Is Crimson Desert Too Good To Be True?! - Kinda Funny Games Daily 01.30.26

0:00When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like... Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton. For this day. Monster Energy. Everybody knows White Monster, Zero Ultra. That's the OG. It kicked off this whole Zero Sugar Energy drink thing. But Ultra is a whole lineup now. You've got Strawberry Dreams, Blue Hawaiian, Sunrise, and Vice Guava. And they all bring the Monster Energy punch.

0:49So if you've been living in the white can, branch out. Ultra's got a flavor for every vibe. And every single one is Zero Sugar. Tap the banner to learn more. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com slash kind of funny. Rocketmoney.com slash kind of funny. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny.

1:16Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Today's stories include Crimson Desert continues to look insane. Next week's rumored Nintendo Direct is a partner showcase and a new AI tool has made video game stocks plummet. We'll have all this and more because this is Kind of Funny Games Daily.

1:37Blessing Adeoye Jr.:yo what's up welcome to kind of funny games daily for friday january 30th 2026 i'm your host blessing at elea jr join me is ign's michael haim michael welcome to the show you gotta say it like that i will say today is the first day in like maybe a week that i've dressed up like a proper person and you know what today i woke up feeling like a bad bitch i mean those earrings those earrings looking fantastic i got the dangly earrings got new frames you know what i'm saying what's the shirt you got on rx bandits shout out to rx bandits one of my favorite bands in the world andy fucks with them too so oh yeah you know i'm saying you got the chain you got the necklace on come on i'm kind of a pretty bitch to come on you know i'm saying i ain't i never seen two good looking roommates like this right on one podcast man you come through our apartment man we'll take care of you i don't know what i mean by that i mean you'll cook i'll cook yeah yeah i got i got and i reap the benefits when you have people over and cook yeah so i appreciate that of course we're doing something fun this episode in solidarity with the general strike today uh you can send all of your super chats to kind of funny.com slash donate where we're fundraising for the immigrant rapid response fund which directly supports urgent basic needs legal services and mobilizing and organizing in minnesota if you're abstaining from spending money during the strike today we'll also be donating our youtube and twitch ad revenue from today's videos and so if you want to support a very good cause of course fuck ice um you can go over to kindofunny.com slash donate and we can make the damn thing happen because of course there's a general strike today we're trying to make sure we're doing our best to support that without further ado remember we couldn't do this without our producers over on patreon.com slash kindofunny so shout out thank you to Carl Jacobs Omega Buster and Delaney the Psalm twining 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 Baker's does it oh yeah we have smoke machines here I've been here I've been here before it still scares me listen I mean we have whenever Cole um Greg's dog comes through it's always like hit or miss because greg will have him you know in like his little i was gonna say cage it's not a cage damn look greg be treating his dog yeah in his little thing right just hanging out behind here and you'll see him when the smoke comes up he's like what the fuck is that poor baby um actually before we even get into story number one yeah michael for people who i assume most people who are watching know who you are but of course you write for ign what are some things that you've worked on recently that people should check out i think y 'all should check out the top 100 xbox games of all time there you go uh man i was i was so funny because like i let my uh podcast my podcatcher just run with like whatever new episodes of podcasts i follow and um gamescast came up and i i like woke up in the middle of night because i was just letting it play and i heard snow bike mike talking mad shit about our list and i was like i it was like fighters flight response i got about my bed like fucking right like talk y 'all talking shit um so thank you for paying attention to our list Mike I'd like to think it's synergistic though you know the fact that we talk about the list we read the list you know and I feel like here's the thing right Mike was more harsh than I was on the list but the fact that we I think enter it with the idea of like we're trying to critique positively you know what I mean like it's a better energy than like half the IGN comments that are just like who are these fucking idiots making this list yeah that was a collective effort between us and outside Xbox so So Jane Douglas and other folks outside Xbox, we collaborated with them.

5:13Hey, man, listen. Every list, you don't know list is going to be bad. You put 100 games on the list, someone's going to be mad. Most people are going to be mad. What's up with all those third-party games, though? Hey, that's none of my business. Simon Cardio always texts me after the things, too. And he's like, listen. He'll tell me the secrets of, like, listen, I didn't want this game on the list.

5:30Blessing Adeoye Jr.:But he didn't hear it from me. He didn't hear it from me. So I love hearing the behind the scenes. There's that. And I reviewed Code Vein 2 recently as well. and I got some other things lined up from previews that we will be able to talk about at a later date. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm really excited to talk to you about Crimson Desert specifically because that is story number one. After going gold, Crimson Desert developer deep in optimization phase to make the game run as good as it possibly can before launch. I'm reading from Wesleyan Poole at IGN. Shout out. If you've seen Crimson Desert's impressive 15-minute gameplay video, which, Kevin, I have the link to it in the doc.

6:04Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You can just play it as I read through the article. You might be wincing at the thought of it running smoothly on your console or PC. Well, right now, the developers at Pearl Abyss are focusing on optimization to help ensure a smooth experience when the game comes out in March. Crimson Desert is set in a huge and seamless open world packed with enemies, NPCs, and all sorts of things to do. It's dense with detail, and you can zip around quickly on the back of a dragon. Based on the video, Crimson Desert will be a demanding beast. it will be interesting in particular to see how it runs on the Xbox Series S.

6:36Blessing Adeoye Jr.:According to Will Powers, Director of Public Relations at Pearl Abyss America, the developers are doubling down on the optimization phase as we speak, telling Destin Laguerre in a new interview that this is the focus ahead of Crimson Desert's March 19th release date. Quote, We've gone gold. Now comes further, further optimization to make the game run as good as it possibly can, Powers said. And that's as important of a part. So that's the phase we're currently in between now and launch to make sure that the experience when players eventually get their hands on the game is as smooth as possible, end quote.

7:08Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Powers wouldn't go into specifics on the graphics settings that will be available on consoles, but did confirm Crimson Desert has PS5 Pro enhancement. You can also turn off the particle effects in settings, although Powers said they do convey important information during fights. Pearl Abyss built a new engine for Crimson Desert, and Powers explained that it's capable of providing a 4K60 native presentation, complete with ray tracing, without the aid of graphics technology, such as DLSS or FSR. But of course, you'll need powerful hardware to enable it. Quote, yeah, we'll show 4K60 native, sure, with ray tracing on.

7:44Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That's not done through DLSS or FSR. That's done natively in-engine. and then if you want to further optimize then you can tweak all the settings and do all the things but we want to show that you don't have to like the game itself should be able to stand on its own end quote and on that decision to go with a proprietary engine quote i'm not going to say that the game is absolutely perfectly optimized but within the engine it's using every single thing so it's as optimized as it can be within that space that's not possible otherwise and so rendering thousands of trees within draw distance it does those things better than an off-the-shelf engine could because of that crimson desert's huge open world has been a topic of debate recently powell is divided into five distinct regions hernand pailun demoness delicia and the crimson desert itself the main quest revolves around protagonist cliff's journey but you're free to explore the world in any order, taking faction-driven quests, large-scale battles, fortress sieges, and smaller character-focused missions.

8:47Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Prolibis confirmed that as the story progresses, two additional playable characters become available. Powers went on to insist that the size of Crimson Desert's open world wouldn't determine its quality. Rather, what you actually do in its world is the key factor. Quote, the continent of Pywell is absolutely massive, but size doesn't matter if there's nothing to do. Open world games are about doing things, having activities having distractions so we wanted to create a world that's not only massive but is also incredibly interactive of course large article there i had to skip through some portions to get to the end of this but michael yo over at ign you work a lot with hardware i do and so i want to know what your thoughts are on crimson desert and how it might perform on console hardware i you know this game is so ambitious to the point where if there are hiccups i'm not gonna I'm not going to cry about it.

9:39That kind of comes with the territory. Like anytime a game like pushes graphical fidelity and scale to this, to this degree, you kind of go into it, you know, a little, a little skeptical. And I don't want to say like you would forgive it for that, but it's like, you kind of get it. Yeah, this is, it, it seems like this might be the new benchmark game. Every couple games, a generation, you're going to get that game that you're going to test your, your hardware on, right. For, it was a long time. It was crisis. and for a long time it was the metro games and then um you know shadow of the tomb raider was a big one too because that was a pioneer for ray tracing and benchmarking back when i was reviewing video cards uh this seems like that game as well um but man i when you mention like how it's going to run on something like series s like damn man good luck yeah with that because yeah this is um these are games that are going to be pushing hardware to its maximum and you think about it now these consoles are they're about they're gonna be six years old holy shit yeah and you know you there these are this is the kind of game that's gonna be pushing it to its limits do you feel like we've seen the limits of what the current gen of consoles can do that's the thing though is like i don't think we have okay this is a it's been a weird generation to where it it's diminishing returns right where uh these consoles came out and there wasn't there was a lot of cross-generational stuff like you'll get upgraded versions of xbox one games on your Series X, and they'll look good, they'll run good, but you don't see that generational divide.

11:08You haven't really, still to this day, I don't think you've really seen its full potential. And with the PS5 Pro, when I reviewed the PS5 Pro, I was like, yo, this is a good piece of hardware, and games are running better, but I don't think they're using the full maximum power of this thing because you have to spec for previous generation, other pieces of hardware. I think maybe Ghost of Yote might have been the best showcase for ps5 pro actually final 57 rebirth its pro enhancement mode was like probably still to this day the best uh pro enhanced mode i've seen so far but then but yeah these games have to scale and especially on pc man like pc hardware is so goddamn expensive nowadays and so uh you know maybe this is one of those games where you get excited to upgrade your pc or stretch your pc to its limits but i don't know how viable that is nowadays with how expensive things are um but i think what i will say about crimson desert specifically is that as impressive as it is from a technical perspective so far that's not the thing that i'm necessarily most excited or paying attention to uh most even though that is kind of one of its selling points yeah um it feels like the thing that's most easily presentable as far as like hey crimson desert is the game that looks fucking insane and that it's the game that seems like it's doing everything under the sun it makes me think of like this is the kind of game you would see in the background of a tv show where yeah everything is happening all at once like it's every game you could possibly imagine i see i've seen it's interesting i i think this overview video right the 15 minute one that kevin's been letting play is one that sparked both like i think fascination yesterday and then also fear of people being like this can't be a real video game can't be true right like it's it's too good to be true i've heard andy went to see this game i think during gdc time yeah yeah um and he came back and he was like he was talking about the engine right he was like dude yeah they presented the engine and it's proprietary like we talked about that's crazy and you know it seems like that's allowed them to be able to do a number of things and this game seems fucking crazy and the more and more that we see of this video game the more and more i'm like yeah this seems fucking crazy like is is this game too good to be true the idea of this game the idea i mean you if you told me about it two years ago maybe yes but i think though every time they've showed off the game it's you look at it and think like there isn't really it doesn't seem like there's maybe they're like very good at showing vertical slices that are good showcases of the game but every time you see it i'm like oh yeah that it seems like it's running well it seems like the the gameplay systems that they're showing off are working uh well and yeah it was playable not too long ago you mentioned andy and one of my homies uh when i was at game spot max blumenthal who was he makes the Zelda videos there all the time and he's a very like gameplay systems guy.

13:57He's a fighting game. He's an FGC. He's a fighting game nerd. He's like an action game sicko. So when he previewed this, he was like a perfect person to preview this. He got hands on with the actual combat system and said it's very intricate and it works really well. And it's so in depth that you're like pulling triggers to do specific actions, like how your character interacts with the environment, how they use their momentum in combat. and that's that's the part where i got excited more where this isn't just a game where like hey look at all this cool shit we're doing yeah they're actually thinking about the gameplay systems on the ground level so the game is actually feels good to play and is interesting to play and consistently engage with how long that's going to last over the course of however long this game might be i look at this i'm like this is easily a 100 hour game right oh yeah um so how long that is going to be sustainable throughout a playthrough uh we'll see but from that preview alone just like it was like a 30 minute uh combat demo um that was like a impressive slice and so you elongate that throughout the rest of the game and you think about all the other systems it has in place i know the big joke is that it's the it's every game it's breath of the wild it's witcher it's assassin's creed it's all these other things so if they're nailing the combat in that sense that they can extend that to all their all other aspects of this game but is that even possible i don't know dude every single time we see this game and we every single time we hear them talk about this game specifically i get the feeling of it feels like they're trying to be jack of all trades and master of them all which does not think these were possible but also i want to give them i guess not the benefit of the doubt

15:35Blessing Adeoye Jr.:an opportunity i want to give them the opportunity to prove that because the previews that i've heard and the previews that it sounds like you've heard have been like oh no they're doing something here like this is cool this is fun this is impressive and i want games to be able to do that because i think we're getting to that point in the generation where i want to see both the consoles and the hardware pushed but then also i want to see bleeps and bounds in open world games because we continue to have that periodically for me you know when i think back to the last decade and a half gta 5 felt like it pushed things forward which are three felt like it pushed things forward breath of the wild felt like it pushed things forward elden ring even cyberpunk to something to an extent felt like damn all right we're still seeing innovations in what open world games can be and i think this year has the possibility to be to have three gigantic moments in open world games between crimson desert fable and gta6 yeah yeah yeah i i think all three of these games might fucking push things yeah in three different distinct ways that are gonna have like by this time next year we could be in a place where we're like oh video games are just different now yeah yeah and i hope that i hope that happens that's like the loftiest of desires from me for sure yeah and i i think there's a the reason why i think also skeptical is like pearl abyss is is not necessarily a developer that is known on the same level as a rockstar cd project red so um you know we haven't seen their the or like their previous work doesn't jump out to us like we know rockstar is like going to push things forward because they've been working on gta 6 for over a decade at this point uh pretty much and that's what gta games do and you know a cd project red or like something like fable where um this is kind of this is that's xbox's huge game this is like this has been in the works for so long um they're returning to a franchise that people know and love and that has been known to push things forward but then you look you look at something like this i'm like oh who's doing this what's this about what was the what's the reference point we have for this game and you don't really have one so like so it's you're going to fluctuate in terms of perception but i think again like every time this thing you would compare this game to i don't know i almost yeah that's i would say like dragon's dogma to a weird way yeah yeah yeah that is very systemic yeah i think dragon's dogma is one that comes out comes to mind because of how systems heavy that game is and how reactive that open world is to like your presence and things like that yeah um i also think of kcd2 in a way like kcd2 is a very different game of course it's a lot more i would say kcd2 feels closer to what a red dad redemption 2 is in terms of like deliberate pacing how you exist in that world whereas this is like yo what are we like what is this what's happening that like that's straight up tears of the kingdom then you have some assassin's creed it's like witcher this guy is like a like clive at home like from uh final fantasy 16 it's just yeah and and it's almost you want to joke about it but at the same time like wait it's like i want this to be real they might be cooking here yeah uh of course we have a lot of super chats coming in and specifically we also have a lot of donations coming in hell yeah it's funny i didn't mention the goal because i don't even know if we're trying to hit this goal but our goal is five thousand dollars we've already had thirteen hundred and fifty one dollars just a second ago shout out to the people that are donating oh the kf community is coming through.

18:53Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Let's go. KF community really is coming through to read a few, right? Dan V writes in and says Greg sucks with a$25 donation. Of course, kindoffunny.com slash donate. Of course, we're pushing to support Minnesota right now with this. We have another one from Big Dong McJohn who says, I can feel the noise. I can feel the heat. I can feel the warm sauce landing on my feet. Whoa. Whoa. Hey. Hey. Hey. Whoa. Hey. If you're donating, hey. Listen, I'll read it. Listen, I'm not here to kink shave. You saw my CES coverage. So BannerSN with a$10 donation says Hey Michael, no Tales of Vesperia in the top 100 It was Xbox 360 exclusive in the States until the remaster Also, is there a character limit?

19:34Blessing Adeoye Jr.:And then their message drops off after that Damn, that's crazy But you know what? No Tales of Vesperia You're the biggest JRPG sicko I know I know, I know We got Lost Odyssey on that list So I'm happy about that My fault, GOAT What's the deal with Lost Odyssey? because me and Mike were talking about that uh it's it was the Final Fantasy creators um one of his big games at the time Microsoft I believe Microsoft helped fund that uh Mistwalkers was his development studio after he left Square uh and uh Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey both were 360 exclusives and so and Lost Odyssey came out at the same around the same time as Final Fantasy 13 and the running joke is that Lost Odyssey is the actual Final Fantasy 13 which I do not endorse because Final Fantasy 13 is a fucking banger, but Lost Odyssey is too.

20:22And the design similarities between those two is like, it's kind of uncanny, but that is like the big game from the OG Final Fantasy creator. And it's a very good game. Oh yeah.

20:32Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Turns out. We got another one from Jamvan, another$10 donation. It says, Crimson Desert is the kind of game I want to be this crazy super game, but healthy skepticism is keeping me arm's length until someone reports back. I think that's a healthy way to look at this game. of course be skeptic i be hopeful but skeptic you know what i mean like this shit seems kind of impossible yeah like the more they show me the more i'm like how yeah that doesn't seem possible but like you said it's like give them an opportunity to prove themselves um i think i think like you know this has been going on for many many years at this point but it feels like large swaths of uh gaming communities or just like uh hobbyist communities are so quick to pull sides before something even comes out like if i'm when a big movie comes out like yo this is gonna be the greatest shit ever or this shit's gonna be trash like dog y 'all don't even know it's not even out yet like fucking relax this last like two weeks of not to invoke high guard discourse yeah then that's yeah the last two weeks of high guard discourse has saddened me in a way because i'm like man y 'all didn't even give this game a shot before it came out i'm not saying y 'all have to like the game i'm not saying that like i don't think this is like a game of the year best multiplayer game far from that right but yeah there's a there's a certain level of haterism that is entered into video game conversation where i'm like damn motherfuckers can't even try anymore yeah you can't even try with their game um it's it's deflating a bit but also yeah like i don't know you you have control over your own purchasing decisions and because video games cost money yes enter things with a level of wait and see be skeptic be aware all that stuff but also i want games to be good yeah i want games to come out and innovate and try things and be new and have different ip rather than the same ip over and over and over again i think on the other hand there's that to strive for yeah yeah it's like um it it's i think it's not funny but there's a like again i feel like it's weird when folks who are into games uh talk about uh how they're how they they expect the game to fail or they they want a game to fail we're like oh this game's gonna be treasure's gonna fail the studio's gonna shut down it's like damn is that what you really want out of your out of your hobby like you do you want games to fail man like there's this one dude on i've been watching on tiktok and he's just like gamers are like the only people where you have to convince them to do their hobby they're just oh 100 % like you know ball and gun games sometimes that's that's all that's all they gravitate towards but um yeah and i not to talk about a completely different topic but for sure because gaming is so expensive and so time intensive i get why you need to spend more time deciding whether or not you're going to buy something or spend time with it i get it it's not like a movie where you pay like it's on streaming service or you pay a ticket and watch it for two hours whatever and then you move on with your life like buy a game like that's 70 bucks and that's also might be like 50 hours of your time so i get why you would be skeptical but again like if you're if you're wishing ill will on the folks making games like damn you might need a new hobby brother yeah like yeah you might need it that's actually the perfect way to put it you might need a new hobby brother pick up a ball man shoot some hoops play some volleyball it's a fun time yeah uh anyway crimson desert seems pretty lit crimson desert seems like it could be very fantastic and i hope it is uh hopping into more super chats i'm going to now i'm i'm reading from the kind of funny super chat But remember, instead of super chatting in, kindoffunny.com slash donate.

23:59Blessing Adeoye Jr.:That's where we want to funnel all of the support into. But thank you for all those who are still super chatting in. Just like Kebabs, who writes in and says, melt the ice, then fuck it. Clawmaster writes in and says, all right, straight up. Why was there no killer instinct on the Xbox list? I love that we're litigating. We turned this into litigating the Xbox list. I'm here to do damage control for our Xbox top 100 list. I like the list. There's a lot of great shit on the list. I think the top 20 is on point. No KI. Like, I don't know what to tell you, man. I don't know what to tell you. Like, you got me.

24:31Blessing Adeoye Jr.:You got me. You're becoming like the IGN scapegoat for this list, which I love. It's fine. Jose Ruckus writes in and says, Last night we learned the tragic passing of Kai Budd, arguably the greatest Magic the Gathering player of all time. It would be great if y 'all could show some love for the German juggernaut. Wow, rest in peace. I wasn't familiar with Kai Budd, but that's really sad. obviously hate to hear about somebody who is notable to a community passing away and so R.I.P. to Kai Bud. T. Roy Jenkins writes in and says birthday tax weird celebrating a sonic themed birthday at work at the age of 33 but grateful for y 'all making every workday tolerable looking forward to streaming party games with friends online this weekend.

25:11Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Fuck ice. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Only special features writes in and says Michael Haim I love you you the best fuck ice hey that's what so hell yeah fuck ice netty 42 writes in and just says fuck ice all right zeke speak writes in and says michael love your yotei review style thank you hell yeah oh kevin vasquez writes in and says these patients won't let me listen fully live lol but just a shout out to y 'all you guys rock happy friday thank you so much kevin vasquez you rock hell yeah the postman writes in and says birthday tax got a trails got a trails series tattoo on wednesday to celebrate been watching since 2015 thanks for all you do fuck ice forever hell yeah i'm all the fuck ices is like it's warm in my heart it's warm in my heart for real uh openness prime says what is crimson deserts monkeys paw shallow story enemy variety character customization procedural areas repetitive gameplay i will say that it seems like it's going for so much that if one or two of those pillars are kind of mid i think it'll still be fine yeah if every if but But if you get hands-on in the game and it turns out that everything's kind of middling, then maybe that's the thing.

26:18If it's trying to do too much and doesn't go hard enough in one particular direction, that might happen. But again, I don't know. Maybe they've been very specific about what they've been showing off. Like, damn, this should look crazy, huh? Don't you want to play this? And then you get it. And once you dig into it, maybe you'll start to find things here and there. But I don't know. if there is one I haven't seen it yet I think my two would be story just because there's been nothing in the trailers yet that has gotten me invested into what the story is what the characters are and I think they're trying it's not like they haven't had that stuff in there it's just not captured me yet but also to your point if the gameplay is good enough if the gameplay lives up I don't really need the story to be that fantastic I'm somebody who can forgive a subpar story if the gameplay fucking rocks and vice versa too Vice versa as well, for sure.

27:09I don't go into games expecting it to be everything, right? If it does one thing really, really well, some of my favorite games aren't necessarily fun to play, but I remember what happened in those games and why I was doing those things. Reverse can be true, too, where I might not know what the hell's going on in the story. I might not even care about the factions and the character himself. I don't even know if he's going to be very interesting, but if i'm if i'm doing like rad shit in this game that that might be good enough for me and my other one is um gameplay loop and specifically it seems like there's so many disparate systems in this game i want them to work together well yeah because i think i've had that before starfield is probably like my pinnacle example of this of a game that has so many systems but i never felt encouraged to interact with a lot of them sure yeah um and like this could be very much like a preference thing right where i kind of want to i want to want to do the things you know i want to want to if there's farming like okay what's the thing that's that i'm farming for if there's encourage me to do engage with these systems yes and i think um having just reviewed code vein 2 not to compare this game to code vein 2 very different but code vein 2 has a lot of interesting systems in the back end when it comes to how you build your character weaknesses elements weapon types and all that but i beat i beat all the bosses like i got the true ending beat all the bosses in that game and i did not have to engage with most of those systems interesting systems but again did not encourage me to engage with them even though that is a tough like a tough game like i figured out like it wasn't that difficult i didn't have to engage with those systems whereas something like octopat traveler zero what has like a town building it has uh farming has all these things and then by the end of that game like no you should have been engaging with all of this because you now need to be able to you pull from all these different systems and I'm like, hell yeah.

29:03Moments like that where I'm like, yes, it all comes together, it all makes sense, and they made me want to do all the things.

29:08Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Let's move on to story number two. A Nintendo Direct is reportedly coming next week dedicated to partner games. This is from Andy Robinson at Video Games Chronicle. Nintendo will reportedly stream a new Nintendo Direct dedicated to third-party games next week. That's according to NateTheHate and GameXplain, who claim a Nintendo Partner Direct will take place on Thursday, February 5th. This matches what VGC has heard from our own sources. partner direct is nintendo's digital showcase for third-party titles scheduled for release on switch and switch 2 rather than games nintendo currently has in development at its own studios that i know the crew kind of talked about this before but the partner bit of this uh is new michael yo where do you stand with next week's rumored direct seemingly being a partner one oh that's that's cool i mean yeah uh any any i'll take any direct uh sometimes i get more excited about the partner directs too because uh it's since the switch 2 i've been curious about how third-party support is going to look with the games that were not like porting over games that were like too graphically intense to get on switch one finally seeing them on switch 2 is an exciting thing and seeing a lot of third-party games day and date with switch 2 because for a long time one of the questions we always ask developers when they when they're showing off new games like oh is there going to be a switch port what kind of compromises you have to do for a switch port now we're getting closer to the idea of like no it's going to come to switch to as well and something like i don't know resident evil evil requiem like that's that's crazy like oh that that's coming day and day with everything else right um and uh yeah that that's uh it's kind of it's kind of wild that we're getting to that point where uh like switch to is powerful enough and talking about graphical fidelity before it's uh hitting that plateau means like something like the switch to can kind of keep up and make fewer compromises closing that gap between uh the xbox and ps5 and switch like switches i wouldn't say it's comparable to series s but if you're speccing for the series s you're kind of almost already there with the switch too so that's exciting to see um in terms like third-party games i still want to see on the nintendo platform uh i don't know i would like to see metaphor re fantasia on switch too i think that would be a sick game to have on switch they did slam dunk yeah they did p3 uh reload and i think that one turned out to be okay um but if they can get metaphor on that and if y 'all haven't played metaphor ign's game of the year 2024 that hit switch too that'd be pretty sick um but yeah i get excited about partner showcases because i like seeing what third parties do um on the switch do yeah i mean same here right i think you hit the nail on the head the only thing i'll say is that i i want to hear more about what the big first party games are for the year of course we have a handful if you go through the list i'm on dualshockers.com right they list out mario tennis fever pokemon pokopia uh tomodachi life um tomodachi life tomodachi life i was gone for two days and then i saw the reddit call out that apparently none of us could read and i'm like what the fuck happened and i think it had to do with tomodachi uh so if i'm saying that wrong let me know uh you have yoshi and the mysterious book um the duskbloods is that's that's one that hope shows up because that is a third yeah dustbloods better be the premiere of this thing i need this to like close the the direct i just want to know what the hell it is yeah like we i mean we kind of kind of know what it is already but show me more because what the hell is from software up to these days you were saying greg kept saying tamagotchi instead of tomodachi yeah tomodachi and tamagotchi are very very different things also cairn you couldn't pronounce cairn cairn cairn there's no way greg couldn't pronounce karen that's what it's it's a five-letter word dog what are you talking about you could just say karen karen what was oh was greg saying he kept saying karen oh well i mean close enough you're halfway there man you'd be all right kind of some slack you know we talk for a living uh fire emblem fortunes weave oh man you know what i might be i might be not giving nintendo enough credit for this year because actually as i read through this i'm like oh there's a lot of good for rhythm having grooves out this year as well pokemon champions and then splatoon raiders yeah i think i just want to hear more about these games yeah i think for me fire emblem is is the thing that i want to uh like all these other games seem sick but they uh i'm not against not saying anything against them but they don't seem like headliners like mario tennis uh uh tamadachi like those are those are interesting games yeah i feel like fire emblem is the fire emblem that's the one it can be the headliner like the game that is that represents the the platform on that level and And I think Fire Emblem reached a higher critical mass when Three Houses came out.

33:42Engaged, not so much. And I would like to see, when I want to see the next Fire Emblem really push things forward. Because I do think Three Houses is a fantastic game. One of my favorite games of the year, it came out. I remember, I think you came home one day and I was having tea with Manuela. And if y 'all play Fire Emblem Three Houses, you know what's up with that. Oh, in the game. Yeah, yeah. I was like, which one? Oh, man. Manuela hit me up who was Manuela I don't remember Manuela hit me up I remember that one he came home I was like oh I gotta wrap up this tea session you know what I'm saying but yeah that's Fire Emblem Three Houses push things forward I can't wait to see what Fortune's Weave does but that's the first party game I'm paying attention to most and we're talking about third party as well Dustblast man like is that supposed to come out this year I should know this it's supposed to come out this year we've not seen any of it since they first debuted it at the switch to event yeah yeah i mean that'd be such a honestly that makes it makes sense now for it to be a third-party showcase in my mind yeah because i think dustbloods has enough juice to be like a main contender this year for nintendo right like you got fortune's weave you got whatever you're doing with pokemon because the pokemon were the at what the 30th anniversary yeah that sounds right 96 was yeah i guess so yeah 30th anniversary of Pokemon so you're going to probably have a big Pokemon game and I think Dustbloods helps fill that in with all the other things I mentioned between Mario Tennis Weave no not Weave Mario Tennis Beaver sorry I'm more I'd combined two different games Mario Tennis Beaver Beaver and um you also have the Yoshi game but yeah that seems like a good year now that now that I think through it I think that's actually pretty yeah if all those things can hit uh this year and are of the quality we expect like I ain't gonna complain about that speaking of pushing

35:31Blessing Adeoye Jr.:things forward you guys are pushing this tiltify forward let me tell you we're at about$2 ,500 raised right now exactly$2 ,486$2 ,536 y 'all are really pushing this thing um from 8-bit to now says for minnesota uh evan robot says we're supposed to be getting some snow down here in georgia tomorrow snow is cool but fuck ice uh solipsist 3d says ice peepee don't work uh anonymous writes in and says thank you minneapolis for your bravery i gotta refresh because i know we're getting a lot of things here i'm sorry we're not able to get to all of them because we have so many uh but neo ayoshi says shout out to kf and all you do of course fuck ice uh sabine says fuck ice i'm in the uk and this is terrifying rafael says chinga la migra yeah yeah i don't know what that is uh spanish uh for um it's bad oh okay yeah uh lady small well it's good it's good and like it's it's what you want to be saying.

36:28It's what I want to be. Okay. Yeah. You want, you want to be saying it's not, it's not problematic. I didn't call out like a group of people. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not problematic, but it is, uh, those are curse words in Spanish. Sick.

36:38Blessing Adeoye Jr.:Uh, latest mog says, fuck ice, fuck AI, divorce your MAGA, your MAGA spouses, RIP Moira Rose. Uh, hundreds of monkeys says, um, disgusting un-American fuck bags, fuck ice and fuck this Pluto, fuck this plutocracy. And then one more from Jacob. Y 'all, y 'all are never beating the the can't read allegations man sometimes i read a new word and i'm like i gotta take my time with that one at least i can say cairn and then we uh jacob s writes in and says melt the ice of course like we mentioned at the top of this show all our proceeds for today's episodes are going to the immigrant rapid response fund in solidarity with the strike that's going on today um but of course we can't do any of this without the support of our sponsors if you go to patreon.com slash kind of funny or youtube.com slash kind of funny games that gets you 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 is brought to you by rocket money do you know how much money mike was wasting on hidden subscriptions that he wasn't using well it turns out mike didn't know either until he started using rocket money rocket money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions.

37:54It monitors your spending and it helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money tracks your subscriptions and has the ability to cancel within the app with a few taps, saving time and avoiding charges. It automatically categorizes your transactions and tags them to reveal spending patterns and add context. Getting ready to buy the Steam Machine? Rocket Money helps you save for big goals by setting budgets and getting personalized insights and regular reports it consolidates checking savings loans and investments into a single dashboard to give you a clear view of your financial picture let rocket money help you reach your financial goals faster join at rocket money.com slash kind of funny rocket money.com slash kind of funny story number three google rules out rules out google rolls fucking greg's infected me now damn ever since he said karen that's the real sickness around these parts google rolls out prototype of project genie an ai tool which generates playable worlds this is chris scolian at video games chronicle google has started rolling

39:00Blessing Adeoye Jr.:out access to a prototype version of project genie an ai tool which lets users generate their own playable worlds according to google users can create worlds by either typing in prompts or uploading images they can create their character in a similar way users can also define certain other properties such as how the character moves or whether the world is explored in first person or third person as players explore the world the tool generates it in real time depending on the actions of the player uh or depending on the actions the player makes and where they move the camera users can also remix existing worlds by building on top of their prompts changing the art style or characters they can then download videos of their created worlds to share online Of course, I have a link that Kevin's showing to somebody who essentially generated their version of Zelda Breath of the Wild.

39:50Blessing Adeoye Jr.:On top of this, I have a tweet here from Shinobi602. Oh, sorry. It's a Blue Sky. That's a BS to him. He posted on Blue Sky. Video game stocks are suddenly crashing today with the launch of Google's Project Genie as investors think games will start magically getting made with AI. Ugh. Fuck out of here. Yuck. The fuck out of here. yo fuck ice and fuck ai too yes at the same time this is i don't know like invest i'm sorry but investors are the dumbest motherfuckers in the world i'm sorry this is what i'll say is i'm not somebody who knows much about investing but i know you invest when things are low that way you can reap the benefits when things are high yeah and if i had to predict how this is gonna go is this supposed to be a gta um if i had jesus christ if i had to predict how this is gonna go it's gonna to go fucking badly right like i don't this is not going to be successful yeah so if shit's crashing today it'll be up and they'll be all right can we put in the disclaimer not real investment advice yeah don't be taking this to polymarket whatever our greg stocks thing is thank you there we go what the fuck is this yo what's up welcome to your investment advice with me blessing at aoyay jr all right listen the fucking stocks are plummeting in video games because of AI because fucking Google what genie is what this is called Google genie Google genie people think that they can just create video games by saying you thought by putting in worlds words remember this is not real financial advice but this shit's not going to last right there's a lot of AI stuff that's driving investment that's driving profits for companies and that's a whole different story this specifically is not going to fucking last and so the fucking stocks are going to go back up remember not real financial advice If you do what I'm saying and you lose all your money, I am not liable for this.

41:38That's on you. But the vibes I get, shit's going to bounce back. You're going to become a millionaire. Not just a thousandaire. Not a hundred thousandaire. A millionaire. Damn, remember when investing with crypto was a big thing too? Yeah. That was a time. What a time. I'm big. You know this, right? I love Nas. I'm a big Nas fan. He put out his recent album. there is a song about on there that is about him investing in crypto he calls himself the cryptocurrency scarface and i had to skip that oh man maybe jay-z did win the battle after all yeah you hate to see it well absolutely hate to see it you live long enough to become um a crypto fascist or a crypto nerd whatever whatever you want to call it that's something

42:23Blessing Adeoye Jr.:different never mind i had i referenced this the other day um and so excuse me for repeating the same story that i have but um my brother-in-law works in tech works high up at a tech company and we're having a conversation about this exact thing yeah we were talking about the idea of creating video games or creating movies using prompts and if that's something that people want and i was talking to him him being a pure tech person right he is tech minded he works in ai does all that stuff and he was presenting these ideas to me as if they were exciting and as i listened to all them i was like dude you have no idea this sounds like fucking shit this sounds like i we had a conversation about video games being art and it almost felt like i was enlightening him on the fact that people consider video games art right and like there's so many practices within video games that are artful practices whether it be design of characters visual design environment design gameplay design right all of these things are arts and i think out of all of the uses for ai technology because i think there's plenty of things that ai can help with as far as you know fucking dlss or processes or whatever right yeah creativity and art is one of the things that is not one that's off limits that's off limits like it's gonna make art worse like categorically worse um and so yeah like i know i don't think there's anybody out there super chat in you know let us know if you're the person who wants to make who wants to play video games that people just generated with it i don't even i don't know you're not gonna snitch on yourself now because you're gonna get jumped people do not want this yeah well i mean i don't and if if they if they're curious about it i think they will come to realize that they that they don't want it eventually yes because like damn we don't need we don't need ai creating infinite worlds we don't like the the whole appeal of video yeah the joy of video games you're having these created things made by somebody who has ideas who has the technical skills and the creative ideas together and working with teams who can make these worlds come come to life and the stories that they tell and the things that happen in these curated worlds the emergent gameplay you get from an open world something like breath of the wild or a gta like that's that's the magic of it and you don't get that from something that is made by an algorithm last glass gaming in chat um said here's fucking diseases for fuck's sake yeah come on like there are things i'm sure you can do you can use this technology for for good yeah and yeah i i think this as i look at more and more of these videos of people yeah generating ai video games type shit or like even trying to create any i guess creativity based thing or art based thing yeah it feels like it totally misunderstands what people love about art what people love about video games i don't play video games because i I asked for a thing that like was spit back at me.

45:12And now it's a combination of breath of the wild and super Mario 64. And like these random games I love, I play things because somebody is presenting to, um, something to me, right. That they believe in. I play clear obscure because somebody wanted to tell me this unique tale about grief in the things that I don't like. These are people who are inspired by the things that we loved as well. And they want to create their own version of their vision of it and make that thing make that thing possible with their own hands with their own ideas and like that's you ain't gonna do that with through an algorithm and like i think when you talk about how everyone it feels like there's an ai quote-unquote gold rush i don't think there's any gold in this shit but everyone sees it as a gold rush gold rush where we look at video games as art they see dollar signs and they try they're like this is across the board especially coming out of ces yes where everyone is trying to convince you that ai is something that you need in your life it's not um like when it comes to day-to-day products when it comes like oh you could have ai read out your your calories they could take a picture and they'll create a meal for you or like it'll give you a recipe idea or it'll calculate calories like dog i could do that shit already yeah and it's not that hard man the information is out there i don't need a fucking ai app to tell me all this shit and i sure sure as hell don't need ai making video games for me like damn you know how many goddamn video games are already out there you know how big my backlog is dog like i don't need ai spitting out these these soulless worlds back at me i don't think anyone else right now on my steam deck i got return of the obradin down return of the obradin downloaded i got i'm partway through my playthrough of final fantasy 10 right like i got shit to play i ain't trying to play diet breath of the law which by the way the closest conversation yeah yo nintendo you gonna let that slide yeah i know hey nintendo i'm i thought y 'all i thought y 'all were the guys yeah i i thought y 'all got shooters i thought y 'all got shooters i thought y 'all moved different yeah like you know fucking power world to you y 'all were litigating it's one of those things where's that energy yeah nintendo yeah give it give them i'll give them some time give them some time they might cook these motherfuckers i'm just saying you know if you're about that life about that life nintendo nintendo lawyers them them dudes is ruthless yeah they are ruthless I mean, this is the one time where they need to be ruthless.

47:28So do your thing. This feels like I've not watched the latest Godzilla versus King Kong movies, but like when you have like a big force that like usually is, you're kind of scared of or whatever, but you have another bigger bad. And it's like, okay, if we can get the other big bad to fight, like let them, let them fight. How do we, how do we get these two things to fight? Yeah. So, um, yeah, that's what's up. um now michael we just talked a lot about some big old news stories a lot of big stories here but if i wanted something smaller some bbs say beautiful stories the tiniest news i needed to know about we news where would i go uh this oh okay damn i haven't been on in a while well you go uh you go i can't read fuck it's the cairn oh i got to step into this i step to this damn studio and i can't read you go to our last story the we news channel where we cover all the small news items you need to know about nailed it we news um stories number four and five i'm demoting

48:27Blessing Adeoye Jr.:to we news because i want to spend some time in the super chats because a lot of you guys are riding in a lot um and so story number four which is being demoted uh nintendo comments on dispatches nintendo switch 2 um censorship uh this from jordan middler at video games chronicle uh they basically said nintendo requires all games on its platforms to receive ratings from independent organizations and to meet their established content and platform guidelines while we inform partners with their titles don't meet our guidelines let me say again while we inform partners when their titles don't meet our guidelines nintendo does not make changes to partner content we also do not discuss specific content or the criteria used in making these determinations um vgc in the article goes on to theorize that the possible reason for the censorship is the way games are sold across different regions on the eShop.

49:17Blessing Adeoye Jr.:For example, the eShop hosts a single game across multiple languages, and the game simply changes its language depending on the system settings of the console. In cases like this, the single versions of the game must pass certification with each regional ratings board, which is a lot of work. Our next one, the director assures Ubisoft remains committed to Beyond Good and Evil 2 despite recent upheaval. You sure about that? The story's in the headline, and so I'm not going to get into detail about that but beyond good and evil 2 seemingly still in the works they're saying yeah i will see you know yeah more we news for you from insider gaming uh they've learned that the developers behind mind's eye build a rocket boy are planning to announce soon they have decided to part wave with their publisher io interactive from noble rgg addressed player feedback after the yakuza kwami 3 and dark ties demo they said they have a version 1.11 patch available at launch which fixes the graphical issues and other problems and then finally virtual fighter 5 revo world stages launch on nintendo switch 2 on march 26th and that is it for wii news jumping over to the tiltify of course we're pushing uh to raise this bar for the immigrant rapid response fund go to kindoffunny.com slash donate if you want to donate now right now we're already oh my god it's going up uh we're at about$3 ,500$3 ,496 to be exact we got one from hand height who donates$25 and says wish there was more that I could do fuck ice and their chicken shit face masks uh Jeremy writes in and says fuck ice love you kind of funny thanks for all you do infinite corpse writes in and says here's some for the flamethrower fund put them put them on ice anonymous writes in with a hundred dollar donation and says i live in minneapolis kf is one of the mentally safe spots i have now keep up the amazing work thank you so much for that anonymous um moonlit dompheer writes in and says abolish ice anything less is wrong old man screams and rage says at age 62 not your typical demo but i love what you guys do kf is not afraid to note the emperor's lack of clothes first dono to anything since 2024 thank you so much old man screams and screams in range and also i you know you say you're not our typical demo at age 62 but nick scarpino being 62 yeah yeah like him being the age he is we actually do get a lot of older audience yeah and so i you're probably on the younger side when we're talking about nick's demographic and then off to 741 says melt the ice their peepee don't work um to hop over to hop over to the super chats um let's see here and like chat ochocinco ran out of peepee let's see let's see there's a lot of a lot of shit in here uh jack animation says something that concerns me the most is how the streaming slash influencer culture will spin this will they end up loving and popularizing these ai games oh i i nope i you're gonna be able to see right through it i think so yeah i think this is where quality is going to become the big factor because i just don't believe in ai video games like ai as a whole right like i like i think when you're using ai as like placeholder assets you can kind of skirt around the quality issue because it's like okay well by the time the thing's out hopefully it's not there anymore or whatever and so you can kind of hide it yeah when you're just making pure ai games i don't shit his ass yeah i I don't think you can quality control that in a way that's going to be compelling with the final product.

52:57Yeah, I will say this, though. I think we might get to a point where games are like foundationally might be like foundational material might be created with AI and then work. Like that is the thing that they then work on from there. That might be a thing you see more in game dev. And I think we're seeing some of that happen. I think there's a don't quote me on this, but there's a story about how miHoYo and Honkai Star Rail content. has relied heavily on AI for foundational and then punched up from there, which I still think that's a huge problem as well. And unfortunately, it might get more difficult to detect these things one way or the other when they're used in that particular way.