The Best Of Summer Game Fest with Cam Hawkins

0:05What's good, everybody? We're here at Summer Games Fest. Day three up in this piece. I'm here with the man and myth, the legend, Cam Hawkins, who's been rocking with us here at the show. Fam, first of all, how are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm looking sexy and moisturized, I think. You as well, as always. I'm very jealous of your hair right now. It is looking gorgeous and lovely. What is your game of the show so far? I know we've been checking out a bunch of stuff all week um what's been your kind of favorite thing you got a chance to see so far uh my favorite thing that i've been able to see so far is phantom blade zero yeah phantom blade zero just continues to be really impressive really give uh players that ultimate badass type experience where um it very much is like presented in a way that's like a souls game but they're very adamant that it is not a souls game they think they don't want to have that misconception uh there are still those elements placed in there like this kind of like bonfire like checkpoints um but uh it's fast it's character action it's super uh quick and you got to be agile and there's a really great parry system and a very wide slew of weapons that you can choose from um i was running a an odachi which is kind of like a giant great sword uh called uh the juggernaut and its whole shtick is that um when you do successful parries it charges the sword so that when you use your uh like your uh surge ability i forgot what it's called um it's basically like its ultimate move it's more powerful um and i think that that was like i love being rewarded with a good parry system so like that was the weapon that spoke out to me the most but there were um other elements of it that were really cool that you felt like uh the this kind of the final boss of the demo were like seven different enemy types and then there are different enemies and then the there was like a chieftain oh and then once you beat the chieftain if you don't kill the other guys um three of them will basically turn him into a puppet and they'll go on these watchtowers and control him through these threads but then there's a weapon that you uh can use that basically uh makes those threads weaken and so i think it's like meant specifically for enemies that use that type of uh you know uh aspect when when it comes to fighting so there's a lot of really cool just elements to the game that i'm very curious to see like how it's all going to interact like once the full game comes out we get to see like everything that the game has to offer um but that that's the one that really stuck out to me because of just like how great and refined the combat has felt.

2:50Yeah, yeah, that's badass. I think I just got, we just got out of a Capcom appointment too. And, you know, I've been big on Animusha. Yes. You know, I've been a big fan of that game. The demo came out a couple of days ago. I've been running through that and checking that and playing that. And then we just got another almost 20 minutes of a hands-off demonstration of the game. And man, y 'all, like, you really don't understand how good this game looks. Like, I think I came out of that game thinking, like, I already know I want this, but getting a chance to see it in that kind of super high fidelity with someone on the sticks who were who was a master at the game, one of the producers on the game that just like raised that level of want for that game.

3:30And such a high level for me, man. Like, what are your thoughts about the Anemusha stuff we got a chance to see? Yeah, it's interesting that you say that because like I before this presentation, I and I've played I played the demo at PAX West. like you know we've seen a lot of the game at this point but we also haven't seen a lot of the game you know what i mean like we keep on kind of seeing the same things it doesn't really it didn't really give us like a real look at what the game experience was going to be like um outside of like that those beginning hours yeah um and we actually got like a real taste of like the differences in traversal and like the different enemy types that you can potentially run into One of the cool ones were like these siren like enemies that were actually like fish people, but on their backs are these beautiful women.

4:18And so like they try and lure people into the water to, you know, be like their sirens and then they kill them. And but then they one of them hopped out and it was actually a fish man. I was like, that's a really cool character design and how they play with that. um but i'm also curious too because um it is releasing those two games you know phantom blade and onimusha are releasing a month away from each other yeah which isn't a super big window and honestly i'm not they're obviously not a complete one for one but they have a lot of similarities and i'm very curious as to like how those games are going to perform comparatively because they're so they're similar enough and because like onimusha is this game that people have been wanting a new entry for for so long and now we got phantom blade zero which is a new ip from a brand new studio but people are like really anticipating that game right for for a few years now including myself and so like i'm in the i'm i'm kind of in the mindset right now where i would like to uh i i honestly am still leaning more towards my excitement for phantom play than Animusha yeah but like those are still both like day one games for me like I'm very excited to play both I mean the crazy thing is like you know everyone has been talking about GTA 6 and kind of moving out of the window from November September is going to be ridiculous man like I know you and I cover a bunch of games we'll be recording and review a bunch of stuff and it's going to be really difficult to try to get through all of those games in that in that month but seeing that this is going to be in that mix too it also tells me just how how kind of just like bold capcom has been this year because they put out a ton of bangers already and now we're going to see anemusha be a game that's not only coming back in terms of an ip that people remember but this looks so strong that i feel like it might move some other stuff out of the way in terms of you know i'm not going to say game of the year contender yet but like in its genre it's going to be something that's really strong for for what they're going to put out yeah september is very much painting a picture of the uh many of the notable games that are going to be considered for game of the year for sure and i'm curious i am curious similar to you like what those games are that's going to move out of september because phantom blade immediately moved to october 29th after the uh the state of play happened and they saw all the release dates they were probably just like you know what we're just going to move our game now and they moved it to october 29th which honestly i i don't think october is a bad month to release even with gta uh coming out in november because it's coming out at the end of November right yeah and the people that are going to buy GTA 6 they're all their minds already made up right and so I I think that um there will be a few more games that we'll see get pushed from September to October yeah um and I don't think it's going to really harm them in the grand scheme of things we did get a chance to not necessarily see Code Veronica but they did talk about it in the in the presser as well I'm excited for that game it is a remake uh it's going to be fun to be able to see it uh come back in in its form I'm waiting to see more of it as an actual game which i'm hoping they'll do you know a little bit closer to to launch and kind of when they're in that that pr level of starting to show it off what else on the show have you been really excited to see you know one game that really surprised me that i'm really interested in is called forever ago oh yeah it's an indie game over at annapurna and it was one of the games i was like i don't know anything about this game but we were invited you know invited to do the suite i'm like yeah i'm gonna check everything out it's annapurna uh and i think that was the thing i walked away highest on which i was again was the one i was like i don't know really anything about this game and it's basically um up like the first 10 minutes of up but it was like a road trip yeah yeah yeah and so you're you're playing as this old man who recently lost his wife and the demo is in the early beginning of the game and you're going you're basically preparing for the road trips you're going to a uh gas station that you know uh very well and um just by going through the gas station uh you're learning like certain things about like him as a character like um it's like seemingly like when he was like looking at alcohol bottles it seems like he had um some sort of experience with alcoholism um and then uh the owner of the gas station is actually a friend of his but he wasn't there and so he's just like but it's been so long since it's been there and then you're like learning how like that whole like that whole part of his life has changed and then like when he's checking out he sees a picture of him the owner and his wife when they were younger um and then there's like a whole flashback segment where you're playing as the like him when uh he's like a you know probably in his late 20s or mid 20s and so you get to like these flashback moments where you uh learn their relationship from these moments and that's kind of like what the whole experience of the game is is that this guy's basically grieving his wife's death and he's going on a road trip to all these key locations that uh made up their uh relationship and i think that there's um a lot of just you know humanity in that and also you know you don't get to play as an old man in a video game very often yeah that's true.

9:38So that's like a really refreshing thing as well. Yeah. But yeah, that one really surprised me and I'm genuinely looking forward to that one. Yeah, I think Annapurna continues to put out just fantastic stuff all over the place. They continue to find a really good way to kind of connect with multiple genres and multiple spaces around different kinds of games. And they just continue to be, you know, some of the best folks on the planet and what they do. So it's really fun to be able to check out more of their games and more of their work and all that kind of stuff. so we're at the last part of the show you know it's going to be ending today lots of people have been here there's lots of stuff to be able to see um was there something that you didn't get a chance to see that you were really hoping to and that you hopefully will be able to kind of jump back in and and you know circle back with pr and see if they have some ways for you to check it out later on in the year hmm i think one that i've just heard really good things about that i did not set up an appointment for there are actually two um there's clutch yeah same which is a racing game I believe right and it's from former Forza devs so that's really cool that's something I want to check out and the other one is a indie game that day of the devs called Bub and it's like this really interesting like art style and apparently it's like a very it seems like you're a biker and you're like you do a lot of biking around I don't know the exact premise but I've heard like it's a pretty depressing game in a complimentary way.

11:04Yeah, that's one that I want to check out if I have the chance. Yeah, shout out to our friends over at Day of the Devs because I got a chance to check out their showcase before it was aired during Summer Games Fest. We'll be talking about that stuff on the show proper because we'll be doing some more content around this after Summer Games Fest as well. So we'll circle back on some of those as well. But they are also killing it this year. They continue to do really fun stuff everywhere and make really fun games and pull in a bunch of publishers and a bunch of games underneath their Day of the Devs label with our friends over at Double Fine.

11:39So make sure you're checking out that content. And also give Double Fine some love because they also are making this really possible with the way that they're looking at publishing and showcasing games out in the world. Any last things before we get up out of here for Summer Games Fest 2026? No, it's been a really great, really busy SGF. A lot of variety more so than often. And also, like, a lot of horror stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got, like, Saw Genesis. We got Silent Hill Townfall, which I haven't checked out yet, but I'm checking out later. Sweet. I played Alien Isolation 2. Oh, how was that?

12:13It was good. It was, like, it was one of those things where I'm not, you know, I'm not a big horror guy. But, like, I, people, you know, in different mediums, you always hear something good enough where it's like, okay. even though I'm not a horror guy, I should check this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I wanted to check it out, and it seems like another Alien Isolation game in the best way possible. It was very, there's some scares that got me for sure. Yeah. Made me feel really unsettled, and so, yeah, I think I had a really good time with that. One game that I do actually want to talk about, because I know that, I mean, I think this is worth a conversation in and of itself.

12:51Yeah. Stranger Than Heaven, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, obviously, they announced that Tupac Shakur is going to be in that game. Never heard of him. That's absolutely insane. Respectfully, I don't think that was the right move, regardless of estate approval. No. Regardless if the sister owned the estate. It's just, that's a weird thing to me. Yep. But I played, I got to go hands-on with the combat. Yeah, how was it? And it's very the opposite of Yutusa. Yeah. because like in like a dragon series at least like uh before they switched to like the turn base aspect it was very like brawler it was very arcadey you have you can kind of just swing around have fun um it wasn't super uh strategic this game's like the opposite at first i was kind of playing it like a button masher like up i'm gonna press all the buttons because like um how it works is the bumpers and the triggers are on the left side uh for the left side are on the left and then the right side on the right and the first two fights i was like okay like i don't know how i really feel about this i don't think i like this yeah and then i got to the boss like an actual boss fight and then i realized like oh this is supposed to be like a dance this is supposed to be slow and methodical and like you being able to like parry encounter attacks like that means a lot and so like it took me you know probably like six to eight tries to be this boss but when i finally did it it felt so gratified i felt great about it and so i'm now that i kind of am in that headspace like i calibrated to what the combat is supposed to like you're supposed to be doing with it yeah i'm very curious as to how i'm gonna feel about that once the full game releases in january yeah i think so yeah yeah i didn't want to shout that out really quick badass badass one one other thing really quick is there weren't a lot of sports games here this year.

14:44There's usually like one or two that kind of pops up at Summer Games Fest and there really weren't any this year, which is really interesting. Maybe that would be a thing for later on in the year when all of those things kind of pop up. We already saw Madden and Hollis Football get talked about at their own events but usually there's at least one or two things here that will be an indie in those ways. Cam, thank you so much for rocking as always. Absolutely. Good to see you. Love to be here. Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. We got more goodies coming to you from Summer Games Fest. make sure you're checking out the channel make sure you subscribe hit the bell as they say as the kids say and we'll see you all very soon peace