Top 10 Gamescom 2025 Games We're Hyped For!

0:02This is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week we talk new, what we've been playing, and tell you who's invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of blackness because we are the culture. Welcome to Brakago, y 'all. Yo, what's good everybody in Brakago? This is the Spawn Me Podcast with Kahlief Adams. I'm your host, Kahlief Adams. It is episode 555, bringing it to you live here from the mean streets, not the mean streets, the lovely kind streets of Brocago rocking with you this week and every week on our show. Thank you so much to everybody who has been listening to the show, everyone who's been passing the show around.

0:43We've been getting a lot of really good sets of love on LinkedIn, which has been really cool as well, especially because I'm in the job hunt. So that's been kind of great. People have been sharing the good work that's been happening on those spaces. It is a very good day today because it is not only August 24th, 2025. It is also 824, which is the day that Hideo Kojima was born. It is aka also the day that I was born. It is my birthday today. I am very excited to be rocking with all of you here. And we have a really good show that we're going to get into in one second. So make sure you're checking out the show on YouTube, on TikTok, on Instagram, all the places where our show resides and on podcast platforms around the globe spotify apple podcasts all of those wonderful places i have the best person on the planet with me this week on the show because we're going to talk all about all of our thoughts about gamescom which just happened this past week uh and we have lots of things to dig into so without further ado give it up to the fam the man the myth the legend cam hawkins how you doing sir how's everything going uh i'm doing i'm doing good i'm doing good first off happy birthday uh i was i was that's why i didn't say i didn't say anything we were like prepping everything i'm just like i'm just gonna wait for the show but you did yourself i'm like oh okay well but yes happy birthday um how's it feel another trip around the sun yeah the big four seven is is where i'm at now so you know please don't put flowers on my grave yet i'm still alive i'm still still here you're still young i'm still young i can still feel my toes the diabetes hasn't hit yet so it's okay it's all right it's okay um but excited i think this is an interesting year uh i think uh for me personally it's been a real weird year um but really fulfilling i got a chance to check off a couple things on my bucket list but also continuing to entertain hopefully all these folks who get a chance to listen to us uh on a weekly basis so it's a it's a blessing to be here uh and continuing to kick in and figure got good ways to stay relevant and have fun so it's always dope so thank you that i appreciate you fam for for the birthday love um but i do want to get into the the the big topic of the week uh which is gamescom there was a whole massive show every year that happens in cologne germany where we get a chance to see some of the newest games and conversations around games pop up for everybody at home to give everybody a little bit of juice to go into almost the the beginnings of the holiday season because this is like the big last kind of um a big announcement show of the year until we get to um the game awards in december um so our our big friend uh over in Germany, the man, the myth, the legend, uh, Mr.

3:38Jeff Keighley had a wonderful show that he put on for the world. Uh, got a chance to showcase, you know, some goodies over in Cologne and, and had his, his usual, uh, primetime festivities out there for everybody out there came out on stage, dropping, uh, German what's ups to people in the space. All right. We got to give it the, we got to give it the the once over how was the show what did you think of it what did you think of how it kind of went down and i think that this is definitely at least from my memory probably the best opening night live we've ever gotten in the sense of like projects and um pacing it just felt bigger it felt like more significant than in previous years which i think is a good thing and a bad thing um and significant may not be the right word because i don't want to like discredit or like think uh lesser of like um the european side of of games right um but that is like kind of what gamescom is for right it's to highlight the uh the european devs the ones that don't that may not get as much um press as much uh attention during uh like e3 or like e3 time right uh or now the sgf or uh during like the game awards where we get a lot of these big announcements um so seeing that like is no you know that has gotten a little bit pushed to the side is a little is a little upsetting um but at least i'm sure it's upsetting for for them uh uh but also i'm and i talked about this during sgf and then you also tweeted the same thing that i was i've been thinking of is that i'm really i'm really checked out on souls likes i'm really checked out i really like i i actually went back and looked and outside of black myth wukong or black myth uh zhong kui which was the new black myth game that was announced every new action game that was like that wasn't an fps or a third person shooter was a souls like and to me that is a problem like that that is that is not that's not good um and it's getting to the point where there's all these uh just misreadings of like what a souls like actually is and like what makes up what creates like a souls like when it comes to like game design and things like that like there was um talk that from um that apparently silent hill f is being compared to it to souls like is saying that it's getting the souls like moniker and it's just like just because it has slow combat doesn't mean it's a souls like there's so many things that create a souls like and so it's just i it's a bit of a mixed bag there were definitely things that i loved from that presentation that we'll talk about later but just like the biggest thing i walked away with was i think there's a major oversaturation of souls likes and i need and granted yes people are still buying them but i don't think that means that there's not too many being made and i and you know i tweeted this like i think this is purely hypothetical but like if we as a society you know game devs as a society decided hey none of us are going to make souls likes for like the next three years i think you would find a much interesting space where in like games coming out instead of like hey we're gonna try and do our own souls like but like able to get why like you know meet the things that people expect from from soft souls likes which outside of lies of p i would argue that has not been achieved and there's been so many souls like since then so it's just like i don't know man like i don't want you to not make what you want to make but i also think that this is the most uninteresting thing you could make right now oh that's a that's a bar right there i like that but i agree so i tweeted out during the show i was like i would really love to see if the souls like genre took a break for a little bit and the last time i checked that thing was like 35 000 like of views on that tweet and it was really interesting to see how people responded to that like i'm used to hyperbolic takes and i'm used to people being overly mad about things they shouldn't be mad and i'm used to people not reading and having reading comprehension online but people took that i took that tweet as a ask for them to stop making them all together and to like kill the genre and to stop doing that as a whole and again the operative word in that in that entire entire tweet is take a break that phrase take a break means just hold off for a minute because i agree like i think from and i got checked on it a couple times people like oh there were only like three or four in the thing and i was like three or four is too much that's a lot i was like that's a lot and i was like here's the thing that i'm finding with that and then i want to i want to talk go back specifically to the the show conversation because i think there's some production things in there and there's some things that i think were interesting um the i can't tell anymore the differences between these games anymore the visual aesthetic of the souls like genre has gotten so watered down and so mimicked and so um interchangeable at this point that we're only kind of looking at these kind of either super gross massive arm limbed beings that you're fighting these these like uh amalgamations of things that are supposed to be enemies right that the elden ring and the from software teams have made famous right when you think of of souls likes you think from soft from software and you think of enemies in this way and you think of this kind of victorian feeling aesthetic for the protagonists these kinds of knights in shining armor versions of stuff and liza p did a really interesting version of that with the kind of pinocchio themed uh version of it we've seen um uh there was a there was a berserker the berserker one uh looked really cool because that did something on the cell shaded side of the visual aesthetic and that looked very very different and looked interesting but 90 of the games that we see in that space currently all look the same and they don't look different and they're not changing gameplay differences that much like it's either feudal japan it's either a victorian setting or it's or it's like weird creatures with multiple arms doing weird shit like it's the same things all the time and i'm like to your point i think it's sucking up the air for other things to potentially get made because we're in this cycle right and this happens in games all the time we see that we saw that in the battle royale era we see it now in the souls-like era we saw it in the action rpg era for a little bit after borderlands popped off and really did some really fun stuff in that space and now we're seeing this trend happen and it was funny to see so many people get mad at me saying that and the answer was well just don't play it if you don't like it don't play it and i think that's a really diminishing way to look at it especially because i like those games when they're done well i'm just tired of seeing the same thing happen over and over and over again when there are so many dope ideas to be able to pull from and other aesthetics to be able to pull from that look really cool and are really interesting.

12:08I still don't remember there being like a really sci-fi version of a Souls-like game that I can recall. Maybe there was something that was in the mix. I would say the closest is The Surge. I would say The Surge is the closest. Right, and that game didn't really pop off at all. I've heard they're actually really good games. I've heard it's good. not a lot of people like i played the beginning of like the first one because it was like a ps plus game and i liked it i was like okay this is this is interesting because you basically aim for limbs and stuff so there was like more to the combat than just like dodge rolling and then swinging like you know there was it was a little bit more involved yeah um but uh i did want to bring up something that i really i think pretty fair comparison yeah about about what what you're talking about and how people are responding to uh we're responding to you yep and then i have a another other thing to talk about regarding this topic before uh you know we move on to other things i think it's interesting to a certain extent that when we talk about how there's too many souls likes and people are like no like it's fine like blah blah blah blah that same energy is not matched with gotcha games oh because here's the thing oh hold on like you'll hear me out no i agree with you i agree with you yeah yeah because like people are talking about like oh like it's the gotcha game commercial things like that but on top of that it's like to be clear definitely so you know some predatory things regarding gotcha games and like spending your money like too much money on those games and things like that but ultimately you're an adult that's your responsibility you know um but like we complain about how oversaturated the gotcha games are like why why do we not see that the same way with the souls likes and like most of those gotcha games are genuinely good like they're just gotcha games they're just hey if you want to advance quicker if you want to do blah blah blah you pay money like i've played gotcha games i've played several of them and they're all like solid well-designed like games that just have that asterisk attached to them right and so it's like why why do we feel this way but not that way i know why because in multiple replies that i got to that tweet besides the like you don't have to play this if you don't want to why are you hating on the thing if you don't want to play it the second version of that is the get good crowd and the get good crowd is the reason why you don't have that in terms of gotcha right is because it's like oh the first the the response was well how many games did you finish how many games did you play in that genre i don't let me see your gamer score let me see your trophies and how much you got on that stuff and i was like look i don't have to have an under I don't have to have played every Souls-like game or every game in that genre to have a reasonable take about it.

15:16And prove me wrong. List the games. Show me the stuff that's different, and I'll shut the hell up. But you can't because it's not. Like, they all look the same because they're all derivative. Even the stuff that is even in the mix for games that are coming out that are new, that are coming out that have already seen the genre do what it's done and are still making games like that. We're going to talk about at least one in the list of games that we looked at and are kind of digging. But even games like Lords of the Fallen 2 that's going to be coming out. This is going to be a game that's going to look really, really cool and it's going to look awesome.

15:53But it's also going to look probably very, very similar to what the first game looked like with some bumped up visuals and some new things in that mix. And that's going to be the same game to a certain extent. And I bet you, I bet you, The next FromSoftware game that we see is going to be very similar in that respect. I bet you it's going to look really, really similar in that way. So it is a telling thing. And I agree with you in that respect that that was in the mix. What other thoughts do you have about the kind of overall show that Keeley put on this past week?

16:32Honestly, not a whole lot. like there's definitely some games again that uh both uh again admittedly while i still think that there's an oversaturation there were a couple of um games that are going to be souls likes that i was like i am interested in um and then there were some you know some nice uh surprises in the more like indie type space that made an appearance there which was cool um i didn't watch the pre-show but I actually heard that the pre-show was pretty popping this year and had like a lot of really cool announcements. Um, and the reason why I didn't watch it was cause like last year was just such a dud.

17:11Like I watched the pre-show, nothing really happened. And then the main show just was very underwhelming. Um, and then, you know, we, we got the, that big, um, segment on call of duty and like, to a certain extent, I'm always going to get it, but I'm also just like, okay it's another call of duty that's sure um and so yeah i just i think that um again i think it was one of his best uh the best opening night lives uh but i you know i walked and while there were some cool things that i saw there um i walked away more being you know having the thoughts about like man just another reminder that there's way too many souls likes being made when we could be getting like maybe some cool third person rpgs instead or like you know uh or something like all akin to like elder scrolls or like you know just something that that can still fit that the the kind of vibe that you're going for but give a little bit of a difference to the uh to the gameplay because i just feel like that um we haven't had like any big like third part like third person over the soul it can be over the shoulder it can be behind the back whatever you want uh like like medieval or fantasy rpg in a minute like there's definitely a market for that i think um and uh especially with i mean again it's not like a one-for-one but like with like successes like baldur's gate 3 like i know it's a like that's a very specific type of game but i just i'm kind of surprised we haven't started to see announcements of games that are uh kind of back more into like the fantasy genre and like uh uh and and just kind of taking advantage of of that you know the successes of those games uh like we're seeing with souls likes right so um But, yeah, I thought it was a fine presentation.

19:18Yeah, I am going in the opposite direction. I think it was too long, again. I think the shows are too long. I think the show is too long. The vibe of the format feels awkward. It feels like the developers are... or like the developer who seemed the most excited was the dude who came out to talk about the Lego Batman game, which was great. Oh, that looks sick. Like, yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that game. That looks sick. Yeah. Like people are going to be hyped for that and going to be really excited for that. That's dope. Like, I think that's going to be cool when it winds up coming to market and all that stuff.

19:59But like, and I want developers to feel like this is your time in the sun. Like you deserve it. You, you know, you should be able to come out on stage and hype up your game and all that stuff. but i feel like the format doesn't play well either online or in the room like it maybe it's just maybe this is just me and my production hat on and looking at the way that the show goes as a person who wants to do more of that work and has like done a little bit of it um so that part is weird to me the show was extremely long even greg miller was talking about it on on kind of funny and i was like yeah man like i feel you like this could be an hour show it doesn't have to be almost two and a half hours or two hours or whatever it was um i also think it's time for jeff to stop hosting like i like jeff really yeah i i was it was really apparent this year um i like the fact that he's been incorporating new guest hosts for stuff and i like i love shocks i think shocks is dope as a big fan of her work for a long time big huge fan of her and her work give it to her let her do it let her host it she has better energy huh it's never going to happen it's never going to happen like i know it's not but like she has great energy she's she's like engaging with the audience like she's it felt more like an esports um esports uh production when she was on which is good for the space like i think it does something different in a way that differentiates from keely doing the very showman version of it which tim which honestly just feels rote now like i'm not trying to hate i'm not giving him shade i think he's doing a really fantastic job for the industry he's doing what he needs to do in the space that he has but like when he's up there doing his thing it just feels very paint by numbers in a way that is not entertaining at least to me um so i would love to see somebody else get the reins on that like keep the game awards for yourself do open the night live like you've already got all the sponsors in you've already got all the games in on the production side like you and your team have done the work of making the good show get someone else to hype up the version of the show that you've made that would be dope I think that's a space that I would love to see take a year off, let somebody else do it and let somebody else get some shine and you see that there are tons of people in the space who are capable and competent who can do that work in a really good way so I would say Keely takes a back step for a year and just let someone else do it, Shox is great and amazing so I think she would be fantastic to do that kind of stuff the other thing is the pre-show and main show if you think about both of them together that then then becomes like almost a three-hour thing and for a week-long event that has tons of things that are going to get shared throughout that week spread it out maybe maybe this is a thing that goes for you do two shows and you break it up you do two hour long shows where you do the reveals and the trailers and then you do the thing that ign does really well which is the sit down kind of showcases stuff in those ways but you do it in you know in in conjunction or or in partnership and collaboration with them like have that be a part of it like i know there's already kind of like some layers there where they're all kind of together but like again it's it's just too long um other than that i think from a reveals perspective i think there was some really goodies some some big goodies in there that we're going to talk about i think there was some some other moments that were really fun again And Lego Batman developer was really, really cool.

23:46I think you got to take out the musical performances. I don't think they hit. They just kind of take up space and take up time. I love Claire Obscura 33, but I don't care about that. Like, that's cool. Like, I don't care about you busting out the orchestra for that. Like, that's dope. But, like, give me something that's going to make me hype to do other stuff. And I think what my hope will be for next year's show is that we get a tighter version of it. we get one where you have more kind of fan interaction in the in the show and we need to see more of the of the games like there were no real segments where we did like a walkthrough of anything everything was kind of just a trailer and that also feels less entertaining if you're just kind of sitting through it like if it's a new thing you're showing i get it because it's an introduction to the world kind of thing but there was some other stuff in there that were like dlc and other stuff in there i was like okay we know this is happening we know this is coming i don't know why we need to see this again so i don't know i'm trying not to be an old man about it and trying not to be an old fart but like there there is some tight the tightening up of that of that entire show that could happen in a real way anywho um i do want to talk about some games that we really dug uh from the the week of gamescom because there's a lot of stuff in there there was one thing i forgot to pull um and i'll and i'll try to do it while we're talking about it um uh um but i do want to go through the games that you liked first uh and dig through those so the first one up was unbeatable look which looks super cool looks super super dope i'm not gonna play the audio because it's loud and it'll overshadow yeah our conversation but i do want i I want to do want to share the trailer for folks who are watching it.

25:39Talk about unbeatable.

25:45I knew existed before I saw they showed the trailer for it, but it just looks incredibly charming, incredibly creative. It just, it's what it was the breath of fresh air that this showcase needed. um i love how it implements like the music uh rhythm elements to gameplay and uh and combat and um it just you know i'm not gonna go too long on it um but it it just looks really incredible and and this is just an immediate like day one game for me this is a play stack joint so especially after the success of uh bolatro um last year i feel like play stack is like the up-and-coming like devolver digital where you just like see play stack and you're like that's probably a game i need to check out and uh everything that we saw like has been was really really great so i cannot wait to play this one yeah that thing looked nuts i was like oh what is that when you gave me your list of stuff i was like that's crazy cool i want to know what that is um void breaker talk to me a little bit about uh about that yeah uh another play stack joint uh they this is a you know i i feel like i'm at a point in my life now where like i need this additional ingredient to my first person shooter sauce where like i can't just play like a generic like i can't really like play call of duty i can't play you know battlefield 6 actually looks pretty sick i might actually check that out um but uh i just like need something uh additional to get me really invested and just the whole concept of this game just visually just it reminds me a lot of um it gives me returnal vibes um to a certain extent um and just like i love how fast the shooting looks um it looks like that there's just like a lot of variety in the shooting gameplay and uh this is in early access right now and i'm i'm a very much not an early access type of guy i very much like to wait until the game is out and done and play it then but yeah this this looks like a mixture of like doom ghost runner and returnal and then like and i love all three of those games a lot so i'm this is totally my my thing um and again i i don't know if i'm gonna i might i might see if i i might uh reach out to play stack and see if i can get like a code to play this um because again i'm not i'm just really not an early access guy um and uh and report back but this looks really really great i think i saw something like it is out now on pc game pass yeah i think it's out on i think it's yeah but it's early access oh okay okay okay okay so they're they're kind of just oh but it's on pc game pass so i i actually don't have game pass right now uh but uh i need to get i had to uh you know be a little bit more uh reserved on my subscriptions earlier this year but uh i'm at a place now where i think i can resub and get back to that yeah i mean i love stuff like that like that game looks sick like that thing looks like one of the coolest combinations of like you said so many different games that we know and love i love stuff that you really kind of like break the mold a little bit like uh having it feel so different or at least look so different immediately catches my eye so i'm like i want to go check that out i'm going to download that after the show and check out what that like that thing looks like because i'm i'm very excited for that thing um speaking of souls likes uh yes and speaking of speaking of ghost runner speaking of ghost runner we got valor mortis which is looking really really sweet uh yeah so uh valor mortis is the next game from the developers of ghost runner and uh if you have not played ghost runner you absolutely need to it is one of the best first person action games maybe ever like it's like they're both so good um and they're doing a first person a first person souls like so that's like one thing that immediately is like okay this is more this is different right this isn't a third person this is a first person um and uh just based off of how ghost runner uh and ghost runner 2 is they are very much i feel like mastered the first person genre of game you know of action games and so i'm very curious as to like what a souls like looks like in the this is one of the rare instances where i'm just like okay like i feel like that this team has proven themselves in a way where i can be like okay i want to take a crack at this i want to know what it's like um there are guns too so i'm just like okay so we're implementing more than just swords here and there have been like wrote like uh souls likes with with guns right we look at um oh man what's the one that came out a few years ago that's co-op i forgot what it's called oh man i forgot what it's called there there's there there is a co-op uh roguelike shooter that is really good and it's fun it's um so i'm i'm just really excited i Like, One More Level is a great team.

31:26They have not missed yet. And so even though it is a Souls-like, and I have played many of them, I have yet to finish one because they just can't keep my interest. Everything about this looks unique enough where I'm like, I hope this is the one for me. yeah i like the fact that they're mixing in hand-to-hand combat like you said with some with some gun gunfighting uh and it looks like this has this kind of really interesting system of you using these vials to kind of enhance your your body uh and enhance yourself like it's weird because if you look at it really quick you're like really quick you'd be like oh this could almost be like uh what's the obsidian game avowed there could be an extension of avowed in some way if they made some like really creepy version of it but one more level like you said you know folks who make ghost runner are brilliant i love their stuff i think they're really cool it's really dope to be able to see again like the reason i'm excited for this is because the aesthetic is different like the gameplay could be very very similar in some ways to other stuff that we've seen but like the fact that they're doing this kind of like almost you know time travel diversion is alternate universe that feels almost you know like you know civil war-esque in some way but like sci-fi like that's dope i'm rocking with stuff like that more more stuff like this where we're thinking outside the box a little bit for games like that um yeah i i definitely think that this is a situation where they're they recognize that there is that there's a lot of the same that's being shown uh in this genre and they're going to introduce something new and that's that's really exciting also remnant is the name of the the shooter or a roguelike very great uh games there's two of them oh man we should play some remnant too i haven't played i haven't played remnant 2 i would love to yeah remnant 2 is very good i remember that game a lot i had a ton of fun with that we should do we should definitely some running 2 i think it's weird and funky in all the good ways so yeah we should definitely play some of that um next game is la divina comedia which is a really interesting looking title from arrowhead yeah uh you know on this one yes it uh it is arrow uh arrowhead um this is is this arrow the same arrowhead as helldivers i don't think so i'm gonna keep going i'm gonna i'm gonna double check okay um so oh you oh yeah we know this is not from arrowhead this is from the the the devs behind entoria the last song oh jim which was this yeah which was like a italian um like an italian inspired roguelike yeah which looks cool which actually looked pretty cool um and so this is the divine comedy right this is going to be a take on dante's divine comedy but they're making it a roguelike um they they say that it is like they use the term hack and slash when i think that i think fast action so like that makes me assuming that's that is the case that makes me a little bit more optimistic um about what it's going to offer but um it's still a roguelike and we still kind of have to just kind of see where it goes and so it's one of those things like i'm optimistic i want to be excited about this because it's the divine comedy like i would really love to see like how they're going to interpret the seven rings of hell and like all these and like like how they're going to play the narrative in there you know uh this is definitely not dante's inferno um but it's not yeah i would love another like game like that i don't you know but i always love that that's one of the things i do like in souls likes because i do think it fits the genre fits it well is this like these retellings of like you know uh significant stories or like fables or things like that like um those are the things that get me excited about a souls like is more so like the setting and like the adaptation of these things because like in most cases including from soft like i don't i'm not one of those people that like is looking at the environmental storytelling or like trying to get the items to read what the like to kind of figure out what happened in this world like that's not for me so like when it's something like oh this is gonna do this i'm like cool i'm excited for that um so yeah yeah i think games like that are always in the mix for me because when you start to talk about or when you start to delve into um storytelling and traditional stories that we all have takes on or stuff like that like i'm always excited to see those um it makes me really want Dante's Inferno now like like it makes for a perfect games game space too where it's like you have nine levels it makes sense like oh it is nine not seven yeah like nine levels of hell and then you know you're getting lower and lower and lower and then that's like weirdly that no one has made a Soulslike like that or am I losing my mind like I feel like someone has made something close to that and they're calling it a dark fantasy arpg which i also think is really interesting they are also not specifically using the language of souls like for this which i think is which i think is actually really interesting because i think the lines are getting smaller i'm looking at the steam like the steam page they're like la la divina comedia is a dark fantasy arpg weird if i remember correctly i got i got a email from them and i swear it said that it was it actually it's a souls-like yeah it's interesting because that's what they're uh let me let me read really quickly it's like uh is a dark fan it's reading it from the steam page is an arpg inspired by the famous masterpiece opera of dante alighieri procedurally extracted i'm sorry the procedural extraction dungeons generation system who ensures a unique and never repetitive experience um yeah it's procedurally extraction dungeons which i like uh for a game like this yeah yeah it's it's interesting they are not using that language which i think is actually really really interesting but it looks cool as hell i'm down for that yeah interesting all righty all right okay all right well i also wonder again i also wonder if that's like differentiation right that's like we don't want our game to be lumped in with those other games let's call it something else even if we're leaning into some of those things because if it's procedurally generated extraction dungeons yep it's probably not a soul's like right yeah but uh yeah because i swear i saw like on a you I think it was GameSpot that said it was a Soulslike.

39:15So that's why I was like, oh, well, if GameSpot... GameSpot got it wrong. GameSpot got... Tam, that's your fault, Tam. I'm blaming Tam. Tam, you should know better. I'm labeling non-Soulslike Soulslike. Anyway, Helldivers 2 has some new dope DLC coming out that is Halo-inspired. How hyped are you for this? i'm i'm back baby we're back uh i i love halo 3 odst um i think it's one of the best halo games um i think that it has one of the best soundtracks like if anyone if i had to bring any like don't get me wrong there's iconic tracks from like certain halo games and stuff like that but if you're telling me like hey what's like the one full soundtrack i'm giving you odst baby like that it's such a good soundtrack um one of my favorites um and i just uh think that this makes the most sense like if any ip had a collaboration with hell divers it is odst there's it's just the factual answer um and the fact that they're bringing in all these all the weapons like the silenced smg which uh you know not great in odst but aesthetically really cool looking yep um and all the gear like socom pistol man this is this is going to be great um i i really am happy that this is happening um it also is just able to show that like hey you know playstation and xbox can can play ball you know what i mean they can work together you mean you mean the console wars are over camp yeah um and then oh dude the fact that they brought the shotgun the halo shotgun is like chef's kiss yeah um and so there's just there's so much to look forward to in this and uh you know i i always want a reason to go back to hell divers too like it's one of those things like if i had the time to all the play hell divers too like consistently i totally would it's just that good of a game um and you know we've we've played a lot we've played a lot with some other uh industry people and uh this is a you know when i get home from packs uh i'm going to buy that war bond and we're we're dropping baby oh the game is so good and so stressful it is so stressful it is the game where your best friends become your worst enemies and then become your best friends again instantly you're like yo can you throw me closer to the rest of the team nah son i was running away from this big ass monster that was trying to kill me you gotta work you lucky you got to respawn yeah it'd be lucky your ass is still alive i don't even know how the hell i got out of that because that game like puts in a certain level of jank like designed the jank into it that is really supposed to make you feel like you are messing it up at all at all times but man that game is so good it is so good yeah we should we should get a crew together again and and jump into that thing when the the new the new content drops because that thing was super fun we should stream it too that would be a lot of fun okay so i got a couple of games that i think are really dope that i was excited for too a game that was in the mix for a minute we got a chance to see it earlier on at an xbox showcase and then it went dark for a long period of time i think it went dark for almost a year and some change almost coming up on two years and it finally showed itself at gamescom this year to rave rave rave uh previews and that game is replaced by sad cat studios the 2.5 d um um i don't even know what to call this game anymore uh it's like a shooter let me let me look it up to make sure because i want to make sure i'm getting the uh the the terminology correct so it's six i'm sorry 2.5 d sci-fi futuristic shooter action platformer that's what i was looking for uh where you're trapped in the human body against its own will i have Like this thing is going to be in the mix for art direction of the year.

43:44I can tell now like the vibes of all of this. And they wound up kind of getting discussed during the Blade Runner time. And that's when it kind of got most of its kind of visibility. It was like, oh, this feels like a Blade Runner game. And everybody was like, no, it's not a Blade Runner game. It's actually not. It's something different. and it was cool to hear the developers talk about this and discuss how hard it was to get all the aesthetic to really fill the space in the way that they wanted to they were like man if we would have done this before if we would have rethought our ability to do this we would have rethought the way that we wanted to go about the art design but i think in the grand scheme when this winds up coming out it'll prove that like the bets that they made paid off i think they had to get out of the way of some some some controversy from a early developer talking a little bit of like being um gamer gate uh adjacent uh one of the main one of the main devs on the team uh some years ago they i think they've i don't know i think i think the conversation around that part of the existence of who that person is in the conversation of the game has mellowed out but it was a thing to note that that was a thing I don't know if that's still in the mix now but that being said the game looks freaking good like this game looks so good I'm so excited for what this game is going to wind up being because if they nail this oh man it's going to be very very be fun so replaced uh shout out to sad cat studios for making something that i think has gotten everybody really excited and everybody's kind of still looking forward to that um black ops 7 also got its first visual showcase there was a big developer doc that went alongside this and they talked a lot about the future of the franchise they talked a lot about how this game is kind of taking some elements of the usual gameplay and expanding upon it in a lot of different ways they've moved it also into the future it's now the 2035 game in terms of where the game is taking place and taking setting and they're doing something really interesting in terms of they're balancing out and kind of bringing back old characters older characters and basically like time warping them so like woods looks like a young dude now even though if you think about where he was in the timeline he should be really old he was old and he was hurt and he was i think he was in a wheelchair in a lot of the the black ops games before but they're doing these kinds of almost inception-esque levels with the new game and i think a lot of people are either really excited about it or very very sad about it because they either are big battlefield fans which just had its biggest beta ever um and is getting what looks to be a pretty good comeback uh if they can nail it and now the the big conversation around competition is real again where the discussion around does treyarch and raven still have it i think they're probably the development teams that people like the best on the call of duty series i think infinity war did did this thing for a while but i think most folks really love what treyok and raven have done but now you have a kind of more sci-fi shooter in the call of duty world and you have a really grounded kind of game in battlefield 4 kind of matching up together now in this really cool way i know as a big battlefield fan i am fine with there being two games and being two ways to play i think both games have a very different version of what they do for each one and i think that that's why you kind of have to pay attention to it but more zombies more weird movement you know bigger maps weird stuff i like call of duty being weird i like call of duty being kind of funky you know i i don't mind it um what are your thoughts cam about like call of duty going going super weird and sci-fi now so i oh man i so so here's the thing like call of duty doing what they want is it is fine with me because i just don't see myself really playing i heard that like black ops 6 was it had a really good campaign sure and uh black ops cold war i actually came back that was the first the last call of duty i played because they like basically retconned things and made it a proper sequel to black ops one which in my opinion is the best call of duty campaign yeah um i love that campaign and now i'm seeing this where you mentioning because i didn't know this so you're telling me all this now and i'm just like and it made me really sad to hear where it's like oh yeah so woods is woods is back um but he's like a lot younger because of some time warping stuff and i'm like that's what this is what i'm this is what i'm pulling from the dev doc and what i'm what i was looking at i think i think i'm right about that i could be we're seeing a young frank woods yeah for sure yeah and then you also see in the pre-order bonus or whatever the reznov challenge pack with seemingly a young reznov and i'm like what are they doing to my boys like like you know it's one of those things where i just feel like that they're just like how are they going to implement the these things we're like oh reznov is back in like younger than he was in black ops 1 um and like that makes sense that you know that makes sense so that like all everything is like connected in a way that actually makes sense and that's the thing that like frustrates uh me as someone who like ultimately it doesn't really matter because right because it's just like i'm gonna take the first campaign for what it is but now when you're stripping out these characters that i really love and you're now putting them into this sci-fi future thing it's just like it feels like uh they need that they feel that they have to have like a captain price yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they don't need to do that right and so let let those characters exist in their respective game and you because because this is basically like what after the events of black ops 2 right because you're playing as alex mason's kid right mason's so so which that's another whole thing i don't like black ops 2 campaign and what they did with mason and stuff but yeah so they so so mace spoilers for a 10 year old game mason's dead mason's dead and uh you know frank uh woods is like old you know is alive he survived black ops 1 which i was honestly like that's fine yeah um i'm okay with that and then uh and so he's alive but now it's just all these things are like oh like seemingly he's young again and then like you're bringing reznov back like rest what here's i don't know here's the weird thing here's the weird thing i'm gonna and i'm gonna show it really quick if i can get if i can get to it real fast here's the weird thing that's your new price it's the black dude the black dude from the last game that y 'all made make him the new version of Price he's already in the game he's already done his work he's already been the person who if you wanted to kind of bestow that moniker of the new guy you already did it in the last game why are we bringing old new version of Frank Woods reincarnate re-established re-invigorated hydrated i don't know why is he in the game when you got the other dude who's already there who could potentially already be that person it's it's a weird yeah but that being said i don't know if they will land the plane properly with the story even though i do like the fact that they're gonna again put a full campaign in it all that kind of stuff it is interesting to see them go back to like you said those old characters when they have a ton of really interesting characters that they could pull from to be able to to make the black ops universe continuously be funky and weird like it is very different than the iw games because it is not grounded in reality reality they have zombies they have all this weird stuff in it go wild like you've already put jet packs in it go wild like go do other weird fun stuff anyway black ops 7 is coming out i'm excited for it i'm excited for that i'm excited for battlefield i'm not picking i'm gonna play both and be bad at both it's gonna be fine two games that really surprised me that came out of nowhere that i had no idea what the hell they are and they have fairly small trailers but i do want to share them um one is time takers from nc soft and this game speaking of time travel and time dilation and all that stuff looks kind of dope the one thing i'm worried about is it's an nc soft game and i think nc soft goes big on games that they really want to want to want to play around with but also those games don't seem to last long and don't seem to really grow audiences in the ways you would hope.

53:53Like this feels like time splitters, but third person it feels like a mix of time splitters and the finals. Which I like. From an aesthetic perspective from a you get to do weird and funky stuff perspective it feels like the main thrust of this game is whenever you kill people you get time back. So time Time is the main currency for how you survive in the game as a concept. Shout out to Justin Timberlake in the time movie that he was in. It feels like that.

54:29It's funny that you said that because like from the namesake, I think of clock stoppers. Oh, shit. It was like an old Nickelodeon movie where these three kids have like, or like, I think it's just one of them. They have a watch that can just like stop time. Yes. so when i saw time takers i was like clock stoppers so it's coming to steam play play test very soon i i think this is cool like i think stuff like this looks dope where again they're getting a chance to try something new it feels like i mean and this is the hard part right where you know we just had the the one year anniversary of concord yesterday and you know as a person who has poured many beers out for my time at firewalk and and being a part of one of the supposedly worst games on the planet or biggest failures in gaming i sit back and i look at stuff like this and i have ptsd now because i'm like this could be really cool and this could be really fun and it's new and it's interesting and it's trying something different and now trying anything different feels like automatically you have to hit a crazy bar of potential people digging a thing before you might even try it we saw that with um uh what was the game with the cards that was from ubisoft uh what was the shooter that we played we played this thing together wait from ubisoft no no not was it from ub no maybe fragpunk no you're talking about frack punk yeah yeah i was gonna i was yeah i was gonna mention that like it's it's tough like i i don't if if i had if i was a game dev and anyone said like hey we want to make a multiplayer hero type shooter or like you know something along the lines of like valorant overwatch whatever i'm gonna be like no you cannot do that right like it's just such a dominated field now that again fragpunk that game fucking rocked and it's and it's you know it's still going and stuff but like do i play it no because mainly because i don't have the time to but also it's just like but also it's just like i got overwatch and i like know people that will play overwatch with me and like when you play these games you also at least for i think for most people if you play a multiplayer game you want to play with friends if you don't have friends to play these games with then you're not going to probably play them um you know we're just talking about hell divers which is which is just a multiplayer game primarily where it's like yeah i play that game when people want to play that game like if someone hits me up and says hey let's play hell divers i'm gonna be like yeah let's do it but i'm not gonna go out of my way to hop in most of the time on my own accord um unless i'm like really trying to play and then i you know hit you up and like hey you want to drop it in like 30 minutes yeah um and so that's that's the thing with like that space now is that like with fortnite apex legends overwatch valorant like you know counter-strike like there's so many dominant dominating uh games in that space that like this like the conceptually this is a super cool idea yeah super cool and it's definitely one that i would be down to check out with you 100 percent I don't know.

58:01Do I think it's going to have what it takes to be a regular game for a lot of people? Probably not. And that sucks. But, you know, look at, you can even look at Halo, right? Halo used to be like the face of multiplayer gaming. And, you know, granted, you can say what you want about how Infinite's campaign went, but its multiplayer is fantastic. Yep, it's gotten better. A lot better. yeah it's continuously gotten uh better um and you know i don't really hear anyone talk about halo multiplayer it's just it's i don't know i just don't think i just don't think it's worth investing millions of dollars into a game that's probably gonna flop damn it's hard out here for a pimp in a real way like it's hard i am it sucks because it's like i do and again i was funny because I saw a lot of people bringing up Concord yesterday because it was the one year of its launch.

59:05And I saw so many people in my circle was like, man, I really missed that game. And I was like, yeah, I do too. And, you know, besides the personal work stuff that goes along with that for me, that game was just really fun and it just never got a chance to live. And I'm looking at everything now, like, man, this could be really cool. Like we got to hopefully find an in-between space where you don't have to be as big as Fortnite to succeed. And you can still find really good levels of community for some of these games. And it's just so hard now for that to happen because everyone goes back to the stuff.

59:44Like I was trying to find people to play Night Rain with the other day. And it's like one other person I know who plays Night Rain. And I'm like, oh, okay. Like, let's see if you got time. I got time and I don't want to play with randoms. i don't mind playing with randoms but like also randoms do stuff that you don't want them to do and then they just leave yeah like well i don't know how you fix that part so yeah i think a co-op multiplayer experience is easier yeah than like a pvp type experience um well you could argue that they're equal for different for different reasons because pvp you can still play that stuff by yourself i'm just saying that in my in my in my opinion my personal take is that like i don't really do that overwatch i will because like i'm just so ingrained into overwatch i've been playing it for like 10 to 15 years yeah but if uh well 10 yeah 10 years um but if it's a brand new game and i'm not acquainted with its systems i don't understand the game like i'm not playing with friends and i'm not having a good time i'm more likely to check out like immediately yeah um so like but when you're but with a co-op experience like you don't have to really worry about particularly investing your time in that game and then the game like shuts down because it's not getting the audience like look at grounded right like grounded is a yeah um exposure therapy for for me uh type game where uh where uh you you you can play by yourself but you can also play with friends but there's no like pvp element to it where you know the game is like gonna continue to be supported until there is a grounded three or whatever and um and that's great um and part of that is probably to do just because of um being an xbox studio now like they have like the the kind of uh freedom to do more wacky projects like that but even so like i just think that there's a level of um comfortability as a consumer to be like okay i can like hop in this and i'm not as worried about it just like shutting down and i invest all this time into this new game that i do really like and some people still do it right like um i have a friend that is a huge dragonball the breakers fan oh yeah like that that that dead by daylight dragon ball z game and they just released like the ninth season is probably going to be the last season but he's played that game throughout its entire like run and he's actually like become a dragon ball content creator through that game because no one else was playing it and that's like a really cool those are like kind of the really cool stories that come behind like these less like not so successful um multiplayer experiences but um yeah you know i just think this is a very long-winded way of saying that like this is a game that looks really interesting conceptually it seems very creative i want it to succeed i never want a game to fail um but uh it's it's tough out here in these streets it's tough out here and um i you know all i do all i can say is i i wish nothing but the best but it's hard to be optimistic in in that particular space i'm gonna i'm gonna put it i'm gonna put it down on on on the show now i want to be a time takers uh content creator i want i want to i want to be that person who gets to play the game and show it off and all that kind of stuff because it looks dope like it made me feel like time splitters again like finals like a lawbreakers which was a game that i really loved and didn't get a lot of love back uh which sucked because that game was good so i don't know it's it's a hard time for for games to get seen and all that stuff last game that i thought was really interesting and cool was something from a team called micro pros which is a game called better than dead which is using photorealistic backgrounds taken from hong kong real world spaces and making what seems to be a revenge game that is kind of in this first person perspective but it's come the perspective of a body cam game so body cam games have gotten more prevalent over the past couple of years a lot of them usually have you taking on the form of law enforcement and kind of being in the spaces and taking on these these these moments and and kind of having these real world examples of spaces that you have to kind of navigate while you know shooting people um the i want people if you go look this game up listen to the trailer we didn't play the audio here because it would just conflict with what we're talking about but what was the most interesting version of that was one yes it is a it feels like a, uh, um, what was I just saying?

1:04:59A revenge tale where this young woman is taking revenge on what seems to have been some people who took her captive. And maybe she's also kind of like helping to, um, save some young women from the same fate, but visually it looks really cool. The, like the mashup of the aesthetic. I like the mashup of the real time, uh, real scanned in, uh, settings on the back end of that conversation. No, if you were to flip this and have the same language that is being had in the trailer and a lot of the same visuals, it also feels like it could also be akin to like a Columbine video, like a school shooter video or something to that effect, which.

1:05:53gives me weird icky vibes like i like it i like what it's doing it looks like it needs to take you know it needs some work in terms of the way the gun stuff looks and potentially feels and i like the fact that it kind of gives you the vibe of what the first person perspective with perspective is with the body cam camera but it also gives me these weird like maybe this is too close to home maybe this is a little bit too um high on the fidelity side where it feels like yo this could be shown somewhere uh and and and give off bad vibes for it cam what are your thoughts about kind of the way this thing looks and and what it's given off yeah i mean i i just kind of agree with you entirely where it's just like you know when you first showed me this game because i i don't i don't i didn't remember seeing this i might have been like looking away at the time yeah i was like uh this looks really cool and you're just like does this look like could like a you know school shooter potentially thing and i'm just like oh my god i didn't even think about that like you know what i mean like i didn't even like even consider yeah it and now it's just like oh yeah that that's not great and i don't um i don't know like how you how you kind of handle that yeah right um it's it's one of those things where you want to be aware uh like and you know maybe maybe before the game they give some sort of like warning of sorts or you know not not a warning but like more like of a just a recognition of notice i'm just like hey we know that this you know what what this is and it may simulate some um some real life stuff and uh just like a content warning right like yeah and i and i think that's uh that's fair um i i just think that it's something to be just cognizant of and and just be uh just be yeah just be just being delicate on on the on what you're providing and what you are presenting uh to your consumers because um you know we we uh yeah that yep that's it yeah like yeah i think you can not much to be said like but it's like hey like you know just check your shit check your shit when it comes to making something like that yeah i think i think the things that come across when it's stuff like this because again like i am a person who loves teams going really far with visuals like i want to see things that look hyper realistic i love the fact that we can get to a space where the fidelity even looks like something like this where you can almost get faked into believing that that might potentially be real but also when you get to those levels of fidelity those consequences go up in a real way because we are now in an age where deep fakes are even more prevalent.

1:09:06AI is even more prevalent in putting out stuff that can be misconstrued as real. And we're seeing in a lot of different spaces, content either get pulled down or get kind of another second look at because of the potential danger that it can provide for the audience. So I would love to hear them talk more about the game and the kind of understandings and ideas behind it because I think they may be able to get out of their own way and figure out how to kind of balance that stuff out in a much bigger way. That was our quick rundown for the games that we liked from Gamescom or something we thought was really, really cool.

1:09:45We're going to take a quick break, show you a couple of quick ads, and we're going to come back with what we've been playing and talk about some of the stuff that we've been rocking here on Spawn on Me episode 555. So go check out these couple of ads and we'll be right back after this.

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1:10:51Hey there, my name is Naomi and you might know me from internet things like hosting for IGN. I'd like to introduce you to my new show This Week in Gaming. It's 20 minutes, short and sweet, and every week I go through all the important gaming news that you need to know. And then we have folks on like Khalif Adams, who shows up quite often, talk about all the important news. And you get to listen to it wherever you get your podcasts, so it's easy to find. Just look for This Week in Gaming and make sure to give it a follow. And every week, Monday at 9 p.m. Pacific time you get a brand new episode i hope you'll join me

1:11:34so we are back thank you to everybody who hung out for the ads shout out to walt chambers as well from our friends over infinite who just also had a birthday this week so shout out to him young man is out there getting it in and making it happen and of course the fam naomi kyle just always rocking it and making it dope you also had a uh appearance on the show as well cam right most most recently a couple a couple weeks a couple yeah nice a couple times shout out to naomi and crew um let's talk about excuse me a couple of games that we have been playing you have been playing this really cool game called toa right yeah so this is a toa and the guardians of the sacred tree this is a bandai namco uh published title the developer is brownies um they helped develop uh so the original team uh before they created brownies i believe were the developers for legend of mana um and so this is basically um their take on hades this is this is very much like like a very comparable.

1:12:43But I do think it does enough to differentiate itself to stand out as its own thing. And I'll explain why. So basically the whole concept of the game is Toa is the child of this god, the good god. And I'm not going to say any of the names because I just don't want to butcher them because they're all like Chinese. names um and so basically uh she is supposed to take down this evil god that is like spreading this miasma throughout um the world and she is like the protector of this village um and so more so protecting the village and to do that she needs uh she gets eight guardians uh known as prayer children to help her uh defeat the evil god um and so um the game starts like kind of giving you uh an explanation of everything that's happened so far and what you learn is that uh toa has the ability to reverse time um and they have attempted to defeat the evil god several several times with uh no six you know they they have not succeeded and uh toa will use her power to reverse time and try again but what she learns is is that every time that she has used the her you know her power she's basically created a new timeline and the life source of this world is mana um and when she does this the mana that existed in that timeline stays so it has been basically every time she's been using it has been spreading the mana thin across all these different timelines interesting and so it gets to the point where she gets separated from all of the other guardians so now the guardians are the only ones that are able to try and defeat uh these uh guardians that the bad guy the bad god has and then you know defeat the the bad god and so you have eight characters to choose from on um you know when you start your run you're um and i played i did two runs um to be clear and i was able to do up to three i just didn't get there i played about four hours of this game and so um you pick two of them which is i think the thing that interested me the most from when we saw the reveal trailer at SGF is that you play as two characters.

1:15:43One of them is carrying a sword. The other one is carrying a staff. So you primarily control the sword wielder and then the staff wielder just kind of follows you around. There are ways to control specifically the staff wielder, but for tens and purposes, you're controlling the sword wielder um and each character has a different kit so no matter who you're using they have a different um sword attack they have a and then they have different magic um and what's cool about the swords is that there's actually two swords so you have two different sword attacks and there's a durability meter that once the durability goes down you have to switch weapon so you kind of have to like swap between the swords um and again each guardian does a different sword attack depending on what sword they're holding um and so when it comes to the minute-to-minute gameplay of doing a run again very similar to hades you uh basically go into a room you defeat enemies um and then you get a grace instead of like a boon um and the grace will give you a certain ability or buff uh one of the things that they i don't know if they fix this in hades 2 because i've not played hades 2 but at least in hades 1 that they did in this game is that when you go to the door or you know whatever door that they offer and it has the the icon of like whatever the next room is going to be you can press try like uh so for me i was use an xbox controller i pressed y and it actually tells you what all the icons mean so you know exactly what room you're getting into because similar to hades there's a lot of different currencies for different things and i don't remember that stuff i'm just like okay yeah this says this says that um and uh yeah and so what i like about this game during these runs is that they definitely add more uh narrative to the story uh into these characters uh because it will be like these campfires where you know you can heal up a little bit you can do some upgrades or switch uh switch around your magic uh for your staff user uh but then you also like go to the campfire and then the two characters that you play with uh you're playing with have like conversations so there's a lot of replayability uh that's put into here um and so that i really really liked um now the thing that i think is most fascinating from this demo uh that i played is that and there is a free demo of this game right now i don't know if it's the same amount of content but there is a free demo on all platforms you can check this out right now uh when you finish a run the two characters the two guardians do a uh sacred uh right is what it's called where the staff wielder is basically absorbing all the the mana in the space because they destroyed one of the guardians and it was holding up a bunch of the mana um and to complete the ritual the sword wielder seemingly just kills the staff wielder like i don't know if kill is the right word but they are no longer playable like if you go back to you know when you start your next run that character is no longer there they're gone weird that's cool it's dope it's dope it's one of those it's really cool um i wish i knew that before i uh did my run because i picked the two characters i thought like i vibed with the most from just like first intro i'm like oh okay like i like these guys's banter a little bit i'm gonna choose these two and i'm like wait no i wanted that guy to stay no um but yeah uh really great character designs there's like this like coy fish man type character that's like super buff and uh and then there's uh this girl named origami uh and she look the cosplayers are gonna have a great time with her where like she has like the origami boat yeah type thing for a hat yeah it's really cool like really great character design um you know i i would say and on top of all of this there is some like toa does have some stuff in the village that she does she like uh she can make swords uh thankfully they give you the option to let the just the blacksmith do that um after the first try um uh you upgrade your characters there are like just like permanent upgrades that you get for your guardians um but it just it gives a lot of replayability in the sense of like oh i want to learn more about this guardian now i have to play the game and focus on this guardian or these two guardians to get as much as i can you know if that makes sense because seemingly it sounds like you're gonna like end up with just like one guardian left oh by the end of the game yeah yeah so you're like one by one because by the time i was done with my demo two of them were gone because i did two runs huh you know what i mean um and so i um i'm really curious as to how that all is going to play out um i this is definitely it it was definitely a a time where i walked away being like i'm much more excited about this game now that i've actually gotten to play it versus when they first showed it like this is more than just a hades clone and that's like what i was hoping for that's sweet i love hearing stuff like that this game sounds dope i want to check this yeah it's cool as a big hades fan anything that's even close to that and looking at this game is beautiful like this thing looks dope like stuff like this i i usually will pass over games that look like this i'll be honest but hearing you know the the ways that some of these systems are working and hearing how you know the the kind of gameplay goes like this looks super super cool i'm i'm down to check this out i need to go bug the people who you got the demo from i want to go check this out oh this sounds really good um any last thoughts on on toa before we before we move on uh no it uh comes out on september 19th um and uh it's going to be on everything i believe i I think there is going to be a Switch 2 version, if I remember correctly.

1:22:34And thank you to Bandai for giving me the opportunity to check it out. Shout out to Bandai. I am excited to hear more about this game because it looks fantastic. Two games that I am finishing up or have finished or have gotten a chance to check out previews for are wuchang uh fallen feathers which everyone has already uh given some love to this game it is it is it is really one of my favorite souls likes games uh that i've gotten a chance to play in a long time i think this is probably one of my favorite versions of this world and favorite versions of this genre right now like every i remember when i got a chance to check it out in previews and was really excited for the way it felt and the way that the kind of combat felt and the ideas that you have that are you know based upon you having basically a a disease that you're working your way out of and trying to use the powers that you get from it to uh embolden and kind of uh you know level you up in terms of the way that you as a character are are built uh Basically, you have this feathering disease that basically turns you into a monster over time.

1:23:56The more that you die in the game, the more your madness meter grows. And when you have that mechanic, whenever you die, and if you die while your madness meter is already leveled all the way up, you then basically have to fight a demon kind of ghost that comes comes across in your playthrough to get your souls back and it's cool because it makes you change the way you fight it makes you think about being much more um kind of precious and learning how to get through battles uh even smarter what i think is one of the the biggest takeaways from the game that i think is really really cool is not only from a visual standpoint i think it's really beautiful and and smartly done and good combat is hard i'm still struggling through some of it uh because i should have finished it but i've been bouncing between multiple games and and this game is hard like you have to i think the thing about souls games that i continue to find is one you need time to dedicate to it two um there's a rhythm to to souls games in terms of like if you are getting the patterns down on a boss and then you stop playing for a day or two that rhythm you wind up losing it and you have to read you have to spend time to get that rhythm back uh so i'm towards the back half of the game now and almost done with it but and i don't need to finish it to be able to give the review of what i what i think this game is going to wind up being or game is it is fantastic though like i love the enemies in the world i love the the the balance between the the characters that are your kind of main crew that you always go back to for power-ups and boosts and boons and things like that while also having some of the most beautiful bosses in the game that i've seen in a long time the the weapon variety is really fantastic it's super good there options for your character look cool she never does not look like a badass and anything she's rocking it's it's super fun in that way the one biggest potential issue i find in the game and there There's a weird patch, not a weird patch, but a patch that went out a couple days ago that basically changes this game in a really fundamental way.

1:26:10Like you are able to kill NPCs and kill characters in this game, not kill NPCs, but kill major boss characters. And it feels like now when you are defeating some of these folks, they go into kind of like exhausted state as opposed to a death state, which fundamentally changes the way you think about a game like this. Because if you're just like exhausting characters and they're not dying, then that doesn't feel as cool or interesting as you're basically like in every souls game taking something from those characters and and pulling that into your combat kit so that's a weird change that's happened i think the way that they do uh checkpointing isn't as good as i would like it to be uh there are some items that that that are usable in some aspects and don't aren't usable in others that i found to be really frustrating and like why am i using this like there's a an item where you can call a npc hero to come help you fight and it's only usable in certain aspects and you would think that if you they gave you this thing that you would kind of be able to understand and know which ones you can use and where you can't and where and why and that feels a little bit all over the place so i think 505 has done a really good job of working with the team and i think the game is brilliant and i think it's super fun and it's dope but i have my own small little gripes with the way it plays and i'm going to continue to to run through it um to to finally finish it out but like the boss battles are hard like the the the and that was the thing that came across in the preview that i had like they were like most people are going to die if you don't have the right kit to be able to do a lot of this stuff and do it well you can work your way through some of it through magic and stuff like that but overall like i give that game a really high mark like i would give that game a 9 out of 10 uh just just playing what i've already played and knowing that it's going to continue to get better and the spaces are going to get more cool and all that kind of stuff so that game is brilliant so shout out to 505 games and the rest of the crew for for letting us review that and letting us play that bad boy because it's very very good um the other game that i had been playing in a couple weeks back and they had some previews i went up for that was ninja gaiden 4 so ninja gaiden 4 is good like oh my god oh they are going to make so much money off this game when this thing drops it is so good it is so fantastic it's the year of the ninja between this and rage bound which is also really really good uh ragebound i think is brilliant if you love side scrollers and you're looking for things like that and you want that old school feel like that game is really really good so we're you know i'll put up some gameplay of that at some point but i remember getting a chance to see this at summer game fest it was excited because i know what a ninja game is and then when you get into the world and you start to play it and you start to go through some of these bosses and some of these characters and some of these fights man this game is going to just be so dope when it drops because it is everything that you want in a ninja gaiden game it is fast it is frenetic it is it is um you get into a zen state once you figured out how to kind of battle some of the characters and once you learn your moveset the thing that i think is the most uh important and interesting thing about this game is i remember the previous games having like a move set like they had stuff that you can do in the game and they had specific things you could do but like what makes this thing even cooler is like if you go down the the tree of things and maneuvers and and skills that you build and and things that you get a chance to kind of employ and you then memorize those things you feel like such a badass when you play like you feel so dope when you're like oh i'm gonna jump from this person to this person and i'm gonna bounce from this character to this character i'm gonna get this person with my my my rage move and then as soon as i hit that person with the rage move i'm gonna jump to this other person air juggle them hit her with an azuna drop hit them on the ground they explode bounce to the next person i got the orb that gives me even more damage bounce that orb to another person throw the shrunkens uh at this other person and do all that in the middle of a fight what with a dope soundtrack with beautiful visuals and the styling that you know to love this game is going to be so good it is going to be so fantastic i am so hyped to play more of this thing and it leads into something that i think is another quick last aside that came out of gamescom was the rog ally x pricing came out man like so i went back to play my so a lot of the conversations around the xbox rog ally have been happening of late i've been excited about it i was playing some doom uh awakening with with the fam gary witta uh a couple weeks ago a week ago i was playing with him and they shared oh dune awakening is playable on the steam deck so i was like let me go find my steam deck pulled it out did all the stuff got it on there for some reason it wouldn't it wouldn't boot it booted once and then it stopped booting again i don't know what the hell is wrong with it i don't know what the deal is but it made me reminisce about the time i got a chance to play the rock ally x and I'm so excited for what this is going to wind up being because every game now like I remember there was a very specific time where I when we were get review codes in and I would ask two things one is there a PlayStation version of this game because I have a PlayStation Pro and I want to check out stuff and asked like does it have DualSense compatibility is there something specific that it's doing with the DualSense.

1:32:07And if it doesn't, I will get the Xbox version of the game. Now, moving forward, seeing what they're talking about with Play Anywhere, what they're talking about with being in the streamer games to the device, being able to not necessarily play everything natively on it, but the way it kind of talks to the other parts of your Xbox ecosystem. I'm probably going to ask for most of the stuff that moving forward to be either PC codes that I can play on my, from the Xbox account, or stuff that I'll play directly from, you know, it being tied to my Microsoft account because they dropped the price for this thing, which is going to wind up being the ROG Ally X is the beefier version of it, which is going to be$8.99.

1:32:52The standard ROG Ally is going to be$5.49. And now I'm kind of like, well, I know Gears Reloaded is dropping soon. we'll have a preview of that coming up very soon we have a preview of that Outer Worlds 2 and something else that is in the mix as well coming up in the next couple of days actually and I'm like I'm going to be playing a lot of stuff on this device I will figure out ways to get in on this thing and play this thing but I'm super hyped and excited for what that thing is going to wind up being so I'm ready for that and I'm like well if this is going to be the new ecosystem where I'm going to play a lot of my stuff on road trips, work trips, all that kind of stuff.

1:33:39I'm going to start moving everything over to that thing. I cannot wait to play Ninja Gaiden 4 on that. That thing is going to be dope to be able to play that on. Man, that game is so good. I really am hyped for what that's going to wind up being. And if you haven't, if you haven't gotten back up on Ninja Gaiden train, like you need, you are missing out. get back on that train now go play the old games if you want but i got to check out the other stuff that game is going to be a banger and a half platinum and and and crew and the rest of the teams over there and um uh what is it why can't i think of the other team right now it's platinum and and who what can i think i think it's spot no kohe tecmo no um ninja it's the and team ninja team ninja team ninja and platinum oh team ninja oh yeah um them combining and joining forces on this thing and platinum kind of taking the lead on it on the development side is is really really good i'm i'm very excited for it anywho that is a very long show uh and we are excited to have brought it to you uh i want to thank you cam again as always for rocking and coming on hanging out on the show with me uh give the folks at home some info about where they can find you check out more of your work and all the goodies that you're putting out in the world yeah you can find me on socials at cam final mix uh i have a jrpg podcast called party chat colon a jrpg podcast that comes out every week where we talk about the news in the japanese game space um or eastern game space um and uh i'm gonna be at pax west this week i'm gonna be on a couple panels i got a i'm on the video game trivia panel i think that's friday at 8 p.m firebird suite i think that's level uh five of the summit building and then i am also going to be on a jrpg panel uh that's where we're talking about uh remastered jrpgs and how they've like affected the modern gaming space um and that's going to be on monday at 2 30 uh firebird theater so same place uh level five of the summit building sweet as always cam thank you so much for being here and rocking on the show everybody at home we're gonna get up out of here i'm gonna go edit this bad boy and share it so it'll be up on monday so it'll be up if you're listen to this uh on monday the 25th uh and word if you are looking for a dope community manager social media manager hire me i'm looking for work uh hit me up on linkedin all those good places uh you can be able to find that stuff i know cam is also in the space looking for some dope some dope work as well he's brilliant and and accomplished and knows his stuff so go look him up as well to go help him find a new gig as well we have a couple of different previews coming out this week uh that'll be dropping probably on tuesday and wednesday of the week i'm gonna go enjoy my birthday i'm gonna probably go get a little something with a little glass in it and then uh go hang out and go chill for a little bit uh but again thank you for rocking this week and every week on the spawn of me podcast go check out some of the previous content we'll have actually probably like four pieces of content out this week you'll have this show you have two previews and then we have a really great um uh interview with our folks from uh upcoming game that i think is going to be something that you're definitely going to want to check out it's a lot of conversations around um the current immigration space and there's a really amazing group of folks who have made a really compelling game around that topic that i'll be sharing as well so make sure you're checking out all of those discussions here on spawn to me very soon all right everybody get up out of here have some fun with the rest of your weekend wash your hands wash your butt take care of yourselves see y 'all soon much love and peace