Game Scoop! 837: The 2025 Daemie Awards

21:12This is this I've I've seen it getting a lot of praise from, you know, from roguelite sickos for that. Is this game more difficult than the first one? Because I found the first one to be a little too easy.

21:25Justin Davis:I'd say it's on par. However, like Bellatio, as you beat runs, you unlock higher difficulties. Okay, okay. There are 10 difficulty levels. I am on 10. I'm on the final difficulty tier. And when I eventually beat that, then I feel like I'll be done with Monster Train 2. But I've been playing level 10. I've been trying this for weeks now. I'm going to buy this as soon as we're done. This looks great. You know, in video game form is the best way to play this because I don't want to spend all that time setting up the board game, man. I played the Slay the Spire board game. Very, very fun. But oh my gosh, it takes forever to set up.

22:01And then you got to put it away. It was like, well, we got to save our game and then put it away. Video games take all that out. This is great. I couldn't imagine having to play a train, three floors of a train in a board game. Like, this is great. Do all the easy stuff that I don't want to do for me, please. Yeah. It's great. So what do you think? Train and maim?

22:22Justin Davis:Train and maim. Yeah, that works. That works. Monster Train 2, 11 out of 10, off the charts. Off the charts. For me. Sure.

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25:33Justin Davis:That's mine. I want to hear your games of the year. I didn't know I was going to be asked. You didn't ask for that. This is the Danish. Okay. Off the dome. Off the dome, dude. This is how you know it's real. Okay, Nick. I'll start off. Number five, I'm going to go Donkey Kong Bonanza. Number four, Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. Number three, I'm going to go with, well, let's do number one, Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Number two, oh, shoot, what else came out this year? Name a video game. It could have been Ghost of Yote or Doom the Dark Ages. Silksong? for silksong we'll throw silksong at number three and two we'll put doom the dark ages yeah there you go did you like hades you know i liked it a lot but i liked it significantly less than the first one gosh i can't i cannot do what you just did i very much fall into look this is my primary hobby it's a thing that i spend every single night doing and thinking about but if the way that my brain works if someone says justin name a video game i just can't do it my mind goes completely blank um if dude if your brain wait i mean it's gotta summon it it's gotta be i mean donkey kong and clear obscure are the standouts for new releases this year but i played and continue to play and enjoy a lot of kind of like old like i put a dozen hours into the vampire survivors dlc this year i played a lot a lot more of like i put 100 hours in a modded factorio this year so it's like i'm very much a kind of like you know play what i want to play when i want to play it kind of guy um i played kingdom come deliverance one and talked about it on games this year so those are like those are the most memorable standout video game moments for me this calendar year um but in terms of new releases donkey kong and clear obscure the two that are the top of my pile.

27:28Justin Davis:Sam, would it be Assassin's Creed Shadows for you? No. So one surpassed that. So Prime 4, and I ended up playing it before. I'm playing it still, and I just tried 100 % it, and I think it's really fun. I like every element of it. It's not my favorite Metroid. It's not my favorite Metroid Prime, and it's not even close, but it's still, you know, a Metroid Prime game is still pretty good, no matter what. So I love that one, and then I have a tie for two so this is my two and three place is going to be assassin's creed and yote i like them both a lot for different reasons i don't want to go into that but i think they're both great and then my number one is death stranding too oh yeah yeah yep and um i i basically 100 of that game spent a lot of time in it at the end i wanted to do more i like everything about it i love just connecting the world and seeing other players use my stuff and i got in there early and was making I'm sure I was really helpful.

28:21Yeah. I had a great time. Man, you just reminded me, I played and loved the first six or eight hours of Death Stranding 1. Oh, yeah. And then I was in London and Germany for like two weeks, and then I came back and just couldn't, you know, like it's just that moment of just like, what? Like where am I and what was I doing? Yeah, it's really hard to come back sometimes. And so I do, you know, I don't know if I'm actually going to be, I probably have to start over, which like then that's a whole pain. But like, man, I was loving it. So I am interested in maybe I'll just bite the bullet and watch a story recap and do two instead.

28:58There are some smaller games that I did like, like I like blueprints and there was, you know, there's something that I'm missing that's just sitting on my Steam Deck, which I wish I was shouting out right now. But oh, man, ball pit.

29:10Justin Davis:Ball pit. Oh, I spent a lot of time with ball pit. I'm not not in my top five, but I like ball pit. I'm looking at my I'm looking at my steam stats now to be like, I'd like to swap Doom the Dark Ages with blueprints. There you go. Now my list is done. I think runs take a little too long in Ball Pit. And I like the in-between, like the farming stuff. I'd rather do that a little bit more, have shorter runs and do the farming a little more, I think. The runs can be, I don't know what unlocks it or when, but I play everything on like double speed. Like there's a fast mode. Is that just in the settings?

29:43I don't have to look. No, it's an unlockable. I don't quite remember what triggers it. But like, yeah, you don't have to play it on the normal speed very much.

29:53Justin Davis:All right, now time for some more awards. Here we go. And we're still sticking with games here. So the, hey, this actually turned out pretty great award goes to Avowed, which is like, I just had no hype for that game before release. And we've talked about it. It didn't seem to have, it looks generic, didn't seem to have a personality. It really bugged me that no one had a British accent. But no, the game is really, really fun. It's right up there with, you know, it's like a Skyrim. I think it's very close to Skyrim quality. I don't know how Obsidian did what they did this year. I know. I think that this is like, I think for me, better than Outer Worlds 1, which I cannot wait to see what Avowed 2 is, and hopefully that'll push it past Outer Worlds 2.

30:36You know, like just the baseline is a little stronger for me on this one.

30:40Justin Davis:Okay, I really liked this when I played it for preview, but never got around to playing the final version award. Ghost of Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. But since it's in Nick's Top 5, I guess I really got to make time for it. Dude, I 100 %ed this game. It is so fun. The art is gorgeous. It's challenging. And it's just such a fun and good feeling game. It takes everything that you expect about how good Ninja Gaiden feels in 3D and just like, yeah, we just did that in 2D. It's from the Blasphemous folks, I believe. And just some really fun, hardcore platforming and action. Cool stuff. Love the designs in this game.

31:16And I do love the opening boss fight spoilers for the opening tutorial boss. But the tutorial boss is Ryu, and he's borderline impossible, and it's so sick. I love it when games make you fight. I think you're supposed to lose, but I do think that there is an achievement for beating him.

31:34Justin Davis:Yeah, I love that. I love it. I mean, even before that, the prologue is so cool because you play as Ryu's father in the moments that lead up to the opening cutscene from the original Ninja Gaiden on NES. Very smart, yeah. It's so cool. I'll play this and Nick you play Shinobi if you haven't played that one yet. So that's my that's like a good pitch for how to save Metroid is like don't use Samus don't make Samus silent use some like cool character that leads up to the point in which Samus like you know first starts a mission that's the end of your game like come on we got we got to fix it we got to fix Metroid everybody.

32:07Justin Davis:Samus has gone missing and her daughter is a hundred percent Miles McKenzie is back and He's there to rescue Samus. Oh, Samus is not a name I've heard in a long time. Let me tell you about her for two hours. The most questionable cooperative game to play with a five-year-old award goes to Split Fiction. Yeah. Great game. It's fun. It's not that bad. But there's some comical violence and some like swear words. I think they used the S word in there one time. But I don't think Kingo even noticed. He doesn't know that word. I think there's a lot of S words in that game, if I remember right. well i did turn the language to japanese which is really it makes it really fun to play that's really cool that's a clever workaround i like that that's smart yeah okay this is a hit in my house too i just a really great game all around split fiction i see this is why i don't i can't do off the dump because like yeah this is absolutely one of my top five games of the year and in the ign meetings where you're discussing our official awards i was really advocating for split fiction um i am convinced a lot of people that don't read it more highly didn't get finished like didn't finish it because just the stuff that it's doing in the back you know quarter of that game are just absolutely incredible yeah the mechanics the mechanics the game introduces in the last like two worlds i was like i would play an entire game of just these two like mechanics alone and you could see the last level is like oh this is why this game was concepted of like this is this is why this game exists is that last level is incredibly good that's exactly that's exactly right um and i played it with my 11 year old and it was a good family bonding time same this came out early this year like february or something and kingo still talks about he's like daddy remember when we were hot dogs and then we were the pigs that farted yeah see as he gets a little older you can get him to play a way out with you and then uh you can play tried that we started that but it didn't didn't grab like this one yeah yeah i don't like the other games as much as this one same oh i like the previous one way better uh it takes two i think it takes you is bar for bar a better game no yeah i think it's only the last two levels the last two worlds of this game that are good the rest is kind of boring but clever did sam sam gone i i'm feeling a little intimidated by this rage this is no longer a bug this is a feature of the episode he's back country living i'm so sorry sam please okay moving on see uh justin you can come up in top five but then you can also just make up awards for any other game that you want to mention the densest foliage award assassin's creed shadows which oh my god if you go off the path there you're going to end up in the bushes and the weeds.

35:02Justin Davis:You just can't see anything in front of you. It is very dense foliage. Unlike Yotei, you can get to the top of the mountains in this game if you want to go in whatever direction you want, which I tremendously respect. And I've actually been thinking about going. I haven't played this since, you know, March, probably. But I've been thinking about maybe trying to pick this up again. But maybe I'll run into the same problem that Justin did. And I'll just be like, OK, what? How do I do anything? How do I assassinate? You can turn it to winter and enjoy a completely different game. And how cool is that this game has every season in it?

35:29I mean, that is a remarkable feat of game development.

35:31Justin Davis:Yes. We should also mention that it allows you to turn on instant kills, assassinations, which is the way I think the game should be anyway. I love that they just let you do that if you want to. It makes the game much more fun for me. Smart. Because if you sneak up behind someone and stab them in the neck, they're not going to just lose half their health. Right, right. That's what happens to me, though, so don't try it. Okay, all right. uh okay the uh um the this is all really weird but i'm not mad about it award goes to death stranding 2 yeah that's that's just the box quote for that game basically feel free for the director's cut kojima feel free to use that uh box quote from me uh the most disappointing game that is still pretty great award goes to mario kart world yeah i agree with that good assessment It's just, you know, as a follow up to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and as the first open world Mario Kart game where that was touted as a big feature, I think it's a failure on both of those levels.

36:33Justin Davis:And yet, it's still Mario Kart. It's still great. It's still super fun to play. And I love whatever the Battle Royale mode is called. I forget that one. Knockout. Yeah, the Knockout mode is super fun. I think this game is foundationally there. It could be a great game. You could just add a bunch of open world shit that's so fun in this. They just didn't do it. I mean, they might look like Mario Kart 8 became, you know, Nintendo's first game as a service, almost like they, you know, they updated it for years and years and years and added 50 plus new courses to it. So it's like, maybe world's going to be, you know, around for the lifespan of the switch to who knows?

37:08I mean, I know they've been patching it. They didn't, did they patch in a map for the open world yet where you can see where the P switches are? I don't think so. Not that I've heard. I talked about it when the game was new, so I don't necessarily need to relitigate the whole thing. But I cannot fathom that they put 500 P-switches in this game and know this region has 18 and you've found 16 of them. Or put them on a map or let you buy a map. It completely kills it for me personally. I mean, it completely killed it for our gang guides team. It was one of the hardest games ever to cover. like the open world map is just not it's just a drawing and it's just impossible to get this game completed you know we did it eventually but boy and there's like 1200 stickers right i'm praying that this game has a cyberpunk 2.0 moment yeah where where they just like you know what we we injected a full story mode into the open world everybody have fun i'm not holding my breath for but man, that'd be really nice.

38:10That'd be really sick, Nintendo. Oh no, I'm sorry, Sam.

38:17Justin Davis:It's going to be fun editing this episode. There, he's back.

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39:30Justin Davis:Yeah. That was a big bummer. I love video game golf. I love Hot Shots Golf. I love Mario Golf. It just feels like, it feels like, I mean, it is$40, but it feels budget. It feels really cheap. It's ugly. It doesn't have any personality. It's generic and has really annoying voiceovers in it. Yeah. And what I miss, like Hot Shots Golf's whole thing is that, you know, it's personality and it's silly and it's over the top. And so if you remove all the elements that are over the top, what are you left with just a mediocre golf game yeah that's what that is 40 bucks too yeah yeah okay the best sega genesis game released in 2025.

40:11Justin Davis:what does everyone know what this is which was joe is it earth ion earthy on earthy on yeah i've been pronouncing it earthy on this is a new sega genesis game a 16-bit shmup runs on actual genesis hardware but it looks like it shouldn't it feels impossible. Wow, that 3D effect was crazy. This is gorgeous. And it's made by the team that worked on Streets of Rage and Shadow some of the Sonic the Hedgehog games. So it's like OG Sega Genesis Sega developers. Amazing. You can also play it on PS5 or PC, but everything you see happening here actually runs on a Sega Genesis. That's incredible. Crazy. It's incredible.

40:49Justin Davis:Yeah. Cool. The sprite works gorgeous. Oh my gosh. Yep. Pseudo 3D effects. massive multi-sprite bosses. The soundtrack is by Yuzo Koshiro, who did Summon's Future Age and Sonic the Hedgehog Games. There's things that only the Genesis could do, and it's really taking advantage of those versus a game that has to be on Super Nintendo also. Yeah. It's so cool. There's also an audio filter to make it sound... If you're playing on your TV, you can make it sound like it's coming out of a TV in the 90s. Nice. So that's the idea. Does it add an audio filter where your mom's shouting at you from downstairs?

41:23You gotta turn that off. You're going to be late for your band concert. You're like, no, mom, I've never made it this far before. I can't save in the middle. Genesis was a mono channel output, too. So, you know, that's probably part of it is that they probably maybe released it stereo. I don't know about like the monomics is how it's supposed to sound.

41:42Justin Davis:Oh, adding to the steam wish list now. It's a really good time. Okay. Those are the those are my gaming awards. Let's give out some movie awards. The best time I had with my kids at the theater this year was for Dog Man, which is a DreamWorks movie. This movie is fantastic, but my recommendation comes with a giant asterisk in that if you haven't read the books, you're going to be like, what the hell is this? But if you read the books and you know the characters and the jokes, it's a really good time. If I'm not mistaken, isn't he a cop who was killed in the line of duty and then he gets brought back to life as a dog man?

42:19A bomb goes off and it's a dog's head put onto the cop's body. That's kind of dark.

42:25Justin Davis:It's great. It's like the doctor's like, oh, no, cop, your head is dying. Oh, no, dog, your body is dying. And the nurse is like, I got an idea. Yeah. That's great. They need to be tried for malpractice. That's horrific. Yeah. My kids outgrew the books, you know, over the course of the last year or so. but they were very beloved when they were a couple years younger. It's usually a pet peeve of mine when a movie is made for people who know the books, the source material, and ignores people who haven't. But in this case, I know the source material, so it worked out okay for me. This is available on the flight I'm taking coming up.

43:06Should I watch it?

43:07Justin Davis:I don't know that I would recommend you watch it, Sam, but I had a great time. Also, shout out to the line. There's a giant, the fish is a bad guy. the bad guy's a fish played by ricky gervais and at the very end that one of our main characters gets in a giant mech suit and is it has delivers the line get away from him you fish which i laughed i left louder than anyone else in the theater yeah that's great okay uh the best movie i don't think anyone else saw is black bag i love black bag you so you both saw that okay that's great it's not a movie that we talked about this year spy movie it's kind of a subtle spy movie with Michael Fassbender and who plays Galadriel?

43:53Justin Davis:Cate Blanchett yes Cate Blanchett it's like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy but not boring that's a great way to put it Cate Blanchett also seems pretty ageless and remarkable in this role very elf like generally very elf like exactly Yeah. Okay, best subverted callback line is On Your Left from Thunderbolts. Yeah. I got a kick out of that. That's pretty good. Yeah, you're right. That's a good call. This is an award that's, there's a lot of contention for this award every year. Best dreamlike musical mashup sequence. This year, I'd go to Sinners. Yeah, that part was sick. That was incredible. The, sorry, we're going to go through these pretty fast.

44:38Justin Davis:uh jobert we don't need to stop and talk about each one but the seriously maybe you should just make the raid 3 award goes to gareth evans who i think is a super talented director did the raid raid 2 but then he's made two bad movies since then for netflix havoc was this year uh it's it's tried to be like a hard-boiled cop movie but it sucks and i don't even remember apostle i think was the other one kind of a horror movie for netflix anyway they're both bad so come on just just make get back to it get back to work let's do the raid three just make the raid three i i got i uh the dc comics got me because i did a free trial of dc infinity where you can download you know comics and then i didn't cancel the free trial so now i've paid for a month of dc infinity and anyway i've been reading a lot of dc comics and there's a there's a batman run that's basically the raid but batman he's like trapped in this building with a bunch of goons and what's called do you know um oh gosh uh no that's all right that's all right we can you can slack me later yeah because i've been loving absolute batman sorry sidetrack that's kind of like the judge dread movie that was really good oh yeah it's exactly right the i forget judge dread i forget which came first judge read or the raid but yeah they've always been compared i believe they released the same year okay i believe they released the same year crazy it's uh the raid Sam is also a double dragon like yeah I'm right my wife did not like it and I okay the best movie that also might have killed the franchise is Ballerina which is a totally fun movie I don't no one saw this movie but it's totally fun it's kind of like Donkey Kong Bonanza to Mario Odyssey like John Wick is here Ballerina is right there it's almost as good damn I fell asleep during this I'm sorry I had fun the whole way through.

46:30Justin Davis:This movie also has the best kill gags of the year. Norman Reedus is in this movie. Oh, God, look at this. Wow. That's kind of cool. That's cool. Maybe we're going to see the best kill gag of the year. But there's one where Norman Reedus wraps this guy in a clear plastic tarp and then blasts him with a shotgun blast at close range. And then the blood just splatters on the inside of the tarp. That's great. But then this is the best one, I think. Sorry for the listeners. We're actually watching the scene in the video here. Yeah, she's got this strap with grenades on it just around the neck. Pull the clip and this is so good.

47:09Justin Davis:How Nick can fall asleep in this movie, I'm not sure. It seems like I fell asleep before this stuff happened, if I'm being honest. Midway through. I looked up the Batman. It's Batman Dark Patterns, by the way. And it's a it's a collection of its three comic arcs. So he's solving four cases across 12 issues. Hell yeah. Thanks. Pretty cool. Okay. The, we need one of these guys for every eighties movie franchise award goes to Dan Trachtenberg. Yeah. Not only has he done three great predator movies in a row, he released two this year. It's insane. Just find this guy for Terminator, find this guy for alien guy or girl.

47:52Yep. Okay.

47:54Justin Davis:B, I was very dismissive at first, but oh my God, this movie is incredible award goes to K-pop Demon Hunters. Yeah, that's great. Great movie. Really important movie for my family now. And like, we listen to the songs all the time. I use Apple Music as a music service and I have a playlist of just songs from the year and that I rank by most played. And my most played songs this year are Golden, Your Idol, and Free, I think, all from this movie. Yeah. This is a movie I would be interested to know what Sam thought of it. If you ever watched it. K-pop Demon Hunters? Mm-hmm. I haven't seen it. I will totally watch it.

48:32Justin Davis:So, great. First of all, it's Sony, and it's the studio that did the Spider-Verse movies. The animation is incredible. It's great. That's what stands out to me about it. It's like, you know, it's a kid's movie. It is. But the animation, absolutely, and we don't need to make this a one studio versus another, but it does embarrass Pixar a little bit. of like it's the same it's the same narrative that's been developing for a few years now with the spider-verse movies of like driving the medium of animation forward and like movies that you know i know they are making live action k-pop demon hunters but i think could really only work as an animated picture like make such good use of that medium for sort of what it's trying to do from a storytelling and gag standpoint like i loved it yeah i have just added it to my holiday watch list great animation uh it's it's it's even though it's a kid there's also like well composed action scenes too like you know i love action it's good it's actually good stuff the characters are super likable oh what are you gonna say nick it's a kid's movie that isn't just for kids like it's one of those things that treats everyone who watches it like you know we trust you to interpret the story and get what we're going for from it which i really appreciate it's very evocative of early pixar there's gonna be so many sequels to this we're gonna die on like k-pop demon hunters 90.

49:47Yeah.

49:48Justin Davis:I mean, they announced the sequel for 2029. So it's a little bit of a ways off, but Netflix was totally caught by surprise, did not know what they had. There was no merchandise available when this movie came out. On Halloween, everyone was wearing bootleg K-pop Demon Hunters costumes. That happened to my daughter. I don't know. Well. We keep getting these good freeze frames, though.

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51:30Wait a second. Best and favorite can be different, right? Okay, I just, can you unpack that for me briefly?

51:39Justin Davis:If I say like, what is the movie that's like, you know, the best made movie. Sure. I would say one battle after another, but weapons, you know, so like they're both very tense movies. One battle is more like a thriller action and weapons is a little bit more spooky horror. And I think that just I just leaned a little bit more into that. What happens is on my top one to watch list too. It's very good. You will like weapons. Oh, yeah. One battle is amazing. It's streaming already, I think, too. Correct. Is it now? I don't know. Yeah. So, okay. okay uh a few tv awards moving on to the tv shows from this year the holy crap that is actually terrifying award goes to episode seven of paradise which is when they showed the events of the white house uh that that destroyed the world and sent a few thousand people to live in that bunker i think about that wave a lot it's so that's what i'm talking about the way the reporter on top of the building.

52:33Justin Davis:It's nighttime. We lost Sam. I haven't seen it. I'm making my holiday watch list, too. It's already quite, it's already shockingly long, but I'm adding paradise to it. Is that James Marsden? James Marsden plays the president. Oh, man, I was already in. Now I'm double in. Yeah, he's great. He's great. Yeah, so episode, you know, the premise is that there was, well, do you know, do you know the hook of the show, Justin? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You don't know until episode seven, like what actually happened on that day. And there's a scene with a reporter on a rooftop at night and when the tsunami shows up and it's like, oh my God, it's harrowing.

53:11Justin Davis:It's crazy. Okay. So that was great. Also, I could, it needs some sort of a word for the most surprising use of a Nintendo console as a plot device. Oh yeah. A big one. Yeah. The virtual boy saves a day. No, it doesn't. Virtual boy. Not the virtual boy. Okay. Okay, the No Scavengers Reign Season 2 Constellation Prize goes to Common Side Effects. Great show. It's another animated show from some of the same people that made Scavengers Reign, and it's fantastic. Very similar animation. Did you watch this one, Nick? No, this is the Mike Judge one, though, right? I don't think so. Yeah, he was involved.

53:50He was involved. He's a producer. Really?

53:53Justin Davis:Yeah, I gotta check this out. It's really good. A guy finds these magic mushrooms that will cure literally anything. and obviously the pharmaceutical companies are not too happy about that so he's on the run he wants to try and you know figure out how to make more of it and they want to you know track him down and then he makes friends with an old high school acquaintance little known to him she works for one of the pharmaceutical companies and there's lots of great characters great writing it's very funny it's great that's on hbo uh the funniest show i don't have a a clever award for this the funniest show i watched this year was the studio yeah apple tv plus so good also like It's a really funny show that's also just incredibly well made and there's an incredible long shot in every episode.

54:35Justin Davis:It's great. And I think a little bit educational about Hollywood in a even though it's a parody, it tells you about it. Yeah. It makes working at a movie studio look really fun with your friends. The right turn at Albuquerque Award goes to Pluribus. Fantastic. Which I watched the most recent. So episode eight. So it's not over yet. there are there like 10 episodes do we know sam i think so there's 10 yeah okay well i was shocked to find out that some of our co-workers are not into the show what what yeah i won't name names but to me this is just another banger from vince gilligan oh my god yeah i mean i i like you know my god i'm gonna get crucified in the comments is i don't like breaking bad as much as like most people do i don't think it's i think it's a good show it feels a lot like other sort of like family crime drama shows to me but vince gillian like he did x-files like that's where he came from yep and so the kind of marriage of like you know his breaking bad sensibilities with like his x-files like you know sort of building up this deep lore and like unsettling kind of like sci-fi stuff like it's just it's great to see like him back in that form again i think master storyteller you're watching this nick yeah i'm i'm like only four episodes in i think i'm want to wait till it's all done because I do think it's a show that'll benefit for me watching all of it at once because I just like I think he's an excellent storyteller and it just makes waiting for a little less painful when it's adversely I'd like to talk about it every week with I know it's the show I look forward to it every week it's like it's I'm just I'm just enthralled it's such a cool premise Ray Sehorne is amazing yep yeah I'd watch Ray Sehorne like in anything.

56:22She's fantastic. So good.

56:24Justin Davis:This is also a really well shot show. Lots of crazy, incredible shots. He's using as little CGI as possible. You'd think you'd be sick of boring ass Albuquerque by now, but nope. Here we are, back in. Back in Albuquerque. I do have, you know, it starts out scary, and then it's not scary. Yeah. I really want to see where it goes because it's just what the others are doing doesn't it actually doesn't make sense i don't think so i don't know if the whole idea is to become a hive mind and where you know everyone is working in harmony you would think they would have more reason and more common sense but they don't seem to so i don't know yeah it's like becoming one mind gets like this encyclopedic amount of knowledge but it doesn't get the reasoning right yeah it just doesn't work that way i i don't know so much of it is thought through too and they play off of it and everybody thinks of things before you do like it's just that type of show where you're like, these writers had so much fun making a world.

57:22Yeah, just feel it. Yeah.

57:24Justin Davis:Some people will say it's slow, but Vince Gillian is all about show. Don't tell you watch characters doing something and they don't explain what they're doing until eventually it's revealed. That's that's how that's how they work. Isn't everybody on their phone while watching TV now? Get over yourselves. Yeah, this is what we call good storytelling, folks. Yeah. And the final Damian Ward of the year, the the I cannot believe how good this is we do not deserve this award goes to andor and or season two yep also ign's tv show of the year another one that started out a little slow but then god at least the last four episodes are just incredible yep i kind of forgot that was this year i guess what like early early in the year right i mean you're talking before like you know watching uh the force awakens last night like this show is it's it's a whole other level of star wars like and how it plugs into the movie right it makes rogue one a better movie exactly yeah i mean also recontext i mean we've i'm sure it's been said a billion times but recontextually star wars is like oh no the empire is committing like war crimes here like it really does like oh yeah they're like cartoon bad guys no they are very very bad fascist bad guys yeah i mean we we talked about you know premise versus plot earlier and it's like there's there's um just we there's never been a bigger mismatch between like they're making a television show out of him that guy yeah that guy's getting his own star wars show you know and then it's like it's one of the greatest not just one of the greatest star wars things but just one of the greatest things you know on television in like the last decade.

59:10Justin Davis:Yeah, that's true. And Tony Giroir, the showrunner is like not even the Star Wars, like hardcore Star Wars guy. So maybe there's something there. Maybe there's something there. I heard about this with the Penguin where it's like these great show creators were very aware that five years ago they had to pitch a superhero or Star Wars show to get a show that they wanted to make. So if you wanted to make a show, an anti-fascist, crazy war documentary in space, you just had to pitch it to Star Wars. If you wanted to make a mob movie, you had to make it set in the Batman universe. And like, yeah, that's where we're at right now.

59:41You know? Yep. All right.

59:44Justin Davis:Those are the 2025 Jamie awards. Thank you for humoring me, everyone, both on the show and out there in scoop nation. That was one that brings us to video game 20 questions. And our suggestion this week comes from Mav from Oregon. Although I don't believe there's an antidote to go along with that. So let the questioning begin. I'm so I've been adding thanks to my to watch list guys and it's i don't i got bad news i don't think i am going to get through like eight episodes of television in the in the in the break that we have available to us but i'm going to do my best um okay uh did this game come out in the 70s 80s or 90s no not oregon trail which would have been a good match

1:00:29i think we have had organ trail before yeah uh was this a uh a disc-based medium at launch on a disc no cartridge at launch okay downloadies or download yeah uh is this a downloadable game or i'm sorry at the time of its release was it a downloadable game

1:00:50Justin Davis:uh okay so do you want to ask that question was it exclusively a downloadable game at the time of its release no it's castlevania symphony of the night no it's not a it's not a disc-based game sorry i'm sorry so it's probably a switch game a switcher switcher nintendo ds or 3ds uh did this game originally come out on the switch yes original Switch and not on PS5 or Xbox. A Nintendo developers game. Nintendo was one of the developers on this game and that's five. Could be Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Yeah. Does this have characters from the Mushroom Kingdom in it? No. It could also be a Zelda game because that's Nintendo and Monolith Soft.

1:01:46for the Echoes game. Yeah, or, yeah. Is this game set in the Zelda universe? No. Ooh, sorry, guys. I got no. Maybe it's just Metroid Prime 4. Why not? Retro is Nintendo, though. Aren't they? I just think it would be Nintendo had retro developed it. That's how they seem to present themselves. Yeah, I guess that's true. Okay, okay. I mean, there's lots of code developed. I'm having trouble thinking of them because I'm rapidly slipping into vacation mode in real time. This podcast goes on. Does this game feature iconic Nintendo characters? I don't. I wouldn't say. Whoa. Okay. That's a good question.

1:02:30I like that one. Yeah. So I'm just trying to remember. So there's Snipperclips. No, but like for real. One, two Switch. Yeah, one, two Switch. I'm trying to think of those games that, you know, they they partner with third parties. You're saying you don't have the full 30 packaged amiibo run of the Snipperclips characters. I heard that I got so sad, but I found out Pear is not trying to collect every amiibo anymore. Yeah. Although I kind of don't believe him, actually. He's like, I'm not he's like, I'm out and I'm like, hmm, you're going to you're in a is going to be some late night or he's going to order him.

1:03:08He has all the Metroid Prime four ones that he let me scan. And so maybe it's waiting to buy the tariff. Yeah, yeah, I think so. Okay. I don't know where to go from here. Was this game multiplayer focused in any way?

1:03:22Justin Davis:No, not multiplayer. So it's not, not Splatoon. Not sniper clips, not arms. It's got some weirdo characters in it. Maybe it is arms. Is arms multiplayer focused? Yes, it is. Yeah. What about the,

1:03:42wheelchair basketball game? It's a Switch 1 or 2 though, right? We don't know. I mean, they're the same in my head.

1:03:54What else did they partner? Sega made F-Zero, but that was obviously way before Switch. I'm just thinking about them farming out their franchises. They had Namco make Star Fox. what was it you asked sam

1:04:09Justin Davis:it was a sports game it is not a sports game that's 10 did this game review well at IGN yes should we ask when this came out I'm curious if it came out 5 years ago it could be because Hal's not Nintendo so it could be Kirby yeah Air Riders or something yeah Air Riders well except that's multiplayer Kirby's an iconic Nintendo character for sure. Not doesn't star an iconic Nintendo character is on the, is on the switch is code. Like what? I don't know. Tomodachi life. Something. Yeah. I was thinking means that's over for the sport direction. Yeah. But not, but not multiplayer focus does eliminate a lot of the kind of like, you know, experimental stuff Nintendo's tried to get up to.

1:05:10Is this game... When this game came out, was it Nintendo Switch 1 exclusive?

1:05:17Justin Davis:Yes. Okay. So it's pre-Nintendo Switch 2. Maybe it's like a more adult skewed game. The horror stuff. So we got like from 2016 to 2025. Not adult skewed like half of the games on sale on Steam. Is this game an RPG? Of a sort. Ooh, could be Xenoblade Chronicles. But those are just RPGs. Yeah, I would say those are just straight up because that's where I was going. Is it just Advance Wars that's equal or the... Advance Wars 1 and 2 remake? That's pretty good. That's a pretty good question. or even Fire Emblem, although that's made by Nintendo. As far as I know, they're not co-developed. Oh, no, it does have a co-developer on it.

1:06:10Maybe they do. I mean, but Intelligent Systems is the lead developer. Is this a strategy game? Yes. So it's either Fire Emblem or Advance Wars 1 and 2 Boot Camp Remake or whatever it's called. Is this the remake or update of an older game? No, that's 15. is this game set in an academy

1:06:33Justin Davis:yes fire emblem three houses is the game fire emblem three houses yes it is yeah co-developed with nintendo and koei tecmo oh man i didn't remember that at all i didn't know that either i did know that i was trying to come up with who was the co-developer but yeah that's been a thing it's interesting i'm excited for the new one know you remember when this game came out and they sold millions and millions and millions of them and it took over and there was all the memes and jokes about claude and the other characters and then they made a sequel and nobody cared wait engage oh and yeah i liked engage i actually liked i mean i just it didn't make a splash you're right about that if you had to say or you know how there's always been like marth and roy and stuff those are our iconic nintendo characters because of smash brothers and didn't i guess maybe the last game that iconic ones were like awakening because people know those those ones what's it yeah you know yeah it's hard to say with these games if you add a dating simulator to your strategy game i think that's you know that's a gold mine they also didn't i didn't play engage but didn't engage take all that stuff out correct it's focused on combat just nintendo and look i say this with love and as someone that loves nintendo games it's like like hey the part that everybody loved about the last fire emblem game and made it a cultural phenomenon should we do that again nah i mean that's what i said about awakening i was like let my units have a kid and pass off their attributes that's so sick that's so fun oh totally that's my favorite part too i i really think like just general advice for for young game developers out there if you add anime dating to your game no matter what it is it's gonna work just go for it i'm not saying i want that i'm just giving you advice as a young you you will i mean i know we're saying this 40 is a goof like 40 for real of like you will attract a different audience to your game yeah yeah you make it a dual purpose game yeah i'd like to say a city simulator to your you know well hold on now hold on what if what if you had a side scrolling action platform well pit exclusively yeah what if we had a side scrolling action game where you had a real-time strategy element a la ActRaiser.

1:08:47Let's do that again. Now we're cooking with gas. And the anime sexy stuff. A Fire Emblem that's also like a city simulator just sounds dope. That's all I'm like. You get to build the battlefield that you fight on? Yeah, yeah. Justin's throwing up in the corner. You get to date all the buildings. Yeah, that's great, Sam.

1:09:10Justin Davis:Well, nicely job and thank you for the suggestion, Mav. from Oregon. That almost wraps up our scoops for the show. We're going to be taking the next week off for the holiday, but then we will be back with more and more Scoop of the Year. We're going to record it on Tuesday, December 30th. So, everyone, please be excited for that. But, while we're off next week, everyone, let's share what your sort of like Christmas gaming plans are. Sam, I know you're in Kansas. Yes, I'm playing a game for the show. Should I mention that or is that a secret? We'll save that one for a little bit later. Okay, then I'm going to finish the stuff, my tasks in Metroid Prime and then I have a date with I believe Ball Pit but now Outer Worlds is really shining through I don't know how it runs on Steam Deck but it's a very fun game.

1:09:59Plenty to play though especially after this show you all reminded me of a bunch of games

1:10:02Justin Davis:that I get to go back to or try out Justin how about you? I have a few things one I promised my kids that we're gonna and I'm actually really looking forward to it we're gonna start a family Minecraft world and then we're going to teach my wife to play too who, you know, she's not a gamer in the way I'm a gamer but she does play, you know, she dabbles This is someone who's beaten Skyrim multiple times, right? Yeah, that's my anecdote about my wife is she's a school teacher and every summer she has a summer game and so she does not play video games, doesn't follow video games doesn't care about them, but like one summer it's just like, oh, it's the summer of Skyrim and then it was Resident Evil and it's been some different stuff over the years So we're all going to, we're all going to play family Minecraft together.

1:10:45And then personally, I haven't started Metroid prime yet, so I'm going to get into, you know, I'm looking forward to, you know, the, the, the criticism of like, oh, it's kind of old school and it feels like a video game from 15 or 20 years ago. Like, look, that's a legitimate criticism, but that also appeals to certain people in a certain way of like, yeah, like I want to play just a little bit more old school feeling action adventure. And so I think that's going to be a perfect holiday. Even if there's really like one of those situations with this, it's not a bad start to the game, but it does get better.

1:11:15Like, it's not bad. I'm not saying like get through the first four hours, but like the game becomes more of what you expect it to be later. So it's not surprising, but it's like great. Yep. I mean, I totally world. It's gorgeous. It is so awesome looking. Yeah, I totally get it. And I just we don't it's that feeling of like, you know, this type of game just goes away before you know it like, you know, a decade ago. everything was open world action adventure RPGs. And now those are actually kind of not around that much anymore, you know? Right. So, you know, the ground shifts under your feet and I am excited to get into Metroid.

1:11:51Western Bioware style RPGs just went away. Yep. Nick, what are your plans? Yeah. I just finished act two of Baldur's Gate three. I'm at 84 hours right now. So I'm hopefully going to try and roll credits on that game by the time. Is this your first time going through it? so i i only got to act one when i played the game at 1.0 bro so and i didn't yeah i know so now i'm like i'm all in i'm i got my forgotten realms books behind me i'm learning about the monster a monster of the day and uh apart from that though uh i'm gonna try and roll credits on metroid prime 4 as well as the secret game that we're all playing i have to do after the show tell me i don't know what you're referring to so it's it's not gonna be that impressive um nick act three oh man whenever you get that show greenlit send me send me messages because i just i can't like well first of all act three is also another hundred hours just like it's so it's almost like it is kind of a criticism like it's too big it's too big and too long i love it i don't want it to end man yeah i love it so i mean you're you're gonna be it's like every single house has you know a murder in the basement and a side quest like it's a giant city that takes no shortcuts and no like it's unbelievable how big it is and like that's why it broke everybody's you know that's why act 3 was broken for like a year and a half like i assume this is the city of its namesake baldur's gate well yeah yes although you know i mean yes you get an airship in act three and get to cruise around dude that'd be sick

1:13:35Justin Davis:uh i will be home for the holidays here in la and my wife's family is coming here so we'll have a full house and i'm making the ham which really just means warming up and then uh kingo is getting mario galaxy one and two and i i'm actually looking forward to that because i've never played galaxy two i i just redid the guide for those and they're really nice now cool And they have sortable tables for getting all of the stars. And those are like not straightforward in those games. So recommend checking introduce strategy. He is also getting the limited edition Astro Bot PS5 controller. He's gonna be really stoked about that.

1:14:13Justin Davis:Nice. And then every year I like to spend at least one evening playing games that I got for Christmas as a kid. Oh, that's cute. Curl up on the sofa with one of my one of my retro gaming handhelds and play. super mario brothers 2 and ikari warriors and fester's quest and bad dudes and of course splatter house all the fun but everyone out there in scoop nation i hope you have very happy holidays thanks for hanging out with us all year long we're only taking one a week off next week uh we'll be back the week after that but everybody uh stay safe and have play lots of really fun games over the holidays that is all the scoops that we have for you this week thank you sam thank you justin thank you nick thank you jobert working behind the scenes to make this episode possible my name is damon this is igin game scoop and we're out

1:15:20perfect timing man i can i can smell that book that sam's holding in his hands 100 % the pipe actually tastes spicy from like ancient nicotine in it.

1:15:33Justin Davis:I believe it was. That's cool. Justin, we're all playing the original. Is it still fun today? Okay, I got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah, that's rad. That was really fun. Happy. Happy Christmas, everybody. Have a good time. Yeah, Christmas. I'm going to have a garden right now, Damon. Oh, my gosh. Yep. Jealous. Yeah. See you guys later. Bye.

1:16:00Justin Davis:Since yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Force Awakens, I watched it with the kids. It's a great movie. I would not say that. It's fundamentally flawed. It gets the whole trilogy off on the wrong foot because right from the get go, there's just another empire, just another rebellion. It's like, well, it's all the remake stuff is so bad. Like, why are we just retreading all this stuff? It starts on a desert planet. Like, why did we do this? But it moves along at a great pace, especially that first hour. It's just like you never get a chance to catch your breath in a good way. It's just bouncing from Kylo to Pota to Ray to Finn.

1:16:33Justin Davis:And there are really great moments sprinkled throughout the movie. So I just got to like on Facebook memories, like all of the Alamo Drafthouse, Marky and shit show up from seeing that. Yeah. And we were all there. That was that might have been the last time. That might have been the last time Jamie hung out with any IGN people because it was all like we had kids and then it was like, I'm never going to see these people again. Do you? So So McCaffrey name dropped this game Gate Guard Simulator. Did you watch that trailer yet? I can't wait. It sounds awesome. It's pretty funny. The trailer is pretty funny.

1:17:06So the gameplay seems like based off the trailer that it's like Papers, Please, where you are a gate guard of a medieval castle. And then people are coming in and trying to get in the castle, except it's like silly. And like someone's trying to like smuggle, you know, someone, someone, there's a clip in the trailer. There were someone trying to smuggle like rabbits in and then you can take the bribe or not take the bribe. Like let them let the rabbits in the dialogue options like who goes there? What the heck? We're nice fist bumping back in the day. Yeah.

1:17:40Justin Davis:Like the poor gate guard at the village of Bree. Yeah. Smashed by the gate. Yeah. When the worst yelling at him, he's like, all right. Yeah, I'm sorry, Master Hobbit. No offense. No offense. I like the second little door, the little Hobbit door. That's such a Peter Jackson thing. It's so good. Yeah. So this game looks great. Yeah. No, no. Get out of here, duck. Oh, gosh. You got a pox. Any punches are in the face? Jesus. Rabbit smuggler. No rabbits. I like it. King said no rabbits. Yeah. I know. And like this trailer went totally viral on IGN. It'd be a big hit. Yep. I mean, maybe, but like it's a good it's a good like I'll play it for one evening game.

1:18:30Yeah, this is one where like it really depends on if the people like wrote this that know English really well.

1:18:36Justin Davis:Oh, you guys want to know the top five most popular IGN reviews of the year are. I just put this together. This is a combination of O and O and YouTube numbers. Mm hmm. So number five is Donkey Kong Bonanza. Number four is Assassin's Creed Shadows. Three is Doom the Dark Ages. Two is Kingdom Come Deliverance. And one is Clear Obscure. Yep. Is this the show? I was going to say, what happened to Jobert? I did a ten count and then we didn't hear from him. It's okay. You were enthralled with our small talk, with our chit-chat. This is our zip zap zop, dude. This is how we get loose. Wibble bibble bam.

1:19:15Okay. I'm going to start in character. so you could either go to a wide or wait for me, but introduce me last. Okay.

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