Game Scoop! 860: The Top 20 Games of Not-E3 2026

16:36Mark Medina:There was Final Fantasy 4 Or the after years for the but was that after nine the Wii eShop? Well, it's definitely the last time there was. Yeah, if it's we. What's the there's been Final Fantasy likes though, right? Like Bravely Default, for example, that's pretty close to Final Fantasy. What's those Octopath as well? I mean, what is a Final Fantasy, right? An RPG set in some sort of, you know, I mean, here we go to be ultimately pedantic. I think those are more Live Alive likes or maybe Final Fantasy is when Chocobos Well, Sid and Moogles, those are the only things that they have in common with each other Now they have Summons That's true Crystals, Phoenix Downs Phoenix Downs Just naming items Fire Ice and Lightning I didn't know until I was well into my adulthood that Phoenix Down was a reference to a feather from a phoenix that like down like down was the feather i just love those because you you get you get the uh well no it's not those it's the elixir that there's like five of in any final fantasy and you just never use them you can't use them there's never a good time to use

17:51Justin Davis:them so at the end of the game you got six elixirs yep then on the other side of the final fantasy coin is final fantasy 7 revelations heck yeah revelations yeah bring it home next stream it It looks awesome. I didn't finish the second one. So me neither. Rebirth was so long. Yeah, that's the kind of thing for me. Like I played a lot of the first one and rebirth. I never finished either because they're just so huge. And so that's probably what will happen with the third one. I'll dip in and check out for a little bit and then that'll be it.

18:23Mark Medina:They confirm. It looks great. That's nice because that's all that really matters, right? Tifa still in the game. Where's the earth? So I didn't finish rebirth. So I'm confused about why they're not.

18:32Justin Davis:Who wants to tell them? yeah that was a that was a joke before people start leaving comments yeah i mean i do i i like you know i played final fantasy 7 a couple times when i was a teen or like whenever it came out but i don't i don't i barely remember the third act of that game like i only really remember the end like so it's like i don't it's like i don't quite you remember what's happening in the story well you fly around in the airship a ton yeah yeah and you fight and then if you fight You have to fight. Emerald weapon. You have to fight all the weapons. Yup. Yeah. Yeah. I just, everyone, when everyone's like, if you're like, if you're picturing Final Fantasy 7 in your head, you're picturing like Midgar, right?

19:16That's like everybody, but that's really only, that's like the first disc of the game. Like the rest is all this other stuff that people only kind of half remember. You go to that weird village, you meet the dog. Yeah. Yeah, it's like all of them have had the end games, but like story speaking, this entire game should be the end game. So yeah, I'm interested to see. Is that you fear Yuffie? I can't remember.

19:41Justin Davis:Yuffie. Well, it's spelled spelled Yuffie, but pronounced Yuffie. Okay.

19:45Mark Medina:Yuffie's great. And I'm glad that it's weird to see Sid being used this much. Yeah. Yeah. He was always in my party. Really? That's awesome. Do you remember Setzer in Final Fantasy six? He's the air the gambler. It's like the one that nobody reads. I do like how you can breath of the wild or tears of the kingdom jump out of the airship. I hope they make it like that would be nice because if they they just need to keep on getting a little bit more open with these games like that. The open world is just like a little bit cramped, and but it kind of works for this because it is trying to do like, oh, this is a giant planet that's dying.

20:21Mark Medina:And here's all the parts of the planet and they're all far apart and they're trying to make it seem big. Like, I do get that. But for this type of RPG, I didn't really like the middle ground between open area and linear that they did in the last game. We'll see. I think what's funny is I remember playing Rebirth and getting to the grasslands and being like, wow, we're finally in the world now. This makes sense. And then they do it nine more times. Yeah, but then my favorite parts of Rebirth ended up being the linear sections. Yes, they're good. And then I decided that I just like remake part one much better than rebirth so well yeah i mean there's good moments like when you are uh walking around the um the military base that's a giant gun that part's cool yeah linear part and you have to the soldiers finding the parade thing all that yeah that was pretty cool and then um yeah i don't know yeah i like rebirth but i i how cool it would be when this is in one big package with all the extras stuck together oh my gosh it's just 200 hours of video like 300 hours of game in there Yeah, that's going to be rough, actually.

21:27Mark Medina:But to make it all work together, they have to change the systems to kind of work from the start. And I think that's a project that will be really interesting at some point. I don't think they will. I don't think the combat system is slightly different game to game. I think they're separate games. It's a trilogy of games. Yeah, this one has more. They're showing it right there. This one has more of a job system, which, you know, there's T-Fez and Black Mage and stuff, which is cool. I like that a lot Final Fantasy 13 Part 3 was one of my favorite because of that they could all wear outfits and change their jobs and stuff

22:05Justin Davis:also Tifa in Street Fighter 6 is pretty cool that style looked cool too

22:10Mark Medina:it's just kind of a different way to see the Final Fantasy style I thought it was great apparently it's something people have been wanting forever it's Tifa so of course they've been wanting it everyone just wants Tifa yes now all the comments are uh bring you know don't don't don't uh take away destiny and add tifa to silk song that's all i see oh lord it's a silk song making sense

22:41Justin Davis:all right well getting into uh the xbox showcase then of course gears of war E-Day and Clockwork Revolution are Xbox console exclusives. They did it. Asha, the queen of green, she did it for them. Let me get to the queen of green. Is that what we're going with? She's the queen of green. Let me get your thoughts on these titles first. I've never been much of a Gears guy. I need a little bit more than just shooty, shooty, pew, pew. You need a little bit more than being a boulder with legs. yelling noise yeah yeah that's something but but who who is a gears guy and who's who's excited for this i love gears and i love gears one specifically because it was a little here's what like the games became more it's actually like alien to aliens like gears one has more of like a horror tint to it than the than the later games would just get more and more more bombastic and like kind of louder and louder and so this being you know kind of a prequel where you're not quite as powered up it doesn't seem like it might be going back to a little bit more of that vibe so um yeah love it excited yeah i think uh eday looks great and i i totally agree with justin like remember the beginning of gears one where you open the door and there's like skeletons hanging and it's like oh it's supposed to be scary and it's very close quarters and there's that whole sequence in the where you can't go into the dark um oh right yeah yeah totally yeah i i loved basically gears

24:14Mark Medina:is one, two, I like three. And then I just think they've gotten worse since then. And I don't say that because the games are bad. I say that just because like my enjoyment of them is is is based on novelty and there's no novelty in these games. Like it's like the enemies are coming out of the ground on the same planet. It's all wrecked. Like it's just it's just the same thing. So this is going to be more of that. I think it's a better way of framing it. But like we're talking about a sci fi universe where like there's like colonized worlds like do something like go somewhere like leave the locust alone it's their planet like just let them be and like let me see what these space marines can do somewhere else and like halo did that and it was a swing and a miss and four right but like it's but i really liked infinite and like i think there just needs to be a jump from this this is playing it ultra safe uh even safer than before and i definitely don't care about that the other backstories, which are widely explored in the other Gears games, by the way.

25:16Mark Medina:There's flashbacks. Everybody knows who Coltrane is. Why would I want to see this? I don't really get that. It doesn't look that good graphically to me. And again, this should be marketed to me. I just don't nothing about this appeals to me. The guts look good. I think there's clearly a world where somebody said we need the... And I'm not knocking the game. I do think it looks cool. But I think it was very clearly like we need a definite win. Do we go with gear six or do we go with a prequel and bring Marcus back and have them in plain clothes and stuff? I think it's totally working. I think it looks great, though.

25:56I do. I am excited for it. Look at that bow and arrow. Look at that. Yeah, the torque bow. They wrote themselves into a little bit of a tricky. I'm not going to spoil anything, but they're written into a little bit of a corner at the end of the last game. And so, you know, and so they like a prequel kind of makes sense for that reason. And it also they also I mean, if they ever do bring the storyline forward again, it also ended on kind of a crazy, crazy moment to that, like to eventually, you know, what people's appetites to explore, you know, where where they take the story from here will be really interesting.

26:29Mark Medina:So I just played through the remake of Gears one and this just is indistinguishable to me. Yeah, that's what makes it look great. But I also think that about 2 and 3. So it's like, how many times do I need an indistinguishable Gears of War? I think that's just, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but I think that's just what Xbox fans want, right? Like, they loved Infinite because Infinite, for better or worse, looked a lot and played a lot like Halo 1, right? There's this yearning to stay in the Xbox 360 era of just, like, loud blood and guts explosions, and Coalition knows that, Xbox knows that, and...

27:07Mark Medina:That's what they're making. We saw these games completely missed with like Mass Effect going to Andromeda and like, you know, we've seen that era go astray, but you know, I've already seen Gears self-correct. I thought the last game was like just fine and it did just fine. It looked really good. And I, you know, the, the, what this is offering is, is a backstory, which doesn't really. All I'm seeing is a fun 10 hour, turn your brain off, kill some locust game. and I'm I'm fine with that but I mean fable on the other hand looks like one of the best games I think that will ever be made if they pull it off right that's that's playground for you absolute disbelief at how cool that 30 minute segment is I want to I want to talk about fable but let's

27:52Justin Davis:talk about this other console exclusive first clockwork revolution been a long time coming this is from in exile this is the uh Bard's Tale Wasteland three and you know what the most random thing they've developed is in 2012 they did chop lifter hd it had to be done cool yep had to be done anyway this looks much more up my alley it's like dishonored like bioshock like powers time travel element uh class warfare in a cyber or steampunk city this is you know this is looking cool this is coming sometime next year and the point i'm driving to with both these games is that I don't really see them solving the number one problem for Xbox, which is I don't think either of these games are really console sellers.

28:37No, anyone who thinks that Gears E-Day and Clockwork Revolution is console sellers is they're lying to me or they're lying to themselves. I don't know what the strategy is here. And I do believe that these games will come to PlayStation. I don't care what Aaron Greenberg says. 100%. You expect me to believe Aaron Greenberg, who says, Gears isn't a timed exclusive. That same tweet exists for Starfield, and guess what's on my PS5? I don't believe him for a goddamn second. Both of these games are coming to PS5. I don't want to hear it. Clip it. Clip it. Put it on Twitter. Tag Asha, the Queen of Green.

29:15Let her know what Mark thinks. Don't. People are going to do that, Mark. I know. If there's anything Xbox fans love doing, it's tagging Asha. So actually don't do that. This game, though, this is one of those games where don't show me any more of it, because the more you show it to me, it doesn't help me understand what it is.

29:36Mark Medina:That's what I call the pragmata effect. Yeah, I'm not saying I'm like, oh, I'm dying to play that. I need to play. Like, just give it to me. Give it to me so I can finally understand what I'm playing. Because so far, showing it to me, yeah, the setting looks great. But, like, what do I do in this game? I still don't know. I mean, the exclusivity of it all is like, look, this game looks cool. Gears looks really cool to me. But like it's it's is it going to help sell more Xboxes? No, I don't think so. But like the inverse is like you can't like how like we lived in such a bizarre land for so long of like, how do you win when you're putting your games on your competitors console?

30:16Like that conversation of like we want to put Halo on the PlayStation and Gears of War on the PlayStation. Sony was like, OK, sure. like why like it's such a weird self-own that like they like the course correct is like like they have to start somewhere and they have to kind of have a cutover point and that cutover point is like you know and like this isn't console war tribalism like i own every console like i don't care like i'll play things where i actually here's where i decide where i'm going to play things is where do i have the most hard drive space and then i buy it on that so you know like i don't care but But it's like, if you're someone that's in the business of building up your brand, like you're trying to build up Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo, like, and you make your own games, you made the game, don't release it on anybody else's console.

31:01That's an insane thing to do. Like, it's completely insane. Sure. But here's the issue that I'm always going to have with this, which is that Xbox's term for what they mean by exclusivity is not anything what PlayStation means, right? Saros, you have to have a PS5 to play it. when Xbox says exclusive, they only mean it's not on PlayStation. So why am I buying an Xbox when most people have a PC and can just play it on PC? And that's why I don't feel like this is ever going to help them. Every game of theirs is still on Steam where they're still losing that 30 % cut to Steam. That's a show of weakness.

31:40That's what someone that's losing is forced to do. Right. If you're winning, you don't do that. And that's why it's always been silly, this whole quid pro quo of, well Xbox gives PlayStation games why doesn't PlayStation reciprocate because they don't have to because they have a console that sold 100 million uh units if Xbox wants to actually do a reset and go crazy with their own hardware they need to pull their games off Steam and to be honest if you want to go real crazy pull them off uh Xbox on PC as well just console exclusive for real but they know they can't because it's just not gonna happen they well because because they haven't

32:16Justin Davis:No one's bought their console. No one's bought their only place. If that's the only place we can play their games then. But but and also I'll take it a step further in the fact that I do like a lot of Xbox games. Right. But I do too. Their games aren't system sellers. Not not not any one of their games alone is a system seller in my opinion. I don't have if all those games can be played somewhere else. There is literally literally no reason to buy an Xbox.

32:40Mark Medina:I think this whole conversation is silly. They own Activision and Bethesda. They could absolutely sell 100 million consoles tomorrow if they just took those games and put them on Xbox. And you know what? It would work. But for what? People would go out and buy Xboxes for$250.

32:58Justin Davis:But aren't they legally obligated to put Call of Duty on PlayStation? Call of Duty, yes. But I'm trying to figure out what game I'm running out to buy an Xbox for. Other than Elder Scrolls. Elder Scrolls doesn't exist. That's not a game. That's not a game. Those are the games. Yes, that's the answer. Elder Scrolls 6, one game. Fallout! Fallout! Fallout is 15 years out. That doesn't matter. They can't live long enough to do that, though.

33:26Mark Medina:It's an exclusive and then put it out. I'm not saying I disagree with you. I don't know what you're arguing with. It's such an obvious point. I don't think that they can live that long. It doesn't matter. We're all doing thought experiments here about what games can sell Xboxes. And I just told you the two biggest ones.

33:43Justin Davis:Yeah, but Mark, they should have put that plan in place years ago. Exactly. They should have, but also - As soon as they signed the contract and bought Bethesda, they should have put them to work on Fallout and Elder Scrolls. 100%. Me and Nick Limone have fought about this before. I actually don't know if Elder Scrolls is a console seller anymore. Okay. I think Skyrim came out in 2011.

34:02Mark Medina:They sold 100 million copies.

34:06Okay. I'm not convinced that Elder Scrolls 6 is going to sell 100 million copies.

34:11Justin Davis:well maybe i don't get grand theft auto 7 as an exclusive hey we can i don't think fable would be a console cell either but i think it looks really good and now it's coming in february fable looks incredible that's the one game i would buy a console for fable does look really good i like that i like how there's just different people's brains work differently and like some people's brains were tickled when they said you can marry anyone and And then my brain was tickled when they said you can buy every house in every business in the game world. I know. I'm like, ooh. It's so cool. Justin said capitalism.

34:45Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know what that says about me. But that was a very fable. That's what I did in the last fable game too, right? And then you eventually get enough income that it starts snowballing and then it gets easier and easier and faster to buy future stuff.

34:59Mark Medina:And I love how you manipulate those businesses too. Just the simple stuff they showed was really funny and making a profit goes down because of these decisions. it's just great yeah so they showed they showed two things what we're looking at here if you're watching the show is sort of the villain reveal and just sort of like reminding everybody like everything that they've talked about up to now has been very silly like they've really leaned into kind of the silliness and like you know the game is going to be very silly and not take itself that serious but it does have kind of a hero save the world story and so I was excited to sort of get our first look at that and I like Hayley Atwell and so I'm excited to sort of have her coming into of the game as the villain.

35:36But then the other thing we saw was like the 30 minute gameplay demo. We're like, that's what everyone, like they finally did the thing people have been saying from the beginning, which is like, looks cool. I'd love to see how it actually plays for like a lengthy chunk of time. And like it completely delivered. And now I'm super, I was already on board, but now like any concerns I had are assuaged and I just can't wait to get my hands on it. This is no shame to Crimson Desert because I did like Crimson Desert a lot, but like Crimson Desert kind of sold me as this game that you can live in and fable looks like a game I can actually live in.

36:08Like, I just want to play this game forever.

36:11Mark Medina:Yeah, it's a lot friendlier, right? Like just in terms of just it's trying to be like, it's trying to make charismatic, interesting things to interact with, including the landscape. You know, like it just like looks cool. That's why I thought the actual. First of all, I think it's really cool to have like a hero as the villain who's like the actual hero that you have to like, like, that's all cool. Like that's a good subversive class of fable stuff, but that wasn't what you show in a conference. So what you show in the conference is, is like maybe finally reveal the combat or honestly, I made that housing stuff.

36:43Mark Medina:Wouldn't the town stuff maybe wouldn't have gone over well, but it was gameplay and I thought it looked really cool. But I don't know. Like, I just thought just as a minor quibble, like, you know, we're all watching this together while the conference is going. I was like, that's what they showed. Like, show me fable. But then they did. They showed it later. Well, they also did a lot of that stuff at the developer direct, right? which is feels like it was yesterday but it was like just the reactivity of like oh there's this guy that doesn't have a job and is living on the street you can give him a job and then it changes and he has more money to go out and like spend in the world and like then you can fire people and they're mad at you and like you know like we'll see like look they're showing you a kind of carefully curated version of that but like so i don't know the answer to the question like how far can you twist that game world to like do something unusual or unexpected and and you know like what kind of like game state if you're you know a weirdo can you like get your game world into is like yeah i'm pretty curious to learn about all of that yeah i remember they did that with uh i think they started with two but then doubled down on it with watchdogs legion where it was like every character can be scanned and they have a job and they have all this stuff but it was like super surface level.

37:55This looks like it's these are actually people that you well.

37:59Mark Medina:And I like it when they say like what they say there's like 120 businesses or something where they say, but like it was like a manageable number. It wasn't like something where I'm like, oh, then there's there's 10 ,000 business. Like once I start hearing that, I think Crimson Desert now and I think like, oh, you guys are, you know, you made a little bit of a open world slop and like, I don't want that. I want to craft an open world that feels Yeah, I like I like how curated this world is with a giant beanstalk and just weird pumpkin houses. And like, you know, it feels yeah, it feels more curated and sort of boutique, which is what I expect out of Rockstar.

38:32Mark Medina:Honestly, like that's what Rockstar is good. Yeah. Rockstar is maybe the only one that can do the size and, you know, and the uniqueness. I like the game, but I also love this idea that Crimson World is a genre called open world slop. That's great. That's not it's not bad. It's not inaccurate. It is not inaccurate at all. If you only need to do 10 % of something and you still like it, it's still a fun game. That's how JRPGs are sometimes. I mean, it's icons on a map slop, right? You be slop.

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42:02Justin Davis:A cool looking game called Vivarium was. Oh man, I'm so glad you're going to shout that out. Because if you weren't, I was going to. Yep. It's very cool. The first thing you notice is it's like a playable early 90s anime look to it. We were talking like. Incredible. Like Sam, you could barely interact with Dragon's Lair and Space Ace arcades back in the day. Because it's just triggering scenes on a laser disk. But here, now we can actually just control an actual hand-drawn cartoon. It's great. You make friends with a little catfish man, it looks like, based off the footage that we saw. This guy is so great.

42:36I missed this. This looks awesome. Yeah. Like, this is the actual game. Yeah. And there's a mystery to it. You're in a little, like, terrarium. Yeah. So what the mystery is, like, the trailer seems to hint at some kind of bigger mystery at the end that, you know, they're obviously not giving away. But, like, I'm here for it. Like, we'll see how much actual gameplay there is. but it seems like it has elements of like, I don't know if it's time looping, but like it seems slightly Majora's mask mask of like Majora's mask. Ask different things are happening at different times that like you can maybe influence.

43:10So yeah, it seems great. I mean, even if it's watering flowers, so maybe it's cozy a little bit. Yeah. Or like slightly persona-esque of like, you know, you can only do a certain number of things each day.

43:20Mark Medina:Even if it's like mixtape and you're like living in this anime, but it's doing a really good job of it like sure you know like this is wow you know damon was saying like well finally games can look like cartoons like that's one thing and then the other is that like i used to always just like admire like non motion art just like like the box art for a game would have this style on it and then the game would be something and you know it's really stupid looking and when you play it like now they're like this is almost like box art come to life you know It's so cool. I googled it and this game was announced and had a trailer two years ago that I completely missed.

43:55I'm glad that had a chance.

43:58Mark Medina:There's almost a companion game, Orbitals, on the Switch. Which is like this. Which is like a space Japanese really, really anime looking game.

44:10Justin Davis:Did they give that one a release date? I don't know. I thought it was October. But I could be wrong. October. so cool uh something well what is coming out in october is castlevania belmont's curse yo let's go yes that's one but but mark you're too old for metroidvanias that's not a metroidvania is it yeah are you kidding me oh no you know what he thought it was a linear i thought it was i

44:38Mark Medina:thought it was more linear okay uh mark here's the big reveal is that the vania and metroidvania comes from Castlevania? I didn't know that. That's where that comes from. Wait, so is Super Metroid a Metroidvania? Now it is. Why don't they just call it Metroid? Now it is a really funny answer to that question. No, this game looks incredible. I'll come out of retirement for this guy. Just because I'm a Castlevania fan. It looks sick. It looks so good. I love the old pixel art that was in Symphony of the Night in the GBA ones. And I was kind of sad when they moved away. You know, like, pixel art is just dead, right?

45:19Like, 3D art is different now. But like this, this strikes such a good balance of being sort of painterly and illustrated, but still sort of evoking it sort of like retro roots. Like, yeah, looks amazing. Killing it with the parallax. Yeah, yeah, that's all that stuff.

45:34Mark Medina:I mean, just it's doing its own thing. The style looks good, but you can see the Castlevania things in it and they're drawn in a cool new way like this. And that's cool. and then also there's clearly enemy uh random drops there's like the cards that are dropping like it's all the elements and uh it just looks fantastic i really want to play this on a handheld system so i guess that'll be like heck yeah is it then switch to who's making a completely

45:59Justin Davis:it's the dead cells it's well it's either motion twin or evil i think one of those i think motion twin is advising on it is what i is what i thought i had read and then i love how it's people are I'm crazy over this this art, too.

46:14Mark Medina:Yeah, that looks cool, right? She looks crazy there. Yeah, it's also out for Halloween, which is like, that's all that's all we ask, right?

46:22Justin Davis:It's the first Castlevania game period since Lords of Shadow 2 and the first Symphony of the Night, like since what was the third one on DS? Was it Order of Ecclesia? Yeah, love that game. Since then, a long time.

46:35Mark Medina:It looks like it's going to try to tell a story kind of in Castlevania and kind of tie things back into the Castlevania world. I haven't done that in a long time. Yeah, this is made by Evil Empire. The Dead Cells confusion is that Evil Empires worked on the Castlevania DLC. Oh, got it. But they made they made Rogue Prince of Persia. Yeah.

46:54Justin Davis:Oh, cool. And Crazy Taxi World Tour. Do a couple quick hits here. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Could be. Yeah, that's kind of one that you like. I got to figure out. I got to figure out if I'm still 12. before I could commit to being too excited. Crazy Taxi is such a time and a place for me. You're in a pizza parlor, you're waiting for the food, and you're playing Crazy Taxi on an arcade that's super greasy and stuff. I got to see if that translates to 38-year-old Mark playing at home on a controller. I might have to just bring this to a Pizza Hut.

47:30Mark Medina:It's cool that they show the familiar, almost like the San Francisco, Tokyo type stuff, but then they call it World, So they clearly haven't shown a bunch of stuff, which I thought was a good, yeah, there's five cities in total.

47:43Justin Davis:Cool. Yeah. I mean, I liked like, you know, this was an arcade game that came home and to sort of make it worth the $50 or whatever they cost at the time. It had a bunch of really cool mini games in it. Like my memory of crazy taxi is spending a bunch of time doing like the bowling pins and doing all the weird little mini games. And so I hope it's got, you know, more of that stuff in it.

48:02Mark Medina:Yeah. It's the burnout puzzly mode. That would be cool to do in a crazy taxi.

48:10Justin Davis:i don't think it's doing good stuff with their legacy franchises shinobi last year was excellent and then it's been a few years now but streets of rage 4 was great too do they still make sonic the hedgehog games yeah they announced one what is it did they yeah it was the one oh the really

48:25Mark Medina:chibi one yeah that looked great yeah yeah that was cool but not like a i mean there's just a since the kind of breath of the wild attempt one there hasn't been like a big sonic adventure type thing sonic pico park i forgot that's what it was that looked great but but not really a sonic main line game no yeah it's a different like i'd like to see the what's the crazy taxi version of sonic the hedgehog now right i mean we got mania a while back so they kind of already gave it to us yeah that's true mania was like that um the real head scratcher of the xbox showcase for me was

48:57Justin Davis:sinua because hellblade 2 was just last year and did not make much of a splash yeah and this game looks completely different too yeah i mean it's i think it kind of seems like they're leaning trying to make it a little more active i mean just a walking simulator they showed that same enemy you fight the entire game in the other two games well there was two of these because the plague tale series is not very combat focused and then the new plague tale they shown was super combat focused so then this was sending you i'm like okay maybe these are the ideas that they just weren't able to make.

49:33Mark Medina:Well, I'm happy for the fans. I hope there's people out there that really like this game because it doesn't look like it's any better or worse. It just looks like the same thing and it's really pretty. So maybe somebody's out there going to play this. Yeah. After Hellblade 2, it's pretty tough for me to be excited for this. Yeah.

49:52Justin Davis:All right. Getting into the PlayStation State of Play bookended by Wolverine and God of War, Laofay. God. Yeah. Maybe let's start with God of War. We haven't talked about this yet. Yeah. God of War? Cube gate. I never beat Ragnarok. I actually never even got that far in Ragnarok. Ragnarok is great. Yeah. It also leaves Kratos in a nice spot. His story seems to be wrapped up nicely. So I get the hesitation. Maybe they don't want to do yet another God of War with Kratos. I do think the premise of this is a little bit random.

50:24Mark Medina:Yeah, Damon. It's kind of a greater... I also called this Godslop, right? because like i'm a little bit worried that that like it's like i didn't immediately recognize that these are egyptian and chinese gods in a world that they don't own like that it's just some other generic afterlife and now that i understand that idea i think it's a cool cool concept i just don't think it's getting across very well and i love the idea of the greek pantheon running up against the norse pantheon that was awesome like that was such a good move this looks like it's maybe maybe not as clever all the gods they're all dead and then they die again they're at risk of dying a second time what happens when you die here?

51:13I don't know that's a good question you just get even more dead I mean I thought this looked amazing you know I also did not like Ragnarok as much as God of War 2018 but God of War 2018 is an absolute all-timer, right? Like, if someone wants to say it's one of the five, you know, greatest video games ever made, I wouldn't argue with them because, you know, because...

51:36Mark Medina:It has a place in that discussion, right? Yeah, absolutely perfect combat, right? Like, wait, you have all the stuff we've said about it, but also like, look, people forget that that game had really interesting traversal and puzzles and secrets and optional content. The uncut camera was a complete revolution that nobody's really copied. Yeah, and so, you know, like this, and this looks like, you know, like, yeah, sure. Like, Damon, the argument of, like, it feels a little bit random, or maybe Laofay's slightly less interesting than Kratos. Like, that's all well, like, let's just imagine that this game is, like, 80 % as good as God of War 2018, which I'm not saying it will be, but that still makes it like an absolute, you know, game of the year candidate immediately, right?

52:15Because Sony Santa Monica is just that good. So, you know, I'm into it. We also, what we got seemingly was the first 20 minutes of the game we didn't get like a vertical slice or like random trailer like we just got the start of the game and so that also sort of colors you know like they're not choosing to show us a highlight reel they're just showing us how it opens yeah i don't have any problem with the gelatinous cube no no problem at all it's jack quaid it's also it's better than atreus give me a break yeah that kid sucks yeah it kind of does i mean you can tell you know kratos can't even really

52:52Mark Medina:stand him.

52:55Justin Davis:So God of War has that super satisfying when you call your axe back. Unclear if any of the mechanics in Laufei will be able to provide that sort of satisfying. You're right if there's going to be a single satisfying thing, but I do think in the footage that we saw, it seems like kind of a mix of old school God of War was actually really fast, really flipping all around and whipping your chains all around and then the axe was swung in the exact opposite direction of like very heavy and weighty. And this seems to land somewhere in the middle for me. At least that's what it looks like.

53:27Mark Medina:But you know, in those games, you do get your fast weapon, you get your spear and you get your other stuff right. No spoilers. But I think in this game, there will be probably weapon upgrades and stuff like that. I can't wait for the nunchucks. I don't know how people can not like the cube. There's a tag team move where you knock an enemy into the cube and then they like, boing, they sprung up into the air. I'm like, oh. Yeah. Well, I heard this take that it was like, well, oh gosh, it's just going to be this silly guy quipping all the time. It's like you have a Scottish head on your belt or whatever that's doing that in other games.

54:00Mark Medina:Like, I agree that it's not great, but it's like it's not the cube's fault. It's like, plus your game designers.

54:07Justin Davis:One of them is a germaphobe. It's like that was already there and got a word. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Combat wise, it doesn't quite look like Fionetto or devil devil fake right but like it does kind of look like you know stellar blade kind of purposeful and maybe not super super fast and flashy but it does look fun i i think this actor

54:31Mark Medina:is a weak link in daredevil and i'm a little bit concerned about the lead here but you know doesn't immediately strike me as doing the thing that annoys me about that character which is just kind of this one note in that show it's just kind of this kind of serious downer note in daredevil and it doesn't look like it in this so maybe maybe that's breaking type has anyone unpacked what lao

54:53Justin Davis:fey is even supposed to mean because her name's fey but not spelled that way no yeah i don't i

54:59Mark Medina:don't know okay yeah it's just the name of the the frost giant half god demigod sony santa monica

55:07Justin Davis:has earned the benefit of my doubt. But if I were to sum up my reaction to this in one word, it would be, huh. Then there's Wolverine, which is more of a pretty much known quantity.

55:18Mark Medina:I think the known quantity that they showed was awesome, though. And the quantity, it was a known quantity of blood. Yeah, of gore. Just sprayed gore.

55:29Justin Davis:If anything, I think maybe some of the supporting characters are just like little generic versions of those Marvel characters. but i mean gene gray is the most generic x-men yeah no i think it looks great i think the combat looks fun he does kind of bounce around a lot and people had criticisms with it i don't it's you know

55:48Mark Medina:it's it's a video game oh that he's not like i i saw that he's like oh he's not super weighty short i'm like yeah right i don't know this looks like wolverine to me yeah yeah this it looks like Wolverine to me and it's not open world, I guess. So that's, that's going to be another bit of a, a difference here, but yeah, I hope it's at least like, um, open, open zone kind of open zone with like, I think tomb Raider is a good example of that or, or even 007. Yes. 007. Yeah. You know, I don't mind the linear parts of 007 cause they're clever and cool. Yeah. Yeah, no, I, I think it looks fun yet. There there's the weird stuff.

56:26Like you just saw where he was covered in blood and then it just kind of like goes away but like i i how else do they do it right yeah because then he would just be bloody the entire game you have a bunch of hoses

56:38Mark Medina:that are that you cut during it and sprays them off instead yeah instead of squeezing through a narrow wall he's always squeezing through like you know just car washes they would always have to make it where yeah every scene transition is like him wading through water that then washes him off i i think it would have been really interesting to have like his suit constantly deform until it's just shreds by the end i mean i think that's good but they don't do that for some reason professor x has figured out how to or beast has invented a healing suit or something using his you know genetic abilities or something i don't know what's going on is this superhero slop or no i don't think so and i i think that there's i i think it's really cool that um that that Wolverine's deformation, like when he gets enough taken out of his back, it's like his entire back is missing.

57:25Mark Medina:And you can see this, the type of the adamantium skeleton, like that is some cool shit. Like if I was, if I was 13, like I can't imagine anything possibly cooler than this. Wolverine was the biggest superhero. It was an amazing time. And we got a bunch of bad Genesis games. Yeah. I can't really find anything to complain about this. It looks fun. looks cool adamantium rage was on super nintendo too sam that's true and uh and uh wolverine just naked ass wolverine was on nes it wasn't very good true

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59:12Justin Davis:Well, speaking of Stellar Blade, Mark. Heck yeah. You're getting your sequel. That looks good. Yeah, Blood Rain. Stellar punch. Blood rain.

59:21Mark Medina:Isn't there already something called blood rain?

59:23Justin Davis:Yes. Yeah, blood rain. But not spelled the same way. Yes, R-A-Y-E-R-S. One word. So, Mark, I played a lot of Stellar Blade, but I didn't finish it. Okay. Refresh my memory. It took place on Earth, right?

59:36Mark Medina:Oh, I was asking Mark about this too.

59:38Justin Davis:Does it take place on Earth?

59:39Mark Medina:I was like, is there space travel? Is this the same planet?

59:42Justin Davis:It's post-apocalyptic and humans have had to leave Earth and they're sending even these other like soldiers to try and get rid of the monsters so people can come back yeah i guess is that not right i guess i guess it does i'm gonna sound like a fake fan but to be honest mark's only a stellar blade is yeah the stellar blade like i feel like the least appealing thing about that game is is where it takes place what's the most appealing part you can't you're not supposed to say that you don't say that out loud mark my bad well my point was that in the first game there's nothing that looks like this there's no like crowded no no no even even like zion is is like mostly abandoned that's part of the the narrative is that zion gets more and more populated as you get through the game where this is i don't know i don't know where they are i don't know i think this is supposed to be some sort of a prequel i'm not sure you're gonna do a full

1:00:36Mark Medina:We'll report on this lore for next game scoop. So go home and your homework for this week is to research where Stellar Blade takes place and where this game probably takes place. Otherwise we'll just have Mitchell on.

1:00:50Justin Davis:Mitchell seven Saltzman got it. The developer shift up is publishing this one whereas PlayStation published the first one. Yeah. And I just wonder maybe it was like such a big hit that they were like, well, we can just do this ourselves. I'm surprised our profits with Sony. It's strange because, I mean, yeah, that completely makes sense. And the confusing thing is about the platforms. I assume it's going to hit PC at launch, but it's been kind of weird because right after this, Stellar Blade was announced for Switch 2, which makes sense. But then no Xbox version still. So I don't know what shift of plans are as far as platforms, but it did not say anything about it being exclusive or anything.

1:01:33Justin Davis:So who knows shift up is publishing it on switch two as opposed to PlayStation, right? I would assume so. That would make sense. Yeah.

1:01:43Mark Medina:Yeah. This game has really good graphics. It's not unreal, right? It's like their own thing. I don't know.

1:01:50Justin Davis:It might be just kind of have that shiny. They're still doing it. Stetter blade. Yeah. That's her blade. Yeah. There's also like, this is one of those games, just a crazy taxi and and now that we know that tomb raider and stuff where it's kind of built with ai type of deal where it's you know cleaned up afterwards that's how it looks so good but i i think it looks really good oh that looks great okay so as we mentioned earlier fable is coming february 23rd which means we have 11 days to finish tomb raider legacy of atlantis oh boy i only need 10. it looks so good yeah it does look good i'm really excited for that one i'm so I wish we could play it in October of this year, but it's okay.

1:02:32Justin Davis:There's other games to play this year.

1:02:33Mark Medina:How weird is that travel from it being like the series of Xbox exclusives that kind of like went back and then now it's like... Well, but it started as a PlayStation.

1:02:42Justin Davis:Yeah, it started as a PlayStation, went to Xbox,

1:02:45Mark Medina:and now it's kind of like kind of a PlayStation thing again, I guess. They're really interesting. Final Fantasy is kind of doing the same thing. We didn't touch on it earlier that like Final Fantasy Revelations, all platforms at launch, same with... Yeah, including Switch 2. Same with Kingdom Hearts 4. Yep. Yeah, that was mind-blowing. Refresh my memory. The last Shadow of the Tomb Raider was at the last one. Yeah. Didn't that end with like an apocalypse or something? She briefly became like a demigoddess, I think. Yeah. And then does it end? Like, is that, and then it's like the end? Is it like, no, everything's fine.

1:03:19She's back to normal. Well, because that's what we, the reason I ask is because I, you know, we have an Aria interview. I don't think it's some big secret, but like, you know, this game is in the continuity this remake of one is in the continuity of those prequel trilogies so it's like it's the same Lara and it's like it takes place after Shadow of the Tomb Raider and I'm like doesn't the world end in Shadow of the Tomb Raider? Something horrible happen? Is this before all of those? Well this is a remake of Tomb Raider 1 but that trilogy is a prequel those were her origin stories those three games took place

1:03:53Mark Medina:She can like at will turn into an Aztec god in this or something. Yeah. I mean, there's also dinosaurs, so whatever.

1:04:00Justin Davis:Yeah. The stakes definitely got too large and too high in that trilogy. So bring it back. Just have her raiding tombs.

1:04:06Mark Medina:Maybe Doctor Strange will make everybody forget about her. Yeah. Part of the problem with the just raiding tombs is that then you're just the baddie. Yeah. It's the Indiana Jones problem, right? Of like, maybe just don't.

1:04:19Justin Davis:Just leave him there. Just don't raiding tombs. Justin, it belongs in a museum. Yeah. Yeah, does it? Or maybe it belongs in its country of origin. Well, speaking of Lucasfilm properties, there's Star Wars Zero Company, which I think is looking really good. It did not get a lot of hype coming out of, you know, the not E3 week, but, you know, an XCOM but Star Wars. It's like, all right, just say no more. Yes. Yeah, I'm fine with that. This looks great. But, Justin, not getting a lot of hype may be a part of a greater problem for Star Wars. where I was just reading today that the film Obsession, which costs less than a million dollars to make, has earned more than The Mandalorian and Grogu at the box.

1:05:00Justin Davis:Yeah, oh no. So that's the state of Star Wars right now. Yikes. But I think this game looks great, and my man Anakin is in it. Oh, that's cool. Is he a little boy? The Clone Wars. I got bad news for you, Damon. Anakin's story doesn't end well. Well, it ultimately does end well.

1:05:21Mark Medina:I can't wait. for the next sequel trilogy in which he's not actually dead. Yeah.

1:05:27Justin Davis:Somehow Darth Vader has returned. Don't give him any ideas. Anyway, you're playing like a band of mercenaries in this, but I think you've been put together by, by like the, the Republic. So you're mercenaries, but not really bad guys. So presumably Anakin maybe would like fight alongside you for a mission or something. Unfortunately,

1:05:49Mark Medina:they always call those scoundrels because of one line from Star Wars. Yep. We can't escape it.

1:05:56Justin Davis:Then there's another cool announcement. The next game from Platinum Games, they're going to be doing TMNT The Last Ronin. Yeah, what a great fit, right? That was a cool reveal, just like hearing the Turtles team song. Yeah, first game from the newly established Paramount Games.

1:06:11Mark Medina:Yeah, that was surprising to see that logo.

1:06:13Justin Davis:I actually haven't read The Last Ronin, by i ordered it uh right after they uh uh revealed this trailer because i've always heard good things yeah boy people really swear by it yeah do you know the premise here mark no is this the amy hennig one or is no because she's this is this is platinum games platinum games is doing it but you don't know the premise of the astronom it's an alternate futuristic timeline where only one of the turtles is left alive i don't know which one and he's on a revenge mission to kill shredder's grandson. Hell yeah. That sounds cool. Like, Platinum Games doing that? Okay.

1:06:47Justin Davis:Yeah, that sounds cool.

1:06:48Mark Medina:Clearly it's the turtle with the size, but I don't know which one that is. That's Raphael. Okay. Looks like Rafa's alive. He's the one that would go on a revenge mission, so that checks out for sure. Yeah. That sounds cool.

1:07:03Justin Davis:Okay, I have questions about Stranger Than Heaven. Yo boy. RGG Studios. This is a prequel to the Yakuza games and Like a Dragon. Yeah. Which, Justin, I think you're the foremost authority on those games here. Well, okay. I don't know if I can answer your questions about Stranger Than Heaven, but yes, I do like Yakuza quite a bit. You can't explain to me why the hell Tupac Shakur is in this game? Money for... Money for somebody. I don't know for who. Not him, but... This game is going to sell more because Tupac's likeness is in it? Like, what? I do give them... You know, I guess I don't need to give them any credit, But I'm happy that like I they're not doing an AI voice and they're just, you know, they're having a voice actor that like isn't even necessarily trying to replicate Tupac's voice.

1:07:49But they said in an IGN interview, I think of like, you know, someone that has that like swagger and attitude and vibe, but not trying to just recreate this, you know, this dead hip hop artist voice. And so it's like, well, OK, at least at least you're not like, oh, yes, we've used AI models to recreate them and bring them back.

1:08:08Justin Davis:I just said like what was the creative thinking behind this? I read it in. How do we sell a video game? They said we thought it would be really cool. Yeah, that's what it is. So they're just like fans and they just wanted to put.

1:08:21Mark Medina:It's just surprising and it's a gimmick. Yeah, it's a gimmick. So it starts with Snoop Dogg, right? Where like he's, you know. I have questions about that too. He's like your guide through this world and this kind of, you know, West meets East, you know, that's his place in the story. And so then the creative vision, I don't know why. I don't need to carry water for these guys because I think this is stupid as hell. But like they're just their take on it is that then, you know, so, you know, Snoop Dogg has this crew and this group of people that he kind of surrounds himself with. This character does.

1:08:50And who could they be? Who should they be? And like what would be interesting for him to play off of? And the idea they said kind of grew from there.

1:08:56Mark Medina:I think it'd be funny if they cast Snoop and then it was his idea. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think it was. Really? Yeah. I mean, I think so. Yeah. Well. Okay. Here's here's my pitch. I put Tifa in that game. Yeah. Yeah. How about that would have gotten a bigger pop.

1:09:17Justin Davis:Snoop is also a strange choice because he has a very distinctive voice. Yeah. And this is a period piece game that takes place in like from the early 1900s, I think up to like the 60s. And I don't know how much range Snoop has as an actor, but I think he sounds pretty very of the modern day.

1:09:32Mark Medina:That that and then just like that film titling presentation is like all very Quentin Tarantino.

1:09:40Justin Davis:Very Tarantino. I mean, I think there's like a musical element to the game. It's like this kind of like acid jazz kind of soundtrack. And that part's cool. That's cool. I just, yeah, I feel like when they first showed this game, I was like, wow, this looks amazing. And then this kind of turned me off from it. I think the game still looks amazing. I think the stunt casting is bad. Yeah. We'll see how that works out. You know, hope it's not going to detract from kind of the finished product, which is like, I want more period piece video games. I trust RGG Studios kind of implicitly for better or worse.

1:10:11But like, but you know, so there's kind of like two, there's two lenses to look at this game, like the stunt casting lens and then the everything else and the everything else looks fantastic.

1:10:21Mark Medina:My takeaway is that that hot spring looks very inviting and I wish I could go to a hot spring. Yeah, I understand the irony of saying this as someone with a Death Stranding tattoo. It's right there. But stop putting celebrities in video games. Just let video games be video games. All right. Death Stranding gets a pass because they did. They. Kojima.

1:10:43Justin Davis:Who's going to tell who's going to tell Hayley Atwell that she's kicked out of Fable. Mark said no. I guess I guess I'll have to do it. Now Hayley Atwell also gets a pass because I because she's not Hayley Atwell. That's Tupac. Okay. Like, I think I think that's the difference.

1:11:00Mark Medina:I'm just throwing it out there, but Tifa and Fable? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I haven't thought about that.

1:11:09Justin Davis:All right, three more games I want to shout out. This one was a really pleasant surprise, Alien Isolation 2. That's playable, too, which is not super common. Far along. It was playable at the Play Days or whatever? Yeah. That's cool. Well. I never finished Isolation. I liked it, and it started to feel a little bit like samey. and I bounced off it, but I think, you know, they could do a lot with the sequel and it looks like a taste place on planet side and then in a colony. So I think there's lots of cool, interesting things that could do there.

1:11:42Mark Medina:I mean, it's going to look amazing. It seems like, so that's good. And then I, I don't, I think they know what the criticisms of the previous game, what were and how to counter them. And I just think it's really interesting. Yeah. I think if they get, I think if they get the alien AI, right, which is like, you know, they did the first time around so i don't doubt they will this time around it's like it's just the it's just the scariest thing of just this impossible to stop just like killing machine and like a smart like a truly it's a thing that should be simple but it's not but making an actually truly smart enemy and nemesis that it's like actively trying to hunt you down is like the most terrifying thing and it's like it's not following a pattern or it's not you know just feeling more alien i I almost said human-like, but you know what I mean?

1:12:28More realistic and lifelike, you know, and like it's reacting to noises and stuff like that in a way that doesn't feel - And surprising you, right?

1:12:35Mark Medina:Like the Mina moment like that, where there's a really big surprise in that, and you're like, oh, well, that was really clever. Like, surprised me with this. Just doesn't, it doesn't feel video gamey and how it responds and reacts to what you do is amazing. I have a show and tell. Oh. Oh. Look, his headphones are off. We can talk about Damon. I don't know if this is all CG or whatever, but like the lighting is really cool it looks so good right now i've been reading

1:13:04Justin Davis:the making of alien whoa is it a day by day huge yeah it's like like the same guy i think that did all the making of the star wars films oh i love those so much he goes through like the daily logs and like okay yeah you know what they were doing on every exact day of filming oh that's awesome anyway the first script for alien uh was finished in 1976 the film will be released in 79 and that first script had all it had all the parts it was it was the crew was five men there were no women on the crew uh but they are like a mining vessel that was on its way home it gets woken up early because they picked up a signal down the planet they go to the planet uh they get the face hugger come back on they get picked off one by one and then the guy the last guy escapes on the escape pod the alien's still in there shoots him out the airlock and then as the the ship sails off you see there's like an alien egg stuck underneath it that was everything was there in the in the first script that was sort of submitted to studios in 76 what's weird is when it was all five men um in that final scene when there's only one left the script still says he's wearing little teeny tiny panties which is weird yep that's all there since the beginning uh what

1:14:12Mark Medina:about the cat there's no mention of the cat jonesy jonesy's the hero jonesy got done dirty too jonesy survived all that and then just like what is it the start of alien 3 they're like no jonesy's gone

1:14:24Justin Davis:oh and i think i think ripley even calls jonesy a little shit yeah yeah oh that hey that we all have that relationship with our cats that's true that's true okay uh another nice surprise mighty cuphead adventure in addition to a full sequel to cuphead they're doing this cool 16-bit platforming arcade style game yep well it's it's master system did you catch that detail demon it's actually going to be play yeah playable on i think sega master system hardware program in assembly language

1:14:53Mark Medina:which is a forgotten like crazy like that's the language used to like program washing machine clocks like it's very obscure and when even when atari was first making arcade machines it wasn't the most common thing they would have to hire people that could do assembly they did it from the ground up to just completely run uh on a on a cartridge it's unbelievable i hadn't i hadn't heard that this was programmed by hand and assembly. That's absolutely insane. And it's what they're doing with Atari now where they know so much more about being able to push the hardware that like that carrot would have never appeared on Master System.

1:15:29Mark Medina:That's why I was like, oh, this doesn't look right for a Master System game. No, it's pushing Master System to do something that Master System can do. It's really amazing.

1:15:37Justin Davis:Yeah. It also appears to be like no flickering on screen. And then a new and then an actual new Cuphead too. Unbelievable.

1:15:43Mark Medina:They should add a cheat to add Flickering if they don't have it. You remember they made a Cuphead TV show for a few seasons, and my kids have never seen or played Cuphead, but they're big fans of Cuphead because of the show. They like the Netflix show. I hear it's actually good. My nephew comes over and he's always got it on.

1:16:04Justin Davis:And finally, Resident Evil Veronica. Heck yeah! I was saying like a year ago that they better do Veronica and not five, And I was told no way it'll be five next. I think it was a good decision to make this instead of five. Yeah. I mean, I guess I was, I thought it was going to be zero next year. So I would prefer zero. I mean,

1:16:29Mark Medina:they're making operating a time once every five years. Like this could easily be just another one remake, but no, it is a little strange that one is just kind of like the start of them remaking them, but it's not in this style. Yes. i love code veronica and i cannot wait for this game it's interesting that it's just called veronica i'm wondering if they're gonna split it between uh claire and chris but uh the whole like antarctica section but who knows i didn't even i didn't even think about that yeah so they could but regardless i'm very very excited it looks like a capcom game but i love veronica i was

1:17:05Justin Davis:gonna say this little teaser didn't do much for me but then again the early stuff they showed for requiem didn't do much for me either yeah and then that game was pretty much near perfect yeah yeah it's it's they they do this thing where they show off the re engine and and it's like look how like pretty and stuff it is and it's like yep i've seen this in the past three resident evil games looks great every time yeah i i want to see what this is i think we've also confirmed that it is

1:17:29Mark Medina:third person as well people were a little worried that why was veronica a spinoff and not just a Resident Evil 4. Well, it didn't. It was on the Dreamcast, and it didn't use pre-rendered backgrounds. It was the first, I think, maybe someone can fact check me out. I think it was the first Resident Evil that used actual 3D graphics instead of pre-rendered backgrounds. Also not focused around Raccoon City, which at the time was all, you know, that was the star of the show. So where is it? Completely. Yeah. Part of it takes place in Antarctica, but the first part. Isn't it all in some weird lab? i can't even hardly remember it's in a giant mansion from the yeah i always get confused so so she's in requiem it's it's what's her name she's ashcroft right i forget the character's name in requiem grace ashcroft grace ashcroft so this is the ashford twins uh in this game these that that's the villain in in uh in veronica and so yeah it takes place in like their house so it's like this giant mansion uh and then halfway through the game you stop playing as claire and you become chris and you play through the mansion again but it's like different and then you eventually go to antarctica and it's all thing i mean it's smart to reintroduce chris as like a major character and then do you know whatever the sequel to requiem is that's true that's true maybe that's why they picked veronica next yeah i just cannot believe that this is an

1:18:56Justin Davis:annualized series now every year that's that's like how how are they doing they like requiem is only like three months old and they're already announcing the next level and there's like a monster hunter and a i want a musha and like it's the same game it's cannot be stopped it's this god tier engine of like they've figured out a way to like you know it's pipeline management of like they've figured out a way to make these third person action adventure games and they're all a little bit samey but like pragmatos like pretty materially different right like so So, you know, it's like if that's the tradeoff, if they have to be slightly samey in order to put out like a really high quality badass game every single year, like cool, great.

1:19:35Like what's the alternative? Like just nobody you work on a game for eight years and then it's canceled. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's the alternative. Yeah, exactly. It helps that the RE engine looks fantastic. So it's like, yeah, if every year I have to play this like gorgeous, super detailed game, I guess I'm not that sad about it. Resident Evil.

1:20:01Justin Davis:I think those are most of the highlights from Not E3 Week. Real quick before 20 questions, let's check in with the listeners. Hey, listeners. Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address, email address, gamescoop at IGN.com, just like Ryan from North Carolina did. Who says, excuse me, who says, Hey guys, as someone who was not able to attend IGN Live, I was just wondering if any of the goose campers there got too wild and had to be told to go mop a sec. No, no, we got too wild. But we did get to meet with lots of GaveSup listeners and viewers out there in Scoop Nation. It was awesome.

1:20:33Justin Davis:It's so cool to be able to hang out. We got to check in with the attendees. We did check in with the attendees. Somebody there was wearing a camp goose shirt with all of our faces on it. And my shirt on the little character, my shirt said I'm here and everything like. Yeah. Game Scoop has the best fans. There are so many people that stopped and talked to me. And I appreciate all of you because you guys are awesome.

1:20:56Mark Medina:And if you haven't checked it out, a pretty exciting GameScope was filmed at the event.

1:21:02Justin Davis:Yeah, we did do GameScope. What a buzzer beater ending. I... something happened. What do you have to say about it? Justin, I don't know, man. I don't know if I trust you. I think Justin got a peek at the answers on that. He got a peek of a Brown screen. I don't know. I don't know.

1:21:22Mark Medina:Okay, Mark's just asking questions. I'm just asking questions. You need to go back and watch that episode because that ending is insane. Yeah, Justin. I'm not saying you cheated. I'm just asking questions. I'm just saying something's up. You don't need to see any evidence. Just look at it. Look at it.

1:21:44Justin Davis:I'll address that. But if anyone wants to avoid spoilers, I'm going to address how that round ended. So if you want to skip forward a moment. but Mark, you know, they, it was, it was, it was, it looked, it looked dirty. So it's not that much of a reason. They think it looks dirty and grimy. It could be around looking resident evil. And we talk about resident evil Requiem all the time on the show.

1:22:06Mark Medina:So I'll just guess that I used recency bias. Cause I was going to say four. And then I just decided to go Requiem. And I couldn't remember the name of Requiem. Cause that's why I was like, whereas hopefully the points don't carry over to next year. because we're never going to catch up. He was like, it looks like Resident Evil because just the color of it. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. It could have been Gears of War. It was like Gears of War shade. I don't know if I buy your excuse, Damon. I mean, first of all, an actual real cheating occurred when Mark and Nick got the audience to say Star Fox 2 to trick us.

1:22:46Yeah, you did trick us.

1:22:47Mark Medina:There was an actual cheat that happened there and he's accusing us of it. I don't know what you're talking about. He just completely broke the rules right in front of us. Look, there will come a time, like eventually every kid grows up and kills their dad and takes their place. But for you youngins, Mark and Nick, it is not your time yet. And I think we proved that definitively last weekend that, you know, I'm not quite ready to give up the roost yet with Sam. You sent the young kids back and got it. And also play more Jaws. yeah i know i was like it's so blue and we were sure it was sonic but nope i mean i didn't even when when that screenshot was all the way zoomed out i'm like i've never seen this video game in my life i was like the end in the end i recognized weirdly like a primal memory of the stingrays although the submarine i was like i don't remember you turning into a summary and like but i owned it so hey the the test the rehearsal one i knew instantly that that was megaman blue yes every We all got that unquestioned.

1:23:51Justin Davis:Yeah. Final score, a million and two points to two. That's so... Good luck. Before we do 20 questions, can I do the fastest extracurricular? Because I just... Is anybody watching Spider Noir? No. No, should we? Dude, it's so good. Watch it. Watch it in black and white. And it is incredible. Is there an option to watch it in color? There is. There's actually a live option where you can just... You can pause it and just be like, switch to color. And it'll switch to color. And it just right back to where you were. Nicolas Cage is the best live action Spider-Man. Never saw that coming. He is great.

1:24:29And it just has a whole bunch of like.

1:24:31Mark Medina:He's like an old and broken down Spider-Man. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. He's. Yeah. They're not trying to make him younger or anything. He's a private detective. His name's not even Peter Parker. It's been around it because he's the spider. He's not Spider-Man. But it is filled with other Spider-Man characters. and so it's fun trying to figure them out because it'll just be like here's this guy and you're like wait who is that is that is that luke cage is a tombstone is it's really fun are they like he's mr green he's like please call me goblet and you're like whoa no it's not it's not luckily it's not cheesy at all because it's like they don't well it's super cheesy but like none of them have a nickname other than the spider um but there is just a whole cast of of characters that you'll recognize a whole bunch of actors that you'll recognize as well it's it's really really fun and i love it and this it's it's good time cool i'll check it out yeah

1:25:43Justin Davis:all right that brings us to video game 20 questions i've suggested this week comes from Dylan from Oklahoma. Says they're a long-time listener, first-time caller. And with that, let the questioning begin. Oh, man. This is going to be a hard one. Oklahoma, huh? Yeah, that's our only hint. I have a feeling this is a 16-bit game. Did this game come out in the 70s, 80s, or 90s? No. Oh, rip.

1:26:07Mark Medina:Should we ask if it has Tifa in it? I mean, you know. That's every game. That doesn't narrow it down at all.

1:26:16let's see here is this game exclusive to one platform no everywhere

1:26:24Mark Medina:do you think Damon's just saying no to all the questions and we're going to see what the answer is the canonically not game that it is the default game non-default was this game playable on Nintendo console yes is it playable on the Switch yes okay did it come out as a gross tasting cartridge on the switch i don't know oh the cartridges all taste gross just to be clear on what we're asking

1:26:54Justin Davis:yeah i am asking you did it come out this will be a free one i would say probably but i don't know for certain so that's a free one okay okay well we'll look it up and then we'll taste it okay yeah i like we make the intern taste one every month just to confirm that they still taste gross. I'm convinced that RFK accidentally swallowed one, and that's just what's stuck in his throat. That's why it sounds like that. All right. A switch game. Was this game developed in the United States? No. That's five. Let's see. Did this game come out?

1:27:33Mark Medina:Is this based on a licensed property? No.

1:27:40is this game part of a series yes

1:27:46Mark Medina:let's see here is the game on switch the latest game in that series no could be could be because i'm trying to think games so it's like but they're the the everywhere right so we're talking like doom stuff like that could be is this game a uh first person shooter role-playing game or platformer yes is it a first person shooter no that's 10 is it an rpg no it's a platformer okay sorry sorry okay we got there i i'm actually not sure that that hack actually ever does anything for us in terms of saving questions because otherwise we would have Asks is a sports game instead or something next. So we narrated the three and then got under three.

1:28:34Yeah, you're right. Okay. So it's a multi-platform platformer part of a series. And it's not even the newest one. Yeah, not exclusive to a console. Yeah, okay. What, Ori and the Blind Forest?

1:28:47Mark Medina:Well, it's Japanese developed, so. No, we know. Well, just not US. Oh, is this developed? Should we ask if it's developed in Japan? Sure. Is this a Japanese developed game? no okay could be Ori and the Blind Forest so we have Prince of Persia there's the one we mentioned the roguelike one and then the Lost Crown who published Ori Xbox made by Moon Studios is this published by a company that had a showcase over the past week no okay is this a is this a 2d game yes okay so 2d platformers yeah so is this should we ask that i don't know what it means about not being the last one in the series i don't there's not another principle i don't know what counts is like a prince of version oh no that's true everything is just ip slop now yeah oh shoot it's rayman games okay hold up hold up what we got oh we got

1:29:47Justin Davis:to clarify something multiple studios worked on this game from around the world one of them was based in the u.s but none of them were in japan so there you gotta be ubisoft multiple studios worked on this title yeah i think because one of them was in the u.s the only kind of so let's see

1:30:07Mark Medina:it's not the only but it's just a good clue but i can't think of a bunch of ubisoft platformers There's Rayman. Oh, is this a Prince of Persia game? No, that's 15. Well, is this Ubisoft? No. Shoot. What else was it going to be, Mark? We already knew it wasn't Prince of Persia. Ubisoft had other games. It could have been a Rayman port because Rayman is. Yeah, OK, maybe Rayman, but we knew it was a 2D platformer. Yeah. I mean, Mark can go mop a sec if he needs to. I think you need to go mop a sec. I guess I did pop off and ask if it was what, what is the mopping thing? This is the second time I'm hearing this.

1:30:45Am I, I'm going to go mop. What a fake fan.

1:30:50Mark Medina:Well, we'll have Mitchell on next week. Go mop. A sec is, is, is another anagram of game scoop. Like you go mop. Use camp. Omega cops.

1:30:59Justin Davis:Omega cop. Me go. Go mop. A sec. Go mop. Go mop. A sec. Me go. Clear. You need to clear your brain. Go mop. A sec. And that was well used for that write-in, by the way. I appreciate it. That's pretty good.

1:31:14Mark Medina:Oh, God. Okay. Bunch of studios worked on this platformer. Maybe it's ukulele. What about Dead Cells? But it's 2D. Oh, I guess they did do a 2D ukulele. You're right. I forget what it's already called. I even own it and like it. But the one where you can beat the game right from the start, but you get more lives as you go. Oh, but that was published by... I don't know. That was kind of independent. That was Playtonic. It wasn't, yeah. okay okay so there is i already what did i just name before that i'm tired y 'all um nothing from yacht club because they they do everything by themselves yacht club is good one though yeah we didn't have other developers oh maybe a port porting around happened yeah i guess i i guess i don't know for sure if everything that they like they did the puzzle game they did dig i don't know i named i named a game a name came out of my mouth 60 seconds ago right before we started talking about what we were talking about and now i literally can't remember what it was and i think it could be that game yeah yeah because when we asked the america question you would well it was right after ukulele yeah i don't know do you play as a human in this game?

1:32:32Mark Medina:No. What about Unraveled? Yes, I was thinking about that too. Unraveled and Unraveled 2. It could be Unraveled because there's only two of them. Do you play as Yarny in that? You play as a little ball of yarn. Do you play as an identifiable animal in this game? Yes. You have a question and a guess. Not Yarny. Identifiable animal? A 2D platformer where you play as an animal? Yoku's Island Express? Yeah, but that didn't get sequels. But that was actually, I mean, I was thinking the same thing. No, I promise you no podcast mentions that game more than Gamescom. It comes up so often. Yeah, it is. This means it's not Shovel Knight either.

1:33:17Mark Medina:Ori is not an identifiable animal. Are you an identifiable animal in Yooka-Laylee? You're a gecko, right? You're a weird little lizard thing, and then you got a little buddy.

1:33:30Justin Davis:What happened, Damon? What are these cases? Okay, your question before your guess should be, has this game been mentioned this episode? Has this game been mentioned this episode? Yes. It's probably the ukulele.

1:33:45Mark Medina:I hate episode one. I can't remember we mentioned the whole episode. Yeah, did we mention anything earlier in the episode or only in 20 questions? Oh, oh, oh, it's probably Castlevania. It's probably a Castlevania game. Because they're like the Castlevania. Do you please identify? I remember what I said. The game I mentioned earlier was dead cells. You don't have an animal in these games. Oh, yeah, you're right. Well, vampires. I mean, they're not smoky head man, but they're not. OK, never mind. Not Castle Sonic plays an animal. My bad. Oh, sick. Yeah. It's Sonic Mania. I bet it's Sonic Mania.

1:34:21Developed all over the world. What?

1:34:24Mark Medina:Developed all over the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like a fan game that then Sega brought it on and like you're getting an official official. I think it's Sonic Mania. You're right. Is it Sonic Mania? Yes.

1:34:39Mark Medina:We got we got that. We got some back doors for that one, right? Yeah. Yeah. He gave it. I mean, this just seems like it would be a full on Japanese game. I had no idea. You gave us a pretty big hint, but we also got a little bit boned at the start, so it evens out.

1:34:53Justin Davis:yeah so this was made by it was directed by christian whitehead who was like a fan he did like interesting upscaled versions of of old sonic games on his own yeah sega did the coolest thing that why doesn't every company do this nintendo specifically right where people have

1:35:08Mark Medina:already made eight bit versions of all the game there's people out there making fan games and they're like no no no i sick my lawyers on you i shut you down and then sega's just like yo you want to come over here and just like make a sonic game for us people like perfectly translated mother three yeah i'm pretty sure we're just i think we're looking at sonic the hedgehog one right here i'm pretty positive it's like remixes those all those old levels yeah but i don't think this is literally just green hill zone no no it's widescreen and hd oh okay okay yeah and you're

1:35:37Justin Davis:spin he's spin dashing yeah yeah and then one of the studios is uh pagoda west games in portland oregon cool that's so cool christian whitehead is in australia and i gotta play this game i had no idea yeah mania you know mania's sick like i like for as much as i say like people think i hate sonic the hedgehog like it's actually not true i just think it's funny to goof on sonic fans is this the one where it's like it'll be normal green hill zone music and then you get to the second act and then it's like a re-orchestrated version is that is that is that mania it goes into that old website there's no way to know nobody knows oh yeah this isn't what this is a green hill zone one it didn't have that twisty turning what is this game play turn it off well that's sonic for you yeah i take it back sonic sucks man you go fast and you run into the spice side of a crab

1:36:31Mark Medina:it's like not even holding his pinches at you all right what are you doing i nick turn it off just

1:36:37Justin Davis:keep on running slowly up that hill well nicely good job thank you for the suggestion dylan from Oklahoma. Viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for a video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com. And that is all the scoops that we have here this week. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Mark. Thank you to Nick working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN Game Scoop and we're out.

1:37:19Mark Medina:is it ocarina or ocarina no well don't tell him don't tell him let's just let him get it wrong dude did you guys see he's searching it now for the record i say ocarina but what if somebody was asking me because they said that they always i mean i always said like like hylian like hylian shield, but apparently it's... Hylian? I don't know what Hylian is. It is Hylian, right? I used to say Hylian. Hyrule. That's why. Who knows? There's a crazy leak today that Tupac's been cast as the great Deku tree. I saw the pixel. Yeah, I saw it. Wait, it's not Deku. Deku tree. Deku tree. Oh, we're fucked, dude.

1:38:05Please, let's not talk about this game. We're going to work out. I slipped into, I know it's Deku Tree, but I slipped into like 13-year-old Justin mode for a minute where it was Ken and Ryu. Yeah, I mean, I'm not just going to default

1:38:21Mark Medina:to all the things that are right. Like I'm just, I haven't talked about Ocarina of Time in like 15 years. So I'm just going to say it however I said it back then. Ninja. Deku, I've never heard anybody say Deku before. Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden. Michael Calabro has trouble pronouncing a lot of video gamey things. And I have always given him a pass when he says ghost of your toy. We says, I just go with the fuck. But then he started saying Andy circus. And I'm like, you should know that one. That's great. And he said it multiple times. It was not a slip up. So. Wow. He's on blast now. Yeah. Scoop blast.

1:39:02Justin Davis:Everyone knows it's Ninja Gaiden. but why is that classic arcade shooter series Raiden? Why don't we pronounce it Raiden? Maybe it is Raiden. Ninja Raiden. Probably is in Japan.

1:39:14Mark Medina:I mean, what's the name of the Mortal Kombat Thunder God? Raiden. That's Raiden. Okay. Well, again. But why isn't he Raiden? I called that arcade NES classic.

1:39:29Justin Davis:I called it Legend of Cage for most of my life.

1:39:33Mark Medina:Yeah, Kage.

1:39:34Justin Davis:That's right.

1:39:34Mark Medina:How would you ever know that? Do you think Nintendo Power was like, hey, hey, readers, it's actually. But yeah, they wouldn't have done that. They had no idea. That would have been an amazing Ninja Power feature, except you're right. They didn't know either. Yeah, they barely knew what was going on.