Game Scoop! 832: Our Favorite PS5 & Xbox Games

24:10Sam Claiborn:But the thing that I really love about this is the game opens at like what I would consider the end game for a Dungeons and Dragons tabletop where you're aboard a mind flayer ship, you're traveling through different dimensions, and that's just the opening like 30 seconds of the game and it's just it immediately in medias res is transporting you to what you think is like a one day i want to play dungeons and dragons and get to experience the the the heights of the of the game and this game just facilitates that and it gives you a dungeon master who is competent knows what they're doing and happen to be a damn good writer too well said sam have you have we

24:49Justin Davis:convince you to check out Baldur's Gate 3. Yeah, I mean, I just need the 120 hours. You can break the game, Sam.

24:57Sam Claiborn:You like breaking games. I know. Everything about it's great. It looks wonderful. I can't wait to play it. Are we including Switch 2 games on this list? Yes, yes. There are no rules, Sam. Include whatever we want. Because obviously the Mario Odyssey killer Donkey Kong Bonanza, there's We were all saying that three months ago. I just want to point out. I don't know. I don't know how that game's aged. I never said Super Mario Odyssey was. No, no, no.

25:28Justin Davis:I still adore Donkey Kong Bonanza. It's a good game. And we have data today that shows it's selling very well. It is selling very well. We'll get to that. What did you call it? The Great Ape? What'd you say? I don't know. David blacks out when he opens the show. Some of the games have already been mentioned. I'm going to throw in a kind of a, it's not really a curve ball, but what I think is might be the best licensed game ever besides Arkham, which I also brought in here, but I think Indiana Jones and the great circle is a masterpiece. And for some unusual reasons, one is the license. One is the incredible, incredible voice acting.

26:06And, and facial animations and everything that brought Indiana Jones, that game in not a single moment is like uncanny or weird. It's so good. And then I just like the style of a game like Uncharted. I thought that's all we'd be getting for the rest of our lives once Tomb Raider did it. And then they just stopped. Uncharted stopped. And so this is the one, this generation. And I think it's funny to have a feedback loop of Uncharted and Tomb Raider drew from Indiana Jones, but there was never a good Indiana Jones. This type of game, there's been good adventure games way back. And then now this is more like an Uncharted game.

26:45It's more like, but it's more like the later Tomb Raider games because it has the open worlds. All that stuff just made it really interesting. And I think about it all the time. Like, it's just like a game. I'm just like, oh, man, I just love that Egypt level, right? I just, it's so amazing. And it's crystal clear graphics and such good, such good mixes of levels. Like, there's these sequences that are completely linear, uncharted levels. And there's completely open world levels. And they all feel great. Everything feels great. I think it's the height of the Series X and I'm not going to bring in Halo Infinite because I love that game and I think it's really great but I think about what made the Series X what it was it's kind of those two games for me and Forza It's a great game, the relief that I felt and I'm not going to spoil exactly what happened but you open the game and you're playing a really iconic moment from the movies and it's executed so well that that feeling of like, oh my God, they nailed it.

27:46Just because you didn't know, like before the game comes out, before any game comes out, you're like, oh boy, I don't know, like did they pull it off? And like, it's such a statement that opening, I don't know how long it lasts, 30 minutes, maybe. Like that as a statement piece was like, was just fantastic. And then obviously the rest of the game delivered on that promise. And shout out to the Wolfenstein games too. I mean, those are really cool games and maybe like a future Wolfenstein game will be one of the best games ever made. I mean, the beginning of the last game was incredible. yeah yeah

28:15Justin Davis:I loved this game although I never I think I stopped at like the push to like the last area yeah like to get back to that at some point but let's also just like show it kind of opens the door like they gotta do they could take other like sort of dormant franchises because nobody cared about Dial of Destiny right and in make them turn them into a video game and get just sound alike voice actors to just recreate these characters right like they could like do it with the matrix

28:42Sam Claiborn:The secret to success is just create an immersive sim. They're not making any more deus exes or dishonored. So take a license that's dormant, make it an immersive sim, call it a day. I'm all for it. And then it's just purely out of 20 questions importance, your character wears a hat. Yes. Definitively. Definitively. It's also the Nazis are the antagonists in this. and sometimes Indiana Jones is just like killing people wantonly like Nathan Drake is but it's good to get back to the Nazis

29:14Justin Davis:yep well it's because they tried getting away in Temple of Doom right ever since then it's like no the bad guys have to be Nazis also the giant priest though there is that guy or whatever he is the assistant yeah okay well the next game I nominate I don't think will be a surprise to anyone it would be Elden Ring nice also on my list what is i mean what is there else what what is there to say about eldon ring that hasn't already been said one of the best open worlds if not the best open world to explore in video games breath the wild tears of the kingdom might have a claim to make there but man like thinking about like when i just when i think back of my time playing through that game going through plains forests swamps mountains scorched earth and then diving into caves and minds digging down into the earth and then going into dungeons and castles with all the verticality like it just feels it's an epic memory in my mind like the journey that i went on in that game it is and like you can play the game on its own terms like the dark souls hard dark souls combat and you know like lore strewn about everywhere but like you can also just like we talk about breaking games there's ways to break it in in ways that the developers might not have intended but then there's also just you know ways you can just just go rune farm just go rune farm for a while until you're op enough and you can just bulldoze your way past this boss or maybe there's a new item a weapon or a piece of armor that you don't have yet that you think will give you a leg up getting that item will send you on a whole sort of mini adventure that takes you to multiple locations and then you end up coming back to where you wanted to get to in the first place and i don't know it's just not no game has ever felt this epic and as as open to me although you know

31:01Sam Claiborn:you guys also make good points about bottles gate 3 i mean it's the it's it's wild to talk about elden ring because of how ubiquitous it's become just in terms of uh the general gaming public and even the non-gaming public know what elden ring is which is wild coming from the people who you know were considered a b-tier publisher publishing quote-unquote budget games like eternal ring or ever grace or whatever and it's just like how did they go from making that to to this stuff uh you know stuff that nobody wanted to review back when demon souls and dark souls came out to this is like this is the most high profile game of uh quite possibly the decade you know and it's just only elden ring could have gotten from soft to that point you know what i mean like a game of this scope and size and also accessibility that can bring them from obscure publisher and developer to something that is just now synonymous kind of with like i would liken it to the heaviest of hitters in terms of developers, like up there with CD Projekt Red and whatnot.

32:07Justin Davis:Yeah, it's the kind of game that when it's all over and done with, there's a little bit of sadness because who knows if we'll ever have a game like this again.

32:15Sam Claiborn:Elden Ring 2 when? A lot of a multiplayer version. I do like Night Rain quite a bit. Night Rain rocks.

32:21Justin Davis:Night Rain is not for me. It's not quite the... It doesn't scratch the Elden Ring edge for me. Remember the Switch 2 version? That's going to come out sometime. Yeah, that got delayed. Yeah, right. Resident Evil 4.

32:39Justin Davis:Okay, Elden Ring. Anything else to nominate, Nick?

32:42Sam Claiborn:I'm sorry to do this. I have to do it, though, because I feel it in my soul. I originally nominated the original Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube version of this. You'll throw the remake in there, too. They're both in there. I think Resident Evil 4 Remake has to be on this list. I've been, ever since that episode, I've been thinking about RE4 Remake. So literally last night, I loaded up RE4 Remake, played through the opening chapter where the village is chasing you and the bell rings and where's everyone going, bingo? And just like, I put the controller down. I was like, this game's incredible, man.

33:18Sam Claiborn:Like, this game is so good. How do they take a masterpiece and then just like one-up themselves? I'm like, yeah, we also made another masterpiece in remaking this original masterpiece. Everything about this game just feels good to play. It looks insane. It's just so fun. The guns are all so unique. There's so many different ways of playing this game. The replayability, the value of the mercenaries added on, the separate ways DLC, and just, oh, it's so good. It's so good, Damon. How lucky are people to be able to play 2, 3, 4, like right in a row, and they're all just exquisite games. Truly. Every time I see footage of this game, I should play some more Resident Evil 4 remake right now.

34:03Sam Claiborn:It's just so good.

34:05Justin Davis:I love this. It would be wild to have both the original and the remake on the list. And both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

34:11Sam Claiborn:Hey man, when you get it right, you get it right.

34:14Justin Davis:That's a really good one. Sam, how about you? Another game? Yeah. This one's a little bit of a twist. and I think about it all the time and I really, really enjoy it. And it's for some really specific reasons. So I'm going to throw Tunic out there. It's not because it's like a cute little Zelda game that's great. It's because of the manual and because of the way it thought out what does paper and guides and packaging and what did those all add to the original experience of playing a game? And that's what we've lost this generation. That's what's gone. You get everything digital or you get a little package with a piece of paper or you buy a really expensive edition.

34:54I think there's something about, and they did a really good job with this, even though it's all digital, like the tactile nature of like kind of figuring out this game through clues that are meta, that are outside the game is so smart. And I just like, you can't copy this. Somebody else shouldn't do this. Tunic should just exist, you know? And then the core game of Tunic is fantastic. I mean, all this, like the isometric parts of it are just really pretty. the challenge is really good it kind of learned a little bit from the souls likes and there's space to not be an epic game to be a great game and this game it achieves epicness through this like kind of back path of retro and i just thought it was like worth mentioning a game like this because there's other ones there's shovel nights and there's like um scene world dig and like there's games that reference old games and they're out there and they're they're there are also almost uh you know meta texts of those games but this is the one and i think it's

35:50Sam Claiborn:it's beautiful yeah it's it took what i liked about fez like i love games that force you to to learn a like their language that that it's speaking and it's very much fez in that regard but what i appreciate about this over something like fez is the more you know action-oriented Zelda gameplay that is that's packaged around this kind of fully fleshed out world. And yeah, it just felt like I was transported back to being a kid and learning all the intricacies of a game and hearing playground secrets or stuff that you just felt like a genius for figuring out or, you know, realizing that there's a mechanic in the game that was there the entire time that you didn't even know about.

36:30In some respects, it's it is like, um, uh, what did you nominate last time. What's the RPG game that, uh, Undertale graphics Undertale. Yeah. It has the level of, um, weirdness and complexity that Undertale had because there's this like unnamed person that noted up this manual and like, you know, the ending actually changes depending on, you know, how you end up playing the game, what you learn from the kind of like hints that you're getting. It has a lot of Undertale to it. And so I think that's neat too. Anyway, I just want to make space for these littler games. because they can be wonderful.

37:07Justin Davis:Well, then along those same lines, speaking of making space for these smaller games, I would nominate Blotro. I was going to say that. Yep. I mean, I was going to have it be like an honorable mention. What a great game. I'll let you take the blurb. Yeah, I think it's a perfectly made game with no story, no lore, just a game, and it's absolutely perfect. I mean, the clarity of vision of like, Like, you know, I don't know how this game was made, but the fact that it kind of works and the insane sort of like, you know, multipliers combined with the points that you earn and all the crazy jokers and then the order that you put them, like, as I'm playing it, I'm like, how does a game like this get designed and balanced?

37:51It's just unbelievable to me.

37:53Justin Davis:I mean, I feel like it's the type of game that can only come from one person. Like it has to have that clear a vision. like it's it's a it's a it's an auteur work right yeah if yeah that's like that's actually a pretty good way to think about it it's like there's no way a company or a collective could ever sort of align on like yes this is what this product should be so i have an international flight coming up maybe that's where i can delve in what's the platform to play it on it's on everything you can play on your iphone it is a good idea to maybe do it on a phone if it's on a plane then text would be small on a phone i but i had no problems playing it on a switch or a steam deck yeah i i play it on steam deck all the time yeah i was thinking about bringing the deck anyway so maybe we'll do that cool do we like i had a couple honorable mentions one was blotter one i don't know how old it is damon but like i don't know so if it's in this time frame but slay the spire

38:42Sam Claiborn:is pretty similar i was i was also gonna suggest slay the spire the perfect game yeah pretty much right like every single game now that's released on steam is a roguelike deck builder thanks to slay the spire all of them i mean i don't make the rules um i mean i don't like i got i don't really want to do a full blurb but just like the prototypical you know roguelike deck builder that just it's one of those games that did it perfect first time out and has not actually been surpassed yet like you know i really like monster train but like slay the spire is still the best at all of them you know there's dozens and dozens of them agreed i feel that same way about vampire survivors and i've played a lot of those kind of survivor likes and a lot of them are very good but the original is still the best to ever do it um so that's that's my other kind of like uh uh you know honorable mention although justin i believe you're still yet to play monster

39:37Justin Davis:train 2 is that right that's true yep yeah i know that slated the spire is the is the the community favorite uh the gamer's favorite but i personally think monster train 2 surpasses it oh there's still slay the spire 2 coming i know i thought i thought it was supposed to come out this year but yeah delayed the next year i i felt like a dummy because i played i mean i don't know how many hours of slay the spire i played dozens and dozens and then i watched i saw a youtube thumbnail that was like slay the spire lore explained and it was like a door in my brain opened where it had never even crossed my mind that I'm like, oh, yeah, you are in a spire and you are fighting.

40:18I'm like, and then you talk to this weird whale at the start of every run. And then it's like the YouTube video, like, you know, lays out like there's all these like lore hints and secrets and like, who are you actually killing and why are you killing them? It's like, it just never, it never crossed my mind of like, who are you and why are you in this spire? And like, um, and then it was, it's in preparation of the sequel, which is supposedly like slightly more story forward and so I'm excited to dig into that. The Spire Strikes Back.

40:48Justin Davis:Yeah. I play all these games on my Steam Deck and I have my games sorted by recently played and so I can see I just bounce between Monster Train 2 Bellatro Slay the Spire, Ball Pit it's just bouncing just going through all these roguelike games they're the best games. Roguelikes are the best genre. 11 out of 10 genre. Sam wait did we get Spelunky on our list way back I think I failed to mention it although I would absolutely one or two I can't remember which one you settle on now I prefer the first one I think okay I'd also

41:23Sam Claiborn:throw Binding of Isaac on there but that's just me yeah I mean it's not just you

41:28Justin Davis:it's a very very popular game

41:41Justin Davis:uh and sam i know recency bias is a real thing would you nominate ghost of yote um i i mean i i would be more inclined to nominate assassin's creed because we haven't really talked about the modern assassin's creed suites although i think that the you know the the there's there's the others right there's odyssey and mirage and everything so that's really tough i i think i think shadows is the best and i really like assassin's creed games so yeah it's tough i think i i don't know that my favorite is ass scream at before still i just haven't played it so long you know those pirates battles were so fun persistent rumors about you know a remake of four that you know i don't know we'll see seems like they're changing

42:23Sam Claiborn:a lot of stuff based on a lot of the rumors for that ac4 remake but i'm a ac2 brotherhood girly myself. Yeah, me too. Brotherhood, the American one? No, the one. Brotherhood's the one in Rome. Brotherhood's Rome, right? Or is that the other AC2? It's Rome. AC2 ends in Rome, if I'm not mistaken, where you kill the Pope.

42:48Justin Davis:AC2 ends up you're getting to a fist fight with the Pope. Correct. They haven't remade any of those really old ones, right? They're a good remake. Those ones are neat because it's almost like And we should mention the Hitman trilogy. Hitman ended up being one single giant. The world of assassination. Yeah, it's kind of amazing. You know, that's like a pretty landmark game. But yeah, I think those Assassin's Creed games are cool like that because it's just like the Assassin's all it's about. There's like the checklist, like getting it perfect. Love that stuff. I really haven't. Didn't they? They announced some Assassin's Creed Infinity thing that was going to be some portal where you could play and launch all the Assassin's Creed games or something like that.

43:27Yes. I think they announced that like six years ago. And I don't think it ever, like did it ever come out?

43:31Sam Claiborn:That's the wrapper of shadows. So when you open up shadows, you can launch any of the other. But that is like Hitman. Yes. Yeah. They're trying to make it an all-in-one. If you have like the most recent Assassin's Creed game installed, you should be able to play it from that little wrapper that they have, if I'm not mistaken. Okay.

43:49Justin Davis:So I think it did come out. They just didn't make a big fanfare and they didn't call it infinity.

43:53Sam Claiborn:We'll see what it's like when Assassin's Creed Hex comes out.

43:56Justin Davis:Yeah.

43:56Sam Claiborn:that's oh my god which one which i like the idea of the salem witch trial seems fun like that a lot yep it sounds i mean they if they really do dip into fantasy that's where you're gonna get a change enough in the series to be interesting big monster battles and stuff like that i think their combat system oh and i know people hate hearing this i think the concept system is better than a souls combat system i just think it's like more it's just it's just more accessible and I think that's a good thing. Is this AC2?

44:29Justin Davis:Is this a trailer for AC2? I know, it looks so good. This would be like 2007 or 2008.

44:34Sam Claiborn:They made some good looking trailers. Yeah. The AC trailers were always such big E3 events every year and like just the baller like they were always so timed well to like music. It was just like the cinematics team at Ubisoft just flexing. Oh yeah, this is the Brotherhood trailer I believe because he just called in his brotherhood to kill all those dudes. Well, and then is that the game that really had, oh no, the eagles were always in the towers. They took that out in the Assassin's Creed Japan game. You couldn't use the eagle vision to mark up all the enemies. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times.

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47:06Justin Davis:Okay, lots of good games to consider. Let's move on to some news of the week. Nintendo raised its hardware forecast as Switch 2 sales hit 10.36 million. crazy seems pretty good yep doing pretty well for comparison uh what the render the the in the same time period the original switch sold 4.7 million so wow more more than double the uh sales that the switch one did and then the playstation 5 in its launch window did 7.8 million so outsold the ps5 launch best-selling fastest selling console of all time so i wish we knew the demographics economy i know i know i know first of all it's expensive our kids buying it we haven't even had the holiday season yet i just it all those things add up to i'm just super curious yep we haven't had new mario yet they haven't increased the price of the console and so i think i mean i remember talking about this months ago like if you're if you're considering ever buying a nintendo switch to like buy it now because a it's not going to get any cheaper for years and years and years if it ever gets any cheaper and b just from a dollar cost averaging standpoint like you'll just get more days with your switch to with this you could pay 500 today or pay 500 or maybe more in two years so you might as well just buy it if you have the money to buy it yeah so i think i think some people maybe not in those exact terms but this element of like if i have the disposable income If I'm in the consideration set to buy this thing, I might as well just pull the trigger on it.

48:36Sam Claiborn:Yeah, I know that there was a lot, you know, pre-Switch 2 launch, there was a lot of, you know, people who were saying, oh, it's just a Wii Wii U situation all over again and blah, blah, blah. You know, calling it a Switch 2 is a mistake or whatever. And, you know, granted, I didn't think it'd be as successful as this ended up being, but hats off to them, man. They nailed it.

48:58Justin Davis:I mean, it's almost twice as expensive as the Switch one. And y 'all bought it, and now everything's going to be expensive forever. Yeah. It's our fault. Nintendo had previously forecast$15 million sold by the end of March 2026. Now they've raised that to$19 million. I think they're going to sell an extra$4 million. And that's a huge... I mean, they're a publicly traded company, right? And so to raise their sales target like that is a big... Like, they're really feeling themselves, basically. like they they know that they're they're on a heater right now mario kart world has sold almost 10 million copies so almost everyone who's little just about everyone wow like you had to kind of you had to kind of get over the system right but only 8 million of those were from the bundle so over a million people bought a switch 2 and then paid 80 for because i think a bunch of people just went ahead and pre-ordered it right because nobody yeah maybe i do also think for a while

49:55Sam Claiborn:people did seem to struggle to get the version of the the the console with this the the game packaged in if i'm not mistaken yeah you know i mean unfortunately like they really didn't let critics at this and so a lot of people pre-ordered mario kart without knowing that it wasn't the best mario kart ever made just being like there's a new switch system if i'm gonna get the switch i'm gonna get mario kart because they're always the greatest games ever and unfortunately this wasn't that right yeah yeah i i don't know what normies think of mario kart world yeah i'd be kind of curious to get a little bit more mainstream perspective i'm like they probably just don't care right like yeah i'm cutting plenty to like i mean it's not it's not bad it is not a bad game

50:36Justin Davis:by any means it's so good it still feels like really really good it's the go-to like hey do

50:43Sam Claiborn:you guys want to play a video game together all right let's play some mario kart sure like it not everyone's going to be, you know, us. What the real stat was that was surprising is that they sold, uh, 10 million cameras and everybody's using them on earth.

51:00Justin Davis:They did not. I don't think they shared, uh, any stats.

51:03Sam Claiborn:I want to know how many people paid for the, uh, breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom upgrade packs.

51:09Justin Davis:Yeah. I don't know. Well, those are incredible. Yeah.

51:12Sam Claiborn:Oh yeah. I just curious. Right. Cause I know I did. I wish they'd re-release that as like the big giant box collector's edition with both in one. I'm such a sucker for Zelda stuff like that. That'd be sick. That would be good. Did I read that the it's an animal crossing upgrade five bucks. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So I, I feel like Nintendo, I like their strategy as it's throwing a dartboard at how much to charge for this stuff. It's like anywhere from five to$20 and it's just completely arbitrary. Yeah.

51:40Justin Davis:Yeah. Well, the second best selling switch to game is Donkey Kong Bonanza three and a million sold so one one out of every three switch to owners bought donkey on bonanza and ham oh banana indeed i mean we just thought you know we i i love this game still one of my favorites of the year but we always talked about how it's you know it's not going to do anywhere near as well as a mario 3d mario would do but it's doing pretty well and it's yes well it's just going to keep selling from here so yep this might be proving that like i and remember nintendo kept on making donkey con games we don't always get a bunch of sales stats but like yeah you know they're they're kept on being remakes of those donkey con games i think there's something to it i think they sell well in america so 10.36 million switch 2 sold it has now it's outsold the dreamcast ip and any day now that's so sad any day now it will outsell the wii u yep probably next quarter lifetime sales for sure it's only a few like tens of thousands of units away I think from outselling the Wii U.

52:42Sam Claiborn:Give me Nintendo Land Nintendo please.

52:45Justin Davis:Nintendo Land Switch 2 edition?

52:47Sam Claiborn:Yes. Good game.

52:53Justin Davis:Sam have they done it again? Has Digital Eclipse done it again with the Mortal Kombat Legacy collection? You know they have. I will qualify one thing I haven't played a single game. Oh that's the other thing I haven't either. I've spent the last two or three evenings just watching the documentary oh really this is awesome this is so great but i did read today that there's i think there's some like online like matchmaking issue issues that gamers are having there's some fresh choices with that but if you just watch the documentary back in the day i mean we all have our mortal combat stories i was in a peter piper pizza above a little uh skating area where all these big kids were skating and smoking cigarettes and went up there and then there was this ultraviolet video game like i'm too young for all this stuff it was overwhelming in phoenix arizona so that was really really yeah i i love mortal combat i love just looking back at the just the aesthetics of it and just you know every single thing the dragon the cabinets the and then of course the motion captured like digitization of stuff like it still looks awesome to me it's so interesting and crazy and bright and flashy i just love it so much and the transition from mortal combat one to two was also really interesting anyway documentaries are amazing and i wanted to call out that the um um the last documentary we were talking about like told one of the best stories of of the year which was jordan mcner and his dad right and just like they establish these great characters and there's a bunch of great characters in this documentary but the one i want to call out is might be a little bit surprising it's that later so there's there's like five or something timelines in this it's not just one timeline so after they go through the mortal combat one and too, and then talk about, you know, a little bit of the controversies if they don't really go into that that much.

54:37There's not a ton of Joe Lieberman talking about video game violence. I thought it'd be focused on that. No, it's about developing the game and, and how it came to be in this kind of Atari, sorry, midway, uh, uh, pinball factory, which was, of course, I think that's really interesting. Anyway, the story and the hero of the story ends up being the woman that plays Sonia and she's in it so much. And she was like working for like, I think the playboy club in Chicago. and done acting stuff. And they got her to come over and do motion capture for two. And then she became like this, they did like a touring Mortal Kombat martial arts show.

55:12And she didn't have any training, but she learned it for that. And then she has like all these great stories. Everybody there like loves her. She became like part of the development community. And she just like, she's just so funny and interesting. And she's just there with all these people that made that game. And her stories are great. It's just worth watching for like stuff like that. in it you would not expect can you imagine what a touring like it's like mortal combat on ice dude that sounds sick yeah yeah that's steve ritchie by the way that guy with with the super

55:43Sam Claiborn:saiyan i got a question about this like roughly how much documentary would you say that is is available in this hours and hours really okay yeah i'm gonna check this out today this looks

55:54Justin Davis:great it's so good so this is digital eclipse they did they kind of kicked things off with Atari 50 a few years ago. The Karatika one. They did the making of Karatika, which is also good. Last year was Tetris Forever, I want to say. All this stuff is great. They're interactive museums built around a game or a series that you watch. They've done all these interviews. They have this archival footage. In Mortal Kombat's case, you're watching them film the people doing all the poses and the moves that they ended up digitizing into the game. Also, Midway, the company was a Chicago company. So for me, I love Chicago.

56:29Justin Davis:I lived there for five years after college. So it's just cool to see, you know, that time, early 90s, Chicago, people making a video game. They talk about how in Midway at that time, they were just, they were trying to make as gory and bloody games as they could. And then they go show the executives at the company and the executives like, yeah, that's good. Yeah. There was never internal pushback. They never stood up. Even by three or whatever, nobody ever said, you guys are doing something wrong here. They figured out solutions. They figured out the weird Super Nintendo solution for one thing.

57:01And then Nintendo changed that and said, okay, we sold so far fewer units that we're going to just let you do this. You just have to put this as recommended for 17 and above on your cover. They just did whatever they wanted. And they also addressed and this is like, they mentioned this as being controversial that more than the violent stuff they're like we just worked every waking hour and lived at the pinball factory to make these games and they're like we still run a company and like we know how bad that sounds and we know but this is all we wanted to do this was our life's project this was our passion project we loved it we all liked each other so much and we were all such good pals that like it didn't even occur to us that this was the wrong thing to be that type of stuff you get a window into how you know when people just obsess over this creative endeavor and they have to solve so many problems like they were like you know digitization did not exist it just didn't exist they just learned it on the job and invented it and even by like the second game they're like yeah this guy brought in this thing called photoshop and we're just like oh this this is going to help a lot you know i love the the the digitized actors like they went from looking incredible and amazing in the 90s.

58:14This is horseshoe. And then they look terrible for 20 years. And now they look incredible again. Now, like, this art style is aged so well. And you're like, okay, this is rad. And then I guess they had to learn on the job, too, like, balancing a fighting game. Like, Battle Combat 1, like, you don't think about it. But, like, they would issue ROM upgrades. And that's how they got, like, secrets and stuff in. And, you know, they would iterate. And by 3, they really thought about balance. And then they put in a game I thought the trilogy was, like, you know, the super smash brothers roster basically of characters.

58:44And that was all about it. Like that stuff is really interesting for people that were just like kind of an artist and a programmer and like, you know, we're looking at street fighter. I have one other thing I want to mention is that everything in this game is discussed as secret. So the whole point of mortal combat, um, was, and they knew this from street fighter that they didn't, they called high kick, high punch, low kick, low punch, the moves, right. And everything else, throwing a, you know, doing a get over here or throwing an ice fireball or whatever. Those are all secret moves and including the fatalities.

59:18They didn't publicize any of it. Everybody had to figure it out. And when people, that's what the fun was, is that people go to the arcade. Not, I remember that as a little kid for fatalities, but it was for everything. It was like, again, this is one of those moments. We've talked about this on the show before that, like, if you're a younger gamer now, you will absolutely never understand how insane it was to be in an arcade and see finish him come off come up and see someone pull off a fatality yeah it's like how like it was like i remember adrenaline rushes from it like adrenaline you know and like it would be one of two things one it was either you know some pro that knew like you know knew the move or like you'd play the game 100 times and you'd mash random buttons and then you pull off a fatality once you'd be like oh You would lose your mind when that happened.

1:00:07It was the best. Yeah, and just like, that's why there's things like Toasty and Ermac and everything. They would play those up, and sometimes they would seed stuff that wasn't true. Yep. And it was just so smart. Like, everything was, it was viral. It was viral moments, you know? For me, Mortal Kombat is secrets. Like, that's what it is for me in the 90s. It's just like, it just felt impossible. and like you'd hear like the playground rumors of like you know like well like i fought a guy and his name was reptile and it's like shut up no you didn't but it's like it turns out like yeah it's true did you know you could do a friendship instead of a fatality you could like win them over with love i was like that's a lie no so sam i think the guy that created this digitization tech

1:00:54Justin Davis:I think was the programmer of Qbert. Is that right? Which is like - Warren Davis. You and I interviewed him a few years ago and we just talked about Qbert. I didn't know he was talking about making that for Mortal Kombat. Yeah, he's just in the documentaries that people talk to him for like, they've noticed people for five years and then all of a sudden they're like, you made Qbert? Yeah. So the first game they used in him was this football game that I'm not familiar with. But then the second one was NARC, which I did never put together. But now it's like, okay, because they went from NARC to Mortal Kombat and I was like okay that makes sense now but I never put that together before it's great also Ed Boon it's like what a unique guy he's just made his whole career out of basically making one game series there's Injustice also but basically he just made Mortal Kombat his entire career there aren't too many it was down and out for a long time and then came back it's like bigger than ever it's unbelievable crazy prepare yourself for exciting new Mortal Kombat movie figure versions of Blue Kang, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Sub-Zero.

1:02:00Justin Davis:Mortal Kombat action figures and movie action figures each sold separately. Checking back in with listeners, this is Bill Nahilla, and Bill does not have a question. He just wrote us a very nice note here. So Bill says, I would first like to say that I love the show and the whole team at IGM. I was a military brat in the Air Force and first experienced video games like Pong in the late 70s. We were stationed in In Okinawa, I was very young, but it instantly grabbed me, and I have not let go. As a teenager, we were stationed in Omaha, Nebraska. It's a little different from Okinawa. This was in the early 80s in the boom of arcades.

1:02:30Justin Davis:My parents would drop me off at the mall with 20 bucks, and I could buy enough tokens and food to spend half the day there. Granted, half the time was watching others play games and learning and looking in awe. The roller skating rink was another avenue for games like Asteroids, Defender, Missile Command, and Atari football with a trackball. Extra challenging when in roller skates. Fast forward, I'm obviously still playing video games, still have nostalgia for them and the history of them. Your show has been incredible for the past, present, and future of video games, and I want to thank you for providing that to me and others.

1:02:58Justin Davis:I'm now a grandfather and love to hear you and Justin talk about playing games with your kids. I've been playing video games with my grandson for about two years now, started on tablet and now playing on the PS5 with games like Astro's Playroom, Bluey, and Hot Wheels Unleashed. I am a store manager for the best and largest grocery chain in the Southeast. I actually don't know what that would be. I will often onboard many of the associates that are hired and do icebreakers with them. One of my favorites is to ask them what their most used iPhone app, what their most used phone app is or what video game they're currently playing.

1:03:30Justin Davis:I also tell them what I'm playing as well. This will not only open up their eyes, but also open up a connection that helps me lead them in their growth as an associate. I am literally relating to associates that are 40-ish years younger than me. I was transferred over a decade ago to a new store and had a long drive. This is when I found my love for podcasts. two of my early favorites were GameScoop and Stuff You Should Know, which Sam has referenced.

1:03:50Sam Claiborn:Oh, I love Stuff You Should Know.

1:03:51Justin Davis:I just want to say thank you to all the other hosts and the miles of entertainment you have provided over the years. Seriously, thank you. That's very nice. That's very sweet. Thank you very much.

1:04:01Sam Claiborn:That is very nice. Thank you.

1:04:02Justin Davis:He says, P.S. I have a 20 questions game, but we'll need to research it to make sure it hasn't been used before.

1:04:08Sam Claiborn:Report back.

1:04:09Justin Davis:Yeah, that's good. Very, very nice, and there would be no show without people listening to the show and watching the show like you, Bill. we love making the show. Thank you for hanging out with us once a week to talk about video games. But we also do extracurricular activities and I watched the first three episodes of The Chair Company. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it's good. The mystery develops. Yeah, it's good. Anyone, have you watched it yet? Yes. Okay. I'm caught up. So I haven't watched The Friendship yet. So this is my first experience of him outside of I Think You Should Leave. I think this is better than Friendship.

1:04:45Justin Davis:Okay. This is an I Think You Should Leave podcast. Everyone's very familiar with the type of crazy, unhinged character he plays there. It's in sketch, so you're only hanging out with one scene or character for a few minutes, and then you're on to the next thing. So it's wild to take that insane character and make him the lead of an ongoing series, a 30-minute show where, you know, but it works, I think. I think it works. I'm enjoying it, and it's funny, and I'm interested in the mystery. I actually got frustrated because I didn't realize it wasn't all out yet so I finished the third episode and I couldn't watch anymore I was like what?

1:05:19Justin Davis:So maybe I'll wait until it's all done and finish the whole thing but I like it it's funny and it's good and I'm interested in the mystery oh also on I Think You Should Leave he has a knack for finding just strange looking older people older actors and the chair company is also filled with that type of person Do you think he's involved in that level of stuff with this show? Because it feels very him right?

1:05:42Sam Claiborn:yeah it does question i think when you have comedians like uh tim robinson i i think it's uh he's very good at people like him are very good at recognizing what the funniest possible outcome or who the funniest possible thing or person is to say something and he has no shit or he has no like pride in being you should have this line because it'll be way funnier coming from your lips than mine and uh those people i always respect because you are the comedian mastermind but you know how to arm the people to elevate something to make it even funnier yeah is that lou diamond phillips by the way the head of the company oh i believe so i thought it was i don't know yeah he's great by the way that has a copy it's really a cool character i think it has like severance level elements to it it has like what you know what what's the mysteries like that which is good and then yeah the app the absolute like uh putting up with uh you know he's he's a crazy character a lot of the times but there's other people they're not all straight straight characters right there's the there's the guy that beats him up and stuff and you know the world accepts this level of like manic craziness that that i think you should leave as as well

1:06:58Justin Davis:it's great whenever a breakout you know comedian sort of emerges on the scene the temptation for everyone who wants to work with him must be to have him come on to be the comic relief it's a lot more gutsy i think to like make him the star and then also like he is still like hilarious and weird and and insane but also he shows a little bit more range than he gives it's an opportunity to show a little bit more range than he does on i think you should leave right so good it seems to be working chair company's good it's on hbo and then also over the weekend we took the kids to see k-pop demon hunters in the theater and that was super fun and awesome it was great awesome

1:07:31Sam Claiborn:nice a sing-along it's a sing-along version so they put the words up on the screen for all the

1:07:36Justin Davis:the the songs and then everyone you can just be as loud and do whatever in the theater so how do they get kids to not trash it like the mar the minecraft movie well they these we these are younger kids uh than the minecraft kids i think although it was really funny recently i heard we were playing uno and kingo said crap and you know what we're not like man we're like oh what what that's interesting where did you hear that word and after after some prying he said he heard in the Minecraft movie.

1:08:03Sam Claiborn:It's better that than him saying chicken jockey all the time. Well, there's the my kids sing the lava chicken song, which one of the lines is it's hotter than hell in that song. And like I gave my daughter some side eye. I'm like, oh.

1:08:18Justin Davis:Yeah, unfortunately, my kids like the lava chicken song too. We just don't draw attention to it. They don't know what they're saying. But K-pop Demon Hunters, our theater was only about half full and no one was in the front rows. So by halfway through the movie, I think Most of the kids in the theater were just right up there, right in front of the screen, singing, dancing and acting out the movies. It was, it was really fun. It was great. That's cute. So I went to the movie theater last week. I saw Frankenstein. Oh yeah. And it's coming to home, but I'm really happy. I saw it in the theater because it's gorgeous.

1:08:48It's so fun. And it was the best going to like a Halloween spooky movie before Halloween. It was like on Wednesday and a weird, a weird theater down by a city hall in San Francisco. It was awesome. And that movie is like, it's good. It's a really good Frankenstein movie, but you know, it's, it's just, it was a total pleasure. Did I talk about it last week? Maybe I did. No, I thought I talked about the Peter Jackson, not Peter Jackson. I thought I talked about the interview on, on a fresh air. You didn't talk about that, but then it was like, you, I think you were going to talk about gear. Okay.

1:09:21Yeah. Which is really worth checking out as well. Yeah. This movie is super like, like, like it's a good Halloween movie. it is like I was our review talks about how gory it is and like it really is like nothing compared to the boys which is like funny how crazy things have gotten you watch gen v and you're like that's the most gory thing that exists right now this is nothing on that but yeah a lot of killing cool

1:09:47Sam Claiborn:I'm excited yeah good monster good monster study and play come together on a windows 11 pc And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. This summer, Prime Video takes you back before Legally Blonde. before law school and into the world of Elle Woods in high school.

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1:10:51Justin Davis:I'm looking forward to seeing Fragots Time.

1:11:01Justin Davis:And that brings us to Video Game 20 Questions. And our suggestion this week comes from Matt, who has a little anecdote to share. Matt says, thanks so much for producing my favorite podcast. I've been listening for about five years. Haven't missed an episode. I just wanted to add another suggestion for the 10 gaming commandments, the 10 commandments of gaming. Thou shalt earn a cut scene. I do believe that a good, I believe a good story can add so much to a game. probably my most meaningful gaming moments have been due to effective narrative, but I hate it when a game starts with a long cut scene or dialogue involving characters I am not yet invested in.

1:11:32Justin Davis:There should be a minimum of 30 minute time limit before any story pause. Here endeth the lesson. And that's nice when the title screen comes up then too. Yeah. Because you're like, ooh, that's when the game really starts. Every JRPG ever starts with a seven minute cut scene where you have no, it's incredibly significant to the plot, but you have no idea what any of it means. I mean, they're all emulating Lord of the Rings, right? Like that's where that came from. It's always a girl. There's always some woman holding an orb of some kind. You never know what that orb is about. Matt says, while I'm here, I have a suggestion for 20 questions.

1:12:04Justin Davis:I grew up in the UK, so I have a slightly different gaming heritage to you guys. I had never had an NES, never owned an Xbox. Although I've had Atari. Every time I say that about people in Europe, people like, no, you're putting in. It's like the sales figures are like 1%. but yeah atari he had a zx80 and a zx81 spectrum vic 20 atarist and then gameboy mega drive super nintendo nintendo 64 dreamcast psp all the playstations and both switches so it says anyway not sure if the above is much of a clue but i thought redacted might be a fun suggestion for 20 questions as the redacted is still quite unique and a bit topical i'm gonna go for the jugular is it saber wolf i'm kidding let the questioning begin 50 50 it's saber wolf uh all right did this game come out in the 70s 80s or 90s yes

1:13:03Sam Claiborn:saber wolf dream is alive uh is this an isometric game no okay i'm not saber wolf is this game based on a license no i don't know many zx spectrum games and all that stuff alfred chicken is that that feels very british right that came to nes asterisk and obelisk whatever it's called i don't even know did this game appear on the nes yes cool uh was this game also released in arcades yes That's five. Was it developed in Japan? Yes. Is this game a platformer? No.

1:13:51Sam Claiborn:NES game developed in Japan. Was it developed before 1983?

1:13:58Justin Davis:No. Is two player a main component of this game? No. Interesting. Could be punch out. yeah interesting yeah Nintendo Sega Capcom Konami sort of the kind of places we're playing with here Namco Namco

1:14:27Sam Claiborn:but they kind of gave a clue though about a different taste yeah I don't know arcade is the I mean it could be sports game or something that started in the arcade too is this a sports or fighting game no that's 10 it's not punch out punch out counts as fighting boxing's fighting correct I mean that's all the games right that's all the game types

1:14:59race it could be racing doesn't count as sports is this developer still around

1:15:07Justin Davis:I have to look that up I'm probably going to feel really silly Sounds like it's not Nintendo Probably not a Nintendo game y 'all

1:15:16Sam Claiborn:Or Capcom Or Namco I guess We don't like to metagame Well

1:15:29Justin Davis:This company is not Currently In operation i wonder if it's hudson like adventure island or something like that

1:15:39Sam Claiborn:oh but then it had a different name in in europe right or like adventure island had a different name i think yeah yeah monster monster boy or whatever it is um or maybe that's a sub series i can't quite remember now this is good that got a little bit confusing there but it's not a platformer not a not a platformer do you use a joystick to control your character in the arcade version of this no oh

1:16:14what does that mean trackball it's so many things i mean just steering wheels right steering wheel good call that's much more likely than trackball and plus it's not isometric so it can't be like outrun or something like that i mean afterburner what do we how many questions are yet you've asked 12. do you drive a car in this game no could still be afterburner did that come to the nes genesis though yeah that's what i thought you don't drive a car i should have asked if you say he's actually really unlikely to come to nes

1:16:53Sam Claiborn:there's just bootlegs we should have it's like did super hang on get like an nes port or something or hang on like a motorcycle style peripheral you know yeah is excite bike in the arcade yeah but only as a play choice game which has a good joystick not controlled by joystick not a racing game not a car racing not a car racing game do we like a vehicle maybe could be could be duck hunt shooties do you do you shoot a gun in this game no do you pilot a vehicle

1:17:35Justin Davis:uh technically yes and that's 15 oh man if it wasn't developed in japan i'd say tubing yeah it's a tube vehicle no it's not it's a little abstract but technically yes abstract sam we need you ed i've been i've been goofing off after this episode because i assumed once it was a later in this one if we goof off yeah i figured you could just go into it we i would i'd really like to know the developer it's it's can't really can't be sega because sega didn't really publish stuff on nintendo because they're a direct competitor um namco would have been older stuff the most part and remember that i said this deliver is not operating today yeah so you got like irim and like stuff like that it's a complicated you know what about like map mappy yeah that's before 1983 great game though um or at 1983 um okay so the the vehicle abstract thing i think we need to kind of think about that a little bit how do you control this game trackball it has joystick let's think about that so trackball is good because there's like crystal castles and stuff like that but i just can't think of a japanese game that's controlled by trackball um what about centipede what about it this is just so old though yeah that you're right that is too old what if it's something like super goofy like you know um whack-a-mole or something like that

1:19:11Sam Claiborn:and i don't know i don't know where to go with this uh does this game feature a trackball do you control with the trackball no oh do you do you could just it's just oh it's just buttons it's just buttons then maybe it is baby pac-man is that just buttons yeah because it's just the flipper buttons from a pinball machine no i guess there's the little joy i don't know i can't remember which is the joystick is there or it's like a rotary encoder type situation right like one of those little dials yeah those exist for sure i bet it's just buttons though that's kind of the vibe i was getting just buttons that's a tough path for us to be going down though not a platformer not a fighting game you don't shoot a gun track and field maybe not a sports game oh yeah we got that knocked out not a racing game yeah we're in trouble how many questions are you at you have three questions and a guess how is rampart controlled yeah that was a design in the United States great one though that's a trackball one of the last trackball games I can think of marble badness also yeah those are all just midway atari type stuff though the japanese part of this makes this complicated i wonder if there's any characters in the game that are still relevant to this day that's cute is that a business or is the series still going yeah like there might be the developer might be out of business but maybe the character's still relevant let's see is the care does the game feature any characters that are still relevant to this day no oh yeah 100 obviously not sam almost certainly has this game in his house yeah so i mean especially because it's in the nes library exactly but it's just it's hard without the developer you just got such little info and can you imagine a game that was like didn't have a joystick that got bored to nes you know that's that's already really weird right yep yeah isn't that weird

1:21:15Justin Davis:It is really weird. What might they have done in such a situation? Oh, maybe it's a different light gun game. No, we talked about shooting guns, though. Yep. Oh, it's Arkanoid. Because it has a paddle in the arcade? Yeah, and at home. Did this game come with a special controller on the NES? Yes. Okay, is this Arkanoid? Yes, it is Arkanoid.

1:21:40Sam Claiborn:Well done. Yeah, I never would have got that. Taito.

1:21:43Justin Davis:Taito game. and it's ball ball pit related that's exactly why that's exactly what matt said uh it's topical because of ball pit damn arcanoid rocks yeah it didn't have it didn't use the d-pad it came with a mouse controller well it's a spinner it's a spinner i don't think i i don't think i ever knew that i mean i played arcanoid but i used just use the nes yeah same yeah the spinner the encoder it is an encoder just like you were saying it's pretty cute on the nes because it's like a it's like a gray nes shaped controller with just the one knob right in the middle of it it's kind of small cool and justin you are actually a spaceship that's that's yeah i i did know i actually did know that bit of lore it's definitely in the remember the great atari art for breakout yeah where it's like a command operation center and a guy in a spaceship and like explosions all over yep it's so funny oh we almost didn't get there yeah uh yep arkanoid great game they made a sequel the return of doe because doe is the bad guy the villain which is like one of those

1:22:45Sam Claiborn:like maori heads i believe but really popular villains in japanese video games the maori heads

1:22:50Justin Davis:the kanami folks like like them oh my eyes that's what it is yeah uh nicely job thank you for the suggestion matt viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions we need the anecdote well i just told you it was oh that's it that arc might be fun because it's topical because of ball pit okay okay thank you viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for a video game 20 questions email them to me at the email address gamescoop at igne.com and if you are looking for something new to play and also have a way to give back you can head over to humble and grab eight amazing games for just$14.99 including total war warhammer 3 another crab's treasure no more heroes 3 Etrian Odyssey HD Pharaoh A New Age Synergy Spin Hero and Paleo Pines Every purchase supports No Kid Hungry a non-profit that provides meals to students in need across the U.S.

1:23:40Justin Davis:Build your library make an impact and help end childhood hunger Head on over to HumbleBundle.com and start playing today And that's all the scoops that we have for you this week Thank you Nick Thank you Sam Thank you Justin Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible My name is Damon This is IGN GameScoop and we're out

1:24:04Justin Davis:This episode of GameScoop was produced by myself, Damon Hatfield, and Jobert Odienza. Technical direction is handled by Jobert Odienza. 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 Kaganpen. GameScoop is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network.

1:24:58We'll be right back. way. Shop up to 45 % off site-wide right now during the 4th of July VIP access sale at blinds.com.

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