Game Scoop! 839: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Games

25:07I got to probably like, I don't know, eight or nine levels. Like I got past the cyber nine, um, infiltration stuff where, and then I got to the decision making points where you're like, do you, you know, when Sarah Connor breaks into the, the people's house to like kill the guy that made the chip and then she finds out that like you know she doesn't kill him like there's a decision to kill him or not and stuff like that so i saw that stuff and i think it's interesting this game is really amazing looking like it's really fun and cool like even like these parts where they're recounting the story and they're showing this really janky looking but totally accomplishable on a super nintendo this yeah like that it would be like if that was on sega cd i would have been like wow you know yeah yeah I never thought about that.

25:49Graphics can't get better. Yeah. It's a very cool game that I'm glad exists very much. Same. I'm not really playing anything new, notable, just completely random stuff, and then something else for Is It Still Fun? Nick, anything you're playing you want to share?

26:04Sam Claiborn:Is It Still Fun? Secret project. And then I am very close. I am within a stone throw's distance of the ending of Baldur's Gate 3. I am. Oh, nice. I'm at like 100. I've never made it. 130 hours or something right now. I'm genuinely sad. I'm trying to procrastinate finishing it because I'm like, this is one of the greatest RPGs I've ever played. I'm in the House of Hope right now, if you know what that is, cool. But there's just so much good writing happening in that game at every point where I'm just like, the premise of the House of Hope is so sick of just this devil has captured the personification of hope and uses the personification of hope to be like well you i can make you rich bro if you sign your soul away to me and it's just like how like literary that is and just how clever oh it's so good man uh and i just had a lot of major revelations that happened about who certain people are and i'm just loving every second of it i'm uh i'm like also listening to a like kind of uh accompaniment podcast from the people who do uh watch out for fire fireballs podcast they do like a book club style approach to Baldur's Gate.

27:17Sam Claiborn:It's called Real Lich Hours, if you're interested in that. They take it area by area and basically go through every permutation of, well, in my playthrough, this happened. Well, I'm doing an evil playthrough, so this happened. So it's nice to have that context after I've cleared an area to be like, oh, that's what I missed. That's cool. And then move on. So big, big shout out there. Those folks are awesome. But yeah, I am excited to finish this game so I can move on and play other things, but I am going to be a little bit sad that nothing will quite reach this high, presumably until Divinity comes out.

27:50Yeah. I never finished this game. I would like to go back to it. Now probably would have been a good time. I don't know. I might have missed that window, but we'll see. I have to do it too. I have to play the game and it's part of a career goal for me this year too. I have a pitch for you, Damon. I do think you should try Dispatch now that you have some downtime between things. um i think that the the the voices and like the characters are so good and you know it's aaron paul and he's he's the lead in it and he's great like it's really good like he he actually contributes a lot to the game being good the way he plays his character and then jeffrey wright uh plays a character that's really different from what jeffrey wright normally plays and he's really funny and i really like that and then um it's great i have no complaints and it has this cool overlay of being like a cop dispatch to superheroes that are going around the city and and bumbling because they're actually super villains like it's good it's a good premise and it's got a lot going for it and you know i was like i was trying to playing i started playing it chapter by chapter and that feels good too because you stop playing and then the next day you pick up it's like watching an episode of tv it's like only going to be a half an hour 45 minutes right so you can like kind of binge it if you want or not but i started playing and i was like playing it too close to going to

29:06Sam Claiborn:bed and it was like hyping me up too much i was like i can't put it easily one of my favorite tv shows of last year uh it is it is that's what it is i devoured it it's so much fun and it happens to have you know the dispatch mini game that that sam was talking about it's such a fun like clever use of it's a great way of shaking up that telltale formula right because usually the the gameplay of telltale apart from making choices is you have to awkwardly navigate your character over to something and then do click on a little marker to shoot something in the head but this is a more clever adaptation of making something feel meaningful without it feeling too gimmicky is there ever a part we control a character you don't typically control a character it is very streamlined i think it takes all the stuff that wasn't fun from telltale out and then just streamlines it and makes it more fun yeah alana is this character that you see uh malevola she's The little devil.

30:01The red lady?

30:02Sam Claiborn:Yeah, the devil girl. Yeah. Hmm. Cool. All right. Well, I will check it out and then report back. Good stuff. Very tangentially related. My kids were watching Zootopia. I was not watching it. It was just on. One or two? One. One. Which is like 2016, I want to say. So they're watching. I'm not watching it, but it's on. And I hear one of the animals that's like, I think they're in like a mafia type of everything. And they say someone has just arrived. They say, he says like, Walt and Jesse just arrived. and I was just hearing that I was like that has to be a reference that has to be a reference definitely I thought that was pretty good Mark anything you want to shout out that you're playing?

30:42let's see so I finally now that Hades is out Hades 2 I started a fresh new file and I played like man I played like 50 hours over the break because like I got the Legion Go S which is just like a beefed up Steam deck

30:57Sam Claiborn:nice and i just i can just take hades anywhere what a game i finally got the true ending what a fantastic game that is is it better than ball pit oh so different i don't know hot take ball pits real good i think it's much the thing is always yeah the thing with hades has always been that some people find it a little bloated because there's so much in it but uh i i did get to the point where i was just kind of skipping the dialogue because i was like i i what the heck never stop talking that's half the game yeah exactly uh and then uh let's see so right now i'm bouncing between i i i finally had the arc raiders click moment where i played with my friends one night and i was like i got it i got it i'm in i get it uh and then i weirdly started playing poe too and the game is very fun but i have like eight level seven characters because i can't decide who i want to play i thought we've already established that we're not mathematicians here path of exile 2 is like spreadsheet the game of like how do i min max my character to get 0.01 faster it's like it's like the passive skill tree when you zoom out is the worst thing you'll ever i looked at that i was like i think i'm good space joebert can you bring up a screenshot of the passive skill tree in path of exile too it looks like the solar system it's it's like it's awful what was that space game that it would uh that have starfield no no no that people have really cool stories of like people losing millions of dollars and it's all Oh, EVE Online.

32:38Sam Claiborn:To me, it's very much EVE Online of looking at something and I'm like, I'm happy for anyone who's excited about this but could not be me. It's fun to play, but I'm telling you, the passive skill tree is the worst thing you'll ever see. It makes you want to vomit. There it is. That's the passive skill tree. That's zoomed out. And it is just, that's zoomed out all the way. It's hard to get a sense of how big it would look on your screen. It's awful. does definitely it's like mark it is this this is the reason why people use max roll right 100 no way would i ever try to figure any of this crap out tell me how to be good by the way max roll are mark and i's colleagues and we work with them and they make an amazing tool for path of exile too which i'm sure anybody here has played path of exile is already using because it is essential i'm not because i'm level i'm not even in the double digits of letters levels yet because I can't decide who I want to play.

33:36You already messed up your build, dude. Yeah, my build's messed up right now. Yeah, the Druid's really fun, but yeah. I'm such a filthy casual, I didn't even know what PoE 2 was. Pillars of Eternity. Yeah, Nick said it, Nick said it.

33:58Avowed was just announced for PS5. I put it on the show, but I don't know if there's anything much to say about that. I don't even know what the release date is.

34:03Sam Claiborn:Happy for the people who haven't played them yet. February 17th. It's right there. It's finally coming to a real console. Okay. Thank God. All right, everybody. Let's settle down. I think that game is a lot of fun. So I think if you like Data Worlds 2 on PS5, I think you should check out about them. World needs good fantasy. I feel like goofy faces too. I forgot about the goofy faces. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but they don't really bother me. I'm not mad about it. No, I don't either. The blue guy is kind of silly. Yeah, they're doing a whole anniversary update. He's got a great voice. update the actor i think he's from kotor he's been around for a long time path of arms path of exile uh avowed is also getting like a 2.0 update right is that true yeah it's doing new game plus it's doing all bunch of stuff so that that's also coming out on the 17th okay yeah i presume that they'd be one and one so yeah that's cool it seems like it's a great time to jump into the game it's never been a better time to jump in and vow whoa a year after really sorry that's my branded content I played game it is a fun game it's a great game I had a lot of fun with it actually I mean and it does one of the the gaming 10 commandments that we think should be in every game where you can just kill all the enemies in an area and they're all dead Travis's review well it will it'll always be my favorite thing where he's like basically when you're ready to leave an area it's like it's like you're on a movie set and if you haven't left yet you just see them tearing down the sets behind you.

35:28They're like you're still here? No you're supposed to move on. There's nothing left here. Baldur's Gate 3 is like that?

35:36Sam Claiborn:Yeah. Outer Worlds 2 is like that? Yeah it kind of is. There's no reason for enemies to come back. Okay we've reached our speed running story. Mark it's taken 15 years but someone finally completed this game without dying. Oh wait I did hear about this. It was Super Meat Boy. Super Meat Boy. That's wild. I didn't know if it was speedrunning or not. I was like, did they speedrun or did they just play it slow as heck and try to make sure they didn't die? Well, I think he's a speedrunner, but I think in this case, he was just trying to beat it without dying. The speedrun category is a zero death completion, right?

36:16Sam Claiborn:Yeah. That is absolutely wild. Shredberg right here in Sacramento, here in California. it took him more than 2 ,000 attempts and over a thousand hours wow that's impressive this is a really really difficult game uh i i reviewed it and i beat it but man i could i could never do it without dying never yeah i'm surprised you did and then listen to this at the end his video is like two and a half hours long of his playthrough at the end of his video on youtube he says this i'm going to be emailing everyone kotaku ign cnn chefs illustrated they're all going to hear about it, I will unironically email IGN.

36:53Well, so I don't know if we've gotten any emails to our news tips line or something. And if you want to unironically email gamescoop at IGN.com. I don't understand the ironically unironically. I don't get it. Also, I don't know. Ironically. I don't know what Chefs Illustrated is either. I mean, I feel like they'd probably be more likely to cover

37:14Sam Claiborn:as Super Meat Boy than Sports Illustrated. Oh, maybe that's what, maybe that's the connection. Is it Cooks Illustrated? That's a great magazine. Oh, yeah. That's associated with America's Test Kitchen, right? Maybe he was just thinking that and it says, Chef's Kill. Anyway. That's really funny, though. That's a funny comment. Quite the feat to defeat Super Mupo. That's very impressive. That's awesome. And just in time to do the same thing in the next 15 years for Super Mupo 3D, right? Yeah, which I checked. Still doesn't have a release date. Just a release year. Sometime 20 this year. This year, right?

37:44Yeah, this year. Yeah. They had to wait until somebody beat this game without dying first. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now they can release it. Okay. I got to write down our time code because Jobert's editing this episode. Thank you, Jobert. So I can do top 100 Xbox games. Holy smokes. That's a lot. We can finally do it because they just finished their 100th game that's available. They got 100 games. That's awesome. Congrats to Xbox on reaching 100 games. Yes, online shopping is quite literally at our fingertips, but that doesn't mean it's always simple to buy. Whether it's trying to remember one of a million different logins so you can actually place your order, or getting almost all the way through checkout before realizing your card is nowhere near you, there are many hiccups that can get between you and placing that order.

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40:31Since Sam just shared our email address, let's check in with the listeners.

40:35Sam Claiborn:I'll do it. Hey, listeners. Oh, hey, listeners. Listeners, remember you can always reach us. I just sat back and waited. at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com or you can mail us a letter. Whoa! Just like Ross Arbor in Ontario, New Market, Ontario did. He sent us a Christmas card. Wait, was it shipped to the office? Yes. Okay, to your home? I was like, uh-oh. Wow. To his house. It says, it's a Christmas tree. It says, Merry Christmas. Aw. It says, Ross Arbor says, Dear Scoop Crew, Omega Cops, Goose Camp, Damon, Justin, Sam, Nick Mark, Mark, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks for another entertaining year.

41:13All the best for 2026 and hopefully GTA 6. Ross Arbor. Thank you, Ross.

41:18Sam Claiborn:Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Ross, I love you, man, but I hate to tell you, GTA 6 ain't coming out this year. Sorry, buddy. Maybe next year. If anybody else wants to send us letters, Valentine's Day is just around the corner. That's true. That's true. But those ones have to have candy in them, or I don't want them. Ross also sent a card to Podcast Unlocked. What the heck? Wow! Unfortunately. That's so, like, I don't even care anymore. Let's read their mail. Let's read their mail. He just blasts out. Yeah, open it. Unfortunately, no one from Podcast Unlocked lives in L.A. or works in this office, but I told Ryan McCaffrey that it's here.

41:59So next time. Why is the seal broken? Next time he comes down to the office, I'll have it waiting for him.

42:05Sam Claiborn:It's not illegal if it's addressed to a business, okay? We can open their mail. What about... Ross does not care about NBC or... What's the other one? Oh, Beyond. Apparently. That's still coming. It just got delayed, okay? Okay. Our first email, not snail mail, email comes from Joe from the North Bay. Do you know Joe, Sam? Do you think he's talking about the North Bay of San Francisco Bay Area? What other North Bay would be... Do you have one? I always hear about bays in Los Angeles. I live in the South Bay, but there's no North Bay. There's no North Bay. It would be Malibu, I guess, maybe. Anyway, Joe from the North Bay says, I ran into an old friend.

42:47He was shocked to hear I had not played Death Stranding. Oh, yeah. This is a good question for all three of you, but Nick in particular, I think. He said it is his favorite game. So with all the years of Perfect Dark, Resident Evils, and playing in hardcore bands, I should give it a try. I know the story is supposed to be on its own Kool-Aid. I've been working on my Spanish. Could I attempt to play it in Espanol or is Kojima too wild and should I play it in English? That is such a good idea to turn on. If you're trying to learn a language, to turn on your game in a different language and do the subtitles.

43:19I think that sounds great.

43:21Sam Claiborn:Yeah, I think you could play it in Spanish. It'd be all right. Oh, subtitles, of course. Yeah, yeah. It's just going to be dubbed, right? Like he's not going to be Norman Reedus. How good the rest of the world is at speaking American English because of video games because they can get them only in English or in English with subtitles or you know that's their choice with movies too. It's like yeah I think it'll help. Okay. Yeah, that's that's that's a fun idea. I mean Damon plays games in Japanese all the time. I do. I played I tried I tried to play I tried to play Yote in Japanese and I tried I could I couldn't retain the best way to do it.

43:58it's kind of I couldn't retain like any of the information and I had to read the subtitles and ride a horse at the same time that was my issue is like I'm like riding with somebody in there and I'm having to like read these subtitles I I just I couldn't retain the info well that's the nice thing it's it's a game that doesn't that stuff doesn't really matter if you're on a horse and people are talking to you nothing really matters they're just gonna repeat it once you get there yeah yeah Death Stranding would be fine because most the only talking in the game is like cut scenes and stuff like every prepper they have a lot to say yeah you're gonna get right but like you're not playing while that's happening pizza was invented a long time ago and pizza ovens have been around since then i need you to sam you're probably feeling water that's called hydrogen my gosh well yeah and then like no matter what you're gonna hear it twice because the puppet's gonna repeat everything as soon as you leave the damn prepper well shoot okay that sold me i might be in well joe from the north bay the the puppet's not in the first game i don't think right oh sorry i don't know i don't think i'd skip the first game at this point i think it i think it'll feel really good to go from one to what if i told you because they did a big

45:15Sam Claiborn:death stranding 2 is just a remake of the first game but with more it is it is is that true yeah pretty much it's not that different it's just but i think it'd be worse i think it'd be worse to go if you're gonna play them both i think it'd be worse to go in reverse order correct 100 it will not yeah yeah there's a lot of quality of life stuff hey the good news is death stranding 2 starts in Mexico. Perfect. You're right. 100%.

45:49Did everyone see the new trailer for Resident Evil Requiem out of CES? I refused. The one where they showed the rainy street. You can talk about it.

45:59Sam Claiborn:I just didn't want to watch it. The game's out in two months. It looks very nice. It looks very pretty. unsurprisingly. Also, I learned some things about it. Does anyone else know when this game is set? It's like 2028, 2026. It's 2028 because it's supposed to be 30 years after Raccoon City was destroyed. 1998. So Leon is in his 50s? I think he's late 50s, early 60s. Well, he looks great. He looks fantastic. And he's driving a Porsche. And he squats her by Porsche. But it's interesting. So, 2028, because the Shadows of Rose DLC for Resident Evil Village is set in, what, like 2037? Yeah, it's far in the future.

46:43It's, like, way, yeah. Way out there. Wow. Okay.

46:45Sam Claiborn:But that DLC was not very fun, so I'm happy to be away from that. I mean, this is starting to get into that Castlevania type of timeline. Then Dracula's Castle appeared in 2035. Yeah. But that was actually the 2000s version of it, which you played in 1997. Yeah. that's like the dawn of sorrow time like future time right what's the one is that not the one the yeah is it there's a lot of futuristic yeah there is one where it's like takes place in tokyo and there's there's also a really sick uh sorry to us quick aside really sick rom hack that released of dawn of sorrow where you can play a full game as uh soma if you chose the the evil ending so it's like what happens when he becomes the bad guy and it's what looks really cool sorry it's a quick aside if only konami could make games like that yeah they've got something they've been doing more stuff silent hill did that octopus game yeah they've been doing silent hill they were going to publish that octopus game that hasn't come out yet that's right that's right I haven't heard anything about that in a long time or maybe it has the inside limbo game yeah it looks cool it did look cool anyway in the trailer for resident evil requiem there's a scene where who what's her name grace grace grace ashcroft grace yeah she's like walking down a busy street and some people are like that's not Resident Evil Resident Evil is whatever is in a Resident Evil game it's called Raccoon City there's other people she works for the FBI that's why I investigated the setting I thought Raccoon City was destroyed it's been rebuilt it's just a little radioactive I wouldn't still want to live there

48:34yeah i don't know anyway she was even at 195 fps i mean now now i mean the human eye can only see 24 i'm kidding i'm that's a joke she's like an investigator for the fbi right yes and she's

48:49Sam Claiborn:going she goes to this hotel yeah i think she's like a pencil pusher type not not like an action hero so in that scene it just looks like she's walking down the street approaching the hotel that's not like there's gonna be this open huge open area that's busy with other people around yeah the re3 remake opens with you like chaos breaking out on the streets of raccoon city so it's exactly exactly nick we've seen tons of people in resident evil before it's fine yeah yeah yeah part of like a horror aesthetic can frequently be you are unsafe even if you're surrounded by the trappings of society and like how they take those away from you and how they make you like not believed by the people around you or make things happen that other people aren't seeing like that's all like horror trip stuff it's common all over the place yep anyway resident record room continues to look good it's out every every re engine game man i it's just how did they make the game look like this it's so cool it's so good looking well they turned rtx on rtx on and uh that's that's what they did i mean i'm fingers crossed oh yeah what's up do you know what the re engine stands for it's not resident evil engine it's rendering rendering nope nah what is it it's the reach for the moon engine reach for the logo is a guy reaching for the moon oh wow is that true is it actually called the reason it doesn't even make any sense though so what you're saying is engine is the e so we shouldn't be saying engine oh we should just be saying it's built on the re is it oh wait is this like an ATM machine problem yeah DVD player or DVD disc yeah yeah yeah um okay getting back to listener mail it's the moment we've all been waiting for uh Matthew Reed along with stats stats we got some mathematicians in the house Greg Kelly has the stats the 20 questions stats yes for 2025 and if it feels like Justin should be here I get it Justin does see us.

50:47But there's some key stats missing from this. So I will humbly ask at the end of this, ask Matt if we could get a couple more stats. Then we can share those next week when Justin's back. Oh, good idea. Anyway, Matt is in Massachusetts. He says, thank you for reading my 20-question stats once again this year. Hearing my note read on the show each of the past three years has been such a thrill. But not as awesome as it was flying across the country to meet you all at IGN Live from getting destroyed. From getting destroyed at Mario Kart by Pear to getting selfies with a bunch of you. It was the coolest experience, and I'm already looking forward to returning in 2026.

51:20Now onto my stats. How, Pear was that good? I can't believe Pear beat you. All right. Now onto my stats for the past year. Starting off, so we're just talking about 20 questions. There are 516 unique games mentioned. Wow. Ow! During 20 questions segments. How does he? Jesus. It's by far the most since I've been keeping track of these stats. Wow. The game mentioned most frequently, which thanks to Sam, will now forever be known as winning the Prince of Persia award, was Perfect Dark. It was named during five different 20 Questions episodes, six if you count the mention of the Xbox 360 remaster.

52:01This is the most frequently that a game has been brought up during a given year since I started keeping track. There was a tie for second place with Dr. Mario, Elden Ring, Punch-Out, and Stardew Valley all being mentioned on four different segments. Wow. Okay. Okay. Last year's, the year before, 2024's most frequently mentioned game, Hades, was not mentioned once during any 20-question segment in 2025.

52:23Sam Claiborn:Wow. Wow, okay. The first game to be repeated was Tom Clancy's The Division, which was mentioned on episode 795 and then again on episode 803. Games mentioned in 2025 included nine different Halo games, 12 different Zeldas, 13 different Final Fantasies, and 15 different Marios. Wow. The episode with the most unique games mentioned was episode 833, when a whopping 34 different games were mentioned, before Mark finally figured out the correct answer. It was Titanfall. Oh, yeah, that was a good one. That was only a few weeks ago. Yeah. Wow, we went through 34 games before we landed on Titanfall? Jeez.

53:03There were back-to-back episodes with the fewest games mentioned. In episode 808, Sam was playing solo and didn't mention a single specific game, although he did mention the GTA and Pac-Man franchises. The correct game was Psychonauts. And then in episode 809, Hollow Knight was the only game mentioned as the panel quickly guessed it correctly in just eight questions. So that's because I was internally thinking of names of games I needed to say them out loud. That's what he's saying about that? Yeah, I guess so, yeah. I didn't win that. Yeah, not that one. So that's a wrap on 2025. A big shout out to Greg Kelly, the 20-question stats master, for putting all my data on the GameScoop wiki every year.

53:41Happy New Year to the crew and everyone out in Scoop Nation. Long live the best and only video game podcast. Very cool to hear that. That was fun. I would love to hear a win-loss ratio. I miss getting that. A KD. Yeah, we need that. So, yeah, Matt, if I could humbly ask for, if you have a win-loss ratio, I would love to see that as well. And how it compares to previous years. Yeah. Spring starts at the Home Depot, and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under$300. Like the next grill four burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout.

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55:05And that brings us to Video Game 20 Questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Joseph in Nevada City, California, which I didn't know was a thing. I didn't know that existed. Okay. I'm going to Nevada, guys. Nevada City. Joseph says, This game has some of my favorite redacted in the past redacted. Oh, man. Did you say Nevada City, California? Is that what you said? Yeah. yeah that's like a grass valley area thing that's this is like i i've i've heard a lot about that it's like old um ghost towny gold country villages stuff i wonder where it is as you said it's a grass valley new sacramento oh okay okay well let the questioning begin is this game for the 70s 70s 80s or 90s no does this game have recorded talky dialogue like the game hades i was gonna try to figure out a way to get hades in there uh not like the game hades for sure no no it's a talky game there's no god there's no god giving you boons got it okay

56:16Sam Claiborn:no recorded dialogue it's got his favorite redacted okay that doesn't help us at all let's see here okay uh is this game exclusive to any platforms yes is this game developed by sony microsoft or nintendo in part oh okay it might be no man's sky okay let's see let's let's figure let's figure out what platform is so uh is it is it sony no that's five oh is this a nintendo exclusive yes maybe it's all right nintendo and maybe it's maybe it's hades it can't be because it doesn't have the dialogue levels um so dialogue that's true but not not co-developed that's monolith soft monolith soft and nintendo yeah is that xenoblade yeah that one has a lot of talking fire fire emblem yeah it's like kind of that yeah yeah true uh let's think does this game take place in the mario or zelda universes no

57:37Sam Claiborn:it's exclusive it's on it's a nintendo exclusive but we got to figure out which one which which nintendo uh okay so is this uh is this on the switch because like it's the most popular one yes all right cool all right here we go let's see um does this game have does this franchise have a game that's on the NES? Yes.

58:07Sam Claiborn:That's going to eliminate all your RPGs. I think it's Metroid Prime. Unless it's Fire Emblem. Oh, I guess that would have been Famicom. It's not Animal Crossing or anything. Is this a... Can you play as a lady in this game? Yes. Is this a platformer? No.

58:32this is a first person game no

58:37what are we at you've asked 12 questions oof what other what other games are uh is this a strategy game oh no okay thank you oh okay hold on is it an action game yeah okay so it's either to be bayonetta or what's that other one and yeah astral astral chain oh that's right and yes gosh dang it uh action game that would have also just remember remembering that action is a very very

59:10Sam Claiborn:broad category there is action in this game huh yeah so it might it might be mario do i do i play no it's not set in the mario universe i know that was a joke do i play as a humanoid in this game yes that's 15 human like character you can play as a woman you play as a woman you can oh can you do you want to ask that no we already did the answer was yes but it was that you can not that you do gotcha gotcha is anybody listening to the answers sorry I'm just I'm in the zone right now I'm in my mind palace so you know if nintendo is this a franchise going back and it's not a first person game it sounds like it could be that other metroid game still right yeah metroid drive would you call that a platformer i would call that a platformer yeah it's a metroidvania calling a metroid a metroid game a metroidvania uh i don't know yeah it's a platformer is this a sci-fi game yes oh shoot maybe it is oh it might be metroid dread then it's on the switch or it's something that's available is this part of the metroid series yes all right yeah okay so we got a but i'm a little unclear and what when something's on switch we didn't actually ask about if it was on the switch like as in metroid zero originally We just know it's not a first-person shooter.

1:00:46Sam Claiborn:But it's not a platformer. Did this game originally come out for the Nintendo Switch? Yes. All right, well, there you go. You didn't know the answer. You want to say it? Yeah, you do the honors, Sam. Well, is there anything that could trip us up? I don't think so. What question are we on? You have one question and a guess. Do you get chased by a robot frequently throughout this game? Yes. Is it Metroid Dread? Yes, it is Metroid Dread. I wouldn't call it platformer. I know there is platforming in it. I hear you. I think there is platforming. If you were making a list of the top ten platformers.

1:01:26Astrobot is a platformer. Mario is a platformer. This is a Metroidvania.

1:01:31Sam Claiborn:It has a jump button. This is a wild take. You guys are blowing my mind right now. Is Dead Cells a platformer? Yes! Dead Cells is a roguelike Metroidvania. which has platforming in it, but that's not the genre that you put it in, I don't think. Nick, would you say this is a shooter? No. Or can you shoot? No. I would not call this a shooter. But Nick, hold on. She has a gun? What do you mean? I don't know. So I think what Nick is kind of getting at is that there could be... It's like, is this genre, in essence, Metroidvanias, are they all a version of platformers? Yes. Right? because like Castlevania is a platformer.

1:02:14Symphony of the Night came from Castlevania. Just because you can go back and open doors does not necessarily mean it's not a platform. I guess I'll say the only clips I've seen of Silksong are people like pogoing and doing like these super complicated things. So, okay.

1:02:29Sam Claiborn:If you are bad at jumping, you will not get far in these games. If you are bad at jumping. I see your point. Why does the Terminatorvania exist then if these are just platformers? It's a flavor of platformer. Now I'm trying to think of a Metroidvania that isn't a platformer. But it is very funny to call a Metroid game a Metroidvania. It's like saying a kart racer is not a racing game. It is a racing game. It's a subgenre of racing games called kart racers. I didn't think about that, Nick. That's like calling Dark Souls a Souls-like. It's not wrong, but okay. It's also kind of weird. True. I never finished this game.

1:03:10It's good.

1:03:10Sam Claiborn:just another one that someday i like the last boss in it quite a bit that was his that was there oh my god hard that was the redacted joseph in nevada city said uh this game has some of my favorite boss fights in the past 10 years oh yeah samus has so much character in this game and i really like how like badass they make her unlike metroid prime 4 in which you get the silent protagonist in this game samus makes some like human decisions that are really interesting but Does she talk? Does she speak? She doesn't talk, but there's just a lot of body stuff that she does. It's really cool. First of all, that's a huge spoiler, and Nick is wrong.

1:03:48So which one do you want to be mad about?

1:03:51Sam Claiborn:It's been a minute since I played it, but does she say okay? There's a moment where Samus finally is hearing out a point and then has a moment where she responds, and it's awesome. fair enough I stand corrected what the hell? it's in my review but I have to obscure it as like a moment that you won't expect that's never happened in a Metroid game in this way because it certainly happened in other apps very chatty in that game Dread was developed by Nintendo and Mercury Steam I like Metroid Samus Returns for the 3DS there I said it it's a good one you like that better than Dread? no I like Dread more but Mercury Steam did that one Zero Mission is my favorite Metroid game.

1:04:39Yeah. Probably same. Well, nicely job. You definitely got there. Thank you for the suggestion, Joseph, in Nevada City. Viewers and listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com, or feel free to send us a letter if you want to send me suggestions in the more traditional way. All right. Right now at Humble, you can get Humble Choice for just$14.99. and score a curated bundle of PC games for January, including Sonic Frontiers, Tomb Raiders 4 through 6 Remastered, Hunt Showdown 1896, Etrian Odyssey 2 HD, Nice Day for Fishing, Metal Slug Tactics, Settlement Survival, and Wizard of Legend 2.

1:05:19This month's choice is available through February 3rd, so head to HumbleBundle.com and start playing today. And that's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you for joining me here, Nick. Thank you to both Sam and Mark. Thank you to Jobert and everyone working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. Happy New Year, everyone out there in Scoop Nation. My name is Damon. This is IGN Game Scoop, and we're out.

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