God of War Recasting Atreus, Nintendo Direct Announced! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 08.03.26

0:00Head to FactiveMeals.com slash KindaFunny50 off and use code KindaFunny50 off to get 50 % off. Pre-order your Porty plushie right now at KindaFunny.com slash Portillo. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to Patreon.com slash KindaFunny.

0:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Today's gaming news stories include God of War's TV show is getting more recastings, Nintendo Direct for Fire Emblem is happening, and a new Game of the Year contender may have just arrived. We'll have all this and more because this is Kinda Funny Games Daily.

0:35Blessing Adeoye Jr.:yo what's up welcome to kind of funny games daily for monday august 3rd 2026 i'm on your host blessing at aoa junior joining me is la croix poppy tim mo boy get it that portillo plush so many years in the making it is finally here yeah i am so excited it's adorable oh i love it so much I hope we never stop Portillo merch. No, Portillo is eternal. Yeah, that little motherfucker. He will. I'm going to use the word haunt. He will haunt us forever. Yeah, I feel like haunt usually has a negative connotation. Usually it usually does. Okay, but in Portillo, nine out of ten times, it's a good thing. But there is that one.

1:13That one was always that one. When you look at him wrong and he pees, you're like, why are you doing that? Yeah, I didn't get much of Portillo because of the pandemic. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you were robbed. I was greatness. I was robbed, but I do get a lot of mint chip. Yeah. Very happy. Mint chip brightens up my day whenever he's around. It is funny because it's like the two of them, Cole and chip. Like there's weird person. It's kind of like, did you watch death note? Yeah. I love that. You know how there was L and it was bellow and near like, is that after L? Yes. Yeah. That's kind of what this is.

1:46Portillo is L. Okay. You know what? Actually, actually, our bellow and near. Yeah. but they're not. I feel like, cause I would argue death note could have just ended with L. I think everyone could argue that, but like, I don't feel that way about mint and Cole, maybe Cole, but like the thing about death note, it's not that it's horrible. It's just not near as good. Sure. So like, I don't know, man, men's ships up there for me. If I'm ranking Greg Miller's dogs, I know it might be a hot take men's ship number one right now for me. I mean, cause he's small and fluffy. So cute. He's so loving. I knew Portillo too long.

2:18That's the, That's the problem. I understand that. And I love the new guys as well, obviously. Even when I saw Portillo, I was like, if I touch you, you might die. Yeah. Yeah. But also, when you met Portillo, he was more robot than man. Yeah. Oh, 100%. So, like, he was deceivingly sturdy. Yeah. But, like, now I see Minship, and I go for a pet, and sometimes he'll roll over. And he's like, hit my stomach. And I'm like, yeah, I'll pet your stomach. In different ways. Yeah, it's beautiful. Oh, I love him so much. And then there's Cole. Remember, if you're watching live, you can beat him. shit because he knows what he does he knows what he does he knows if i look at him wrong he starts barking at me if mittens there because he wants to show off it was like back in the day back of the day i'd be hanging out with the friend crew and like you know sometimes there'd be some girls over where we'd be playing fifa and i'd score a goal and i might i might act different when i score a goal when the girls are around you know what i mean it's like there's nothing cooler you know there's nothing cooler i scored a goal in fifa and you know the baddies are around and it's like i I might show out a little bit.

3:17That's fucking coal with Mint around. It's like when Mint's not around, you're not barking at me like this. No, he's cool. You're not acting like this. You're chill. All of a sudden, Mint's around. Just like you got to bark at everybody. You got to show out for him. Yeah. Nah, man.

3:29Blessing Adeoye Jr.:If you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting in over on YouTube.com slash kindoffunnygames. We couldn't do this at our producers over on Patreon.com slash kindoffunny. So thank you to Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney the song twining, and Lax Nomad. For now, let's begin with what is, and forever will be, the Roper Report. It's time for some news. We have six stories today. A Baker's does it! Starting with our number one, the God of War TV show is making yet another shocking recasting decision. This is from Thomas Franzese at Polygon. prime videos troubled god of war tv show adaptation will see even more recasts in its second season as a new report suggests the studio is looking for a new for new actors to portray atreus and throod throod throod i always go hard throod throod mark throod um also would we describe it as troubled think about that as i read through this yeah i have thoughts for god of war's first season sons of anarchies ryan hearst was originally set to play kratos while Chucky's Callum Vinson signed on as Atreus, and Insidious, out of Furthers Island, Austin, was cast as Thruud.

4:46Blessing Adeoye Jr.:We learned last month that Ryan Hurst sustained an injury. What was the one? Is the actress named Island Austin? That's what I was, I guess, though. Or is it Furthers Island? I think it's Island Austin. I'm just going to call him one name. His name must be Island Austin. I don't think her name is Austin. Her name, her name, because it's Thruud. Yeah. Her name is Island Austin. Island is such a beautiful first name. It is, I like that. That's inspired. That's amazing. isla overdone island shortened to isla you're looking pretty good that's great we learned last month that ryan her sustained an injury while filming the first season we replaced oh yeah we'll be replaced by a new actor now a report from mp first suggests that atreus and throod will have new actors in god of war season two mp first spotted casting calls from may for the show that matched up with the descriptions previously shared during the casting process for atreus and throod prime video was now looking for actors between the ages of 14 and 17 rather than ones between the ages of 9 and 12.

5:39Blessing Adeoye Jr.:While the first season of God of War adapts the 2018 game, the second season will cover the events of 2022's God of War Ragnarok. There's a time jump between those games with Atreus and Thrud playing even more action-heavy roles. It seems the show's creative team would rather have older actors portray those important characters in the show's second season than wait for those they already cast to age up. Tim, what's going on with the troubled God of War TV show? Yeah, I mean, starting with the troubled thing, I would say that, yeah, by definition, it's troubled just because their lead actor got injured and that causes major problems so yes but besides that i wouldn't say it was it's been troubled this isn't horizon you know this isn't one of the horizon is trouble yeah horizon is a troubled series uh this just kind of seems like a series where there's been a couple starts and stops and figuring things out but it's like seems like besides the major injury which is a huge huge huge deal um but these recastings i I feel like shows do this now.

6:37This reminds me of House of the Dragon. Like when there is a time jump, like we know there is in God of War, I'm not really surprised. I'm a little more surprised that Throod is... Is in the first season. In the first season. Yeah. Which like, they can make make sense. Like I don't doubt them. A lot of the casting decisions and a lot of the info we have, it seems like there's a lot more Ragnarok DNA that they're injecting into the 2018 part of the story. I don't know how I feel about that. like so far from what i've seen i'm like i don't know if i i don't know if i like what you're doing here but also i just got i have to see the final product to really judge it i'm not too worried about that personally because i look at the god of war story that we have and i feel like you can't just one-to-one tell that in tv because of the way that the game functions with its single cam and all that we're not getting that yeah we're just not gonna get not gonna be with kratos from like every single it's not going to be all a plot yeah exactly exactly so like kind of spreading things out a little bit introducing characters at different points i'm not too upset with especially because it's been so long since i played god of war 2018 but she's mentioned right i don't i don't think she is i'm pretty sure she is because i remember getting really hyped about the thor stuff in 2018 like they started setting it up and teasing it and if i remember correctly it was um you're gonna have to help me out here the the two the dwarves that help you rock and sindry yes i'm pretty sure they were the ones talking about her about throod yeah i maybe she gets name dropped maybe but i don't remember but i don't not in a way that's like oh shit you know like i'm sure you know what all i remember is the only sons of thor that are mentioned are the ones that you meet and kill and yeah murder yeah spoilers spoilers for a game that's i bet you i mean you might be right because honestly in my playthrough of 2018 i haven't played through 2018 since i played ragnarok so like even if they name dropped through i probably wasn't thinking about it if i went back and replayed 2018 and they mentioned her name i probably would have been like oh snap cory barlog he was 10 steps ahead the whole time i do also wonder yeah like how much they might weave in just because the the nature of how they tell that story in that particular game in 2018 I think is so...

8:51I don't know if you could really replicate in a TV show and make that work. So I do wonder how much back and forth we might be getting from what Kratos and Atreus are doing during the events of the 2018 game and then the reaction of what's going on from everybody else in Asgard, which we don't get to see in that game. I got... Sindri refers to the sister of those two, which is rude. Which is rude. okay so yeah very vague stuff but it's like yeah i'm not that's not the craziest thing with how big of a deal she was in the second game kind of like referencing or even showing her a little more i'm not too concerned about that i think for me the thing that i am i wonder if this is at all a reaction to the last was tv show and how they didn't recast ellie and like there wasn't it didn't feel like there was as much of a jump between last was season one last was season two part one part two in the video game it feels like oh this character has grown like this character looks physically different and all this stuff i'm kind of surprised that they're doing it here in the sense of like atreus grew between the first game and the second game but like i feel like not by that much you know i mean i feel like it wasn't a we gotta recast this character sort of situation so i wonder if this is a oh we met we might we maybe should have done that in the last of this tv show and we're taking the learnings of that and going all right if we're aging somebody up let's just recast them i mean this is true of last of us to an extent as well but i'm saying here like atreus and through playing even more action heavy roles i do think that the role that atreus plays in god of war one versus ragnarok is very different in terms of the performance needed having said that it's like you could have found somebody that could age up with that and be able to to have it all but hey that's super hard and also is we're just talking about an amazon show this isn't like the biggest budget thing in the world i would imagine like i imagine this does have more money than most things but like i we'll see i this is the type of show that i'm very interested in but amazon are so hit and miss with the properties that they produce that this could be a boys or this could be a rings of power and with rings of power from all accounts it sounds like it got better over time but not good enough to like keep people yeah you know like i don't know i personally don't know anybody watching rings of power season three if that's what it's on now um but i do know a lot of people that watch season one were like i'm out i'm yeah i have like i gotta see more and obviously we gotta figure out who's the new kratos right what is are they gonna release a new picture with kratos and atreus and is it gonna look better than the first one they released and everybody like what the fuck is this i i just gotta see more what a horrible first it was a really bad first impression and i think honestly i think when i think of the troubled word yeah i think half of it is that ryan hearse got injured the other half of it that picture is troubled man yeah troubled photo yeah it's it's just unfortunate for sure yeah i i personally don't look at that picture and go oh man i'm worried about this show i do look at that picture and be like y 'all did yourselves no favors because i think i'm way more generous than most people are when it comes to that type of thing where i'm like all right like i know i'm gonna be seated for episode one of this show and they could lose me after that like there's a ton of shows i've tried and man like i'm done but i even though i love this thing i'm not sticking with this yeah um but yeah i i mean a perfect example of that on our in review for spider-man brand new day i was saying that uh i was gonna see it a second time and i was excited because i was trying to see it in screen x yeah and i knew screen x sucked i saw fast 10 screen x and i'm like this is fucking garbage because they just have a bunch of ai bullshit on the sides and like cg nonsense but spider-man brand new day first movie to be shot with screen x in mind so it has like actual proprietary screen x stuff sold out as far as the eye could see i'm like goddamn managed to get a seat on friday or no on saturday i go in i watch the movie for 20 minutes i walk my ass out no i walk my ass out screen x is an abomination everyone involved in it should be fined they should be in trouble for what they have done to cinemas.

12:57It's bullshit. It leaves such a bad name for other premium formats that actually add something to the experience. ScreenX is a god damn disaster. Bring up an image of the ScreenX theater. ScreenX is essentially like our video wall. There's just screens on the wall. Yeah, Stone's Town has it. Don't ever go. Do not ever go. Next time you are watching a movie there, watch the movie and then go out and then just walk into the... Just to see it for a second. This looks so much cooler even than it actually is. It's better for concerts, apparently. The screen, the sides, lower resolution. Oh. The entire room is just fucking bright as hell.

13:35I don't like that. Alyssa's on Screen X for some K-pop concerts that get streamed to theaters. And that shit's apparently really fun. I mean, I can imagine, but the sound isn't that good. They're not going for the sound. They're not going for the sound for a concert. I feel like the brightness would be the thing that would really ruin it for me. You can go to a concert for the sound of a concert. There's way too much screen. way too much screen it's yeah anyways uh i bring that up to say it's like i will give up on things you're like you have you will try things you will yeah like you're into i want to like you want to like the thing but then the thing has to also deliver and like yeah i'm not i'm not at a place here where i'm like this god of war tv show won't deliver i just don't know we don't know enough about it to know whether or not it will um but i think they just have a they have a good opportunity you know what i mean you talk about amazon can be hit or miss but when they hit they can really hit talk about what god of war could be for them right like fallout the tv show a huge success for them and it's amazon right yeah video game adaptation i know they're i'm sure they're looking at more video game adaptations as potential for for growth on the tv area you're also talking about i know this is it's a weird one because it's god of war and so we're in for the one that they're adapting we're in we're firmly in norse territory but the odyssey christopher nolan i think is bringing in a wave of excitement around just the greek mythology thing right so i wonder if you can have if you can transfer any of that energy into people wanting to see this absolutely yeah i i think that there is a the highest chances that god of war comes out and that it is just decent like i think that's the most likely outcome and that's the least interesting for sure um but i i think it's going to be a tall task for them to come out and put something that everyone is glowing about just because there is such an amazing thing to compare it to one-to-one with the video games yeah and every single thing that the show doesn't do that the games do well it's going to be judged against by all of us and we're going to be very loud about that i think we're going to hate it and i mean i think that there's a high likelihood i think like maybe the non-gamer would be like this seems fine but i i don't with what we're saying of if you're adapting this for tv yeah you can't just one shot it and have it be all a plot and just following kratos and all this shit right like tv has different constraints and ways that you've been things you have to do to make it actually make sense to tell a story in that way and with every change like every change is going to be scrutinized by us in a way where if you're not making a change that feels like the um the was it bill's town episode from last of us where it's like oh this is additive this is actually really special if a change doesn't feel like that i think we're automatically going to go oh this is no this is not good yeah i and i think that there that's true for a lot of people i do think there's also a pretty large amount of gamers out there that really enjoy the world of god of war and love the gameplay of god of war more than they fully understand the characters and story and i think that like giving them a way to kind of re-experience the story and get even more familiarized with the characters with some of their weird ass names and like i do think there's going to be a group of people that are like that find it nice to be able to be back in that world and not have to replay the games but again we are talking about a a world this is what coming out in 2027 people don't want to like things like everyone's going into if there's an adaptation of anything people start with i don't want it you know so it's like it is going to be a very very very very herculean effort for this show to like win people win the amount of people over that are going into it not wanting it from the jump, I think.

17:08Part of me wishes that this is a God of War Greek adaptation. I feel like you can be way more creative with what you do with that because that's been so long. You know what I mean? God of War 2018 feels like yesterday. God of War Ragnarok might as well have been yesterday. It feels like it just happened. The Greek stuff, I just worry about the scale. They could just do something totally different like Fallout, but they're not. yeah i think i'm also just in it we're all in a greek mode right now so there's that to it too but i feel like going back to the well and being like all right let's do this when you also have the greek remakes coming out uh i guess years after that probably but we'll see what they do with this and honestly if this is successful then they'll probably end up doing that shit anyway so yeah we shall see something else we shall see fire emblem fortune's weave story number two

17:53Blessing Adeoye Jr.:a nintendo direct has been announced focus on that game this is from tom phillips at ign A Nintendo Direct broadcast focused on Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave will air this week. It's been announced. The special stream will be broadcast tomorrow, Tuesday, August 4th at 7 a.m. Pacific Time. Be sure to tune in then for 20 minutes of new details surrounding Nintendo's highly anticipated Switch 2 exclusive RPG. We last got a peek at Fortune's Weave during Nintendo's big June Direct broadcast when we learned that the next entry in nintendo's long-running tactical role-playing series will land on september 17th 2026 it's happening tim it's happening man yeah it's not for ocarina and uh this this direct they're about to get into it you're about to learn some words you've never heard before bless they're about to get into menus and menus of menus and oh and it is it's about to go deep you're about to hear about systems you're about to hear characters and their relations and it's going to be a lot.

18:49Is there a system you're looking forward to? No, it's just like, this is, this is what Nintendo does. This is how they do this and they need to do this. And there's a lot of excitement for this game. I think that this direct is going to really, really, really excite the nerds. And I think that it's not really going to change the minds of people that aren't fire emblem people. Right. But I, I do think that there are more newcomers to this game than any previous fire emblem in history. like i i think that like there's more interest because of how massive three houses was on the switch like i think awakening on the 3ds was like such a big moment for the franchise in the west wasn't an awakening it was awakening for sure it absolutely was and uh it sold really well reviewed really well it was like talked about with such reverence and then when we got to the switch which was essentially like a cheat code to sell units of franchises that didn't used to sell right and fire emblem three houses came at a probably the perfect time for that game yeah where it was like two years years into the the switch's life cycle so we kind of got past that breath of the wild mario odyssey mario kart and it's like all right what's next and people were willing to like give something new a shot but now i just think that all those people that gave that a shot they're going to want to play this and i think there's just been even more people that have talked about how much they love that game because that game i think was even better received than Awakening.

20:10So, yeah, the only thing holding it back is it's Switch 2 exclusive, but there's a lot of Switch 2's out there. Yeah, I will not be watching this direct, unless we're making content about it, then I'll watch it. But, like, I'm staying away because I'm already sold, and I'm scared that they show me... You're already sold. I'm already sold, yeah. This year, this... 2026 has been the Nintendo year for me. Because you've been saying it's tactical 2026, and I don't think you've played a single tactical game i played meugenics okay uh got you and i think i played one more you think you played one more when i played another tactical thing i'm looking for i love it i love it like this i more people get into fire emblem is an amazing thing to me this that's awesome and i think xenoblade has me like i i've so this year for me 2026 i'm pretty sure by the end of this year nintendo switch 2 will be my most played platform of the year and there as far as i'm concerned firing on all cylinders this i toward the end of last year i was very down on my switch too and i think that's just because last year's exclusives just weren't for me i wasn't feeling pokemon zeta a i love donkong bonanza but like mario kart didn't live up for me as well so being in this year and i'm looking back at my my gaming trends already and i'm like pokemon i know it's dumb i know this is crazy this is not leaf green okay you know what i thought you're gonna go pecopia and i forgot no no no you're a leaf green guy got me in in a way where i was like fuck man i like holding this thing and then pokemon pecopia i didn't play much of that but i played a couple hours and enjoyed it for what it was but then it was there's a big one oh there's a big one splatoon raiders oh yeah splatoon raiders yeah like you splatoon got you bro splatoon raiders truly got me and then couple that with definitive or xenoblade chronicles definitive edition coming out as well and i know there's like one or two games i'm like missing oh pokemon champions i know people didn't like but i liked i played a lot of pokemon champions i'm using my switch this year and i'm like which one mario tennis mario tennis as well i got a trip coming up and i'm looking at my steam deck and i'm treating it like the kid from toy story and i'm like i don't want to play with you anymore when you threw away woody i'm picking up buzz lightyear on nintendo switch 2 we're so back baby we're so back nintendo buzz lightyear switch 2 um but yeah have fun watching this y 'all star fox star fox as well that's the thing is even the smaller games i know we hated on rhythm heaven but like i played during that party mode it was fun during that party mode i want to play more multiplayer never gonna play single player again i'll play i need to play multiplayer we got into another party mode for

22:37Blessing Adeoye Jr.:sure let's move on to story number three but before we do i want to tell you about patreon.com slash kind of funny and youtube.com slash kind of funny games where you can get the kind of funny membership which allows you to get shows ad free and speaking of ads let us tell you about our sponsors this episode's brought to you by factor the last couple months have been wild here at kind of funny with travel and events and when your routine takes a hit it can be easy to get off track thankfully with factors chef crafted dietician designed ready to eat meals getting back to eating right is easy without having to choose between real food and convenience with over 175 banned ingredients every factor meal is designed around what supports a healthier lifestyle and nothing that doesn't.

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23:57Long live the king. Long live Portillo the wiener dog. We partnered with the good people over at Make Ship for this adorable king party to honor my late great pup, but we can't do it without your pre-order. Adored in his signature blue bow tie and coffee sleeve crown, Now you too can have your own personal porty to sit with you through long gaming sessions, keep you company at your desk, or cuddle with on those cold, cold nights. I miss my little guy every single day, and I can't wait to share this with my son Ben and you, the Kinda Funny best friends. But King Porty only gets made if 200 of you pre-order.

24:35That's how makeshift campaigns work. So please, please pre-order now at kindoffunny.com slash porty to get your own special little guy. that's kind of funny.com slash porty p-o-r-t-y i need 200 of you to believe kind of funny.com slash porty and we're back timmy just had a realization that the direct is happening yeah i know you said that it just did not register to me that's crazy i said august 4th but it doesn't feel like we're in august yeah it does not feel like we're in august that's cool though yeah you're gonna watch it i'm we're getting some no i'm not well not at 7 a.m no no i'll definitely like skim through it I'm interested.

25:13We have some super chats here about Fire Emblem. We got Seabury saying, do you think we'll get a three houses Switch 2 upgrade drop? Potentially. I mean, eventually. I'm pretty sure it's one of the few remaining Switch 1 games that didn't get a Switch 2 edition or that patch. So it's like that could be a cool tide you over thing.

25:37Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Yeah. And EJRPG says hot take maybe, but I vastly prefer Awakening to Three Houses. i'm with you as well i'm an awakening guy till i die wow uh aaron lime says blessed and tim with how strong nintendo's been will it finally be time do we finally get a new f-zero is dad coming home with the cigarettes no and i it really saddens me too because like i i understand f-zero not really having a place anymore because of the type of game that it is but i think the f-zero franchise captain falcon the fact that we haven't got a captain falcon game is a little surprising to me like if they could somehow figure out this arcade racer super super super fast paced stuff but then also add some type of third person bounty hunting situations with captain falcon that could be awesome you'll get you'll get an f0 by the end of the generation yeah you got kirby air riders year one yeah but that was because sakurai that's because there was a man that needed that to happen there was a vision didn't nintendo like approach him to do that game i don't think so i thought that's what he said i thought he was like nintendo asked me to do this so i did it i i i don't i i need to double check me on what that is because like that there's just no way i think nintendo's at the point where they're like let's reach in the bag like let's start let's do weird shit it's time for dad to come home i mean it is time dude like i i freaking love this i think happen but i will say we got f-zero gx on the nintendo gamecube nso and it's like wow exactly that's all we need yeah like they're never gonna make a game better than this there's it's just not gonna happen what if they what if they remake it they don't need to look at it i mean it does look fantastic the shit ran at 60 on the fucking gamecube yeah you really you don't really need to remake this but you i mean but could you though i i don't know there's nothing to do here like if The only thing they can do is make the story mode easier because it's one of the hardest story modes I've ever played in my fucking life.

27:39And anyone that actually beat it, I don't even want to know you. You scare me. This game looks really good. It looks really good. It is really good. You can play it right now. And they made, I mean, here's my thing also. They made F-Zero 99. And it was awesome. So like, F-Zero is still active for them in like the littlest of ways. Yeah, but I also think that those two examples are, that's how you do a new F-Zero. like those are like that is as high quality i think and as high performing sales wise and whatever or like engagement wise as an f-zero is going to be and i say this is a huge f-zero fan they need to change it up they need to do something else and it needs to be about captain falcon the streets yearn for captain falcon the streets miss them um science doc officials has

28:23Blessing Adeoye Jr.:just ordered my porty plush for my son also we news for today uh demon mech tank for overwatch was announced today. Very exciting. There you go. And then Hi HHGTV says Toy Story 3 Remaster is coming to Switch to you October 15. I don't like y 'all doing my job for me. I'll say that right now. Stop writing in with Wii News before Wii News gets here. Now, did I have those in Wii News? No. But you could have at least like, you know, waited for it and then afterwards give me a You're Wrong or something. I don't like y 'all getting ahead of it. Can you believe there was an F-Zero cartoon? There was?

29:00Yeah. An F-Zero cartoon? It was out at the same time as Kirby right back after Sonic X. Hold on. I vaguely remember this. Was it on the same channel? Yeah. Fox Kids? Yes. I think at the time they called that block Jetix. At least they did in my area. You remember Jetix? I do. I get a little confused about where things went between the ABC family stuff, the Disney stuff, the Nick stuff. Yeah. Got a little confusing. but yeah no there was a f-zero cartoon we're in the fox box remember fox box fox fox man take me

29:33Blessing Adeoye Jr.:back um and then uh the i'll do one more right now from the right hidalgo who says that day of the year birthday tax happy birthday happy birthday let's move on to store number three we got a big walk review roundup for you right now it's sitting on metacritic at 93 um i will say not that many reviews have come in for it and so who has it that's a really good question who has it on fantasy critic double check that for me as i read through some of these reviews i will say it doesn't have an open critic score yet okay so it's a few more scored reviews over there to actually get the the page there uh mark delaney at game spot gave it a nine out of ten and says big walk takes fundamental and timeless video game concepts obstacles and incentives for clearing them and through an intensely focused co-op experience shapes them into something singularly rewarding supremely mysterious and totally unforgettable all right who's who's this that has no no one has nobody nobody has big walk

30:35i love that all collectively you're just like nah i love it that's amazing good chris shilling at

30:41Blessing Adeoye Jr.:euro gamer game five stars it says the untitled goose game team returns with a funny exciting and deeply rewarding multiplayer adventure that combines knockabout fun with some surprisingly big ideas. And then Reb Valentine at Kotaku gave it an unscored review and says, love or hate the terminology, we've recently seen a rise in something folks are calling friend slop. Generally, indie games intended to be played with friends that encourage communication, teamwork, and silliness. Games like Mecha Chameleon, Among Us, and Peak are prime examples and have gained rapid popularity thanks both to being very well-designed, fun games, and also to their facilitation of positive human relationships.

31:19Blessing Adeoye Jr.:At a time when everyone is feeling increasingly isolated, these games encourage us to play together. I guess by this definition, Big Walk is another prime example of friend slop, but I just can't bring myself to use that term for it, especially with the somewhat messy connotations of the slop suffix. There's something about Big Walk that defies the slopness of the word, something clean and clear, something aggressively earnest and even loving. Whatever that something is, it's been making me tear up every time I have thought back on moments in my own Big Walk. It's made me want to message the friends I walked with, excitedly beginning with, hey, remember when, dot, dot, dot.

31:54Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Now, here's the thing. I was going to cut off there, but then Reb goes on to give a great explanation for what is Big Walk. So for those watching and listening that might not be familiar or want more details into what are you actually doing in this game, I'm going to continue reading from Reb. In Big Walk, you and your friends go on a Big Walk. We'll see you tomorrow. It's set on an uninhabited island. You and your companions are the only ones there. There are lots of trees, a few mountains of varying heights, valleys, rivers, coasts, you know, things you see on a hike. There are no signs or trail markers, no wildlife to be seen, though you can hear birds.

32:30Blessing Adeoye Jr.:There are large, Fisher-Price-looking monuments spaced out across the landscape, brightly colored, built like giant toys, normal stuff. Inside almost all of them is a puzzle, always one that requires more than one person to solve and almost always one that requires thoughtful communication and teamwork. For instance, the very first puzzle we encountered in the tutorial area was a giant crane with a button on top far out of our reach. To get to it, the six of us had to stack on top of one another with the bottom person lining the tower up correctly and the top person hitting the button. Another very early one had one person push a button to light up and activate an objective across the valley.

33:08Blessing Adeoye Jr.:and the other person had to follow the light and run over to the correct spot. These were simple early game puzzles, but everything grew increasingly complex from there. The reward for solving most puzzles is a weird little nub that our group unfortunately immediately dubbed a nipple. You can call it what you like. The goal, very roughly, of Big Walk is to collect a lot of nipples. Sorry, I won't do that again. In this regard, I guess I should describe Big Walk as a puzzle game primarily. It is certainly the puzzle game that finally made it click for me what it is that makes a really good puzzle game.

33:38Blessing Adeoye Jr.:It's not about puzzles being difficult or easy enough or especially intricate or anything like that. A good puzzle game makes you, the player, feel like a genius. Big Walk does one even better. Its puzzles are almost universally so well-paced and well-designed that it makes a group of people feel like collective genius. It even celebrates that genius appropriately. I love that every time you finish a puzzle, there's a little party horn honk noise and a bunch of confetti. It spits out at you. A mini celebration every time with you and your friends jumping up and down and waving your arms and yelling into the mics because you got it.

34:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You did it. I'm going to stop reading there. She goes on to talk even more about Big Walk in the review, but I really liked her writing. And so go over to Kotaku, read Reb's review. I'm also extremely excited for this now. I'm excited. I want to do a stream with everybody. I would never touch this ever in my life. but the fact that we have a group of friends here that can play this together uh is very enticing to me because yeah it looks the way people talk about it i'm like i get it like that does sound like a lot of fun i saw another review comparing it to breath of the wild which i know everybody compares everything to breath of the wild but that had me excited for it as well it also just reminds me excuse me it reminds me of the witness in a way one of my favorite puzzle games where it is the witness kind of throws you into just an open world of puzzles and like you kind of see where the bigger points of interest are and you go there and you learn and figure out okay what is the objective here and there's something about that open air puzzle experience that really speaks to me and so the idea of doing that with people and like when i look at the game and kind of see the art style the vibe like i don't we keep using the word friend slot but i i think i mentioned this before that this doesn't i wouldn't call this friend slot it looks like friend quality it looks like it has some of the ethos of what we call that but there's time and effort and intentionality here that puts it above the rest as far as how you would talk about it in that regard like this is an actual video game um so i i i want to try this whether it's with y 'all whether i find friends to play with no matter what i'm checking out this game this speaks to me a lot yeah i'm happy that it seems to be delivering because it did you know raise a lot of positive flags from people of like hey it's friend slop but we need to come up with some other way to talk about it because we don't think that slop's correct yeah and it turns out that that was a correct thing to have acknowledged i mean when you were like because the difference i would say i don't we keep having the friend slop conversation it's one of the words of the year at this point um i think the difference is i look at his peak for example i'll call friend slop and i say that lovingly but they made that game very quickly like i there's something in in regards to quote-unquote friend slop games where it is oh y 'all made this quick and y 'all like there is something about this that was slapped together but like you slapped together something that's really fun and that people love and adore this game has been in gestation for years and years the thing is i feel like this is the type of term that doesn't actually have a definition and it whatever people associate it themselves with this that's what it is i look at this i'm like undeniably this is friend slop you look at it the graphic art style of it to me that is a big part of the slop slop has nothing to do with the quality of the game i feel like the reason that we're having the conversation of is this friend slop or not is because this is a very high quality the game but there's also great examples of high quality friend slop games that are even sloppier i like i disagree because i'm not even talking about quality i think peak is very quality but i think friend slop i think the term came from oh a million of these games are coming out right now and that's i think that's where the sloppiness of it comes from which is yeah oh a bunch of people saw that you can make this type of game and maybe it becomes big or maybe you can experiment do something weird with it and we made it in a week we made it in two weeks and like that's where they all came from out of nowhere but i think this being in development for like over three years i think they announced it in like 2023 yeah i think that makes it not slop yeah to me it is more just the look of it i look at this i look at other games i'm like yeah those are that that is a that's the friend slop category to me sure uh let's move on to story number four microsoft is bringing xbox 360 games to pc this is from jay peters and tom warren at the verge building on its recently announced plans to bring original Xbox games to PC, Microsoft is also planning to let developers bring their Xbox 360 games to PC as well, according to a leaked document seen by The Verge that was sent to developers recently.

37:51Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Xbox 360 games will be able to run on the next gen Project Helix console, quote, Xbox PCs and handheld devices, the document says. Microsoft has already said that Helix will play PC games, so making these older Xbox titles available on PC helps build a broader Xbox library that can travel between the devices similar to what's already possible with Steam. Creating all these digital licenses also helps set up for a future of consoles without disk drives. Sony has already declared game disks dead, and Microsoft is expected to follow suit. With 360 games, developers can opt into making them backward compatible, and they will have control over things like the game's price and if it's available on Game Pass.

38:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:The feature is expected to have a gradual rollout between 2027 and 2028 across next-gen devices. The full launch of original Xbox games on PC is also set for October 2026. The initial program announced in July included just four games. The document also includes details about a way for players to get a digital version of a game that they already own on a physical disc, which The Verge's Tom Warren reported on in July. The document says that if a player puts an Xbox One or Series game on disc into an Xbox One or Series X console with a disc drive, they'll be granted a digital license that's bound to, quote, that disc and the player's account, end quote.

39:10Blessing Adeoye Jr.:The license will stay with a player across Xbox devices, but if the disc changes hands, the license will transfer to the new person. That should mean that gamers can still trade and sell discs once the original owner of a disc does so. they can't play the digital version they got from that disc anymore according to the document a public beta for the disc to digital program was set for july with general general availability set for august we understand microsoft had originally planned to test its disc to digital program with xbox insiders in july but the beta was delayed it's unclear if the timeline of august general availability is still accurate cool i mean this is awesome i i feel like we need so much more of this of like the in the final throws of physical media like we need to find ways to digitize it and have ownership and of the license at the very least and like to me as a nintendo gamer this is a step towards and it's fucking nintendo so this means it'll probably be another 10 years before this happens but i like buying physical nintendo games i hate then having to have the physical game to be able to play the game like i want if i buy the physical i wish i could have a download code you know i there's some way to do that like uh it was so frustrating for me where i bought smash brothers on switch and that meant i didn't have it digitally and so it's like i always had to have smash brothers in there and it's like that's just and then mario kart was the same thing so there was one time i was at my friend's house where i'll try to play smash and mario kart and guess what i only had one of them yeah and i'm like this is stupid there has to be a better way and there hasn't been a better way and this is at least steps towards a better way and a way period like oh yeah the fact that they are even investing in this at all they didn't need to and i'm a little surprised they are i'm also surprised but like and we'll see all the flaws that come with it like this is a this is an insane thing to try to do that is not going to speak to that many people at the end of the day like i'd be very interested in how many people actually digitized their discs their 360 discs right um but clearly people care and are trying to do this and it's it is positive headlines which that is good for where they're at right now so i don't know i look at this as as a good thing that i want to see more of i look at them putting out only four xbox titles in that initial run and it's just like that is not many but i always make this argument about nso it started small years later now we're 10 years almost into the the switch to switch one's life cycle and it's like there are very few games missing from nso so where is it where's smash bros on nso yeah i don't know i mean do it yeah clearly smash bros there are certain franchises that nintendo knows that they could have other plans for pokemon and smash i think are two examples they sold pokemon leaf green separately i would not be surprised if at some point they put out smash melee as a separate you sell i mean you could get away with it but don't do it nintendo don't do if i see smash 64 especially if i see that on the switch e-shop i'm gonna be real mad yeah i'd be real upset about that yeah 64 i'm not sure i feel like that would uh would be on nso but i i think melee has a higher chance of being a standalone man product man i wouldn't be mad at that story number five last sentinel most likely canceled amid layoffs and hundreds of millions of dollars spent i'm reading from grant taylor hill at insider gaming it's originally a jason schreier story uh and so go to bloomberg gives jason schreier the click read this full article it's a longer article and so uh insider gaming here has a more condensed version of it for me to read on this show lightspeed la intense and uncovered last sentinel an ambitious and sumptuous open world action title akin to cyberpunk 2077 a couple of years ago last year the team at lightspeed la which features the talents of troy baker unveiled a series of promotional videos deepening the hype for a game that some have said will challenge the dominance held by grand theft auto however a new report from bloomberg amid a wave of layoffs at the studio suggests that the game is most likely canceled and that hundreds of millions of dollars have potentially been wasted trying to bring the title to life.

43:36Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, well, let me say that again. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier recently published a report talking about the inner workings of Last Sentinel, a developing open-world action title set in a near-future rendition of Tokyo. It's a dystopian shooter bathed in neon lights and high-octane combat elements set in a world that's teetering on the edge of an apocalypse. The game's earlier trailers and hype train had me fully excited and invested, but it looks as though I've been waiting for something that might never surface. The latest reports regarding Lightspeed LA's operations are sour at best.