FNGC Reviews: Star Wars Outlaws (ft. Nate & Jono of The Elder Trolls)

[00:00:34] Welcome back everybody to another FNGC Review. This time we're going to be looking at one game and taking a deep dive into all its moving parts. This week, we're welcoming back good friends and returning cast members of the show. They're the creators of the divisive dish poutine in the country known as Canada and co-owners of the Toronto Maple Leafs. They promised the next 100 followers to their show, the Elder Trolls Gaming Podcast, brand new 4090 Threadripper Gaming PCs. Welcome back.

[00:01:04] Nate and Jono, how are you boys doing?

[00:01:07] We got asterisks.

[00:01:09] All the asterisks.

[00:01:11] We're good. I'm great. This is great.

[00:01:14] You look a little tired, Jono. You hanging in there?

[00:01:17] Oh yeah, I played hockey.

[00:01:18] It seems early. It feels early.

[00:01:20] Well, I played hockey last night and then I was drinking in the parking lot till, you know, who knows when. And then I went home and I just woke up half an hour ago.

[00:01:31] So, perfect. Perfect. We're in prime podcasting form right now. Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:01:37] We play hockey. Oh, who's bothering you now? Finn, get out.

[00:01:40] Now, when you guys go and you play, you play hockey together in the same rink. Do you both have different positions that you jump into and play? Like Nate, are you like a goalie or an attack or something like that?

[00:01:51] I'm usually right wing. Right wing. Okay, got it. Yeah. Yeah, I play wing or whatever. I don't, it doesn't matter to me. I'll play wherever.

[00:01:58] I just, I just want to get in fights. You know, that's all I want to do. I just want to, I just want to box.

[00:02:03] I just want to box.

[00:02:04] No, there's a thing called UFC that you can just skip the whole hockey part.

[00:02:08] But it's not on ice.

[00:02:09] Just get off the ice. It's not on ice.

[00:02:10] It's more dangerous on ice.

[00:02:12] That's very, that's a skill that maybe few people think about is fighting on ice. It's a, it's different.

[00:02:19] The balance is unreal. It's different.

[00:02:21] It's a tough thing. I'll be on my ass immediately.

[00:02:23] Same.

[00:02:24] Well, like guys on, guys fighting on ice, like who trained to fight on ice, like the fighters, they don't typically, there's not really fighters anymore. There kind of is, but very much less than there used to be.

[00:02:36] But, but it's a, it's a skill. Like I know guys who were kind of fighters and junior, but like on ice, they would tune anybody, but like in a fight off the streets, they probably wouldn't.

[00:02:49] Yeah. Yeah. It's a very specific format, like sumo wrestlers.

[00:02:52] Sure.

[00:02:53] Now that, that third voice that our dear listeners are hearing in the background, you know, against all odds, he was tricked, deceived, coerced, manipulated into conducting the review for our game of the show today.

[00:03:06] Will, how are you doing?

[00:03:07] I feel like I was Jedi mind tricked. I had no intention of playing this game. I was like, oh, it's Ubisoft and I like me some Star Wars, but I'm like, you know what, whatever. It's an open world game.

[00:03:17] Did you guys write it?

[00:03:17] I don't have a time. I did the Ubisoft deal. So it's like, you pay $18 for a month. And I was like, even if I got to beat it in two months, that's still cheaper than $60. So I figured that was the best deal.

[00:03:28] Yeah. That's what we did too.

[00:03:30] Yeah. Yeah. It took, it took a relative amount of convincing, but I was surprised he was into it. I mean, I think it was mainly just based off of the stuff that I was saying. And then I think once you two, you know, were locked in, he was like, I got it.

[00:03:41] I was like, well, of course, like anything we can see the boys.

[00:03:43] Yeah.

[00:03:44] Yeah.

[00:03:45] Exactly. Exactly. Well, ladies and gentlemen, if that wasn't enough, uh, uh, bearing the lead for you this week, we're going to be talking about and reviewing Star Wars Outlaws.

[00:03:54] So Star Wars Outlaws was developed by massive published by Ubisoft. Uh, the director at the helm is Mattia Carlson, also known for his work on the division franchise. He was the one that kickstarted that, um, the platform that they were available on, if I'm not mistaken, is a PS five and Xbox series S or series, the series X and S. Uh, it's also available on PC through the Ubisoft launcher. If I'm not mistaken, it is not on steam yet. Although there is internal working that they're going. Am I wrong about that? Did they do it?

[00:04:24] It just dropped like yesterday or something.

[00:04:26] It's on sale.

[00:04:26] Oh, with the update.

[00:04:27] Yeah.

[00:04:27] Wonderful.

[00:04:28] With the big update.

[00:04:29] It's fantastic. And I just don't know why they're not doing day and date releases on PC. I just remember they, they really want to drive people to their launcher for whatever reason. It just doesn't make sense. They're losing money.

[00:04:39] Because, um, whenever you drop a game on steam, steam takes like 30% or something like that of the sales.

[00:04:46] Yeah.

[00:04:47] So Ubisoft obviously wouldn't take any, right? So they try to get, force people over to their Ubisoft plus and their launcher just to,

[00:04:54] keep that 30%. But the amount of people that use steam, like that 30% is just like, it's a no brainer now.

[00:05:02] Yeah.

[00:05:02] You know what I mean?

[00:05:02] It's a lot though.

[00:05:03] It's a lot of, it's a lot of cash off, but like there's so many more eyeballs and players on steam that it's just like, you can't really go anywhere.

[00:05:12] Like if it pops up on the steam homepage, you're like, oh.

[00:05:14] Yeah.

[00:05:14] Yeah.

[00:05:15] Like millions of people will see that.

[00:05:17] Oh, what's this? And how many people have the fucking Ubisoft launcher?

[00:05:21] Seriously.

[00:05:21] Right. The only reason why people would is because they want to play that PC is their only platform and they want to play their Assassin's Creed games.

[00:05:28] They're forced to go there. So it's kind of like a captured market.

[00:05:31] My imagine, like what, what I would imagine is the fact that like, even with them putting on steam, they're still going to get some traffic to there, but it's just like, it's that cost benefit analysis is like the, whatever percentage steam is going to take for the sales over on their platform.

[00:05:45] Is it worth it to lose the money that people wouldn't spend on their games there? So it's, yeah, it's, it's a conundrum for sure, but you know, they just got, they got to make sure to get in as many hands as possible.

[00:05:55] But yeah, so this is Star Wars Outlaws, everybody. This is a, you know, again, came out in very, very recently, you know, in consideration to a lot of the games that we played this year, August 30th, 2024, early access a few days beforehand on August 27th, 2024.

[00:06:11] So yeah, just getting into a general basis, underlying basis of like how much time we put into this game. I did 45 hours over on the PS5. It sounds like you gentlemen played on the PC. Nate, how long did you put in this game?

[00:06:24] I put, but I just played a few hours this week after the patch. So I think I hit up to 20 now, 20 hours. Okay. Yeah. Because it was the 30 day rental thing. I tried to blast through the story as quickly as I could and then do side stuff. And before the time ran out, I can't remember what other game launched that month that I was really into. So I was kind of like splitting my time. I can't remember what it was. Maybe when, when did Space Marine come out? Was that October?

[00:06:54] It was October. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It might, I was, I might be, I was trying to like finish it off so I could jump into that or it was something else, but yeah, 20, 20 hours. Yeah. Okay. 25. 25. Is that about right for you as well, Will? Well, I'm at 46 hours. Holy. That's actually crazy considering. I was going through my steps and I was looking and I was like one day, 22 hours played and I, you know, play a little bit this morning as well. So I was like, okay, nice. Sweet. Yeah. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Yeah. That's awesome. Okay. So,

[00:07:23] So Star Wars Outlaws is the latest open world RPG, action RPG game that was released by Ubisoft. This is the latest entry into the Star Wars franchise. This is considered canon. It's helmed, you know, obviously co-managed by the Disney Entertainment Systems. The people that they have over there that also work with EA to make sure that the Star Wars Fallen Order games are within the canon. They did the same thing with Ubisoft here. So everything that occurs is real. It's not a side story.

[00:07:52] This is something that's baked into the universe. Wow.

[00:07:55] To give everybody a premise, the setup to what this game is, what they're trying to do, Outlaws is set between the events of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. You know, when the Empire's conflict with Rebel Alliance is nearing its peak, this is like when it starts getting really, really hectic between the rebels and the Empire.

[00:08:10] This is essentially allowing the underworld to flourish. So you think the underworld, the syndicates, Jabba the Hutt, you know, Kira from Solo, A Star Wars Story, you know, the new leader of the Crimson Dawn, and a few other syndicates that we experience here.

[00:08:27] The Pikes are also heavily featured in a lot of different Disney Plus shows. You see them in the Boba, the awful Boba Fett show that they did.

[00:08:34] They were kind of a censor. Yeah, they were a central antagonist piece to it. So yeah, they're doing a really decent job of interweaving everything that you see here into the overall Star Wars story within that Skywalker saga time period.

[00:08:47] The story follows Kay Vess, who is a young scoundrel in the same vein as Han Solo. Just think Han Solo, but she's a lady, and who made a serious mistake. And now she's trying to elude a death mark that is put on her head. To do this, she needs to assemble the Avengers of the underworld and put a team together of scum and villainy.

[00:09:07] So yeah, this is just a third person shooter action open zone exploration video game. So I wanted to kind of start off the tone of this episode with talking about our initial impressions of what we thought this game was going to be before we got our hands on the sticks.

[00:09:23] Nate, let's start with you. What did you think about this game before you jumped in?

[00:09:26] When I first saw the trailers, I was like, why would I want to play a game of like a scoundrel, right?

[00:09:34] When I think Star Wars, I want Jedis. I want magic, right? I want that kind of stuff, right?

[00:09:39] So I was like looking at these trailers and I wasn't getting sold. I was like, this looks like... Not interested. Not interested.

[00:09:47] But the more they showed me, the more I could see the environments were really nice looking.

[00:09:55] Although the fighting in the trailers still didn't look great. I was getting pulled more into it and I was like, okay, I think I'm going to jump into this one.

[00:10:05] I think I'm going to jump into this one. And then I did the rental days. So yeah, that was my first impression.

[00:10:13] Interesting. Jono, how about you?

[00:10:15] I wanted to play it as soon as I heard about it, just because I like the idea of it. I'd like an open world Star Wars game, but I was kind of hesitant because it was an open world Star Wars game.

[00:10:29] Because it was a Ubisoft open world game.

[00:10:33] Right.

[00:10:33] And I played Assassin's Creed Valhalla, okay? For 12 hours. And I didn't even get to like the... When you go to like...

[00:10:43] You didn't even get to England, right?

[00:10:44] Yeah, you didn't get to England.

[00:10:44] For 12 hours, I'm like, dude, I'm not playing this freaking game anymore.

[00:10:48] I've played that game for 90 some hours.

[00:10:49] Like that's...

[00:10:50] Yeah.

[00:10:50] I'm like, I don't want to do that again. But then I guess, I think Nick, you told me that it wasn't supposed to be that long. Like if you can main path it. And I was like, oh, okay, okay.

[00:10:59] Well, that kind of put me back onto it. And I wanted to play. So I just did the same thing. I got the Ubisoft Plus.

[00:11:07] Nice.

[00:11:07] And then, yeah, jumped in.

[00:11:10] Yeah. So we had two... Well, all three of you besides myself did the Ubisoft Plus. I actually didn't pay for this game. I did console sharing with my girlfriend and she bought it on her PS5.

[00:11:19] And so I was able to just... I was graced, lucky enough to play it. So shout out to Courtney. But Will, you paid for the Ubisoft Plus streaming service.

[00:11:27] No wonder they didn't sell any fucking copies of this game ever.

[00:11:30] Because everyone was buying this streaming.

[00:11:32] Exactly.

[00:11:33] That's right.

[00:11:33] That's right.

[00:11:34] Under expectations.

[00:11:35] They shot the game in the kneecap by doing it on like day one streaming. And then they were like, we didn't make enough sales on it.

[00:11:41] Yeah.

[00:11:42] No shit.

[00:11:43] Yeah. What did you think was going to happen?

[00:11:45] Yeah. It's interesting because it's like, I guess it's a hard line to balance, but I feel like they're trying to do the same thing that Xbox has been doing and questionably succeeding at with the game pass.

[00:11:55] And it's like, you know, is it actually working? Is it not? You know, are they cannibalizing their own sales? Who's to say?

[00:12:00] Yeah. It's the same problem you see right now with streaming services. You see like Netflix was like the big, you know, streaming daddy for the long time and that everybody wants to Paramount, AMC, this and that.

[00:12:10] And then most people are like, most of these, you know, 90% of them are ass. I'm going to stick with either like Netflix or Hulu or whatever. And then, you know, these companies are doing that little kind of mid streaming service.

[00:12:21] And then they're complaining that they're not getting sales because like you mentioned, it feels like they're cannibalizing their physical or digital sales.

[00:12:26] So I don't know. It's like watching somebody go down a slide and fall on their face and you're like, I can go down that slide.

[00:12:35] I can do it better than that. Game pass has more games than than just Ubisoft and just Microsoft games.

[00:12:41] Yeah, they have all of these third like third party games, whereas Ubisoft doesn't have third party games on there. Right. I don't think.

[00:12:48] Right. It's strictly just Ubisoft stuff, which to be fair, their franchises are iconic. You think about Far Cry, you think about Assassin's Creed, you think about, you know, people who like gross ghost recon, some of that stuff.

[00:13:00] These are games that people want to play. They want to get in on a day one. There's an audience for those games and it's an audience that they have cultivated like these games or not for a really long time.

[00:13:09] And so it's like, you know, if people if people didn't play these games anymore, you know, they're not going to keep making them.

[00:13:14] And I mean, we're starting to see some of the fall off now with them struggling and obviously all of the rumors of the Tencent buyout.

[00:13:20] But Will, you and I have had lots of discussions and I think like, honestly, I feel like you have a generalized more an ennui, more of a disdain of Ubisoft than I have over the course of time.

[00:13:32] I mean, what did you think about this before you jumped in? Were you immediately writing it off?

[00:13:36] Well, I think immediately writing it off might be a little too far. It's the thing where I look at it like a lot of games nowadays where I say, cool, if it comes to a streaming service, I'll check it out.

[00:13:45] But I have no intention of jumping in day one, which I didn't, to be fair. So I did not do that.

[00:13:50] However, is kind of like a little bit unlike Nate because, you know, he's like, hey, I've seen this. If I'm playing a Star Wars game, I want to play lightsaber, which I think is the majority of most people. Right.

[00:13:58] But I'm also like, I played a lot of lightsaber. I just got done with the excellent Jedi survivor.

[00:14:03] Can't remember if it was late last year or earlier this year, one of the two, but had a blast with that game.

[00:14:09] However, more recently, I was introduced to Shadows of the Empire through a good friend, Paul, playing on his N64.

[00:14:15] And I was just like, oh, well, this is very fun. And I think after playing that, this game came out pretty shortly afterwards.

[00:14:22] And then a lot of people were making comparisons to that game, which I was immediately.

[00:14:25] You just played Shadow of the Empire?

[00:14:26] Yeah, it was my first. Yeah, I played like this.

[00:14:29] Yeah, I never had N64. So I had to go back into the vault. My man, Paul, he has a crazy like retro game collection.

[00:14:37] So I'm over there playing a couple of games there.

[00:14:39] That's a good game, too.

[00:14:39] I just like that like week after week.

[00:14:42] Yeah, I love that game.

[00:14:43] Love that game.

[00:14:44] It's so good. Good old Dash Rendar.

[00:14:45] Yeah, the idea sold me. Doing it with them and kind of, you know, the IG-88 fight and everything.

[00:14:51] I can't remember. I don't think it was that. The IG-88 is from the Mandalorian.

[00:14:54] Yeah, but it was like that type of droid model.

[00:14:56] But so like getting the comparisons there definitely piqued my interest more.

[00:14:59] And I was like, okay, cool.

[00:15:00] And then I started seeing a little bit more of it, including some of the goofy stealth bugs,

[00:15:04] which I'm sure we're going to talk about a lot more because that was, yeah, a lot.

[00:15:08] But still, a lot of it was interesting. Everything that I saw from Kay actually acting was very well done.

[00:15:14] And that's something that, you know, I'm definitely going to bring up later on is just that I think the actress that did Kay Vest,

[00:15:20] which is Humberley Gonzalez, she did a phenomenal job.

[00:15:23] So just seeing her in some of those trailers initially, I was like, okay, I'm ready to kind of check out at the bare minimum for the story.

[00:15:30] Because these Ubisoft games have a pretty consistent through line, you go, there's some camps, you clear the camps, maybe you climb a tower or two.

[00:15:40] Don't really do that in this game.

[00:15:41] But, you know, they have a kind of 30 seconds of fun circle and they've been copy pasting that across all of their games.

[00:15:48] So I knew what to expect for the most part gameplay wise.

[00:15:50] But the story mode, the acting, things like that, I was like, okay, I can kind of suffer through some of the gameplay if it's not that great.

[00:15:56] And then appreciate some of this good acting talent, which I think ultimately I'm getting close to the end of the game.

[00:16:01] I felt like I did get some really good characterizations out of the characters, some really good acting, some overall good story beats,

[00:16:10] considering the recent Star Wars story issues just across all media.

[00:16:14] So all in all, you know, I was ready to get into it once I started playing it.

[00:16:19] Of course, like Nick mentioned, we started putting the doc together.

[00:16:21] We know we got the Avengers together and I was like, okay, well, if we're going to have Nate in here, we're going to have Jono on here.

[00:16:27] And I was like, I guess I got to, you know, muscle up and go ahead and play through it.

[00:16:31] But ultimately, I had a good time for sure.

[00:16:34] That's good.

[00:16:35] That's good.

[00:16:35] Yeah.

[00:16:35] I mean, I can only echo everything you gentlemen have said so far.

[00:16:38] It's just like when I heard the announcement, when this first came out, and it wasn't even before like the trailer or anything,

[00:16:44] I heard Ubisoft open world Star Wars game and I just cringed on the inside.

[00:16:49] I was like, they do their games and it's like with relative success, they have their own issues.

[00:16:56] But I'm thinking like Far Cry, I'm not really a Far Cry guy.

[00:16:59] And I'm like, they're doing it with Star Wars.

[00:17:00] Like I was just, I got a massive headache thinking about it because just I want, because I'm such a Star Wars nerd, right?

[00:17:06] I want greatness from this franchise.

[00:17:09] And consistently what they run into is they kind of eat themselves because they have exactly as Will said, this formula, this gameplay formula,

[00:17:17] and this narrative storytelling formula of like placing things in blocks and allowing players to play however they want.

[00:17:24] It's just like it doesn't seem consistent.

[00:17:25] And I would say just off the gate, you know, my entire expectations jumping into this game were really, really subverted.

[00:17:32] Not only from like the gameplay, you know, visual standpoint perspective and the virtual tourism aspect of being and living and breathing in the Star Wars universe,

[00:17:40] but then like just the idea that, yeah, they took the right approach towards paring down the story.

[00:17:46] They didn't make this a 90, 120 hour adventure that you'd have to, you know, pair off over the course of three years, you know, of play time, right?

[00:17:54] Like it's the, you didn't need to do that with this game and that's actually a really strong asset to it.

[00:18:00] You can come back and do some of the style stuff whenever you're ready.

[00:18:03] But yeah, it's a, it's definitely, it was, it was fun to do that.

[00:18:06] Let's go ahead and just jump into the overall conversation when it comes to, to gameplay.

[00:18:12] So the goal of Outlaws is to simulate life.

[00:18:15] What it was to be like, you know, with a merc with a mouth.

[00:18:17] I don't know who that is.

[00:18:18] I think that might be Nathan Drake.

[00:18:20] I don't know who coined that term first.

[00:18:21] Is it Deadpool?

[00:18:23] I don't know what I'm talking about.

[00:18:24] When you said that, I was like Deadpool?

[00:18:26] Deadpool, yeah.

[00:18:27] She's a merc with a mouth in a galaxy far, far away.

[00:18:30] And, you know, to do that massive Ubisoft massive created a game loop that focuses on open world exploration, smuggling, crime, stealth, third person shooting, space combats, and speeder chases.

[00:18:41] They combined all this together in a package.

[00:18:44] It's not seamless.

[00:18:45] You can definitely see the seams in this game, but they, but they pulled it off and they did it.

[00:18:50] But something that I kind of had a little bit of an issue with was the opening portion, like the opening sequence when you're first getting started.

[00:18:58] This is like, I'm starting to see this in a lot of different media.

[00:19:01] And this is not just Ubisoft, but a lot of different games that I'm playing really struggle with like character writing and character development in the first like two to three hours.

[00:19:10] Yes, I noticed that 100% as well.

[00:19:12] And I wonder if it's like a 2024 thing or if it's like writers aren't figuring it out.

[00:19:16] It happened with Dragon Age of the Veil Guard.

[00:19:18] It's happened with other games that I've been playing.

[00:19:20] Even Metaphor, which everybody is ranting and raving about, really, really struggles to give you a lot of like the impactful character moments up front, which is something that I prefer when I get into games.

[00:19:32] Like I can scratch at characters for a while until I can kind of see some of the paint underneath.

[00:19:38] Yeah, at the beginning of this one, I found she was kind of like flaky and I was like.

[00:19:43] It was flat.

[00:19:44] Yeah, she was just like a little like, oh, like joking too much.

[00:19:47] I was like, okay, I want to see the serious, like I have to get serious about the character.

[00:19:53] But like towards the beginning for the first little bit, in the situations that she was put in, she was kind of, I guess because she was kind of new to it.

[00:20:03] But I thought she had been doing it, you know what I mean?

[00:20:05] She had been a scoundrel for a while now, but the situation she was kind of getting into, she didn't really know how to handle them, you know what I mean?

[00:20:13] Yeah.

[00:20:13] And I was like, okay, that's a bit weird if she's been kind of on the streets and doing this for a while.

[00:20:17] She seemed like a newbie.

[00:20:19] Yeah, right.

[00:20:20] But like she's a newbie to you, yes, but in terms of the story and stuff, like she had been doing that already.

[00:20:26] Yeah.

[00:20:26] So I was kind of like.

[00:20:27] For a number of years.

[00:20:28] Yeah.

[00:20:28] So I was kind of like, she seems like a bit of a klutz, like a bit of a noob.

[00:20:34] And I was hoping like, and then I said to myself, okay, well, I'm sure that like they'll progress that maybe as it goes along.

[00:20:42] Yeah.

[00:20:42] It's really interesting you say that because she has like this kind of core feature of her.

[00:20:47] And that's like naivete and flying by the seat of her pants.

[00:20:51] She's like a kid that didn't study for the test and is just like showing up to the exam on the grace of her own intellect and just kind of like bullshitting her way through conversations and really high intense things.

[00:21:02] And that like at the beginning, I didn't get it right.

[00:21:05] Like I didn't understand, especially with her relationship with her, you know, kind of adopted father, Bram, who's this like bar owner who is trying to tell her the lay of the land.

[00:21:13] He's trying to be like, look, you need to figure like your shit out because your actions have consequences.

[00:21:18] And she doesn't get that.

[00:21:19] And I think that's kind of a core feature of her character that she learns throughout the story is that, hey, like the decisions I make have like real world impacts on not just me, but everybody else.

[00:21:29] But I thought like she was, I could see it if she was maybe a little bit younger or portrayed as being a little bit younger.

[00:21:34] But she's not, I don't think.

[00:21:36] Like I think she's.

[00:21:37] No, I think she seems like 23, 24.

[00:21:39] Like in her mid-20s.

[00:21:40] Yeah, mid-20s.

[00:21:41] Like this is something I would be expecting from like a teenager.

[00:21:44] That might still be pretty young in a galaxy far from.

[00:21:47] Maybe, yeah, I guess it's what I feel like ultimately it's still pretty young just because especially with some of the flashbacks and stuff, not to get into story moments.

[00:21:52] But it's, it's makes more sense for me looking back as we continue through the story because I'm like, oh, it's almost like she doesn't really want to be in the underworld.

[00:22:01] It's just what else are you going to do on Canto Bight?

[00:22:04] Yeah.

[00:22:05] Yeah.

[00:22:06] Which is, which is interesting in and of itself.

[00:22:07] I like the fact that they start on Canto Bight.

[00:22:09] I hated that, that planet.

[00:22:11] I hated the whole side story in The Last Jedi.

[00:22:14] It was like, it was complete just diversion from the main like momentum of the plot.

[00:22:18] Like I thought we were cooking and then we definitely weren't cooking.

[00:22:21] And that was also an aspect of them sidelining Finn, which was a really terrible decision.

[00:22:25] And it was just like, it had a bunch of ilk to it that I didn't like.

[00:22:28] But in this game, it's actually really beautiful, really cool.

[00:22:31] The game starts off, you know, and again, as we said, the premise, you know, she makes a really bad mistake.

[00:22:35] That really bad mistake is stealing from the wrong person, who's this guy named Slero.

[00:22:41] He is the owner of, or rather the leader of this new and upcoming crime organization called...

[00:22:47] Yeah.

[00:22:48] Self-appointed.

[00:22:49] Yeah.

[00:22:50] Self-appointed new leader.

[00:22:51] And he kind of marks her.

[00:22:55] She gets betrayed.

[00:22:56] And, you know, and then the kind of the story starts from there.

[00:22:59] But yeah, I think that part of like the intro to this game, when it really started cooking for me, was when she makes it to Tshara, which is the second canon, you know, story planet that you land on.

[00:23:10] And the idea is, is that she steals the ship called the Trailblazer.

[00:23:13] She makes it to Tshara.

[00:23:14] She crash lands on Tshara, doesn't know what the hell she's doing.

[00:23:17] And then she meets some, you know, the Greedo race.

[00:23:21] I can't remember the alien guy.

[00:23:23] Tshara was cool.

[00:23:24] Sneaking around the city and in the like the restricted areas.

[00:23:27] I like doing that.

[00:23:28] Was Tshara the one with the crashed Star Destroyer that you had to go with?

[00:23:33] Yes.

[00:23:34] Yeah.

[00:23:35] The Vindicate.

[00:23:35] Yeah.

[00:23:36] The Vindicate class Star Destroyer from the Clone Wars.

[00:23:39] The kind of the rebel.

[00:23:40] Yeah.

[00:23:40] The clone trooper Star Destroyer, not the Empire one.

[00:23:43] And it's really, really cool.

[00:23:44] Cool section.

[00:23:45] I just love the colors, the orange, the blues.

[00:23:47] You know, some of the notes of green and neon and stuff there.

[00:23:50] That's something that we can kind of just get out of the way is that the planets, the visuals, like a lot of like the beauty that's in all of the

[00:23:58] planets across the board, whether it's Kanto by Tatooine, Tshara, Akiba, Kijimi.

[00:24:03] They're really, really well environmental designs.

[00:24:05] Like, and this is something that, yeah, it's way up there.

[00:24:08] Ubisoft knows what they're doing.

[00:24:10] They know what they're doing when it comes to presentation and visual design and environmental design like that.

[00:24:15] It's the mechanics.

[00:24:16] It's the combat that often for me, it's the gameplay loops where it's like it almost takes a second step to the presentation.

[00:24:25] But yeah, Nate, you're obviously like everybody knows, at least everybody in our circle knows that you're really big into the virtual photography.

[00:24:32] Like, did you have any favorite worlds or biomes?

[00:24:34] Like, what did you think about that whole aspect of the game?

[00:24:37] I think my favorite spots to take photos were actually inside.

[00:24:43] Yeah.

[00:24:43] It was, I don't know, it was very strange.

[00:24:45] Like whenever it was inside the starships or the star destroyers or the salvage plants or the robot factories, like inside I found where I was taking a lot more of the photos just because there was more detail in all the, in all the, like every, all the environments.

[00:25:00] And like the lights hanging or the, the sparks off the cables and you could get really cool, like lighting shot, the lighting in those like indoor shots were unbelievable.

[00:25:10] Yeah.

[00:25:11] Um, but I found most of my shots were done inside.

[00:25:14] Um, uh, specifically later in the game in the star destroyer, I think it's a star destroyer or this, one of the spaceships when you're.

[00:25:24] It's like a, it's like an Imperial space station.

[00:25:26] Yeah.

[00:25:26] Yeah.

[00:25:26] And just like how clean it was.

[00:25:29] It's like a dental office clean, you know, shine the white light.

[00:25:34] You go from this grimy city to the Imperial starkness.

[00:25:38] Yeah.

[00:25:38] So, so cool.

[00:25:40] So cool.

[00:25:40] Yeah.

[00:25:41] Um, but like the, the photo mode itself, there was one thing in this photo mode that I didn't find in, in others, whereas the actual folk, uh, excuse me, focal points that you could choose.

[00:25:54] Yeah.

[00:25:54] And I don't remember if this was in Valhalla, I may have been, but they had five, you could do a five focal point or you could do like a 20 focal point.

[00:26:03] So if you set your camera up and you want to do like a blur in the front or a blur in the back, focus on something specific.

[00:26:09] You can get that specific focus and really make some creative shots.

[00:26:14] And that's one of the biggest parts of the game that made me kept playing and exploring was just where could I take my next photo?

[00:26:22] Right.

[00:26:23] Like it was, it was really, really, really well done, uh, for photo mode in this game.

[00:26:28] Yeah.

[00:26:28] That's awesome.

[00:26:29] That's awesome.

[00:26:30] Did, uh, will John, did, did either of you do a lot of screenshots?

[00:26:33] Did you do, you know, take any captures or anything like that through your playthrough?

[00:26:36] I definitely did.

[00:26:37] I'm sure they're not as good as Nate's cause I wasn't too much as far as my eye there.

[00:26:41] But one part that kind of mixes the photo mode alongside the environmental that we already gave our props to is that some of the sections where you go find like treasures for Nyx, for example, you go through some caves and dungeons.

[00:26:53] And then when you get to the very end, you pick up a nice little treasure, which later on you can trade in for like more Nyx outfits, but it always gives you like a nice kind of vista shot at the very end.

[00:27:03] And then Kay'll sit there and freeze for a bit until you move the stick.

[00:27:06] And then the actual HUD comes back afterwards, but you can either, you know, take your shot there or you can go into photo mode at that point and you kind of have a preset up, um, nice vista of whatever planet you're on.

[00:27:18] So a lot of those, I pretty much found a treasure and then immediately hit photo button right afterwards just because it gave you a nice little preset look.

[00:27:25] Um, but yeah, the game is itself was gorgeous.

[00:27:27] I think it first really hit me how pretty the game was on Tashara, uh, riding around and then realizing that it started getting dark.

[00:27:35] Yes.

[00:27:35] I didn't, it really expected day and night cycle in that game.

[00:27:38] So when it did happen and then things really started to kind of pop in the background, you have like the, the bugs and the other kind of fauna that may be lighting up the sky.

[00:27:46] And of course the stars up in the sky, because there's not a whole lot of light out there in the kind of country area of Tashara.

[00:27:52] Um, I just immediately started taking pictures.

[00:27:54] I was like, this is gorgeous.

[00:27:55] This is super, super pretty.

[00:27:57] So that's something that really got me too.

[00:27:59] You could also in the photo mode, you can change the time of day.

[00:28:02] Yes.

[00:28:02] I did notice that too.

[00:28:03] Okay.

[00:28:04] So you could like set something up.

[00:28:05] You're like, Oh, what did this look like at dusk or, or dawn or whatever like that?

[00:28:10] And you could switch it all.

[00:28:12] Not a lot of games do that.

[00:28:13] Like I remember Ghost of Tsushima did that too.

[00:28:15] And I was like, Oh, this is really cool.

[00:28:16] I feel like most photo modes as we get more and more into like these kinds of newer gens too.

[00:28:20] I feel like photo modes just become such a, like you have to have type of thing.

[00:28:24] Oh yeah.

[00:28:25] And whenever it's not there, I notice it's not there.

[00:28:27] And even if it's half baked, I noticed that it's like half baked.

[00:28:30] Like this one, I don't feel as half baked at all.

[00:28:32] But if I'm not mistaken, correct me, Nate.

[00:28:34] But do you have the ability to change K's like facial expressions, like some of the other

[00:28:39] like kind of Sony photo modes?

[00:28:40] I don't think so.

[00:28:41] No, I don't think so.

[00:28:42] Yeah.

[00:28:42] You can't change the actual lens you use, which is nice.

[00:28:45] Oh, that's good.

[00:28:45] There's like 50 mils.

[00:28:47] There's like the 75 mil.

[00:28:48] So it'll actually change and distort with what the lens is used to doing in like real

[00:28:54] world environment.

[00:28:55] And then like bringing that focal length in and out.

[00:28:58] But I'd say it was this photo mode had more features than a lot of others.

[00:29:04] Yep.

[00:29:04] And there still hasn't been one game, well, other than Cyberpunk, where you can pretty

[00:29:10] much do like everything just because there's so many mods for Cyberpunk that I won't get

[00:29:14] into.

[00:29:14] But like there's no one game that has it all.

[00:29:19] Some games will do this in the photo mode.

[00:29:21] Some games will do this, but they won't ever just put everything together like and give you

[00:29:25] a massive photo mode thing.

[00:29:28] But like that's OK.

[00:29:30] Yeah.

[00:29:30] As long as there's a photo mode for me to play around with, I'll find a way to take some

[00:29:33] shots.

[00:29:35] Yeah.

[00:29:36] Yeah.

[00:29:36] It's definitely something that I feel like they did a decent job in this game because they

[00:29:39] knew that, you know, to what you were saying, one of the things that is the

[00:29:44] strong selling points is when your boots are on the ground and you're experiencing these

[00:29:47] various environments.

[00:29:48] And I think that like that was something that the developers were really cognizant of when

[00:29:52] they were going through this game and saying like, OK, you know, let's streamline everything

[00:29:56] where she's up in space and there's not a lot to find in space.

[00:29:59] I mean, there are things you can do.

[00:30:01] And I imagine things they probably slowly patched in or added in post launch.

[00:30:05] I feel like I noticed things.

[00:30:07] There were more things to do in space from when I started to when I finished.

[00:30:10] And that might just be an aspect of the game.

[00:30:12] But yeah, I definitely think that, you know, the beauty and the visualizations of the thing,

[00:30:16] you know, obviously like the iconography of each of the different areas, the different

[00:30:21] biomes, whether it's like the jungle rainforest of Akiva or like that desert open, like it kind

[00:30:27] of it seemed like a bountiful desert.

[00:30:28] The Tshara planet reminded me very heavily of Cal Kessis is like home base planet.

[00:30:34] I think it was like Kobo in Jedi Survivor, like had a lot of similar visual elements that

[00:30:40] they kind of were sharing.

[00:30:41] So really, really enjoyed that.

[00:30:44] But yeah, so essentially there are five biomes, five areas that you can travel to.

[00:30:50] As we said before, you travel to Kanto Bight, which is on the planet Cantonica.

[00:30:55] You go to Tatooine, Tshara that we've mentioned already, Akiva, which is a frozen planet as well

[00:31:01] as Kijimi.

[00:31:03] No, no, no.

[00:31:04] Akiva is the rainforest, Kijimi is the frozen planet, excuse me.

[00:31:07] But yeah, so you have these different worlds that you travel to.

[00:31:10] Within each of these planets, there are primary zones that you play in, whether it's kind

[00:31:14] of out in the wilderness as well as cities.

[00:31:17] There's usually a wilderness area and then a city that you travel to.

[00:31:21] And in each of these areas, there's neutral territory.

[00:31:24] And then big chunks of these areas are also controlled by one of the four syndicates in

[00:31:29] the game.

[00:31:30] And your access to those syndicate zones and the vendors within those zones depends on

[00:31:35] your current reputation with those various syndicates.

[00:31:37] So that's a huge portion of the game.

[00:31:39] Something that I have put down later on in the notes is that there is a syndicate reputation

[00:31:43] system.

[00:31:43] So Kijimi, as an outlaw, what happens is that she's sent out on side missions, whether it's

[00:31:48] bounties, main missions, quest lines, whatever the case may be.

[00:31:53] There's a ton of stuff to do in this game.

[00:31:55] And generally, most of the time speaking, as long as it's not like a super peripheral

[00:31:59] side mission or exploration style thing, there is a choice that she's faced with.

[00:32:04] Am I going to double cross the pikes?

[00:32:06] Am I going to give the data to the Crimson Dawn instead?

[00:32:10] That sort of thing.

[00:32:11] You can choose to do one or the other, and that's going to affect your reputation.

[00:32:15] And so the reputation not only is going to affect K's access.

[00:32:19] What's up?

[00:32:20] It also affects your fast traveling, which I didn't love.

[00:32:23] Yeah.

[00:32:24] I did not love that because the regions are huge.

[00:32:29] Like some of those syndicate regions are massive.

[00:32:31] And if you aren't favored with them, you can't fast travel there, which I thought was

[00:32:37] so stupid.

[00:32:38] Just give me somewhere where I can fast travel.

[00:32:42] Like otherwise you're driving around on this stupid speeder.

[00:32:45] Oh no, the speeder.

[00:32:46] The controls are so bad on the speeder.

[00:32:49] Like the traversal in the game was a huge pain point for me.

[00:32:54] I will generally agree with you there.

[00:32:57] I think that like as you explore, there are more open world, like fast travel points that

[00:33:03] you can unlock, especially in like, yeah, little towns out in the wilderness that you can go

[00:33:07] to, especially that generally have like people who will give you quest missions or bounties,

[00:33:12] you know, for the various factions.

[00:33:14] Those, that's fine.

[00:33:15] But like, if your goal is to go out into the wilderness and go do the side quest, gather

[00:33:21] the resources, unlock the chests for more consumables.

[00:33:24] I would say that like exploration is constantly rewarded.

[00:33:27] I just personally never cared about the rewards that they gave you.

[00:33:32] Like, okay, I got a new outfit for Kay.

[00:33:34] That aside, the outfits for Kay, that's a customization thing.

[00:33:37] And that's a whole thing in itself.

[00:33:38] And it affects your stats and her play style.

[00:33:40] That's fine.

[00:33:41] I never really noticed too much of a difference when I'm in my playthrough.

[00:33:44] So it was like, okay, you say it does, you know, 15% more damage, but I'm not feeling

[00:33:50] that.

[00:33:50] I played on normal.

[00:33:51] I don't know.

[00:33:52] Did, did we all play on normal hard?

[00:33:54] Okay.

[00:33:55] Yes, I believe so.

[00:33:56] Yeah.

[00:33:56] Got it.

[00:33:57] Yeah.

[00:33:58] So it's just the, it was an interesting thing, but then like the other times where it was

[00:34:01] like, oh, here's a new skin for your trailblazer.

[00:34:04] Here's a new skin for your speeder.

[00:34:05] I was like, that's cool.

[00:34:06] But it didn't matter to me.

[00:34:08] The only time that ever mattered to me was when you, um, you got your maximum reputation

[00:34:12] with one of the four factions and they gave you a new blaster color, speeder color and

[00:34:17] a trailblazer color.

[00:34:18] And I think I just did crimson dawn cause it was the coolest looking.

[00:34:21] It's the black and gold.

[00:34:22] Yeah.

[00:34:22] I did crimson.

[00:34:23] Accent.

[00:34:23] Good outfit.

[00:34:24] But don't sleep on the pikes though.

[00:34:26] You get the Imperial disguise outfit.

[00:34:28] Those are clean too.

[00:34:29] Those are clean.

[00:34:30] I do.

[00:34:30] I do like those.

[00:34:31] I didn't get that far.

[00:34:32] Like a trooper?

[00:34:32] Yeah.

[00:34:33] Yeah.

[00:34:33] Well, it's like the, um, it's like an officer.

[00:34:36] Officers.

[00:34:36] Yeah.

[00:34:36] The ones like the walk around in the Imperial area and it makes it so that I can't remember

[00:34:40] if it's, it lowers the amount of your wanted that goes up when you're shooting Imperials

[00:34:45] or what?

[00:34:45] Oh, nice.

[00:34:46] But it was something like that, but it just looks nice.

[00:34:48] Like the all, the all white, like the little pins and everything.

[00:34:50] Oh, sweet.

[00:34:51] Looks kind of sick.

[00:34:52] Nice.

[00:34:52] Yeah.

[00:34:53] Yeah.

[00:34:53] But you know, the core conceit when we were talking about gameplay still for Star Wars

[00:34:59] Outlaws and the core conceit of this game is that realistically, as much as they wanted

[00:35:03] to make this a third person shooter, open world exploration game at its core, it's kind

[00:35:08] of an Assassin's Creed game.

[00:35:09] It's another Assassin's Creed just kind of like with a Star Wars veneer that's put over

[00:35:14] the top.

[00:35:14] And I think that's an oversimplification.

[00:35:16] But like when someone's thinking about like, what am I doing for the most part in this game?

[00:35:20] You're sneaking around.

[00:35:21] You're sneaking around.

[00:35:22] You're finding stuff.

[00:35:23] Yeah.

[00:35:23] Yeah.

[00:35:24] And that's something that obviously I didn't link the actual article, but it's something

[00:35:28] new that they just recently implemented the week of us doing this review.

[00:35:34] They knew.

[00:35:35] They knew the Friday Night Gamecast was going to review.

[00:35:38] Somebody leaked my Google Doc, but they released a patch that essentially got rid of all of the

[00:35:46] mandatory stealth sections.

[00:35:47] And there are maybe three to four main story quest lines that are mandatory stealth.

[00:35:52] They were pretty early on in the game though, I think.

[00:35:55] I think it got, they got away from that later on in the game.

[00:35:59] No, there's one mission later on.

[00:36:02] There might be one later on, but like most of the force stealth I thought was pretty early.

[00:36:07] Yeah.

[00:36:08] Just getting kicked back to the beginning.

[00:36:09] And it was glitchy.

[00:36:10] I was like, yeah.

[00:36:11] It was glitchy.

[00:36:11] And if you get glitched out and then have to get kicked back to the beginning of the mission.

[00:36:15] Oh man.

[00:36:18] It's something that, yeah.

[00:36:20] It's something that a hundred percent sets me up a wall.

[00:36:21] Like I just, if it's not, that's the thing.

[00:36:24] Like we talk about this all the time when I'm playing a Soulsborne game, like from, from,

[00:36:28] from soft game actually.

[00:36:30] And I fuck up and I get crushed by whoever I'm fighting against.

[00:36:35] I'm like, that's me.

[00:36:36] That's a me problem.

[00:36:37] When I'm playing an Ubisoft game and an NPC is standing like a mile away from me and I

[00:36:42] turn around and I hear, turn.

[00:36:43] And then their icon goes rend and I'm caught.

[00:36:46] I'm like, that's bullshit.

[00:36:47] That hasn't happened to me before.

[00:36:49] And so.

[00:36:50] When you're hiding behind a box, you're literally crouched behind the box and they see you from

[00:36:54] two miles away.

[00:36:55] They saw a single hair flip up over the box and they're like, I see you.

[00:37:00] Realistic, man.

[00:37:01] Yeah.

[00:37:01] It's something that, yeah, it's, it's really, it's, it's frustrating for me because like

[00:37:06] there's like, you know, when in the stealth systems that they're making here, they have

[00:37:09] like visual cones for the NPCs that you can't see as the player, but that's, you know, what

[00:37:13] they're doing as developers.

[00:37:14] And there's like NPC awareness levels and it's just not calibrated correctly.

[00:37:20] And it's not consistent.

[00:37:22] Like there is a mission on Tatooine where you have to sneak into a restricted area.

[00:37:27] And there is a very linear path that you go down.

[00:37:30] And I'll tell you what, gentlemen, like there were several times where I was like, I was

[00:37:33] cooking, I was knocking people out.

[00:37:35] I was getting, you know, mantling wall, scaling walls.

[00:37:38] And then I just hop out and then like three dudes would just be standing to the side of

[00:37:42] me and I'm caught.

[00:37:43] And I'm like, how was I supposed to know that they were there?

[00:37:47] Oh, you don't spam nicks whenever you're sneaking up on the deep end.

[00:37:52] I do, but it's just not good.

[00:37:54] It's not, uh, it's not an eagle vision.

[00:37:56] Oh yeah.

[00:37:57] You don't see them through walls.

[00:37:58] From Assassin's Creed.

[00:37:58] And I know that might've been like a, that might've been like a design choice, a gameplay

[00:38:03] design choice on their part because they wanted you to feel like you're a real person in

[00:38:06] this world and not like a assassin in the, uh, animus.

[00:38:10] Yeah.

[00:38:11] But I still think I was just like, I was, I was, I was a little frustrated with some

[00:38:15] of that.

[00:38:15] Um, in some sections.

[00:38:16] We haven't mentioned nicks yet.

[00:38:18] Yeah.

[00:38:18] We know we haven't really talked about it.

[00:38:19] Have we?

[00:38:19] Yeah.

[00:38:19] Yeah.

[00:38:20] So yeah.

[00:38:21] I mean, just nicks.

[00:38:21] He is, uh, essentially the BD one for, yeah, he's their space dog.

[00:38:26] He's your, he's your little side companion.

[00:38:28] And so I think that for whatever reason they felt like anytime you're playing a star Wars

[00:38:33] game that you need a fun companion.

[00:38:35] Um, and I love nicks.

[00:38:37] I didn't think I was going to love him, but I love him.

[00:38:40] I, I got really attached to that little fucker over the time.

[00:38:44] It's I'm a day one nicks fan.

[00:38:46] Day one nicks fan.

[00:38:47] You were day one, even on the trailers.

[00:38:49] I was like, that is a cute axolotl.

[00:38:51] Like I would die for nicks.

[00:38:53] Give me the axolotl friend.

[00:38:54] That's what he looks like.

[00:38:55] And especially when you start like upgrading him later on with some of the things when they

[00:38:58] made it so you could use him to like detonate grenades on soldiers.

[00:39:01] I was like, Oh, he's the man.

[00:39:03] Yeah.

[00:39:03] I would be, I felt like then I'm playing cyberpunk.

[00:39:06] I'm just sitting there spamming detonate and blowing people up in stealth.

[00:39:09] Yeah.

[00:39:10] Yeah.

[00:39:10] Yeah.

[00:39:11] So like, uh, I'm not a huge stealther in any games.

[00:39:15] Right.

[00:39:15] To be honest.

[00:39:16] So like, I didn't know it was going to be that stealthy when I started this game.

[00:39:20] Like I thought there'd be some stealth elements.

[00:39:23] Yeah.

[00:39:23] That's true.

[00:39:24] I didn't think that.

[00:39:24] But I didn't think it was going to be every, for the first half of the game, man, I was

[00:39:28] hiding behind a box in some way or another, you know?

[00:39:32] And I just, I'm more of a Rambo guns blazing and blowing shit up like all the time.

[00:39:38] And every one of my games, if there's a stealth mission, I don't do it.

[00:39:41] I just blow my way through it all.

[00:39:43] And my wife grills me for it every single time I'll be playing.

[00:39:47] She's like, Oh, stealth mission.

[00:39:48] I'm like, fuck that.

[00:39:49] And I'll just go in.

[00:39:50] I started blasting.

[00:39:51] Yeah.

[00:39:51] I started blasting.

[00:39:52] So anyway, I started blasting.

[00:39:53] And then all these enemies just keep coming and I just keep mowing them down.

[00:39:57] Mowing them down.

[00:39:58] That's what I do.

[00:39:59] That's how I play them.

[00:40:00] Definitely, you could tell by the way that they implemented like the kind of gun play.

[00:40:04] Yes.

[00:40:05] It's not very good.

[00:40:06] So I think they kind of wanted you to.

[00:40:09] They wanted you.

[00:40:10] Yeah.

[00:40:10] To do stealth.

[00:40:11] Which is unfortunate because like the gun play, you're a merc.

[00:40:15] You're a, you know, you're a.

[00:40:18] You're Han Solo.

[00:40:19] You're Han Solo.

[00:40:19] You, you, you blast, you know what I'm saying?

[00:40:22] But like they only give you one gun.

[00:40:24] You literally can't have anything else unless you pick it up and then you lose it as soon

[00:40:29] as you climb a frigging ladder or something like.

[00:40:32] And that's something that they fix in the patch too.

[00:40:34] Exactly.

[00:40:34] Which is really frustrating because if like, like that's the thing that really gets me

[00:40:39] about Ubisoft.

[00:40:40] Not only is that they're taking so many templates from their different games and they're kind

[00:40:44] of smushing them together.

[00:40:45] And I will say there's so much of that that manifests itself in Star Wars Outlaws that

[00:40:50] I think personally is really, really creative.

[00:40:52] But you're touching on something there, Jono, that like really frustrates me is the fact

[00:40:56] that they allowed themselves to be sloppy.

[00:40:58] And the fact that they didn't do quality control enough with enough player testers to say, why

[00:41:04] can't I just, it's the division.

[00:41:06] The people who made the division.

[00:41:08] And you're telling me I can't sling a stormtrooper back, like blaster on my back.

[00:41:12] Like, I'm cool.

[00:41:13] I'm okay if you don't want to leave ammo on the ground to replenish a third party blaster.

[00:41:18] You know what I mean?

[00:41:19] Like if it runs out and then as soon as it runs out, you discard it.

[00:41:22] Cool.

[00:41:23] I'm fine with that.

[00:41:23] But if I want to like pick up a sniper and climb up a ladder and then like be tactical.

[00:41:29] Get to a vantage point as a sniper would do.

[00:41:32] No.

[00:41:32] Yeah.

[00:41:33] And it's not just I can't climb a ladder.

[00:41:36] You can't scale a ledge.

[00:41:37] You can't climb over an obstacle.

[00:41:39] You can't drop down.

[00:41:40] You can't do anything with anything other than your blaster.

[00:41:43] And it's like, I think there may have been thoughts where they were like, they want

[00:41:48] Kay to feel powerless.

[00:41:49] They want Kay to feel like she's on the edge of her seat all the time because that's what

[00:41:53] Han Solo kind of was like.

[00:41:55] And that's all he really had.

[00:41:56] They give you a spec option to spec into heavy weapons and the stuff like the big machine

[00:42:00] guns that you can pick up.

[00:42:01] Yeah.

[00:42:01] Like why would they give you that?

[00:42:04] Yeah.

[00:42:04] If you can't use it all the time.

[00:42:06] They patched this.

[00:42:06] Yeah.

[00:42:07] I feel like it's supposed to be temporary as well.

[00:42:08] Yeah.

[00:42:08] And they fixed it.

[00:42:09] But it's like, why is this not a priority at launch?

[00:42:13] That's my thing.

[00:42:14] Is that like in this and it's again, I mean, we had reviewers that were playing this before

[00:42:18] it even launched.

[00:42:19] And then like you would think, okay, day one launch.

[00:42:21] First thing we got to fix is the guns.

[00:42:23] First thing we got to do because like you do a lot of shooting in this game.

[00:42:25] And I mean, that's something since we're already here, we can just get into it is that like

[00:42:30] there are the mechanic systems around the blaster are fine.

[00:42:33] I like the customization.

[00:42:34] That's cool.

[00:42:35] I did not care about the three modes.

[00:42:38] I can't remember the modes in preparing the doc.

[00:42:41] The different lenses that she can use on her.

[00:42:43] At least it gave you some options.

[00:42:45] Yeah.

[00:42:45] Like the plasma standard shot.

[00:42:47] If you can't use other guns.

[00:42:48] Everything was so simple in this game.

[00:42:49] Like all the upgrades, the options.

[00:42:52] Yeah, they did.

[00:42:52] It was very like super simple, which I appreciate because I hate.

[00:42:57] Right.

[00:42:58] Pages and pages.

[00:42:59] It's not like Call of Duty where you have 35 attachments.

[00:43:02] Yeah.

[00:43:02] You want a stock for your blaster?

[00:43:03] You want a new site?

[00:43:06] No.

[00:43:06] It's literally like three levels for each blaster or something.

[00:43:09] Exactly.

[00:43:10] Whatever it was, right?

[00:43:11] The simplification is easy.

[00:43:12] It's just like the thing that bothers me is that it could have just like, I don't know,

[00:43:17] not been there.

[00:43:18] I don't.

[00:43:18] It's hard to say.

[00:43:19] I don't.

[00:43:20] I don't, as I'm not a gameplay designer, so I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

[00:43:24] I'm just just sitting here as an armchair critic.

[00:43:27] But I'm just thinking like, okay, so the three modes in the blaster, you have the red, which

[00:43:30] is the people killer.

[00:43:31] Yeah.

[00:43:31] The single, you can do single shot or multi shot where it's kind of like a little submachine

[00:43:36] gun, which is cool.

[00:43:37] I use that for the first half of the game until my single shot got really powerful.

[00:43:41] And then I switched back to that.

[00:43:43] For the blue lens on your gun, I'm just calling them lenses.

[00:43:47] I don't know what the name would be.

[00:43:48] The ion.

[00:43:48] Yeah.

[00:43:48] The ion modification.

[00:43:50] Modules.

[00:43:51] They're modules.

[00:43:52] You use that to blast battle droids and then get rid of enemy shields.

[00:43:56] There's later on where like certain enemies like the pikes or maybe some of the crimson

[00:43:59] dawn people will come at you with shields.

[00:44:01] And so you have to get rid of those in order to kill them.

[00:44:04] Yes.

[00:44:05] Yeah.

[00:44:05] And then, and then with the two separate modules, either the blue or the orange module,

[00:44:11] those are used for environmental traversal.

[00:44:13] Like, so for the blue one, you're powering up a little like, yeah, a little power relay to

[00:44:17] open up a door or then like the orange one that you get later on, you're destroying

[00:44:21] these very orangey rocks.

[00:44:23] Oh, yeah.

[00:44:23] That will allow you to get through.

[00:44:24] Oh, power shot.

[00:44:26] Yeah.

[00:44:27] Yeah.

[00:44:27] I got stuck in the, I got stuck in one part of the game where it's like, I didn't know

[00:44:31] what to do.

[00:44:32] Like, is it where you were trying to rescue Inc?

[00:44:34] Yes.

[00:44:35] Yeah.

[00:44:36] I got stuck there too.

[00:44:37] I was like, what am I supposed to blow up here?

[00:44:39] Terrible.

[00:44:39] I was sitting there and I was like, I was shooting at things.

[00:44:42] I got you.

[00:44:42] Yeah.

[00:44:43] Yeah.

[00:44:43] I would, there was a part where you had to like, there, they do this a couple of different

[00:44:47] times.

[00:44:47] So you do it when you're rescuing like a jellyfish man and then there's a member of

[00:44:51] the crew that you bring on.

[00:44:52] Oh, I love that guy.

[00:44:53] That guy was awesome.

[00:44:54] I can't remember his, I can't remember his name, but he was really cool.

[00:44:57] Boss something?

[00:44:59] Resnack, maybe?

[00:45:00] Boss Hogg or some shit?

[00:45:03] We'll just go with that.

[00:45:04] Boss Hogg is his name.

[00:45:05] That thing does his name.

[00:45:06] But yeah, that level that Nate and I are talking about, like, it's just really, really poor,

[00:45:12] a great example of really poor signposting.

[00:45:15] Yes.

[00:45:15] When you want, when you want your player to get through a level, you need some type of

[00:45:18] light indicator, some type of way that the camera is moving through the environment.

[00:45:23] That just flashes at you.

[00:45:24] Or like visually, this is where I need to go.

[00:45:26] This is what I need to blow up.

[00:45:28] And it's like, I think there's a lot of conversation these days about like people getting really

[00:45:32] mad.

[00:45:33] Like God of War Ragnarok was the recent one where the NPCs wouldn't shut the fuck up

[00:45:37] and they wouldn't give you even more than like five seconds to figure out a puzzle

[00:45:40] before they start getting you hints.

[00:45:42] Right.

[00:45:42] And so it's like people don't want to be helped, but then some people do.

[00:45:46] And I feel like the simple fix to a lot of people's complaints about that is like menu

[00:45:51] modification.

[00:45:51] You put a slider, how much help you want, how little help you want if you want to figure

[00:45:55] it out.

[00:45:55] But like that's not necessarily the problem here.

[00:45:58] And this is an issue that is repeated in various, it's manifested in a bunch of different

[00:46:03] ways.

[00:46:04] It's Bosnok, Bosnok was the jellyfish man that you rescue from the empire.

[00:46:09] But yeah, it's just, it's one of those things where you want, you want your player to be

[00:46:15] able to figure out what to do within, with a very short amount of time, especially when

[00:46:18] it's a narrative.

[00:46:19] If it's a main story mission, you want to be able to get through it and have a good time.

[00:46:24] And I feel like that was a little bit of an underselling point.

[00:46:26] But I wanted to ask you guys, how often do you remember that you had the Red Dead Redemption

[00:46:32] ultimate quick shot?

[00:46:34] All the time.

[00:46:34] All the time.

[00:46:35] Every single time.

[00:46:36] It's so funny too.

[00:46:37] They give you that well before they actually introduce it in the story.

[00:46:41] Like when you go talk to the-

[00:46:42] That's why I forgot it.

[00:46:43] When you go talk to the sheriff, it's like, oh, tap your buttons to do this.

[00:46:47] I'd be like, I've been doing this for three hours.

[00:46:49] I'm like, why are you telling me about this right now?

[00:46:51] And then of course, when you upgrade it, it's really awesome.

[00:46:53] But no, especially we talk about it before and just reiterating because

[00:46:56] it is the truth.

[00:46:57] The stealth system is not good.

[00:46:59] Considering they take away a lot of things for you with the shooting to kind of force

[00:47:03] you more into the stealth, they should have really refined the stealth more.

[00:47:06] That being said, when you start blasting, you get into those shootouts, which they inevitably

[00:47:10] devolve into.

[00:47:12] I'm having something like that, you know, kind of-

[00:47:13] Yes.

[00:47:14] Mark and execute, for lack of a better term.

[00:47:16] I can't remember exactly what they call it.

[00:47:18] Like the adrenaline meter.

[00:47:18] It's like a guy on Overwatch there.

[00:47:21] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:47:22] What's his face?

[00:47:23] Cassidy?

[00:47:24] Cassidy.

[00:47:24] Yeah, yeah, Cassidy.

[00:47:25] High noon.

[00:47:25] Okay.

[00:47:26] Yeah.

[00:47:26] It's high noon.

[00:47:28] It's high noon.

[00:47:28] Like tap, tap, tap.

[00:47:29] And then she goes pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.

[00:47:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:47:31] I mean, to be fair, it looks cool.

[00:47:32] You can spec into it so you get it faster.

[00:47:35] Yeah.

[00:47:35] Yeah.

[00:47:36] Which is what I did.

[00:47:38] And it made it a lot easier.

[00:47:40] Yeah.

[00:47:40] And I had a couple of pieces of armor which made it so like if I lost a bunch of health,

[00:47:44] it would like instantly fill it.

[00:47:46] Yeah.

[00:47:46] So if I got into a big shootout and I was getting my ass whooped, then I would just get a free

[00:47:50] five or six kills.

[00:47:52] Same thing with the heavy guys.

[00:47:53] Sometimes you mark somebody and they turn yellow so you can't kill them in one shot.

[00:47:57] Later on, you go down that pathway and then you can mark them twice.

[00:48:00] So she just like shoots them twice in the head and kills.

[00:48:03] Yeah.

[00:48:03] Yeah.

[00:48:04] I would say like that ultimate ability.

[00:48:07] Largely, I do agree with you.

[00:48:08] Well, I think it's cool that they gave it to you early.

[00:48:10] It's a get out of jail free card.

[00:48:12] Yeah.

[00:48:12] That's perfectly fine.

[00:48:13] But I think for me, because I'm a ridiculous person, I want ultimate abilities to be fucking

[00:48:18] ridiculous, right?

[00:48:19] So I want her, I want it to be either like you cut to like a different, you pan the

[00:48:24] camera and you see her say something stupid like this was your last mistake.

[00:48:28] Oh God.

[00:48:28] And just see her smoke these guys.

[00:48:30] Like a fatality.

[00:48:31] That's what I'm saying.

[00:48:32] Yeah.

[00:48:32] No, seriously.

[00:48:32] Like I want it to be like larger than life because that's kind of what they're going for.

[00:48:37] I feel like that's the tone that they're tracking on this game.

[00:48:39] I think you're using it too much though when you spec into it, you would be using it like

[00:48:41] literally all the time.

[00:48:42] Every single fight.

[00:48:43] Yeah.

[00:48:43] I get off like twice.

[00:48:44] Yeah.

[00:48:44] Oh, easily.

[00:48:46] Easily.

[00:48:46] So it would take kind of, it would take, it would drag it out a little bit.

[00:48:50] And it was the only way to kill people on the speeder.

[00:48:51] So it's like I had to remember it was there because otherwise I'm driving around and

[00:48:54] I can't even shoot my damn blaster on the speeder.

[00:48:57] Hey, hey, I've got something to say about that.

[00:48:59] I don't know if it's going to wait later, but I mean, we can go, go for it.

[00:49:02] Go for it.

[00:49:03] What I want to go back is a little bit more of the stealth.

[00:49:05] The takedowns.

[00:49:06] I was not a huge fan of like the stealth.

[00:49:09] There's not a lot.

[00:49:10] There's not enough.

[00:49:10] What?

[00:49:11] Yeah.

[00:49:11] The uppercut is cool.

[00:49:13] The uppercut is really cool.

[00:49:15] Some of them were super boring and like unsatisfactory.

[00:49:17] Like if I snuck through this entire part and then like, I like punched them in

[00:49:23] a kidney and like they fall over.

[00:49:24] Come on.

[00:49:26] You know what I mean?

[00:49:27] I loved it when she like tapped him on the shoulder and like look up and they

[00:49:30] look up and she uppercuts the shit out of them.

[00:49:32] Yeah.

[00:49:33] I really like the one where Nyx like grabs them by the collar and like drags

[00:49:37] them down and she like uppercuts them as he's dragging them down.

[00:49:41] Like that's cool.

[00:49:42] And that's something that I will say that is applicable to both the shootout

[00:49:46] scenarios as well as the stealth is that I think Nyx is a really handy,

[00:49:51] again,

[00:49:52] like he was a creative way to get them to say,

[00:49:56] okay,

[00:49:56] we can be versatile with the gameplay.

[00:49:58] Go,

[00:49:58] go in,

[00:49:59] pop open a canister to give me some gas,

[00:50:01] go like start an explosion over there to draw people.

[00:50:04] So I can go over here and do a thing like,

[00:50:06] or just like,

[00:50:07] even if you're faced with like three or four enemies and they're staggered in

[00:50:11] terms of how far they are away from K,

[00:50:12] it's cool that,

[00:50:14] yeah,

[00:50:14] you can get him to go play dead or you can go have him be an alien face

[00:50:17] hugger on one while you obliterate another guy.

[00:50:20] And then as soon as you're done with him,

[00:50:22] you can just like pair off and like do that with the enemies.

[00:50:25] You have to like sprint up and you sprint up and do the attack on one.

[00:50:30] The Superman punch is crazy.

[00:50:32] the other guy is still kind of distracted by Nyx.

[00:50:33] The Superman punch is fun.

[00:50:34] But then there'd be someone somewhere else down the hallway around the corner,

[00:50:38] like brrraat.

[00:50:39] And then they snipe you.

[00:50:39] What was that?

[00:50:40] And then go and press the alarm and then like 50 people come in.

[00:50:43] And then you have to start over from the next.

[00:50:45] Yeah,

[00:50:45] you got to take care of the alarms first with Nyx.

[00:50:48] Exactly.

[00:50:49] Go around,

[00:50:49] take care of the alarm.

[00:50:50] Yeah,

[00:50:50] yeah.

[00:50:51] But Nyx,

[00:50:51] you got to tell me though,

[00:50:52] you got to tell me,

[00:50:53] you're trying to say you don't like those takedowns when you're playing as K,

[00:50:57] stone hands,

[00:50:58] vest.

[00:50:58] Yeah.

[00:50:58] Because she's punching,

[00:50:59] she's punching these grown ass men in the head for one hit.

[00:51:03] With helmets.

[00:51:03] Yeah,

[00:51:03] punching helmets.

[00:51:04] I have a note.

[00:51:05] Yeah,

[00:51:05] I have a note.

[00:51:06] She'd be a good hockey fighter.

[00:51:07] K,

[00:51:07] the one true iron fist.

[00:51:09] Listen,

[00:51:10] Jake Paul wouldn't stand a chance against K-Vess.

[00:51:12] She'd be cooked.

[00:51:14] He'd be so cooked against K-Vess.

[00:51:16] And that's like,

[00:51:17] that's something that again,

[00:51:18] like,

[00:51:18] the fact that you,

[00:51:19] and to Nate's point,

[00:51:21] this happens to me all the time where it's like,

[00:51:23] the last third of this game where you're asked to break into the hideout of like,

[00:51:28] the big bad guy of the game.

[00:51:30] I got really frustrated because I just saw this huge open hangar bay full of all of these enemies

[00:51:37] and I was like,

[00:51:37] fuck this shit.

[00:51:38] And I just went Rambo mode in that level.

[00:51:41] I was just like,

[00:51:42] I don't have time.

[00:51:42] I just want to fucking murder all of these people.

[00:51:45] And I did it.

[00:51:46] And that's something that you,

[00:51:47] I will say is like,

[00:51:49] it's a little bit twitchy.

[00:51:50] It's,

[00:51:51] you know,

[00:51:51] I have my complaints about the shootout scenarios,

[00:51:53] but they do at least give you enough versatility,

[00:51:55] whether it's like with your grenades or your smoke bombs or using Nix.

[00:51:59] Like they give you a lot of tools in your belt to use whenever you do want to go Rambo.

[00:52:03] It's just,

[00:52:04] you have to know that Kay is kind of a squishy character and like,

[00:52:07] it's not necessarily meant to go that way.

[00:52:09] But yeah,

[00:52:10] especially with the stealth,

[00:52:11] like there were,

[00:52:12] there were so many times where I was just like,

[00:52:13] fuck it.

[00:52:14] I'm just going to,

[00:52:14] I'm just going to kill people.

[00:52:15] I even,

[00:52:16] yeah,

[00:52:16] there was one time where Will was watching me play and I pulled up on a Imperial base

[00:52:21] and I just handed them controller.

[00:52:22] I said,

[00:52:23] just,

[00:52:23] just play through this.

[00:52:24] And he,

[00:52:25] he immediately like triggered alarms and he had troopers called on him.

[00:52:28] He was just like,

[00:52:29] he was just going ham.

[00:52:31] He was just sniping people.

[00:52:33] It's funny too.

[00:52:34] I completely forgot the smoke bombs exist.

[00:52:35] Every time I'm playing that game,

[00:52:36] I'm just like,

[00:52:37] Oh,

[00:52:37] smoke bombs.

[00:52:38] If I get caught,

[00:52:39] you're dead.

[00:52:40] Like there's no,

[00:52:41] I'm not sneaking away.

[00:52:42] I'm going to take you out.

[00:52:44] Yeah.

[00:52:45] Yeah.

[00:52:46] So,

[00:52:46] so,

[00:52:46] you know,

[00:52:46] that's,

[00:52:47] that's largely,

[00:52:47] I think we did a good job of talking about like what happens whenever you're in

[00:52:50] these scenarios,

[00:52:51] you know,

[00:52:52] in the open world and especially whether it's in like the rural areas of the

[00:52:56] various worlds you're on or you're in space,

[00:52:59] the speeder combat is so bad.

[00:53:01] The speeder combat is just literally,

[00:53:02] that's not good at all.

[00:53:03] Speeder,

[00:53:04] anything is not good.

[00:53:05] These things are going 400 kilometers an hour.

[00:53:08] How are you going to combat on a speeder?

[00:53:10] Okay.

[00:53:12] They should have had,

[00:53:13] instead of like the slow down adrenaline to mark and execute,

[00:53:15] I feel like they could have gone a lot better.

[00:53:18] And this is once again,

[00:53:18] kind of armchair gaming,

[00:53:20] armchair devving more,

[00:53:21] but it's like,

[00:53:22] all right,

[00:53:22] give me when I'm on the speeder,

[00:53:23] the ability to like slow down time.

[00:53:25] And then I can shoot while it's slow.

[00:53:27] So like to your point,

[00:53:28] Nate,

[00:53:28] yeah,

[00:53:28] you're,

[00:53:28] you're moving super fast in real time,

[00:53:30] but Oh,

[00:53:31] Kay uses her super adrenaline ability to aim.

[00:53:35] And then it looks like it slows down and then you can aim and shoot at

[00:53:38] people and do stuff.

[00:53:39] And I'm like,

[00:53:39] all right,

[00:53:39] then you bring it a little bit closer to real,

[00:53:42] you know,

[00:53:42] speed while you're shooting.

[00:53:43] But then she like,

[00:53:44] she snaps back and I'm just ramming into a rock.

[00:53:47] Oh yeah.

[00:53:48] Fucking animation,

[00:53:49] that candace animation of her flopping through the air.

[00:53:52] I hit so much shit.

[00:53:54] I would hit like a little twig and just go flying off or like a bantha in the

[00:54:00] middle of fucking nowhere.

[00:54:01] There's like a,

[00:54:01] or there's big animals,

[00:54:03] whatever.

[00:54:03] Turn around.

[00:54:04] He just ran.

[00:54:05] He just rubbed right into it.

[00:54:07] You know,

[00:54:07] you see what would be cool is if you hit the bantha,

[00:54:09] it would just explode into pop.

[00:54:12] As you're going for whatever speed,

[00:54:14] like so fast.

[00:54:15] Yeah.

[00:54:16] It would completely be obliterated.

[00:54:18] You wouldn't hit a Buffalo and like fall off your speeder.

[00:54:22] Yeah.

[00:54:22] You know what I mean?

[00:54:23] Yeah.

[00:54:23] Like rip through it.

[00:54:24] That's 100%.

[00:54:24] Guts everywhere.

[00:54:26] Yeah.

[00:54:27] That would have been so sick.

[00:54:28] Oh man.

[00:54:29] Fucking awesome.

[00:54:30] I think it was just more annoying to me.

[00:54:32] The fact that I'm going so fast.

[00:54:34] It's like,

[00:54:34] how are people even seeing I'm the one that they're going to shoot?

[00:54:37] Unless they're just shoot everybody on site,

[00:54:39] whoever's coming through the area.

[00:54:40] Like,

[00:54:40] why does that,

[00:54:41] really matter when you're on a speeder bike going 400 kilometers an hour?

[00:54:44] I think what bothers me more than anything else about the speeder system is that it feels bad,

[00:54:49] but we figured this shit out so long ago in terms of game dev.

[00:54:54] Like Destiny 1,

[00:54:55] the speeder bikes in the open worlds in those games felt really,

[00:54:58] really good.

[00:54:59] And I just don't understand why you couldn't take a rigging system just like the one that they used

[00:55:03] and put it in here.

[00:55:04] I know that like they wanted to,

[00:55:11] it's like,

[00:55:12] it's like always very fast and straight.

[00:55:13] And there's not like a lot of strafing that they do or anything like that.

[00:55:16] Whereas the Destiny speeders are so floaty,

[00:55:18] but still,

[00:55:18] I feel like there's a happy medium that you can find it to make it feel good.

[00:55:22] And it's just so reactive that like,

[00:55:25] it didn't feel good.

[00:55:25] No way.

[00:55:26] First thing,

[00:55:27] one of the first things I noticed in the game was just like,

[00:55:29] and the speeder sucks.

[00:55:31] Now I never,

[00:55:32] it looks cool.

[00:55:32] I never upgraded my speeder to max.

[00:55:35] Have,

[00:55:35] did you guys?

[00:55:36] I maxed a couple of things.

[00:55:38] I maxed out the speed.

[00:55:38] Did it change any kind of,

[00:55:40] it went faster.

[00:55:42] Yeah,

[00:55:42] but it wasn't that great though.

[00:55:44] There's a jump that you can get for it.

[00:55:45] And that's something that I found.

[00:55:47] And this is going to be a little bit later on when I'm talking about some of the technical issues that I ran into,

[00:55:51] the bugs and progression bugs.

[00:55:53] I got in a really,

[00:55:54] really fucked up like gameplay,

[00:55:57] like break,

[00:55:57] almost a game breaking loop where I didn't create any,

[00:56:01] uh,

[00:56:02] subsidiary saves.

[00:56:03] And I had like only one save at the time and I was onto Shara and I was on my speeder and I was trying to go to a wilderness destination to go find a chest somewhere.

[00:56:11] And the speeder hit just a right nook and cranny of the geometry that I couldn't get off.

[00:56:17] I couldn't move the speeder.

[00:56:19] I couldn't open my menu.

[00:56:20] Like I literally could not do anything.

[00:56:22] I had to force quit.

[00:56:23] Yeah.

[00:56:24] I had to force quit the application like multiple times.

[00:56:26] And I really was,

[00:56:27] and I was trying to reload a save to get her out of there because once I was in game,

[00:56:31] I couldn't do anything.

[00:56:33] wow.

[00:56:33] Yeah.

[00:56:34] I couldn't even fast travel at that point because I was in like an enemy territory.

[00:56:37] Right.

[00:56:38] So it was,

[00:56:38] uh,

[00:56:39] it was a really,

[00:56:40] really,

[00:56:41] uh,

[00:56:41] frustrating thing for me at that point.

[00:56:43] So it was just,

[00:56:43] you know,

[00:56:43] that's obviously something that you have to account for playing an Ubisoft game.

[00:56:48] You're going to run into bugs like that.

[00:56:50] And talking a little bit too,

[00:56:51] with like the speeder,

[00:56:52] it just to touch on base.

[00:56:54] So for a short amount of time,

[00:56:55] anyone here particularly enjoy the ship combat or flying around in space?

[00:57:01] I did later once I upgraded,

[00:57:04] I upgraded my ship and,

[00:57:06] uh,

[00:57:07] I liked it actually.

[00:57:08] I,

[00:57:08] I flew around in space and,

[00:57:10] um,

[00:57:11] I would just go,

[00:57:12] cause there's little,

[00:57:12] when you scan,

[00:57:13] you can do a scan to see things and I would just go,

[00:57:16] enemies and I would just go to the question marks in space.

[00:57:19] Um,

[00:57:20] but there's one thing that I think maybe you guys didn't get,

[00:57:23] but once you get the turret,

[00:57:25] there's a side quest to get the turret.

[00:57:27] But the jaw is not tattooing.

[00:57:28] Yes.

[00:57:29] That thing is sick.

[00:57:30] It literally just turns on and automatically shoots everything.

[00:57:34] You don't,

[00:57:34] you don't have to aim or shoot anything.

[00:57:36] It just does it.

[00:57:37] And I was just killing everything.

[00:57:39] I was like,

[00:57:39] that's actually outstanding.

[00:57:41] And I was really,

[00:57:42] really like right when that,

[00:57:44] uh,

[00:57:45] option opened up,

[00:57:46] that was when I was in the mindset,

[00:57:47] the mode where I was like,

[00:57:48] I need to streamline this game.

[00:57:49] I can't do any more side shit because I spent a solid chunk of my 45 hours doing the side shit.

[00:57:55] So I was like,

[00:57:55] I can't do that anymore.

[00:57:56] I'm getting too distracted.

[00:57:57] I'm getting too,

[00:57:58] oh,

[00:57:58] it was a Tatooine quest with Jawas.

[00:58:01] Which is sad because that's where you go into a dead Sarlacc.

[00:58:03] And that was actually a very fun side quest.

[00:58:05] Yeah.

[00:58:05] You go into the Sarlacc.

[00:58:07] Yeah.

[00:58:07] You crawl down inside it to get,

[00:58:08] what?

[00:58:09] Yeah.

[00:58:09] That's awesome.

[00:58:10] That's really cool.

[00:58:11] That was cool.

[00:58:11] That's legitimately really neat.

[00:58:12] And that's,

[00:58:13] that's the cool thing about this game is that there's a bunch of fun stuff that you find.

[00:58:16] And there's stuff that's like baked into the main quest too.

[00:58:19] That's like super unexpected that I didn't think was going to happen in this game.

[00:58:23] Um,

[00:58:24] that kind of makes it really special,

[00:58:25] but you know,

[00:58:25] to your point talking about,

[00:58:27] I just didn't care about the trailblazer combat because more than anything else,

[00:58:31] I understand in the beginning,

[00:58:32] they kind of wanted you to feel like not great.

[00:58:35] So whenever you did level up the trailblazer,

[00:58:37] you were like,

[00:58:37] Oh yeah,

[00:58:38] now I'm awesome.

[00:58:38] Now I'm big and buff.

[00:58:39] But like,

[00:58:40] I just,

[00:58:40] it felt so fucking bad to me because again,

[00:58:44] to this point,

[00:58:45] you know,

[00:58:45] talking about destiny one speeder,

[00:58:47] we figured out star Wars,

[00:58:49] rogue squadron figured out how to fly in space and make the controls feel good and have it be like interesting and fun and like combated.

[00:58:56] Like I just want ace combat in space.

[00:58:58] Star Fox just did this already.

[00:59:00] Yeah.

[00:59:01] Like star Fox did this,

[00:59:02] you know,

[00:59:02] rogue squadron did this and they want to be like,

[00:59:05] I wanted to,

[00:59:05] I felt like they wanted to do their own thing.

[00:59:07] And I just,

[00:59:07] that was to its detriment.

[00:59:08] I feel like they had a design team completely separate from the core,

[00:59:13] you know,

[00:59:13] massive crew.

[00:59:15] Well,

[00:59:15] they probably had a team.

[00:59:16] Yeah.

[00:59:16] Working for the,

[00:59:17] for the space stuff,

[00:59:18] but like,

[00:59:19] yeah,

[00:59:19] it was hard.

[00:59:19] It wasn't easy before I got that turret.

[00:59:23] Though the time I did spend in space and shooting at,

[00:59:28] uh,

[00:59:28] like ships,

[00:59:29] like fighting ships,

[00:59:30] I found it better than like star field,

[00:59:34] you know,

[00:59:35] like,

[00:59:36] like the following,

[00:59:37] like the following of the,

[00:59:39] the lasers,

[00:59:40] how the reticle,

[00:59:41] yeah.

[00:59:41] And how it gave you kind of like leading.

[00:59:43] Yeah.

[00:59:43] The leading and all that.

[00:59:44] That was,

[00:59:45] that was really well done.

[00:59:46] I thought,

[00:59:47] uh,

[00:59:47] just the movement of the ship.

[00:59:48] I didn't like,

[00:59:49] and star field.

[00:59:50] I,

[00:59:51] I,

[00:59:52] I couldn't stand fighting in space and star field.

[00:59:54] Like I,

[00:59:55] it was janky.

[00:59:56] It was kind of janky.

[00:59:57] Wasn't it?

[00:59:57] I hate it.

[00:59:58] And it was also star field was that weird thing where it was like,

[01:00:00] they were playing visual tricks with you to make you feel like you're moving through space,

[01:00:04] but everything is just moving around your ship,

[01:00:07] which is like,

[01:00:07] you're just in a little tiny bubble.

[01:00:09] It doesn't really matter.

[01:00:10] So it was like,

[01:00:11] it was interesting.

[01:00:12] But at the same time,

[01:00:13] I was like,

[01:00:13] yeah,

[01:00:13] this isn't,

[01:00:14] this isn't what I felt like I would wanted to do.

[01:00:16] Um,

[01:00:17] in those,

[01:00:17] in those,

[01:00:18] uh,

[01:00:18] arenas or environments there,

[01:00:20] I wanted to kind of jump on it unless you guys had anything else you wanted to call out.

[01:00:23] I did want to jump in and talk about the syndicate reputation system in a little bit more depth.

[01:00:28] For sure.

[01:00:29] What are your guys's temperature on this overall?

[01:00:32] Like,

[01:00:32] how do we feel about it?

[01:00:33] It was awesome to me.

[01:00:35] Yeah.

[01:00:35] It gave me,

[01:00:36] it gives you another layer of choice and stuff to another layer of stuff to do.

[01:00:41] Um,

[01:00:41] it gives you decisions that matter that make,

[01:00:44] that make things,

[01:00:46] different things happen regarding like,

[01:00:48] and choices you make later.

[01:00:50] How do you get to certain places?

[01:00:52] It gives you a different path kind of to,

[01:00:54] to go on,

[01:00:54] which is cool.

[01:00:55] It's good.

[01:00:55] Yeah.

[01:00:56] Having more options with these,

[01:00:57] it gives you replayability also,

[01:00:58] if you want to replay it.

[01:01:00] Oh,

[01:01:00] that's true.

[01:01:00] It's always different,

[01:01:01] like little side missions to kind of take into it.

[01:01:03] Um,

[01:01:03] like those different little contract,

[01:01:05] contacts,

[01:01:05] contracts,

[01:01:06] contracts,

[01:01:06] contracts that you can take.

[01:01:07] Yeah.

[01:01:07] So that was fun being able to do separate one of those.

[01:01:09] And we know the story mode,

[01:01:11] you get a couple of choices in the story and it's like,

[01:01:13] Oh,

[01:01:13] am I going to tell Java that I have these plans or am I going to keep them for myself?

[01:01:18] Um,

[01:01:18] and none of it ever matters.

[01:01:20] Like it all leads you to the same place,

[01:01:21] but these decisions that you're making as far as,

[01:01:23] you know,

[01:01:24] Hey,

[01:01:24] I'm going to honor my deal that I had with this contract where I'm going to expose their secrets.

[01:01:28] They actually do affect the world.

[01:01:30] And okay,

[01:01:30] now I can't go here because I'm poor reputation with the pikes.

[01:01:34] They're going to shoot me on site versus if I was good with them,

[01:01:36] I can walk in and literally pick up items all over their little territory.

[01:01:40] And they wouldn't care about it.

[01:01:41] Um,

[01:01:41] and then also merchants,

[01:01:43] which I don't know about y'all money was on a pretty good ebb and flow for me,

[01:01:48] which I thought was decent.

[01:01:49] I was never,

[01:01:49] well,

[01:01:50] not never.

[01:01:50] I was really,

[01:01:51] really rich at some points.

[01:01:52] And then when I started buying things,

[01:01:53] I would immediately become poor again.

[01:01:55] So it was a really nice cycle for me to be like,

[01:01:57] all right,

[01:01:57] I'm going to save my money.

[01:01:58] Oh,

[01:01:59] I need shit parts,

[01:02:00] buy my shit parts.

[01:02:01] I'm fucking broke.

[01:02:02] All right.

[01:02:04] You weren't mega rich.

[01:02:05] And I wasn't anyway,

[01:02:06] at any point.

[01:02:07] Um,

[01:02:08] yeah,

[01:02:08] I wish that the sabacc maybe would have made me a little rich,

[01:02:11] sure.

[01:02:11] Cause I was,

[01:02:12] I want,

[01:02:13] I want 10,000 payouts.

[01:02:15] I want 10,000 credit payouts.

[01:02:16] Same with the fathia racing.

[01:02:17] Why is the fathia racing so low?

[01:02:19] You'd like bet 50 bucks and get 300 credits.

[01:02:21] And I'm just like,

[01:02:22] I need more money than this for rigging races.

[01:02:25] I'm cheating.

[01:02:27] That's one thing I didn't do.

[01:02:28] What was the fathia racing?

[01:02:30] What was that like?

[01:02:30] It was nothing.

[01:02:31] It's not really a gameplay thing.

[01:02:33] Occasionally.

[01:02:34] Well,

[01:02:34] whenever you're in a major town,

[01:02:35] for the most part,

[01:02:36] there are fathia races that you can go and you can just bet.

[01:02:38] And that's just straight up random.

[01:02:40] Sometimes the one you bet,

[01:02:41] when sometimes the one you bet loses,

[01:02:42] there's no real telling when you're running around the open worlds,

[01:02:45] there are some data pads that you can see,

[01:02:47] which with other stuff that you can find like lore and information,

[01:02:51] there's also some that talk about fixed fathia races.

[01:02:54] So you might pick one up and it says,

[01:02:56] Hey,

[01:02:56] I got a good tip.

[01:02:57] The fathia is going to actually win the next race.

[01:03:01] So the next time you go into the fathia racing in town,

[01:03:03] it'll tell you in the top,

[01:03:04] right.

[01:03:05] When you have this,

[01:03:05] and I think they did this during like the intro,

[01:03:07] like they kind of set it up a little bit,

[01:03:08] but it says,

[01:03:09] Hey,

[01:03:09] this is a fixed race.

[01:03:10] Remember the information that you had before,

[01:03:13] but you don't ever have it on you.

[01:03:14] So you just kind of have to keep it in the back of your mind.

[01:03:16] Oh,

[01:03:16] I saw a data pad that said the heaviest fathia is going to win.

[01:03:19] You look down all the stats,

[01:03:20] you see the one that's like 970 kilograms.

[01:03:24] And you're like,

[01:03:24] that's a chunky boy.

[01:03:26] He's going to win.

[01:03:26] And then as long as you pick,

[01:03:28] right,

[01:03:28] you get the path.

[01:03:29] I never did any of that.

[01:03:30] That's funny.

[01:03:30] But it's never great.

[01:03:31] Cause it's like you bet 50 credits and then you get 400 credits,

[01:03:34] which is nice.

[01:03:34] But then I find like four necklaces and that's also 400 credits and that's

[01:03:39] just playing the game.

[01:03:40] So yeah.

[01:03:40] Yeah.

[01:03:41] I found like for me,

[01:03:42] whenever I had,

[01:03:43] I was flush with cash.

[01:03:45] It was just from doing the main story missions in whatever room that I was

[01:03:48] in,

[01:03:48] I would just pick up,

[01:03:49] pick up,

[01:03:49] pick up,

[01:03:49] pick up.

[01:03:50] And can we talk about,

[01:03:51] I don't know.

[01:03:52] Did,

[01:03:52] did either of you play a date?

[01:03:54] Jono,

[01:03:54] did you ever,

[01:03:55] did you play mouse and keyboard?

[01:03:56] Did you play with a controller?

[01:03:58] Controller.

[01:03:58] Okay.

[01:03:59] Yeah.

[01:03:59] Well,

[01:03:59] I did both actually.

[01:04:00] Cause what I did was I started playing on my desk here.

[01:04:05] But I bought,

[01:04:08] I bought a new video card when the XT,

[01:04:10] the 7900 XTX was on sale for like $500 off like a month and a half ago.

[01:04:15] And I was like,

[01:04:16] well,

[01:04:16] I'm just going to buy it,

[01:04:17] I guess.

[01:04:18] So I had a spare video card.

[01:04:20] What I did was I actually put it in Pam's computer.

[01:04:23] Cause she was playing PS5.

[01:04:24] She was playing something else.

[01:04:26] Uh,

[01:04:27] and I took her computer with the 7900 XTX and I put it on my TV.

[01:04:30] So I had,

[01:04:32] I had it on PC,

[01:04:33] but I was sitting on the couch and playing it with controller as well.

[01:04:36] So I did play both a controller and mouse and keyboard at different times.

[01:04:40] Um,

[01:04:41] but it's a shooter game.

[01:04:43] I was inclined to play mouse and keyboard.

[01:04:46] Um,

[01:04:46] but it's also like a big story game.

[01:04:48] So I like to play,

[01:04:50] uh,

[01:04:50] on the couch kind of controller.

[01:04:51] So I did,

[01:04:52] I mostly played,

[01:04:53] uh,

[01:04:53] on controller.

[01:04:54] And then you realized that to pick up things,

[01:04:56] it was right stick.

[01:04:57] And I was like,

[01:04:58] what the fuck is this?

[01:04:59] So that's not bad because I do that in Diablo four.

[01:05:03] I use,

[01:05:03] I use stick in on Diablo four to pick stuff up because the way my,

[01:05:07] my combos were laid out.

[01:05:09] So I was kind of used to that.

[01:05:10] That wasn't too bad.

[01:05:11] Um,

[01:05:11] I played controller on PC and then I would remote play my PC through my Xbox to my TV.

[01:05:18] And I was controller there.

[01:05:20] I just felt like I play a lot of controller now,

[01:05:23] even though I'm on PC games.

[01:05:25] Like you're a big PC gamer.

[01:05:27] Yeah.

[01:05:27] There's not a lot.

[01:05:28] Yeah.

[01:05:29] Unless it's a shooter.

[01:05:30] Like I'm going to play controller.

[01:05:32] Yeah.

[01:05:33] Yeah.

[01:05:34] But yeah.

[01:05:35] So I think something that I really enjoyed.

[01:05:38] Yeah.

[01:05:38] Obviously you're just going through the monetization system,

[01:05:40] the currency system with it,

[01:05:41] picking things up,

[01:05:42] it was fine,

[01:05:43] but the overall economy was,

[01:05:45] it was decent,

[01:05:46] but at the same time,

[01:05:48] like if you,

[01:05:49] I realized very quickly that if I wanted to get any semblance of close to as much of the customization consumable items,

[01:05:55] I'd have to a hundred percent this game in order to get access to the resources that I would need to buy the stuff that I needed from the vendors.

[01:06:03] Um,

[01:06:03] so that was,

[01:06:04] that was something that it was,

[01:06:05] but some of the stuff was expensive,

[01:06:06] like the parts and the,

[01:06:08] yeah,

[01:06:08] well,

[01:06:09] you're not,

[01:06:10] you're not good with that faction,

[01:06:12] right?

[01:06:13] So they'll up their price on you.

[01:06:14] Yep.

[01:06:15] Exactly.

[01:06:15] And that's something that,

[01:06:16] again,

[01:06:17] we talked about like how cool it is,

[01:06:19] like how you create more of an RPG system into this gameplay by like choosing which way you're going to lean on various missions.

[01:06:26] And like inevitably always like all of the four different syndicates,

[01:06:30] whether it's the Shiga,

[01:06:32] um,

[01:06:32] the Crimson Dawn,

[01:06:33] the Pikes or the,

[01:06:34] the Hutts,

[01:06:35] they're always cornering in on each other's action.

[01:06:37] Yeah.

[01:06:37] So there's always a choice at the very end.

[01:06:39] Like,

[01:06:40] do you want to give the data chip card to the Hutts or do you want to give it to the Pikes who contracted you for the job?

[01:06:45] That sort of thing.

[01:06:46] And it like unlocks when you get to the ultimate level.

[01:06:48] I think I said this before.

[01:06:49] It unlocks all of like the best gear for that faction and you can kind of align yourselves with them just like mentally that way.

[01:06:56] But then,

[01:06:56] uh,

[01:06:57] the vendors that are in each of those places usually have a lot of the best like material resources you need to upgrade your weapons or you need,

[01:07:06] um,

[01:07:06] or obviously just like customization options for like Kay.

[01:07:09] And that's something cool too,

[01:07:10] is that,

[01:07:10] you know,

[01:07:11] this is going to be later on,

[01:07:12] but like Kay's customization for her outfits,

[01:07:14] as we said before,

[01:07:15] has different stats that are tied to those outfits.

[01:07:19] But at the same time,

[01:07:19] like I thought the cool part about it was like when you're on Kijimi,

[01:07:23] you get the winter set,

[01:07:24] like outdoor survivalist gear outfit.

[01:07:26] Or when you're on Tatooine,

[01:07:28] you get like a kind of sandy desert outfit,

[01:07:30] which is cool.

[01:07:30] It's like,

[01:07:30] it's,

[01:07:31] it's very,

[01:07:31] it's thematic.

[01:07:32] It's,

[01:07:32] it's,

[01:07:33] you know,

[01:07:33] very,

[01:07:33] very themed based,

[01:07:34] but yeah.

[01:07:35] And then like just the idea is like,

[01:07:37] if you wanted to get into these vendor territories or rather the,

[01:07:39] the syndicate territories,

[01:07:40] you can get in,

[01:07:42] but they have like layers to it where it's like every syndicate has like a vault that I,

[01:07:47] I ended up really like enjoying getting the different data cards and sneaking into the vaults and getting some,

[01:07:51] yeah,

[01:07:51] the vaults are kind of like,

[01:07:52] they were a cool little neat little side quest that I decided to pour,

[01:07:56] a little bit of time into.

[01:07:57] And it's always like you have the syndicate territory and then a super restricted part where it's like,

[01:08:03] even if you're cool with them,

[01:08:04] you can't fucking go in there.

[01:08:05] So you have to,

[01:08:05] you have to kind of figure out how to manage your way or stealth your way through that,

[01:08:09] which always kind of manifests itself in pretty cool ways.

[01:08:12] I,

[01:08:12] again,

[01:08:13] I said Crimson Dawn for me to,

[01:08:14] where did you guys lean towards the end of this game?

[01:08:17] I was like Crimson Dawn and,

[01:08:18] uh,

[01:08:20] the insects,

[01:08:21] I think for me.

[01:08:22] Yes.

[01:08:22] The insects.

[01:08:23] what Akiva?

[01:08:24] Oh,

[01:08:24] the Shiga.

[01:08:25] Shiga.

[01:08:25] Yep.

[01:08:26] Yeah.

[01:08:26] But that was a cool storyline with,

[01:08:29] like the,

[01:08:30] that whole.

[01:08:30] It reminded me of Mass Effect.

[01:08:31] It was cool.

[01:08:32] Yeah.

[01:08:33] Yep.

[01:08:33] Yeah.

[01:08:33] It was like,

[01:08:34] there was,

[01:08:34] there was a,

[01:08:35] the,

[01:08:35] the,

[01:08:35] you know,

[01:08:36] the storyline,

[01:08:36] this is kind of a spoiler narrative spoiler,

[01:08:38] but like it's when you're on,

[01:08:40] um,

[01:08:41] Kijimi,

[01:08:41] there's the Shiga clan who basically owns the planet that you're on there.

[01:08:45] And,

[01:08:45] uh,

[01:08:46] the,

[01:08:46] the leader of this planet,

[01:08:47] she's actually kind of allied with the empire and her daughter is trying to subvert her and like make a vie for the throne.

[01:08:54] Yeah,

[01:08:55] straight up.

[01:08:55] exactly.

[01:08:56] And so it's one of those things where,

[01:08:58] uh,

[01:08:58] you can choose to either side with the regent queen or the upcoming princess and kind of,

[01:09:03] you know,

[01:09:04] make those decisions there and how that plays out will impact other syndicates.

[01:09:08] I found when I was doing,

[01:09:10] I could never really get one really high because I just,

[01:09:14] the way I was choosing things was just how I felt at the time.

[01:09:17] Yeah.

[01:09:18] You know?

[01:09:18] So like I would choose.

[01:09:19] How big of an asshole were they to you in that,

[01:09:21] in that scenario?

[01:09:22] Everybody was an asshole to me.

[01:09:24] Like I couldn't go anywhere because I wouldn't choose these guys more often than these guys.

[01:09:30] Just because the way I felt at that time,

[01:09:32] I would choose that.

[01:09:34] So that it would just like kind of balance everyone out over the time of my playthrough.

[01:09:39] So I never really got super far with one clan.

[01:09:42] So.

[01:09:43] Yeah.

[01:09:43] I don't know how I felt about it all where if I wanted to do it,

[01:09:47] I'd have to always just keep siding with Pike or whatever.

[01:09:51] Right.

[01:09:51] Yeah.

[01:09:52] Right.

[01:09:52] But like the way I felt while I was playing,

[01:09:55] my decisions were just,

[01:09:56] it would always balance everyone out.

[01:09:57] So I was never really further ahead with one syndicate than the other.

[01:10:01] Yeah.

[01:10:02] So I couldn't really unlock a lot of stuff later on because I didn't like consistently choose,

[01:10:09] what is it?

[01:10:10] New Dawn over.

[01:10:11] Oh, Crimson Dawn.

[01:10:12] New Dawn over everyone else.

[01:10:14] Right.

[01:10:14] I knew I had,

[01:10:15] if I wanted to get to the max,

[01:10:17] I'd always have to be choosing.

[01:10:19] The Pikes hated me.

[01:10:20] Tell you that.

[01:10:21] The Pikes hated me.

[01:10:22] I just,

[01:10:23] I was not liked from everybody.

[01:10:26] Yeah.

[01:10:26] Just because the way,

[01:10:27] just because the way I did my choices.

[01:10:29] You were sitting in the poor category.

[01:10:31] You weren't like really bad,

[01:10:33] but you were sitting in the poor relationship.

[01:10:34] You were a fence sitter.

[01:10:37] Trying to make everybody happy and you make no one happy.

[01:10:40] Yeah,

[01:10:40] exactly.

[01:10:41] It's funny.

[01:10:42] I wanted,

[01:10:42] I went Crimson Dawn for like a majority because I knew I wanted their outfit.

[01:10:45] So I did a lot of them on Tashara,

[01:10:47] which like John was saying there with the Pikes hating me,

[01:10:49] ergo,

[01:10:50] the Pikes hated my ass.

[01:10:51] I was on terrible before I even left Tashara.

[01:10:54] Gorak was like,

[01:10:54] give me my fucking ring.

[01:10:55] He said,

[01:10:56] give me my ring back right now.

[01:10:58] So they,

[01:10:59] they hated me.

[01:11:00] Yeah.

[01:11:00] They,

[01:11:01] they sent out death squads after me and all that.

[01:11:03] But I got Crimson Dawn all the way up.

[01:11:05] When I was working on Kijimi,

[01:11:07] I just,

[01:11:07] by doing the missions there,

[01:11:08] kind of accidentally got the Ishiga to excellent.

[01:11:11] Same thing.

[01:11:11] I spent like a week on Tatooine.

[01:11:13] So I got the huts to like excellent on accident.

[01:11:16] Well,

[01:11:16] actually,

[01:11:16] no,

[01:11:16] I did them mostly on accident.

[01:11:18] But then when I realized you can only get into Jabba's palace by being on

[01:11:21] excellent with them,

[01:11:22] I went and did a couple of contracts and then I,

[01:11:24] Oh,

[01:11:24] okay.

[01:11:24] Bumped my way up and went to go talk to Jabba.

[01:11:26] So,

[01:11:26] yeah.

[01:11:27] Jabba,

[01:11:28] no bad.

[01:11:28] So good.

[01:11:31] Yeah.

[01:11:32] So I,

[01:11:32] I did like,

[01:11:33] now we're kind of talking about the different biomes.

[01:11:35] I did want to dial it back a little bit to a little bit earlier in the notes

[01:11:38] and talk about something that Nate,

[01:11:40] you pinpointed in terms of moving around the cities.

[01:11:45] The fact that when you were taking the virtual photography,

[01:11:47] the attention to detail in like the inside biomes,

[01:11:51] whether with the different environments that they did for the cities,

[01:11:55] I found that the cities were incredibly carefully curated and designed in this

[01:12:01] game.

[01:12:01] And it was from like,

[01:12:02] not just like a visual perspective,

[01:12:03] but a gameplay perspective too.

[01:12:05] And something that like I thought was way,

[01:12:07] way cooler is that first of all,

[01:12:09] we haven't even gotten there yet,

[01:12:10] but the UI it's interesting,

[01:12:13] but it's fucking bad.

[01:12:14] It's really like it's,

[01:12:15] it's visually like it's kind of cool because it breaks a lot of the

[01:12:19] methodology that they've used in some of their previous games,

[01:12:22] but it's like not functional.

[01:12:23] Like the map isn't great.

[01:12:24] The,

[01:12:25] the,

[01:12:25] the quest line system is fucking confusing.

[01:12:28] The spec tree is kind of weird.

[01:12:29] Like when you have to like choose a person,

[01:12:32] like you have to choose a person.

[01:12:33] Yeah.

[01:12:33] You have to choose a person and then highlight the task that you want from

[01:12:36] that person to get the expert skill.

[01:12:39] Very,

[01:12:39] very strange.

[01:12:39] I didn't fully understand how,

[01:12:42] like,

[01:12:43] how am I supposed to,

[01:12:44] to just do this?

[01:12:45] Let me,

[01:12:46] I just want to know how to unlock this.

[01:12:48] Right.

[01:12:48] And it's,

[01:12:49] it was,

[01:12:50] it was kind of frustrating in that sense,

[01:12:52] but I would say that like the thing that I found really,

[01:12:54] really fun.

[01:12:55] And this was something again,

[01:12:56] like Toshara was a big deal for me when you're inside of that main primary hub

[01:13:00] city in Toshara.

[01:13:01] Kijimi is the same way,

[01:13:02] but like going around the entire cities and just using my HUD and using like

[01:13:07] the compass at the top of the screen to find the question map markers and not using my map

[01:13:12] and just learning like the visual kind of place markers in the different areas inside

[01:13:17] of that.

[01:13:17] I found that part really fun in finding the secrets,

[01:13:20] opening up vaults,

[01:13:22] following Nix.

[01:13:23] And then Nix would lead me into a,

[01:13:24] like a Nix mission for one of his collectibles and be like,

[01:13:26] what's you doing,

[01:13:27] buddy?

[01:13:27] And he climbs up on a thing and you have to figure out how to like follow him to get

[01:13:31] to a secret little cache somewhere.

[01:13:33] That shit is really cool.

[01:13:34] And I found that like super enjoyable,

[01:13:36] not to mention the fact that you do stuff like the farther air missions,

[01:13:39] you find the Sabacc tables.

[01:13:41] And then on top of that,

[01:13:42] the Sabacc dude.

[01:13:44] Yeah,

[01:13:44] the Sabacc.

[01:13:45] We haven't even gotten there yet.

[01:13:46] We haven't even gotten there yet.

[01:13:47] Did you do the,

[01:13:48] the,

[01:13:48] the mission with,

[01:13:49] uh,

[01:13:50] with,

[01:13:51] uh,

[01:13:51] with Lando?

[01:13:52] Lando?

[01:13:53] I just started that.

[01:13:55] When Nate was telling me,

[01:13:56] he was like,

[01:13:56] I'm loading up.

[01:13:57] I had just started it where I went back to Kijimi and played to get his little credit

[01:14:01] chip.

[01:14:02] And I was flying back to Akiva to continue that mission line.

[01:14:05] So I'm going to finish it.

[01:14:06] I'm definitely going to finish it.

[01:14:07] But yeah,

[01:14:08] I really,

[01:14:08] really had a,

[01:14:09] I had a great time with it.

[01:14:10] And it was like,

[01:14:10] not only in the Sabacc,

[01:14:12] but then like,

[01:14:12] come on.

[01:14:13] You talk about,

[01:14:14] well,

[01:14:14] the,

[01:14:14] the Knicks,

[01:14:15] Knicks being your best buddy.

[01:14:16] The Knicks eating QTE sections are so good.

[01:14:20] I love the section.

[01:14:21] Let's talk about the Knicks eating QTE sections.

[01:14:24] I was,

[01:14:24] no,

[01:14:24] I'm not a fan.

[01:14:25] You're not a fan?

[01:14:26] I thought they were really cool.

[01:14:27] Come on,

[01:14:27] for exactly 10 seconds.

[01:14:29] Yeah.

[01:14:44] I know.

[01:14:50] I'm not a fan.

[01:14:53] I'm not a fan of the Knicks.

[01:15:04] I'm not a fan of the Knicks.

[01:15:07] To me,

[01:15:07] I'm like,

[01:15:08] she's like,

[01:15:09] could barely talk.

[01:15:10] And then Knicks is just like slurping up all of the food.

[01:15:13] And I'm like,

[01:15:13] oh man,

[01:15:14] this is,

[01:15:14] this is great.

[01:15:15] It's funny.

[01:15:15] And it's like that bonding moment for me.

[01:15:18] That's,

[01:15:18] that's what sold me on their relationship for sure.

[01:15:20] Yep.

[01:15:21] It takes too long to do that.

[01:15:22] I was like,

[01:15:23] what is,

[01:15:23] what's going on here?

[01:15:24] And then it was like,

[01:15:25] I,

[01:15:26] it wouldn't,

[01:15:26] it didn't end.

[01:15:27] I was just like,

[01:15:27] what the hell am I doing?

[01:15:29] they were definitely trolling for sure.

[01:15:31] And it bamboozled me because they did a camera cut and I was like,

[01:15:33] all right,

[01:15:33] cool.

[01:15:34] It's done.

[01:15:34] It's a no,

[01:15:35] they just did a camera cut.

[01:15:36] It's going to pan over.

[01:15:36] And then it kept going.

[01:15:37] I was like,

[01:15:38] what?

[01:15:41] I was just laughing.

[01:15:43] Oh my God.

[01:15:44] Like,

[01:15:44] what are we doing here?

[01:15:45] But I,

[01:15:46] you know,

[01:15:46] we said it before,

[01:15:47] listen,

[01:15:48] 2024,

[01:15:50] arguably,

[01:15:50] the year of the card games in video games in,

[01:15:53] in mini game,

[01:15:54] card games,

[01:15:55] you got Queens blood,

[01:15:57] shout out,

[01:15:58] Bellatro game of the year,

[01:15:59] game of the year contender,

[01:16:01] fucking goddamn ridiculous.

[01:16:03] You got,

[01:16:03] you got,

[01:16:04] uh,

[01:16:04] what was another one that I just,

[01:16:05] I just played a different one.

[01:16:06] Um,

[01:16:06] Oh no,

[01:16:07] I can't remember,

[01:16:08] but like you got this and then Queens blood,

[01:16:10] probably one of my favorites.

[01:16:11] And then,

[01:16:12] uh,

[01:16:12] you bizarre,

[01:16:13] you have bizarre in,

[01:16:14] uh,

[01:16:14] in the game that you guys have been playing.

[01:16:16] And just,

[01:16:16] again,

[01:16:16] you know,

[01:16:17] sabacc here,

[01:16:17] which is just,

[01:16:18] it was really fun.

[01:16:19] It was cool.

[01:16:20] I like the little droid in the center that,

[01:16:21] Oh man,

[01:16:22] you know,

[01:16:23] the animations on that droid.

[01:16:25] Fantastic.

[01:16:26] Really,

[01:16:26] really good.

[01:16:26] So good.

[01:16:27] It's like,

[01:16:27] it's like,

[01:16:28] it was so perfect.

[01:16:29] It was like,

[01:16:30] and smooth.

[01:16:31] And Oh man,

[01:16:32] I was just hypnotized.

[01:16:34] I just watched it.

[01:16:35] Yeah.

[01:16:35] I like being able to cheat.

[01:16:36] That was fantastic.

[01:16:38] The cheating.

[01:16:38] Nick's going to look at the cards.

[01:16:40] Looking over their shoulder,

[01:16:41] being like,

[01:16:41] did you ever get,

[01:16:42] did you ever get caught during the cheating?

[01:16:44] Yeah.

[01:16:44] I got caught a couple of times.

[01:16:45] Uh,

[01:16:46] yeah.

[01:16:46] They were suspicious.

[01:16:46] I never got.

[01:16:48] Oh,

[01:16:48] not fully caught.

[01:16:49] Yeah.

[01:16:49] Yeah.

[01:16:49] I got suspicious.

[01:16:50] They like realize that you're cheating.

[01:16:52] Get out of here.

[01:16:53] It gets a,

[01:16:54] I think they get like a yellow,

[01:16:55] uh,

[01:16:56] like caution.

[01:16:56] Eyeball.

[01:16:57] Indicator.

[01:16:58] Yeah.

[01:16:58] Yeah.

[01:16:58] Um,

[01:16:59] and then you can cheat with,

[01:17:01] you cheat with Nick's.

[01:17:02] Did you get that one?

[01:17:02] Cheat with Nick's and you can cheat with,

[01:17:04] uh,

[01:17:05] with an extra card.

[01:17:07] Oh,

[01:17:08] cool.

[01:17:08] Okay.

[01:17:08] So I didn't get the extra card yet.

[01:17:09] No,

[01:17:09] no,

[01:17:09] no.

[01:17:10] I didn't get any of the,

[01:17:11] I got the magnetic,

[01:17:12] like you get a magnetic glove.

[01:17:13] So it's like when you roll those dice,

[01:17:15] when you're doing the imposter.

[01:17:16] Oh,

[01:17:16] I didn't get that one.

[01:17:17] In your favor.

[01:17:18] I didn't get that one.

[01:17:18] That's really cool.

[01:17:19] Nice.

[01:17:20] That's cool.

[01:17:20] Where do you guys,

[01:17:21] where did you guys get those,

[01:17:22] those cheats?

[01:17:22] Cause I was looking for them.

[01:17:23] I couldn't find them.

[01:17:24] I don't remember.

[01:17:25] I don't.

[01:17:25] Yeah.

[01:17:25] You just randomly pick up quests that give you stuff for like Sabacc.

[01:17:30] So you could get the,

[01:17:30] uh,

[01:17:31] the,

[01:17:32] I guess the glove.

[01:17:33] The one that I got was,

[01:17:35] uh,

[01:17:35] it was a quest line that allowed me to,

[01:17:38] uh,

[01:17:38] draw two cards instead of one.

[01:17:41] Yeah.

[01:17:41] So I can draw two and then just keep the one that I want.

[01:17:45] And then there's another option to replace two back into the pile.

[01:17:50] Right.

[01:17:51] And then,

[01:17:51] yeah.

[01:17:52] And then you can use Nix to,

[01:17:53] uh,

[01:17:54] you can use Nix to look at their hand,

[01:17:56] I guess.

[01:17:57] Yep.

[01:17:57] Yeah.

[01:17:58] To see what they had.

[01:17:58] And then you can use the ability.

[01:18:01] What was it called?

[01:18:02] What were the little ability called?

[01:18:03] It's the chips.

[01:18:03] The shift tokens.

[01:18:04] The shift tokens.

[01:18:05] There's a shift token where you can have them shuffle their hand back into the

[01:18:08] pile and draw something new.

[01:18:10] So you,

[01:18:11] I was,

[01:18:11] I was using that exhaustive game,

[01:18:13] which was bullshit because the computer was so cheap.

[01:18:16] I'd be like,

[01:18:17] Oh,

[01:18:17] I use Nix to cheat.

[01:18:18] I look at your hand,

[01:18:19] you have a Silek Sabacc.

[01:18:20] And I was like,

[01:18:21] all right,

[01:18:21] cool.

[01:18:21] Cool.

[01:18:21] Shuffle your hand back in.

[01:18:22] You're not going to win.

[01:18:23] Then when they play,

[01:18:24] they have Silek Sabacc again.

[01:18:25] I'm like,

[01:18:25] how the fuck?

[01:18:28] How have you done this?

[01:18:31] It was,

[01:18:31] it was fun.

[01:18:32] Yeah.

[01:18:32] I liked how simple it was too.

[01:18:33] It wasn't overly complicated.

[01:18:35] So you could sit down.

[01:18:36] And I also liked the fast forward mode.

[01:18:39] Yes.

[01:18:40] Where it was like,

[01:18:41] I didn't take forever for the animation.

[01:18:43] Yeah.

[01:18:43] There,

[01:18:44] there has to be a fast forward mode in those kinds of things.

[01:18:46] Like all the time.

[01:18:48] Yeah.

[01:18:48] All the time.

[01:18:49] Yeah.

[01:18:49] I,

[01:18:49] I found like when I first got it,

[01:18:50] I felt like there was a little bit because I mean,

[01:18:52] I'm not,

[01:18:53] I play the card games,

[01:18:55] but like,

[01:18:55] I don't play like the poker games and stuff.

[01:18:56] So there was a little bit.

[01:18:58] And I would say that the indicators on the cards,

[01:19:00] the numbers,

[01:19:01] like the actual fonts and the numbers,

[01:19:03] I was really confused for a while.

[01:19:04] And I had to sit there and read the fucking rules,

[01:19:08] know what a Psylop Sabacc was,

[01:19:10] know what an imposter was,

[01:19:11] all of that stuff.

[01:19:12] Yeah.

[01:19:13] And then as soon as,

[01:19:14] yeah,

[01:19:14] I like it when,

[01:19:15] I think one of my favorite parts about it is when she wins and she's like,

[01:19:19] so fucking smarmy about winning.

[01:19:20] She's like,

[01:19:20] for all your money.

[01:19:21] She's like,

[01:19:23] thanks motherfuckers.

[01:19:24] And she grabs the shit and like flips it up and walks away.

[01:19:27] I'm like,

[01:19:27] you're going to get fucking shot.

[01:19:28] I wish there would have been a,

[01:19:30] like the,

[01:19:31] the,

[01:19:31] the Lando quest was good,

[01:19:33] but it wasn't like the quest in like the Witcher with Gwent where there's a

[01:19:37] giant tournament.

[01:19:39] Like that would have been fucking sweet.

[01:19:41] If there was like a really huge,

[01:19:42] uh,

[01:19:43] like Sabacc quest,

[01:19:44] that would have been nice,

[01:19:44] but they're not that I found.

[01:19:46] There's a couple of high rollers,

[01:19:47] but not like a big quest that I can see,

[01:19:49] but the high rollers were fun.

[01:19:50] Cause you get a nice little intro cut scene when you play them.

[01:19:53] And normally they're pretty difficult compared to the usual ilk.

[01:19:55] And then afterwards you get like a nice little cut scene of once again,

[01:19:58] cage kind of like talking her shit.

[01:20:00] And she'd be like,

[01:20:00] yeah,

[01:20:00] you know,

[01:20:01] sorry,

[01:20:02] Sheriff Quint.

[01:20:02] If you ever want to lose some more money,

[01:20:03] you know who to call.

[01:20:05] Did you do the boss knock one?

[01:20:06] Boss knock holds a tournament.

[01:20:07] Yeah.

[01:20:08] Oh,

[01:20:08] is that the one that's on Tashara?

[01:20:10] Yeah.

[01:20:10] No,

[01:20:10] I haven't done that.

[01:20:11] You rescue him.

[01:20:12] And then he's like,

[01:20:12] come on,

[01:20:13] come on.

[01:20:13] I was like,

[01:20:16] okay,

[01:20:17] boss knock.

[01:20:17] What's up?

[01:20:18] What's up,

[01:20:19] man?

[01:20:20] Yeah.

[01:20:21] That was really good.

[01:20:22] John,

[01:20:22] I,

[01:20:23] I know that you have a really,

[01:20:25] really good eye,

[01:20:26] or at least this is my imagining.

[01:20:27] You and Nate both have really good eyes for some of the technical details and some of

[01:20:31] the elements that like either working games or don't work in games.

[01:20:34] I'd listen to you on the show all the time talking about like technical performance.

[01:20:38] One of the first things you called out about your gripes about not wanting to jump in this

[01:20:41] game is ultra wide support.

[01:20:42] And then they patched in ultra wide support.

[01:20:44] What did you think overall about some of the technical elements that were here?

[01:20:50] In Star Wars Outlaws.

[01:20:53] It ran okay.

[01:20:54] It wasn't amazing.

[01:20:57] Yeah.

[01:20:57] Do you think they optimize it properly for the PC?

[01:21:00] You started on your 3080 though,

[01:21:02] right?

[01:21:02] Yeah,

[01:21:02] but they,

[01:21:03] yeah,

[01:21:03] that's true.

[01:21:04] I did play it across two different GPUs and I kind of.

[01:21:07] Interesting.

[01:21:08] No,

[01:21:08] I played mostly on that 3080 actually.

[01:21:10] I didn't play it.

[01:21:11] Oh yeah,

[01:21:12] I did.

[01:21:12] I did.

[01:21:12] Okay.

[01:21:13] Okay.

[01:21:13] So,

[01:21:13] but what the thing is,

[01:21:14] they force the upscaling by default.

[01:21:18] Okay.

[01:21:19] On PC,

[01:21:20] which is nothing unusual nowadays,

[01:21:22] but,

[01:21:24] but like I did do a lot of playing around,

[01:21:26] like playing with frame generation,

[01:21:28] turning on frame generation,

[01:21:30] changing the resolution to lower,

[01:21:31] maybe upscaling from a lower resolution to higher.

[01:21:35] I was also playing on two different displays though,

[01:21:38] like on my TV,

[01:21:39] which is a 4K,

[01:21:41] a 4K 144 display.

[01:21:43] And on my,

[01:21:43] my computer,

[01:21:44] which is ultra wide 2K.

[01:21:46] So like it ran,

[01:21:48] it ran quite differently on both things.

[01:21:51] Interesting.

[01:21:52] What did you prefer between the two?

[01:21:54] You think?

[01:21:54] I,

[01:21:55] I found a good,

[01:21:56] I found a good spot playing on the TV where I would get like 30,

[01:22:02] a pretty smooth 30 FPS in like playing at 4K.

[01:22:06] Yeah.

[01:22:06] After tweaking the settings,

[01:22:10] the graphics settings and the quality settings,

[01:22:12] but I did have the,

[01:22:14] what's the AMD driver level?

[01:22:17] FSR?

[01:22:18] Oh,

[01:22:18] the fluid frames.

[01:22:19] Fluid frames.

[01:22:20] So it's a fluid frames is a driver level frame generation,

[01:22:25] which is,

[01:22:26] it uses FSR,

[01:22:28] but it's like,

[01:22:30] it happens in the video card software,

[01:22:33] in the GPU software in windows.

[01:22:35] It doesn't happen in game.

[01:22:36] So it's not the game giving you frame generation,

[01:22:39] like DLSS kind of settings would be,

[01:22:42] or,

[01:22:42] or the actual FSR frame gen settings in game.

[01:22:45] It's a,

[01:22:46] a lower level.

[01:22:47] So it's faster and it's a little bit better.

[01:22:49] I use that.

[01:22:51] And I was getting a pretty good 30,

[01:22:53] 40 FPS.

[01:22:55] And that's what I played at.

[01:22:57] That was at 4K too,

[01:22:58] which was pretty cool.

[01:22:58] So yeah.

[01:22:59] Okay.

[01:23:00] So it looked good.

[01:23:00] I did,

[01:23:02] cause I was going back and forth again from my PC down,

[01:23:05] remoting it to my,

[01:23:06] to my TV,

[01:23:07] to my Xbox.

[01:23:08] Yeah.

[01:23:09] I was playing on the 7900 XTX,

[01:23:13] which is the highest AMD card.

[01:23:15] Which is,

[01:23:15] just as a quick interjection,

[01:23:17] you said you were streaming from your PC to your Xbox?

[01:23:20] Yeah.

[01:23:21] So I use my Series S to remote play from my PC.

[01:23:25] So I don't,

[01:23:26] I don't buy any games on my Xbox anymore.

[01:23:28] I buy them on my PC.

[01:23:29] And if I want to play them on the couch,

[01:23:31] I'll stream them down to the TV.

[01:23:33] I tried it.

[01:23:33] Is that like,

[01:23:33] I tried it.

[01:23:34] I didn't like it.

[01:23:35] Is it like an application within the Xbox?

[01:23:37] Yeah.

[01:23:37] It's like a sideload.

[01:23:38] You sideload.

[01:23:39] Okay.

[01:23:39] It's called Moonlight.

[01:23:41] And you got to set up a server on your PC to do the streaming.

[01:23:45] It's called Sunshine Moonlight.

[01:23:47] So Sunshine,

[01:23:47] you run Sunshine on your PC and Moonlight connects to Sunshine and streams the game over.

[01:23:53] And they have like a Windows app,

[01:23:54] like an actual,

[01:23:55] like an app,

[01:23:56] like a store app that you have to like browse to.

[01:23:59] Oh, cool.

[01:23:59] So you open up your Xbox,

[01:24:00] you open the browser.

[01:24:02] The Edge browser.

[01:24:03] Yeah.

[01:24:03] And then you look for this app called Moonlight for Windows Store,

[01:24:06] and you can actually download it onto the Xbox and install it that way.

[01:24:10] Oh, cool.

[01:24:10] Okay.

[01:24:11] And then you can remote play any game from your PC down to your Xbox.

[01:24:15] But with that being said,

[01:24:16] I absolutely loved playing it remotely.

[01:24:19] Loved it.

[01:24:20] Too much lag.

[01:24:21] I loved it.

[01:24:21] The only lag that I really didn't like about it was when I was trying to do the lockpicks.

[01:24:28] Oh, yeah.

[01:24:29] The lockpicks.

[01:24:29] The timing lockpicks.

[01:24:31] The timing, like beat to like a rhythm.

[01:24:33] Yeah.

[01:24:33] That was impossible to do remotely.

[01:24:35] Yeah.

[01:24:35] And the sabacc cheating was impossible.

[01:24:38] Because you had to keep the sticks inside the thing.

[01:24:42] But it was so much lag,

[01:24:43] I was like,

[01:24:44] you didn't know where you actually were.

[01:24:46] Yeah, that'll do.

[01:24:47] Because it's a slight lag.

[01:24:48] But like back,

[01:24:50] if I were to be playing on my PC,

[01:24:51] you can actually unlock the next tier of graphic settings called Outlaw settings.

[01:24:56] Yeah.

[01:24:57] Which is like higher than ultra.

[01:24:58] It's like their future proof settings page.

[01:25:03] Interesting.

[01:25:03] So I unlock that.

[01:25:04] I crank that stuff up right to max.

[01:25:07] Yeah.

[01:25:08] And then how I have been playing is Outlaw on everything high,

[01:25:13] Outlaw maxed out with ray tracing on high.

[01:25:16] And I just put the in-game frame generation on without any upscaling.

[01:25:22] And I didn't look back.

[01:25:25] Like this game is breathtakingly beautiful on the Outlaw settings.

[01:25:29] It's unbelievable.

[01:25:30] Whenever you start the game up on PC,

[01:25:32] it looks like asshole.

[01:25:33] Like they just throw it at FSR,

[01:25:36] like garbage.

[01:25:37] Yeah.

[01:25:37] I had to definitely tweak it a lot from the default settings.

[01:25:42] It was not good.

[01:25:43] And I was like,

[01:25:43] why did they do this?

[01:25:45] Just put it on,

[01:25:45] like do a scan of my hardware.

[01:25:47] Obviously my hardware can handle like higher than 1080p FSR.

[01:25:51] You know what I mean?

[01:25:52] Like do a scan of my hardware and put me on high at least.

[01:25:55] But no,

[01:25:55] it was like medium fucking low with FSR upscales.

[01:25:59] I was like,

[01:26:00] I,

[01:26:01] the life of PC gamers.

[01:26:03] I know.

[01:26:04] But after that,

[01:26:05] like,

[01:26:05] man,

[01:26:06] with the ultra wide,

[01:26:07] the HDR was fantastic.

[01:26:09] The sound is really good too in the game.

[01:26:10] The sound is very good.

[01:26:11] The sound design is incredible.

[01:26:12] And that's something that,

[01:26:14] you know,

[01:26:14] we were going to get into,

[01:26:15] you know,

[01:26:15] later.

[01:26:16] I mean,

[01:26:16] we can talk about it now,

[01:26:17] but the music and the score,

[01:26:18] I would say that the menu music,

[01:26:19] when you first load up the game is good.

[01:26:22] Best track in the game.

[01:26:23] That's true.

[01:26:24] I would,

[01:26:24] I would let that play.

[01:26:25] It sounds really good too.

[01:26:26] I would just jam.

[01:26:27] I would,

[01:26:28] I would wash dishes to it.

[01:26:29] You know,

[01:26:29] I just do stuff around the house.

[01:26:30] Yeah.

[01:26:32] Yeah.

[01:26:33] It's good stuff.

[01:26:34] Oh,

[01:26:35] they nailed it.

[01:26:35] They nailed it with,

[01:26:37] with the music,

[01:26:38] the sounds,

[01:26:39] they nailed it with the,

[01:26:40] like the atmospheric,

[01:26:42] the languages people talk.

[01:26:44] The Huttese.

[01:26:44] It sounds so good.

[01:26:45] Buka,

[01:26:45] Buka.

[01:26:46] Yeah.

[01:26:46] I like,

[01:26:47] that's what really kept me moving in this game.

[01:26:49] Right.

[01:26:50] It's like,

[01:26:50] just the way I felt.

[01:26:51] It's a virtual tourism,

[01:26:52] man.

[01:26:52] Yeah.

[01:26:52] Just the way I felt in this world was actually like,

[01:26:55] I was a bum.

[01:26:57] Outlaw on a Star Wars planet.

[01:26:59] You know,

[01:27:00] it took me away from the magical Jedi Star Wars that I'm used to,

[01:27:04] which I thought like I wanted.

[01:27:07] And like,

[01:27:08] it kind of like brought you down there with the music playing and just like,

[01:27:11] man,

[01:27:12] this is what it would kind of feel like in the cantinas when you,

[01:27:15] when you're not as like super powerful,

[01:27:17] God,

[01:27:17] like beings like a Jedi.

[01:27:19] There's like,

[01:27:20] there's so much,

[01:27:20] there's so much room for like,

[01:27:22] this is something that a lot of people,

[01:27:23] it took me a while to warm up to it,

[01:27:25] but I feel like there's so much room for the gritty underbelly of Star Wars.

[01:27:30] And you get some of that in Rogue One,

[01:27:31] you get a lot of that in Andor.

[01:27:33] And that's why like those pieces of like Star Wars media are like probably some of my favorite of the Disney era.

[01:27:38] And like this follows the theme of those where it's like,

[01:27:42] as you're saying,

[01:27:42] like you're,

[01:27:43] you know,

[01:27:43] you're put into the position where you're a nobody and you're managing the underworld and you're cave S.

[01:27:48] And it's like,

[01:27:49] you're,

[01:27:49] you're just,

[01:27:50] you're just literally trying to survive the best way you can.

[01:27:53] And you're fucking stepping on anybody that you can in order to do it,

[01:27:57] which I think is really cool.

[01:27:58] Yeah.

[01:27:58] Yeah.

[01:27:59] Well,

[01:27:59] you and I both played on PS five,

[01:28:01] right?

[01:28:01] I played on the Xbox.

[01:28:02] Oh,

[01:28:03] you did Xbox.

[01:28:03] Okay.

[01:28:04] So that's in,

[01:28:05] in what was the performance there?

[01:28:06] Did you run into any bugs,

[01:28:08] anything?

[01:28:08] Oh,

[01:28:08] I definitely had bugs.

[01:28:09] Hell yeah.

[01:28:09] Okay.

[01:28:10] So anything wild,

[01:28:11] nothing crazy,

[01:28:12] crazy.

[01:28:13] Just the general Ubisoft bugs.

[01:28:14] I have a,

[01:28:15] yeah.

[01:28:15] What's it called?

[01:28:16] Like animation bugs.

[01:28:17] I got one video that I saved of me going up and down a like a little zip line,

[01:28:21] like the rope.

[01:28:22] Um,

[01:28:22] yeah,

[01:28:22] but Kay is just like T posing.

[01:28:24] So she's just rising up like,

[01:28:26] like Jesus on a cross.

[01:28:28] What?

[01:28:29] Like the lead singer of Creed.

[01:28:32] So I was like,

[01:28:32] that was great.

[01:28:33] So I'll probably share that one on,

[01:28:34] um,

[01:28:35] around the times episode drops.

[01:28:36] I'll put that one on the Instagram.

[01:28:37] Um,

[01:28:38] but I had that,

[01:28:38] I mean,

[01:28:39] I had a couple of audio glitches,

[01:28:41] especially like with the trailblazer.

[01:28:42] I think at one point I boosted into doing the hyper space jump.

[01:28:48] And then when I came out of it,

[01:28:50] it just made it sound like the boosting noise of like the actual full on boost for the trailblazer was happening constantly.

[01:28:56] So that was very annoying.

[01:28:57] Um,

[01:28:58] of course we talked about how crappy the,

[01:29:00] the speeder is.

[01:29:01] So that one glitched out on me a couple of times and just had issues.

[01:29:03] So I had some big ones.

[01:29:05] I think I told you when I first started,

[01:29:06] it was like,

[01:29:06] maybe I was still on the tutorial mission.

[01:29:07] I had like a soft lock that happened to just like kick me out of the game.

[01:29:11] And I was like,

[01:29:11] here we go.

[01:29:12] Five minutes in,

[01:29:13] I'm getting my Ubisoft fix,

[01:29:15] but it was never anything that was enough for me.

[01:29:18] Like you had that one bug you talked about where you had to go back and redo an old save.

[01:29:22] I never had anything that bad.

[01:29:23] Um,

[01:29:24] okay.

[01:29:24] So it was just the usual Ubisoft schlop.

[01:29:27] The mantling is really bad though.

[01:29:28] There was a lot of mantling.

[01:29:30] Oh,

[01:29:30] getting stuck,

[01:29:31] getting stuck on rocks,

[01:29:33] not knowing what you can and can't climb.

[01:29:36] Yeah.

[01:29:38] Yeah.

[01:29:38] Even some of the stuff that was like,

[01:29:40] it's not very obviously marked that you can climb onto this.

[01:29:44] I was stuck sometimes.

[01:29:46] It's like,

[01:29:46] where the hell am I supposed to go?

[01:29:48] It's not like highlighted or,

[01:29:50] you know,

[01:29:51] in like,

[01:29:51] listen,

[01:29:52] yellow paint.

[01:29:53] Yeah.

[01:29:53] Yeah.

[01:29:53] Let's not,

[01:29:54] let's not.

[01:29:55] Yellow paint.

[01:29:56] I like my yellow paint.

[01:29:57] Yeah.

[01:29:58] That's like,

[01:29:58] yeah.

[01:29:58] I like my yellow markers.

[01:29:59] There's also orange markers in this game.

[01:30:01] All right.

[01:30:01] So it's fine.

[01:30:02] There's not like white,

[01:30:03] like in God of War,

[01:30:04] you know,

[01:30:05] you can climb on a ledge.

[01:30:06] It's a white paint.

[01:30:07] You got a little bird poop.

[01:30:08] Yeah.

[01:30:08] It looks like bird shit all over it.

[01:30:10] Okay.

[01:30:10] Oh yeah.

[01:30:10] Climb on that.

[01:30:11] But no,

[01:30:12] I was stuck multiple times where I was like,

[01:30:14] did you guys not,

[01:30:15] did you guys notice those big arrows that they're putting everywhere?

[01:30:18] Yeah.

[01:30:18] There were a couple of those,

[01:30:19] like little squares with yellow arrows pointing up.

[01:30:21] Yeah.

[01:30:21] I'm like,

[01:30:22] this is where you climb.

[01:30:23] Oh yeah.

[01:30:24] No,

[01:30:24] I did notice that.

[01:30:25] I didn't notice that until like later on in the game.

[01:30:27] I didn't know if they like started putting them in.

[01:30:29] I feel like in more of the industrial areas,

[01:30:30] it was a little more sense.

[01:30:32] Like when she's climbing.

[01:30:33] Yeah.

[01:30:34] Like when she's on the inside of the ships,

[01:30:36] like especially the later environments,

[01:30:38] which are very spoiler heavy.

[01:30:39] So we can,

[01:30:40] we can save that for the next section.

[01:30:42] But like,

[01:30:43] yeah,

[01:30:43] the environmentals where she's like scaling inside of like space,

[01:30:47] Asian stuff.

[01:30:47] If I see the arrows,

[01:30:48] the indicators.

[01:30:48] So the signposting wasn't the worst.

[01:30:50] I just think like,

[01:30:51] I agree with you.

[01:30:52] The map markers are really bad.

[01:30:54] Like they're not anywhere near.

[01:30:56] Like it felt like it wasn't even in the general area of where I wanted to go.

[01:31:00] It was constantly like,

[01:31:00] cause I rely on maps a lot in a lot of the other RPGs that I played and it just wasn't really a good map.

[01:31:07] And then obviously for the pop in,

[01:31:09] it was really bad.

[01:31:10] The hair,

[01:31:10] the hair particles were not great.

[01:31:13] They have Ubisoft.

[01:31:15] Like,

[01:31:15] so this is true for literally all of their properties.

[01:31:17] They have like three or four tiers of cut scenes and the four,

[01:31:21] like bottom two tiers are like,

[01:31:23] you know,

[01:31:23] so some of the,

[01:31:23] the gameplay stuff,

[01:31:24] it can be fine as long as you're like out there and playing and it's consistent with like the resolution that you're playing at.

[01:31:29] But when it gets into pre rendered cut scenes,

[01:31:31] some of them can be pretty janky.

[01:31:34] Um,

[01:31:34] especially if it's not in that tier where they're dumping high quality,

[01:31:38] like rendering into the like,

[01:31:40] you know,

[01:31:40] 3d art assets that they have.

[01:31:42] But then like in the major story moments,

[01:31:44] those look fucking beautiful.

[01:31:46] And that's exact same thing in Assassin's Creed Mirage where it's like,

[01:31:50] some of the cut scenes are like,

[01:31:52] Ooh,

[01:31:52] this looks real bad.

[01:31:53] His hair looks bad.

[01:31:54] And then,

[01:31:55] and then some of them you're like,

[01:31:56] Oh my God,

[01:31:57] this is like,

[01:31:57] this is like a Sony,

[01:31:58] Sony interactive entertainment level of quality.

[01:32:01] I had one that I'm seeing here.

[01:32:02] I sit at the Sabacc table and it's like panning across and,

[01:32:06] she's getting ready to play.

[01:32:07] And someone from the background was like walking and popped up onto the table and

[01:32:11] just walked across the camera.

[01:32:13] I had people walking in my conversations a lot too.

[01:32:16] Yeah.

[01:32:17] It's like walked right across the camera on the Sabacc table and then popped

[01:32:21] kicking cards.

[01:32:22] Yeah.

[01:32:22] I love that.

[01:32:24] Fuck your game.

[01:32:26] Okay.

[01:32:26] Best.

[01:32:27] You owe me money.

[01:32:28] Yeah.

[01:32:29] Let's go ahead and take a quick music break.

[01:32:31] And when we come back,

[01:32:32] we're going to talk more about that soundtrack in the score and then get into the

[01:32:37] narrative elements of star Wars outlaws.

[01:33:29] So we talked about a lot of the music in the soundtrack in this game a little bit earlier.

[01:33:34] I felt like the score was good,

[01:33:37] especially in like the main story moments,

[01:33:39] but for the most time,

[01:33:40] like it didn't,

[01:33:41] I felt like there was the main theme of the game,

[01:33:44] but then everything else kind of like took a backseat.

[01:33:46] It just faded into the background.

[01:33:47] Um,

[01:33:48] did you agree with me on that front or like,

[01:33:50] did we feel strongly?

[01:33:51] I don't,

[01:33:52] yeah,

[01:33:52] I don't recall anything other than that main theme.

[01:33:55] Like,

[01:33:56] I couldn't,

[01:33:57] I couldn't pinpoint,

[01:33:59] uh,

[01:33:59] certain levels or whatever,

[01:34:00] but I remember like adventuring and just listening to the,

[01:34:06] to the music or I'm in,

[01:34:08] I'm in certain cities and the music that's playing is like,

[01:34:11] I thought it was very well put in their places.

[01:34:16] Um,

[01:34:17] did I stop and like really crank up the music to listen?

[01:34:20] No,

[01:34:20] I didn't do that.

[01:34:21] But like,

[01:34:21] I felt that the music was properly placed and I think it really did its job.

[01:34:26] Um,

[01:34:27] as it falls into the backseat,

[01:34:30] like maybe that's,

[01:34:32] I don't know where they kind of wanted it to be,

[01:34:34] but like the,

[01:34:35] like the,

[01:34:36] the instruments they use just the whole style and the feel,

[01:34:39] it was right up there.

[01:34:40] Like it was in there.

[01:34:42] Uh,

[01:34:43] I,

[01:34:43] it felt star Wars all the time.

[01:34:45] It never took me out,

[01:34:46] you know,

[01:34:47] I feel just like that with Nate too,

[01:34:49] just because one,

[01:34:51] uh,

[01:34:52] having them in their place,

[01:34:53] I think is probably the best way to put it.

[01:34:55] Just because I feel like when I walk into the cantina,

[01:34:57] the music wasn't,

[01:34:58] you know,

[01:34:59] overpowering.

[01:34:59] You could even go to the jukebox and like change up some of the songs if you

[01:35:02] wanted to,

[01:35:02] which is cool.

[01:35:03] But the big thing was walking in and then hearing the people kind of chit

[01:35:05] chat around.

[01:35:06] You hear the hutties in the corner,

[01:35:08] you hear the noise beeping around and doing stuff.

[01:35:10] Yeah.

[01:35:13] So I was like,

[01:35:14] everything felt like it fit really well.

[01:35:16] And then when I'm like riding around just on the speeder out there and

[01:35:19] like Tashara or in Tatooine,

[01:35:20] you kind of get like that sweeping,

[01:35:21] you know,

[01:35:22] John Williams esque.

[01:35:23] And that's the hard part about having a star Wars game or any other kind of

[01:35:27] media.

[01:35:27] When you get into the soundtracks is inevitably doing it.

[01:35:31] Inevitably you're going to get compared to John Williams,

[01:35:32] which is like hard.

[01:35:34] There's no hydrogen bomb versus a baby.

[01:35:35] It's like,

[01:35:36] Oh wow.

[01:35:38] This isn't as good as John Williams score.

[01:35:40] I'm like,

[01:35:40] well,

[01:35:40] no shit.

[01:35:41] Wasn't that,

[01:35:41] wasn't that the thing for,

[01:35:43] for this?

[01:35:43] Who was the composer of the,

[01:35:45] the composer for this soundtrack is the same guy who did the hell divers

[01:35:49] theme,

[01:35:49] which is great.

[01:35:50] Yeah.

[01:35:51] Which is really cool.

[01:35:52] Yeah.

[01:35:53] And so it's,

[01:35:53] it's,

[01:35:53] it's definitely,

[01:35:54] I'm glad that he's getting a lot of work because I think he's super

[01:35:56] talented.

[01:35:56] I think for me personally,

[01:35:58] and again,

[01:35:59] not necessarily to compare to John Williams,

[01:36:01] but compared to the Jedi fallen order games,

[01:36:04] Gordie Hobb was the composer and the sound designer for,

[01:36:07] for those.

[01:36:08] And he did his best John Williams impression in the best ways.

[01:36:12] Like every single second,

[01:36:13] like impression.

[01:36:15] Yeah.

[01:36:16] Right.

[01:36:16] Yeah,

[01:36:16] exactly.

[01:36:17] It's not until you get the man in here.

[01:36:19] You're not tapping at the source.

[01:36:20] I think he's retired now,

[01:36:22] which is a really sad thing,

[01:36:23] but it is what it is.

[01:36:24] I got one more job in me.

[01:36:28] All right.

[01:36:29] Well,

[01:36:29] that's good enough for me.

[01:36:30] Speaking of one more job in us,

[01:36:32] we're going to go ahead and jump into the primary plot of this game and

[01:36:36] talk about all of the spoiler inclusive stuff,

[01:36:39] as well as the narrative ending,

[01:36:40] everything all included.

[01:36:41] So ladies and gentlemen,

[01:36:42] if you've made it this far into the show,

[01:36:43] I want to thank you so much for joining us on this Friday night game

[01:36:46] cast review.

[01:36:46] This has been really fun with the elder trolls,

[01:36:48] Nate and Jono to join us here today.

[01:36:50] But if you're sensitive to spoilers,

[01:36:52] go ahead and jump out,

[01:36:53] finish the game and then come back in when you're ready.

[01:36:55] If you want to listen to what our thoughts were for the main storyline of

[01:36:57] the game,

[01:36:57] but we're going to go ahead and continue here now.

[01:37:01] So I have like all of the main storyline missions in this game,

[01:37:05] but my approach that I wanted to do with this game specifically is I just

[01:37:09] wanted to talk about the way that we felt about some of the big narrative

[01:37:13] moments in this game because,

[01:37:15] and the reason for that is that I just think that Ubisoft's antiquated block

[01:37:21] narrative storytelling where they give you sections of main storyline quests and

[01:37:26] allow you to choose when to play them works only at the end,

[01:37:32] the beginning and end of this game.

[01:37:34] Like,

[01:37:34] I think like for the main impactful moments,

[01:37:37] I'm looking for something prime that's kind of linear in order to like,

[01:37:41] tell me the story,

[01:37:41] flesh out these characters.

[01:37:42] Let me feel what they're going through.

[01:37:44] Let me feel like how they're managing the situations they're in.

[01:37:47] And I think that K was surprising.

[01:37:50] Well,

[01:37:50] you said it before I'm really Gonzalez.

[01:37:51] I think she really,

[01:37:53] really sold me halfway through this game.

[01:37:55] I think she had to ease into the character for me to understand where she was

[01:37:59] going a little bit more,

[01:38:00] but I thought it was really cool.

[01:38:02] Like there's this entire plot of her being a kid and it's a flashback that

[01:38:07] happens in like the second or third mainline mission.

[01:38:09] But you realize that her mom,

[01:38:11] like pretty much fucking abandoned her piece of shit.

[01:38:14] Yeah.

[01:38:15] Yeah.

[01:38:15] Not a good person at all.

[01:38:17] And she trained her how to like be a criminal at a very early age and like

[01:38:21] fucking steal shit,

[01:38:22] which is like,

[01:38:23] I mean,

[01:38:23] yeah,

[01:38:23] you're teaching your kid,

[01:38:24] kid,

[01:38:24] you know,

[01:38:25] skills of the trade,

[01:38:26] right?

[01:38:27] Yeah.

[01:38:27] How to survive in the underworld for sure.

[01:38:29] But then she just decides to abandon her,

[01:38:31] um,

[01:38:32] largely for selfish reasons.

[01:38:34] Um,

[01:38:34] and I think it's really cool how that kind of like came around in the back

[01:38:37] end.

[01:38:37] But I mean,

[01:38:38] just starting off,

[01:38:39] you know,

[01:38:40] overall,

[01:38:41] will I'm,

[01:38:41] I'm curious,

[01:38:42] like on your front,

[01:38:42] like,

[01:38:43] because you're super fresh with this game,

[01:38:45] like how did you feel about case character and some of the way that she

[01:38:49] hits some of these narrative moments?

[01:38:51] I mean,

[01:38:51] she was for me just easily the best part of the game,

[01:38:54] which is effectively how you want it.

[01:38:55] When you're playing as somebody for,

[01:38:56] you know,

[01:38:57] 20 plus hours,

[01:38:58] you want to be able to want to understand them and hopefully appreciate what

[01:39:00] they're going through.

[01:39:01] And we talked about it a little bit when we mentioned the beginning and the

[01:39:04] tutorialization,

[01:39:05] but I feel like she had that kind of naivete.

[01:39:08] And I really,

[01:39:09] really appreciated that because it gave us some genuinely funny moments at times

[01:39:13] where she maybe necessarily wasn't even trying to just be funny.

[01:39:15] Like I loved whenever she,

[01:39:19] we talked about with Gorex ring,

[01:39:20] right?

[01:39:20] So Gorex at one point,

[01:39:22] Nick steals his ring.

[01:39:23] You have his ring at any point during the game.

[01:39:25] You can sell it for like 500 credits,

[01:39:26] but it does say you can use it for something else.

[01:39:28] So if you paid attention to that and you didn't sell it,

[01:39:31] you could potentially keep it until the next time you run into Gorex in a

[01:39:33] cut scene.

[01:39:34] And then he's like,

[01:39:35] Oh,

[01:39:35] by the way,

[01:39:36] give me my ring back.

[01:39:37] And you can either choose to like,

[01:39:38] give it back to him or,

[01:39:39] or keep it and lie.

[01:39:41] And so you don't have it.

[01:39:41] Um,

[01:39:42] spoilers.

[01:39:44] Kay is not a professional scoundrel.

[01:39:46] She is horrible at lying.

[01:39:49] Anytime you go to like lie or deceive someone,

[01:39:52] it never turns out well for you.

[01:39:53] Cause she's like,

[01:39:54] Oh yeah.

[01:39:55] That's what I,

[01:39:57] that's what I was saying earlier about like,

[01:39:59] she seems like such a,

[01:40:02] like she's not,

[01:40:04] she's not,

[01:40:05] she's a kid.

[01:40:06] She's obviously lying to everybody.

[01:40:08] And she's like,

[01:40:09] like a teenager.

[01:40:11] So she's not good at it.

[01:40:12] And I mean,

[01:40:13] we talked about mom there to have a couple of cut scenes early on in the

[01:40:16] game that show how mom is trying to teach Kay how to like steal and how to

[01:40:20] survive.

[01:40:21] And she,

[01:40:22] you know,

[01:40:22] Kay is not interested.

[01:40:23] She does not want to do that.

[01:40:24] The first time of meeting Nick,

[01:40:25] for example,

[01:40:26] like,

[01:40:27] you know,

[01:40:27] she's mom's trying to rob them and find out something from the huts.

[01:40:30] And then you're like,

[01:40:31] Oh,

[01:40:31] this animal is really cute.

[01:40:32] And you let him go.

[01:40:33] Your mom ends up getting shot in a shootout.

[01:40:35] Like you get your mom shot.

[01:40:37] And then when it cuts back to them,

[01:40:38] like back at the house,

[01:40:39] hanging out,

[01:40:40] Kay does not care that her mom got shot trying to rob something.

[01:40:43] She's just like,

[01:40:43] this animal is very cute.

[01:40:44] I don't want to be a gangster.

[01:40:46] So I took that cut scene and I kind of use that as a lens for everything else.

[01:40:51] Kay is going to,

[01:40:52] you know,

[01:40:53] one mentioned earlier,

[01:40:54] she's flying by the seat of her pants.

[01:40:55] She's doing all of this,

[01:40:56] like off the cuff.

[01:40:57] This is not behavior that she's used to or wants to do is just,

[01:41:01] she's trying to get free.

[01:41:03] She does not want to do jobs her whole life and be like some kind of a thief and

[01:41:07] scoundrel,

[01:41:08] like a Han Solo.

[01:41:09] She wants to do this one score and then never have to worry about money again.

[01:41:12] So I did connect with her on that level to where it's,

[01:41:16] you're in over your head and you're like,

[01:41:17] let me just get out of this alive and I can hopefully just go about doing something the right way.

[01:41:22] Yeah.

[01:41:24] Yeah.

[01:41:25] I really appreciated it.

[01:41:26] I think like the first part where I started seeing,

[01:41:29] I started seeing the vision for the narrative and the story in this game was really quickly in Tashara.

[01:41:35] We talked about a ton about Tashara in the first,

[01:41:36] you know,

[01:41:37] mechanical parts of this game.

[01:41:38] I think it's the best curated section.

[01:41:40] I think it's the best designed open world section of this game.

[01:41:42] I really,

[01:41:43] really enjoyed that planet a lot.

[01:41:45] But it's when like she meets that,

[01:41:48] the guy who's like the alien who is coming in and he's like,

[01:41:52] Hey,

[01:41:52] I know how to fix the trailblazer.

[01:41:54] Oh yeah.

[01:41:55] Why don't you let me go ahead and fix it up?

[01:41:56] There was a really cool moment there where she's like,

[01:41:59] she knows she doesn't trust people,

[01:42:00] but she's like,

[01:42:01] what else can I do?

[01:42:03] Right.

[01:42:03] I mean,

[01:42:03] this guy says he can fix my fucking ship.

[01:42:05] I'm going to let him do it.

[01:42:06] And she,

[01:42:06] I'm going to go get money to go get parts to go fix this ship.

[01:42:09] Like she,

[01:42:10] it's like a,

[01:42:10] it's a mutually beneficial arrangement that they come to.

[01:42:14] And then he goes forward and you go through the motions here.

[01:42:18] And I thought it was really cool when it gets to the point where she's

[01:42:21] going to do these missions,

[01:42:22] she gets the thing.

[01:42:23] And then she realized she has to go to the star destroyer to get like the

[01:42:26] power generator or something like that for it to get it up and off the

[01:42:28] ground.

[01:42:29] The crashed one.

[01:42:30] It's the crashed one.

[01:42:31] And it's the one where you go in and you realize as you're in there,

[01:42:34] he's like actively betraying you.

[01:42:36] And he's like,

[01:42:37] ah,

[01:42:37] actually this is my ship.

[01:42:38] And you,

[01:42:39] you go all the way into it.

[01:42:40] And he's the one that shows up.

[01:42:42] And yeah,

[01:42:43] that was cool.

[01:42:44] And then him,

[01:42:44] and then all of a sudden for him to get decimated by veil,

[01:42:48] who is the bounty hunter that Salero has contracted to,

[01:42:51] uh,

[01:42:52] hunt Kate,

[01:42:53] Kate vest down.

[01:42:54] Like that's really cool stuff.

[01:42:55] And it was interesting how like I was expecting like a faceless masked

[01:42:59] bounty hunter.

[01:42:59] And it was just this,

[01:43:00] this cool looking lady who was like,

[01:43:03] kind of,

[01:43:04] you could tell even from the first moment you see her,

[01:43:06] there's this sort of reticence about the whole situation.

[01:43:08] She's not sure about what she's doing.

[01:43:10] She had a kill shot on K didn't even take it.

[01:43:12] And then that's when ND five shows up.

[01:43:14] I was like,

[01:43:14] this shit is fucking cool.

[01:43:16] And ND five is this cool,

[01:43:17] like BX battle droid from the Clone Wars.

[01:43:20] Yeah.

[01:43:20] It was so cool.

[01:43:22] Yeah.

[01:43:22] What did you guys think about him and he's like involvement in the story?

[01:43:25] Did you want him out on the field with K more than he was?

[01:43:28] Oh,

[01:43:28] for sure.

[01:43:29] He was awesome.

[01:43:29] I had to do his quest whenever it popped up,

[01:43:31] like with the huts,

[01:43:31] like he owed the job of something.

[01:43:33] So like you kind of run around with him and you didn't know his backstory.

[01:43:36] Like I love ND five.

[01:43:37] I did that actually,

[01:43:38] that quest after I finished the,

[01:43:41] the main,

[01:43:42] the main story,

[01:43:43] I went back and kept playing.

[01:43:45] And then I did that one.

[01:43:46] Yeah.

[01:43:47] But yeah,

[01:43:47] that was cool too.

[01:43:48] So you get to learn kind of what happened and why,

[01:43:50] uh,

[01:43:51] and kind of see some of his story.

[01:43:53] It was,

[01:43:53] yeah,

[01:43:54] it was cool being on Tatooine too.

[01:43:56] Yeah,

[01:43:57] definitely.

[01:43:58] And then like the whole antagonist,

[01:44:00] I felt like Salero and,

[01:44:02] uh,

[01:44:03] Zarek Besh,

[01:44:04] like that whole conceit,

[01:44:05] like the,

[01:44:05] the,

[01:44:06] the main impetus,

[01:44:06] I guess the MacGuffin of the game is the death mark that he puts on K's head.

[01:44:10] It didn't really like,

[01:44:12] he kind of was just like this evil guy for the sake of being an evil guy,

[01:44:15] which is,

[01:44:15] it's true for almost all Star Wars villains,

[01:44:18] right?

[01:44:18] Like they're just fucking evil British people in that universe.

[01:44:22] And that's,

[01:44:22] that's all it ever really is.

[01:44:24] But the,

[01:44:25] the difference with this one is that like the,

[01:44:28] the very end as you get towards the game.

[01:44:30] And again,

[01:44:31] we're just kind of jumping all over the timeline here with what happens to K,

[01:44:34] but the very end,

[01:44:36] um,

[01:44:37] when you realize that he's actually a member,

[01:44:39] high ranking member of the ISB and you go onto the Imperial base,

[01:44:43] he's getting visited by none other than Darth fucking Vader.

[01:44:46] That was so awesome.

[01:44:47] Great moment.

[01:44:48] So great moment.

[01:44:49] Yeah.

[01:44:50] Yeah.

[01:44:50] I really,

[01:44:51] really enjoyed that.

[01:44:51] It's like where he shatters the glass after he starts.

[01:44:54] Cause Sleer was talking back.

[01:44:56] Like,

[01:44:56] I was like,

[01:44:56] come on,

[01:44:57] man,

[01:44:57] you know,

[01:44:57] you don't talk back to like the dark Lord of the Sith.

[01:45:00] Like,

[01:45:00] what are you doing?

[01:45:01] And then he's like,

[01:45:02] I need results.

[01:45:04] It was,

[01:45:04] it was great.

[01:45:05] There was a couple of really cool cameos that were just like,

[01:45:07] Oh,

[01:45:09] it's fun.

[01:45:09] And seeing Han Solo frozen in carbonite.

[01:45:12] Yeah.

[01:45:12] That was palace.

[01:45:13] Very first time I was like,

[01:45:14] it had to,

[01:45:15] it had to show up in this game.

[01:45:17] And I'm glad photo mode thing I did was a picture of me standing in front of the,

[01:45:21] the carbonite.

[01:45:22] You with Han Solo.

[01:45:23] Yeah.

[01:45:26] It's the boy.

[01:45:29] Hashtag scoundrels.

[01:45:30] It's the boy.

[01:45:31] Oh my God.

[01:45:32] That should be like a YouTube thumbnail of this,

[01:45:34] this,

[01:45:35] this,

[01:45:35] this episode.

[01:45:36] But no,

[01:45:37] yeah,

[01:45:37] that was really fun.

[01:45:38] And I will say,

[01:45:40] okay,

[01:45:40] so Nick's coming in there.

[01:45:42] And I was like,

[01:45:42] at first starting to play the game and learning how the different mechanics,

[01:45:46] you know,

[01:45:46] worked with each other.

[01:45:46] I was like,

[01:45:47] Nick's all right.

[01:45:48] He's not,

[01:45:48] he's not a BD one,

[01:45:50] but he was,

[01:45:50] he was,

[01:45:50] he was a cool guy.

[01:45:51] And then it's solely as you warm up to him,

[01:45:54] as you kind of understand his relationship and he just acts cute all the time.

[01:45:58] And I'm just like,

[01:45:58] okay,

[01:45:58] I really fucking care about you.

[01:46:00] And then there's a moment where like,

[01:46:02] in the game,

[01:46:02] this game is about assembling the team to pull off the heist.

[01:46:05] Right.

[01:46:06] And the last,

[01:46:07] like one,

[01:46:08] the second to last,

[01:46:08] like real member of the team that you're trying to recruit,

[01:46:12] um,

[01:46:12] this guy named Haas on Tatooine,

[01:46:14] he ends up being one of the flappy Gil,

[01:46:16] uh,

[01:46:17] race of aliens that's on there.

[01:46:19] And he's just a fucking douchebag.

[01:46:20] He's just a terrible,

[01:46:22] terrible person.

[01:46:23] And then like,

[01:46:24] he gets into the Sabacc game and then like Kay shows up and then he's

[01:46:27] basically betting Nix and Kay gets knocked the fuck out.

[01:46:31] And they steal Nix.

[01:46:32] That was the apex,

[01:46:34] like the climax of my emotional attachment to this game.

[01:46:37] I was like,

[01:46:38] how did dare you take my fucking friend from me?

[01:46:40] And then the,

[01:46:41] you had to know that was coming though.

[01:46:43] My space dog.

[01:46:44] Yeah.

[01:46:44] Yeah.

[01:46:45] Yeah.

[01:46:45] How dare you take my space dog?

[01:46:46] I was like,

[01:46:46] I had to know there was going to be something with Nix.

[01:46:49] That was good though.

[01:46:50] I like you losing him or something like that.

[01:46:52] Yeah.

[01:46:52] Him being in danger.

[01:46:53] The way they did it though,

[01:46:54] it was really cool.

[01:46:55] Like losing them in a shady card game.

[01:46:59] Yeah.

[01:46:59] That guy was such a scumbag.

[01:47:00] Oh my God.

[01:47:01] Yeah.

[01:47:01] It was,

[01:47:01] it was narratively impactful.

[01:47:03] And like,

[01:47:04] because I mean,

[01:47:05] this works for me.

[01:47:06] I mean,

[01:47:06] I don't know how many people like that don't care about Star Wars or

[01:47:10] haven't seen Star Wars properties or playing this game.

[01:47:12] But like me as a Star Wars fan,

[01:47:14] knowing that Jabba just fucking eats like exotic animals because he

[01:47:18] thinks it's funny.

[01:47:18] I'm like,

[01:47:18] he's going to fucking eat my boy.

[01:47:20] Like I can't have that happen.

[01:47:21] And so I,

[01:47:22] yeah,

[01:47:23] I really enjoyed that.

[01:47:24] And it's just like super visual trying to get into there.

[01:47:27] And then of course the Rancor fight right after that,

[01:47:31] after you get to that point.

[01:47:32] That was really fun.

[01:47:33] That took me a couple of tries because of the,

[01:47:35] I don't know if it glitched out or something.

[01:47:37] I think there was,

[01:47:38] I had a glitch.

[01:47:39] The mechanics just weren't that great.

[01:47:41] Yeah.

[01:47:41] The mechanics weren't great.

[01:47:42] And they didn't give you like enough of an indicator,

[01:47:45] like what you had to do.

[01:47:46] Like I had to figure out,

[01:47:47] Oh,

[01:47:47] I have to shoot these things to drop it on him or whatever.

[01:47:49] Then you had to stand by the door.

[01:47:51] So he ran at you.

[01:47:52] Exactly.

[01:47:53] And hit the door.