Game Scoop! 846: Requiem Is a Dream

5:36Nick Limon:It's like a construction zone almost. and it just starts to look a little samey. But I guess you could kind of say that about any of the areas. Now, I will say you are right about the combat though because that is when you get to really just use his arsenal for a long time. And it's great because playing as Leon is so damn fun.

5:55Mark Medina:So the difference between Leon games that are like Resident Evil 4 is that sometimes you're in a place where you cannot back yourself into a corner and expend your ammo and get away with it. There's too many sides and too many everything and the zombies fall from the top and they crawl up from the bottom and they're just everywhere and all over and that's what that part of the game is good at so i give it a total pass on that now i think this game is an absolute knock out of the park 10 out of 10 wonderful game i think it's so good and i think it's like i've never had more fun with resident evil besides the first time i played resident evil 4 and i love those remakes and i think they're just as good as this i i it's it's just really really great and because of the mix it's really good too and then the replay value is just like even better because it does that thing again where it's just like you know you played through it this one way and there's like absolutely different ways to play resident evil

6:47Nick Limon:it's like more sandboxy than it lets on you know i've not asked him i know i know there's the whole thing where it's like but this game got this and this so that means it's worse than this and usually the answer is it's different outlets or different reviewers but tristan reviewed for remake and gave it a 10 and then reviewed this and gave it a nine and i would be curious what his rationale was because i i agree with sam i i think this game is i think it's a 10 you think i think it's equally fun playing as grace and leon they're very different yeah yeah yeah i would say so i i i I like the escape room stuff with grace.

7:27Nick Limon:I love village. Um, village was such a like haunted house tour of all these supernatural things. I loved it so much. And I love the like escape room. Like I never felt like grace was too underpowered. I feel like she's just classic resident evil. You got to be good with your ammo and sneak around and solve puzzles. That's right.

7:48Mark Medina:It's the contrast that Leon has where it's like, Oh yeah. Yeah, by the end of Resident Evil, you are like loaded with stuff and it's still difficult. So in this game, you don't have that progression. You go between those two things. You can actually clear out an area that you've been in with Grace. It was really hard that you decided not to wear it. Maybe you left some zombies around, which last time I did that, this is so gross.

8:10Nick Limon:That right there, what you just saw, is like one of the best additions ever to Resident Evil. The hemolytic injectors.

8:17Mark Medina:But I love the mansion stuff where you leave zombies because you're like, I don't, I don't, this zombie is so stupid that you can just outrun it every time you go through and you can manage it that way. I love that. And then like when you're playing as Leon, you have an incentive to kill more than the zombies than you need to do. Like they knew exactly what they're doing, contrasting the two types of Resident Evil gameplay. And how smart, like I just, I can't believe they did this. and I think this is a better game than Resident Evil 4 remake which I think is one of the best games I've ever played but I think Resident Evil 4 I still am like go back to that as like you know even a better game than a remake in that sense but I think two and three remakes are better than two and three.

9:00Nick Limon:Leon is like the revenge tour yeah it's like you're all scared running around as Grace and then you just double machine gun Leon just comes through and he's like oh Grace you left all these zombies for me.

9:13Mark Medina:So Damon tell us about the gore because like I really like the gore in this and like it is noticeable that's so what we're just talking

9:19Daemon Hatfield:about this hemolytic injector for our listeners uh it's a new consumable weapon that you can stealth one one one shot kill an enemy if you can sneak up behind him you stab him with it and they basically they pop like about like a like a blood balloon basically and not only that and it's it stays it splatters the walls and the floors and the desks whatever is around it's also a perma

9:39Mark Medina:kill because they're you know they don't come back can get up again yeah the blister heads not

9:43Sam Claiborn:quite crimson heads this time around but it's like let's be real these are just crimson heads come on

9:47Nick Limon:it's great you can do it if you uh push them over as well as grace like if you if you hit them and then and then do the melee you could jump onto them and and get them and not just to mention

9:58Sam Claiborn:that hemolytic injector is great but when you play as leon you get these special animations that went like they're kind of random but you can kind of put yourself in situations where it happens where you know we're looking at footage of him using the chainsaw there's a bespoke animation of him shoving the chainsaw in a zombie's chest and then just going to town there's him using the requiem gun where he spins around a dude like john wick style and executes the zombie point blank and it's just effortlessly cool and that's why yeah the power the the way i likened it to is leon you are playing the end of the resident evil game when you are fully powered up and your inventory is maxed out his inventory is literally maxed out when you start the game whereas grace has the limited inventory that you'd be used to in a traditional resident evil game and it is such a delightful i said it in the is it still fun podcast resident evil resident evil is at its best when it's the cat and mouse game where the cat becomes the mouse and the mouse becomes the cat and it is constantly fluctuating between making you feel like the prey and then making you feel like the predator and that is such a good feeling in this game now i i genuinely love this game uh i have not finished it yet my biggest problem with it and it was based on what they showed in the like i think it was uh one of the resident evil directs that they had they talked a little bit about the fact that you would go through areas again as leon and you would be able to wipe up any enemies that grace didn't finish off but personally for me i found it where i was like well i killed everything as grace like i didn't need to like and i was and i was chilling you know i was like i worked my way up sure but i killed everything and so when i went through the area as leon i was like well shoot there's nothing to do here as leon and it's like oh i found a charm that makes one of his weapons more powerful i was like i don't need that for leon i need that for grace dude what's going on here that's the only criticism i have i wish i wish resident evil could go back to the re2 on playstation and n64 and give me the perfect zapping system i know that's asking for a lot but it felt like that's what they were trying to do here.

12:03Sam Claiborn:And maybe I'm just too MLG. Maybe I'm too much of a capital G gamer. But that was the only problem I have. But I think 9 or 10 for me. I haven't finished it yet, so currently sitting at a 9. But we'll see how it wraps up.

12:19Nick Limon:You might be experiencing something we were trying to test and we couldn't really figure it out. All the Resident Evil games, specifically Resident Evil 2 Remake, if you are trigger happy and you use a lot of your bullets, the game will give you more bullets.

12:34Sam Claiborn:Oh, 100%. That could be happening. I think that's 100 % the case here, yeah.

12:38Nick Limon:Yeah, where you're emptying your ammo so much with grace that it's just giving you more bullets. That's probably what's happening. So then you're just becoming a grace powerhouse.

12:47Mark Medina:Yeah, and I think that you'll be able to, on a more difficult mode, never take advantage of that or something. But what's good is that they do stop that thing where you're like, you're just going to go through this again with Leon. That only happens once. Oh, okay. That's good to know.

13:02Sam Claiborn:That's good to know. Yeah, the care center. That said, the scares that I've had with this were very evocative of Resident Evil 7 for me. I think Resident Evil 7 is genuinely one of the scariest games I played apart from PT. And I think that the opening chapter, like not the opening chapter, like the tutorial section as Grace, but the first time Grace gets to play in an actual Resident Evil game, you know, where you're finding items, that opening moment is just so good at like i feel helpless i have no weapons yes i need to figure out where i need to go to find a weapon and that was such a beautiful like opening hour to me and i was like this is the essence of resident evil and you die right so like you

13:42Mark Medina:have to like you know this game has a little bit of like a liberal save system until you play the classic mode so that that does help with that but i i was so tense while playing this game and I've had house guests and like, you know, I would be, I'd be like, I have to go play this game for work and then the house would be dark and then it would get quiet in the house and then like my wife or a friend or somebody would come up behind me and be like, how's this going? I'm like, oh my god! You cannot do that while I'm playing this game, you know. It's a really rare occasion where I was like getting jumpy in my house.

14:13Mark Medina:That never happens. Yeah. I highly recommend it.

14:15Nick Limon:Did you guys play the intended way with first person brains and third person brains?

14:20Sam Claiborn:Yeah, it works so well.

14:21Mark Medina:And I don't even notice.

14:22Nick Limon:Yeah, I don't care.

14:23Mark Medina:Me neither.

14:23Sam Claiborn:It's so good. Also, they fixed the aiming for first person because the way it feels in first person feels so much better than it ever has in like Village or anything like that. My biggest criticism of Village is that it's like RE2 remake. The enemies don't actually feel like there's any impact when you hit them with a gun. And so in this, the enemies stagger nicely the way they do in three remake and four remake. They bounce off walls, which is really cool. It feels very satisfying.

14:51Mark Medina:them into each other i love that super useful to push them into each other that's a good pro tip

14:56Sam Claiborn:i'll also play play the traditional what is it traditional mode the classic mode or whatever the one where you have to get ink ribbons the one where you have to use ink ribbon specifically as grace leon is still basically auto saves but the increments i think add a nice level of tension and you can actually craft ink ribbon so it's not all that like difficult but i i think it feels nice and it feels like a more intended way to play the game leon doesn't stay auto saving either

15:24Mark Medina:again there's a huge part of the game like the thing that everybody thinks that this game is is not what the game is it changes to be a lot more uh separate ways they said with ada yeah so i'm

15:36Daemon Hatfield:deep into the like the hospital area which uh playing as grace that's the opening area right like the it's not the very first area the grace the first time you're playing a resident evil game as grace yeah yeah first you go through there's like a hotel we're investigating a mysterious death and then you go to this hospital facility and it's set up just like resident evil one the mansion the east and west yeah just like the raccoon police department it's got a west wing and east wing two two levels it's exactly like that so it's great but yeah playing as her in this area i think it's maybe the most scary resident evil's ever been for me and it like like sam was saying like i it's almost the point where i was i was a little bit nervous to like start playing for the evening so i'm like okay i gotta let's i gotta suck myself up because like she's so she's almost useless half the time and i i ran out of ammo completely for a long stretch and i was just like sneaking around trying to run away from zombies and stuff so oh and there's also some you know uh hero enemies in this area too that are just absolutely horrifying yeah

16:37Mark Medina:well i think the singers are really spooky because you hear them from so far away and You'll be in other rooms and you hear the horrible singing. They're like laughing between two. Yeah, yeah. And you know you haven't taken them out. You work around them for so long. And then finally, you're like, I'm so happy I can get rid of this person.

16:54Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. The zombies are very chatty in this game. I like it. I like it.

16:58Sam Claiborn:It's a good version of a zombie.

17:00Nick Limon:They retain their personality. I love it. Yeah. So another thing I'll say is. The guy that turns the lights off and stuff like that. Too much light.

17:09Mark Medina:A good tip there, too, is that they can't see your flashlight. i thought i played the whole game thinking oh good to know yeah i i um so go ahead sam well i i think the puzzles are really hard uh to the extent where like i always 100 these games but like i couldn't my first round i was like i want to i want to move forward but like several of the things of like there's like literal scavenger hunts i i did some of them but not others and i I didn't know if it was like, do I have to loop the game to solve this? And it was like, nope, I just didn't do it. I thought that was awesome.

17:44Sam Claiborn:That rules. That's so cool. One small detail I really like about the game that, again, I think it goes back to what I was saying about when you play as Leon, you're playing as a veteran at the end of the Resident Evil game, basically. And Grace, you're a newbie. Grace is, whenever you're aiming with her, she's constantly shaking. She's very clearly terrified. and it's very evocative of Leon in the original RE2 remake as this rookie cop, this rookie who's been thrust into this weird situation of just extreme circumstances. But one thing I've noticed is as the game progresses, Grace starts to get a little more sure of herself, not only in the dialogue, but also in just her animations.

18:26Sam Claiborn:And I think that's such a nice little touch that just follows Leon's journey from RE2 remake to RE4 remake and all these things. so it's really really cool capcom did a great job with grace and honestly i think she might be up

18:40Nick Limon:there in terms of a re protagonist really at least so far i hope she stays around she's great maybe with that costume you could you can get with your pre-order she's always she's always breathing

18:53Daemon Hatfield:heavily like because she's terrified right yeah she's always out of breath but they didn't record very many takes so it's kind of always the same breathing that you hear over and over again when

19:03Nick Limon:she's running she'll like trip and stumble too but you don't see it if you're in first person

19:08Mark Medina:that's really cool that's that's a nice touch she drops f-bombs in a really funny way like yeah like something will happen she'll be like what the f yeah it's really funny um i think this is also just because my you know i love the leon verse and like if this is if there was a if it was a resident evil is just a leon series i know there's other games he's in i know there's spin-offs and shit but like there is this this kind of two you know for this game which is like feels like he's in six uh he's in six yeah but i'm saying like that's what i'm saying he's in other games but like they're you're not gonna play those games right but they these feel like the games you know like they feel like this like series that is they and then this one does um like a series of just like best ofs and callbacks like i do recommend playing two and four before playing this like play that i usually don't care and if you play this you can go back and play those two but like i wouldn't start here just because two and at least four i guess two is essential too but yeah they just feel they they just feel like a perfect trilogy of leon games i saw that actually

20:20Sam Claiborn:jump up in the facebook group i think it was this morning they're like uh i'm not a weirdo like nick and Sam or Nick and Justin who have to replay all the Resident Evil games but do I really need to play RE 2 and 4 and I didn't want to chime in because I was name dropped but be like what are you doing of course you should play Resident Evil 2 remake and RE 4 just in general those are just good games but I would I agree with Sam I think that this game a lot of the beauty of this game is the fact that it is this kind of culmination of Resident Evil that I think you'll really appreciate if you played the games that said it is a fantastic games in its own right

20:55Mark Medina:but it is but but you there is a there is a series of infinite easter eggs for part of this game where everything is referencing an old resident evil game it doesn't matter if you have not played them but if you know you know and it's really really fun and it's fun there is a

21:15Nick Limon:section later in the game that if i mentioned it wouldn't technically it was in the trailer i'm not gonna mention it though it is i'm talking about beyond that too there's just like just the leon it is it's not just like you revisited an area you've been before it like it revisits an area you feel like you've played before i don't know i don't know how to explain it without

21:37Daemon Hatfield:spoiling it but it is incredible all right a couple story observations uh before we move on in the first area this uh grace is sent to this hotel to investigate a mysterious death the hotel is run down. It's decrepit. It's in horrible shape. She goes into the bathroom. It's absolutely disgusting. You can look at a toilet. It's like, it's just the dirtiest toilet you've ever seen. And then she just lifts the lid with her hand.

22:02Sam Claiborn:It's the first time I've seen Dookie in a video game rendered with such high fidelity. What?

22:08Daemon Hatfield:Lifts the lid with her hand and then the faucets don't work so she just has this disgusting hand now. I wish the rooms turned green. The rooms don't turn green. They do not turn green oh well the save room music is nothing to speak of they do show the items that were in that

22:24Mark Medina:room if you get near them so you can look back and be like oh there's blood here there's you know a knife here and stuff so that that actually ends up being that version of it that's like no no

22:33Daemon Hatfield:they don't turn no save room we we just replayed the resident one that's why it's fresh in my mind where they stopped yeah it is helpful yeah anyway it's a fantastic game yeah like when this was first announced I had a little hard time getting excited for it because I was like you know I loved the settings for both 7 and 8 and then I was like well we're just kind of in a city now but no no nope this is just it's another great Resident Evil game I cannot wait to play it I cannot wait to play it even on Switch 2 yeah it's wild that this runs has near parody on Switch 2

23:07Sam Claiborn:oh and one thing we haven't really talked about just the RE engine it's what a feats of engineering it looks yeah so good always in this game oh my god even when you're looking at disgusting stuff i was like this looks incredible yeah it's so it just helps that they they've

23:26Nick Limon:you know there's no day and night cycle anything like that so they just are able to set up the lighting and everything perfectly every time so every time you like look down a hall you know that the developers are wanted you to look down that hall the way that you are and seeing everything how it is but that's that's been the last like few games yeah yeah they hide zombies in the

23:46Mark Medina:funniest ways with that perspective they know there's like a dark thing and the lighting is so good that you don't see it um this is this is a resident evil game a year now right that's what we're at yeah like the four remake was last year and then it was 2023 so it was like a two-year break right two-year breaks still absolutely bonkers delivery of resident evil games over the past five or six years.

24:12Daemon Hatfield:Capcom, they're one of the only devs that have figured it out. They're regularly delivering incredible games.

24:19Sam Claiborn:From 2019 all the way through. I know people like to dunk a little bit on RE3 Remake. Revisit RE3 Remake. I did that some night recently, and that game rules.

24:28Nick Limon:Because of how short it is. I think because it's like four hours.

24:31Sam Claiborn:It's short, it's cut content, but I'm like, dude, this game still rips. I played that game recently, and I'm like, this is so fun.

24:38Nick Limon:Well, when Capcom's not done, they got pragmata in a month i know oh dude and practice the demo the demo is fun it's tasty

24:45Daemon Hatfield:demo is super good every modern triple a developer should study what capcom is doing and figure out

24:51Sam Claiborn:what they have figured out roundhouse kicks and leather jackets that's all you need yeah and they

24:55Mark Medina:didn't do mercenaries for this but we presume there's going to be some modes added and stuff like that which really makes these games these kind of like desert island games for me like if i had a bunch of time i i always loved spending it with resident evil 4 back in the day and just 100%. Oh, yeah, man. You know, it's gonna be great in this game too.

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25:45Daemon Hatfield:Well, in honor of the release of Resident Evil Requiem, I've put together some Resident Evil trivia for you three. So here we go. I have questions for each of you. We've got three rounds. Let's see who knows their Resident Evil the best. Sam, we'll start with you. what average review score did egm give the original resident evil resident trivial

26:09Mark Medina:uh that's interesting because i remember it being really well received so i'm gonna go with but also sometimes they were contrarian but i'm gonna go with and it's out of 10 right yep but with point scales yes but not with 8.8 how does fun factor

26:28Sam Claiborn:play into this. That was game pro.

26:31Mark Medina:Yeah, I'm gonna go 8, 9, 9, 10.

26:34Daemon Hatfield:Whoa, so I asked you what average? So what would that... Oh, I don't know. 9.5. EGM gave the original an 8.75 on average. Two 8.5s and two 9s. We round it up to 9. This IGN way. That's true. That's what we do here. Alright, Nick, what is the name of the first non-mainline Resident Evil game?

26:55Sam Claiborn:Resident Evil Gaiden? No, wait, not, wait, not spinoffs, you're saying. Yeah, so not the mainline. It's either Survivor or it's Gaiden, and I'm going to go with Survivor. It is Resident Evil Survivor. I think it's Survivor. What is that game? It's like a first-person PlayStation game. Yeah, it's a light gun game. It's not a light gun game. It's a house of the day. It's a first-person dungeon crawler where you have a gun and you play as a dude who thinks he's a serial killer, kind of knows Leon a little bit, but then it turns out the serial killer sets you up. Sorry if that's a spoiler.

27:29Nick Limon:I'm just about to go back and play Resident Evil Survivor. You should look up gameplay.

27:32Sam Claiborn:The gameplay genuinely looks like it's not a great game to play, but it looks cool. What's Gaiden? Gaiden is the Game Boy game, I believe. Yeah. It's a Game Boy Color game. This is it? Yeah, yeah. This is it? It's a Resident Evil Survivor. Yeah, it's a first person.

27:46Mark Medina:The graphics are a lot better than I thought they would be.

27:49Sam Claiborn:Yeah, it's a cool looking game. It's just not that fun. Why do they still have the doors?

27:55Nick Limon:Yeah, weird. Look at them go. Look at those zombies.

27:59Daemon Hatfield:Okay, Mark, you're true. What Resident Evil game received the lowest review score from IGN?

28:06Nick Limon:Oh, man. Let's see. The lowest review score from IGN. I mean, you would think it would be Survivor because it's not very good.

28:21Nick Limon:But does that game predate IGN? It wouldn't, right? No. No, it doesn't. I don't know.

28:27Mark Medina:I'm trying to think of a time where they screwed up Resident Evil from porting it.

28:30Nick Limon:Yeah, I'm going to go with Resident Evil 6.

28:34Sam Claiborn:No, I don't remember who gave that. Is it Mercenaries 3D?

28:39Daemon Hatfield:No, it's not. Does anyone remember Umbrella Corps?

28:42Sam Claiborn:Oh, yes, that's the Wii game.

28:44Daemon Hatfield:No, 2016, PS4 and PC. It's like an online live service game. Oh, this looks terrible.

28:50Sam Claiborn:This is the game they made after Operation Raccoon City. I was like, well, surely they'll never make another game like this.

28:57Mark Medina:This one bricked my PS4, and I've never been able to. I had to replace it entirely. You hear that guy comments?

29:03Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. Oh, Brian Alver. Brian Alver gave this a 3.8. Wow. It's the lowest reviewed Resident Evil at IGN.

29:11Sam Claiborn:Maybe I'll play this. This looks interesting.

29:13Daemon Hatfield:No. It was live service, so it might be shut down. Oh, dear. Okay. Round two. Sam, what was the first Resident Evil game to allow 180 degree turns?

29:26Mark Medina:Well, I think it's four because I remember doing it in four and it was really fun. They added it in three. You do that in three. Wow, really? So you could flip around in a set camera angle? That's really cool. We should do the, don't let anybody else do a spoiler cast. We should do that on GameScoop because it would be fun to return to this once everybody's got to the end of the game and talk about the ending and what it means for Resident Evil stuff

29:50Daemon Hatfield:because it's pretty cool. Cool. We'll do that for sure. All right, Nick, what was the first Resident Evil to include a Mercenaries mode?

29:57Sam Claiborn:Resident Evil, well, technically RE2 has something. RE2 directors got, or no, RE2 does technically have something, but Mercenaries mode would be RE3. That's right. Also, Resident Evil 3 had the Mercenaries mode. Nice. It's also a really fun, it's a really fun Mercenaries. It's a little bit different from the modern one in that you have an objective that you have to find a certain npc on the raccoon city map and then you get points as you make your way towards them so you have to basically know a hundred percent where you are at all times and know how the map is laid out it's very fun and very difficult and you can extend your time by helping out survivors that are scattered throughout the map

30:36Nick Limon:it's kind of like an arcade racing game yo there's a delorean what the hell an arcade racing game

30:41Sam Claiborn:because you can extend your time exactly exactly it's really fun i played it semi recently and i I was like, I could play this for a long time, but it's really hard to unlock all the extra stuff. You have to play like 40 times to unlock like the unlimited rocket launcher and stuff like that.

30:55Daemon Hatfield:They must have added this because they knew RE3 was so short. Yeah, exactly.

31:00Sam Claiborn:Yeah, yeah. Oh, RE2 also has something similar where you, you know, like third survivor or fourth survivor in like the tofu mode. Right. But this is the one where it feels like they actually nailed it in terms of making this game. And that's in Resident,

31:13Mark Medina:they redid that in 2 and 3, right? because i remember though there's like a 30 minute run that's really hard you do and that is that

31:19Sam Claiborn:re2 remake the fourth survivor where you play at hunk is i think so cool that is my favorite video game experience i've had since 2019 it is so fun to try to s rank that yeah we were in the

31:32Mark Medina:office while that was out and i just remember like the days we're all trying to work together to just get to the end of it for the first time because it was not not easy all right mark resident

31:41Daemon Hatfield:Resident Evil 4 was first released on the GameCube in 2005. Yeah. In what year was the PlayStation version released?

31:50Nick Limon:2005. Let's see. Let's see. The guy chopped his own head off in 2006. So I'm going to go with 2007.

32:02Daemon Hatfield:I'm sorry. No. No. The PlayStation version was also released in 2005. They were nine months apart. Okay. It was fall, right? Oh, okay. the Wii was 2006 I think

32:13Sam Claiborn:it was right after that

32:14Daemon Hatfield:well the Wii was released in 2006 so it would have been a launch

32:17Sam Claiborn:I think it was like 2008 or 2009 for the Wii version so it took a little while, it's so good, I love that version that one's really fun, it's a little easy though

32:25Daemon Hatfield:alright, final round Sam, what is the best selling Resident Evil game of all time?

32:32Mark Medina:hmm

32:35Mark Medina:I wonder if they're stacking at this point, but I'm going to go with 7

32:40Daemon Hatfield:No, it is the 2 remake

32:41Sam Claiborn:Oh wow, I thought it was 5 Resident Evil 2 remake is the best selling game

32:45Daemon Hatfield:in the franchise Nick, both the GameCube remake of Resident Evil 1 and Resident Evil 0 were brought to the Wii What branding did Capcom use for those versions?

33:00Daemon Hatfield:Resident Evil

33:02Sam Claiborn:Wii edition?

33:04Daemon Hatfield:No, it was the Resident Evil Archives Resident Evil Archives Resident Evil Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

33:10Sam Claiborn:I think that's what they use for the GameCube versions Oh yeah, that's what you just said GameCube plus the Wii Alright, Mark

33:18Daemon Hatfield:Last question Resident Evil Village was released in 2021 for PS4, PS5 PC, Xbox One Xbox Series X and S and one other platform What was that platform?

33:33Nick Limon:Switch Cloud Edition

33:35Daemon Hatfield:No, it was not. It was Google Stadia.

33:38Sam Claiborn:I knew it was going to be a Stadia joke.

33:43Nick Limon:Sorry, I forgot Stadia ever happened just like the rest of the world.

33:47Daemon Hatfield:Yep, yep. Brutal. Nicely job, everyone. Thank you for playing Resident Evil Trivia.

34:08Daemon Hatfield:That finally brings us to last week's big topic. Phil Spencer retires. Sarah Bond is out. Matt Booty is promoted to, what is it? COO or CCO? CCO, Chief Content Officer. And then Microsoft's AI exec, Akshay Sharma, is now the next boss of Xbox. In a literal huge scoop from Ryan McCaffrey. Oh my God. what's crazy about this is that he feels just gone like other executives recently like bob eiger and kathleen kennedy at disney they announced their retirement in like and later this year i'll be stepping down like nope he's just gone today phil spencer is no longer at xbox yep well hold

34:52Nick Limon:on i thought someone's i thought he was staying on as an advisory role until october he was through

34:58Daemon Hatfield:the summer he was going to be like help advising but he's not he's not the boss of xbox today

35:04Nick Limon:yeah yeah yeah he's not the boss anymore he's just taking photos with everybody well he always did that do we think

35:13Daemon Hatfield:do we think this was Phil's decision no no no Sam what does Sam think

35:21Mark Medina:um I think that Phil would have had some kind of bearing on who succeeded him and his retiring plans I think he had that much clout that he did have some say in this but i think mark ways are sure i think he was going to retire

35:39Nick Limon:i think that was going to happen this year i mean the dude's worth like 30 40 million dollars and i know that doesn't mean people are automatically going to retire just because they're rich but he had been floating the idea for a while but for it to happen so suddenly alongside the sarah bond resignation tells me that it was one of those if you're gonna retire i need you to do it now because we need to get the new ceo prepped for the console launch next year and you retiring at the end of this year whatever is not enough time we need this to be done that way we can start working on marketing plans and strategies and stuff like that for 2027's magnus launcher whatever you guys want to call it.

36:25Daemon Hatfield:Nick, what do you think?

36:27Sam Claiborn:Yeah, I think this is just the nature of the C-suite executive world, right? Like I think, you know, when people are afforded that option, it gets telegraphed in advance a la the Bob Iger and whatnot. And I think that when things don't go according to plan, I think is when it happens suddenly. And granted, I'm sure that Phil and Sarah have earned enough goodwill to try and go about it in the best way they possibly could. But to me, this reads of this was not ultimately their decision to make. And this was something that kind of happened that surely there will be some story about what actually unfolded 10 years from now or in that time frame.

37:03Sam Claiborn:But nothing that we're going to learn about soon, especially coming from the fact that we know Microsoft as a whole is pushing its co-pilot AI technology a lot more. And the fact that they are kind of leading that charge in terms of having Asha is her name, if I'm not mistaken. Asha Sharman. someone who is basically using that as I am ushering in this age of AI just feels very corporate-y to me and very just, this is a Microsoft decision. This is not an Xbox decision.

37:38Nick Limon:I want to be clear about something, though. I'm not saying Phil was let go or forced to retire. I'm saying the timing. I'm saying that if he wasn't going to retire, he likely would have been around for a few more years. But because he was going to retire, I mean, companies do that all the time, right? If I tell my boss, who's sitting right next to me, that I'm going to quit right before GTA comes out, it's possibly in IGN's best interest to have me quit now so they could get someone trained in my role before GTA comes out. You know what I mean? And so I think that's what's happening. I think Phil was going to quit and the timeline got moved up.

38:18Nick Limon:The Sarah Bond thing is the big mystery because she was supposedly the heir apparent to the Xbox throne. So for her to resign on the same day is wild.

38:30Mark Medina:And I think that it's not helpful, and I've seen a lot of this, to speculate about the palace intrigue here. But to think about, and by the way, this is what the Next Gen Console Watch episode is about this week. What would you want Microsoft to do going forward? and what can they do to correct things that are often perceived as like, you know, fans don't like it and stuff like that. It's helpful to think about that, but then you have to remember that Phil's legacy is buying Activision Blizzard and Bethesda. It does not matter what Microsoft does ever again to sell a console, to not sell a console, to do anything.

39:13Mark Medina:They have a software mega empire and those two companies, let alone all the other stuff that they are producing and own and all the, you know, I hate to use the term IP that they have now. Like if the outward things that, you know, we've talked about internally here with the shakeup is like there absolutely should be an Elder Scrolls game out. And after Microsoft bought that company, like making Starfield and not an Elder Scrolls game is bonkers. And whatever control Microsoft has over that is neat. That can be fixed by anybody. You don't need a 20-year industry veteran to be like, hey, maybe we should force Bethesda to make a Fallout game.

39:57Mark Medina:That's just so natural. And it's such an obvious thing. And now they're so far away from those games still that it's like, there's that legacy of what great decision-making and buying these companies. And then there's the what's happening right now of mismanaging that. I don't know.

40:14Nick Limon:And that could be fixed. I don't know about ZeniMax, but I do believe that either the A, the B, or the K are going to get sold off soon from Xbox. Yeah, I don't. I don't imagine them keeping them. Why do you say that? That was, because it was just so expensive to buy that. $80 billion was such a...

40:37Mark Medina:Two of those are just passive moneymakers, though, because they develop and then there's subscribers and then they just make that's why they are passive

40:43Nick Limon:money makers except for that now true but xbox is now funding the development of it right so there's

40:49Mark Medina:this whole thing right where oh i should have mentioned back there minecraft i always forget

40:54Nick Limon:that one sure they brought minecraft they do have minecraft like this is crazy to talk about like oh

41:00Mark Medina:xbox is showing signs of failure no xbox is probably showing signs of like we can do more with our

41:07Daemon Hatfield:incredible potential right yeah so i have hard time answering the question is did phil spencer leave xbox in better shape than when he came in because he came in in 2014 a year after the disastrous launch of the xbox one and he did a lot of cool things game pass was a great deal for gamers at first whether or not it was good for developers or sustainable that's a separate question it was initially a very a great deal for gamers he launched the xbox series x which i think is a terrific console. He made these acquisitions. Backwards compatibility. So he does all this great stuff. But over his tenure, there was never a very long period where something terrible didn't happen or a perfect dark is canceled or there's just long droughts with no games coming at all.

41:52Daemon Hatfield:That's been fixed also, by the way.

41:54Nick Limon:But I have some numbers. Oh, okay, go ahead.

41:58Daemon Hatfield:I have some numbers. So when Phil took over Xbox in 2014, their revenue was nine billion dollars last year the revenue was 23 and a half billion dollars but how much what what about profits though in 2014 yeah xbox made 700 million dollars in profit last year they made five billion dollars profit five billion straight into microsoft the acquisition pocket that's exactly that also the active users 35 million in 2014 500 million in 2025 because of King and Candy Crush and all that. So I'm just saying that when you look at these numbers, yeah, that doesn't look like a failure of a tenure. It looks fine.

42:36Mark Medina:And what we're measuring this as is Sony versus Microsoft and console sales. It is just not a big part of the equation. And that's why having somebody come in that maybe is just a good business and people manager that can handle a bunch of people that know about selling software is not that scary and it's not that surprising and you know what what i think they're losing is a figurehead which basically no other company has right now there's nobody that walks out and talks about sony that anybody cares about right now and definitely not nintendo they've really tried but like even moving miyamoto into iwata was kind of awkward for a while and then now after that it's been like yeah there's a couple lead designers that come out by game and you know doug bowser never became you never walked out in a bowser outfit reggie was the last time they had that but who was it ken kutaragi and then after that it was um sean sean yes yes uh yeah and even xbox before you know uh had peter more right so it's like there's always been these kind of people that are the faces of the companies and like already and i'm saying like i'm not making any judgment on you know asha's you know abilities to run this company but like this is a figurehead she's it's been mixed and interesting

43:58Nick Limon:i mean she's putting herself out there yeah she's responding to ryan mcafree correct yeah she i mean they did the that that stuff's like kind of coordinated in my opinion like when she first came out and did her big article about like this is my vision or whatever like people are like she's saying the right things and it's like i mean i could be the i could be the head of xbox if that's all it takes like i can come out and type a pr thing and then follow a bunch of people with xbox in their name on twitter like i don't buy any of that as like but it's the right thing to do it

44:34Mark Medina:would be much more worrying if somebody came in and said i don't need to know about this at all

44:37Nick Limon:i'm smarter than all of you yeah i think that's all fine i don't think it proves or makes me hopeful about any sort of future of xbox her following people on twitter i don't think that does anything or her saying stuff about like console first like because here's the thing there she is uh you know they were exclusive forza horizon 5 and starfield and redfall and all these games and and it didn't work right and so then they had to go more third party i don't i don't know because the big draw on what she said was that it feels like she's signaling that things are going to go exclusive again and i just don't think that that is a winning formula what they need to do is they need to make great games like phil said though like you know we're not going to sail a trillion consoles by making great games and i i just disagree with that every xbox has a lot of games but none of them jump out at the screen at you in my opinion they they need to figure that out i i love avowed as much as the next guy uh i thought out of worlds 2 was cool they need to shut down the internet with a game and i think fable will be it but But until they do that, of course, Forza.

45:47Nick Limon:Yeah. Fable, I'm not... We got to see what it is. I'm not going to give the game a 10 out of 10 based on a trailer. That's what they need. They need the games that are going to shut down the internet, and they just don't have that. They just have a million different games that just come out and get put on Game Pass, and nobody's talking about them after the first weekend. I think that that's what they need to solve.

46:08Mark Medina:Elder Scrolls 6? I thought Indiana Jones was really good. Yeah, it is Elder Scrolls 6.

46:12Nick Limon:or I thought Indiana Jones was great too.

46:15Mark Medina:I think just like there's like this third party like corralling that's like, yes, Microsoft can like produce all these games that they've been producing for a long time, but just what they acquired, like how do you get Call of Duty to be the most popular shooter of the fall? Like that takes a little bit of a reset, right? But like probably should have happened a while ago because now they just have to deliver a Call of Duty every year. And I don't know, but the last two years ago, Call of Duty was really good. Yeah. it just was it was really good so so they're they have they've there's just a different world right

46:48Nick Limon:now call of duty is just such a rough sell for them because no matter how good it is people are

46:52Sam Claiborn:just gonna be like it's called duty it's called i mean the last one though is pretty bafflingly different in a way i was like what anything but this one they they do need fable to come out though

47:01Nick Limon:and it just be this incredible thing i don't i don't even know if i were them i would say like

47:06Mark Medina:you have the biggest the biggest stock ever you have the biggest company of all these resources put elder scrolls out next year yeah just do it yeah you can figure this out you can start like the lord of the rings was filmed in one year you can do this all three movies elder scroll six and then fast track fallout five people are a little disenfranchised on bethesda games though

47:32Nick Limon:and knowing that not knowing not for elder scrolls i don't i don't think so i think there has not been an elder scrolls since 2011 we we can't live in this world that elder scrolls is always just going to be perfect when there hasn't been one in 15 years i don't even think skyrim's

47:47Sam Claiborn:perfect but i think that's the game that's going to make gigantic waves i i think skyrim actually

47:53Nick Limon:i think is kind of the worst one unless it unless the characters look like shit like they did in Starfield and the game plays for. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true. I think the problem with Starfield is that you're fighting for the audience that will just eat it up because it's called Elder Scrolls.

48:11Sam Claiborn:I don't necessarily agree with that. I think I think this is a little bit of

48:17Nick Limon:yeah. I just don't agree with the fact that because Elder Scrolls was once good that every single one is going to be good after that when they haven't made one.

48:25Sam Claiborn:I don't think that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that it's going to make gigantic waves regardless of the quality of the thing.

48:31Nick Limon:I think it'll make waves. That doesn't mean it's going to be good.

48:34Mark Medina:The crazy thing, Mark, is that everybody bought and played Starfield anyway. Exactly. Just because of the pedigree. And it damaged their studio

48:44Nick Limon:though because everyone bought it and then people were like, this game kind of sucks. Loading screens every five seconds. It was ridiculous.

48:53Mark Medina:I don't think it damaged the hype for Elder Scrolls.

48:56Nick Limon:I think it did.

48:57Mark Medina:So another thing they could do is buy CD Projekt Red and then put out Witcher 4 next year also. That's it. And then Cyberpunk. All right. And then Cyberpunk. I mean, some like seriously, like there's going to be better ways to produce these massive games and make them deliver on a non, you know, 16 year cycle. Like we, Microsoft, if there's Sony can't, Microsoft is more likely to figure that out than Sony. they have more resources they're bigger they're just this massive company that can put things behind it that and make it happen this Seamus Blackley had these quotes this week also that

49:34Daemon Hatfield:he believes xbox is being sunsetted he's the code creator of the original xbox i don't believe that but it is interesting he makes a really good point that xbox is the only part of microsoft's business that is content rid everything else is being pushed turned into ai that xbox is the only part of their business where they have to think like a netflix or a disney or to think about content and that when you look at it that way it is a little strange but i think they the fact they

49:59Mark Medina:spent all this money let me offer you the most depressing counterpoint to that ever okay what are billionaires on earth doing right now they're buying content yeah like that's that's an insane supposition that's like microsoft wants to get rid of content because the you know they want to only do ai no every billionaire owner on earth is trying to buy up all the content and jeff bezos and yelon musk are just buying sites and and news sites and like like this is a huge deal for prestige for a company like this and then the margins are incredible they are too bad they bought all these assets and now they're making content that could reach more people than netflix

50:39Nick Limon:yeah like yeah xbox is is one of microsoft's only consumer facing brands like i know everybody uses a window machine but for the most part that's like one and done right you buy I, well, I mean, most people use Windows machine, but it's been a while. But it's like you use a Windows machine, right? It's like you buy it once where it's like, this is meant for consumers, right? Consumers usually aren't out there buying, you know, Microsoft Word. But also, I don't, unless Asha is getting a huge bonus to do this, I don't think a person would take on the role of CEO that is meant to destroy a company, which is basically what Seamus Blackley is saying.

51:19Nick Limon:That happens all the time. I don't know if a person would do that.

51:22Sam Claiborn:You think she would? I mean, sometimes it's not up to them. People get sent out to die all the time. I don't think that's happening here, Doug. But that happens all the time.

51:33Nick Limon:Yeah, Satya would basically be using her as like a fall guy kind of person. That seems mean. It seems mean to me.

51:41Sam Claiborn:Would you do it for a billion dollars, though? Would you be the face of the person that tanked Microsoft for a billion dollars? What's the price point?

51:50Nick Limon:If she's getting some secret bonus to be like, hey, this is not going to probably look great on your resume, but we're going to give you$50 million to do this. And you basically just have to be the fall guy for Xbox going out of business. Then she'd probably do that.

52:04Mark Medina:I'm trying to think of a company which even – I mean, Sega got out of the console business. that was interesting but their software became extremely valuable after that as a business for them yeah it's hard to say like if there was a future in which is just like oh we don't want to make you know xbox as a platform anymore they would still have these incredibly lucrative sets of ip i mean including world of warcraft and you know yeah it's just like they have their like i

52:34Daemon Hatfield:don't know the correct name for it umbrella corporation or whatever they have microsoft game studios and xbox is like part of that so i mean microsoft gaming if they wanted to revert refer revert back to that that's an option but they're not going to get out of the gaming business

52:47Nick Limon:they're definitely not going to get out of the gaming business i also don't think they're going to get out of the hardware business either i think i think their heart their future hardware will look a little different than a traditional console but i don't think they're leaving the hardware space at all it's going to look like windows yeah yeah i think it's going to look like the handheld just as a console

53:17Daemon Hatfield:all right we got to bring the temperature down a little bit everything's getting a little heated here this week we did get uh some fun news we got the release date for wolverine

53:27Sam Claiborn:yeah we did with a very i'm so happy with that very exciting trailer too It was only like six seconds long I didn't even watch it

53:36Nick Limon:People are like the ads were like three times as long as the trailer It's like an end card

53:41Daemon Hatfield:Anyway it's coming September 15th If anyone's wondering what they'll be doing around that time It's the week after Phantom Blade Zero Oh damn I might still be playing Phantom Blade Zero

53:50Nick Limon:That's a toughie

53:51Daemon Hatfield:That's a toughie right there So it's great It's good to know when we'll be playing this Obviously they stay clear of November And the GTA 6 of it all but Cameron McKee in the GameScoop Facebook group asked an interesting question asked do you think Wolverine will have an option to reduce or remove the blood and gore effects and I hadn't even thought of it I played Spider-Man 2 with Kingo but then when I saw this trailer I was like well I'll just be playing this one by myself but I don't know maybe if you could turn the blood off

54:22Sam Claiborn:I mean it seems like this memberment's kind of an important part of the game like cyborg people I don't know

54:29Nick Limon:insomniac is like they're they're kind of known for their accessibility exactly maybe somewhere in the accessibility options you could be like make the blood sweat like mortal kombat yeah

54:38Sam Claiborn:mortal kombat i don't know that sounds a little bit worse than seeing blood i'm just sweating out

54:43Mark Medina:of my arm i mean it makes sense because there's an audience of people that are like i love x-men and i love wolverine and i want to play a marvel thing but like i don't like you know disgusting amounts of gore that there's an audience for that it's like turning off spiders right

54:59Nick Limon:yeah yeah exactly i don't think so i think the wolverine's kind of just always been the exception in the marvel like world right like logan being r-rated and all that stuff it's like it's always wolverine has been the like watch this if you don't mind getting someone's seeing someone's face get ripped off so i i think that'll probably translate over into the game yeah no i'll just

55:22Daemon Hatfield:play with the they invented new blood tech for this game so i want to see i want to see the new

55:26Mark Medina:honestly at all yeah will his spine i mean like like the it because they're cyborgs it is funny to think about like them being turned into like having like bright neon you know predator blotters

55:39Sam Claiborn:will wolverine skeleton get ripped out by the way because that'd be pretty i watched the new

55:44Mark Medina:predator movie and it was great it's great right badlands it's so good it's a lot of fun it's really fun and like i liked it a lot better than the animated movie but just because it subverted my expectations and the i just couldn't believe that they mashed up the the weyland yutani universe yeah it's all you know i know aliens and predators have been together but this was in a smart way and it's confusing and mysterious and not overly explained it's good stuff and l fanning is great

56:11Daemon Hatfield:she's great yeah great i think both of her death strength the performance of the guy that plays the main predator he's great yeah it's a ton of fun um and also uh the a night of the seven

56:25Nick Limon:kingdoms ended well dude uh great great first season i loved it oh i think i'm i think i'm on episode four i i just did the one i just watched the flashback episode the one where he's a kid

56:36Sam Claiborn:okay you're yeah you're near that's the penultimate episode yeah oh really it's a short season yeah it's only six episodes the book is also very short i started reading the book i was like oh shoot this is like 100 pages what the heck yeah i went back to the book and i was like

56:50Mark Medina:all this stuff really happened like i barely i remember two of the other stories better than that main one but that was the episode you guys were talking about last week right where you were like oh it's so bloody and stuff right i love the melee yeah the the seven battle it was brutal

57:07Nick Limon:yeah that was cool i was tired it reminded me a lot the entire season reminded me a lot of kingdom

57:13Sam Claiborn:come deliverance i was like i just really like this like very uh boots on the ground story the

57:18Daemon Hatfield:fact that multiple people were using flails yeah that just looks so good also the shot the camera

57:24Nick Limon:shot inside the visor is so sick oh my gosh dude i love what it like right there where it zooms in yes yeah oh it's so cool yeah and then there's a couple times where they'd be fighting on the

57:35Mark Medina:ground and like an action thing would happen but just in passing yeah yeah and i think you even see the guy get maced in the back of the head at one point. And the ending of the episode is just absolutely fantastic. It's sad too. It's like they didn't build these characters that much. It's like the stakes here are so much smaller

57:54Daemon Hatfield:than they were in Game of Thrones, but a legitimate tragedy for the kingdom occurs. A legitimate tragedy. It reminds you it's a Game of Thrones show, right?

58:03Sam Claiborn:It's set in the world of Game of Thrones.

58:05Nick Limon:I love the Baratheon guy. He's great. I love him. Lionel Baratheon. He's awesome. He's great.

58:12Mark Medina:egg is incredible so well too i like to get upside

58:16Nick Limon:i started laughing because i was like jesus i love uh and then just when he's watching the

58:24Mark Medina:tilts earlier too and he's just like yeah he's going like you can tell he's just like he's like

58:29Daemon Hatfield:a little gamer fan it's so funny that's so good uh the the the friend with the apple crest he's great too everybody's great in it my my hype before the show was non-existent and now it's just it's so good and then they played the trailer for house of the dragon in the last episode i was like give me more of this one more of a night of the seven kingdoms please yeah time to get your

58:53Nick Limon:boards back out to try to remember who everyone was yeah and i i like house of the dragon although

58:59Daemon Hatfield:i think season two was not as good but it's like this is on a whole other level yeah i i

59:05Mark Medina:This one, so if you're daunted by reading Game of Thrones or whatever, continue to be. These are really easy, fun novellas to read, and they go fast, and they're funny and fun and cool. And the show, I think, translated them perfectly. Is there going to be more of the show? Yeah.

59:25Nick Limon:Yeah, three seasons total. Oh, cool, cool.

59:26Sam Claiborn:I would assume each new novella is its own season.

59:31Nick Limon:Nice. Yeah.

59:33Mark Medina:And then like George R.R. Martin either said, I think he said he has eight to 10 scenarios leading them through their entire lives. Scenario designer, George R.R. Martin. Yep. He's like selling concessions at his theater in New Mexico and coming up with these ideas. And then his agent's like, did you get any writing done today, George? He just hangs up the phone.

1:00:05Daemon Hatfield:Scoop Nation, we are now joined by a very special guest. Long-time viewers and listeners know we are big fans of two things, Lord of the Rings and The Goonies 2 on NES. So imagine our excitement to be joined now by Samwise Gamgee and Mikey Walsh himself, Sean Astin. Sean, welcome to the show. Thank you. I was just thinking of that song, Dream the Impossible Dream, but instead with Goonies 2, it was Play the Impossible Game.

1:00:32Mark Medina:Yeah, that's exactly right. That certainly was. As soon as you go into first person, game stops.

1:00:38Daemon Hatfield:There was a first person in it? Yeah. Yeah, that's where you have to punch the old lady five times, for real. Anyway, thank you for coming. I was like, I want to go play Pitfall on Atari right now. I'm tired of game. Yeah. Pitfall is a much better game. Thank you for taking the time. We know you're a busy guy. You've got a new movie, Matter of Time, out this week, not to mention your duties as president of SAG-AFTRA. So tell us about Matter of Time. I think there are a couple of connections to gaming. It's about a game developer. Anyway, I'll let you take it from there. Yeah, it's about a magic ring.

1:01:14Daemon Hatfield:Aha. I don't know something about it. It actually is about it. Oh, wait. There's the ring of which we speak. What it does, basically, the sci-fi conceit is that it freezes time or slows time or kind of slow freezes time. Basically, you can do things. And in the amount of time, like, you know, you could run a marathon and then when you take it off, you did it in one second. I think that's right. Oh, that's my daughter. I don't know if you recognize that one girl. Yeah. Credit in there. That's super cool. Yeah. So basically this young man is, and I'm kind of Yoda, I guess, or no, I'm Ben Kenobi.

1:01:52Daemon Hatfield:You can see there. Yeah. See, love it. Or a little bit of Doc, right? A little Doc. Yes. No, I think they're going for Doc. Yes. Yes. Oh, look, you see, time is frozen, and he can move around in that little frozen space. But basically, he's a game developer, and he's trying to make a name for himself, and he gets himself in over his head. And so he basically goes to his friend, who is a D &D master who owns a toy store. Oh, look, my daughter. See, there you go.

1:02:21Daemon Hatfield:And he discovers, he learns of the existence of this ring, which has passed itself down through the generations. and he gets permission sort of over time to use it to basically help himself deal with all of the things he has to do in his busy schedule, in his busy life, and his inability to complete the development of this game and the prescribed time. But like a lot of these movies, he loses time as he goes along and it affects him in ways that are unsatisfying and unhealthy for him. And ultimately he learns to – well, you've got to see the movie. He learns an important lesson. But the guy, Jeremy Sneed, who made this movie is my friend and he has been a video game – wow, you could – impresario video game master video game.

1:03:23Daemon Hatfield:He owns a company that does, that works with all the big video game companies. When it comes time to sell their, their games, he does like the, the ads for them. So when I met him first, he had decided that he was, you know, he had done that work with all of the big companies and he was ready to kind of do a documentary about the history of video games. and he wanted to interview me and we became fast friends and I ended up um becoming a uh an executive producer of sorts on that and and helping him and he he put together this it's called video games the movie it's really cool and then he want he had enough footage for about 500 movies because he interviewed everyone and he went everywhere and then he um he decided to do a video game series called unlocked and uh and that was seven episodes eight episodes where there was kind of like three things each episode that uh people who love video game uh video games would you know see kind of in documentary mode like video game design schools and just where stuff is built and it was pretty cool and this matter of time is his first feature film and so Well, of course, the subject matter of the feature film of a guy who lived that life is about a young video game developer.

1:04:40Daemon Hatfield:And he kind of exists in that world. Of course, there's the bad, big, bad video game people who the corporate, the corporate video game people who are demanding. But, you know, for me, it was really a chance just to support him. My daughter was in it. I really enjoyed playing this character. where I let my full beard grow out. And just was kind of like this doc character. And it was fun. We shot it pretty quickly. It was a lower budget film. But I just loved it. I just loved working with the younger crew, this crew that was smart and they had experience, but it was a fast movie to do. Anyhow, I'm just enjoying watching the trailer here.

1:05:24Daemon Hatfield:Yeah, I just watched the trailer too. I look good.

1:05:26Mark Medina:Well, we got to break it down for people too.

1:05:29Daemon Hatfield:So scene by scene. Yeah, this is like a live reactions. This isn't the first time you've appeared in a film with your daughter, correct? She was in The Lord of the Rings. She was in, Ally was in the, she played the little girl at the end of the Return of the King, who runs up to Sam when Sam returns home. It's his daughter. Sam and his, so she played Sam's daughter, Eleanor. There she is. Oh my. That's amazing. I like doing interviews where you can actually see this stuff being illustrated. Whoever's directing this gets like major kudos. That's Jobert. It's all Jobert.

1:05:58Mark Medina:Is this one of the shots that happened in sequential order, so it was a pickup later, or was this pretty early in the shooting when your daughter was older by the time the movie came out? No, I mean, she was two when we went down here. In this, she may even still be two

1:06:14Daemon Hatfield:here. She looks so young. Oh my gosh. So yeah, no, we filmed this sequence returning to back end in the normal principal photography, so probably halfway through or something. So she's probably three years old there. And Sarah McCloud is there with her baby. And yeah, there you go. It's so cool. You can go there now and see. Yeah. Have you ever thought it was cool that you get the last line of the entire trilogy? It's you. You get the last word in. I'm back. Pretty good. Well, I'm back. I remember it's just so simple, right? Like that's the beauty of it. Well, I'm back. But I was so nervous because I was aware of the fact that like this massive, you know, experience was be over for people.

1:06:58Daemon Hatfield:And so I was walking around like, I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. I'll be back. Nope, not that one. I'll be back. Well, that's different. It's the 25th anniversary of the Fellowship. So they put the whole trilogy back in theaters. My wife and I went to see Fellowship. Obviously, we just had the best time. I've seen it a million times. Great to see it in theater again. but like I no matter how many times I see it every single time at the end when Frodo's trying to leave and Sam runs after him and he's like I made a promise oh I I was bawling I don't think I've ever not cried oh I love it when he says I made a promise don't you know you made the end of fellowship you're talking about yeah at the end of fellowship that was yeah that scene was not in there okay then neither was this this whole oh no that's the ringwraith that was in there and dumb Gollum oh wow the 25 I don't know if I've seen the advertising they didn't get to have that logo it's cool it's way cool so yeah they sort of figured that out way way way into shooting and I remember Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh his partner and Philip O 'Boyans the other writer had us come to a they were like Pete and Fran want you to come to this diner and we were in I think it was Dunedin or something.

1:08:16Daemon Hatfield:We were south of the South Island in New Zealand. And we were like, oh shit, we're in trouble. Like, so we, we went there and we're just hearts racing. Like what did we do wrong? Oh, like you're reporting to the principal in a diner? Yes. It didn't happen a lot that you got summoned like that. You know, everybody's pretty busy doing a lot of different things. And so we were summoned and they looked like little school kids and they're like, we want you to read this. And they handed us each, It was like a page. So they handed each of us a page. I think it was just a page. And we read it. And you're like, oh, my God, this is so good.

1:08:52Daemon Hatfield:This is so good. And we looked at each other. And they just wanted to enjoy us learning about it. You know, I mean, if you think of it, Peter Jackson said at one point that if he had a wish, it would be to erase his brain so he could watch the movie and just enjoy it. rather than always be thinking about all the things that a filmmaker thinks about. And I think that's what they were doing with Elijah and me. They wanted to experience the first-person joy of what happens when they – because they hadn't nailed it, the ending of the film. In fact, I don't even know – I didn't know when one movie ended and the next one started.

1:09:37Daemon Hatfield:It all just felt like one long movie. until literally when I saw the two towers, you know, and the lights went down and the screen opened and the movie started, I literally had no idea where it was going to be in the story. Like, you know, I'm like, did the spider happen yet? No, the spider didn't happen yet.

1:09:54Mark Medina:Speaking of kind of wiping your brain, I've heard you speak about how you read the books three times, just kind of back to back in learning the character. But then you did, what was it a book club later and you revisited the books then yeah I this

1:10:11Daemon Hatfield:there's this company that was that was doing kind of ebook stuff a book club and and so I joined it as one of the you know I think anybody could become an author or a you know whatever it is like a host or something and and so I got the three little leather bound edition have you seen those they're like small but but not so small that you can't read it properly.

1:10:37Mark Medina:So it's almost like a paperback leather, right? Yeah, those are really cool. Yeah, I don't have it here.

1:10:42Daemon Hatfield:But yeah, but they are, they're really cool. I autograph a lot of them actually. But so, and then I would, yeah, I would, yeah, just go through.

1:10:53Mark Medina:But you got to revisit the books, like as a, almost as a 25 years on, like try to separate yourself out, I'm sure from the character and kind of read them as just reading them as a fan.

1:11:04Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. Well, it was pre-COVID that we did that. But I think it was pre-COVID or middle of COVID. But yeah, I definitely, I don't think you can ever not see it from when you've spent so much time doing it. It could be a million years. I'm sure it's the same. But what always shocks me is like how much of everything else feels so new like oh my god i don't i didn't even remember that this happened and you start you start to get more and more it sounds so stupid because there are these books who have them memorized you know like stephen colbert you know he could tell you you know isoldur and the bane of this the something of that and that you know and and the fans that i've seen for 25 years at the conventions they they know all of it but you know so it's like Well, I should probably know it better than I do.

1:11:58Daemon Hatfield:But then you do start to get familiar with some of the places and some of the names and the ideas that you kind of – yeah, you relive, I guess. I think I'm ready to read it again now. It's always a good time. Always a good time. Well, I knew this one guy who was a naval officer and he was an Olympic competitor in rowing. And he said that he read it every single year and reads it every single year. And he says he cries in the exact same spots. So he came to visit my house at one point and I went into the backyard or something and I came back in and he's got the book open and he's dropped in. he's just dropped in he is in the book and he's crying in the same spot he always cries in and i'm like when i think about them i'm like all right where's i gotta sit down what am i gonna be doing you know i gotta open it up you can almost feel like the dust come off it read it and and it's a not a chore but it's like an endeavor to read it but some people just you You know, the book is like turning on the movie.

1:13:12Daemon Hatfield:They can just look and go, drop in at any point and be in the story. That was my biggest feelings. I don't think I ever, even after all the times I've read it, I don't think I've ever disappeared in it the way I have with other things. And I don't know why. I think I'm sort of self-conscious maybe about not just as an actor, but like I went to UCLA. I got my degree in history and American literature and culture. and uh so it was pretty um appalling that i had never heard of lord of the rings before

1:13:44Mark Medina:like i've done this i got a degree in american literature too and you don't you don't get it because they don't do the british teachings in those classes well i had a survey course in

1:13:52Daemon Hatfield:british literature where we got the norton anthology like these big norton anthologies yeah and there's like i read everything how did i miss tolkien but but there's something about the the music in the language that is so, um, it's so expansive and immersive and sort of heightened that in a weird way, instead of just enjoying it, like putting on a song, I'm like aware of it. So it's really kind of, um, I think it's a, not a superpower, I think it's a really cool thing to have the kind of intellectual ability to, to see the structure and to under appreciate things. But it's really bad because I don't get to enjoy it the way it's obvious that other people are enjoying it.

1:14:43Daemon Hatfield:I don't know if that's too much, but. No, it's great. We're really interested before we let you go. We were talking about Goonies too. Did you, were you an NES kid? Do you have an NES when you were growing up? The video game? Yeah. Playing Nintendo. know oh absolutely but well no the most I've done with the Goonies video game is autograph it oh the time that I've spent actually trying to play it oh my god look at that yeah it's basically Donkey Kong well right it's basically like bad donkey yeah it's like bad Donkey Kong it's bad Donkey Kong it's with the vines and it's sort of like I don't know like it wants to be Dragon Slayer but it's not even that or it's like Wolfenstein.

1:15:29Daemon Hatfield:I don't know. It's the worst video game ever made. Yeah. I honestly, it's. Then I want to ask. What's the object? Where are you supposed to go? Are you killing things? Well, the object is to rescue the mermaid. There's a mermaid. Yeah. The. And there you kill some sort of a walrus. Why not kill the walrus where the bear is marching? Anyone knows what that there should be a bear there. Go hit tools. Take. Oh, my God. I mean, you've got to love them. this is in our lifetime yeah I know and it's made by a Japanese developer named Konami and no one was paying attention to what they were doing obviously it's great yeah but then they still around like these right hands Konami came on pretty good after that though they were breaking their teeth with Goonies 2 yeah exactly yeah I was going to say it's such a pleasure to talk to you like we're a big fan of yours and so many of the projects you've been involved in not just Lord of the Rings but Goonies and Stranger Things and Rudy and Ninja Turtles and so much more.

1:16:28Daemon Hatfield:So really, thank you for taking the time to chat with us here on Game Scoop. We're big fans. I'm telling you, you've got to change it to Game Soup. We'll do that. It'd be cozy. It'd be so cozy. Oh, I mean, so that's the show. We play cozy games and eat soup and talk and just chat. It's great. Thanks, you guys. We will give you a title credit for that one, Sean. Oh, I need that. Credit's important. Matter of time. Matter of time. it's out now by the time this episode goes live check it out and of course it is always a good time to re-watch lord of the rings

1:17:15Daemon Hatfield:all right that brings us to video game 20 questions our suggestion this week comes from Mark Esposito from Landing, New Jersey. Mark. Mark says, my suggestion for Video Game 20 Questions is one of my favorite games from the Redacted. It was such a fun time playing through it. Redacted. I always suggest it for anyone looking for a great Redacted game. And with that, let the questioning begin. Dreamcast, some collection,

1:17:40Sam Claiborn:and then back to Dreamcast. Stealth games. I don't know. Is this game in 70s, 80s, or 90s? Nope. Dude, it's Splinter Cell. done we got it in two has this game appeared as part of a collection

1:17:59Nick Limon:no that's one or so let's see is this game exclusive to the platform it came out on yes oh nice that was a good one

1:18:10Sam Claiborn:uh is this game on a nintendo console no

1:18:17Nick Limon:we got to figure out the era we're still 26 years of video games let's see all right i'll just go playstation is it on a place okay yes that's five just got to figure

1:18:28Sam Claiborn:out which one so ps i guess it could be anywhere between any of them yeah yeah damn it so this

1:18:36Mark Medina:means that it was wait but it is multi-platform he said it is exclusive to the platform platform it came out on oh the camera that came out great okay which was one of the places we need do we need to know if it's developed by sony internally oh yeah that'd probably be good

1:18:53Nick Limon:we don't know yet is is this first party yes oh okay we are in business i we have five

1:19:03Sam Claiborn:playstations to look at it's also got to be like a game that's very like represents the genre that's the vibe i'm getting from that email from mark every time we get like five or six questions in

1:19:16Nick Limon:i i'm like i want to hear the email again knowing what i know now um do you can't

1:19:24Mark Medina:can you play as a woman in this game no

1:19:32Sam Claiborn:is this it's uncharted is this game a part i don't know because i want to limit it to ps1 PS2 versus PS3. Is this game a part of the HD era of PlayStation? Yes. So PS3 and up. Good way to try that.

1:19:49Nick Limon:Is Vita HD? I don't think it is. Well, that's a great question.

1:19:55Sam Claiborn:I'm actually not sure. I mean, I guess technically it would be. I'm pretty sure it's at least... It might not be a 720p, but that's besides the point. So it's at least, what, 2006 and later.

1:20:13Nick Limon:does this is this game part of a series that is still existing today still running today no to resistance or uh kill zone yeah or stuff like uncharted all-stars battle royale could be all

1:20:29Sam Claiborn:stars better you siphon filter um oh that's true that's true could be siphon filter now because

1:20:35Nick Limon:was there was there

1:20:37Sam Claiborn:how modern did Syphon filter

1:20:38Mark Medina:how far did that go there was a Vita

1:20:40Sam Claiborn:one and I believe there was one on the I guess PS2 was the last one Omega strain but what else what else you play could be layer oh man I don't think I don't think anybody's going back to layer be like man I always recommend layer as the motion controls really really nailed it

1:21:04Nick Limon:is the studio that made this game still making games today yes that's 10 and we know do we ask the japan question okay let's hear it um i tech i guess technically no but i want to say yes

1:21:29Daemon Hatfield:to that. Is the studio still around?

1:21:32Sam Claiborn:Oh, wow. That's okay. That's interesting.

1:21:34Daemon Hatfield:Technically, no.

1:21:35Sam Claiborn:But We do not know if it's Japanese. Apart from it being just a first party.

1:21:44Nick Limon:We should figure that out.

1:21:46Mark Medina:Was this developed in Japan?

1:21:48Nick Limon:Yes. Okay.

1:21:54Nick Limon:So, it could be medium. No, Media Molecule is not Japan.

1:22:00Mark Medina:I mean... Why am I drawing a blank on what that would mean if there was Japanese studios? Maybe it's like...

1:22:08Nick Limon:So who did Concrete Genie and stuff like that? Was that like PlayStation Asia and stuff like that?

1:22:15Sam Claiborn:I can't remember. I want to limit this a bit more, but I'm getting like Studio Japan vibes because technically Fumita Ueda is making games, but not under Studio Japan anymore. Or Japan Studio.

1:22:27Mark Medina:So that would be that would be the shadow of the classes like shadow of the

1:22:31Nick Limon:classes or eco last Guardian for. Yeah. Mm hmm. Hmm.

1:22:41Mark Medina:And he does have shadow class eco were part of a collection, right?

1:22:45Nick Limon:They were. Yeah, you're right. Part of a collection. Last Guardian was not so it could be last Guardian. But man, I can't I can't imagine last Guardian being anyone's favorite redacted.

1:22:54Mark Medina:You do not. It's an it's an OK game. And then did Sony internally do Heavenly Sword? I think that was... Wasn't that like Ninja Theory? Sure. That sounds right. So what does Sony Japan make? Gran Turismo? Gran Turismo, yeah.

1:23:17Nick Limon:Yeah. Which is still very much like in development.

1:23:22Sam Claiborn:Is this game a...

1:23:30Daemon Hatfield:platformer if it's like is this game a platformer yeah yes so i mean last guardian is a platformer

1:23:36Sam Claiborn:it could be last guardian what if it's like loco roco or pat upon or something like that yeah that's true no but those were released as part of a collection where they're oh pat upon was and loco roco too and little big planet again that's all media a molecule which is not japan what else can we say um we're at 11 questions you've asked 12 12 um let's just is there a big floof in this game you know not last guardian okay so it's a platformer made in japan in the hd era it sounds like it could be even like a smaller game. Maybe it is like a Loco Roco or something. Maybe, maybe because I could have swore they just released like a Patapon collection like this year or something.

1:24:30Mark Medina:Like what are there? Are there any like 2D platformers that they kind of went back to sound shape? Well, let's just ask. How many do we have? You're like, we've asked 12 questions. Okay. Yeah. Is this a, is this a, uh, 3D? I, is this a 3D game? Yes. Okay.

1:24:52Daemon Hatfield:mark you want to hear the redacted email again yeah let's hear it again it's one of my favorite games from the redacted it was such a fun time playing through it redacted i always suggest it for anyone looking for a great redacted game i mean it could be vita

1:25:09Sam Claiborn:rpsp you're hanging out with we don't know if it's portable at all we don't know if it's portable uh is this a portable game no that's 15 okay so hmm hmm

1:25:28Mark Medina:hmm and and gta gt games aren't fun so it wouldn't be that

1:25:33Sam Claiborn:was this game reviewed well by ign um can look right now

1:25:40Mark Medina:have that up can you hear how many letters he's typing out

1:25:45Sam Claiborn:yes it was reviewed well was reviewed well now what what does damon determine as a good review i got a 10 guys the back then the

1:25:56Nick Limon:playstation team just reviewed everything well that's true got the playstation bump

1:26:02Sam Claiborn:so well reviewed i'm not really sure it's not death stranding right no because it's not that wouldn't say that's a platformer and that wasn't internal also very much in development could it be like a Sly Cooper game? There was a Sly Cooper for PS4. Yeah, but the thing is, it's like... But that's Insomniac. Naughty Dog. Oh, what about Sucker Punch?

1:26:29Mark Medina:What about Ratchet and Clank?

1:26:32Sam Claiborn:It's a good... I like the PS4 reboot of Ratchet and Clank. Well, Ratchet and Clank is Insomniac, though. That's not Japan. Yeah, that's true.

1:26:43Mark Medina:Those are their kind of platformer go-tos.

1:26:45Sam Claiborn:a Japanese platformer

1:26:48Mark Medina:do you play as a human? you can I think twist Jack and Daxter

1:26:57Nick Limon:twisted metal that's not a platformer that's a gun shooting game

1:27:04Mark Medina:what is this game? is there like a heavy rain company now? because that's not internal

1:27:11Sam Claiborn:European end playstation exclusive that's made in japan that's a platformer series is gone this could be licensed but the dev there's like a weird thing with the dev too

1:27:28Nick Limon:yeah yeah

1:27:32Sam Claiborn:i guess there's like bloodborne um i don't think it'd be from soft though

1:27:42Nick Limon:no we said first party

1:27:45Mark Medina:yeah the first party thing should make this very easy I just don't know what we're missing

1:27:49Nick Limon:you know

1:27:54Nick Limon:I mean it's like I can think of a lot of first party games that don't exist anymore but none of them are platformers like stuff like SOCOM stuff like Siphon Filter

1:28:04Mark Medina:Asobi's French but there's a male human in it and then there's also not

1:28:10Nick Limon:yeah you have the option of being a male human maybe it is playstation all-stars that's not a i guess it is kind of a platformer it could be uh no wasn't you can play as some some girl not maybe you can't they didn't have very many female mascots back then

1:28:34Sam Claiborn:it's not a platformer it's clearly a fighting game i mean do we want to determine like playstation

1:28:39Nick Limon:4 playstation 5 we could because yeah i'm stuck in the ps3 era because that's what it feels like it would be is this in the playstation 4 yes okay it's a playstation 4 you've arrived at

1:28:51Sam Claiborn:one question and one guess playstation 4 japanese platformer where you have the option maybe platformers a two of a specific maybe that's putting me in too much of a specific mindset

1:29:03Nick Limon:maybe because you would consider stuff like infamous a platformer even though it's like 3D also. It's 3D.

1:29:13Nick Limon:Astro's Playroom?

1:29:15Sam Claiborn:That's also Team Asobo or whatever. That's a French studio, right?

1:29:19Nick Limon:Yeah.

1:29:20Sam Claiborn:I believe so. I don't know. Quick, name a PlayStation 4 game. This should be in the Knicks zone. They didn't make an ape escape or anything.

1:29:40Mark Medina:Hmm.

1:29:42Sam Claiborn:Medieval. There was like that era late PlayStation 4. They, I feel like they brought back a lot of old stuff that was like, oh, that's, I've been seeing that. Like there was like a medieval reboot or something, right? Um, what else? There was a medieval reboot. Hold on.

1:29:58Mark Medina:Yeah. It might be medieval. I think that was done by like digital clips or something, right? I have no idea.

1:30:04Nick Limon:But if we're referring to the original studio, that would make it where it's a little strange because it's a remake.

1:30:14Sam Claiborn:Well, is there one other question that we can – like is it a downloadable game? Like a download-only game? Is it a – like was it a physical release? What else?

1:30:25Nick Limon:I think the only question we have left is do you play as a skeleton?

1:30:30Sam Claiborn:No, I wouldn't ask that one.

1:30:33Mark Medina:why don't we just use the hack

1:30:36Nick Limon:have we mentioned the game no we mentioned the series we have not mentioned

1:30:41Daemon Hatfield:the game

1:30:41Sam Claiborn:oh no and with that

1:30:46Daemon Hatfield:we arrive at your guess shoot

1:30:49Sam Claiborn:PlayStation 4 platformer where you have the option to play as a male dude but not a woman okay

1:31:04Sam Claiborn:I can't think surely I have a PlayStation. I gotta have it.

1:31:11Nick Limon:David, this isn't a question because this is it. But like, are we about to be pissed off?

1:31:17Daemon Hatfield:You can only only have yourself actually. Actually.

1:31:22Nick Limon:So yes, first 19 questions.

1:31:25Daemon Hatfield:If if you don't have a guest, I can reveal the game. okay yeah I mean Nick would be the only person here that would have a guess I guarantee you you all know this game

1:31:39Sam Claiborn:that makes it hurt maybe not

1:31:42Mark Medina:what if it's like a Metal Gear Rising type game where Sony developed it but we would have missed that or Final Fantasy or something like that

1:31:51Sam Claiborn:jumping Playstation game there's not that many of them Devil May Cry or what have a Bayonetta I think I must concede.

1:32:00Daemon Hatfield:Okay, I will read the answer. It was a Japan studio game, but I think maybe the tricky part is people don't realize this was made in Japan. It is Knack 2. Oh, no!

1:32:10Nick Limon:No, I never considered Knack.

1:32:14Mark Medina:I thought about Knack earlier, but I thought it was a mustard game.

1:32:17Nick Limon:The Knack Station 4?

1:32:20Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. Never considered. So you play as Knack, but it's a cooperative game also. And does the other person play as a human? Does Knack have a friend? That's what I'm thinking.

1:32:28Sam Claiborn:I think it's like a little knack, right?

1:32:30Daemon Hatfield:Or it's just another knack.

1:32:32Nick Limon:You play as Mark Cerny.

1:32:37Sam Claiborn:Well, so I always confuse. There's a studio in Japan and also a Japan studio, correct? That's two different studios. I don't know about that.

1:32:45Daemon Hatfield:This was Japan Studio, which was just absorbed into PlayStation. That's why it doesn't exist, but it does.

1:32:52Sam Claiborn:What was that?

1:32:53Daemon Hatfield:I just don't think of this as to help them Japan or any way. Let's hear the email again. It's because Mark Cerny is like the guy behind Japan Studio. So the unredacted email, is this one of my favorite games from the PS4 generation? It was such a fun time playing through it with my son. I always suggest it for anyone looking for a great co-op game. Perfect. But maybe there aren't any humans in this. I thought, doesn't he have like a little boy who's his buddy?

1:33:16Mark Medina:No, there is a boy.

1:33:16Daemon Hatfield:I thought there was a little, I thought there was a scientist guy.

1:33:22Sam Claiborn:I've never played a NAC game.

1:33:25Nick Limon:Dude, they're not. they're not great.

1:33:27Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. I mean, the first one was like, it was a launch game, right? Yeah. For PS4. And then this one came out in 2017. Those are some wild looking humans. Yeah. Knack 2. Well, nicely attempt, everybody. Thank you for the suggestion, Mark in Landing, New Jersey. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for a video game, 20 questions, email them to me at the email address, gamescoop at igin.com. And that is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Jobert, working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. Everyone from the tech team working behind the scenes to make this episode possible.

1:34:02Daemon Hatfield:Everybody have fun playing Resident Evil Requiem this weekend. I know I will. My name is Damon. This is IGN GameCube. And we're out.

1:34:12Under the ark of weather-stained wars Ancient goblins and warlords Come up the ground, not making a sound

1:34:21Daemon Hatfield:The smell of death is all around And the night when the cold wind blows No one cares, nobody knows I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again Fallen picture to the sacred place This ain't a dream I can't escape Mullows and fangs, the clicking of bones Spirits moaning among the tombstones And at night when the moon is bright Someone cries, something ain't bright I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to be buried in a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again

1:36:02The moon is full, the air is still All of a sudden, I feel a chill Victorious cramming, flesh is running away Skeletons dance, I curse this day

1:36:15Daemon Hatfield:And at night when the wolves cry out Listen close and you can hear me shout I don't want to be buried In a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to be buried In a pet cemetery I don't want to live my life again I don't want to live my life

1:36:55Sam Claiborn:I don't want to live my life Not again Oh, no

1:37:09Nick Limon:Damon, why didn't you tell them to have fun playing Marathon? because there were how many people were on there it was like 100k or something there's a lot

1:37:17Mark Medina:there's a lot yeah so that's such high guard vibes when you see that now yeah 150k people i'm like what's it gonna be at the end of the day what is what was it like 18 hours later or something that game dropped horde

1:37:33Sam Claiborn:re6 9 p.m tonight

1:37:39Nick Limon:is marathon good mark i've only played like two matches did you play for 45 minutes and nothing happened or was it pretty action-packed um if you're referring to arc raiders it's it's the rounds are much faster than arc raiders the maps are way smaller um and yeah i don't I don't think it's going to be like Ark Raiders in that sense. My biggest problem is that the menus are just atrocious. They're really bad. And everything looks like a Lego. I don't know how much I like that. It's Lego Ark Raiders.

1:38:21Sam Claiborn:Is it an open beta server slam? Like anyone can download it? Yeah. Okay, I might check it out.

1:38:26Nick Limon:Yeah, it's free on every platform. You can just download it and play it. And I've had no server issues. and 150 ,000 people are playing on Steam. So it should be easy to get in there.

1:38:42Sam Claiborn:I was out last week, so I didn't get a chance to talk to you guys about it. But dude, the Bluepoint news was the biggest bummer of last week. I'm still like... Yeah, I'm actually still bummed out about that too. I'm sad about it, man. That's like one of the stupidest moves

1:38:58Daemon Hatfield:I think I've ever seen. Like they bought them in 2021, never shipped a game under Sony, and then just close them down. There's so much going on.

1:39:05Mark Medina:And we're past the Resident Evil embargo. That's great. I think Mark played Marathon today. I did. So it's crappy, huh? I don't think so. No. Oh, okay. Were you the person that said it looks like Legos?

1:39:18Nick Limon:It does. It does look like Legos. That's not good. No, I think it plays fine. I've not played it enough, though. So far, the menus suck. but I also just don't know what any of them do. The menus in our greater suck too. When I didn't know what any of them did.

1:39:37Sam Claiborn:Yeah. The art greater menus are really bad.

1:39:39Nick Limon:No, I think marathon is, I think it's, I think it's fine. I I'm going to play it more tonight with my, with my rivals crew.

1:39:46Mark Medina:What Bungie a company owned by PlayStation right now really needs is a just fine game that took.

1:39:55Nick Limon:Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see if this is it. I did ask might be the end of bungee.

1:40:01Mark Medina:It's super fair to them, but like, man, that is what that is. That's what's, that's what they're counting on is like, that has to be the triple A's biggest thing ever. Right.

1:40:10Sam Claiborn:I asked Malcolm, so is this going to save bungee? And he goes,

1:40:14Nick Limon:I don't think this is going to pull the arc Raiders crowd. I could, I could firmly say that.

1:40:21Mark Medina:The thing is, is that bungee could have just saved all of that destiny money. And then everybody could have retired a multimillionaire. They just could have just split it all up. or walked away.

1:40:30Nick Limon:Or they could have made Destiny 3. Thanks, you guys.

1:40:35Daemon Hatfield:Yep. Thank you, Sean. That was awesome. Thank you so much. I think we spent more time setting up than actually doing the interview. That's probably true. I'm just kidding. Give us one second. Let me just double check the records. Yeah. And Joe had A plus B-roll going on there.

1:40:53Mark Medina:Yeah. I mean...

1:40:54Daemon Hatfield:I had a bunch more queued up, depending on what you guys were doing. That was top notch B-roll. 100%.

1:41:29Sam Claiborn:Mm.