know you can hack your way up things like skyrim like You can get on a horse if you ever get on horses in video games and get up lots of those hills.

38:43Sam Claiborn:Yeah. I feel like I say this every week. I have to do my session where I bash Unreal Engine 5. The two best-looking games this year, Death Stranding and Yote, do not run on Unreal Engine 5. And the performance is near flawless. like i have not encountered any hitching any frame drops and it's like i'm playing that next to borderlands which is one of the worst performing games of the year so switching between the two has been uh has been has been fun um i man i hate on a real engine five i have a game switching thing

39:24Mark Medina:i'm doing right now but before that i uh really really like that you go to sleep on your horsey

39:29Sam Claiborn:like a pillow yep sure do and then when you wake up the horse you're like hey it's time to wake up

39:34Justin Davis:she's like all right time to get up yeah it's really great what color is your horse i just stuck with the default me too yeah i haven't changed it i just that's always the

39:44Mark Medina:reward horse and like shadow of the classes and stuff so i'm like it's my god now i just because

39:49Sam Claiborn:you know you play for that hour and in that hour we formed a bond that i couldn't break and also So like I already had that. I found that that dive vendor to the West and made all of my clothes pure white. And so I thought it would be cool to have a white horse as well. So, yeah.

40:08Mark Medina:So this game has really hard stuff in it. It has these kind of you can be unprepped and get into a duel. And like it'll eventually say, like, give up this duel because you're just doing so badly, which I think is funny. But you don't have to. You generally know when that's going to happen. You can kind of you can go and bulk up and be ready for them. Even the side quest ones, they're not going to throw too hard of stuff at you, although you can get yourself into some trouble. But there's a lot of times in this game where you're just like, I'm just not feeling that tonight. I'm just going to do my exploration and see the beauty and talk to people and stuff like that.

40:39Mark Medina:I'm also playing Silksong still, and that game doesn't have that option ever. Like, you're just going all in. You're like, every minute I'm spending here is suffering. And it's really, really nice to have this game have the kind of balance of, like, I can choose between them. and I just beat the last judge in Silksong and it was one of the hardest boss fights. It was totally crazy.

41:03Justin Davis:Okay, a few more things to say about Yote. First, two things about water. I think this game has the most realistic blood and water effects I've ever seen. You cut someone down in like a stream, the blood will come out a little cloudy and will float downstream and then eventually just dissipate. It looks amazing. It's so good.

41:21Mark Medina:Have you seen the frozen lake yet up north?

41:24Justin Davis:I don't think I've, no, I don't think so.

41:26Mark Medina:It's cool. There's frozen waterfalls and frozen lake, but the frozen lake has this kind of like glacial blue. And then it has this like sheen over it and it's doing some kind of light reflection casting, but it's like, it looks unbelievable. Best ice.

41:39Justin Davis:I like, I love that real good ice. All the bodies of water in the game, the lakes, the rivers, nothing is more than ankle deep. Yeah. Yeah. You can run through anybody. You can just run through any body of water. The sound design.

41:52Mark Medina:You can, you can swim in the ocean.

41:54Justin Davis:and you can dive out there yeah you just dive it oh cool yeah the sound design is amazing i love in the fights like the sound of your blades going into your enemies and like it's like yeah it does sound good huh and then like after the battle you know she's like get you know splats all the blood on the ground i love it so much that's also good but even just moving around even just moving around the menus and the map the sound design is awesome like if everything everything just sounds cool

42:19Mark Medina:um now that you mentioned that a lot of the cues from the combat are actually like audio because you kind of know when you've killed somebody just because they they crunch in a specific way and then you move on you know i really like that i think i'm really getting used to that i'm playing

42:34Justin Davis:with my pulse headphones everything sounds great like in the first one you can look out around the countryside you see smoke sack or you know smoke plumes whatever they are yeah that's where things are to go uh i found myself on top of the hill you know looking around at all these smoke plumes i could go to and i wanted a glider so badly to just jump off things right down the same thought

42:56Mark Medina:maybe maybe it'll be like horizon and have that one of those first skills you got to get is the

43:01Sam Claiborn:one where you where you if you push circle yeah you can jump you do that like roll because like dude it drives me crazy like you don't have that much more she'll just land and be like oh die he'd die and so that thing was great i also love that the the smoke plumes the white ones are the

43:17Mark Medina:good guys black ones are the bad guys well and there's a specific burning for the really important hot springs as they extend your life yeah if you if you get to know what those look like they look like an actual real hot spring in real life where it's like thicker and it's like kind of pumping upwards instead of wafting upwards it's so cool looking yeah cool you have some consumables that

43:38Justin Davis:are fun to use, like these fire bombs that you can throw at enemies. I think it's super fun just to set your enemies on fire. And finally, this is just a game that I like to hang out in. I just look forward to it every night, just to hang it out in this open world, running around, exploring, and then getting into super fun combat. It's great. I love this game. I haven't finished it. It feels more like a 9 out of 10 to me personally. It's definitely on my very short list of games of the year. So, Justin, how does all this sound to you? I think it sounds great.

44:08Daemon Hatfield:I've been playing, I'm like, what, it's 120 hours into my current factorial save, and I'm just starting to run out of, I'm running out of Steam a little bit, literally and figuratively. And so I'm like interested in emerging from this, you know, conveyor belt fugue state that I've been in for weeks. And I'm interested in checking out some new games. So yeah, I'm definitely interested in checking it out. When you want your spring break to feel like and your kids pool day to feel like and your hotel bed to feel like and room service to feel like because at Hilton hospitality feels like

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46:03Justin Davis:Well, there are a lot of new games coming out. Hades 2, the 1.0 version is out. We gave that a 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10? So now that's... Super giant, man. They don't miss.

46:13Daemon Hatfield:It's the highest reviewed game of the year on Metacritic. On OpenCritic, it's the second highest

46:20Justin Davis:because there's that one dungeon crawling teacher still Japanese game, but it only has seven reviews. So you can take away that outlier. Yeah, Hades 2. and I played a bit of this when we first launched into Early Access I liked it a lot and figured okay I'll just wait till this is in 1.0 so yeah I will definitely play this I have it on Switch too and it is perfect, it's great excellent our review of Final Fantasy Tactics is up too give that a 9 out of 10, that's out next week, I know, I'm so excited for that I don't know where I'm going to find the time to play all this stuff, we gave Baby Steps a 9 out of 10 as well Dude, I played Baby Steps yesterday.

47:00Sam Claiborn:Miserable. Miserable. Miserable. Okay. Awful game. I don't know what Travis Northup is thinking. It's terrible. In a good way? I thought it was awful. I played like 30 minutes. I fell down a hill. I could not get back up the hill. It is the most miserable 30 minutes of a game I ever played. I respect what it's doing. I respect the whole like Bennett Foddy weirdness and whatever. Wow. I thought it was awful.

47:30Justin Davis:Well, I thought maybe this would be fun to play with Kingo, but they're blurring out parts of the game that maybe it's not kid friendly.

47:37Sam Claiborn:Yeah. Well, so the first thing that pops up on the screen is, do you want to turn the nudity off? Oh, okay. Like that's the very first thing. Okay. So you can turn it off. I guess it looks like that. You can play a demo. That's what I played. It's got one of those one hour trial demos on PlayStation. And I was like, cool, do I want to spend the 18 bucks on this game? And I do not. I couldn't even make it through the trial. I thought it was quite miserable.

48:04Daemon Hatfield:Yeah, I mean, I'm not really a fan of these. I mean, this is a game by Bennett Foddy, so I guess it's not a Bennett Foddy type game. It just is a Bennett Foddy game. This style of, you know, getting over it. Yeah, just like rage games. Right. Like not really my thing, but what makes me more interested about this and I can't vouch. I haven't played it yet, but just like apparently it's a commentary on, you know, triple A game design and, you know, kind of a parody and commentary of just like masculinity and gamers in general. And all of that makes me more interested to kind of check out what Bennett Foddy has been up to for so many years.

48:44Daemon Hatfield:I got stuck here so long.

48:47Sam Claiborn:Look at that cliff, man. that cliff couldn't be more miserable to try to get up yeah they got it because it probably took

48:55Daemon Hatfield:them an hour to get up yeah i'm into it man i'm gonna play it yeah i'm curious every moment that

49:01Sam Claiborn:i thought okay i'm getting this i then i would just yeah this is the i mean but that crap that

49:08Justin Davis:would happen sliding down the hill like that my son would think that's hilarious it's just like

49:11Sam Claiborn:we were talking about the hundred ways to die in breath of the wild right it's funny because my wife was watching she was cracking up the whole time because the first thing you do in the game the first thing you do because it doesn't teach you how to play the first thing you do is you hold up on the joystick because you think well this is how i walk and your character just face plants on the ground because that is not how you walk you walk using r2 and l2 and but it is like i i would never be able to do what is happening on screen no no way no way would i i could do that i could to the part where he falls flat on his face, but I would not be able to climb.

49:47Sam Claiborn:No, I'm glad I quit because I would rage quit. Man, I was miserable playing this game.

49:54Justin Davis:Well, like I said, I'm curious.

49:57Sam Claiborn:You guys will probably love it.

50:01Justin Davis:And then there's skate. Yeah, poor skate.

50:05Daemon Hatfield:I play a second of skate.

50:07Mark Medina:They're very similar games.

50:09Daemon Hatfield:I mean, I was very amused by all the skate footage i saw people somersaulting everywhere around the game world and how that's a faster way to move than actually skating it's great uh to be fair that's also like ocarina of time it's faster to roll so i don't really that's that's what they're going for yeah i mean it's like this one two punch it's like this double whammy of like you know the game's not very good so okay like right got a four out of ten but then it's like it's it's like skate it's this beloved franchise that people are so pumped to come back so it's like been so long extra insulting that

50:42Justin Davis:it's bad yeah and just the reason it's actually i don't think the gameplay is actually terrible it's just it's the live service it's just a soulless live service where the whole everything is just designed to get extract money from you right no that's too bad even in early access

51:00Daemon Hatfield:that's a terrible sign yeah i mean i think the gameplay is not that good like i haven't played

51:04Mark Medina:it but like it's not it's getting no we did laud that the fundamental like kind of how skate works is working and everything like the kind of you know you don't you don't press up on the d-pad to go just like in last game yeah yeah that type of stuff so at least that's good i think you're a big

51:23Justin Davis:skate fan sam i'd love to hear your thoughts i'm a huge skate fan i don't want to play a live service

51:27Mark Medina:game i don't want to play a game with a bunch of multiplayer stuff that i have to play by myself Like I, it's also, I don't want to play with other people.

51:34Justin Davis:It's always, it requires an online connection. You have to be online. Yeah.

51:39Mark Medina:I'm a huge fan of skate one and two. I think they're so fun. And I, I, at this point, I just hope we get a, a super up res collection of those because they're that good. And I'd play those. And like, what was interesting is that, you know, they, they kind of like looked at Tony Hawk and they like, they kind of were like, how do we make this less goofy and more about street skate culture instead of X Games culture. And I think that was really smart and cool. Even though they put in the X Games in it, they had it. But the second game had that Thrasher in it. Thrasher magazine was in it and you could break your bones and it would do a bone thing.

52:17Mark Medina:Thrasher, the stupid sidekick phone was in it too, which is funny. But they were just trying to get old and contemporary skaters in that mattered, that were cool. They got brands in that mattered, that were cool. And then And they just made this game about like trying to pull off, you know, a trick or a gap on like a really like a set of stairs in front of an office. And it was really fun. Like, that's what, why people skate, that's what makes it cool. And I thought it was great. And then like the super like air tricks and everything, they brought those in and skate three. And I don't think they did it poorly, but Tony Hawk was already doing that.

52:52Mark Medina:Skate two did a little bit of that, but it was like, I love just the downhill and the, you know, the trick-based skate stuff. I thought it was really smart and cool. And that skate culture is still around. Kids still skating. It would be really great to bring that back.

53:07Justin Davis:It's too bad because it's been a long time. It's kind of the EA cliche at this point. I mean, I

53:14Mark Medina:even want to try every game and give everything a fair shake, but I just watch and read what we've covered of this. I'm just like, I don't have time to play this game. Like even trying it. you know there is a lot to play right now

53:33Sam Claiborn:real quick speaking of EA I did the preview for battlefield single player I wanted to ask you about this oh I I thought it was really fun that's good I think it's really really good but is it designed people will like it is it designed for co-op no it's not okay well yeah it's not I even asked them I was like can it be co-op and they said no which was strange which given that it seems very coopy and this is the first time that not the first time ever but this is one of the first time in a long time that call of duty is doing co-op uh and this seems like it would be like perfect for that uh but no it's just you you there are four members on your squad and as the missions go you play as different characters so you'll be the engineer or you'll be the recon or you'll be the you know gunner and stuff like that like i don't i don't want to like overhype it and say that it's doing anything that like completely blew me away i it's very pretty and it has a lot of the stuff that people love in multiplayer in this like you see somebody on a balcony you could throw a you know shoot rpg at it and the balcony crumbles and like i i just thought it was really fun i if you like military shooters which i do i do like the campaigns for like call of duty and stuff like that so i thought it was good i thought it was very very pretty so check out my preview if you are interested awesome i would totally play a good battlefield

54:51Justin Davis:single-player campaign yep i thought it was great military thrillers like i think we're all down for

54:57Mark Medina:that once in a while yeah call of duty was amazing last year single-player was so good yeah yeah

55:02Justin Davis:mark are you still playing borderlands 4 yeah oh yeah 100 i was gonna ask you if you played it at all i by my by the counter on my ps5 i played 43 minutes oh no but no and i want to play i really really do i just love yote so much it's i can't yeah i can't i can't pull myself away from yote yeah i really do want to are you in the open world yet no i don't even think i got out into the open world i was just playing there's like an escape sequence in the beginning i think i'm

55:29Sam Claiborn:still in there yeah yeah okay uh yeah no i i'm gonna get everything i want to get and then move on oh okay that makes well that's probably good because there was a patch today that got that helped fix the memory leak issue um so hopefully that that i haven't had time to test Was it the field of view thing that people really wanted? And then the field of view has been an issue since the game came out. You move very, very slow in the game because the field of view is very, very low. And so enemies are never that far away from you. And you're like sprinting and it feels like you're barely moving.

56:06Sam Claiborn:And it just is like it's still fun. It's been totally fun to play. But like I cranked up the FOV for a video we're making to test it out. and it just feels so much faster and so much more fluid that i'm like all right now i'm now i'm super

56:21Mark Medina:in but no i love it cool dev thing until i kind of like think about and how how much that that matters and they're probably worried about you know game performance right but once you get that

56:32Sam Claiborn:wider than everything feels more like a first version shooter yeah he the patch notes even say like if you crank up the fov too much you could see a performance dip but i cranked it up quite a bit and uh did one of those like uh it's like the propaganda speaker things where there's just loads and loads of enemies and it seemed totally fine um yeah i love it i think i've played this like 56 hours where i've only played yote like maybe 25 um this is just scratching that itch man i just i love killing things in this game and the moment you get bored of a gun you out level it you get some crazy new gun that you didn't expect to exist but it does and it's super

57:11Justin Davis:fun i like it a lot yeah i will definitely play it um but i thought it was interesting that the switch 2 version was delayed indefinitely just recently not surprised less than a month out

57:22Sam Claiborn:delayed indefinitely yeah yeah that was i mean that's the right call like this game i've been playing on ps5 pro and it that memory leak issue is no joke after like a hour i in the video we're making i had saved some footage of me just i'm not fighting i'm not nothing and you just see the game's running at like 25 frames with nothing happening so like if that's happening on the most powerful console i can't even imagine what it's like playing i can't watch this footage anymore

57:51Mark Medina:we've shown this so much on game skip drives me crazy invisible wall footage how does the

57:57Daemon Hatfield:how do memory leaks like that not get caught i don't know how is that not caught in like qa

58:02Mark Medina:It reminds me of using Photoshop in 2007.

58:07Sam Claiborn:Too many layers. My guess is that guns are dropping and you're not picking certain things up and they just do not despawn. Like that's the only thing because like you'll be playing, the game will be running at like sub 30 FPS and then you just back out to the main menu and you go back in 60. And you're like, what happened? and it just the world needed to reload and get rid of all the trash that's been left behind that's the this is the only my only guess for what's happening also it's unreal 5 which is

58:38Daemon Hatfield:way back in the day i think that's why skyrim on ps3 was broken if i remember right is that like never despawned anything in the game world except that one i i don't think got fixed i think your save file just got like bigger and bigger and bigger until the game just like it had a memory

58:54Sam Claiborn:cap on the save file and it would just hit it and then you just like couldn't play the game anymore. Something like that.

59:01Mark Medina:There needs to be a checklist when people are shipping a game. Stuff like that and then you need to have like, can you select a bunch of things to sell in your menu? Can you skip dialogue? And then you only play out the game after you get all that stuff done.

59:16Daemon Hatfield:Yote not having dialogue skipping makes me legitimately, like that would lower my personal Justin Davis score like two points yeah it's wild yeah but you can pause it's got to be patched in you can pause the dialogue

59:28Mark Medina:at least okay that's the opposite of skipping it you feel a little bit more when you're just prolonging it yeah that's true you feel it more and you have to read subtitles right because it's like yeah you can't just like you know check check the news while these people are talking

59:44Daemon Hatfield:yeah i love subtitles because it's like little conversation spoilers oh my gosh it happened in

59:50Justin Davis:two seconds yeah sam did you see their reports out of tgs that uh resident evil requiem is running

59:57Mark Medina:well on switch two yeah oh that's great that's great news it looks it looks pretty good in the direct uh on switch two but all these games like we're lucky because we get to play these on you know nice next gen system it's nice for switch two to have them but like i'll play hollow knights it looks like i'm switch to you but i don't really need to play these but it's nice

1:00:23Justin Davis:okay extracurricular activities um alien earth season one has wrapped up i know sam has watched it justin mark either of you okay we won't we won't belabor the point and we'll don't won't

1:00:35Mark Medina:do any spoilers justin already heard what happened in a meeting okay yeah i don't mind okay we don't

1:00:39Justin Davis:need to spoil it well so for the listeners and viewers no spoilers but like i shared earlier that while I was enjoying it, I thought it was a good sci-fi show, but maybe not a great alien show. I think that's kind of where I ended up with at the end. I think also most people agree that the finale episode was kind of a big nothing. It didn't feel like a finale. It just felt like a regular mid to late season episode. Right, Sam?

1:01:02Mark Medina:Yeah, you said they wrapped up the season. They didn't wrap up the season. They introduced a bunch of things and kept the loose ends loose. I thought that was kind of strange. It just ended.

1:01:11Daemon Hatfield:It's been interesting to hear that feedback. Everybody loves it. And the buzz for the show is so high and it's so good. And then the final episode, it just didn't give off the vibe of being a season four.

1:01:20Mark Medina:They went to commercial break. I think it could have done a little bit more with the environment being very Jurassic Park or Predator. And I thought that the island is kind of a cool idea. It feels very video game-y. It'd be really great to set a video game on the island. And by the end of it, they're kind of showing more elements of that. Again, it's very Jurassic Park. They're in this area. Then there's the area. Oh, they discovered this area. That part's awesome. like lost kind of does that too i like that part about it but um yeah i mean the the you know the alien they really tried hard taking our criticism on game scoop that the aliens we said they were wimps yep and in the last episode they're like no but look the alien can kill all these people like so like they did that but at the same time like the big plot reveal that they're working on is like you know has to do with the aliens being controlled and it's like not great for the aliens not being wimps so yeah hard to get into without spoiling that and then the uh but then there's other aliens that are more interesting and stuff and then they don't really get their time to shine

1:02:19Justin Davis:because the episode ends yeah well everyone's everyone's seen the eyeball alien and i'll just say like what ends up happening with that sam i like that was like the least interesting thing

1:02:27Mark Medina:that could have happened i thought what about the what about the flower alien the one hanging from the pod from the ceiling we're like what's that one gonna do the whole season and then the reveal is like well it does exactly what you expect but then there's there's a uh there is a uh there was a kind of funny reveal which i thought was a very funny like plotty reveal like we have to have these in this for the plot because they made a bunch of characters machines right and then they're like well but one of these aliens only eats machines yeah and it's gross and cool and horror like and like it is funny but it's such a device that it's just like watch that god but then that doesn't go

1:03:03Justin Davis:anywhere either so yeah and i don't think it's even been renewed for a season two yet no so i don't know probably will be it looks expensive as heck it does look so much i mean if they renew it we'll have to wait three years to watch it and yeah and this is not just because

1:03:19Mark Medina:i like alien in the 70s and stuff but like the the the episode the the spit the what do you call the pocket episode the bottle episode where they're just on the spaceship and they showed

1:03:29Justin Davis:the flashback episode was was totally great but i liked it because it explained some of the

1:03:36Mark Medina:explains the cyborg character in a really interesting way and i think he ended up being the most interesting character but then there's a bunch of like gi joe battles with all the characters and he's one of them just like that that didn't get too interesting i like i like

1:03:47Justin Davis:gi joe battles it's funny yeah it was all right it was i mean it's the best alien thing that's been released in a long time although that bar is very very low uh i i want to watch more it's not

1:03:58Mark Medina:like every night i didn't want to watch it i was like i can't wait to see more of this yeah i agree

1:04:02Justin Davis:with that it was it was at least a fun watch for the most part okay what did everyone think of the

1:04:07Daemon Hatfield:mandalorian and grogu trailer i think it's i think that trailer commits the cardinal sin of what you

1:04:13Sam Claiborn:want a trailer to do which it's just kind of boring i i'm not i'm not a big mandalorian fan

1:04:18Daemon Hatfield:and this trailer i mean i was a big mandalorian fan i think that show's gone completely off the rails in the third season i mean look like when i watch this trailer it's like you know like i really like grogu like baby yoda like i like all that stuff but it's just this trailer like everyone's fear was like this is going to be a plussed up tv movie and the trailer does absolutely nothing to like assuage that fear like it absolutely looks and feels and came off like a plussed up tv movie yeah it's like when this was announced everyone kind of rolled their eyes

1:04:50Justin Davis:even before the trailer and i you know i'm i love star wars i would love nothing more than for this to be a great, fun Star Wars movie. But it's kind of like, like Justin has said, the TV show had lost its way. So we didn't feel like a movie was necessary. It also felt like the absolute safest thing Star Wars could do after the debacle of the sequels. So it's like, it's not particularly inspired. No one's super excited for it. And then I don't think the trailer actually sells, like, why is this movie here? Why do we need this movie, right? It does look like some fun things might happen. Some fun Star Wars things might happen, sure.

1:05:24but I don't know.

1:05:26Justin Davis:What's their adventure? Who's the villain? What's happening here?

1:05:30Daemon Hatfield:The Mandalorian and Grogu colon some fun Star Wars things might happen. That's what we get from this. What do you think, Sam?

1:05:38Mark Medina:I like how they showed a lot of practical effects and puppets and monsters. I thought that was cool. The Hutt thing I'm neutral on. Although I do like that Clone Wars plotline with Stinky in it. I think it's really cute that Stinky's back. But I agree with lots of the points you all are making. I still want Star Wars to be in theaters, and whatever reason, I would go see another Star Wars story. You know, like the Solo was bad, but I still like going to the theater and seeing a Star Wars movie. So I still like that about Star Wars. I don't care. I will go see it no matter what.

1:06:17Daemon Hatfield:Star Wars returning to theaters should be an event, right? It should be like this big thing, especially coming off of uh you know off of the last jedi you know so that ain't happening no i don't know like this comes from a place of like i want it to be good and i really loved the first season of mandalorian and then it's just been like season three was like you said david it lost its way it's like here's what we need to do we need it we need to make a movie that's how we're gonna fix it that also great yeah is the movie the end of this story is the end of like is it the conclusion of the Mandalorian story.

1:06:52Daemon Hatfield:They just do a season four?

1:06:53Sam Claiborn:It's like after the movie.

1:06:54Daemon Hatfield:Yeah, is Grogu growing up? Yeah, are they going to do a season four after this? I was so pumped for the Mandoverse and this little corner of Star Wars that they've carved out, and now I am not. Look, I'm going to go see it, for sure. So it's like I'm being a little bit harsh. I agree, I like the puppetry. I'm such a sucker for Grogu. We'll take the whole family. It'll be great. That's the thing. But I don't know.

1:07:18Justin Davis:I'm excited that I get to take my kids to see a Star Wars movie in theaters. That'll be, that's fun.

1:07:23Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. Like, what about people that haven't seen the show?

1:07:27Sam Claiborn:Like, is this for them? Exactly. I mean, I've, I've, I've tried to watch the show. I did not like it. So I've only seen the first like three episodes. And no, this, this is not for me. But to be honest, most Star Wars things just aren't for me anymore. I think the last thing that I was super excited for was Kenobi. and even that didn't really do it for me that was so yeah i i think uh i think after that i was like all right i i might just be i might just be done with star wars it is sad to think about what

1:07:58Mark Medina:justin was just saying about like you know star wars coming back to theater should be this big event because we did that did happen with with force awakens and with venom menace i mean that's exactly what was happening um the but i i mean there's a problem with that because they've done it before that it'll it will feel manufactured next time and you know probably for some people already felt manufactured for force awakens and then in hindsight it just literally was manufactured because jj abrams just remade the damn star wars movies like i just like it's kind of unbelievable and then the the i mean it's almost embarrassing now watching that movie i'm like oh this is just it's all the beats of star wars and then everybody got mad when they went

1:08:40Daemon Hatfield:away from those beats right yeah so it's a legendary bag fumble uh the disney star wars era

1:08:47Sam Claiborn:yeah i i genuinely think that rogue one is probably still my last like star wars thing that i just unabashedly enjoyed especially after andor rogue one hits so hard after andor and yeah i i need i need to watch andor because everyone says yeah i have not watched andor it's a good place to start but it's so good but the reason is is like you guys hear what i'm saying right is like there's been so many bad Star Wars things that it's really hard for me to get hyped for any of it. So when somebody's like, and or super good, I'm just like, everyone says about the Mandalorian. I didn't like the Mandalorian either.

1:09:20Mark Medina:We won't make fun of you no matter what you say. No, no, no. What was your favorite Star Wars movie?

1:09:26Sam Claiborn:My favorite Star Wars movie. Okay. You should have already said Empire Strikes Back. It's already been poorly. And there's a reason. Okay. My favorite Star Wars movie is Revenge of the Sith. the best Star Wars movie is Empire, 100 % I know that it's the best

1:09:45Mark Medina:you're coming from a background of liking a different set of Star Wars this is why I'm saying we're not going to be funny I grew up with the original trilogy right?

1:09:54Sam Claiborn:I grew up with that trilogy no, the original that's weird that you like Revenge of the Sith Revenge of the Sith is just so good

1:10:02Mark Medina:not bagging on it, I'm just saying that's unusual

1:10:04Sam Claiborn:Revenge of the Sith is just great I mean, it's just really good It's so good. We better just leave this conversation. That's the one where he turns into Darth Vader.

1:10:14Mark Medina:That's right.

1:10:16Daemon Hatfield:Damon, I have one quick extracurricular I'd like to share. All right, hit us. For a family movie night, we showed the kids Jurassic Park. They're getting a little bit older, so we can show them a little bit more big kid movies. But my younger daughter is still a little bit young, so we had to cover up her eyes when the lawyer gets bit in half by the T-Rex. There's a couple moments that you need to cover up your eyes. but we forgot at the end of the movie when um she's uh laura dern's you know turning the power back on and then samuel jackson's arm like falls over her shoulder but it's a severed arm and she's like oh and then i'm like oh oops well well like yeah my daughter saw that now time to learn

1:10:56Mark Medina:sometimes arms get severed are you getting you're getting lots of questions about severed limbs now What happens if Yorlin gets separate? Not yet. You know, sometimes you kill an enemy and Ghost of Tsushima and you realize their arm's just there on the ground. Separated.

1:11:18Sam Claiborn:My extracurricular is that I watched the paper and I thought it was fine if you don't think of it as an Office spinoff. It's just a show that was filmed like The Office. Was it funny? Did you laugh? Sometimes. okay but who's laughing constantly at the office nobody yeah right so like that's that's where this is i think i laughed at the parts i was meant to laugh at and the rest of it's just awkward weirdness dom hoggley's it's great though uh and i am loving peacemaker season two i think it is

1:11:47Justin Davis:very good me too well i need to watch it's awesome yeah i need to watch that i can watch that now that alien earth is over but also i recently watched the studio and i my wife was out of town and i was just by myself on the couch i was just laughing out loud watching the studio i want

1:12:00Mark Medina:watch the studio i hear it's great it's so good yeah and i really do recommend peacemaker it's about to get really good because apparently the last episode run is supposed to be like more tied to james gun he's been talking about it right so that's cool but and i can see where it's going to um the but uh i like the paper a lot and you know we all worked in a editorial office for many years that the themes that that show touches on, you will get and a lot of people won't. And I think it's really worth watching for that reason. Same reason why watching the studio, we all can probably relate a little bit closer to that side of the industry.

1:12:42Mark Medina:The paper absolutely deals with really, really familiar meetings and decisions about editorial stuff, which are just background to the show, but they're super interesting. And I think it's really well done. And then the main character from white Lotus is one of the best characters out there right now. Valentina. She's great.

1:13:05Justin Davis:From season two. Her. She's like the manager.

1:13:08Sam Claiborn:Season two hotel manager. Yeah. Yeah. She's like the secondary main character, maybe the third, whatever.

1:13:14Mark Medina:Yeah. All the characters are from contemporary things too. That one of them is from never ever. That's great. Yeah. From star Wars.

1:13:20Sam Claiborn:It's Tom O 'Gleason from Star Wars.

1:13:23Mark Medina:And apparently he's in the Harry Potter movies, which I've never really seen. Oh, yeah.

1:13:27Sam Claiborn:You're right. He's also in Ex Machina, which is a fantastic movie.

1:13:31Justin Davis:He is. And he's in a good episode of Black Mirror.

1:13:36Mark Medina:Okay. And a ride at Disneyland.

1:13:39Justin Davis:He is from a ride at Disneyland. Yeah, that's true. I'm the spy.

1:13:54Justin Davis:Okay, that brings us to Video Game 20 Questions. Our suggestion suite comes from Jimmy in Oil City. I don't know where Oil City is, but that's where Jimmy's from. Sounds like Bakersfield. Okay.

1:14:06Mark Medina:Isn't that where the Mega Man fire level takes place in Mega Man 4? Oil City? Yeah, that's where he lives.

1:14:13Justin Davis:That's it. That's where he lives. Let the questioning begin.

1:14:18Sam Claiborn:No history, huh? He just lives in Oil City. Yep. All right. Hmm. It does tell us. Start us off, Mark. Oh, man. Okay. Let's see. Did this game come out after January 1st, 2010? No. Oh. A lot of years left on the table. It could be Revenge of the Sith, the game. It could be. Yeah. Dude, those games are so funny because they couldn't spoil plot points because they didn't know them. So like those movie tie-in games, they would just be like loosely based off trailers. I love that so much.

1:14:56Justin Davis:Remember when the Phantom Menace soundtrack came out before the movie and one of the tracks was called The Tragic Death of Qui-Gon Jinn?

1:15:06Daemon Hatfield:It's like the exact opposite of what we're talking about.

1:15:09Sam Claiborn:That's great.

1:15:13Sam Claiborn:Come on, man. That's so good.

1:15:16Daemon Hatfield:Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s, or 90s? Yes. Alright.

1:15:22Mark Medina:Did this come out as a cartridge? Yes.

1:15:25Daemon Hatfield:At any point? Yes. Was it originally released as an NES cartridge? No.

1:15:33Mark Medina:Was it an arcade game at any point?

1:15:35Daemon Hatfield:No.

1:15:36Justin Davis:That's five.

1:15:38Sam Claiborn:Okay. 70s, 80s, 90s. Let's see. Was this during the Nintendo 64 PlayStation 1 era? No. What was that? Dreamcast? Okay. Is this a 16-bit game? Yes.

1:15:52Mark Medina:16-bit. Is it a console exclusive?

1:15:55Daemon Hatfield:Yes. Was it exclusive to a Sega console?

1:16:01Sam Claiborn:No. Super Nintendo, probably.

1:16:04Daemon Hatfield:If it's 16-bit, I guess it technically could be terrible graphics.

1:16:07Mark Medina:That'd be so cool. Finally. Shinobi.

1:16:11Daemon Hatfield:Yeah, it's Air Zonk, man. I'm telling you.

1:16:14Mark Medina:We should push... 16-bit?

1:16:17Sam Claiborn:Yeah, GBA was actually probably 16-bit too. Should we blow the Super Nintendo question? No. Do you think we're there? I think we... I'm just going to assume.

1:16:26Daemon Hatfield:Okay. Was this game made in Japan?

1:16:29Sam Claiborn:Yes, that's 10. It's Final Fantasy 3.

1:16:38Mark Medina:Was this a strategy or RPG?

1:16:46Justin Davis:yeah well yeah I want to say yes I want to say yes if that send you down a dark path I'll try to help you just act raiser

1:16:58Sam Claiborn:that's exactly what I was assuming I mean a kill like the RPGs that come to mind are clearly RPGs like Chrono Trigger Bonaccy 6 not them but like it could be you know something simple like link to the past because there's always been that like is zelda an rpg debate secret of mana yeah yeah like very cool

1:17:25Daemon Hatfield:yeah okay uh was this game developed or published by nintendo yes earthbound makes it easier earthbound makes it

1:17:38Sam Claiborn:a lot easier god man super nintendo was such a goaded console. How did the console wars exist back then when one of them was the Super Nintendo? I just don't get it. I mean,

1:17:52Daemon Hatfield:the Genesis had Vector Man.

1:17:55Sam Claiborn:It had

1:17:56Mark Medina:Decapitec.

1:17:57Sam Claiborn:It had Blood and Mortal Kombat. That really is what it was. It was Blood and Mortal Kombat. You had to play with three buttons.

1:18:04Daemon Hatfield:Blood and Mortal Kombat. That's a real thing. Okay, so yeah. So, you know, strategy slash RPG adjacent Nintendo published games on the SNES. Like, yeah, Link to the Past is credible. Yeah.

1:18:18Sam Claiborn:Something like Earthbound, that's clearly an RPG, so I don't think it would be that.

1:18:24Daemon Hatfield:Does the main character in this game, can you play as them in Smash Bros.? No. Alright.

1:18:32Mark Medina:Interesting.

1:18:33Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. It's gonna be a weird one. It's gonna be a weird one. is it helpful to know if this game came out in the u.s didn't nintendo weren't they making like goemon games in japan or something like that that didn't come out here i don't know would

1:18:45Justin Davis:do that to us i only pick games with north american releases oh i don't know that

1:18:53Daemon Hatfield:oh also it being an snes exclusive means that it's not air zonk

1:18:59Mark Medina:it the publisher developed by nintendo i mean if it's published by nintendo it was something weird like uni racers i i get that but like i don't maybe our stunt race fx i mean there's like man this makes it really tough with the smash brothers question yeah so it's not like a key franchise game yeah it's not f-zero starfox were they making i guess wait no so no f-zero or no um fire emblems came out in no in the u.s on the snes i mean i think they were making them but like maybe we didn't get what what if it's one of those rpgs that nintendo published that are like um lufia yeah exactly or um secretive guy evermore yeah secretive evermore yeah secret

1:19:47Daemon Hatfield:of evermore illusion of gaia legend of gaia whatever they're called yeah yeah you were right

1:19:54Mark Medina:illusion or secret of evermore i just don't know which ones they publish but like something like that is likely those are like capcom rpgs sometimes yeah they were just published like

1:20:02Daemon Hatfield:the mickey mouse castle of illusion i don't know like nintendo i don't know what they published they could have published a game a weird game like that but this game was made in japan was this game developed by nintendo yes oh boy i i am what about mario paint it's classic rpg well he didn't say he said we said rpg or strategy and damon's like you are you are you are role-playing as mario justin is correct you you are you are doing the flyswatter game yeah strategy but maybe it's sim city the flyswatter yep yep that's a great guess

1:20:47Daemon Hatfield:yeah i don't see any reason why it couldn't be sim city because nintendo made that port themselves right? Maybe not. They put Bowser in it. Doesn't it have Will Wright in it? Am I dreaming that? As like the tool tip creepy guy. Yeah, yeah.

1:21:08I don't know

1:21:09Daemon Hatfield:a smart way to narrow it down. How many questions do we have left? Five and a guess. Is this a city building game?

1:21:18Justin Davis:Yes, that's 15. That's what it is.

1:21:23Daemon Hatfield:okay is it is there anything else it could be before we pop off and do something stupid

1:21:27Mark Medina:yeah like they did sim earth and sim ant afterwards but i don't think nintendo developed

1:21:31Daemon Hatfield:this i don't think so either is this sim city for the snes it is sim city for the snes

1:21:37Justin Davis:in particular that version yes you're right just in the original pc version came out in 89 but nintendo made this one themselves with the help of will right who is in the game what a crazy time

1:21:46Mark Medina:Yeah.

1:21:47Justin Davis:Yep. Yeah. Miyamoto really liked this game. Miyamoto was really impressed by the PC version and wanted to have a version for Super Nintendo. So they like bought the rights to make their own version of it.

1:21:56Mark Medina:So interesting that that came about. I was already playing this on PC at the time, so I would have looked me to turn down my nose.

1:22:03Daemon Hatfield:So it was a really beloved port. I don't know that I've ever played it because I was the same. I was playing. I don't think I played the I think I played SimCity 2 on the PC. But SimCity 2, Warcraft 2.

1:22:13Sam Claiborn:yeah I didn't have a Super Nintendo during this time and so it's like same Diablo 2 I remember playing like SimCopter like the helicopter one you all had computers at that time? my family never had a computer

1:22:26Mark Medina:my parents did I didn't own it yeah yeah yeah exactly

1:22:30Sam Claiborn:and it's like I would just get games for it and stuff like that but like my first console wasn't until PS2 so yeah

1:22:39Mark Medina:and then my dad would spend an infinite time figuring out how to put the auto exact bat file on a boot disk so I could just play Return to Zork. It would be very difficult to get things running on computers back then. I have a sound blaster working just right.

1:22:55Daemon Hatfield:I have a very vivid memory. Maybe I've talked about this on Scoop before. It's like our family, it's like you're a kid. You get dragged along to wherever. And we were at some adult's house that I didn't know who they were, like some family friend that you just get drug along and you're the only kid there. and then eventually either I made my way down to the basement myself or they sent me down to the basement and they had a computer that was just full. Like I'd never seen, like, you know, they had Warcraft 2 and Diablo and SimCity and just like all these. And it was like, whoa, I must have been, like I was probably nine years old.

1:23:28Daemon Hatfield:I would want to live there. Right? Yeah. And like, you know, now I'm like, my parents are never going to remember. But it's like clearly like the dad of that family was like super with it. Right? They had this computer full of really cool games. And, like, you know, I'd only played console games. Like, I didn't know computer games were, like, a thing. And I ended up playing. Like, I bounced around between a bunch of games. But, like, Warcraft 2 and Sin City I played, like, all night long.

1:23:51Sam Claiborn:The first tower defense. Changed my life. Yeah, the first tower defense game I ever played was a mod for Starcraft. I didn't know what tower defense was. But I remember just loving it and being like, this is so fun. And then realizing it was a game genre. Was that where that started?

1:24:06Mark Medina:Tower Defense? I didn't realize that was a mod.

1:24:08Daemon Hatfield:Well, that's where Dota, like there's a really proto version of like Dota where they gave like StarCraft two units, like hero powers and stuff. And then that started as a StarCraft, you know, StarCraft's a Warcraft mod.

1:24:20Sam Claiborn:I played so much Command & Conquer back in those days. Good times.

1:24:25Justin Davis:Well, nicely job, SimCity. Thank you for the suggestion, Jimmy in Oil City. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for a video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address, gamescoop at igin.com. Humble Games has brought Lost Skies to full 1.0 release, available now on the Humble Store and Steam. Lost Skies is a cooperative survival adventure set high above the clouds in a vast world of floating islands. Explore the remnants of ancient civilizations, uncover the mysteries of their downfall, and harness their advanced technology to survive and thrive. Build and customize your own skyship to serve as both home and worship, battle colossal skyborne threats, and weather dangerous storms.

1:25:00Justin Davis:With seamless traversal, using climbing, gliding, and a physics-based grappling hook, every landmark on the horizon is within reach, as you shape your own survival story. Lost Guys is out now with a 25 % launch discount on the Humble Store, and Humble Choice subscribers can save up to an additional 20 % off the launch discount. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Jobert, working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN GameScoop, and we're out.

1:25:31Justin Davis:This episode of GameScoop was produced by myself, Damon Hatfield, and Jobert 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 Kagempen. GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.

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