Can we already call GOTY 2024?!

[00:00:04] Welcome everyone to another episode of the Friday Night Gamecast, a dedicated video game podcast where two best friends come together to celebrate games and bring you industry news, game impressions, reviews, and more. I'm your host Nick and I'm joined by the one and only Will.

[00:00:48] We're in here baby. What's going on Sir Nicholas? Man, it's good to have you back. It's good to be back in the seat. We're doing a normal episode. We're in the stoove room. In the stoove? We're in the stoove room.

[00:00:59] Will isn't isolated on his own on Island doing a remote podcast called We're Podcasting IRL Together as it should be. I fucking love this shit man. I love it. This is why we come back and do it every time. We're back to basics. Back to basics.

[00:01:11] And speaking of love and doing this every time, this is a Patreon supported show. We could not do this without our incredible patrons who support us every time so we're going to make sure to shout you out every time if you choose to opt into our Patreon.

[00:01:23] We are a patreon.com slash Friday night game cast if you want to find us there and get exclusive offers that we provide to you. So special thanks to Lady Blake Plocks, Wyatt Peeberg, Dave Jackson, the Intergalactic Pine

[00:01:35] Cone, Fabulous Brianna, Chris Ware, Eric Guest, Rick Firestone, Chris of a novel console, David Seat and JD. I hope you are all doing wonderfully well this year, 2024 so far. And I hope you've been gaming and enjoying the FNGC show while you've been out there doing your thing.

[00:01:51] And another great thing about the Patreon too, do not forget you get that chance to vote on the games that you or I get to play for that did you hate it. And right now you are currently not yet but looking forward to getting it through Osiris

[00:02:03] Wrath so that was one of our Patreon chosen games, one of my favorite games personally so I'm just really, really excited for you to get through that and hear your thoughts on there. But hey, if you're interested in having me or Nick play something that, you know,

[00:02:17] we either have a missing spot in our backlog or maybe you're just really excited for us to check it out. You know, hop on the Patreon, throw us a couple of dollars and maybe we'll play a game that you love too. 100% and it's definitely well worth it.

[00:02:28] You know, I'm bad. I'm going to be honest about that. Our patrons are so gentle and nice to us. You know, I try to get those early episodes out there and early sometimes looks like Thursday night before the main low early. It's still early.

[00:02:42] You know, we get it at the under the wire but you know, we still do it and we're still trying our best. I'm excited about this next round of the did you hate it series that we did the last time you did a real fun game.

[00:02:52] Yeah, that was great. So make sure to go check that out. I want to get into a little bit of housekeeping of stuff that we've got going on for the podcast and a little bit of like quality of life and just like general stuff for the

[00:03:04] podcast stuff we can get out of the way before we get into the main, you know, meat and potatoes of the show today. I know that, you know, I have some stuff written down here.

[00:03:12] Obviously you did a Bon Raku show on Jalachan's place with a good friend of the show, Jala, who is going to be joining us to talk about Fire Emblem Fates Conquest versus Birthright. This is a little sneak peek into the scheduling that's going to come up for

[00:03:27] the show a little bit later on this month. But then we also did a show very recently. We haven't really talked about this too much, but we did it on Battlefield 20 2042. 20. Yes. 2042 on that. Yeah.

[00:03:41] We did that on the Gaming Together pod with Nave and Philip joined us for that. And that was really fun. So make sure to go to those podcasts, those wonderful podcasts and check out those folks there. They're incredible supporters of our show.

[00:03:55] There's another little bit that we haven't been as focused on this year that I wanted to make sure we do have a special call out to. Okay. And that, you know, we've been working on obviously, you know, trying to advocate for every show you listen to us.

[00:04:08] We're trying to shill for reviews. We're trying to shill for five stars and we haven't, you know, sometimes there's a little bit of a gap in between when it happens and when we can, you know, say thank you to the folks out there.

[00:04:17] But Bill Barber just joined us. Bill Barber from the Gaming and Collecting podcast. A lot of gaming podcasts out there. But Bill, he's a standup guy. He actually runs the co-op podcast discord server that he and live, I think kind of work together to cultivate and administrate there.

[00:04:32] That way this is one of our first stepping points as podcast, as poscasters to find a community of other folks who are interested in this kind of thing. So we've been in there. But Bill, let's, let us review on Apple podcast that says Friday

[00:04:43] night gamecast is an absolute joy to listen to. Nick and Will are excellent hosts as they cover a wide variety of games and topics throughout the gaming industry. And they have great banter through and through, if I can actually read, I highly recommend checking them out.

[00:04:57] So thank you, Bill. Much appreciated. So much appreciated. You know, every single review for five stars, we don't have that. We have about 20 ratings on Apple podcast right now. If you would, you or your family members or, you know,

[00:05:08] whoever maybe that likes podcasts, if you can just, you know, twist their arm a little bit to go over to Apple podcast or Spotify, give us a written rating. We'll read it on the show here and say thank you so much. Also Matt left us review Matt Stormageddon.

[00:05:22] Okay. They left us a review on Apple podcast on October 28th, 2023. And we didn't even, I don't even think we brought this up. I might have, but it's been so long since then I haven't, I remember, but he said a must listen for any video game fan.

[00:05:35] Check it out. Matt, AKA Stormageddon. So thank you, Matt. This was very kind of you to leave us that wonderful review. Fantastic podcast. And as of right now, I can't remember a little last time I discussed how many ratings on Spotify we have. We have 35 ratings on Spotify.

[00:05:49] Nice. Nice. So, you know, again, we're known throughout the Indie podcasting community, but if any of our fans of our show who haven't left us ratings or reviews, any platform that they prefer, you know, if you could go there and just, you know, give us a little five

[00:06:04] stars or however you want to assess our show, you're certainly welcome to do that. Definitely. And definitely five stars would be much appreciated, but it will boost us up when somebody types of video games into their podcast launcher. They'll see us a little bit higher.

[00:06:17] They don't have to go pages before they find the Friday Night Gamecast and that'd be super appreciated. You know, a lot of podcasts are built on the the shoulders and the foundations of other podcasts. And obviously we mentioned them earlier. We're on their show.

[00:06:30] We frequently are featured on their show, but David Phillip on their podcast, Gaming Together podcast have a game or a section of their show that says what did Dave buy? And it's always some crazy bullshit. He's buying those goddamn achievement games that

[00:06:43] kind of take like an hour to get the platinum. We're at the thousand. Yeah, exactly. Not I'm kidding, but he does go out there and buy a lot. I wanted to play a little game about what did Nick purchase on his Steam purchase history?

[00:06:56] What has he bought recently? We haven't talked about this because like Steam, the forgotten platform, arguably the better platform to play on because you can you can do so much. You can do mods. You can do. Well, he's a little little taken it back by that.

[00:07:11] But in January 2nd, 2024, I bought a group of purchasing. This was like a winter showcase purchase. I might have talked about this. I bought Alien Isolation Divinity Original Cesset, Bayonetta, Neer Automata, Game of the Yor-Ha Edition, a game that I already own on

[00:07:29] the PS4 disk copy that I'd have to plug into my PS5 to play backwards compatibility wise. You're like, I refuse. Let me just play it on PC. Yeah, I did that and that was fun. I bought this really interesting indie is

[00:07:40] a really pretty game called Nine Years of Shadow. I found this developer it's like a Metroid vania. It's not that could either, but I found this developer by this beautiful like character art and like, you know, fluid motion that they had in a Instagram reel of this.

[00:07:56] It was like a mariachi game where you play as like an undead mariachi, like, like a, like a, like a God of the dead that's like reaping souls, like a soul reaper. Okay. And it's got this cool, cool aesthetic with like cool little mariachi music in the background

[00:08:12] and just had really clean transitions. And I was like, let me check out what this, what this developer is on. Let me see what's going on here. And they got definite talent on their art team there. So that was pretty cool.

[00:08:20] I bought basically all of the prints of purchase for nine 60, nine dollars and 60 cents. I got the warrior within two thrones sands of time. The, the basically prints of purchase forgotten sands, which is sands of time like

[00:08:35] 2011, which was terrible. It was a terrible game, but I did do that. Obviously I bought dragons dogma. It was just a mistake. I bought, but you haven't even played the original dragon's dogman. No, no, dragon's dogman too. I love dragons dogman two.

[00:08:51] And I got like, I don't know if I, I don't, I guess it was, I bought it for 70 on steam. Oh, these aren't all in January. No, yeah. As we're going up, we started in January. I was like, you got a lot of stuff at the beginning.

[00:09:01] Yeah. The first, the big bulk buy with alien isolation was in January and then the prince of Persia was in February. And then cause they have the periodic sales man, you can't beat steam sales.

[00:09:12] And as we go up to April, I bought before your eyes, really cool indie. I don't know if you've heard about that. Nope, have not. It's an indie game that's based on the progression system. It asked to be have allowed to have access to your webcam.

[00:09:26] And what it does is it has facial facial recognition software and the webcam that tracks the player of every time they close their eyes. So when you're playing the game, you're in a scene. And when you close your eyes, the scene changes.

[00:09:39] So if you're blinking, the scene is going to change. And then like the story is going to be affected somehow by that. And I really really want to play people like, like Dave Jackson from Tales From The Backlog really, really love this game.

[00:09:50] I think Rick Firestone has played this game is it's really, really high up there. It's a very emotional storytelling game. I think the core of it is talking about Alzheimer's. Okay. Or talking about like memory loss or like mental degradation. So that's really cool thing.

[00:10:03] So I got that on my backlog, of course. As like listeners, you can't hear me right now, but I'm like, don't give the government, don't give the government access to your eyes right now. They're working on their facial recognition software so they can control our brain.

[00:10:13] Come on, man. You might have an Android, but Apple already has our shit. Okay. Tim Cook has me on lock. You're cooked. Tim is cooking me. He cooked me. And then in May I bought a thousand times resist in Sionore Wild Hearts.

[00:10:27] It was a little combo deal with a nice discount. And then in June, I bought pools, which is really cool walking sim, a little eerie walking simulator that has like incredible resolution. I saw this as a shout out to Bodley Rudy on Twitter.

[00:10:41] He's a good friend of the show. And then we had, I got what remains of Edith Finch. And those were two. Is it your first time playing that? I haven't played it yet, but yes. When I play it will be my first time.

[00:10:51] What games on this list have you beaten besides Dragon's Dogma? I bought Final Fantasy IX Hyper Light Drifter in July. This brand's size. In July. But that was an incredible deal. An incredible deal. I hate that so much. It's an incredible deal.

[00:11:07] Hyper Light Drifter and Final Fantasy IX for only 1753. A wild deal some may say there, but you know I be buying games. Well, I'm going to return all these games. I've been doing it. I'm going to refund all steam has a has like a 30 days. Is it true?

[00:11:23] It's the policy is that if you haven't started it, you have 30 days to return it. And if you start playing the game, if you're if you've gone over two hours of the play time on steam, they're like you can't give it back. You're already playing too much.

[00:11:35] You've already been in the game. You've already beaten the game. Yeah, I don't know why. Yeah, so so we got that. But yeah. So that's that's what Nick. What did Nick buy? Nick but I wanted to like, okay, so Friday night game cast.

[00:11:48] We have been focusing a lot more on reviews recently because like we want to talk about games. We want to get to the heart of the matter, which is the games that we've been playing. And I personally think I'm pretty sure you agree with me on this.

[00:11:59] I personally think we've been killing it. Yeah, but we've been moving a little bit away from like talking about industry news. I wanted to like just push back a little bit and talk about one thing that's kind of definitely going to impact the both of us

[00:12:10] and change potentially like what we could have access to, you know, in the years to come as the gaming landscape kind of changes. And that's specifically about the game pass price increases for Microsoft game pass. I pulled an article here from the game informer by Marcus Stewart.

[00:12:24] Marcus is a really cool guy. You should follow him on Twitter. He's done a lot of great reviews, but he's reporting here that in case you missed it, Microsoft revealed a new tier called Xbox Game Pass Standard, a $15 monthly subscription for new members

[00:12:38] that excludes day one releases, EA Play, PC game pass, and cloud gaming. So they basically added a new tier to it and got rid of the game pass core or they're changing course slightly. You know, they go on to say here, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate,

[00:12:55] which includes all of those perks that the standard edition does not have will have its monthly price raised from $17 a month to $20 a month. And then game pass core, which only offers online play, which is it's like game pass core is kind of like the

[00:13:10] equivalence to people who are familiar with Xbox Live Gold. Yep, Gold membership back in the day. That's kind of what game pass core is. And they have a really small library of probably like Xbox first party games that you can access on that core subscription.

[00:13:26] That's raising its yearly sub from $60 to $75. And then the $10 monthly fee remains unchanged. PC game pass is increasing from $10 a month to 12. It's so weird. They have, and this is where it like gets complicated because like they have so many different tiers

[00:13:46] to their offerings and their pricing subscriptions. They're trying to like target a bunch of different audience members with these different, I don't know, membership fees that they're trying to include there to get as many people involved in their ecosystem as possible.

[00:14:00] The thing that we care about the most is the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is going from $17 to $20 a year. So if you look at that annually, $17 a year for 12 months is a little over $200. You know, a little bit of quick math.

[00:14:16] I'm doing one on my phone here. I'm not getting math, but yeah. So increasing that to $20 a year comes out to $240 annually. Just amazing. That's a good chunk of money. That's a good chunk of money. It's a birthday present.

[00:14:30] And then like, so something that I will and I were just discussing as we were preparing for the show today. It's like, are you still getting the value, your personal value well out of Game Pass? And do you think that this price increase

[00:14:42] is going to affect your value? Yeah, it's not going to affect mine personally. This is something that now just, I talked a little bit to you about it beforehand, but it really puts into, I guess, a little bit more perspective when it comes to the different services

[00:14:56] like PlayStation has their own yearly service where it's tiered and then Xbox, of course, has this tier here now. Before I could kind of gauge whether I was going to maybe have both at the same time, depending on what's coming out.

[00:15:07] But now that they're both starting to ramp up price as well, I think if I'm not mistaken, PlayStation increased their price to a couple of months ago or something, or maybe they updated it. Yeah, I don't know. But regardless, it's now to the point where it's like,

[00:15:18] okay, I can't justify having both as like the high tier. I kind of have to have one on at one time and then have the other one off another time, especially considering all the other outside factors, Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, etc., etc.

[00:15:31] So it's affecting me to the point where I can't just now mindlessly pay for it like I used to before. Before I would just pay my tax to Phil Spencer just to be like, hey, keep the servers running, man. For sure. Keep the servers going.

[00:15:44] Here's 12 bucks, here's 15 bucks, etc., etc. But now I'm just like, okay, I have to actually pay attention, look out into the future for X, Y, and Z month. Is there something that's going to pop up? Because if one game per month comes out,

[00:15:58] I mean, that's in theory, depending on the level of game, a $60 game, $70 game that I would have bought anyways. So if I'm doing that per month, I'm still saving money on the long run. But if it's either some smaller endies that I probably wouldn't have paid or played

[00:16:13] rather unless I had Game Pass already or something to where, hey, I can get this instead for $20 and not have to worry about it for the next three or four months that I seriously would consider, okay, let me turn off Game Pass for a little bit. Yeah.

[00:16:25] Versus back in the day when gold was like $60 a year, I would just keep that running simply to be like, hey, it tells me every year how long I've had gold and I don't want to break this streak. So it's 100% affecting me. It's a little interesting.

[00:16:38] And I don't think that the price is bad per se, but once again, you and I playing games for the podcast and then just being gamers in general that do regularly buy video games, depending on the console itself, it's going to be very different from the person

[00:16:54] who buys one or two games a year. If you're a 2K and a Madden guy only, EA play is on there, but you're still paying, you said $210. And EA also picks and chooses what services they push to that.

[00:17:06] So like Madden 25, I don't know if, I mean, maybe you do know, but I don't know if that's going to come out immediately on EA. I don't think it is immediately. It's probably going to be similar to college football,

[00:17:16] how it is right now, where it's a 10 hour demo that you can play and then if you want to buy the game, you can buy the game. And I think as long as you have Game Pass because EA plays there,

[00:17:24] you do have a slight discount when you buy the game. But no, you're not getting the full thing on. But hey, at the same time, we talk about people buying only 2K, only EA, sorry, only Madden, but there are some folks that just like college football,

[00:17:37] they spend $100 to get it three days early. So if you do that for Madden and you do that for CFB, that's your $200 right there. So I mean, I guess you're going to spend the money regardless. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be, yeah, definitely getting two full price games

[00:17:53] to three full price games can make Game Pass, ultimate worthwhile and worth your time. I think like especially the lower tiers, depending on what your play style is, just something that was really alarming to me as I was reviewing the games that I've played this year

[00:18:07] and what I've actually beaten and what I've looked at a game so far this year. Obviously, like I said before to you offline is that I have put a number of hours, around 30 hours so far into Persona 3 Reloaded. So I haven't beat it.

[00:18:20] Something I'm 100% committed to returning to. But the only games that I have beaten so far through my Game Pass membership are Hellblade II and Still Wakes the Deep. One of them obviously, a double A, first party Xbox hyped up game that they really wanted people to get into

[00:18:36] and then the other is more of an indie from the Chinese room. And both of those games are perfectly good and fine. And then I have a lot of games that I'm currently playing, obviously on Xbox and I have access to Halo Infinite,

[00:18:48] something that we've talked about at length of me going back to and finishing off and I'll always have access to that. To that, as long as I'm assuming even if I had Core, I'd have access to Halo Infinite, not 100% sure on that.

[00:18:59] But obviously, even the multiplayer is free to play at the bare minimum if you have an Xbox. And then there are other games out there that are for purchase like Croak Country, really awesome interesting indie title that I've been meaning to get into

[00:19:13] is not available through Game Pass. And there's a number of stuff that haven't come out that you would think, oh, that would be an easy lock. Like for example, two indie titles that are like in the contention of like being indies

[00:19:23] of the year Tales of Kanzerazau, we just reviewed and then Animal Well, which I thought was a fantastic Metroidvania, just dripping in atmosphere and just design that really allows like a lot of player freedom. But it's six one hand, half dozen in the other because we're the people

[00:19:40] that are paying for both subscriptions. We want to have access to both. And I have increased my PlayStation Plus subscription to catalog because I wanted to have access to some of the games that they were offering on there that I had not already bought.

[00:19:53] But when I go in the catalog, most of the stuff that they do offer on PlayStation Plus, I already own, I bought Forbidden West. The only thing that I have in is the Death Stranding. And I mean, there's a ton of like other

[00:20:05] first party games like I've bought. And I don't think I've bought the DLC to... It's like the $10 upgrade to Last of Us Part 2 where you can play the I guess the rogue-like addition that they added to that. Which is very fun. Yeah, very fun about that.

[00:20:19] And then there's some other stuff that they offer on there. But I've bought both of the Final Fantasy 7 new releases that they've come out with. So it's just... Yeah, it's something that I've been pondering and I'm thinking about something in terms

[00:20:30] of that my transition for me as well is that it might be a point in time where I just stop paying for Game Pass periodically where it's like, okay, I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3 right now. That game is going to absorb my life for the foreseeable week.

[00:20:44] So I'm going to get through it. But we'll talk about that in a minute here. Anything else you wanted to add to this? Yeah, because especially with us talking about turning off Game Pass, I think hopefully... I mean it's not like it's spectacular.

[00:20:57] Like I'm thinking super outside the box. But maybe they're looking at it this way. Hey, if you're paying XYZ money for maybe like two games anyways, they're trying to make it so that you'll buy Game Pass or keep your Game Pass up

[00:21:09] and then you'll be interested in other games because I have always said, I think they're interested in that Netflix model of just keeping you on the treadmill, paying for it even if you're not using it.

[00:21:18] But I'd like to keep more of an optimistic view on it and say, okay, well maybe they instead want you to... Yes, of course, maintain the subscription. But also branch out and play something else. If you're only used to playing shooters, here's some shooters on here.

[00:21:31] You can play X Defiant on your Xbox. You can do this, you can do that. But you can also... Play Call of Duty? Yeah, boot up Flintlock. Maybe you can check out one of these newer indie... Oh, another Crab's Treasure is on here.

[00:21:41] Let me give this a try. Do you want to play Soul's Game in Little Mermaid? There you go. Yeah, there you go. So hopefully just trying to get people to branch out more if you're already paying for the subscription anyway. So that's my more optimistic take on it.

[00:21:52] Hopefully they do that as well. But another reason why I'm like, okay, I may drop the Game Pass and then of course I go to drop it. And we just saw the Xbox showcase. We talked about it a couple of months ago where

[00:22:02] imagine that thing is going to come out and it's like, all right, here's Indiana Jones. You know, here's Avowed. Here's all these other things that are going to drop and come out day one and be available on it.

[00:22:13] Are we also going to have that be something to where... Are they going to keep the release dates a little bit closer to the vest so that you're more likely to keep your Game Pass versus, okay, I'm going to stop it in August

[00:22:25] and then pick it back up in September? Because we have games like Avowed and that they've showed and I think also if I'm not mistaken, Indiana Jones they show, but they don't have release date yet. They don't have release date. It's pretty close to done.

[00:22:37] That's a fascinating theory that I hadn't even considered before that the reason why we haven't heard about things like Indiana Jones or even Dragon Age because we know that Bioware and EA, obviously EA Play has that. Who knows if Dragon Age is going to be on there?

[00:22:51] They might not want to cannibalize the sales for that game by putting it on Game Pass but still at the same time that you could eventually in a year from now come on to Game Pass. I'm probably going to grab it either way just to check it out

[00:23:02] and see what's going on with it. But still, yeah, that's a fascinating kind of look at that. They're going to drop day one, but you don't know when that day one's going to be until a week out or something like that.

[00:23:13] Maybe yeah, a lot more shadow drops would make sense, but it's hard because you have to maintain the hype. So it's like they're drip feeding you, but you don't necessarily know what that's going to be.

[00:23:24] But speaking and knowing what stuff is going to pan out to be like, let's go ahead and transition into our gaming updates for the week. William, let us know what's going on? What have you beaten? What are you playing right now?

[00:23:35] Okay, so I've beaten, quote unquote beaten two games. One was the quote unquote was Battlefield 2042 because I'm not going to play it again. I deleted that shit from our heartschip. Yes, I'm not going to play it again.

[00:23:47] I beat the mode that we were playing specifically for the Dead Space mode. If you want to know our feelings and thoughts on that, please head over to that Game and Together podcast. We had a, I think a three hour extravaganza on the Battlefield 2042

[00:24:02] including that Dead Space tie-in that they had that ran for about a week. So definitely give us a listen in there. Show the boys some love. But done with that game, not touching it anymore. However, I legitimately beat Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Hell yeah.

[00:24:17] Is a fantastic game. I got the Platinum. You got the Platinum. Come on, come on. I said I beat it. I didn't say I beat the story. I said I beat it. Well, you know, see there's gray areas to that

[00:24:28] because you can beat the game by rolling credits. That don't mean you got the Platinum. Not for me. No, if I say I beat the game. It's not for me. I got the Platinum. No, for me. If I said I beat the story.

[00:24:36] So you haven't beat Dragon's Dogme yet, huh? No, technically not. Technically not because I have to trip a Cyclops. And I was like, I killed them too fast. I can't trip them. I got you. I got you. But Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Fantastic game.

[00:24:49] I think it's came out in 2021. So it's been sitting for a while. I let it go for about a year and then I bought it, I think in 2022. And now in 2024, I'm actually playing it. Awesome. Yeah. Look, Insomniac, they done did it again.

[00:25:02] I talked about it before, I think on the Game Together pod because I was in the midst of playing it there too. But it is a Disney slash Pixar game or rather movie that you can just play. And it is incredible.

[00:25:14] Rivet's character, I'm going to say Rivet is riveting. She made that good for me. But yeah, Rivet is awesome. I loved and it's funny too. I look back on the trailer and I saw that they kept another character kind of like secret hush hush.

[00:25:27] So while this game is three years old, I'm not going to like spoil it here. But Clank is great. Of course, Ratchet is great. All the characters themselves are done and voiced very well. They're all super expressive. Like I said, Disney slash Pixar, even Dr. Nefarious,

[00:25:40] the main villain is just like super expressive and fun whenever he's on, you know, camera on screen. This is a game that I found myself constantly taking pictures on. So whether it's the pure framing of the cut scenes

[00:25:54] that of course they set up to look a certain way that I'm like, oh, this looks great snip. Oh, this looks great snip. Or just jumping into the actual very robust camera that they have where you can, you know, pose your characters, change their faces.

[00:26:07] If you're familiar with the Spider-Man camera, that mode is very similar. All the robustness they have. The garlic copy and paste of the camera system. Honestly the same exact thing. They have the lighting that you can do all that good stuff.

[00:26:18] Different little stickers that you can put in. So very, very fun game. Highly recommended if you have not checked it out. And it's rather short. I think I got the full plan about 21 hours. Yeah, quick game. Yeah, it wasn't like grinding heavy or anything either.

[00:26:30] I did a little bit of grinding on my own just because I wanted all the guns to level five, but you don't even have to do that for the Platinum. It's just for funsies. And you just go to the Gladiator arena, right? I didn't even do that.

[00:26:40] I just played through like I was just making sure to use different weapons every time I got into a fight. I found my favorites and I kind of cycled them between those. Which is perfectly fine too because there's, I think two and a half of your shoot,

[00:26:54] what are they called? Circles when you have your- Radicals? Weapon wheels. Yeah. You can feel like two and a half weapon wheels with all the weapons that are in the game, including additional game weapons that you get in New Game Plus.

[00:27:05] So you're going to find something that you like. There's a bunch of stuff. You got a freezing gun. You got that topiary sprayer, which I love that when it turns every enemy, including the big bosses that you fight into just big old shrubs.

[00:27:17] That was like one of like the most OP guns of the year. It's similar to like the- We did it in Rochlin. Click they have one that turned them into sheep. Yes. I feel like it's very similar to that one. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:28] They had the pixel gun, of course, where you shoot the enemies and then they get all pixel noises and they look all blurry. So there you will find something that you like. It is an incredible game. Highly recommend it. No. So those are my two beatings.

[00:27:39] As far as other things that I'm currently playing, there's a couple that I'm going to definitely talk about during our topic of today, which is how we're kind of looking for the mid-year. You know, do we have any game of the year that we're looking at?

[00:27:52] However, before getting into there, I talked about it a little bit once again on the pod for gaming together, but Concord, I've been playing that beta. And that game is okay. Just okay. It's capital F fine. Okay.

[00:28:09] My main issue with it is that there is not enough variety, not just in the gameplay, because there's a decent variety there, but with the characters and how they look and what they do, Overwatch set a very strong precedent. And if you're going to make one of these,

[00:28:25] you know, six-on-six, five-on-five hero base shooters, you have to either go in a completely new lane, kind of like how Valorant is like, all right, we're this, but CS go. Right? So it's very different. Yeah. Or you have to just be at that level of Overwatch

[00:28:40] and Concord is not there. It's not? It's a pretty game. It's a gorgeous looking game. The maps are not great. They are not memorable at all. There's not a whole lot there outside of there's the occasional gimmick in like the middle of one or two of them.

[00:28:56] But even then the gimmick isn't like good. It's just like, hey, there's a different wall than you're used to looking at. Like there's something that kind of obscures your vision up at the top. So not too great there. The characters that you choose and fight,

[00:29:09] they all look nice and they all look cool. I mentioned the graphics look good. They all have their own unique visual look. Yeah. But when you're- They pass a squint test. Yeah, they definitely pass a squint test. So I would say that.

[00:29:18] But the big issue for me is that if you were to, for example, just make them all like a shadow on a wall. Can you tell who is who without them speaking, you know, by just having them posing without their guns sticking out to the side

[00:29:32] because that gives you more of an idea? And honestly, Concord does not pass that test. If you're sitting there looking at Overwatch, everyone has a unique profile. And that's something that I think you need whenever you're playing more of these kind of action packed fast-paced shooters.

[00:29:46] Because I need to know is that a Lucio or is that a Lifeweaver? Is this a D.Va outside of her mech? Or is that Tracer? Like, I need to know the difference before I'm dead in 10 seconds. And I'm looking at Concord and I'm like-

[00:29:58] And that's for me. Yeah. Sometimes I'm like, am I gonna get with a bomb? Right, I'm gonna blow up right now. And then you're looking at Concord and I already apologize because outside of like Lennox and Baz. I heard Itzy was a popular character.

[00:30:15] I think that was the one that's like the kind of stealth character with SMG where she can split into- She's like teleport? Yeah, she can teleport. And then when she's running away if she's attacked she can like split into a copy. A clone.

[00:30:25] So you can be like kind of- It's almost like a character from what is that game that killed Titanfall 3? Ooh. Apex Legends. Yes, and there's the bamboozler. So the character where he can split off into three different pieces. Sorry for all the Apex Legends fans out there.

[00:30:45] Shout out to you, John. Oh, I'm not- You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're like falling- You're like, you're falling. Trash, fucking. Yelling at the screen right now. This is bullshit. It's him, it's him. This is bullshit. But yeah, on Concord is just

[00:30:57] there's not enough uniqueness there for me and the big, big issue that people already talked about beforehand and now after playing The Beta people are talking about now is this game is $40. It's not a 70 full price thing, thank goodness. I guess they kind of had

[00:31:13] a little bit of a knowledge there that this is not going to be a $70 get. But this is a $40 game that in nowadays, even Overwatch when it first came out cost money, but nowadays Overwatch 2 is free to play. Mm-hmm. Every game like this in its own genre.

[00:31:28] Free to play. Free to play. If I'm not mistaken, when Marvel Rivals comes out that's going to be free to play and then they're going to get you with the cosmetics. You know, that's what they do. This is how these games work. You have to really bring something

[00:31:39] to the table to get somebody to buy into a $40 product before you start, you know, getting them to play and offering things and Concord is not giving people, at least from what I see on the internet in my own personal gaming, it's not giving people that level of,

[00:31:54] hey yeah this is worth me as a $40 buy-in. Okay, interesting because like, forgive me, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Helldivers 2 also around that price range? I think it was, yeah. Helldivers was. It was $40. It was a $40 buy-in for sure. Do you think that Concord,

[00:32:10] the developers and you know, Firewalk Studios is trying to copy like the formula for success? Like in terms of, you know, trying to earn people's trust in that game by not microtransaction them to hell and back, but like saying, hey here's the upfront free

[00:32:25] because we think that the level of quality in this game is, you know, worth $40. But then like, you know, when, you know, I don't know, what do they call it? The progression system that updates, the new season comes along and they give you, you know,

[00:32:38] all of the fresh stuff that comes with that because you bought your way into that game. Do you still think that they didn't quite hit the mark for it to do that for you personally? Not for me personally, just because of the quality of the game

[00:32:49] that I've played so far. It still hasn't hit that. Helldivers as we all know is an anomaly. And of course we're going to talk about that later just because of how crazy it came out. I was openly anti-helldivers and I was like, this game looks like trash.

[00:33:02] I wish I could go back and parse through our old episodes and find the point and try to do what we talked about. I'm about to say, if you go back, yeah, clip it into this, like make it like a me immediately talking.

[00:33:12] Our 2024 predictions or something, we'll find it. But you know, I was openly against it and the hype came from the community. The community was like, this is cool. We're making fan art. We're giving stories. You had a moment. We're going crazy at a huge, huge moment

[00:33:26] and that helped push it into my eyes. I was watching people play it, people having a good time, seeing how fun the gameplay was. And I was like, oh, this looks great and it's PvE so I can get my buddies on and we're killing robots

[00:33:37] and we don't have to get super sweaty and angry. Done deal. So that was a huge part of it. Concord is already a PvP game which is going to turn off a significant part of the community where there's like, I don't want to fight other people.

[00:33:50] I just want to have fun. Right. So boom, you're already losing those people. With a PvP crowd, you have your casual PvP and you're going to have people that are like really intense PvP. I do not think Concord has the legs for an intense PvP.

[00:34:03] Aim assist is like rough. Like it's really, so it's not going to be an MLG streamer. Can it be? I could be wrong. I could easily be wrong. The MLGs could pick this up and this could be like one of those. Oh yeah, we're going to have

[00:34:16] you know, Overwatch-esque esports. Yeah. I don't see Concord doing that. Interesting. It's really easy to get into. It's easy to understand, but it's not like easy to learn hard to master like I saw. It doesn't have depth. That's not what I felt. I didn't feel like it.

[00:34:32] You're playing characters that have different moves. For example, there's one character who has like a firewall that she can throw down and you would think, okay, you use the firewall to like block off an escape or block off an exit or something. Everyone including myself

[00:34:45] just uses it as like a rocket because it hits someone and that's it does the most damage if you just hit them directly and it does splash damage. Right. So it's saying you have some characters with depth and different things that they can do

[00:34:56] but the gameplay does not reflect that because it's just kill man kill which they did a good job by not starting off just TDM. They made it so that, oh, you're playing something like capture the enemies, you kill them and then you have to pick up their

[00:35:10] like dog tags effectively is like the call of duty game mode. So they made it smart there that you're not just holding up in a wall playing TDM so you do have to go after some objectives. I do appreciate that. So shout out to Firewalk there

[00:35:21] for looking forward and saying, hey, this isn't just a kill man. Please play the objective and that's how you kind of get your best things out. Another good thing I like about it is that there's not really an ultimate. You have your moves

[00:35:32] and then one of your special moves you actually have to refill by getting eliminations on people. So you can't just like hold up in a wall or run around and hide and then happily moves come back. You have to be actively in the fight. It's just once again

[00:35:46] that $40 price tag does not reflect the quality of the game that I was playing and I think a lot of people online are saying the same. So interesting. It's either going to come out unfortunately kind of DOA or they're going to have a really strong come to Jesus

[00:36:02] conversation with themselves after this beta dropped. And then they have an update and they install a bunch of maps and characters that people are like, oh, this is a different game. We could be talking a year later and I could be like, hey,

[00:36:12] this is a great game now. Games have done that before. Games have unfortunately gotten worse over a year so we'll just kind of have to see how it shakes out. And especially in a year of 2024 where the first person shooter market is flooded with hero shooters.

[00:36:27] Highly saturated with hero shooters. Yeah, they're hitter you don't. And I mean my heart goes out to the team. I hope that they get another shot. I hope Sony keeps up and allows them the opportunity to improve. That remains to be seen. True. So good old Concord beta.

[00:36:42] Interesting, but not my cup of tea. But my two games that I'm in progress for right now both came out recently on Game Pass. Let's go. I'm so excited about both of these listeners. Brother, this game is incredible. Okay.

[00:36:55] I know I said I was going to start with front lock. But I can't hold back. You can't hold it back. Oh, he's got to let open the doors. Open the doors for him. Konnitsugami Path of the Goddess is incredible. What is this game?

[00:37:08] Is it a tower defense game? Yes, it is. Okay. This is like if you take... I'm interested. Yeah, if you take a, you know, it's the Okami style and I won't say it's the same group but I'm not 100% sure. But if you take, you know,

[00:37:22] like an Okami style which they have like extra costumes that reflect that game too, which is so awesome. I love the synergy there. Yeah. And then you take a little bit of Onimusha and you sprinkle in some tower defense. It's, oh man, it's a winner.

[00:37:37] And it's funny too. It's something that I... If you told me this on paper, I'm like I'm not playing that garbage. What are you talking about? You were totally uninterested because we've seen this game at the previous showcases. Like two showcases leading up this year

[00:37:50] and we're like, oh, it's another Capcom game. And there was a demo that came out a couple of days ago, like, you know, last week or two weeks ago or something like that. And I was just like, whatever. I'm playing Ratchet and Clank. I don't care. Yeah.

[00:37:59] Came out on Game Pass. I was like, let me give this a shot, whatever. This will probably be something I pick up 10 minutes. Don't touch it again. When I tell you, I put eight hours into this game in a 24-hour period. What I tell you

[00:38:14] that I put it eight hours in this game and I'm sitting here doing the podcast with you right now. I'm so happy to be here. I'm enjoying my time. Hell yeah. All I want to do is play Konnichi-Gami. Go back to Konnichi-Gami.

[00:38:24] I want to take this headset off right now, drive home and play more Konnichi-Gami. Where's the hook for this game? Honestly, it's the presentation. I was thinking about that as I was playing through the first two, three levels, just kind of getting my feet wet

[00:38:38] and figuring out why I like it so much because it is action to where it's on my level. Like I like these kinds of games, but it's not super in-depth. Your character has a light attack and you have a heavy attack. And then you have your heavy attack

[00:38:52] that if you chain together multiple light attacks and then end it with a heavy, you have a couple of different combos. So you ultimately have like six, maybe five combos that you can do, really as your actual attack.

[00:39:03] And then you have a special that you can do as well once you get enough juice. So it's not, definitely cry. This is not Bayonetta. This is not a super in-depth game. The tower defense where you're setting characters up, I normally hate games like that.

[00:39:16] I hate tower defense games. I don't want to sit here and put three people here and then watch them attack bad guys when I could be attacking the bad guys. Like I want to play the game and not have the game be played.

[00:39:28] But there is just something about how beautiful this game looks. The overall presentation of like the Japanese kind of mythology and the Oni that they're working in, the characters all look so, so beautiful. And it's funny because this is not the best looking game I've ever played.

[00:39:44] This is not, you know, a triple A triple A up there, but it is just gorgeous. The art direction, yeah, the art direction pops. It sings. Okay. Whenever you see a new enemy and like you zoom in on them coming out of the corruptatory gate,

[00:39:57] I'm just like, oh man, it's so gross looking and cool. Is there a lot of enemy varieties or a lot of? There is a really good amount of enemy variety. So far, I think I'm maybe six levels deep and every level they introduce a new enemy

[00:40:08] and then every like other level roughly you get a new big boss that you have to fight. And they're really making new work for it. You have from what it looks like, maybe 10 to 12 different allies that you can create

[00:40:22] and you unlock them slowly as you progress the game. But you know, you have your standard attacking guys, they're woodcutters. They have big old axes that you can upgrade. They have archers that of course are long range attackers that can attack flying enemies.

[00:40:34] You have some healers, you have a tank that's a sumo wrestler that draws attention from enemies. So it's just really, really fun just getting in there, doing your mix and match or seeing what works for you, what doesn't work for you,

[00:40:47] different things on the map that can impede the progress for the enemies as you're fighting or buff your allies. And it's all based on like a time system. You have your daytime where you are trying to make the game work and you're putting together your things,

[00:41:00] you're getting your people in order, you're going around uncorrupting as much of the land as you can so that you can get the points to level up your characters and level up your allies and then push forward the priestess

[00:41:12] that you ultimately need to get to the very end of the level to kind of complete it. You need to keep her safe as you're doing so. Nice. So you're doing that, you're doing that all during the day and then at night you know it all goes down.

[00:41:21] The Tory gates open up, enemies come out, you have your standard just little fair enemies that you can beat the hell out of and it's fine. You have some enemies that are flying that you can't attack into the air

[00:41:31] but you're better off leaving for your archers to attack. There are quite a few that can buff enemies so of course they're priority targets and then you have bigger boss kind of enemies that sometimes come out of the gates that maybe they're suicide squad runners

[00:41:44] so they're going to run at the priestess or run at your barrier that you have blocking exactly and they're going to blow up so you can attack them first to destroy them and when you destroy them versus letting them blow themselves up you can then move their bodies

[00:41:56] like before it explodes to take out enemies. Ooh, okay. It's so cool. That is really cool. So just to be clear, obviously the daytime is involved where it's like fire emblem. You're setting your positioning, your units strategically, tower defense, fire emblem however you want to, RTS strategy. Exactly.

[00:42:13] You know you're putting them where you need them to be in order to cover all of your areas, your gaps to protect the goddess and then at nighttime when stuff goes off are you put into like a third person camera over the shoulder of your player character?

[00:42:28] Well, the whole time over your player character. Okay. You running around even during the day when you're doing things you're still playing in like this kind of third person which the camera is another beautiful thing about this game. I don't know how to explain it.

[00:42:39] I'm sure someone out there has explained it better. When you first start the game it feels like you're playing like a 2D game until it tells you to like move the camera and then the camera moves around in a 3D space but it just feels almost like it's

[00:42:51] kind of like in a half circle around you. Okay. And like you can just move it in such a cool way like I find myself playing sometimes with like the camera directly behind me up in the sky so it feels like I'm kind of doing

[00:43:02] like a top down type of fighting thing. Sometimes I turn it to the side where I feel like I'm on a 2D plane fighting enemies. Nice. It almost makes the game feel fresh no matter which way you have the camera turning which is so cool. That's really cool.

[00:43:13] I really, really enjoy the camera which is a weird thing to say. Normally you're saying the camera's fine or it's fucking me over but like I really, really like how the camera moves in this game but yes you're 100% right there

[00:43:25] as far as you know during the day when you're doing that and but you're staying behind your character the whole time and you can move the camera freely the whole time. Got it. And you're running around uncorrupting areas you're telling the builder guy

[00:43:36] who can fix different things for you like fix walls and fix these spots that can buff your allies as they're inside the sphere of influence. Okay. You can get him to do that during the time but everything takes time so yes you can tell him to fix this

[00:43:50] but it may take him two in-game hours which you can speed up time as well if you just want things to kind of like move quicker. Yeah. And then maybe he won't finish in time before it's night time so he's not going to work at night

[00:44:00] because all the bad guys come out so you really have to be smart and strategic and look ahead to see what is available to me how much time do I have left in the day and another thing for the goddess as you're moving her or rather the priestess

[00:44:12] as you're moving her throughout the level she also moves in real time so it's really cool watching you build the spirit path for her to travel on and she'll kind of like dance and like a walk along the path like you know uncorrupting things as she goes

[00:44:26] and you can get her to move a certain way but if you accidentally run out of time and she's out in this open area with no protection now you have to sit there and protect her without you know her being behind a wall or okay having things there

[00:44:39] but you're not luckily you're locked into you know not I should say not locked into what you do during the day for your allies you can have them all set up in the spot during the day things go south during the night

[00:44:50] you can still move your people around so like get to the place absolutely you're able to pivot exactly which is another good thing too right you're not locked in and you're like oh no I made a mistake you know an hour ago setting up

[00:45:00] now I have to restart the level you can really pivot through and there's not a whole lot of difficulty as well as far as oh no my character's died I gotta start from the beginning if you as your character die it puts you into this ghost mode

[00:45:14] where you can still go around and tell your allies to do things and heal them and you know potentially pick up things that can help you you just can't fight okay so it takes a couple of you know seconds maybe like 15 to 20 seconds or so

[00:45:26] for your soul to go back into your body but during that time you know people can be getting attacked and you're not there to personally help them or save them right same for your allies your allies get killed during the night they get corrupted and taken over

[00:45:38] but as long as you survive until the next day you can just pop them back out of like their corruption pods okay so when your allies get corrupted that's a thing where it's like they're not gonna attack you but they're not usable during that fight

[00:45:50] during the rest of that night got it yep yep um are they do they have like a progression system where you can upgrade your units yep you upgrade your units fuck dude yeah you upgrade yourself man your character it's I'm telling you

[00:46:01] I think when you jump into it it's one of those things I think you'll like it or you don't I feel like you probably would like it and I can't tell it if like you are thinking about that but playing this and hearing you talk about it

[00:46:11] everything to you're like oh man I bet he'd love Unicorn Overlord then it's like oh you're gonna love Fire Emblem and I'm like you fucking would I might I might you would I would say you know Fire Emblem has a level of built-in tedium

[00:46:24] that you have to kind of like muscle through while you're chewing on it Unicorn Overlord does not cool and that's why I think that would be that would be an easier jumping point for you if you if you were thinking about it if you wanted to

[00:46:34] but I was ready to I was ready going into this conversation to be like oh my god ladies and gentlemen the Capcom glazing is unprecedented for 2024 what the fuck is going on and then you've sold me I'm I'm jumping in this game I highly recommend it

[00:46:48] I'm telling you all right now I haven't beaten it yet I've only put in eight hours this is easily a 30 plus hour game based on how far down the path of like levels I am as well as each level has three different things for you to beat

[00:47:02] in addition to just beating the level so for example one of the earlier ones is have your allies beat 50 enemies go through and you yourself beat 50 enemies and then beat the level by only going through like one day and one night cycle yeah

[00:47:17] and each level has their own different things some things are more difficult than others for example hey you have five different allies that's five different classes of characters or you have some that are like hey you're in this cave your allies can only attack enemies in the light

[00:47:31] so you have to light up lanterns as you go throughout the cave so that they can attack properly for this one you have to beat the level without lighting any lanterns so it just makes it very difficult okay but it's just so cool and it's so fun

[00:47:43] and I have just had a blast playing through going trying to beat all the different levels trying to beat some of the bosses which are timed so it's like it's not timed as in oh no if you don't beat the boss in five minutes you lose

[00:47:55] but more like the special thing for the bosses isn't you know beat them without getting touched they drop like that they do they drop an extra item for you it's like ways for you to upgrade your character his name is so okay you have

[00:48:09] different things for your weapon that allows you to do special moves and then you have different items you can put on yourself that augment you and your allies so you start off with two and I think you can unlock another two later on and one may be

[00:48:20] increase your ally damage but decrease your personal damage and then another one could be something just as easy as you know increase your own damage so maybe you put them both together and then you have increased ally damage and then you don't have any increased

[00:48:33] you have standard damage for yourself because you'll offset the debuff yeah you can mix and match those have a little fun and even more God this game is just so like in depth and fun you beat the level after you beat a level you saved it from corruption

[00:48:45] then you can go back into that level but as the uncorrupted version of it and then you can build things inside the level that give you additional items to level your characters up and level your allies up and then make the land you know more free and uncorrupted

[00:48:59] and then you're working towards 100% rebuilding that area but you can also replay that area as it was corrupted just to go through and get those extra things that I talked about got it so every level you can really play like three or four different times

[00:49:12] and the game is really asking you to do that in order to get 100% which I plan on doing you're going to get a thousand in this one you know I'm looking at it now and how long to beat has the main story at 11 and a half hours

[00:49:23] main plus extra is 18 and a half hours so depending on how you look at it eight hours in this game you're almost halfway through if not more than does not feel like it at all so I can't tell if I've just been really like messing around

[00:49:35] which I probably have to be honest or if it maybe really picks up later on I'm at this point now to where I think things are ramping up they're introducing bosses and stronger monsters that are faster clipped than they did previously so maybe it just like goes

[00:49:50] read the really fast into the back end of the game but I do see as well when I looked at the achievements beforehand there's a new game plus and one of the achievements I think is to like beat every level with all of the separate optional objectives

[00:50:03] in regular game and new game plus okay so the game is asking you a lot yeah that's amazing I'm saying that's a lot I don't want to talk about Flintlock yet because I just you know spent the last 20 minutes you know just vomiting over how great

[00:50:18] you know this game was from Capcom I wanna know I'll talk about it a little bit okay I'll talk about a little bit later on a little later on all right that's fine so Flintlock is the other thing that you had on I've been uh I've been gaming

[00:50:29] I think capital G gaming playing some games I've been playing some games I've been doing a lot of stuff nothing like wildly new from what folks who have been like paying super close attention now obviously you know we we have our chance to talk about

[00:50:41] the games that we've been playing on other shows but for us we haven't really had the opportunity because we had the the Dragon's Dog 2 and the Tales of Kanzara review back to back so it's been a couple weeks since I've been able to share

[00:50:52] what we have been up to what I have been up to obviously playing Tales of Kanzara you know we did the review on that I said on the review I get the platinum but that's just to be clear for everybody I did you know do that

[00:51:03] so that's another one to the list and great game you should play it we have obviously my thoughts are on that episode so please you know go back to that episode and show it some love do it hopefully there was an issue this is definitely FYI

[00:51:17] to all of our listeners out there there's an issue with our hosting platform that caused only 19 minutes of the hour and a half long episode that we recorded for that game to be uploaded but I fixed it I updated it on my phone it's still only playing 19 minutes

[00:51:32] for whatever reason I don't know if like is it a stop or is it still playing through that it's not playing through it oh weird okay yeah it will on a desktop app but on my phone application there's an issue so but on Apple Apple podcasts

[00:51:46] if you have that you know platform dear listeners or if you have good pods whatever it may be you can always try it somewhere else and it should be able to play so I don't know Spotify just kind of is a little weird sometimes but yeah obviously

[00:51:57] I've been playing that and then you know beat that I have had Bellatra Bellatra was a gift that was given to me by the wonderful Rick Firestone he was super thankful for me joining for the Xeno saga series and so he decided to

[00:52:09] bless me up a little bit and I'm so thankful for that because I've been eyeballing this I know people popped off at the very beginning this year it's the same time frame for Persona 3 and a couple of other you know big titles you know

[00:52:20] like a dragon infinite wealth that came out and Bellatra is just it's a really really fun card game that's designed around just being a poker roguelike so the idea is that you there there are eight stages on every run that you do and every run that you do

[00:52:37] you know as you progressively go up it has essentially a score system that you have to score a certain amount and you have to meet conditions to beat what the like boss cards so you have three different chances to or no excuse me two chances

[00:52:52] in a small blind and a big blind before you place the what they call like the boss blind Oh we're playing cards cards we're playing we're playing freaking cards every so we're talking about like you know so yeah gambling everything that you know

[00:53:05] about poker is applied to this game but it's like really easily understood like they make it very easy to understand they have reference charts in there that you can click on to be like oh what's the three of a kind what's a full house that sort of thing

[00:53:17] so if you're not if you're a little younger and you haven't played card games which unfortunately you know iPad kids probably haven't dying breathe you know that if you wanted to jump into this game it's very easy to kind of understand what it's asking of you

[00:53:29] you know the difference between straights and flushes you know in as you progress they have different types of decks that you can play with that allow you to build your deck in a certain way and so the idea is is that you want to build your deck

[00:53:45] to allow you to like score points and then the wild card factor that's included in Bellatro is they have a Joker system which kind of is built into this rogue light element so Jokers are special cards that you can purchase throughout every single run and the idea is

[00:54:01] is that like the game what it's kind of leading you towards is they want you to unlock all of the Joker is that's kind of like the true progression system you don't have to to win this game but the idea is is that every new Joker

[00:54:11] you unlock allows you more custom customization to your build to your run and it will allow you to buff your cards or you know increase your points in very specific ways and there are different type of scoring systems that are applied there so like there is like

[00:54:28] ways where Jokers can add the base amount of points that are counted whenever you finish a play or it will multiply your base score by a certain amount so there are things that do that there are special cards as you can get called spectral cards

[00:54:43] that like can drastically influence your run and either boost you over the edge to being like having a god like deck build or decimate what you had tried to do so like the spectral cards are ones where it's like you're taking a real gamble by using it

[00:54:56] but they're the most powerful cards in the game if you were lucky enough to build your deck in a way that is going to be enhanced by those later on so yeah it's like like for example a lot of the spectral cards will be like

[00:55:07] you know they'll lay out like 12 cards above the screen and then you have your choice of spectral cards and some may be like you know turn one card into another that's a tarot card where it's like take take two cards and turn the left card

[00:55:20] into the right card so you have a duplicate of those two cards in your deck or like the tarot like the spectral cards will be like turn every card on this list into a single suit so if you're playing a run where it's like

[00:55:33] you have a bunch of jokers that are kind of economized in a way that will multiply heart heart cards that you play on whatever run that you're doing by three then if you say it will change to every suit and you get lucky enough

[00:55:48] in one out of four of the suits that you have in your deck and it comes with a heart card then every card that you see on that screen turns out heart you're basically building yourself yeah for money in that run there is a money system

[00:56:00] so like actually like you're earning points you're earning actual like coins every time you finish a run and it adds up like however because you have this system where it's like you have five amount of plays where you can like or usually the baseline is four

[00:56:17] and then you can increase that depending on how you spend your money in the shop but like you have four plays and then you have like three discards and certain decks will give you more discards than plays and some decks will like decrease the amount of discards

[00:56:30] that you have so like if you have a discard you have like a hand and you're like I have a lot of I have a garbage hand let me get rid of some of these cards that's what a discard is and you use one of those

[00:56:38] and so depending on how many of those you have left when you've beaten that specific blind then you get money like five bucks per remaining discard that you might have so like that's kind of how they do it but then you can get jokers that are like

[00:56:52] oh if you played a gold card if you played like and this is just kind of spitball this isn't a real joker but it for example like if you played all spades this run it'll give you like four there's a joker that out there that you can get

[00:57:04] that literally says after every single blind you play you get automatically four dollars added to your total okay and that adds up because when you go into the shop you can buy tarot cards you can buy joker packs that give you like you can choose between

[00:57:18] one to two and then jumbo joker packs you know you can choose one out of four and that kind of gives you a little bit more variety especially if you're hunting for a specific joker because when you unlock them they stay in your list

[00:57:30] and you can be like oh well I was really successful and the game tells you what jokers you actually run won the fifth the eighth ante is what it's called like every level is referred to as an ante and so you know if you

[00:57:43] if you did a complete run like I have at one point in this game it'll say it'll give you a little indicator on that joker like this is the one that got you over the edge and so it's about kind of finding those jokers making those combinations

[00:57:55] and like earning honestly as much money as you can at the beginning to get through the end but it's awesome the system is really cool I think you would enjoy it's a very layback on the couch play on your handheld PC type game like it's very chill

[00:58:08] you're gonna play that on the ally yeah yeah I've been playing a lot of on the ally and then I actually it's funny when I edit if it shows like this where it's just me and you and there's not a ton of variables

[00:58:18] or like a lot of editing I have to do I'll play Bellacher while I'm editing I'll just turn the music off and then just listen to our show while I'm editing and just go back and forth but good game highly recommend for folks

[00:58:27] who want to check it out on Steam next game because we are running pretty long on the show so far we're almost an hour in I played Assassin's Creed Mirage I got the platinum in Assassin's Creed Mirage this is a really good game that took me 40 hours

[00:58:41] to use the platinum if I wasn't going for the platinum run I guarantee you would have taken me 20 hours to just finish the campaign I would have just gone all the way through I would have been one and done just in and out of the game

[00:58:52] Mirage in my opinion is the perfect formula of what you want on an Assassin's Creed game it gives you all the history of the region that the game setting takes place in it gives you the intrigue of the order of the ancients that's occurred

[00:59:06] in almost all of the rebooted ones it's in Origins it's in Odyssey and it's also in Mirage I'm assuming the order of ancients is also going to be in Shadows when that comes out later this year that would make sense but it's like you know basically

[00:59:18] you're looking at like five bosses five assassinations missions that you have to work your way up to go on and they have a really cool investigation system where it's like you go do the little side missions that give you bits and pieces to figuring out oh you know

[00:59:32] Alamut is like the the harbour master he's the one that's orchestrating all this stuff it's so cool in Bassem as a character to me like he stood out to me when I played Valhalla because he is a recurring character he kind of was the one that brought Avor

[00:59:46] into the fold of the assassins you know in the game Assassin's Creed Valhalla and then now this game is exploring his past what happened to him there is a reveal at the end of this game that is really cool but I also don't understand like

[01:00:03] what it means to like the rest of the lore for Assassin's Creed because I've been so far beyond like the last one that I completed and played all the way through was three and that had a hot ending of a hot mess of an ending

[01:00:17] and it was just yeah and then you're playing Black Flag as a Templar like what's going on we don't really understand so it's just like a lot of the Assassin's Creed lore at this point is kind of very lost into the ethos

[01:00:31] and that's something that I really enjoyed about this game is that you don't go to the present day that's good there's no present day in this game there's no Leila there's no you know running around and talking to people and outside of the animus

[01:00:44] before you get back in the animus there's desynchronization you can desync in this game I've died several times yeah you kill civilians you kill civilians you desynchronize can you actually straight up attack civilians or is it just if you accidentally like clip into them something

[01:00:57] because I remember like back in the old day you can swing your sword around you can like assassinate civilians you can't do that but if you're swinging your sword around in a public square and you'll you'll hit them clip somebody yeah you'll clip somebody

[01:01:07] or like one of the achievements is pulling down a scaffolding you can pull down scaffolding on civilians and a lot of scaffolders around a heavy foot traffic area and so I've killed a couple by that in the game was like hey don't do that because you're very bad

[01:01:20] you're very bad we don't like that don't don't do that kitten but yeah no Assassin's Creed and the tool kit system they have the daggers they have the blowdarts they have the traps as you can arm and then obviously noisemakers to like push guards in various directions

[01:01:37] I love that and like the organization of how they it was very explorative when you're going in your crouch mode and you're walking for meters like we were talking about earlier talking about yeah your thighs are burning but like exploring the different maps where you have to like

[01:01:52] go on the outside of the building and just systematically wipe out the guards I love that that was probably the highlight for me in this game but yeah strongly recommend for OG Assassin's Creed fans to if they want a experience that's not going to take them

[01:02:03] 120 hours to finish Mirage is very good I'm curious too with Mirage now I was interested and I did a little bit of research while we were chatting about it yeah one of my favorite things from the more modern day Assassin's Creed are the Discovery Tours

[01:02:15] which they I think ended up making also like a separate thing if you just want to go and explore the area and the time frame and just kind of hear some of the history and information without having to fight enemies or worry about hiding and things

[01:02:27] like you can literally just explore Greece, Egypt and the Viking Age and just see what happened around that time it sounds like there's not something there for Mirage but maybe there's something similar called historical sites did you really get into those at all while you were playing

[01:02:43] historical sites are markers on the map and they're what you need to fully explore the map to get the platinum they're one of the things that you have to do and I loved that that was one of my favorite parts yeah it's like kind of virtual tourism

[01:02:54] going around and learning about it and that's one of the highlights again you know when I talk about history the history is here for this game learning about the it's like I think they call it like it's in the 9th century of history according to the Christian calendar

[01:03:08] but it's like 16 CE which is referred to as like the Caliphate era if I'm not mistaken and so it's one of like probably the 16th line of the Caliphates that is existing in Baghdad during the place when Basim is going around and fighting and you know doing the

[01:03:25] Assassin's Creed stuff there and yeah I loved it there were so many cool moments where you're wandering around and it's like you know you go to the historical site and it's explaining you know what the harem is and like what the harem's role is

[01:03:37] in Baghdad at this point in history or it's explaining you know the trade and commerce that was coming in and out of Baghdad and like how the markets there are one of the most important and pivotal markets of the of like Asia period at that time

[01:03:52] because so much trade was kind of the crux of going through Baghdad awesome and something that you know was really interesting is that they developed a lot of modern surgical techniques back in the day there's a whole area called House of the Wisdom

[01:04:06] and it was one of the biggest most it was like a university before universities existed you know they had dozens of scholars there's an entire assassination mission that takes place in the House of Wisdom but then they had they had like evil order of the ancient doctors

[01:04:20] that were experimenting on people but there are different historical markers that you pick up throughout the way that talk about how doctors during this era discovered way more surgical techniques I mean we're talking about this is the same point in time where you know monarchs in Europe

[01:04:36] are getting blood dry by leeches yeah you know and they're and the doctors at the time and they had you know doctors in Baghdad that were performing cataract surgery they had had doctors that were literally able to perform open heart surgery at this point in time

[01:04:48] like they had so many advancements and the unfortunate truth of the Middle East is that so much of that because of war and of conflict in that area both amongst other Middle Eastern you know ethnicities or tribes or you know religious organizations at that time

[01:05:05] so much of that is lost history said that you know that's just that's how human history plays out is that you know we reloading we're at spawn so many times who's to who's to say you know how far we would be if like the library of Alexandria

[01:05:18] was still around still existed right telling me anyway moving on Assassin's Creed Mirage play it it's worth your time if you're a Assassin's Creed Ubisoft fan it's not it's not just a drivel it's it's worth it last game that I want to talk about

[01:05:29] to move us along the show is still wakes the deep this is a horror game of the highest order and a horror game in July I know in July of all the audacity or for me doing that this is a game that really popped off to me

[01:05:43] during a lot of the Xbox showcases that were leading up to it this is produced by the Chinese Room it is a first person walking sim that takes place on a Scottish oil rig during the 1970s incredibly cool game all right it is this game is so detailed

[01:06:00] I will say to all listeners there are you know the Chinese Room you know haven't they're not at the level of a lot of like first-party Sony developing studios are in terms of like you know I guess kind of like the clarity or like the resolution of assets

[01:06:16] but I say when they have like kind of what you were talking about with Kenizu Gami like it's not the prettiest game you've ever seen but the art direction is there that remains to be true with Still Wakes the Deep Still Wakes the Deep is absolutely gorgeous

[01:06:27] I post screenshots online I'm doing like you were saying with Rashid and Klank every room I'm going to I'm snapping pictures like a virtual photographer in there it's it's really interesting just kind of the premise of this game is that you are an oil rig electrician

[01:06:44] and you're kind of you took this job because your friend recommended it to you and you're actually have some legal trouble on the mainland of Scotland and you know throughout this game you're essentially trying to go around there's an introductory area that you kind of walk through

[01:06:59] to give you kind of the scope and the layout of the ship and then the drill hits something under the water which causes the drill to kind of like malfunction and come back up into the rig and destabilizes it and what comes along with it but this fleshy

[01:07:16] horror thing that you don't quite understand but then things start going seriously wrong and so kind of like your job is to traverse through the ship find the survivors make things happen and this game has a lot of go here and do stuff

[01:07:31] the same way that the original Dead Space does and so you know playing that Dead Space remake like Isaac Clark and I think Kaz is the name of the main character here there's a lot of similarities here and there's even a moment

[01:07:45] where there's an NBC that is like Kaz we need you to go down to engineering and you need to lift the leg so we can stabilize the boat and hold on hold on hold on before we go where'd the accent come from sir that was not bad

[01:07:58] that was not bad no it was not bad no but that client with the accent sounds like he was listening this time it was paying attention yeah I was paying attention I'm trying to do a little bit better than the sign but it's easier than an Irish accent

[01:08:10] that's for sure that's not going to be crazy that's not going to go crazy pause pause you're done you're done all right no it's good there is a moment where Kaz is asked to go do something on the ship and Kaz is like fuck you go do it

[01:08:22] you go do it yourself yep yep and yeah yeah and literally it's like I felt so seen as a player at that moment because like Isaac Clark he's like I get why people complain about Dead Space sometimes because he's like a superhero they're like

[01:08:35] Isaac go out on the outside of the space station go fucking kill a god out there he's like I got my plasma this so my plasma cutter let's go and that's not the case here you feel they do an a great job at building dread overwhelming dread

[01:08:50] as you go through the different areas I played with my headphones on I played with the Xbox branded audio headset and I will say I've had issues with that headset in other games before not in this game all right yeah there's not a lot of sync issues

[01:09:02] so the the 3d audio really got me and it really pulled me in and I just I can't say enough of how much fun it is this is a very short game eight hours on how long to beat for the main story it's literally just you know

[01:09:13] you're walking through it there is you know to to you know do a little critiquing there is a lot of like you know retreading old ground that you've already been to they were using a lot of the same spaces the difference is

[01:09:24] is that those spaces change every time because the oil rig is rapidly deteriorating as you're going on as you're trying to escape off of it so it's this is really really well worth anybody who is interested in those like those type of horror titles and getting stuff done

[01:09:40] and that's going to be it for gaming updates for the week nice well how are you feeling I'm feeling pretty good can't complain honestly you were talking earlier when I was you know just gushing over a kitsu almost called a kitsu gaomi kinnitsu gaomi kinnitsu yeah

[01:09:52] and I'm like I don't know looking a little bit of still wakes the deep you've been talking about it for the last couple of weeks I was like hey if you're going to jump into kinnitsu gaomi then I might boot up

[01:10:01] still wakes the deep and check that out too especially with the making the dead space comparisons you know what you're doing yeah I'm like he's trying to sell me on it there's a lot there's a lot and you're not completely defenseless in this game

[01:10:12] so there's a lot that you can do to kind of like manipulate the area throwable objects that sort of thing but since we've covered our gaming updates for the week and we've refreshed everyone with what we've been into oh and I had that that's everything that I've beaten

[01:10:26] I have an in progress list that I won't get into obviously I have a bolded and italicized got to finish fire and limb fates I'm at the tail end of this game I got like two levels left so I'm really excited to see how that wraps up

[01:10:38] what happens hopefully it's like you know done overall I have probably mentioned this on content somewhere before but I have like 30 hours in unicorn overlord similar to kinnitsu gaomi for you I put 30 hours in over the course of like three or four days

[01:10:54] like I was binging that game and I was like this is a problem I gotta put it in I was in it and then also for our digit hated episode I've purchased and I have started ostras wrath how far you're beginning it I am on the level where

[01:11:08] you are essentially going it's not they're doing some tutorialization but you're basically being taught by the master who's one of the he's like the guy with like the he looks like the monkey king and he's got a sword he's got a sword on his back argus yeah

[01:11:22] yeah argus yeah he's really cool no this game that game puts you into the thick of it like when you start immediately immediately I'm in space and I'm f***ing diving down to earth and I'm like argh I'm like wait a second wait a second

[01:11:34] this game is actually really f***ing cool this is immediate res the video game like we're there it's it's really interesting as I was playing through ostras wrath I was like because I'm coming off of doing xenosaga with rick firestone and how deeply like down the rabbit hole

[01:11:50] that the game got into you know proto christianity and narcissism and a lot of like you know how they were able to pull in you know like really really core concepts of like judaism and other like philosophy aspects into that game I was like

[01:12:04] I could probably do a dissertation in ostras wrath about how many buddhist easily and hindu hindu like references that they're having in this game both with the art direction as well as like the narrative they're pulling into like they're leaning heavily on like buddhist myth buddhist mythology

[01:12:21] and like hindu you know hindu religious you know iconography in that game it's really cool and it goes deep it's so it's so well done so that's been really cool and you know last but not least man I restarted balder's gate 3 I have been binging

[01:12:35] you you talk about wanting to go back to all you want to do is play kinesio I don't want to eat I don't want to sleep I just want to play balder's fucking gate 3 welcome to 2023 holy shit I am 35 hours in that game

[01:12:48] I'm not done with act one yet I haven't caught all the other companions yet I haven't gone to the goblin camp and gotten house in yet but I'm just like I'm pouring over the map I got past where I was already at

[01:13:00] you know when I first started it last year I've I've you know gotten companions I finally found carlac she's in the fold she's awesome I'm doing the carlac laze ill shadow heart run you already know what it is right already people say will's cool will's really cool

[01:13:13] of course he's got he's got an interesting thing to him and then gale is uh he's eating my fucking magic items he pissing me off honestly and then asterian he's got a lot of really cool stuff that's included in his backlog they they just give you a party

[01:13:26] of broken people and they're like have fun yep exactly it's so good I understand I mean I understand now why so much praise was heaped on this last year I had an inkling of a clue back then now I fully un now I fully say

[01:13:39] that you're actually sold like you're locked into it because you're good but that's it we don't really have to go further more into it because we're an hour and 15 in the episode let's go ahead and take a quick break and then we're going to get into

[01:13:51] our main topic of this episode which is our mid-year check-in what are our games of the year so far for 2024 stay tuned what's up everybody and we are back after that quick music break to talk about our main topic of the show which is our mid-year check-in

[01:14:28] what is the 2024 game of the year so far so in order to have this conversation we need to know a couple of things obviously what are the top games that we're looking at for 2024 what do we think are like the cream of the crop

[01:14:42] of all of the drivel because you know we've gone through the game spot and the game informer list so everything comes out there's a lot of shovelware out there but what are the cream of the crop games so far this year and obviously

[01:14:51] what is left to come out we'll talk about that a little bit later in terms of games we're looking forward to do they have the potential to move the needle so far but will let's start with you what are your cream of the crop games

[01:15:02] of the year for 2024 so far all right so in no particular order got one that we've talked about already before in great detail good old Kinnitsugami I honestly have not beaten this game yet obviously we talked about it a little bit but

[01:15:15] I still think it's one of my top games the 2024 I am so that's so interesting enthralled with this game like I am just on one and you know maybe in a couple of weeks I'm just like yeah I was kind of tweaking it's not that good but

[01:15:27] as it stands and I mean generally if a game's got me it's got me early on I'm like this is you know gonna be something special so I am putting Kinnitsugami even without beating it so far in one of my top games the 2024 I'm loving this game

[01:15:40] of course I've talked at length about Dragon's Dogma 2 so although I know you and I don't necessarily share that viewpoint on it I thoroughly enjoy this game from the you know 120 plus hours that I put into it getting into that end game just having fun without the characters

[01:15:56] and being able to really put my stamp on this world and just have fun with it so I love Dragon's Dogma is it gonna win game of the year I know it ain't I know it's not but it is one of my top games of 2024

[01:16:06] talked about Tales of Kin Zero of course we had that episode please go back and listen to that one with Danny B but man Tales is a really fun game too it's something that I almost put it on my later section where we were gonna talk about

[01:16:18] some surprise in games but from seeing it I knew it was gonna be some kind of quality I didn't know how much I was gonna enjoy and the big thing comes from parts that we talked about even before the review such as the voice acting yeah

[01:16:31] and then the the story itself just how emotionally you know in depth the story itself actually was versus just being a Metroidvania where normally you're running around back and forth having a good time just attacking enemies but really the draw was that story yeah the parallels between the

[01:16:46] bosses that you're fighting and what Zau was going through and of course what Zuberi is going through during their actual loss of their father so fantastic game all in all love tales since easily on my top games of 2024 and of course we're gonna talk about the big dog

[01:17:02] game that you and I both have on our top list the game that I'm repping you can't see me right now you know listeners but I'm repping these he's dripped out he's dripped out right now we'd love to see it courtesy of moms mom shout out to you

[01:17:14] for giving me the Helldivers merch you got the shirt letting it rain on them and I got a nice cup of liberty so this is easily easily if you you know were alive in the last four months you've heard about Helldivers it had people in a chokehold

[01:17:31] you know children were born with the name John Helldiver you know they had people breaking up over this game there were there were entire video trends about how how to how to talk to your partner while they're playing Helldivers too you know you know

[01:17:48] you want to talk about the automatons and the term is you know make sure that you're telling them to spill oil yeah you have to save Malevolon Creek no or remember it depending on when you're right so that's right now Helldivers it is lightning in a bottle

[01:18:01] I'm gonna talk about it more so I don't want to spill all of it here but it is just a blast of a game still to this day still very well supported yeah and it's easily a top game of 2024 for me 100% I couldn't agree with you

[01:18:13] more about the Helldivers that's why it's on my list for top games of the year so far in contention if you were in 2023 a year of bangers honestly and you were to look me in my eyes and say Nick you're gonna play a PvE third person shooter

[01:18:28] multiplayer game and you're gonna fucking love it next year I would have called you a liar you talk Matthew upside ahead I'd be like you're out of your mind I'm kidding I would never hit somebody I would never strike someone in anger no but I

[01:18:41] I love this game for the same reasons that you love it of course I connect with it I feel like on a different level but I love the camp to it I love the kind of like the friendship level of being able to casually play this game

[01:18:54] like you can casually play Helldivers 2 you can be a sweat in Helldivers to and play on Helldiver mode Super hard mode you can do play super hard mode you know and you can save super earth you can you know protect from the terminated threat but you know

[01:19:07] you can you can do a lot in this game but I I think I really most got enjoyment because we don't get that many chances to play games together because we're such you know first single player game fans that were usually off doing one thing or another

[01:19:18] and we you know and that's the same reason why I had a good time you know when I was playing Battlefield 2042 is that not great game but I was having fun because I was with you I was with Phillip I was with the the friends the the team

[01:19:28] you know you guys definitely make it worthwhile for me to get in there but Helldivers 2 100% goes a long way towards making that fun whether it's from like the vocal notes from your low and fall you know coming in there or you know any game that has the player

[01:19:42] hold the trigger down while you're releasing you know spending a full clip into an automaton and then the character in the game is like ah like come on now come on you can't you can't beat that you can't it's so good you know another game that it's like

[01:19:57] you cannot understate the quality of this game or the importance you know the cultural like relevance of this game and that's Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth that game definitely it's not a perfect game of 2024 it's not a perfect Final Fantasy game I feel like you talk to any

[01:20:15] Final Fantasy fan everyone is going to have a different opinion on what was the best game out there what are the ones that does it best but I think like what Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth does the best is that it shows deference and it shows you know

[01:20:30] it treats itself like a really important step and a really important changing point in the Final Fantasy 7 lore which is expansive at this point Final Fantasy 7 lore is kind of like Star Wars lore it it is ballooning you know it's becoming more complicated as the years go on

[01:20:46] but it's really cool when we talk about the combat and the gameplay Final Fantasy 7 has that thing unlock the ATB system switching in between that real-time combat very similar to what you know will of you know playing in Final Fantasy 7 remake but they added additional layers with like

[01:21:03] new types of summons that you can bring into this game as well as the synergy system that I install which means that as you go throughout this game as you build up clouds level and you increase clouds you know his uh what do they call it it's like

[01:21:18] the relationship status between yeah you can collect new materia too and that helps your different weapons and swords that you upgrade because you do upgrade your weapons it's a it's a true RPG you're upgrading your weapons but as you you know connect with the

[01:21:30] different characters in the game and you build your relationship your synergy with that person gets stronger and it allows you to unlock super moves in any given skill tree as you traverse throughout the game and when I talk about some of the coolest shit that I've ever seen

[01:21:44] those synergy moves are amazing specifically like cloud and tifa synergy moves she's you're throwing her up in the air and she's decimating like tanks and stuff like there is incredibly cool stuff and there are like secret um there are secret limit breakers

[01:22:00] that you can unlock as you go out for like every all of the characters that are just insane they're they're so cool like so there's a lot of anime you know hype that's in Final Fantasy 7 and I feel like they need to lean into that more

[01:22:13] like let's not get too serious with this let's just get campy with it you know whether you're in Costa del Sol or you're in Mount Corel cool weird enemies come back to back and like the boss rush in this game is insane love it the cool the just

[01:22:26] the level of hype that they get to towards the end of the game too and it's like they hit those peaks of that frantic frenetic gameplay but then they have like the you go into the valley and and then you're hit with these emotionally poignant

[01:22:41] moments between people that I would never cared about in a million years if you're gonna tell me same way you would enjoy Helldivers 2 and 2023 if you were to look at me and say Nick Barrett is going to be one of your favorite video game characters by 2024

[01:22:52] I've been like you're lying to me there's no way but somehow they managed to make that true so Final Fantasy 7 it's it's quality at its core Persona 3 reloaded another banger for this year a remake of Persona 3 if you ever played it back in the day I did not

[01:23:09] this is like my first full blown I've put 60 you know I haven't put that much hours yeah I put a lot of hours into Persona 3 so far I am not that far in this game yeah I'm not that far in this game

[01:23:23] but they have a really cool system for folks who know about Persona you know about it you know about like the quality of like the relationship systems and how fighting the the different shadows and everything as you're going up the Tower of Tartarus you know changes and evolves

[01:23:36] as you go throughout the game how you unlock more abilities and how there's a lot more Pokemon in Persona than you would imagine and they have a little you know system where you can fuse together Personas in order to create new ones really cool stuff like you can't

[01:23:50] you can't beat Persona in terms of like the JRPG goodness that's there the next one on my top of the game the year is 2024 so far game we've mentioned already in this episode that we'll continue probably talking about towards the end that's your Hellblade 2 incredible title

[01:24:05] we have an entire review on this game on the Gaming Together podcast I joined Naive and Philip Philip didn't enjoy it that much but Naive and I enjoyed it for reasons that were kind of antithetical and also you know our enjoyment Hellblade 2 as I reflect on it

[01:24:19] both Naive and my own I think he said that on a different podcast that he's been on that the game has fallen in his estimation like it's still an A tier for his game rankings if you're following him on Twitter but like it's fallen a little bit

[01:24:33] for me it's stayed relatively consistent but I think about Hellblade 2 and I appreciate Hellblade 2 in the similar ways that when going back and listening to our Dragons Dogma 2 episode you and Matt enjoyed Dragons Dogma 2 for what it is I met Hellblade 2 I think at its level

[01:24:50] whereas I feel like people it's very easy game to go in and expect something more then you're gonna get out of it so that's one of the reasons why I like it a lot but it's still fantastic game and it's very short

[01:25:00] and it's very well worth your time the acting the graphical fidelity like I don't think a prettier game has come out this year which is saying something a lot, I'm saying a lot when Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is on my list you know which is

[01:25:12] so we're talking like some incredible stuff here and Unicorn Overlord Unsung Banger this is gonna be something that's gonna fall off lists it's gonna fall off lists people aren't gonna play it's gonna fall off lists but they're doing a lot more on a narrative and like they're combining

[01:25:28] real time strategy with like tactical turn based strategy in a way I've never seen before awesome and they're doing it in a way that's just like it's hitting the right notes for me a fire emblem stand you know at its core so Unicorn Overlord

[01:25:41] it's gotta be on my list top game 2024 so far moving on we have to talk about a hard topic what's disappointing to you this year what what has just you you were you were ready for something to hold the cradle of greatness

[01:25:57] and lift the trophy up into the air but something that just let you down instead drop it what are what is a game that did that to you and it's funny you were just talking about it there too you know maybe same reason that Phil

[01:26:08] and honestly I listened to the episode and so far because I have not beaten yet I am on that same level but Hellblade 2 unfortunately it has been a disappointment not that it's been a bad game I'm not gonna sit here and say that Hellblade is a

[01:26:20] you know 4 out of 5 or 4 sorry 4 out of 10 something like that because one I haven't beaten it yet so it could easily pick back up right you gotta meet your own standards right 100% but the big thing for me is the the reason why it's a disappointment is because

[01:26:32] I haven't beaten it yet I have lots of things that have been taking me away from games and I can easily get distracted however the original Hellblade was a game that because it's so short and because I liked it a lot I sat there grinded through it

[01:26:46] beat it immediately loved it I expected to do the same thing with Hellblade 2 and it just did not have that same kind of hook initially yeah I can't say that it didn't try but for whatever reason it did not give me that same feeling of

[01:27:01] man I have to see what happens next like you know that that turn the page feeling when you're watching a really good TV show or you're reading a really good book and you're just like okay it's two o'clock in the morning

[01:27:12] but I just gotta see what's around the corner what's happening this I know Hellblade did not do that to me I got to I think it's technically the second level I'm in this village I did the the normal little hey you're highlighting

[01:27:23] the runes that are in the sky which is standard fare so you're gonna do a lot more of that yeah doing a ton of that in Hellblade right that's what they do so I did that was cool and then I went to the next area

[01:27:32] but I got there and I was just like I think I'm good for the night like I turned it off and have not booted it up since in fact I pass it every time I go to play Konnichi-gammi or you know when I checked out a flintlock

[01:27:44] a little bit earlier last night too but it's a game that I will beat it by the end of this year in fact I wouldn't be surprised if I probably beat it by the end of August but it's just once again not something that's singing out to me

[01:27:56] I would love for it to prove me wrong and for me to come back and jump into it I had this happen to me when I played the first Horizon Zero Dawn Horizon Zero Dawn did not hook me and then I came back to it

[01:28:06] after a couple of months and then I just feasted like I 100% plat in that game yeah so maybe Hellblade 2 is gonna do the same but right now it's not giving me the hook and I know it's short so I have no excuse to be like

[01:28:17] why I can't beat it in a week or two you know I started and beat retch and clank after starting Hellblade and that kind of whatever I hate that do that to a game that's generally what happened and I'm like oh man that's gonna tough

[01:28:30] if I start a game after I start this it didn't hook you in and then I beat it beforehand I'm like oof there's something not clicking and that's just the issue there interesting yeah I mean I can't fault you for you know the issues that Hellblade has

[01:28:42] obviously you know it's not it could have been so much more than it is I expected it because of just listening to developer interviews and everything like that that they're gonna redo or retread a lot of ground that they had already done this year

[01:28:56] and it you know I will say and I made it on the review I still think that Senua's Sacrifice is the superior of the two titles regardless of the fact that you know from an emotional standpoint and I don't necessarily think that from a gameplay standpoint

[01:29:10] I think they they evolved in the way that they allow the player to get through a lot of the gameplay and they did that through simplicity and I think that rubs people the wrong way in a lot some people really enjoy puzzle games I like puzzle games

[01:29:24] just as much as the next person but like I'm not gonna be like oh that puzzle didn't take me 15 hours to complete you know and get upset about it it's not the witness exactly this is not the witness that's I don't really think that even was the scope

[01:29:35] they were going for the combat and the puzzles are more set dressing to just like watching the narrative experience of what Senua is going through could they have changed things in the narrative sure but I I think yeah I enjoyed what we got and kind of the explorative

[01:29:51] kind of thinking about the symbolism and like what different moments of her journey meant and helped lead to more than I think some other folks out there but I got this so we you have already brought this up on the show so far at this point obviously

[01:30:05] if you'd listen to any of our content in Dragon's Dogma 2 obviously a review episode with Matt Storm again it was fantastic I think it was a very worthwhile review and a review that you're not gonna get on most main mainstream podcasts out there

[01:30:18] we're giving you the real business professionals on that one I clearly am not high on Dragon's Dogma 2 and I will probably continue to not be as high on it despite you know cool stuff that I can go back and explore whether it's through New Game Plus

[01:30:32] or the unbound world I think there's really cool stuff that you can find in this game it wills making a really funny face at me right now he is he is just so fucking pissed at me that I've continued to double down on disliking Dragon's Dogma 2

[01:30:45] I just think that like for me it was a disappointment to the extent that I put as many hours into it I was thinking back on it and genuinely I'm not sure how Matt got through the game as far as they did at 30 hours

[01:30:58] I think Matt said that it was like 31 hours or 32 hours that they beat the entire storyline and I'm just like I was scratching my head at that because I was 60 hours deep into that game and I hadn't even fought the Dragon yet so I was like

[01:31:12] I was trying to play with the different class systems the party systems there's a lot of secrets in the game there's stuff that you can explore but it just the fabric of the web that they were weaving out over there at Capcom

[01:31:25] under the It's a No Helmed team just didn't hit for me so when we talk about disappointments I was disappointed that it didn't hit for me because of how I've heard you talk about Dragon's Dogma so far I wanted it to work for me so badly

[01:31:38] I wanted to love this game I ended up not loving this game I still think it's a quality game when I go on my game ranking lists for the year so far you know Dragon's Dogma 2 it's a 6 out of 10 for me that's a passing that's a passing

[01:31:52] that's a D score yeah that's true that's a D on a 10 point scale so you know that's and Bellattro also gets a 6 and you just listened to me talk at length about how cool that game is I just don't necessarily think they're moving

[01:32:04] the needle when it comes to either RPGs or action RPGs in a way that I would have hoped that they did so that's just that's where I stand that's my opinion I'm comfortable with being wrong in some people's eyes there you go there you go

[01:32:17] let's move on to our biggest surprise for 2024 so far Will it seems like you might reach out a little bit old ground but put us put us on there what's your supplies these two games that I just love so much and honestly one I openly trash talked

[01:32:32] in Helldivers 2 like when we saw it in 2020 and they were like oh this is what's coming out next year or no sorry 2023 I guess when they were like oh this was coming out in 2024 and they showed off Helldivers 2 I had never seen Helldivers 1 didn't know about it

[01:32:46] they showed some guys running around with capes on an alien world shooting bugs and I was like this is some it's a top down isometric yeah exactly what is this trash this is gonna be bad can't believe this stuff is coming out and I've never eaten crow

[01:33:01] so easily in my entire life just because people came out and they were talking about it and they were loving on it and they were sending out all this cool fan art people were doing clips and it just felt like such a refreshing time of gaming

[01:33:15] from like what early in the year was it February I think what it came out was it February or was it the end of January well Helldivers 2 was February yeah so like February through maybe April before things started kind of getting sour again unfortunately maybe May-ish

[01:33:27] but it was just such a refreshing time I felt like back in the day when me and friends would hop on Halo 2 and not even like play multiplayer but just you know play in lobbies with each other and just like mess around

[01:33:39] and look for you know bounce spots and kind of just explore the map yeah but what Helldivers yeah it was that same deal we had talked about before in the episode where you just get to come on with friends and have a great time

[01:33:49] and you don't put it on the super hard difficulty if you're not trying to go do that but you just shoot up enemies try out different weapons everything felt viable everything felt fun the stratagem that you can do with the DDR kind of you know pad inputs

[01:34:04] felt so cool and refreshing so everything about Helldivers 2 was just a huge surprise out of the gate for me I had no expectations the bar was in hell and it just lifted up can we get much higher like it had me floating up in the air

[01:34:21] so I was like that was a fantastic game and honestly in that same kind of vein once again I didn't hate on it because I didn't have it on my radar really at all but Kinnitsugami I saw that there was a demo recently didn't bother getting into it

[01:34:34] because I'm like I don't really care I don't even know what kind of game it is it's a game that we that was displayed numerous times we had no clue what it was had no idea what it was and I was like oh it's Capcom it's cool

[01:34:44] but like that was the you know the extent of the joke I made I was like it's Capcom sure it'll be fine but I had no intention of playing it till I booted it up on Game Pass which is you know once again shout out to Game Pass

[01:34:53] and I was like this is incredible if you had told me on paper this action you know tower defense game where you're fighting Oni as a you know mass swordsman and you're directing people to attack enemies and all the stuff up like

[01:35:09] it doesn't really sound like my speed I'm sure it's fine but no this is 100% my speed I'm dumping hours into this thing and I'm having a blast with it so yeah definitely a huge surprise for me this is just one of those things

[01:35:20] we know we talked about Game Pass during the news section and I think all of that still stands but for me right now Konnitsu Gami is a shining example of what Game Pass is for and what it does this is a game I probably would have completely skipped

[01:35:33] even if I'd like seen it come out and people were talking about it and doing things I don't know $45 Capcom game nobody would have touched yeah like I don't think this is a game honestly that shows its true strength as you watch someone play it

[01:35:44] or as you know maybe even someone explains it I'm glad that I could kind of you know lead you and sell you on it but I'm telling you right now listener if me gushing over this game for like the last hour and a half or so

[01:35:55] has not sold you on it and you have Game Pass give it a shot boot it up you're gonna see very quickly what kind of a game it is and then after an hour you know give it the classic one hour one decision right yeah

[01:36:06] out to the boys that's right and then I'd love to hear what they think honestly I think this is this is like a perfect one hour one decision game because in that first hour of gameplay you're gonna know whether you like it or not and I was like

[01:36:18] in I was sold in that hour so Konitsugami huge surprise for me loved it a lot about yourself what about some surprising games for you this year in 2024 I know we already said in a general year 2023 was great yeah looking for 2024

[01:36:33] to maybe kind of slow it down a little bit but there's definitely been some good surprises in here so what are you looking at so there's a game that I didn't include on my list for biggest surprise of this year because we played that game at PAX

[01:36:45] and I was like whoa hold on there's quality to this game there's some really cool shit going on and that was Animal Well yes Animal Well not only is a game that's built on its own secrets and surprises that are inside of the game

[01:36:56] but just the fact that it came out and it's from you know now YouTubers are out here making good Metroidvania it's like who would have thought you know from from video game Donkey you know obviously incredible game his publisher Big Mode they put that out that was fun

[01:37:09] but you know so it's hard for me to tell and be honest with our listeners and be like that was the biggest surprise for me because I knew it was going to be good from the moment that I put hands on the sticks over at PAX

[01:37:18] which was like why it's so fun to go up there and do the the coverage that we did at PAX but as we move forward you know obviously the games that I've played throughout the year there are a few things that I was frankly

[01:37:32] really surprised by and talked about obviously at this point I'm just kind of repeating what I talked about in terms of the top games of 2024 so far but Hill Divers 2 is legitimately a surprising game from the depth of the combat to the love and care that they put

[01:37:48] into the system and the world that they're expanding in the game the fact that I'm playing with you and then you're the you're the guy who like knows the rules you know the UI you know how to lay it out and so I load it into a game

[01:37:59] and Will is like all right I need you to look around I need you to pull up your mini map and there are going to be five markers on there they're going to be the little orange sectors that you have to go to

[01:38:06] and those are the ones that are going to have terminates or they're going to have you know automatons and they're guarding something we need to go there and clear the map out and I'm like whoa this is a 30 this is a 30 minute match

[01:38:16] I didn't know that you could do so much stuff in here instead of just playing objective right so there's so many cool stuff and obviously it's a game that's built on hype and I never would have anticipated that you know watching you jump out of like

[01:38:31] out of the bulwarks of a you know of a you know pillbox that's in the automaton factory area and be like and your character do a roll on the ground and you jump up and you're just unloading your incendiary break breaker you know onto these people

[01:38:44] there's just so much cool hypeness that's in that game that was a complete surprise to me so that's got to you know take in that category for sure you know Helldivers 2 is just such a good game you know another thing that I can't stress enough is that

[01:39:00] I never used to be a JRPG player back in the day I never used to be the person that was going to be like let me go play Ninja Ga... Ninja Ga is not a JRPG game but it is from Japan you know it's close

[01:39:11] I didn't have an older brother you know a Gen X family member that was like here why don't you go pick up the sticks for Final Fantasy 6 and play that like that I didn't have those influences back in the day I you know obviously Jalachan she's a huge

[01:39:26] huge fan of you know Shining Force and the Shining Force franchise the she's doing a review for that right now on Jalachan's place and that's kind of like the you know the precursor the the the pre-genitor to the Fire Emblem franchise right now but

[01:39:40] I only had known of Team Vanilla based on the work that they had done at 13 Sentinels Ages Rim and from what I know about Ages Rim is that it's largely a visual novel I'm assuming that there's a narrative decision making that you have to do that branches paths

[01:39:55] that changes the story as you go throughout and you have to do a little bit of piecing together to find out what happens in that game and I had heard that the visual novel aspect of 13 Sentinels was pure quality but if you were to tell me

[01:40:08] that they were going to make a TT RPG real-time strategy combination in a world that you're going to absolutely love with fantastic music I don't have been like really I would have never expected this from you know Vanilla Ware but apparently they've done Odin Sphere before

[01:40:23] Odin Sphere was a banger that I've never heard of nor played but you know people who love Vanilla Ware know that they stand for quality and Unicorn Overlord 2 was just a huge surprise to me for that but I was like I was expecting to jump in there

[01:40:36] and be like oh you know I was intrigued by the art style I was doing all that but it gave me don't don't look at me like that don't look at me like that I mean I said I was intrigued by the art style the the art

[01:40:47] no really it's like it has a kind of like a faded nice art yeah I just don't love I showed you that like Dragon's Crown when it was like look at this witch look at this mage and it's like oh they're a little bit

[01:40:58] they get in their back with creating the lewd characters there they got a little bit of a male gaze problem going on in those just a switch you know you know over at Team Vanilla Ware but I think that like that's one of the nice things

[01:41:09] about this game is that like they have like waifus left and right but it's not really a game that's built on you know romance your character you know the sweaty nerds and their basements aren't like wild and out on on Unicorn Overlord it's very much more leaning on

[01:41:24] the narrative of the protagonist in like what he's trying to do to liberate the kingdom and so that's kind of where that sits so yeah it was it's fully surprising to me that I love the game as much as I did and I just pounded through it

[01:41:35] and again you know to continue on the train of just talking about games that we referenced earlier this year you know still Wakes the Deep the Chinese Room I am not familiar with any of their earlier works before this game like they did Dear Esther in 2012

[01:41:50] yeah but I haven't actually played it and yeah I don't know wait and then Amnesia a machine for pigs the only person that I've known who's ever played the Amnesia games is Phil from the Gaming Together podcast and he gone and went through all the Amnesia games

[01:42:03] and apparently that was a decent one that they did but yeah I'm not familiar they also did the game in 2015 everybody's gone to the Rapture which is an interesting like a musical game that had a lot of like famous industry voice actors like Matt Mercer Laura Bailey

[01:42:18] Ashley Johnson like come together and do work for that game too so that has a really interesting narrative that's baked into it but you know still Wakes the Deep just completely hit me out of left field with the horror elements that they're baking in

[01:42:31] and they made a game that was almost exclusively catered to like Nick like Nick we're making a horror game for you Nick ass, Nick yeah and you know this is really interesting and something that we had no idea even though we attended intended you know so

[01:42:44] we actually weren't there I'm wrong but this is an interesting little piece of news that came out is that at the Pax West panel in 2023 Paradox Interactive revealed that the Chinese room is taking over development for Vampire the Masquerade bloodlines too interesting

[01:43:00] and I know you're a Vampire the Masquerade fan right I'm a fan as in I'm interested in the series itself I didn't play the original one okay I'm interested in the series itself and when they first started showing off to it was very cool

[01:43:12] but I know they had that kind of spin off it's almost like a Battle Royale type thing that's been going on now yeah which it's not that it turned me off to it but I was like oh I can't tell if they're still actively

[01:43:23] like trying to get two out in whatever form it's in or if they kind of pivoted to this similar to how people are wanting EA to or more specifically Respawn to go ahead and put out Titanfall 3 but right now they're focused on Apex so

[01:43:37] yeah I am interested though especially to from the quality you talk about with Still Wakes the Deep and looking back because you mentioned everyone's gone to the Rapture I was like oh yeah I forgot I was kind of interested in that game but just visually

[01:43:50] it looks really nice and the game play looks fun so I'm excited to see whatever they would do then with the bloodlines especially because of the the different levels and what you can do the big thing and I don't know if their previous games

[01:44:02] have really touched on this but I feel like those bloodline you know like the masquerade all that it gives you those different paths for you to kind of achieve your same goals interesting they're very similar to like the Deus Ex type of situation I played that game before

[01:44:16] so I'm interested to see if that's something that they can maintain with their current work that they've been working on or if they're going to be a little bit more streamlined right 100% all right and that's going to be it for our biggest surprise this year now

[01:44:29] we're going to answer the question that everybody came to at this point I'm going to put a marker here if people want to skip the bullshit leading up to it not that that was bullshit that was a really good discussion that we had

[01:44:37] but if people want to get to the heart of the matters if you had to choose now of everything you've played in 2024 and what has released in 2024 who's taking game of the year look I got to go with my heart and honestly my heart

[01:44:52] with all the issues aside say Hell Divers 2 yo it's such an interesting game I can't even think of like the last time I straight up PvE game like you know multiplayer PvE not a single player game yeah you know was in this kind of contention

[01:45:06] was in this talk and I felt like Hell Divers had such a firm chokehold on the first quarter of the year you know roughly going into the first half of the year before so many outside like this game shot itself in the foot

[01:45:18] unfortunately from like the Sony issues with PC and then trying to do weird things internationally yeah kicking people off because of the link to Steam or whatever there's some go not Monkey Paw but there's a shoot what is it called when you have like a split in reality

[01:45:34] it was like a Mandela a disconnect it was like a Mandela effect of a world where Sony didn't try to kill Hell Divers 2 and like people are still talking about it as crazy it's still popping off on Twitter yeah it's still most played game on Steam

[01:45:47] exactly it's still sitting there topping the Steam list and topping you know the Twitch reviews they just shot themselves in the foot again it's like we said in a coverage in an earlier episode there was some random fucking executive that was in the room that was like

[01:45:59] that no idea what was going on this is not gonna be a big deal nobody's gonna be affected by this and then they they made the decision and then everybody just lost their minds over it so it's it's goofy but we're here and while I don't think

[01:46:12] it's going to win game of the year you know we'll see so you don't think it's gonna get the same critical reception that you put it at yeah I I think just because something we talked about a little bit beforehand is that it came out too early

[01:46:22] and then it shot itself in the foot kind of like around the peak of its hype so then it fell off really really quickly and if you're really trying to hit that end of the year thing unless you're just like a generational game

[01:46:34] coming out the beginning of the year you have to kind of ride that maybe September, August wave into the game awards you know yeah that's something and I'm definitely not saying anything negative about Alan Wake too because it's still on my to play list

[01:46:47] instead of that I want to check out yeah but a lot of people they may be like hey Alan Wake came out in like October and people were really hype on it but if this game came out in February

[01:46:56] would it have been on so many game of the year list people probably would still say yes but there's a lot of people that will be like hey it just came out in the right place at the right time and there's nothing wrong with that

[01:47:05] sometimes that's just what you have to do is be placed in the right spot to get attention to ride a wave and Helldivers was putting the right spot to get a lot of good internet and twitter attention and all the awesome fan work

[01:47:19] and love that people poured into it maybe it wasn't in the right spot to get too many accolades for game of the year things like that too so yeah could be it but I love it I could say and I want to say once again

[01:47:31] in my heart of hearts if it's like Helldivers 2 wins game of the year that'd be awesome to me I would really love seeing that sure yeah I you know I feel like the same as you I think it's gonna face the same problem

[01:47:42] that infinite wealth is gonna face is just because of the time because it was so early early this year is that people are just gonna have rose tinted glasses and they're gonna have a recency bias recency bias has been known to be rife in like the game journalists

[01:47:56] throughout the industry throughout years of this right it's common so it's like you know in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is gonna face the same issue here it's like I don't know how well regarded that's gonna be besides the fact that the IP has so much so it's so deeply

[01:48:12] you know embedded in the industry for people who love it but um yeah I honestly and you know on that note since we're already here I genuinely think that Game of the Year so far goes to Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth I think that they did enough

[01:48:26] to update the graphical system as well as update the combat system in this game that just makes this when you're doing the the combat when you're in the moments of this game when you're really in it it sings in a way that rarely any other game

[01:48:42] I've played in twenty two four and four has really spoken to me so I think that it's it's a game that is full of a lot of problems I face a lot of slog with this game there's a lot of ups and downs like I just watched a

[01:48:55] an interest Instagram reel of a girl who was you know playing the game and she was like I just 100% of the map of this game and she was talking about how like oh my god I don't did you send this to me no you sent it to me

[01:49:06] it doesn't okay and she was talking about how like you know I did every single side mission every single dookie ass you know proto relic mission which is just very silly like that's something that I feel like the team over there hasn't quite figured out

[01:49:21] is how to handle side content because it is an up and down situation some of the side quests are really important like especially if they're side quests that are directly related to your companions in the game and then some of them are like

[01:49:33] go over there and find three feathers from the chocobo and bring it back and it's like I don't want to play a chocobo stealth mission for the 10th time in the 10th region and I feel like there is so much that's kind of baked into the game

[01:49:47] where it's like an editor with a firmer hand on the development process could have been like look we need to take out 30% of this game and I think that if they had done that the meta critic for Final Fantasy 7 rebirth would have been through the fucking roof

[01:50:03] like it would have been insanely well regarded if they had self edited a little bit more that being said the things that they included in here are for the true Final Fantasy 7 fans and I think that there are enough of those out there you know myself included

[01:50:19] that it really does so far throughout the year take the cake for me Awesome still holds up I can't say Unicorn Overlord because I haven't beat it a lot of the other games that I've beaten so far this year just like aren't either 2024 games

[01:50:33] or real true contenders for the year like for me obviously I'm not as high in Dragon's Dogma 2 which is something I was curious about for you is that what if you had to like think about it on a one to two level even though they are really

[01:50:45] are apples and oranges why does Hell Divers 2 take the cake over Dragon's Dogma 2 for you since you love DD2 so much it's because I do love Dragon's Dogma 2 and I would like for Dragon's Dogma to really get the recognition there but if we're thinking about it slightly objectively

[01:51:02] obviously if we're looking fully objectively Hell Divers 2 also does not win game of the year unfortunately but slightly objectively if I'm especially comparing the two Hell Divers 2 had more going forward as far as the longevity and for me kind of sticking through it

[01:51:15] plus it didn't have as many of the hangups that Dragon's Dogma 2 does I see when people have issues with Dragon's Dogma 2 I personally can either live with it so why did you put it down the one time you put it down no Dragon's Dogma 2

[01:51:29] because you put the game down before you got to the unbound world and I'm just curious as what made you do that I got distracted with another game what did I play through in the meantime I beat something I either beat something or I just played through

[01:51:43] and mostly beat it but yeah I was like oh uh was it when you went to go you were playing were you playing an Ubisoft game this year because I knew you did Fallout 4 no it was Jedi Survivor Jedi Survivor yes the Jedi Survivor

[01:51:56] so I picked up Jedi Survivor just because I do like that game series and it was like kind of lengthy and it was a game where if I figured if I put down Survivor I probably wasn't going to pick it back up just for whatever reason

[01:52:08] like I was going to have to hop back in so I went through beat all the Survivor then I came back to Dragon's Dogma 2 and honestly not even like sound kind of goofy about it there was a part of me playing Dragon's Dogma 2 where I was like okay

[01:52:20] I don't want to burn myself out on this so I went to like pause because I know I'm going to come back to it there's there was no chance of me putting down Dragon's Dogma 2 and not touching it and like you know at least beating it

[01:52:31] all the way through once if not rolling credits and maybe going through a new game plus later on this year too but I knew I wasn't going to stop so I was like let me kind of stretch it out a bit more funny saying that about a game

[01:52:43] that I put 100 and some hours into it was like let me let me add more time in between but it allows me to marinate and enjoy it and see you know some of the reasons why I liked it some of the reasons why people didn't like it

[01:52:54] and then bring that back to like when I played the second half of the game which is what I did and what I honestly felt like was perfectly fine which is why I feel very content still saying I enjoy it and I like it but talking about that

[01:53:05] Hell Divers versus Dragon's Dogma there are issues with the game there are some convoluted missions there are some things that are a little bit busted all of that jank speaks to me from the original Dragon's Dogma and just kind of how I play the game anyways

[01:53:19] but if somebody was comparing the two straight up and being like what did you have more fun with I'd probably say Hell Divers everything more fun with friends so those moments that we were playing like me and you or me and like the three other guys

[01:53:31] and we were kind of hopping in Hell Divers is another one of those games too super rare for me I had a great time playing with randoms I had like at least six individual groups of like random people where I would just hop in

[01:53:43] jump in and do stuff and they would actually talk and we'd talk back and forth Oh really? You had comms open Yep, I added on a couple of friends with Hell Divers too I don't think we're probably going to play anything else ever again in the future

[01:53:55] outside of that Yeah, but I added people on Hell Divers too because we were playing through we either play talking a little bit or maybe even in silence for like two to three hours in a row together That's insane and then we would hop off

[01:54:05] and you'd be like Oh good playing GGs Yeah, yeah It's a special game I feel like Hell Divers too is kind of a lightning in the bottle game and I just wish it had more legs and that it got more respect from Sony specifically

[01:54:19] because this could have been one of those like hey this is a tent pole kind of game Yep Especially because they're missing shooters right now So they're missing shooters Yeah Yeah If you I would sacrifice Concord to get a second shot at Hell Divers too be good again

[01:54:34] Let's just say that Yeah Did you know that doing the Darkazers is coming to PlayStation? I feel like it should Yeah, yeah I mean For whatever reason I think like it made a deal or Bethesda made a deal to go multiply with it

[01:54:45] But yeah, I just thought that was interesting No, it's coming over there Especially I thought too It was like it makes sense that it is because the last couple of were as well I know at Starfield being a brand new IP and like kind of starting fresh

[01:54:54] that makes sense why it wasn't I guess on Yeah It's coming and I can't wait for Halo to come to PlayStation too so the Xbox Nerds could lose their fucking minds Do not hold your breath On the multiplayer? At the very least

[01:55:08] Keep the campaign locked to the console I don't see any reason why Xbox would put Halo multiplayer on PlayStation Really? I can see Any reason? Sure, why not Whatever For the Lolls They do it for the plot I mean If Satay and Nadella

[01:55:22] is gonna keep stepping on Phil's throat they're gonna You don't think it's gonna make money on PlayStation I don't think it would make them money That's a wild statement Sony ponies are aggressive They're gonna They're gonna review on it They won't buy Halo

[01:55:34] I've been waiting for this for 10 years I refuse to buy this shit Yeah And like yeah No, I can't And I think they also Xbox still gets their money from like the third party from having the infinite on Steam So there's that I think they're fine Yeah

[01:55:48] Let's see here Okay Well I think that covers who we thought is gonna You know if we had to end the year on July What is this? The 21st 2024 Who's taking the cake so far? The games that have come out this year And you know honestly

[01:56:03] For the selection that we have here It's kind of surprising You know I will reiterate Something that I've stated before Is that this year has really turned into the year of Indies The year of the backlog For people to go back and play things

[01:56:17] I know I've certainly have tried to address it I've gone back and done things That I checked off the list And you know participated in the Tales from the Backlog Resolution You know server Over there So we've gone forward But You know

[01:56:29] We want to talk about a little bit of things that we've missed There are things that are on our playlist That we haven't gotten the chance to address yet Something that we want to That we either have to play Or something that we want to play

[01:56:41] Before the end of the year 2024 So Will I got to hear from you man Like what are some games That you know you have to knock out Before this year ends But one of the big ones you've already mentioned before Was Animal Well So Can I

[01:56:54] Just like you said You play and you feel like it's quality immediately Like you understand that it's solid So I too want to eventually hop in there And just play through it Doesn't look super long It looks like a little fun

[01:57:05] I got no problem supporting a really fun You know strong looking indie So I would like to hop in there Get a little bit of Animal Well action Yeah I don't think I'm gonna go through and try to like Find every secret Find all the eggs

[01:57:18] Find all the flames Unless you need to do that to be the game perspective Right But It's not maybe a platinum for me But it's definitely a play through See the credits and be like All sweet This is a good one right here Mm-hmm Yeah So

[01:57:28] That sounds really fun I am also looking forward to Checking out College football 2020 Let's go So it looks fun NCAA's back baby It looks fun I know I know It's so funny If you had told me a while ago You're like You gonna play sports games

[01:57:44] I'm like no Ew I like sports games Ew Br-brother Ew But then I see People playing it and Honestly I just want to kind of get out there With my alma mater Go UCF Knights So I want to get out there And just handle some business

[01:57:58] I want to smack down FSU Right I want to I want to beat all these other teams When we're playing UF Legitimately This season So In the swamp So I'm excited to see how that would play out You know when we got to Smoke them

[01:58:10] When we smoke them Oh the man is confident Of course So of course So the UCF They're having a good year this year I mean we're gonna find out Hasn't started yet and so Oh yeah it's true Yeah I think about that But I think they will though

[01:58:22] I think they have a good year last year They would have a fine year last year I think that was our first time In the big 13 Mmm Right now so Nice You know it's the kind of thing Where you're expecting to come in

[01:58:32] And just be the new kid on campus So it's not gonna go I mean no we're not gonna go undefeated Okay I don't think we're gonna Go undefeated either this year Pretty much all I'm looking forward to Is if we beat Cincinnati And we beat UF

[01:58:43] It's a win in my book It's a win That's all I care about We need You know what we need to do When we both get college football 25 We need to have an Appalachia State Versus UCF game Let's fucking go Let's go App State

[01:58:55] App State is an interesting Football school Because we put out more linemen That go into the NFL Than almost any other SEC Team combined Like we have a really good lineage of Great great offensive linemen And defensive linemen Coming out of App State Yeah great Yeah

[01:59:14] Shout out to you also We get a little Black and yellow, black and gold On both ends So that'd be nice The Mountaineers versus the Knights They probably have some really cool Colorways too for their away game So I'm interested to see how that goes

[01:59:25] Yeah I'm saying late It's it looks really cool Everything visually It looks fun Yeah If you like those sports games Like this Then I feel like this is something That's going to be right up your alley So ultimately I'm just excited to at least check it out

[01:59:37] Once again Game pass gives you a 10 hour demo And then I'm probably just going to straight up buy it though Because I'm excited to hopefully play With one of my friends Clayton We should be hopping in there together Playing a little bit of a Nice CFB

[01:59:48] So that looks cool That and this one is Not necessarily from I guess from this year I thought it was from this year I was trying to do like a little bit of research beforehand But I think the System Shock remake came out In 2023 Did it? Did it?

[02:00:04] I could have sworn it came out sometime this year But If it did come out this year Then that's on my list for sure Even if it came out 2023 Still kind of on my list March 3rd, 23 Yeah Okay yep So still on my list there

[02:00:16] So taking it back a little bit later on But you know I do want to Check out the Oh maybe that's what it was I think the System Shock remake came out on PC 2023 And then now it's coming to consoles I think that's what happened Yeah

[02:00:30] It gets a little weird with the release dates Especially with consoles versus PC yeah So because I'm not a PC man Because I'm a console man I'm gonna build you one Don't Patreon.com slash Friday night gang Yes please subscribe to us

[02:00:41] So I can build Will a serviceable console Don't waste jump mining He doesn't need a thread ripper I'll just put a nice cool little i5 You know is it Zen 5 You know If it's not a 4090 I don't want it Damn it's crazy That's wild But yeah so good

[02:00:56] No so keeping in line with this then Console version of the System Shock remake System Shock One of those classic games If you played anything like 2017 Prey Which we had an awesome awesome episode Tell them the backlog back in the day

[02:01:08] You know any of those fun Deus Ex style Type of games things to System Shock You owe a lot to this game This is one of the if not the kind of starter So I want to go back and kind of

[02:01:19] Give my you know like reverence tip my hat To some of the OGs in the game Does it have like sandbox emergent gameplay In the same level of Prey or And I'm not sure exactly what they did As far as with the remake how much they updated it

[02:01:32] But it should really just be all those same kind of Trappings for lack of a better word I know normally that's used in more of a negative manner But yeah like you have enemies And you can get them to like fight against each other

[02:01:43] And run into each other Of course it's the you know vent crawler So you're going through finding different ways In and out of rooms Finding different ways to unlock doors Find things And then you're fairly making your character

[02:01:54] The way you want to how you want to play them So yeah this is that kind of game And I'm ready to check it out with a A new new fresh coat of paint in I don't know as far as on a remake level

[02:02:05] If it's from the ground up Or if it's more along a remaster I keep seeing remake So I'm thinking it's more ground up But yeah just checking it out Given that overview and being able to finally say Yes, I've played a version of you know

[02:02:16] Like System Shock kind of in-depth All the way through to the end Versus just you know Checking it out on a friend's PC or something Yep That's awesome Yeah you know going forward here Obviously I have to reiterate What you have said about College Football 25

[02:02:29] You know we haven't had a you know An NCAA game in 13 years I think So 14 was the last one Yeah so like the fact that we're here Like that means we have to show this some love We have to show some support So EA continues to you know

[02:02:42] Give us that you know that dead diaspora Link and make it for fast paced Than what you get from your typical Madden every year To get a little bit into the weeds with it There's a game that has popped off to me At several different showcases

[02:02:54] And I have seen earlier It's a game that they released at us That they released on the Steam Next Fest Event for 2024 And I downloaded the demo for Dungeons of Hinterberg This is a game that just looks beautiful It looks right up my alley

[02:03:09] In terms of what I would want from an indie game And it's something that like is on Is going to be on Game Pass If it hasn't already dropped on there I feel like it already dropped on Game Pass So I really have every reason to jump in

[02:03:21] And try to play that And you know like we talked about earlier this episode Make my subscription a little bit more worth its while And knock that off the list If I can find time in between Baldur's Gate And Oster's Wrath To do that

[02:03:35] So it's one of those things where I really want to go in and play it And do that just It looks so cool and unique And cel shaded It's just right up my alley In terms of that Another game that I like have to buy

[02:03:49] Like I have to purchase this But it's another one where I'm like waiting In the back of my mind Is like you know RGG Studios They have such a good relationship with Microsoft Like how long do I have to wait

[02:03:58] Because they already put the man who erased his name On Xbox Game Pass At the very end of last year To get ready for Infinite Wealth To drop in January of 2024 So how long is it going to be Before Infinite Wealth goes on to Game Pass

[02:04:12] So it's like I know You know what all of the yakuza stands Are going to be like well just Support the studio Just give them 70 bucks And I'm like okay but I live on a budget All right we gotta We gotta rein it in just sometimes

[02:04:24] Yeah just sometimes You haven't seen it back half of 2024 yet So yeah exactly And god knows how long it's gonna take me Me as a slow video game player To get through Infinite Wealth Oh it'll be a minute It's gonna be a hot minute So how long was 7

[02:04:36] So yeah Two years Yeah well it took me two years to beat it But 120, 125 hours in total To get the 1000 And yakuza like a dragon So anyway I'm really excited for Infinite Wealth The fact that they have an animal crossing simulator

[02:04:53] They have a job system that comes back into it The fact that it's Ichiban Going on vacation Teaming up with Kiryu Like what the hell man Like this game is incredible Like the stuff that I've seen on it so far And so that same yakuza kookiness

[02:05:08] I need it in my life I need it Last game I wanna talk about For something that I need to touch on Before 2024 ends Is something that we've already mentioned on the show A thousand times resist Everything that I've seen for this game

[02:05:21] Makes it supremely like a Nickass video game In terms of just like the mysticism that's behind it You know you have a time jump What you've seen And this is stuff that I've seen in like the trailers For the game is that like something happens in

[02:05:35] This game is from the perspective of the main character Who gets killed by one of her minions And essentially like what happens is they Are you know forced back in time And so you are in a position where you need to piece together What happened in the past

[02:05:50] The premise of this game is that Aliens invaded Earth And it wasn't an invasion where like aliens came to Earth But unfortunately they weren't trying to dominate the planet But in effect that they did Because they brought a virus with them That infected all of humanity

[02:06:08] Which if a human being is infected with this virus They cry themselves to death Like they cry themselves Like they start sobbing so hard that all of the water in their body evaporates And so that's kind of like the the idea is that

[02:06:22] Humanity kind of goes into hiding very much in like a near style Where it's like they're kept in this like fortress And they create like this system of life Where it's like people are talking about what happened to the remnants of humanity

[02:06:35] And you play as this lead character Iris And it's something that I think is really important to have In anyone's repertoire for the same reason that we talked about with Tails Because Tails is so centric to the idea of like African culture

[02:06:48] And as well as the setting takes place in an mystical African setting Is the same thing here for thousands times resist But it's from the Asian of Asian American perspective Oh, okay, that's really cool So yeah, it's like all of the people are featured on there

[02:07:02] I think of Asian lineage or descent And it's like what if we're not might have heard Michael Hyam Who's a journalist for game informer as well as you know previous GameSpot editor He talked about obviously how it connected with him

[02:07:15] Because he's you know Pacific you know a Pacific Islander Asian Of heritage, I think maybe Filipino as well And he talked about how the interactions with the character in a thousand times resist are so Like true to the idea of having like

[02:07:30] Asian immigrant parents and like what it's like to live in America or maybe not so awesome But still as long as yeah Yeah So the the positives and the negatives but the reality of that

[02:07:38] So I think it's going to be a really important game for me to touch and play and you know You know anybody out there who wants to play in India and get some more culture And get a really cool narrative at the same time

[02:07:48] So that's going to be it for me In 2024 for the stuff I have to miss But we got to talk about the stuff that hasn't come out yet to top off this episode We're right at two hours, you know, this is a good runtime

[02:07:58] This is not a bad runtime for the show But you know we're looking at it now Will of the list of what you see here, what are you most hyped about man? So there's quite a few things that pop off here

[02:08:09] And I see I got very lazy by putting what month each one comes out and then I stopped like three deep So I'm not going to say what month but just know that I'm gonna I try to do them in order of as they come out this year

[02:08:20] Yeah And then of course, you know hop in if anything jumps out to you as well that you're saying But for me first off black myth wukong looks really cool This is a game that we've seen for years at this point

[02:08:29] And things have been kind of jumping in and out of it. I like me an action game I like me a beat-em-up I'm a big fan of that kind of you know journey to the west style

[02:08:38] I even played the one that people didn't really like I think it was literally called journey to the west Yeah The one where you Have the the lady that you're with and you have the big ripped guy So I enjoyed that game

[02:08:48] So anytime this journey to the west style type of gameplay this kind of fun you playing as you know Son go the monkey king. Yeah be the monkey king I'm down with just Smackin somebody in the head with a big old stick the aesthetic looks cool

[02:09:02] I'm not gonna play this game because it seems so from soft like souls born coded It just like again like everything nowadays. I know and it's like

[02:09:11] Again the same way that we talk about how like you know, arena hero shooters are people figured out that from soft found The secret formula and like we have been inundated with a soft like from like souls likes

[02:09:24] In the genre whether it's you know lords of the fallen or whatever But just like this game like doesn't in it doesn't pull me in in a way lords Like I want to like, you know chew through the souls born gameplay to get to the core of it

[02:09:37] So it's just it's not it for me, but I will say Star Wars outlaws I think they got me. I think they got me. I think i'm gonna be day one for for star wars outlaws I think i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna buy the game

[02:09:50] I'm gonna take a risk on it because from all of the gameplay that i've seen They're showing the game some love like in ubisoft Historically is not as confident Previewing the games that they have upcoming to release in like the marketing hype cycles

[02:10:05] Like like they haven't done this what the treatment that they're giving for outlaws and it is coming out in august So we're closer than we are for shadows because I think shadows is coming out in like december or something

[02:10:14] Like late november or december or something, but like they Typically even when the new games are coming out you'll see like a commercial on tv Or you'll see something on youtube for like, you know the latest assassin creed game

[02:10:27] But like outlaws they're showing 10 minute length gameplay previews that all look good. It looks fun It looks interesting. I like what the main character is doing I think i'm gonna jump in this one. I'm gonna take the risk

[02:10:39] So that looks good. Honestly outlaws is solid. I am I need a little bit more selling I I do think so not going to sell me a little bit more, but still everything I've seen is fine But there's so many other things coming out talking about here

[02:10:51] stalker 2 heart of Chernobyl Because you're not really familiar with the original like stalker. No, are you and i'm not either I'm familiar to the first person shooter in In you know people talk about how great the systems are and how it's a really fun game and how

[02:11:04] The world itself feels alive and it interacts well with itself not just you as a character So I am interested in this one Of course things happening in Ukraine for the last couple of years have really put a you know

[02:11:16] Hamper on this game and of course I am from the people that are working on it and their lives have been Unfortunately put at risk and you know, they're still trying to get the game out You think you might support it because of that?

[02:11:27] I think I might but the big thing too is just i'm interested in seeing the game even before everything was happening Stalker series or the first one looks cool. So I was ready for this one This maybe just made it more like okay

[02:11:39] If people say it's good or you know if it Gives me another trailer that kind of tickles how i'm interested in getting into it then boom It seems like a pretty solid buy. Yeah, so i'm hopefully I can kind of get in there and get it out

[02:11:51] And they're able to get the game out and nothing else too bad happens with them there too Yeah, but you know the big one for both of us young astro bot and the building god The savior of the shony as the shoni the shoni shoni perney

[02:12:04] Yep, the savior of the sony showcase good old astro bot god This is gonna be a day one you said Like you were like you said in the group chat you were like boys this game of the year And I know you were being sarcastic, but literally

[02:12:18] Team soby and that fucking little robot might they might fucking put it together and do it I am so excited for astro bot. I'd be happy if it's one game of the year because I mean it's cool

[02:12:27] Oh, yeah, it was very fun and 100 and it's a 40 40 hour game They said like 30 30 to 40 hours of ashbuck get out of here of course I'll take that I could be wrong on that number, but I know it's a significantly

[02:12:38] Expanded gameplay experience is what they said. Yep. Let's say so astro bot looks awesome We've talked a little bit about it too here, but war hammer 40k space marine 2 I love the first one. I don't recall beating it all the way, but I still

[02:12:51] Action game you're playing as a legionnaire that takes a chainsaw sword and slices up aliens What else do you need? What do you need? Let's show these monsters these monstrosities that we were made in god's image, you know and crush the

[02:13:06] Imperium of man. It's it's the emperor's will there you go. Um, the god emperor himself something that is like I don't know they recently I feel bad for the Team over at saber interactive and focus focus right. I think interactive

[02:13:21] I think who's publishing the game, but apparently they got hacked And people were releasing builds of this game like old builds of the game that's half finished Online and people apparently are already playing it and they released a statement

[02:13:33] They put out like one of those yellow card cyberpunk statements out there that I was like, oh my god Are they delaying it out of 2024? No, it wasn't it was just the team coming out and be like, hey

[02:13:42] Look, we got hacked a lot of our data and information was taken old builds of this game are being disseminated online We would ask you to please not share this if you somehow come across

[02:13:53] You know the the information or or not play it because it's not representative of what this game is now It was going to come out as so yeah, I feel for the team that that's happening that being said

[02:14:05] Same way with what you're talking about star wars. I want to see a little bit more Extended gameplay of what we're going to be looking at for like the loop of what they expect us like here's the thing

[02:14:15] If they're going to do space marines, you and they're going to give me gears of war In the war hammer 40k universe. I'm locked in. Yep. I'm all the way locked in but if it's going to be Not that level of quality. I kind of want to know

[02:14:28] Yeah, I still I think it would be on the level of quality of but if you're looking for like a cover shooter type of thing This is yeah, you're out about it's not gonna be gears of war running around

[02:14:37] But no, it sold me the latest gameplay their trailer. I think they had was Either early july or like late june or something They had a long chunk of it where they did single player, which is the meat and potatoes

[02:14:49] That's what I'm here for they showed some co-op which I'm like Pleasantly surprised by looks really cool. Yeah, and then multiplayer, which I do not care about in the least But it is what it is. It's like 2016 doom. Yeah, the PV player and everyone's like what?

[02:15:01] It's a multiplayer like just save the dev time. Don't even bother saying you know save it But that event sold so I'm ready for war hammer two games that are Completely out of my radar until I was looking up things coming out this year

[02:15:14] But now I'm kind of interested in I don't know if their day one buys but definitely keeping my eye on it A wild bastards and evo-tinction. So wild bastards

[02:15:23] Looks very very cool. We talked about when we went to packs and we saw great game by new blood called Fallen aces. Yeah, this is kind of like the western version. It looks like it got a nice little cell shaded

[02:15:34] You know, you're sitting around shooting guys. It looks very cool cartoony Lots of camp lots of funniness that goes on with the actual game itself Like I saw a little skeleton hand. Yeah was pointed like a gun

[02:15:44] So it's like you're sitting there using finger guns to kill people too. So it looks really cool Wild bastards looks very very neat I'm interested just by the little clips in like the small video that I saw a couple of pictures that I saw

[02:15:56] So I will be watching This game come out as it gets closer to release Hopefully they give us a little bit more just so I can kind of see if it's going to be a either a game pass

[02:16:04] Thing or if maybe it'll pop up and be 40 bucks 20 bucks that I can write. Yeah evo-tinction Another game that one looks very very beautiful. This is more of the realistic ish versus the cell shaded that wild bastards was But this one looks like a pure stealth game

[02:16:19] But you're in a astronaut suit like you're in a space station. Yeah, you're doing some hacking You're doing some unlocking and then you're doing a lot of that crouch walking that we talked about

[02:16:28] So the highs are burning. Um, but besides having one of the worst names of a video game recently, which I understand Looking back. I think one of the devs said

[02:16:36] Hey, this name has meaning to the game. Sorry. You guys don't love it, but you know, we have no intention of changing it I'm like, please stand on business, you know, keep this do you think keep the name the name thing baby girl

[02:16:46] It's just gonna be difficult for me to pronounce it without tinction That the middle part is what gets me. But the gameplay looks great I have not really played a pure stealth stealth game in a while that wasn't a horror

[02:16:58] Hide from the monsters type of game. So I'm interested in seeing some like splinter cell In space, which is kind of the equivalent of what I'm looking for. Maybe minus the shooting, right? So I'm interested in both of those for sure. That's so cool

[02:17:10] Yeah, kind of do a rapid fire to kind of close us off for this episode here running down the list I had to check will because he's got a nintendo block real quick I had one nintendo game and you had to add one more nintendo game

[02:17:23] You know the legends of zelda echoes of wisdom is coming out. It looks way Of my alley. I personally it's made by the same studio that did lynx awakening And this art style is still going hard as ever so that cute chibi, you know, third

[02:17:37] You know top down isometric viewpoint as you're running around as zelda this time Who's the main protagonist of the game? You finally get to play zelda game with zelda echoes of wisdom But you're playing around that that's gonna that's gonna be a banger

[02:17:50] I know it's gonna become out and you I'm gonna play pay my 70 dollars for it And I'm not gonna bad and I good plan on that old ass nintendo switch that I got out there

[02:17:58] Buy it online so I can also download it to the switch copy that and then we have mario and luigi brothership Shout out to erin from super pod saga. This is a spiritual successor Succesor to mario and luigi superstar saga

[02:18:10] So that's gonna be really fun to see that come out here a lot of pop chainsaw repop is coming out You're gonna be hype on it. Yes. Yes. He said i'm buying it 51. I am buying it

[02:18:20] Let's fucking go there. We should have met him. I didn't realize you were such a suitor fan because he was doing signings at one of his old games

[02:18:27] We passed by him and I was like, it's cool. I'm not a stand to the point where I need a picture anything Yeah, I'm down with buying this game. Yeah, I'm okay with that. It's just good job I'll support him that way

[02:18:34] You know, you got silently hill two which we'll see come on. We'll see come on man It's it yeah capital will see this game has a lot of selling to do to me

[02:18:43] It's got a lot of a lot of uphill fighting to do to get people in there konami historically has Missed the mark and I'm scared that they're gonna miss the mark again It just doesn't look good in the gameplay preview

[02:18:56] So I don't know if I'm gonna waste my time in contrast to that you got dbz Sparking zero. They will holy shit. I'll be there no matter what budakai tenkaiichi is back, baby And it's gonna be better than ever you can make your own story

[02:19:11] You can play through the events of dragon ball z making narrative decisions. Are you kidding me? Let's fucking go We're so back. We're so back. We're so back I'm gonna I'm gonna be playing that game like nobody ever has before Atlas continuing to win with metaphor refantaizio

[02:19:28] I'm really excited to see what people think of it when it finally comes out, but it's going to be you know continuing the persona Format continue me in that and everybody likes it slitterhead

[02:19:39] Maybe not necessarily a game of the year contender this year, but a very interesting japanese horror game It looks very fun. Yeah, it's cool how you are effectively playing the parasite that's hopping in and out of human hosts And then just like that anime parasite

[02:19:53] You're using their bodies to attack the enemies that are out there. So right it has a really cool concept I hope that it's able to make that concept transition into Fun and energetic gameplay which what I've seen so far, but hey true

[02:20:09] Well, we'll see remains to be seen it does remain to be seen and speaking of what remains to be seen In something that's conveniently coming out right side of the window that's going to make it eligible for game of the year The game before it's 2024

[02:20:20] Assassin's Creed shadows last but not least man. Are you telling me I get to play as yasuke? Yes, and a cool ass no way and In I guess, I don't know. What is this the shingoku era of japan?

[02:20:32] Yeah, I don't know if this is the Edo period or what what not but like I'm excited for this game I'm looking forward to it We've been waiting for years ever since Assassin's Creed 2 when they changed the location

[02:20:43] And you realize uposoff was going to explore a different civilization every game they come out with And I was like, well, we'll gotta go to japan come on. Japan. We gotta go to japan

[02:20:52] And we've been waiting for years since then they're finally doing it. Let's hope they do it right We'll see we'll just your seema did it first. So they have a high bar

[02:20:59] To have a high bar. They do they certainly do but with that folks that is going to be it for tonight I want to give a big thank you to all the listeners who've joined us this far in the episode

[02:21:10] And enjoying our content and giving us continued support Please feel free if you've enjoyed us so far to leave us a rating review on your podcasting platform of choice Whether that's apple podcast spotify good pods, etc William If people want to find you unless you know

[02:21:27] That space marines 2 is going to allow you to eviscerate all of the bugs with your your chains all sword every single level Where can they find you we could find me on twitter at real king zozo tide. That's re al k i n g z o s o

[02:21:43] ta i we can stand side by side With chainsaw swords as we slash through those monstrosities together defend the imperium of man And folks with that keep gaming take it easy and we're gonna see you next friday night deuces