Worst Day 1 Purchases - Fedora Kid vs. Fashion Survivor

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

[00:00:48] The real is back. What's going on? What's going on?

[00:00:51] The real, the deal. I don't know. I don't know. Isn't there like a wrestler titles like the realest something?

[00:00:58] I mean there's our truth.

[00:01:00] Our truth.

[00:01:00] Yeah. So maybe something like that.

[00:01:02] But I'm missing out. We got to go to another one of those WWE Raw games or games.

[00:01:10] You get some tickets and we'll be there for sure.

[00:01:12] Yeah. I'm going to keep applying and see seeing what's going on.

[00:01:15] But yeah, everybody this is episode 54 of the Friday Night Gamecast. Will and I are coming together.

[00:01:20] We're doing a special little, an old school style episode getting away from the reviews, taking a little bit of a break from the review section.

[00:01:27] Although there's lots of games that we could talk about here.

[00:01:29] A ton.

[00:01:30] But we have a lot to get into today. So I'm going to go ahead and jump in here and give a special thanks to our wonderful patrons for their continued support.

[00:01:39] Thank you. Lady Blake, Plox, Y.A. Pierberg, Dave Jackson, The Intergalactic, Pinecone, Fabulous Brianna, Chris Ware, Eric Guess, Rick Firestone, Chris of A Novel Console, David C and JD.

[00:01:49] Thank you all so much for your continued and ongoing support. This is really, really been great for us. So thank you so much.

[00:01:57] A little bit of housekeeping that I wanted to get into as of today, of course, for all of our patrons who may be listening to the show or anybody who might want to consider subscribing to the Patreon.

[00:02:07] We might have mentioned this last episode. We might have talked about it a little bit before, but we do have a poll that is currently up in active on our Patreon for the next DigiHated.

[00:02:18] The lineup is really, really hype. I would recommend anybody jump in there for you.

[00:02:22] You could literally, if you wanted to just jump in there, subscribe to vote and then unsubscribe however you want.

[00:02:28] It doesn't matter to me. Any contribution matters.

[00:02:30] But we would appreciate it though. We would appreciate your continued support.

[00:02:34] But we got to get those numbers up and we got to get a lot of data.

[00:02:39] We need more data in there because as of right now, Osser's Wrath is leading.

[00:02:44] That seems like a fun game. Great game.

[00:02:46] Seems like a great game. Fantastic game.

[00:02:47] Yeah, fantastic game. So yeah, make sure that we can go ahead and get lots of votes in here and get that wrapped up.

[00:02:53] But other than that, I think we're pretty much good to go.

[00:02:56] Other than the fact that I don't think we mentioned last time that Will is probably as of the date that this episode comes out most likely is going to have his side project released on side questing.

[00:03:12] Exactly. Is that what it's called?

[00:03:13] Side quest with that Stormy Gettin.

[00:03:15] Exactly.

[00:03:16] Okay. Yeah, so make sure to go over to Matt Stormy Gettin's podcast and I'll make sure to plug something in our episode notes here.

[00:03:22] But go ahead and check that out. This is just an Osser's Wrath year.

[00:03:25] I say it's a great mess up there. So we appreciate that. Please go there. Check it out. Give it a listen as well.

[00:03:30] I had recently my get wrecked episode with Jared dropped with Play Along Pod 2.

[00:03:35] That's right.

[00:03:35] Apparently this is the year of Will.

[00:03:38] Will collaborating. He's leaving me. They're trying to poach him. They're trying to poach him.

[00:03:43] I won't let it happen.

[00:03:44] It's not happening.

[00:03:45] It's not happening.

[00:03:46] I gotta remember where I came from. I gotta remember where I came from.

[00:03:48] You gotta throw the ladder down.

[00:03:51] Throw the ladder down. Remember me when you make it. Remember me.

[00:03:57] Oh, but everyone. Yeah, the Capcom Apologist is at it again talking about some Osser's Wrath and then also,

[00:04:03] you know, I still you didn't mention it and you didn't put it in the gaming updates that we're going to talk about here very shortly.

[00:04:08] But Sifu, he beat Sifu.

[00:04:10] I guess.

[00:04:10] No, I did not beat Sifu.

[00:04:11] You didn't beat it.

[00:04:12] See, that's why you don't listen to the episode yet, did you?

[00:04:14] Crazy, crazy.

[00:04:15] I'm busy.

[00:04:17] But no, I have not beat it. I do plan on beating it, but I just have not beat it yet.

[00:04:20] So I am on the fourth boss who is not nice to me.

[00:04:25] Easy.

[00:04:26] The Tower Lady?

[00:04:27] She I would say that she telegraphs her moves way more than KuroKy does.

[00:04:32] Yeah, but it's just getting to her in general sucks.

[00:04:34] Like that whole area is annoying to say the least.

[00:04:37] There's a secret thing you can fall down. You know, there's a path where you like you can just jump down.

[00:04:42] Yeah, I just commit suicide and then lose a life. But then I get like further down into it.

[00:04:45] So I mean, that's what I plan on getting there.

[00:04:47] But regardless, I'm going to eventually beat it.

[00:04:49] I'm looking forward to beating it.

[00:04:50] But as of right now, I have put it on the back burner because I got a couple other games

[00:04:55] that I'm looking at for my gaming updates.

[00:04:57] There's also a secret elevator that you can take down to avoid all of it.

[00:05:00] But you have to get to the bottom of it first though and like

[00:05:03] get the like little elevator key card or something.

[00:05:05] Because I know a lot of the shortcuts you have to get the key card.

[00:05:08] I think so.

[00:05:08] That same thing for the third level boss.

[00:05:10] You get the key card.

[00:05:10] It might be a weird thing if I'm not mistaken.

[00:05:13] I think some of one of the guys in the lobby has it.

[00:05:17] And if you kill him, you can just take it because you know how they kind of like set

[00:05:21] it up to where it's like you're not supposed to be cool while you walk in.

[00:05:24] But I think if you like kill them all and I think they might drop a key card.

[00:05:27] I'm not sure.

[00:05:28] I'll look into it.

[00:05:28] Not sure. Yeah, we'll figure it out.

[00:05:30] But anyway, that's it for housekeeping.

[00:05:32] Let's go ahead and jump in to our game updates for the week.

[00:05:36] William, I think I have a little bit more than you.

[00:05:38] So I'll let you go first.

[00:05:40] Just a little bit more.

[00:05:41] So I'm going to go ahead and a game that I've been talking about previously.

[00:05:44] So Jedi Survivor is a game that I've been playing through.

[00:05:47] I'm having a complete blast with it right now.

[00:05:49] So all in all, it's very Metroidvania.

[00:05:52] It's very much as far as the fighting in that last Jedi Fallen Order game.

[00:05:56] So if you like that one, you're going to like this.

[00:05:58] They just made everything a little bit bigger, a little bit better.

[00:06:01] So you get what five or six dances now instead of the two you had before.

[00:06:04] Yep.

[00:06:05] Couple more force powers that you unlock as you play through the main story.

[00:06:08] You're running around with more characters.

[00:06:10] You're heading to more planets.

[00:06:11] So I'm having a blast with it.

[00:06:13] I'm getting pretty close to the end.

[00:06:15] I have almost all of the achievements done,

[00:06:18] and I'm probably wrapping up on the last maybe three chapters of the main story.

[00:06:22] But all in all, very fun, incredibly fun game.

[00:06:25] Very glad I waited just to make sure if there were any kind of like

[00:06:28] other little glitches or issues that would have maybe affected me

[00:06:31] earlier when it first came out.

[00:06:32] But everything seems pretty smooth.

[00:06:34] I've had the occasional hiccup here and there.

[00:06:36] Normally something to do with BD, but nothing too, too crazy.

[00:06:40] In terms of glitching out?

[00:06:41] Yeah.

[00:06:42] Were you like sliding down a rail and he like spazzes out?

[00:06:44] No, it would just be me coming back or walking around doing something

[00:06:47] and then he just breaks.

[00:06:48] So you can't do the down D pad to bring him up to use him to do

[00:06:54] like certain things in the world that require you to make puzzles work.

[00:06:58] Or sometimes he won't pop up to an area where you can customize his looks

[00:07:02] because I'm a real sicko with this game.

[00:07:04] Every time I beat a main story chapter, the first thing I do

[00:07:08] before going to the next main story chapter is head to a workbench.

[00:07:12] And then I change my entire look for my lightsaber,

[00:07:15] including the blade color.

[00:07:16] I change the entire look.

[00:07:17] What color are you at right now?

[00:07:18] Right now I'm using the purple blade color.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:20] So change the entire look for the blade color.

[00:07:22] It's like a purple and gold lightsaber with purple blade.

[00:07:26] I change up all of Cal's outfits.

[00:07:28] So change up his hairstyle, his beard, his shirt jacket pants,

[00:07:34] shirt jacket pants man.

[00:07:35] Nice.

[00:07:35] I change up all of BD's outfits and how he looks in his different pieces

[00:07:39] that go together too.

[00:07:39] So I go straight up Jedi survivor souls.

[00:07:42] No, sorry, like fashion.

[00:07:44] Fashion souls.

[00:07:45] Fashion survivor.

[00:07:46] Exactly.

[00:07:47] There you go.

[00:07:47] Fashion survivor.

[00:07:48] Coining it.

[00:07:50] So I've been definitely rocking that the whole time.

[00:07:52] Just every time I go to a new chapter, it's just looking completely different.

[00:07:55] It's just been fun because they give you so many things.

[00:07:58] And this is such a refreshing single player experience too,

[00:08:00] where you don't have to go buy something or do stuff.

[00:08:04] Everything you're finding is in a chest.

[00:08:05] It feels very old school video game.

[00:08:07] So I'm appreciating it.

[00:08:08] It's probably why I'm liking it so much is just because it's all in the world.

[00:08:11] It's all in the game.

[00:08:12] You don't have to worry about anything external kind of taking your attention away from it.

[00:08:16] Yeah.

[00:08:16] To get all the achievements,

[00:08:17] you have to collect some of the coins that you spend at,

[00:08:20] I think her name is Droma maybe.

[00:08:22] You have to spend at the Droma shop.

[00:08:24] Exactly.

[00:08:24] So you have to find those prior right shards in the world.

[00:08:26] But again, it's just a matter of clearing out the map and everything is clearly marked.

[00:08:30] That was something that I talked about or I might have touched on it,

[00:08:34] but I didn't have a lot of time to get into it when I was reviewing it for the show.

[00:08:38] But it's one of the coolest things of the updates.

[00:08:41] One of the most noticeable upgrades from Jedi Fallen Order II Survivor

[00:08:45] was that they made the map actually kind of easy to understand and level that.

[00:08:50] Yeah.

[00:08:50] One of them, Survivor, it was like a three-dimensional map,

[00:08:52] which was cool canonically because you're using BD to project it to you.

[00:08:55] But at the same time, it was like,

[00:08:56] fuck, how do I get down there?

[00:08:58] What is it that a wall or is it a ladder?

[00:08:59] What's going on?

[00:09:00] But yeah, this one, it's like very easy to kind of notice what you haven't got,

[00:09:04] where you haven't gone or where you can't go,

[00:09:06] which is very, it's like another thing.

[00:09:07] Yeah.

[00:09:07] All the little red blocked off things.

[00:09:09] Yeah, which is very nice.

[00:09:09] That way you're not wasting your time running around trying to get around it.

[00:09:12] You're just like, hey, I gotta go play through another couple of missions,

[00:09:15] get my lift or my slam or whatever my special move is,

[00:09:19] and then I'll come back and work on it.

[00:09:20] So yeah, that's been very nice too.

[00:09:22] Along with that, it's also great that initially you're going through your finding stuff.

[00:09:26] And if you hover over areas in the map,

[00:09:28] it'll tell you how many items you're missing.

[00:09:29] It'd be like this many forest hairs,

[00:09:31] this many Pryorite shards or treasures, what they call them,

[00:09:33] because there's a couple of different treasures based on

[00:09:36] who you're interacting with and who you can sell.

[00:09:38] But as you're playing through the main story and you're finding items

[00:09:41] and you kind of go off that beaten path a little bit,

[00:09:43] you can have BD find maps.

[00:09:45] So then you'll find all the maps for the plants.

[00:09:48] So you can plant all your plants on your rooftop garden.

[00:09:50] You can find the map for all the treasures,

[00:09:52] map for all the chests, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:09:54] So as you're playing through the game normally,

[00:09:56] eventually you'll get to the point where it's like,

[00:09:58] okay, I can either look leading up to that point

[00:10:00] and try to find things on my own if I want to be like,

[00:10:02] all right, go off the beaten path or eventually the game will literally just hand you a map

[00:10:06] and say here are the things, go straight for them, which is nice.

[00:10:09] Yeah, it definitely is nice.

[00:10:11] Now we've been playing that.

[00:10:12] So Jedi Survivor has been great.

[00:10:14] Another game that I've been playing that I'm sure you're going to be talking about

[00:10:16] on yours as well because I see it on here is good old Dragon's Dogma 2.

[00:10:19] So we've been having still a lot of fun with that one.

[00:10:22] I have taken a break to play Jedi Survivor because they are very different games.

[00:10:25] So I was like, I played 108 hours of Dragon's Dogma 2

[00:10:28] and I haven't beaten the main story yet.

[00:10:30] So I was like, 108.

[00:10:32] 108?

[00:10:33] Yes, I heard the eight part.

[00:10:35] Holy shit.

[00:10:36] 108 hours of Dragon's Dogma 2 just pulling you inside stuff.

[00:10:40] You told me you maxed out every class.

[00:10:41] Every class, yep.

[00:10:43] I don't have the time.

[00:10:44] It's good.

[00:10:45] I don't have to say it's good.

[00:10:46] It's fun.

[00:10:46] It's good.

[00:10:47] That's the whole point of the game for me.

[00:10:48] The combat's so fun.

[00:10:49] Tell me about the build because obviously for folks who don't know, whenever you level up a class,

[00:10:55] essentially what Dragon's Dogma does is it gives you innate abilities.

[00:10:59] For example, us if you're a sorcerer and you level up that vocation skill set,

[00:11:04] they give you, if I'm not mistaken, an attribute or an augment.

[00:11:08] It's an augment of levitation.

[00:11:10] And whenever you master or you level up the different vocations,

[00:11:15] gradually unlock each augment that's available for that individual vocation.

[00:11:20] And when you do that, eventually when you go back to a guild office,

[00:11:26] you can change your actual augments to mix and match the different vocations that you've leveled up.

[00:11:33] Have you found a build?

[00:11:35] Have you narrowed down what you want to do in terms of that stuff?

[00:11:38] Oh yeah, but all of that doesn't make too much of a difference.

[00:11:41] You can min-max and make yourself really strong in a certain area,

[00:11:45] but all the classes are all strong in their own rights.

[00:11:47] For example, most people will say the thief is the strongest high DPS class in the game

[00:11:52] just because of the damage you can do and have Formless Faint, which is one of the main maester skill.

[00:11:58] Is that the one where they spin like Sonic the Hedgehog?

[00:12:02] No, Formless Faint is the one where your character just gets really shadowy

[00:12:05] and then you don't take any damage from attacks or anything.

[00:12:08] Oh, shit.

[00:12:09] If you use that, yeah, it pretty much makes it so that you're always invincible

[00:12:12] and you never take damage from anything. So that's very easy mode.

[00:12:18] Archer is pretty easy mode. The Magic Archer especially is very easy mode.

[00:12:22] I put like probably the hardest character to fight as in the game would either be the

[00:12:27] fighter for sure or the warfare just because you automatically have to be down one of your

[00:12:33] moves based on that class to switch items.

[00:12:36] But then you can just put like all of the OP moves from whatever class that you want to play as.

[00:12:40] Yeah, but you can only have one move, not one move each class,

[00:12:44] but if you're trying to do three classes, then you can only have one move from each of those

[00:12:47] classes and none of them can be the maester skills, which if you're talking about OP

[00:12:50] moves, those are all like the strongest moves in the game are going to be the maester skills.

[00:12:54] That's true.

[00:12:54] So you're effectively giving yourself that whole Jack of all trades master of none when it

[00:12:58] comes to the warfare, but it's still fun to play as just because you can mix and match,

[00:13:02] jump on an enemy's head and then hop off of them as a mage and then float up a little bit higher

[00:13:08] and then come down on top of their head with a really strong warrior attack with your two-handed

[00:13:14] coffin sword. So it's really cool to be able to do different moves like that.

[00:13:18] But all in all, still I'm having a good time with it. I'm excited once I beat

[00:13:22] Survivor, which is hopefully this weekend, I'm going to hop back into it and probably

[00:13:25] start to mainline more the story because I've done almost everything side related that I want

[00:13:30] to do. So cool. Good times there. And then last from my end, I've been playing this little

[00:13:36] side game. It's kind of a cutesy more indie thing. And a fun part is that I also got Sarah

[00:13:42] to get hooked on a little bit, not as much because she gets very frustrated with it.

[00:13:46] And then she just hands me the controller. She's like, I'm done. But a little to the left

[00:13:50] is really cute game. It's about you taking items where I believe you're moving into a

[00:13:55] house and you're just getting things kind of set up very much like unpacking.

[00:13:59] Okay.

[00:13:59] But instead of pulling things out of boxes and putting them where they're supposed to go,

[00:14:02] it's just like one screen of items that need to go in a certain order or be placed in a

[00:14:08] certain way. And then once you've gotten that, he gives you like little stars

[00:14:12] and then you move on to the next section. But it's very cute. Eventually as you're

[00:14:16] playing through, you get to the point where a little cat or your cat in the game is like

[00:14:20] messing you up intentionally. So if you're putting, let's say dishes onto a table

[00:14:27] in a certain way with a placement and then a fork and a knife on one side,

[00:14:30] the cat will reach into the screen, like pull the placement and knock all of your dishes

[00:14:34] and items like around the screen. So not to break anything, but just to move it out of the way.

[00:14:38] So then you have to sit there and try to move it as quickly as possible

[00:14:42] before the cat comes in and ruins it.

[00:14:43] I remember seeing this come out earlier. Is this on Xbox? Are you playing on Game Pass?

[00:14:47] Exactly.

[00:14:47] Okay. Yeah. No, that sounds really cool. It sounds like supremely my shit. And it's

[00:14:52] also like a cannon moment to get Sarah to play a game.

[00:14:55] It's fun. It's been a fun time. I got her to play through most of the game and then I think she

[00:14:59] just started getting pissed with it. So she handed it back to me, but I got her like a solid

[00:15:04] hour and a half, maybe two hours of playing it. So not bad at all.

[00:15:08] Yeah, exactly. Cause you're distracted. You take care of whole caro.

[00:15:12] Exactly.

[00:15:13] How about yourself? What you've been playing this last couple of weeks?

[00:15:15] Man, I've been doing a lot. I've been kind of bouncing around because

[00:15:19] like I've been like, I kind of confided in a couple of our friends. I've just been

[00:15:23] having like a general ennui about gaming. And I think Dragon's Dogma 2 is doing it to me

[00:15:27] because it's such a bad game. But I think that like part of it is, is that

[00:15:32] your mouth is full of water.

[00:15:36] But yeah, no. And so I just haven't, I haven't felt satisfied. I've been like

[00:15:41] craving something like a Jedi survivor already played it. I mean, I could go back and

[00:15:45] platinum it, but we're doing new game plus, but I've been craving something that's like

[00:15:49] open world or like cool, or like that is emotionally like has depth. And I just,

[00:15:56] none of what has been coming out and none of what I have played so far this year has really

[00:16:00] done that to me. I know there are games that I could play that could give me that. It's just

[00:16:04] like, I know I have to, I have to get over this campaign for Dragon's Dogma 2.

[00:16:08] Let me remind the committee here that this man has not beaten Elden Ring yet.

[00:16:13] Listen.

[00:16:13] He's just sitting there.

[00:16:14] I have been, I have been, okay. We can get into it. We can get into it after this,

[00:16:18] because I've been having major FOMO with like watching Elden Ring videos and watching people

[00:16:23] do stuff. And I'm just like, fuck like, cause like Elden Ring is I've heard from a lot of

[00:16:28] reviewers and stuff, the antithesis to what Dragon's Dogma 2 is, especially if you play

[00:16:33] it on PC with that lossless co-op and everything that's involved with it. But you know, being

[00:16:38] able to just, you know, go around, go to different places. Oh, you know what you can do

[00:16:42] in Elden Ring is that you can fast travel in between like the camp's fire sites or whatever,

[00:16:49] sites of grace, markers of grace in each different region. So if you're like,

[00:16:53] you're in like K-Lit and you're like, wait, I need to go get like a dagger or something

[00:16:56] from Limgrave. You can just fast travel back through there. You have to get to

[00:16:59] his side of grace first to do that, but you can't do it. Interesting. Yeah. Anyway,

[00:17:02] long story short, it's yeah, I've been, I've been thinking about going back to it

[00:17:06] and like that trailer. Have you seen the trailer for Shadow of the Ertree?

[00:17:10] No, I haven't. I haven't sat there and watched the whole thing.

[00:17:12] Oh my God. It is crazy. It is cool. And also I've been like listening to a lot of Vati

[00:17:17] Vidya at work and like listening to his like lore descriptions of like the shit that's

[00:17:22] happening in Elden Ring that you would never find out if you weren't listening to Vati

[00:17:25] Vidya. You have to actually do a deep dive on it. Right. You have to like

[00:17:28] have a notebook and like a, you know, a mind map of how all of the characters

[00:17:32] and the items and shit connect. I could get my Miyazaki degree.

[00:17:35] Yeah. You could probably, I swear to God, you probably go to school and for four years

[00:17:39] study the FromSoft games, the Soulsborne games. You know, I guess everybody who has a,

[00:17:43] you know, a platinum in any of his games could just get an honorary degree at this point.

[00:17:46] Shady. Shady. Shout out to you brother, brother.

[00:17:49] But anyway, yeah. So I've been like, I don't know. Dragon's Dogma is just like,

[00:17:53] it's wide and shallow and it just hasn't been fulfilling me. And then I've been

[00:17:57] bouncing around from other stuff. I've been playing Animal Well, which is good.

[00:18:02] It's really good. It's really fun. It's just something, one of the games that I've been

[00:18:06] playing kind of as just like, oh, let me just kind of sit back and relax,

[00:18:10] kind of do something that's a little bit mindless. Spoiler alert, it's not mindless.

[00:18:14] Like you have to like think hard. There are lots of like puzzles in this game.

[00:18:17] The way to progress is a Metroidvania at its core. And I've been just doing a lot,

[00:18:21] but it's like really, really cool. And the way that you solve the different puzzles

[00:18:26] or you find the different secret areas to get the eggs and stuff that are kind of

[00:18:30] littered throughout the map. It's really interesting. And each individual area has

[00:18:34] different animals like dogs or like a ghost cat or other bats or something like that.

[00:18:41] And they all behave differently, but they all have tools or mechanisms that you can use to

[00:18:47] either combat them or avoid them. Like the dogs, you pick up like a spinning disc at one point

[00:18:53] and it turns itself into a frisbee. And I didn't realize this until I tried it,

[00:18:57] because the game doesn't tell you anything. You have to figure everything out for yourself.

[00:18:59] It's all trial and error. And I was like, there's the one section of the map where I

[00:19:04] have to get across this like wide gap. And at the bottom of the gap are three dogs.

[00:19:08] And if they get you, they like pick you up and like shake you like a dog does.

[00:19:12] And if they do that four times, you're dead. And I realized that,

[00:19:16] you know, you can throw your disc at one and that's how you get past earlier ones.

[00:19:20] Did you throw the disc at the dog? It distracts the dog. You jump over them, continue.

[00:19:24] But you can't do that with their three of them because one of them is going to get you.

[00:19:27] But come to find out is that like the dogs get distracted

[00:19:30] and the disc bounces from level to level. And I realized that in an earlier section

[00:19:35] and applied that to that one area with the dogs that it couldn't get past,

[00:19:38] you know, previously. And I threw it at just the right height and the disc was bouncing

[00:19:42] and distracting the dogs. And you can just jump right past them and just like walk past them.

[00:19:46] They're not paying attention to you. So yeah, it's really cool. It's like things

[00:19:49] like that in terms of like using the items in the ways that you can progress through the game.

[00:19:54] It's really cool in the sound design and just the aesthetic of it all is like top tier.

[00:19:59] You would like it if you got the chance to do it. Yeah, and of course, you know,

[00:20:02] you're your old pal, you know, making a game and everything.

[00:20:05] Yeah, exactly. But anyway, other than that,

[00:20:08] I've been playing Botany Manor. Have I talked to you about Botany Manor at all?

[00:20:11] You have not. I've seen it online. I also haven't done any kind of like a deep dive into it.

[00:20:16] OK, yeah, it's actually really, really well done. And it's another puzzle game.

[00:20:22] I guess this is the years of like indie games and puzzle games, but it's really interesting.

[00:20:26] It's just a first person game as you're traversing and you play this character

[00:20:30] who is like the caretaker. Either you are because you're picking up notes

[00:20:34] throughout the world and it's unclear like who you are when you show up in this manner,

[00:20:38] but essentially it's just this manner and you start revealing this story about this woman,

[00:20:43] this English woman in like 16th century, you know, England.

[00:20:48] And she's really, really into botany and flowers and growing. She's into the science,

[00:20:53] like the deep science and studying it and all. And like she's trying to get into

[00:20:56] universities, work with professors, but people don't respect women at this time.

[00:21:00] And so every time she tries to apply to a different, you know,

[00:21:05] course or try to try to work with people on like a doctorate program to go out into the

[00:21:09] field, they're like, no stupid woman, go back in the kitchen, make make us muffins and

[00:21:15] tea. Yeah. And so kind of like that's the subtext of the story. But like that's kind of

[00:21:20] light. The main point of the gameplay is to go through this manner and discover it's like

[00:21:24] combines puzzle elements with metroidvania. You have to do certain, you have to get certain

[00:21:28] plants to grow to unlock the next part of the levels that you're on. And it's really

[00:21:33] cool because like you have to pick up context clues from different notes that are left behind

[00:21:38] for the people that are out there. Like there's one plant that you have to grow a flower

[00:21:44] that only will bloom in lightning. So you have to simulate lightning and you have to like

[00:21:50] concoct like a chemical formula or stuff and put it on top of like this, like that old school

[00:21:56] thing where you go and it like, you know, explodes and do that sort of thing. There's

[00:22:00] another one that will only bloom in a forest under certain hot conditions and that has smoke.

[00:22:08] So like, this is something that like people have said, you have to pick up a book and said

[00:22:12] this flower only blooms during forest fires. Well, you can't start a forest fire. So what

[00:22:16] do you do? You have to like collect wood and put it inside of this like wooden furnace.

[00:22:20] So it's like really, really nice. There's just classical music playing in the background,

[00:22:24] really beautiful English countryside. It's a very chill laid back game.

[00:22:27] Nice sounds like a, like I said, very chill. So it kind of effectively what you were

[00:22:30] looking for with Animal Well initially, but yeah, something a little bit more hectic.

[00:22:35] Yeah. And it's like you, and the thing is that with those, you have to kind of pay

[00:22:38] attention as well. Like you have to kind of like make sure to read all the notes,

[00:22:42] kind of figure out what's going on in the area because they don't give it to you either.

[00:22:45] It's not like from what everything I've heard of Hellboy 2 where it's like,

[00:22:48] you'll look in the direction and puzzle solve itself. But yeah, no, that's been really good.

[00:22:53] And something that I wanted to touch on for a while that I consistently keep forgetting

[00:22:57] to bring up because it's like not at the top of my list, but I have been playing it

[00:23:01] Xenosaga episode one and I've been doing this for PPR, Pixel Project Radio. Rick has been

[00:23:08] fantastic to work with on this game. And I've also been doing that show with Chris

[00:23:13] Copeland from the retro hangover podcast. Who's really, really cool guy. Wonderful.

[00:23:17] I'd love to bring both of them, Rick back on the show and then Chris, you know,

[00:23:20] on the show for the first time to review something. But yeah, Xenosaga episode one is

[00:23:25] absolutely a PS2 game at its core. At its core, it is a PS2 game. Like the combat

[00:23:32] is rough. Like this game gets a lot of flack because it has one battle theme and it's like

[00:23:37] a 40 hour game. And Yasunori Misuda is way too talented. It's all right.

[00:23:43] Oh no. Yeah, it's just, it's looped. It's repetitive. But like, and the thing is,

[00:23:47] is that when you're in dungeons, the dungeons are like quiet. There's no music as you're

[00:23:52] going throughout the dungeons everywhere else, like in different over and overworld areas and

[00:23:57] stuff like that. Like when you're walking around, there's like music playing in the

[00:23:59] background, but they made some kind of decision and it just, it didn't work out.

[00:24:03] So there was lots of issues in terms of just like the player experience in this game. And

[00:24:07] there's a reason probably why it wasn't as successful as maybe some of the final fantasies,

[00:24:12] but still it has every right to be because like the narrative and the story of this game

[00:24:16] is just really, really smart. It's deeply, deeply philosophical when it's talking about

[00:24:24] Nazism and it's like leaning into like, like Nietzsche's philosophy on stuff like the last

[00:24:31] man and the antithesis to the Uber mention. It talks about conversations about nihilism or

[00:24:36] human rights. There's these androids called realians in the game. And there's a lot of

[00:24:41] conversation about dystopia and corporatism and like the how like future governments can own

[00:24:46] humans and reprogram at their will just to do whatever they want. So it's really, really deep

[00:24:51] and very, very mysterious in this game. It kind of, it's a little bit rough because

[00:24:57] they, because the Takahashi and Sorya Saga when they wrote that game, they had a plan for

[00:25:02] like a nine part series. Like they planned on making this game really, really long with

[00:25:07] multiple parts and they ended up only get three chances to do the story, which was episodes one,

[00:25:12] two and three for Xena Saga. So it was like vastly condensed, but they set up so much

[00:25:17] stuff in this game that you just don't find out about. So that's another criticism that we

[00:25:22] talk about on the show. But anyway, the episodes are coming out. The first two episodes of

[00:25:25] this series series is out on Pixel Project Radio now. So make sure to go back and check

[00:25:29] that out. Last game I do want to talk about since we're at 25 minutes into the show today

[00:25:34] is a Fire Emblem Fates Conquest. I feel like I keep bringing this up successfully, but it's

[00:25:38] just because it's my comfort food game. It's my bedtime game. I keep just playing it and it is

[00:25:44] consistently fun and also has proven to be like one of the harder Fire Emblem games that

[00:25:49] I have played. Like it's not like mind-breakingly difficult, but you have to seriously take your

[00:25:55] time when you're going through it because the level layouts and the design and how they play

[00:25:59] with the difficulties or the context of the puzzles of the levels themselves and how to

[00:26:05] play with that strategy of it. It is supremely my shit and I'm having a blast and figuring out,

[00:26:11] getting my master seals, leveling up my different characters and playing with them like that.

[00:26:15] I still think honestly gameplay wise, Fire Emblem Engage is one of the best in terms of

[00:26:23] those two carry a lot of similarities in terms of Fire Emblem Engage and Conquest both

[00:26:28] have really difficult map layouts and enemy designs. They stack the cards against you as

[00:26:33] the player and so you have to like really, really dig into strategy to learn how to like

[00:26:37] solve it. But yeah, it's another one where it's like I'm able to kind of chill out,

[00:26:41] lay back, relax and play it. Because this one, Conquest is just a more traditional

[00:26:47] Fire Emblem, right? So you have your characters that are kind of on that grid

[00:26:51] and they, based on what type they are and etc. Depends on the range of their attack

[00:26:55] and their damage and all that jazz. And then are you rocking it with the,

[00:26:58] if your characters die in the game, they die for real type of situation?

[00:27:01] No, I don't play permadeath. You could though. This is one of those games where it's like every

[00:27:06] single level. And this is something that they do and engage because especially if you are

[00:27:10] playing on permadeath mode, they throw so many enemies at you that it's inevitable that one

[00:27:15] of your characters, if you are playing permadeath, are just going to get clapped out.

[00:27:18] But I don't like doing that because I like to specifically curate when I, because when you

[00:27:23] go into a map with Fire Emblem, you've played Fire Emblem games before right?

[00:27:26] I played like very long time ago. So I know how they're generally played,

[00:27:30] but I can't tell you that I've gone through A to Z and beaten one.

[00:27:33] Yeah. Whenever you play it, they do this in the new ones as well as like most of the

[00:27:37] old ones, but they specifically do it in Conquest. But yeah, it's like when you start

[00:27:42] a level, you're able to like go to your, curate your inventory, curate the units that

[00:27:47] you can select. So if you want to have more riders because you have to go across the map

[00:27:51] very quickly to save NPCs, or if you want to have like flyers that can get from

[00:27:55] to over water to islands to fight people, you can do that sort of thing.

[00:28:00] And so yeah, I do like this. One of the reasons why I don't like playing permadeath

[00:28:03] because I like to specifically curate who I have on the map that isn't like locked

[00:28:07] in like your main protagonist. So I definitely do that. But it's,

[00:28:11] and it's also, I don't like seeing my people die. I form attachments to these people and I

[00:28:15] don't like seeing them die. It's supposed to be the part of the game, right? Is the whole

[00:28:18] like, Oh no, I've little Johnny. He was my spear hand for the last five hours.

[00:28:24] And then he got one clap by a cavalryman.

[00:28:28] This is just a normal spearman. Just absolutely just shredded him wiped off the map. It's

[00:28:33] yeah, it's definitely kind of crazy, but yeah, no, it's fun. I like doing that,

[00:28:37] but it's you're right. It is kind of like the fire emblem thing to see them do there.

[00:28:42] I'm dying, but I'll never forget you. And then you'd be like, fuck, I don't

[00:28:45] have my assassin anymore. I needed him, but they do this in the same thing in engage where

[00:28:50] it's like every new level. They have more characters come in and be like, Hey,

[00:28:54] protagonist, I'm here to save the day or get out of my way. I'm, I'm a dark moody

[00:29:00] mage and I'm going to use my sorcerer. So anyway, dark moody me.

[00:29:04] Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's how they, that's how they say it in the game.

[00:29:08] Darkness is overwhelming. Is that a voice line?

[00:29:11] Literally. Yeah. And it's like, this guy's name is Odin and he's like, he'll literally,

[00:29:16] he'll like, he'll be just out in like your home base and he'll be like,

[00:29:21] you have the same darkness that I do. Like you're like literally just like

[00:29:28] fedora kid in middle school. You had the same darkness as me.

[00:29:33] Interesting. Interesting. Let's see how you perform the battlefield.

[00:29:36] All right. With that folks, let's go ahead and transition into our topic of the show,

[00:29:43] which is going to be a fun one because I feel like we're about to fight.

[00:29:46] Oh, most definitely. This is going to be a Will and myself worst day one

[00:29:52] purchases ever for video games. Hang tight. Okay. So we're coming in and we're talking

[00:30:18] about the worst day one purchases ever. What are the games that we regretted getting

[00:30:23] when they dropped? We got caught up in the hype cycle. We heard too much chatter on Twitter.

[00:30:29] We were just so, so hyped about it. One of the ones my girlfriend is going to fight you on

[00:30:34] at the top of the list. Do you want to get into it? Good.

[00:30:39] Oh my goodness. I'm ready for this. Let's drag an age Inquisition.

[00:30:43] I should have known better. I should have done knowing better. Look, I like a lot.

[00:30:49] Okay. Origins is one of my favorite games and I got that one. I don't think it was day one,

[00:30:52] but it was pretty early. Alejandro had a lot to say about Origins and we did a whole topic on

[00:30:57] it in the, in our old series for the fireside chats, but like why was Origins one of your

[00:31:03] favorites? Just ultimately because I like those kind of medieval high fantasy type of situations.

[00:31:09] I loved that you can start your character with, you know, you're a human, you're a dwarf.

[00:31:16] You can be, I think you could be an elf. I'm pretty sure I'm trying to remember,

[00:31:19] but the main thing is that wherever you're starting at, they all have those kind of

[00:31:23] drastically different beginning areas. That game feels so-

[00:31:25] It was the one first to do it.

[00:31:26] Yeah. It felt so fully crafted because it's not just like, oh, you're nothing against Skyrim,

[00:31:31] but you play Skyrim, you pick your character. It doesn't matter if you're a Drow or a Nord

[00:31:36] or this or that. You play Skyrim and you wake up in your, hey, you were trying to

[00:31:39] cross the border. Let's go get your head chopped off. It does not matter what you pick

[00:31:43] versus an Origins. If I'm a human noble, then I'm in my nobleman's house when my

[00:31:48] family gets attacked and then I have to escape before I'm assassinated. Or if I'm a dwarf

[00:31:55] character, then I'm down inside this underdark kind of nastiness area and I'm maybe fighting

[00:32:01] my way out of the muck and the mire of being some kind of like lower class, lower cast

[00:32:07] character and then eventually make my way up to the Grey Wardens. So it's all very cool.

[00:32:12] It's all very neat that everything's so different from that start. And then as you

[00:32:16] get into that world, I really loved the world building of Origins. I love the lore.

[00:32:21] Yeah.

[00:32:22] I still think about a lot of the kind of side characters and then that side world

[00:32:27] building that's being done, like the different kind of religions and churches that go into

[00:32:31] as you're making your way. I thought the Grey Wardens were really cool and I kind of

[00:32:34] wish to see them more in their heyday. Just one of those things where maybe in

[00:32:37] the future we'll get some kind of a prequel.

[00:32:39] Are they like dragon priests in Skyrim?

[00:32:42] No, the Grey Wardens, not so much there from what I recall because it's been a

[00:32:45] little bit since I played it, but they're more just like kind of protectors of their

[00:32:49] realm. They're almost like the Blades.

[00:32:50] Oh, okay. Yeah.

[00:32:51] If you want to compare them to Skyrim.

[00:32:52] Got it.

[00:32:52] So they're more in that vein. But these are characters that they go out or,

[00:32:57] you know, heroes, quote unquote, that they go out. They're like fighting dragons and

[00:33:00] doing other things to save the realm. But once you actually go through and

[00:33:06] you do what you're supposed to do, you eventually go crazy and you get sent off into

[00:33:11] this underdark to effectively fight until you die.

[00:33:14] That's crazy.

[00:33:15] It's just such a wildly, you know, bittersweet way to kind of send off someone who

[00:33:21] willingly takes in this poison for the blood of these enemies that are from that

[00:33:26] underdark.

[00:33:27] So they're kind of like witchers.

[00:33:29] Almost. Yeah, almost.

[00:33:30] Interesting.

[00:33:30] And that gives you, you know, like your powers and your increased strength,

[00:33:32] et cetera, but it slowly poisons you. And eventually before you go mad,

[00:33:37] you just are sent off there to fight until you die. So it's awesome.

[00:33:40] So I love the whole world.

[00:33:41] That is cool.

[00:33:42] Played Dragon Age Origins, loved Origins. I was so excited for the next one.

[00:33:45] Dragon Age 2 is a very different game.

[00:33:47] I heard that.

[00:33:48] Incredibly different game.

[00:33:48] I've read reviews about it too and I have no desire to play it.

[00:33:51] I hated it and I got the platinum.

[00:33:57] I went through, it's one of those things where it's like,

[00:33:59] I played through the whole thing. I was like, oh man, this is not great.

[00:34:02] Did they turn it into an action RPG?

[00:34:03] It does turn into an action RPG. They immediately cut away your legs

[00:34:08] instead of playing as, you know, potentially six different types of

[00:34:11] characters and making your own. You play as this character named Hawk

[00:34:14] and you are either a man or a woman. You're doing the same thing.

[00:34:18] It doesn't matter what you are. You start off in this one area.

[00:34:20] You make your way to this main town and then you kind of go through.

[00:34:22] They changed the art style. So it went from more of a kind of a gritty,

[00:34:26] realistically looking art style that was slightly pulled out because

[00:34:30] you're supposed to be more tactical when you're playing Origins to,

[00:34:32] because now it's an action RPG, it's almost over the shoulder,

[00:34:36] if not fully over the shoulder.

[00:34:37] Wow.

[00:34:37] Okay.

[00:34:38] Your characters are a little bit more cartoony looking,

[00:34:40] which isn't terrible. It's not that the art style was bad,

[00:34:43] but it was so different from Origins. It was jarring.

[00:34:46] They're shocking.

[00:34:47] Yeah. So I went through, I still played all of it.

[00:34:49] One summer, I think I was effectively bored and I was like, let me

[00:34:52] give it a little college try. I don't want to hate it by looking at it

[00:34:55] and not actually playing it. And then I went through,

[00:34:57] I literally beat everything I could and I was like, yep, this is not great.

[00:35:01] Is the writing just not on par to what you experienced in Origins?

[00:35:04] The writing in Origins, honestly, a lot of the writing that I like

[00:35:08] from Origins comes from some of the characters interacting with themselves

[00:35:12] in the party and then the world building, like the lore item pickups that you see.

[00:35:17] Origins is one of the few games where if I picked up something in the world

[00:35:20] with a scroll or a book, I would read it because it was actually interesting.

[00:35:24] It gave me more information about the world to check out.

[00:35:26] Like my emails and Prey.

[00:35:27] Yes, 100% like those Prey emails. You pick those up,

[00:35:30] you find them on a computer and you're like, let me actually read through what this is,

[00:35:33] because it's going to give me some tidbits.

[00:35:34] It's tossy. They've got some goss in there.

[00:35:37] So those are good. But so I did that. Played two was not the same.

[00:35:41] The writing, they people talk about like Marvel kind of jokey writing now.

[00:35:45] Like they definitely did that in two characters.

[00:35:48] There were quite a few quippy characters.

[00:35:49] Of course, with your character, you can make them as quippy as you want.

[00:35:52] I felt like they really pared down the trees as far as, hey,

[00:35:58] you have certain stats that allow you to do things.

[00:36:01] But now it's like you get choices between, you know, a heart choice,

[00:36:06] a head choice. You're going to be an aggressive choice.

[00:36:08] And then you got like your standard, like your normal choice.

[00:36:10] And that's how your conversations are broken out when you're playing as Hawk.

[00:36:14] You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

[00:36:16] It was not my favorite. Combat was perfectly fine.

[00:36:19] Armor and stuff look kind of cool, but all in all, not my favorite one.

[00:36:22] Is there something that you could compare the combat to just for context?

[00:36:26] I could look up with like a gameplay.

[00:36:27] Yeah, I would probably look up like a gameplay thing.

[00:36:29] I'm trying to think off the top of my head.

[00:36:31] There's nothing I can give it a straight, well, not nothing.

[00:36:34] It's just I don't want to compare it to something that's decent and then have somebody

[00:36:38] yell at me because I didn't think the combat was horrible in Dragon Age 2.

[00:36:43] But what I was playing, because I think I played mostly as just like the kind

[00:36:46] of big sword using character. Like I didn't use a ton of magic,

[00:36:50] although I think you can really mix and match as much as you want in there.

[00:36:54] But no, I can't think of anything off like the top of my head to compare it to.

[00:36:58] But give it a look over if anyone's interested in Dragon Age 2,

[00:37:03] give it a look at the combat. I think if you like the combat,

[00:37:05] you might enjoy a decent amount of the game.

[00:37:08] Just understand that if you like origins,

[00:37:10] that does not necessarily mean you're going to enjoy it too.

[00:37:12] I feel like they're very different games.

[00:37:14] Yeah, I'm looking at it now and I guess like the easiest way or just the most accessible

[00:37:18] way I could describe it is that it does kind of remind me of The Witcher 3 in terms of

[00:37:23] that top down look where you're with the character and you're moving them around.

[00:37:27] But each of the different characters seem to have like,

[00:37:29] or I guess the different classes that you can class into like a thief or

[00:37:33] a sorcerer that have different like AOE attacks and stuff.

[00:37:36] So interesting.

[00:37:37] Yeah, so there was that.

[00:37:38] And then getting into good old origin, sorry, Inquisition rather.

[00:37:41] So play Inquisition.

[00:37:43] I got it initially because I was like, hey, let me go ahead and give this another shot.

[00:37:46] I think I got Dragon Age 2 past the day one that I came out

[00:37:49] because I saw how it looked and I was not.

[00:37:51] And then Inquisition looked like it was maybe more of a return to form.

[00:37:54] So I was excited.

[00:37:55] And it looks good.

[00:37:56] Yes, it does look pretty.

[00:37:58] And I think it was one of the earlier games that come out on these newer consoles,

[00:38:02] like the one and the four if I'm not mistaken.

[00:38:04] So I got on Xbox One when I got my Xbox One.

[00:38:07] It was like my first game on that console if I'm not mistaken.

[00:38:11] So I went ahead and bought it and I started playing it.

[00:38:14] And I was kind of on it until I got to where you get your own castle

[00:38:20] and then you can start branching out and doing the main missions

[00:38:22] and side missions.

[00:38:23] And then you send these other characters out to go do side missions

[00:38:27] that allowed them to bring back wood and metal and rocks.

[00:38:31] Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

[00:38:31] It's exactly what it was.

[00:38:33] And I know I'm probably going to sound like a hypocrite because I like Brotherhood.

[00:38:36] But I like the fact that with Brotherhood,

[00:38:38] you sent out these people that you can find on the street,

[00:38:41] save them from Templars,

[00:38:42] and then you could craft them into an assassin

[00:38:44] that got their own side storyline.

[00:38:46] And eventually you get them up to that master level.

[00:38:49] You can help give them cool colors and make them unique.

[00:38:52] And then they'll be like, oh, my family is getting attacked by Templars.

[00:38:54] Help me master.

[00:38:55] You help them do that.

[00:38:56] And then they become their own assassin and their own right.

[00:38:59] And they can have the all-white outfit.

[00:39:01] So, oh, that was cool.

[00:39:03] And Ubisoft's Inquisition did not give me that same kind of feeling.

[00:39:09] I was sending out people to get stuff and get rocks and armor and yada yada.

[00:39:15] It was just to come back and dump into the castle area

[00:39:17] that I didn't really care for.

[00:39:19] I didn't find exploring to be fun.

[00:39:22] And it started getting me to that point where I don't really like

[00:39:24] a lot of those old games.

[00:39:26] I love Fable back when it came out,

[00:39:27] but you know how Fable is that thing where it's like it's a world,

[00:39:30] but you're very much on a path.

[00:39:32] So it's like you can't really jump off of the path and go do things.

[00:39:35] You're on that kind of set path,

[00:39:37] even though the world looks slightly open.

[00:39:40] And it just did not hit.

[00:39:41] None of it hit for me.

[00:39:43] I was just so like...

[00:39:45] And then I think I said Ubisoft initially there,

[00:39:47] but I know EA, EA is the Dragon Age games.

[00:39:50] I was just so put off by it that I had to go take it

[00:39:54] because I had the physical copy.

[00:39:56] Immediately turned it back to GameStop and I was like, I can't do this.

[00:39:59] After how many hours?

[00:40:00] I don't even think it was a full 10 or 15.

[00:40:02] Oh wow.

[00:40:03] Like it was probably less than...

[00:40:04] I mean, 15 hours is enough to know whether or not you hate a game.

[00:40:06] Definitely enough to know for sure.

[00:40:07] And I gave it more time than I'm sure it deserved

[00:40:09] because I was like let me try to get into it.

[00:40:11] Because they even had characters that I like,

[00:40:12] like the little elf gremlin, Sarah.

[00:40:15] Okay.

[00:40:16] She was so cool.

[00:40:17] She had a fun little song.

[00:40:18] There are plenty of things in there that are decent,

[00:40:20] but for me personally,

[00:40:22] which is definitely one of my worst day one purchases

[00:40:24] because I came in with those expectations from the original origins.

[00:40:28] And even if somebody was like, oh well,

[00:40:32] you probably put too much hype on it based off of this one game

[00:40:35] that you liked however many years ago.

[00:40:37] I'm like, yes, but if you're in that same vein,

[00:40:39] I want you to eventually hit those same kind of highs.

[00:40:41] Yeah.

[00:40:42] If you're doing the franchise,

[00:40:43] you have to honor the success of the franchise had built on the foundation.

[00:40:47] I never got to that level there.

[00:40:48] So, I mean, I am interested in Dread Wolf when it comes out.

[00:40:51] I'm going to definitely let that release date pass by.

[00:40:54] Are you sure it's not going to be vaporware?

[00:40:56] It should come out.

[00:40:58] It's just so weird that it's supposed to come out

[00:41:01] either late this year or early next year.

[00:41:03] And they've said nothing about it.

[00:41:05] And I mean, here's my thing is that if EA,

[00:41:07] because you know how like EA and Ubisoft,

[00:41:08] they have their own showcases now.

[00:41:10] If EA has a showcase this year and we don't see Dread Wolf,

[00:41:14] I'm very concerned about that game.

[00:41:16] That or you just know it's going to get pushed back

[00:41:18] because there's no way it's not going to come out this year

[00:41:20] if they don't have any kind of showcase for it at their own event.

[00:41:24] I just hope it doesn't turn into like a HBO Max situation

[00:41:27] and they just cancel the project to defer their taxes,

[00:41:31] which is like that's almost criminal

[00:41:33] because of after how many years it's been in development.

[00:41:35] People have been working on it, people waiting on it.

[00:41:37] My hope is that EA and like the executives over there now,

[00:41:40] you know, let's just shove some fucking AI bullshit into the game

[00:41:43] and be like, oh, let's put it out and get a return on our investment

[00:41:46] or something like that, regardless of where it's at.

[00:41:48] But I would like for it to be at some point

[00:41:51] like something that is a return to form.

[00:41:53] I mean, I'm looking at Inquisition now

[00:41:54] and I'm looking at the way that they have it

[00:41:56] and they have all of their stats across the bottom of the screen.

[00:41:59] And I mean, this looks cool.

[00:42:01] This looks like a game that you could have fun playing.

[00:42:05] But it's just like if the and again,

[00:42:06] it's like if you're playing a game like that,

[00:42:08] that's clearly going to try to compete with an Elder Scrolls title.

[00:42:11] They got to have writing and they got to have lore

[00:42:13] and context that backs it up.

[00:42:15] And maybe it is a different structure

[00:42:17] for different folks type situation because I have,

[00:42:19] you know, people very close to me who love this game.

[00:42:22] But again, it's just like it's definitely something

[00:42:25] that you have to kind of reconcile with at a certain point.

[00:42:29] Cool. I'm going to jump in here with my first one.

[00:42:32] And this is not going to be surprised

[00:42:34] to long time listeners of the show

[00:42:36] because I kind of talk about this game a lot

[00:42:38] in terms of my disappointment.

[00:42:40] It's one of the first times that I feel like I got had by GameStop,

[00:42:46] specifically by I got bamboozled by GameStop.

[00:42:49] And I'm really pissed about it because it was like a waste of money.

[00:42:52] And it's like, you know, it definitely didn't get most

[00:42:55] of my money back whenever I turned it in.

[00:42:57] But that is Battlefront 2.

[00:43:00] And if I'm not mistaken, this came out in,

[00:43:02] I think Battlefront 1 by DICE came out in 2015.

[00:43:07] And then two came out around the 2016, 2017 time frame.

[00:43:11] And it is just straight up not good.

[00:43:14] This game came out.

[00:43:16] It's just not a good game.

[00:43:17] I'm sorry.

[00:43:18] There are probably people out there like you're lying.

[00:43:20] If you go and look up like footage of this game

[00:43:22] and you look up trailers for this game,

[00:43:24] it looks like the coolest Star Wars game

[00:43:27] they had ever made at that point,

[00:43:28] because the Jedi games hadn't been out quite yet.

[00:43:30] And it had been years since anybody had made a Star Wars game

[00:43:33] that wasn't a Battlefront game.

[00:43:35] Right?

[00:43:35] So it's like, you know, I don't even remember

[00:43:37] what other Star Wars games were coming out of that time.

[00:43:39] But they stopped making Rose Squadrons, which I loved.

[00:43:42] I loved my Ace Combat Simulator in space.

[00:43:44] But the thing is, is that like this Battlefront 2 came out

[00:43:47] and it looked beautiful.

[00:43:49] And I was like, oh my God,

[00:43:50] like the previews you're flying around

[00:43:51] in the Millennium Falcon at the Cloud City or in Hoth.

[00:43:55] And it's like you're having those classic battles.

[00:43:57] And then they like specifically made a point

[00:44:00] in the marketing material

[00:44:02] and like the promotional trailers for that

[00:44:05] to like focus in on like Yoda and Darth Maul

[00:44:08] and Luke Skywalker fighting the Emperor.

[00:44:10] Like it was looking like they were doing different stuff

[00:44:13] to like mess with a cannon or do like head cannon stuff

[00:44:16] where you could like fight different battles.

[00:44:18] And I was like, that's so my shit.

[00:44:19] That's apparently my shit.

[00:44:21] None of that was in the game.

[00:44:23] None of it was in the game

[00:44:24] at the time that I played it at launch.

[00:44:25] The game was not ready.

[00:44:27] They had like three maps that you could jump into.

[00:44:30] And it was all like just flying maps.

[00:44:32] It wasn't like ground battles where you could jump in there

[00:44:35] with the clone troopers or something like that

[00:44:36] and try to fight people.

[00:44:37] And then nobody was jumping into it day one,

[00:44:39] I guess because everybody was listening

[00:44:41] to the reviews came out and said,

[00:44:42] this game is fucking trash.

[00:44:44] And I didn't know.

[00:44:44] And I walked in and the game stopped

[00:44:46] and the dude was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:44:48] This is another X bone situation with the Xbox One.

[00:44:51] What a failure of a console launch.

[00:44:53] You know, Xbox constantly taking L's,

[00:44:56] taking L's back then, taking L's today.

[00:44:58] Can't fucking get a goddamn thing right.

[00:45:00] So anyway, I'm working myself up on it

[00:45:02] but yeah, Battlefront II, it just like, again,

[00:45:05] this is a very, very similar, I guess in my opinion,

[00:45:08] situation to the way that you felt

[00:45:10] about the difference between Origins

[00:45:12] and Inquisition for Dragon Age.

[00:45:13] Like the Battlefront I and II of like the Xbox,

[00:45:17] like OG Xbox and Xbox 360 era, fucking incredible.

[00:45:21] Like, and even they came out with

[00:45:23] like the remastered edition

[00:45:24] that everybody lost their mind about

[00:45:25] but apparently was like actually good.

[00:45:28] I don't know who didn't believe at that point

[00:45:29] but yeah, Aspyr came out with a remake

[00:45:31] of the Battlefront collection.

[00:45:34] But just, I remember sinking hours into playing Conquest

[00:45:37] with my cousin or my friends and stuff like that

[00:45:40] and going from like planet to planet,

[00:45:42] unlocking those like jet pack troopers

[00:45:45] or playing as like the droidekas

[00:45:47] and being like the destroyers and stuff.

[00:45:49] It is so cool and so fun.

[00:45:51] And it's like also spending hours

[00:45:54] just flying around during the Clone Wars era

[00:45:56] in those little Clone Wars ships.

[00:45:58] And it's like, of course, like back then

[00:45:59] it was like potato mode graphics

[00:46:01] but I was having such a fun time as a kid

[00:46:02] because I didn't have anything better to do.

[00:46:04] And you know, I didn't have like brothers

[00:46:06] or sisters to play with or whatnot.

[00:46:07] So it was like, it was just fun for me to do

[00:46:09] because I loved, I was such a Star Wars fan.

[00:46:11] And this is just like, they smacked me in my face.

[00:46:13] They is enough front.

[00:46:14] You betrayed me.

[00:46:15] It was a front that he had just spit in my face

[00:46:17] with his garbage.

[00:46:18] And so I brought it back

[00:46:19] and I got like maybe 15, 20 bucks

[00:46:22] back after having spent like 40 or $50.

[00:46:25] I remember it wasn't a full price game at launch.

[00:46:28] I don't think it was full.

[00:46:28] Like a straight up refund.

[00:46:30] Let me double check.

[00:46:31] I'm gonna look this up while we're recording folks.

[00:46:34] What was Battlefront to price at?

[00:46:40] I'll say, cause I mean, once again, pretty game.

[00:46:41] So I imagine it would have been full price

[00:46:43] but full price back then would have been 60.

[00:46:45] I'm not gonna find this very easily.

[00:46:47] It was December 2017.

[00:46:48] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:46:49] I don't know, but I feel like

[00:46:50] it might've been full price.

[00:46:51] I don't know.

[00:46:52] All I remember is getting jipped

[00:46:53] and then feeling like, and then bringing it back

[00:46:55] and they were like, yeah, this game is actually worthless.

[00:46:58] I was like, why would you sell this to me?

[00:47:00] It was the same guy that I sold it to me.

[00:47:02] Of course it was.

[00:47:03] I hate you.

[00:47:03] I hate you.

[00:47:06] I guess at that point they did have digital downloads

[00:47:09] but I didn't like have a lot of faith

[00:47:11] in digital downloads.

[00:47:11] And also it's like, it was like that point in time

[00:47:13] our internet wasn't even good.

[00:47:15] Like it's crazy to think about

[00:47:16] but just like in 2016, 2017,

[00:47:18] I mean we were lucky if you get 100 megabits down.

[00:47:21] Right? That's true.

[00:47:22] Yeah, that's like the standard.

[00:47:24] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:47:26] So it's definitely, you know, a different era,

[00:47:28] different time, hated that.

[00:47:29] But what about your next one on the list?

[00:47:30] So the next one I have, it's gonna be a fun one.

[00:47:33] This is where the arguments start, I'm imagining.

[00:47:36] Uh oh.

[00:47:37] But it's gonna be anything Ubisoft with the caveat,

[00:47:42] let's say after what, 2010 I guess,

[00:47:45] since you wanna be like, oh, let's look this up.

[00:47:47] Let's look this up.

[00:47:48] Let's look it up.

[00:47:49] Ubisoft game releases.

[00:47:51] Yeah, I wanna see, anything after 2010 I'm sure

[00:47:54] would just be a bad day one purchase.

[00:47:57] List of Ubisoft games, oh this is gonna be good.

[00:48:00] All right, all right, we'll go from 2000 to 2009.

[00:48:04] Okay, there's a lot here.

[00:48:08] They did Rayman?

[00:48:08] All they do is put out games.

[00:48:10] Rayman, okay, Disney's Aladdin, holy smokes.

[00:48:13] They came out with so much in the 2000s.

[00:48:15] What the hell?

[00:48:15] Yeah, it's too much.

[00:48:16] Yeah, this is a lot.

[00:48:19] But they're not coming out with this much now anymore.

[00:48:20] I forgot that they did the ghost recon games too.

[00:48:25] That's kind of crazy.

[00:48:26] But yeah, Prince of Persia, Sands of Time,

[00:48:30] yeah, it's Ubisoft.

[00:48:32] They own that stuff.

[00:48:33] But all right, what is it?

[00:48:35] 2010 to 2019, surely that's a little bit better.

[00:48:40] Assassin's Creed 2 Discovery, man.

[00:48:43] They were really shilling that game hard.

[00:48:44] They did anything they could get out.

[00:48:45] Oh my God.

[00:48:47] Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands, it was whack.

[00:48:50] I remember buying it and I remember playing it

[00:48:52] at my grandparents' house

[00:48:53] because I didn't have anything better to do

[00:48:54] because I was staying with them for a hot minute.

[00:48:56] Wasn't good, was not a good time.

[00:49:00] I definitely didn't hate it

[00:49:01] but probably still not a great day one purchase

[00:49:04] especially considering what the DLC they had

[00:49:05] for that game afterwards that kind of teased a sequel

[00:49:08] that never came to fruition.

[00:49:09] Yeah, I mean they came out with a Rabbids game, Will.

[00:49:13] Here's the thing, people say those are good.

[00:49:14] Yeah, I hear that.

[00:49:15] I'll give that to them.

[00:49:16] The Rabbids game and the Mario versus Rabbids.

[00:49:19] I've always heard that those were actually fun.

[00:49:22] But specifically the things I'm thinking about

[00:49:24] for those mainline Ubisoft games.

[00:49:26] So you got your Assassin's Creed,

[00:49:28] you got your Far Crys, things like that.

[00:49:30] Those games especially in the last maybe six years or so

[00:49:34] everyone knows that they come out and you have the base,

[00:49:37] there's a deluxe and then there's the uber gold

[00:49:40] $200 edition.

[00:49:42] There's a crazy amount.

[00:49:43] But one, the games normally come out pretty janky

[00:49:46] or busted or what have you.

[00:49:47] I cannot think of a time when an Ubisoft game

[00:49:49] has come out in the last six years

[00:49:51] where there's been so much FOMO

[00:49:52] because you have to experience this game

[00:49:55] when everyone else is.

[00:49:56] This is not a movie event.

[00:49:57] This is not Assassin's Creed 2,

[00:50:00] this is not Far Cry 3

[00:50:03] where people were like oh did you see Vaz?

[00:50:05] This is so awesome.

[00:50:06] You're not really getting those kind of games.

[00:50:08] You're not getting those experiences anymore with Ubisoft.

[00:50:10] You're telling me the crew motor fest

[00:50:12] isn't really getting you day one.

[00:50:14] Oh yeah, the crew.

[00:50:15] Me and those racing games.

[00:50:17] Peanut butter and jelly.

[00:50:18] You're telling me X Defiant didn't get you?

[00:50:20] The boys been popping off in the group chat about that.

[00:50:21] Yeah, but I still probably wouldn't be like,

[00:50:23] the only reason that would be a day one

[00:50:24] quote unquote purchase is because one,

[00:50:25] it's not, you don't pay any money for it, it's free.

[00:50:28] That's true.

[00:50:29] And then two, it's probably gonna die within two months.

[00:50:30] So it's like yeah, you better get into it now

[00:50:32] otherwise it's gonna be empty before people hop on it.

[00:50:34] But talking about those Assassin's Creed games

[00:50:36] and those Far Cry games,

[00:50:38] you can buy it day one

[00:50:41] and if you really think you're gonna play it

[00:50:42] for a long time, you get the $200 edition

[00:50:44] with all the DLC and the passes and the extra stuff

[00:50:48] or if you just wait the better part of a year,

[00:50:51] at this point we're seeing them come out on Game Pass.

[00:50:53] So like Valhalla, I think up to Valhalla

[00:50:56] if I'm not mistaken is on Game Pass at this point.

[00:50:58] I know Odyssey is.

[00:51:00] So I'm sure Mirage is gonna be on Game Pass

[00:51:02] probably by the end of this year.

[00:51:04] If not by the time this episode drops, right?

[00:51:06] I'm sure that could pop up.

[00:51:08] And then alongside that,

[00:51:11] the $200 edition that you would have spent $200

[00:51:14] on day one, it's gonna be $20 on sale in a year or two.

[00:51:19] They have an Avatar Frontiers of Pandora Ultimate Edition,

[00:51:25] $130.

[00:51:26] Crazy.

[00:51:27] $130 for a blue people app.

[00:51:28] And was that the original price for it

[00:51:29] or is it already on sale?

[00:51:30] Because that game has been out for a year.

[00:51:31] I think that's the original price

[00:51:32] for the Ultimate Edition.

[00:51:33] I imagine they probably don't decrease the price for it.

[00:51:35] But again this is like all digital, right?

[00:51:38] And then like Assassin's Creed Mirage,

[00:51:40] they're still selling on their website

[00:51:42] for the Ubisoft store for 50 bucks.

[00:51:45] But those games will be on sale eventually.

[00:51:46] That's what I've done for the last couple before Valhalla

[00:51:49] because I have not played Odyssey yet.

[00:51:51] I paid $70 for Valhalla.

[00:51:53] Back when the, but I did that

[00:51:55] back when the Xbox Series X first came out.

[00:51:58] And I was looking at it, I did like Digital Foundry.

[00:52:00] I was like, what does it play best on?

[00:52:01] And they recommended the Series Xbox version

[00:52:05] of that game.

[00:52:06] And I feel like I wish, I mean,

[00:52:07] because I paid for it,

[00:52:09] it's been on Game Pass for quite a while at this point.

[00:52:11] But because I paid for it,

[00:52:12] I kind of wish I did it on PlayStation

[00:52:15] just because I like trophies more than achievements.

[00:52:18] That's just me, that's like a personal thing.

[00:52:19] I get what you're saying.

[00:52:20] I think Prince of Persia The Lost Crown

[00:52:22] is the only thing that really I got in my FOMO bag

[00:52:27] of like, damn, I really wanna play this game

[00:52:30] because I am a Prince of Persia stan.

[00:52:32] A diehard Prince of Persia guy.

[00:52:33] But like-

[00:52:34] And he just loved Jake Gyllenhaal.

[00:52:36] But I mean, I guess I do love Jake Gyllenhaal.

[00:52:39] You said I'm gonna ignore that.

[00:52:40] I love Jake Gyllenhaal so much.

[00:52:43] And Riders Republic,

[00:52:44] I'm so mad that that game didn't pop off.

[00:52:45] Are you?

[00:52:46] Yeah, because like it seems like such a cool idea

[00:52:49] because like if they were able to implement

[00:52:50] the best snowboarding,

[00:52:52] the best downhill biking,

[00:52:53] and like they had like even where you could do

[00:52:56] the skydiving with the little wing suits

[00:52:58] and stuff like that,

[00:52:59] that could have been the,

[00:53:00] if they did it right,

[00:53:01] the coolest freaking thing ever.

[00:53:02] It's Ubisoft, what made you think

[00:53:03] they would introduce the best anything into anything?

[00:53:06] You're right, you're right.

[00:53:06] They're all about-

[00:53:07] How foolish of me.

[00:53:08] Like, you know, kind of mediocre stuff

[00:53:10] and then putting it all in a game.

[00:53:11] And it can be fun.

[00:53:13] You know, I've been on this podcast previously

[00:53:14] talking about Far Cry 5,

[00:53:16] and I enjoyed it to a degree.

[00:53:17] It took me a year and a half to beat it.

[00:53:21] But I mean, I had fun when I was playing it,

[00:53:23] but it's just also something where if I paid

[00:53:25] a full 60, a full 70,

[00:53:26] I'd be like, oh, this was not,

[00:53:28] this is not it.

[00:53:29] You wanna know what's crazy though,

[00:53:30] since we're talking about Ubisoft though?

[00:53:32] I wanna know what you think would have been better,

[00:53:34] Far Cry 5 or Assassin's Creed Unity?

[00:53:37] Because people hate Unity.

[00:53:40] Yeah.

[00:53:41] What did you enjoy, personally enjoy more?

[00:53:43] Oh, what did I like better?

[00:53:45] I mean, definitely Unity over five.

[00:53:46] Unity had crazy glitches and issues

[00:53:50] when it first came out,

[00:53:52] but it's just a really fun game.

[00:53:53] I loved all the animations.

[00:53:55] I really enjoyed-

[00:53:56] I need to play it.

[00:53:57] It's the only mainline one I haven't played.

[00:53:58] It's cool, and it's worth playing now

[00:53:59] because most of the glitches and stuff are fixed,

[00:54:02] but just, it's also Assassin's Creed.

[00:54:04] I mean, at the end of the day,

[00:54:06] they didn't really change too much

[00:54:07] aside from how cool the animations look.

[00:54:09] They had an interesting multiplayer thing

[00:54:10] that I liked because-

[00:54:12] Is it fun to jump around Paris like that?

[00:54:14] Oh, you know, yeah.

[00:54:15] The actual parkour is really fun.

[00:54:17] Parkour's really, really fun.

[00:54:19] But you said multiplayer.

[00:54:20] Yeah, so there's a multiplayer aspect

[00:54:22] that is more my speed of multiplayer

[00:54:24] because it's all PvE.

[00:54:25] Nice.

[00:54:26] It's you doing missions with other assassins

[00:54:28] versus they had the Assassin's Creed

[00:54:30] kind of two era of multiplayer

[00:54:33] where it was you fighting other people.

[00:54:34] Yeah, I remember that.

[00:54:35] Everyone's like,

[00:54:36] oh, let's be assassins and be sneaky.

[00:54:37] And just kill each other.

[00:54:38] Yeah, well, all it did

[00:54:39] was end up people running around stabbing each other

[00:54:42] and open like it does not matter.

[00:54:43] So I'm like, this is very not Assassin-like.

[00:54:48] But I mean, I enjoyed Unity for what it was,

[00:54:50] but I would also agree if somebody said,

[00:54:51] hey, this is my worst day one purchase.

[00:54:53] I'm like, I agree with you

[00:54:54] because it was super janky and it had issues.

[00:54:56] Yeah, it was on the list

[00:54:57] doing a little bit of research for the show.

[00:54:59] It was on so many people's lists,

[00:55:00] Assassin's Creed Unity

[00:55:01] as just being one of the worst launched games

[00:55:04] that were out there.

[00:55:05] Agreed.

[00:55:06] Yeah, I mean, I agree with you generally.

[00:55:08] I think Valhalla is the exception to the rule,

[00:55:13] but I didn't buy Valhalla at launch.

[00:55:15] I did pay full price for it.

[00:55:16] I regret paying full price for it because I'm not done.

[00:55:19] I'm barely probably 25% of the way through the game.

[00:55:23] Gene Park, he is a journalist for The Washington Post,

[00:55:26] but he was recently talking about Valhalla

[00:55:29] and how he thinks Valhalla should be redeemed

[00:55:31] and people shouldn't hate on it because of the bloat,

[00:55:33] whereas they should play it

[00:55:36] like they should watch One Piece.

[00:55:37] They watch a little bit of it,

[00:55:38] forget about it for a while

[00:55:39] and slowly prune away at that open world

[00:55:42] is the terminology that he used.

[00:55:44] And I kind of like that idea,

[00:55:46] but also we're working people.

[00:55:48] This is the Friday night GameCast.

[00:55:49] We only have weekends to play games, right?

[00:55:52] So if we talk about what is your value,

[00:55:55] what is your outlook in terms of playing

[00:55:56] a Watch Dogs Legion or a Ghost Recon Breakpoint

[00:56:00] or Wildlands, whatever it may be,

[00:56:02] you're gonna spend hundreds of hours in these games

[00:56:06] if you actually wanna like roll credits

[00:56:08] or even get to the point, get to the meat of the story.

[00:56:10] And that's what a lot of people criticize it for.

[00:56:13] Are you interested in Far Cry 6 at all?

[00:56:15] No.

[00:56:16] At all.

[00:56:17] Even though they have a little hot dog on the wheels.

[00:56:19] I think it's on Game Pass now.

[00:56:20] So I mean, I'm not interested, but it's on Game Pass.

[00:56:22] So I'll probably get around to it.

[00:56:24] It's gonna be just like five,

[00:56:24] like I'm taking my sweet time for sure.

[00:56:27] Yeah and then Skull and Bones,

[00:56:28] what a disastrous launch.

[00:56:29] I still haven't bought Mirage.

[00:56:31] Yeah, I imagine just wait.

[00:56:32] It'll be on sale for $20

[00:56:34] by the end of this year for sure.

[00:56:35] Yeah, here's my thing is that you're right.

[00:56:37] And I'm glad that you put the qualifier

[00:56:39] of like the current gen Ubisoft shit.

[00:56:41] Cause you're talking about what about Assassin's Creed 1?

[00:56:44] Well like one and two and like,

[00:56:46] I mean even back then,

[00:56:47] like I was interested in like what Ubisoft was doing

[00:56:50] in terms of like,

[00:56:51] I think I got that new Prince of Persia

[00:56:53] like to 2011 or 2008 Prince of Persia,

[00:56:55] the reboot like day one and I love that game.

[00:56:58] I'm one of like three people in the world

[00:56:59] that fucking loves that game

[00:57:01] because it's so artistically beautiful and thoughtful.

[00:57:03] So yeah, it's definitely, it hit for me.

[00:57:07] Hit for me in a different way.

[00:57:08] But anyway, new titles, it is what it is.

[00:57:12] We're gonna break into it.

[00:57:13] I'm gonna get into my next one.

[00:57:14] And I think I'm gonna trigger

[00:57:16] a lot of our friends in the audience.

[00:57:18] I think I'm gonna trigger everybody when I say this

[00:57:21] or I'm gonna galvanize all of my fan base

[00:57:23] and they're gonna love me

[00:57:24] and herald me for the true games critic,

[00:57:27] the games pundit that I actually am.

[00:57:29] And I'm gonna say one of my biggest regrets,

[00:57:32] day one launch, shout out to you Logan, Final Fantasy 15.

[00:57:36] Shout out to you Logan.

[00:57:37] Logan loves this game.

[00:57:38] Oh, by the way, he loves this game.

[00:57:40] He was the one that convinced me to buy it.

[00:57:41] And this was another Xbox One purchase

[00:57:43] that I regret buying because it eventually was free

[00:57:46] whenever I got my PS5.

[00:57:47] So it's like, I played,

[00:57:50] I probably didn't play enough of this game

[00:57:53] to even come close to giving like

[00:57:55] an honest critique of it.

[00:57:57] But so much of it was so stupid.

[00:58:00] And like, just like,

[00:58:02] hair brained in terms of like my critiques

[00:58:05] of Dragon's Dogma about how much friction there is

[00:58:08] to get to the cool parts.

[00:58:09] How much effort you have to put into

[00:58:12] actually getting the game to run

[00:58:13] the way that you want to.

[00:58:15] The combat, I don't remember anything about the combat

[00:58:17] because I barely got to play any combat

[00:58:20] because I was busy running around towns

[00:58:21] and talking to NPCs and fishing

[00:58:23] and getting cars and sitting in a car with the boyos

[00:58:27] with the squad pronto and whoever the fuck they called it.

[00:58:30] Gladius?

[00:58:31] Yeah, you know more about this game than I do.

[00:58:35] I fucking hate this game.

[00:58:37] It was like, and you were sitting there

[00:58:38] and I was like, okay, cool, cool, cool.

[00:58:40] This is like a fast travel thing.

[00:58:41] Let's jump in the car, we'll go to the next thing

[00:58:42] and then I'll start fighting people.

[00:58:43] It'd be fun, it's fun, right?

[00:58:45] Final Fantasy.

[00:58:46] And then you sit there and you watch it.

[00:58:48] And then you realize you can do

[00:58:49] the Red Dead Redemption thing where you zoom out

[00:58:52] and you just have to wait in real time

[00:58:54] as the fucking car goes across the map.

[00:58:56] Are you kidding me?

[00:58:58] You're in this fast travel.

[00:58:59] You're just trying to fast travel everywhere.

[00:58:59] I guess, because you can do it in every game

[00:59:01] or at least build an engaging traversal system

[00:59:04] like Spider-Man where it's fun to traverse.

[00:59:06] I don't know, fucking Final Fantasy.

[00:59:08] Hop on your sword and use it to glide around

[00:59:10] like you're on a jet ski.

[00:59:11] I don't know, make something cool.

[00:59:15] Fucking Square Enix, what is this bullshit?

[00:59:17] Squee-Enix, no.

[00:59:18] Jesus Christ.

[00:59:20] Real talk though, okay, so in the marketing buildup,

[00:59:23] Eric is probably gonna come for me

[00:59:24] if he listens to this episode as well

[00:59:26] because he's a, Eric says that the first half

[00:59:28] of Final Fantasy XV is like the greatest game

[00:59:31] that he's ever played and the second half

[00:59:32] is just complete let down.

[00:59:34] Similar to 16 where it's like they get so much

[00:59:36] into their like Final Fantasy bag

[00:59:38] that it's just kind of like obnoxious.

[00:59:40] But I don't know, I've heard so many,

[00:59:42] this is like similar to 13.

[00:59:44] I feel like almost every single mainline entry

[00:59:47] Final Fantasy game is the most polarizing.

[00:59:49] People are like, this is the best game

[00:59:50] that Square Enix ever made or like people are like,

[00:59:52] this is the worst experience I have ever had

[00:59:55] in gaming period.

[00:59:56] But yeah, 15 is definitely one of those

[00:59:58] and yeah, I don't know, I don't know.

[01:00:01] It just wasn't for me and I regret spending

[01:00:03] full price on it when it came out

[01:00:06] because it was just like,

[01:00:07] because Logan had spent like I think

[01:00:08] when he talked to me about it,

[01:00:09] he was like 60 or 80 hours deep in the game.

[01:00:12] He's like bro, it's so good

[01:00:13] and he recently started replaying it too.

[01:00:15] We were talking about it previously.

[01:00:16] He was like, he was like bro,

[01:00:17] I started playing 15 again.

[01:00:18] I was like you're gonna play 15

[01:00:20] when 16 is sitting right in front

[01:00:21] and he's like, he's not on the PC

[01:00:23] which I don't blame, he doesn't own a PS5

[01:00:25] so I mean that's fine.

[01:00:26] I forgive it but there's so many games on the PC.

[01:00:28] Why not play Disco Elysium?

[01:00:29] That is true.

[01:00:30] Why not play Kentucky Route Zero?

[01:00:32] Disco Elysium, yeah.

[01:00:34] Subscribe to Game Pass and get Game Pass for PC

[01:00:36] and play Hellblade 2

[01:00:37] since apparently everybody hates that game.

[01:00:39] Oof, yes, that's what I keep hearing.

[01:00:42] I don't think people hate it.

[01:00:43] I don't think people hate it.

[01:00:44] I will hate it.

[01:00:45] Who's hating on it on your end?

[01:00:46] People online have seen,

[01:00:48] well like paying all this full price

[01:00:49] for a five hour game which is like first off,

[01:00:51] why are you paying for it?

[01:00:52] If you're paying full price you idiot,

[01:00:54] you dumb ass, pay $18, get Game Pass and try it.

[01:01:00] You dumb ass.

[01:01:03] Absolutely, how the fuck are you gonna look me

[01:01:05] dead in the face?

[01:01:06] Even if you don't have an Xbox,

[01:01:08] you own a PC, you're playing games.

[01:01:10] You gotta support Ninja Theory by buying the game

[01:01:12] otherwise they're gonna go

[01:01:13] the way of Tango Game Works, okay?

[01:01:16] Oh so I have to like go and pay full price for it?

[01:01:18] If you don't pay full price for this game

[01:01:19] then Phil Spencer's gonna come through

[01:01:21] with his machete.

[01:01:22] That sounds like an Xbox problem honestly

[01:01:25] and I love Ninja Theory.

[01:01:27] I love Hellblade send you a sacrifice.

[01:01:29] So it's yeah, I mean I hope it works out.

[01:01:31] Yep.

[01:01:32] I hope it works out.

[01:01:33] Anyway.

[01:01:34] Well next one on my list,

[01:01:35] I've talked about this one before a bit

[01:01:36] so I don't wanna jump too far into it but.

[01:01:38] I'm surprised about this take.

[01:01:40] I mean it's Callisto.

[01:01:41] It's a $70 game and it's very short.

[01:01:43] I like it and I enjoyed it to a degree

[01:01:45] but I can't say that I was justified.

[01:01:47] It's a beautiful game.

[01:01:48] Yeah, so I can't say I was just,

[01:01:50] Hellblade's a beautiful game too

[01:01:51] but I mean I wouldn't be paying $70 for it.

[01:01:54] So it's like I can't say that just because

[01:01:55] Callisto looks really nice,

[01:01:57] like I paid $70.

[01:01:58] Like it has plenty of jank.

[01:01:59] The main game ended on a cliffhanger

[01:02:02] which was unjustified.

[01:02:04] Wait a second.

[01:02:05] Hold on a second.

[01:02:06] You played Babylon's Fall right?

[01:02:09] And you're gonna tell you bought that full price.

[01:02:11] No I did not buy Babylon's Fall the Platinum game.

[01:02:14] No no no.

[01:02:16] It was like not Greed Fall.

[01:02:18] Greed Fall is different.

[01:02:18] That's an Xbox game.

[01:02:19] It's about the other PS5 game.

[01:02:20] The PS5 that was like one of the PS5 launch titles.

[01:02:22] I don't like having that game.

[01:02:23] But you paid full price for it.

[01:02:24] Yeah I don't like it.

[01:02:25] I don't like that I did.

[01:02:26] I could add that to this.

[01:02:27] I can put a little slash right now.

[01:02:28] Put it above Callisto at the very least.

[01:02:30] What the hell?

[01:02:31] What is that game?

[01:02:32] You hated that game.

[01:02:33] I can't even remember what that game is called.

[01:02:34] I've tried to purge that game from my memory banks.

[01:02:36] PS5 launch titles.

[01:02:38] Godfall.

[01:02:38] Yeah that was a bad game.

[01:02:39] So I'm gonna just say Callisto Protocol slash Godfall.

[01:02:41] They're both $70 games that did not need to be $70.

[01:02:45] Both very pretty and it made no sense.

[01:02:47] I played the introduction to Callisto.

[01:02:51] And I think that there's gotta be

[01:02:54] some kind of quality in there.

[01:02:55] You're right.

[01:02:55] I platinumed the game and you played 10 minutes.

[01:02:58] But yes what you say 100% is better than my opinion.

[01:03:03] You're right, you're right.

[01:03:04] I'll eat my words.

[01:03:05] I'm over here like this is my opinion.

[01:03:08] Nick's like well I played 10 minutes

[01:03:09] so I know you played 40 hours

[01:03:11] but I'm telling you what your opinion is now.

[01:03:13] I'm like all right.

[01:03:14] No no no no.

[01:03:15] I'm not saying you're wrong.

[01:03:16] I'm just so surprised because it's like.

[01:03:19] I realize, I mean I don't think that your interpretation

[01:03:22] or your critique of this game is far different

[01:03:25] from the critical reception of it overall.

[01:03:28] But I think that people were going into it expecting

[01:03:32] everything that we've talked about in the game before

[01:03:33] they were expecting Dead Space

[01:03:35] and it wasn't Dead Space at its core.

[01:03:37] Yeah I was perfectly close to Dead Space.

[01:03:39] Because it doesn't need to be gunned.

[01:03:40] They already showed it was gonna be melee focused.

[01:03:41] It just needs to be good horror.

[01:03:43] Yeah I just wanted it to be good core.

[01:03:43] Were you ever scared?

[01:03:45] Not really.

[01:03:45] They had some jump scares

[01:03:47] but there wasn't anything that was really scary.

[01:03:49] At least anything that was scarier than Dead Space.

[01:03:51] They didn't give you a whole lot of tension

[01:03:53] just because it's a melee game.

[01:03:56] Things are expected to get in your face.

[01:03:57] So if something got in my face I'm just like good.

[01:04:00] Now I get to whack it.

[01:04:03] Before in you're playing Dead Space

[01:04:05] if something gets too close you're like oh no

[01:04:06] I hope I have a close gun to use

[01:04:08] in Callisto Protocol you're like good stick.

[01:04:12] I'm about to bonk you now.

[01:04:16] The scariest enemy in the game

[01:04:18] like the big two headed dude gets close to you

[01:04:20] and I'm like weave, weave, bonk.

[01:04:23] Weave, weave, bonk.

[01:04:25] And it's like that's literally how you fight them.

[01:04:26] So it's basically punch out

[01:04:28] which is your favorite.

[01:04:29] You're kinda joking 100%.

[01:04:32] That's how you fight the boss

[01:04:34] that's a boss that's reused.

[01:04:36] It's like two or three times

[01:04:37] you fight that same kind of double headed boss.

[01:04:39] It's straight up punch out.

[01:04:40] You dodge his attacks and then you hit him.

[01:04:42] You dodge his attacks and you hit him.

[01:04:44] And eventually you knock him down to one of the heads

[01:04:46] and he like flies to the middle of the rail.

[01:04:48] And then Mario comes out and counts to eight.

[01:04:52] So yes it's literally punch out.

[01:04:54] Holy shit.

[01:04:56] But yeah those are just two games.

[01:04:57] Like they're just not justifying the overall price

[01:04:59] and I like a short game

[01:05:01] but I like a short game that I'm probably going to spend

[01:05:05] 30 to 40 dollars on not dropping 70.

[01:05:09] And then especially with me.

[01:05:11] I didn't even drop 70.

[01:05:11] I think I dropped more than 70

[01:05:12] because I'm pretty sure I got the special edition.

[01:05:15] I think I got the season pass ahead of time.

[01:05:17] Oh you got the season pass.

[01:05:18] Have you played the DLC?

[01:05:19] Yeah yeah I played the DLC.

[01:05:20] Is it good?

[01:05:21] No, no.

[01:05:22] Damn what the fuck?

[01:05:23] It's not great.

[01:05:23] Why do they keep taking Ls?

[01:05:24] Because.

[01:05:25] My question is is that is Striking Distance Studios

[01:05:29] slash the publisher going to be able to recover

[01:05:32] from this?

[01:05:33] Yeah let's see why not.

[01:05:34] I mean it's Crafton right?

[01:05:35] Crafton is the publisher so.

[01:05:35] Have they done anything else?

[01:05:37] I don't know.

[01:05:38] I don't think so but they just got

[01:05:39] a bunch of money.

[01:05:39] They're just throwing money at stuff right now.

[01:05:42] That's fair.

[01:05:43] I think they're gonna be fine.

[01:05:44] But no the DLC story that came later on was not great.

[01:05:48] They did add a lot of stuff that's nice over time

[01:05:50] and I think some of it was free.

[01:05:51] So I commend them for continuing to add things

[01:05:53] to the game like the new game plus

[01:05:55] and more difficulties.

[01:05:56] The adding like a one life to live mode

[01:05:58] and giving you your new armor and skins et cetera

[01:06:01] which also you can only change the armor

[01:06:03] at like the menu of the game before you start it

[01:06:06] and then you have to go out of the menu

[01:06:08] and then change your armor again

[01:06:09] and go back into the game.

[01:06:10] Very goofy.

[01:06:11] Very silly.

[01:06:12] But being able to do all that is really cool

[01:06:14] so I would do commend them for the extra stuff

[01:06:16] but the DLC story mode was not great

[01:06:18] and the ending was very goofy.

[01:06:19] I'm like oh no.

[01:06:20] Like I'm not gonna spoil it for anybody

[01:06:21] who cares to play through this game

[01:06:23] but you're gonna get to the ending

[01:06:24] of the DLC story and be like neat.

[01:06:27] Great thanks for that.

[01:06:28] I appreciate that.

[01:06:29] My thing is that personally I think that they

[01:06:32] killed off the actor play Starkiller too soon.

[01:06:35] Like he could have been a really good antagonist.

[01:06:38] I don't know if this is a spoiler related

[01:06:39] that you're gonna hold back from

[01:06:40] but they splatter him in the office.

[01:06:43] He gets jacked up.

[01:06:43] Yeah he gets jacked up anyway.

[01:06:44] Sam Witward.

[01:06:46] Yeah there you go.

[01:06:47] Exactly.

[01:06:48] Good old Starkiller.

[01:06:49] Good old Starkiller.

[01:06:50] So it's fun but like I said day one not so much.

[01:06:53] If I got it for 40, 30 I'd be like

[01:06:55] oh pleasantly surprised with all the DLC.

[01:06:57] Perfectly fine.

[01:06:58] But for 70 plus dollars with all the DLC

[01:07:01] and everything I'm like I went through,

[01:07:03] I got the plat and I was like

[01:07:04] I shouldn't have done that.

[01:07:06] Yeah.

[01:07:08] So for my next game I'm gonna take everybody

[01:07:11] on a little story.

[01:07:12] Everybody close your eyes with me

[01:07:13] while I take you on a story.

[01:07:15] The year was 2018.

[01:07:17] Young Nikolai is in Japan all by his lonesome

[01:07:20] in his little small one bedroom efficiency apartment

[01:07:24] in Inami which is in Kansai in southern Japan.

[01:07:30] I'm very close to Kobe

[01:07:31] and I'm just playing through Breath of the Wild.

[01:07:33] I got fucking burnt out on Breath of the Wild.

[01:07:35] Never beat that game.

[01:07:37] Good game.

[01:07:38] Good Zelda game.

[01:07:38] But I wanted something else.

[01:07:39] I wanted something new.

[01:07:40] And then Rockstar releases a brand new cowboy game

[01:07:46] by the title of Red Dead Redemption 2.

[01:07:49] And I look at the reviews IGN says

[01:07:51] this is the best game of all time.

[01:07:53] They come out and saying that the world

[01:07:55] is just intricately crafted.

[01:07:57] The visuals are unreal and if you're playing

[01:07:59] on a PS4 Pro it's gonna be the best experience

[01:08:02] that you'll ever have in gaming.

[01:08:03] And I'm raising my eyebrows.

[01:08:05] I'm like, this is kind of convincing.

[01:08:07] I like cowboys.

[01:08:08] I like Rockstar.

[01:08:09] I like open world games.

[01:08:11] Why don't we go ahead

[01:08:11] because I didn't put too much time in RDR1.

[01:08:14] I played the zombie version

[01:08:15] of that game with friends and stuff.

[01:08:17] So I didn't have it connected to John Marston as much

[01:08:20] which is totally fine because this is a prequel.

[01:08:22] You don't need to know anything to come to this game.

[01:08:24] But I jump in and I start Red Dead Redemption 2

[01:08:27] and oh boy, it was cool.

[01:08:30] For the first 40 hours of the intro sequence

[01:08:33] and I got absolutely nowhere in that game.

[01:08:35] Another game, you can't fast travel absolutely anywhere.

[01:08:38] You get on your horse and you do the same god damn thing

[01:08:41] that you do in Final Fantasy 15.

[01:08:42] You put it on cinematic mode and you see the sunrise

[01:08:45] and then all of a sudden you're going over a gated house

[01:08:48] and these motherfuckers come out of nowhere

[01:08:49] and be like, give me all your cash.

[01:08:51] And then you can go and you can go to the town

[01:08:53] and you can put little engravings on your guns.

[01:08:56] Makes it looks pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie.

[01:08:58] The gun engravings were kind of sick.

[01:08:59] I appreciated that.

[01:09:00] Or if you wanted to go hunt an animal.

[01:09:03] They have legendary animal hunt quests.

[01:09:05] So you take eight hours of your entire day

[01:09:08] to go from one little town down the way

[01:09:10] to go upwards a little bit

[01:09:12] and try into the northern snowy areas

[01:09:15] so you can get your Arabian horse.

[01:09:17] And yeah, it was so long.

[01:09:21] It was so long and it wasn't the right time

[01:09:23] for me to play that game.

[01:09:25] I didn't have enough time to sink into that game.

[01:09:27] I will admit part of the problem is me.

[01:09:29] I will admit it.

[01:09:30] I will admit it.

[01:09:31] I am part of the problem.

[01:09:32] But it was honestly,

[01:09:33] it was one of my worst day one full price purchases

[01:09:36] because I couldn't get the enjoyment out of the game

[01:09:39] that I should have.

[01:09:40] If I had waited until like now

[01:09:42] to like play the game for the very first time,

[01:09:44] I guarantee you my experience with being Arthur

[01:09:47] and skin in the fucking fish

[01:09:49] and slowly trudging through camp

[01:09:51] so I could talk to those stupid ass NPCs

[01:09:54] and have Dutch Bees like,

[01:09:55] God damn it Arthur,

[01:09:56] you didn't put enough money in the box.

[01:09:58] It would have been better.

[01:09:59] I would have enjoyed it.

[01:10:00] I would have appreciated it more.

[01:10:02] I get it.

[01:10:02] I get it.

[01:10:03] It's your opinion.

[01:10:04] Will has been very offended this entire season

[01:10:06] so he's in heated.

[01:10:07] I see the vein popping.

[01:10:10] My face has been twisted up like I ate a lemon.

[01:10:12] But I get it.

[01:10:13] I get it.

[01:10:14] At the ending, I think you brought it all together.

[01:10:15] It is one, your opinion.

[01:10:16] So if it's your worst day one purchase,

[01:10:20] one of the worst.

[01:10:21] That's better than,

[01:10:22] I know it's not the worst,

[01:10:23] but if Red Dead 2 being one of your worst

[01:10:26] day one purchases,

[01:10:27] then that's a fantastic list.

[01:10:28] Never said it was a bad game though.

[01:10:29] Yep, exactly.

[01:10:31] You did avoid that landmine.

[01:10:32] So thank you very much.

[01:10:33] Thank you for not trolling me.

[01:10:35] Shout out to Jason Daly also

[01:10:36] for doing a wonderful show with me

[01:10:37] on Red Dead Redemption.

[01:10:38] I recommend anybody listening to this episode

[01:10:41] if you're interested at all

[01:10:42] and us talking about that catboy game,

[01:10:45] he encapsulates very well in that episode

[01:10:48] why that's a worthy game to play.

[01:10:50] Very, very much worth your time.

[01:10:51] So ultimately,

[01:10:53] I think what you're saying is correct for you.

[01:10:55] We've talked about this with Dragon's Dog Man

[01:10:57] with now Red Dead 2.

[01:10:59] So I'm kind of seeing the bit of a pattern.

[01:11:00] It's like,

[01:11:01] Bit of a pattern.

[01:11:02] Just a smidge of a pattern.

[01:11:03] I played Tears of the Kingdom.

[01:11:04] I opened up that whole map.

[01:11:06] I don't mind traversing the path.

[01:11:07] You can teleport.

[01:11:08] You could teleport through Tears of the Kingdom

[01:11:10] like whenever you want to.

[01:11:10] Once you open up one of those little things,

[01:11:12] you can fast travel anywhere.

[01:11:13] But only once you've discovered it.

[01:11:15] Yeah, but you just gotta find it first.

[01:11:16] Exactly.

[01:11:17] But like,

[01:11:18] it's the same thing with Dragon's Dog Man,

[01:11:19] you have to get the port crystals

[01:11:21] and then put them down to play.

[01:11:22] But there's only two.

[01:11:22] Exactly.

[01:11:23] Exactly.

[01:11:24] So you can't teleport everywhere.

[01:11:25] And then with Red Dead,

[01:11:26] hide the fast travel inside the camp.

[01:11:30] It's really convoluted because they want you to explore.

[01:11:32] So I get it.

[01:11:33] It's like,

[01:11:34] you can go out and explore and find your stuff

[01:11:35] and then once you find your fast travel points,

[01:11:37] you talked about Elden Ring,

[01:11:38] then you're able to use them at will

[01:11:40] so that you can kind of,

[01:11:41] hey, I've explored once

[01:11:42] and then I don't need to do it again.

[01:11:44] But these games are asking you to multiple times

[01:11:47] go back and forth and explore and do things

[01:11:49] and have new experiences.

[01:11:50] And that's the thing,

[01:11:51] if I can take a moment

[01:11:52] to circle back to Dragon's Dog Man 2

[01:11:54] is that I wouldn't have as much of a problem

[01:11:56] is if they want,

[01:11:58] I don't have an issue with them

[01:11:59] limiting your fast travel

[01:12:00] and wanting to live in the world

[01:12:02] and explore the caves,

[01:12:04] open up the area to go grab what you want.

[01:12:06] And I don't have that much of an issue with it.

[01:12:09] My thing is that

[01:12:11] if I have to go all the way across the map

[01:12:13] to go talk to an NPC

[01:12:14] and then they do the marker

[01:12:16] exactly where I came from on the other side of the map

[01:12:19] and I don't wanna use a Faerie Stone.

[01:12:20] I only have three in my pocket at any given time

[01:12:22] and then I'm using it occasionally

[01:12:23] to go upgrade my gear or something.

[01:12:26] That's not what I wanna do.

[01:12:28] And again, it's like that friction

[01:12:30] to getting to those cool moments

[01:12:33] where I'm fighting an awesome Drake

[01:12:34] or I'm fighting a cool Griffin and stuff.

[01:12:36] All of that is awesome

[01:12:38] but I don't wanna fight 15 trolls

[01:12:41] in between doing that or going there.

[01:12:43] I don't wanna have to spend five hours on my horse

[01:12:49] going from one town to the next

[01:12:50] in Red Dead Redemption

[01:12:52] because I wanna just be blasting heads.

[01:12:54] Like I said, I want Evil West

[01:12:55] but Red Dead Redemption.

[01:12:56] It's about the destination versus the journey.

[01:12:59] For me.

[01:12:59] Yeah, exactly.

[01:13:00] For me.

[01:13:01] A lot of the time.

[01:13:02] I get it.

[01:13:03] I mean you're wrong but I get it.

[01:13:04] So moving on to mine.

[01:13:06] So I do have these two.

[01:13:08] I'm gonna kind of merge these together as well

[01:13:09] just because they're both bad day one purchases

[01:13:12] for very similar reasons

[01:13:13] but Marvel Avengers and then Anthem.

[01:13:16] For both of these games, I played the demo.

[01:13:19] I knew they were not great

[01:13:21] but I was like, you know what?

[01:13:22] I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt

[01:13:24] because they have so much potential

[01:13:27] and I was wrong twice.

[01:13:30] Both those games are bad.

[01:13:32] Marvel Avengers, I'm still.

[01:13:32] Who made Marvel's Avengers?

[01:13:35] Was that like WB?

[01:13:36] Was that a, no, no, no, no

[01:13:37] cause it's Marvel.

[01:13:38] Yeah, no.

[01:13:39] Maybe it was Marvel Game Studios.

[01:13:41] I don't think it was quite Marvel Game Studios.

[01:13:43] Part of me wants to say it was EA.

[01:13:45] I think it was EA

[01:13:47] but I do not recall off the top of my head.

[01:13:51] I mean, that's what came out during the pandemic.

[01:13:53] So it's like we had time, right?

[01:13:54] It's not like I was doing anything else

[01:13:56] but it was just not.

[01:13:57] Crystal Dynamics.

[01:13:58] Crystal, it was Crystal Dynamics.

[01:14:00] No.

[01:14:01] Rest in peace to the crew.

[01:14:02] Yeah.

[01:14:03] Yeah, that was not great.

[01:14:04] So good old Squeenix.

[01:14:06] Add another one to your list there

[01:14:08] but no, that was a, oof.

[01:14:10] Not a great game.

[01:14:11] I love the combat though.

[01:14:12] I will say, I'll still up and down

[01:14:14] say that the combat and like, yeah.

[01:14:15] When you're playing as characters

[01:14:17] like Captain America, for example

[01:14:18] any of those kind of street level characters

[01:14:20] you can chain together combat moves very well

[01:14:23] including hopping off the wall,

[01:14:25] juggling an enemy into the air

[01:14:26] and doing some air juggles using your specials.

[01:14:28] The combat in that game is great.

[01:14:30] The actual movement

[01:14:32] and getting around the different maps

[01:14:34] is dog shit.

[01:14:35] Like it is terrible.

[01:14:36] Trying to actually move back and forth

[01:14:38] throughout those little maps.

[01:14:39] Some of the worst in games.

[01:14:41] Spider-Man is introduced as a character

[01:14:43] and it's disgusting because you play Spider-Man 2018

[01:14:46] and you know how Spider-Man should feel.

[01:14:48] And then you play him in this Marvel Avengers games

[01:14:51] and it's a web fart.

[01:14:51] It's like going back to Spider-Man 2 on the GameCube.

[01:14:53] It's like going back to Spider-Man 1

[01:14:55] because Spider-Man 2 on the GameCube

[01:14:56] was actually good.

[01:14:57] It was actually a good game.

[01:14:58] Yeah, that was a good one.

[01:14:59] So Spider-Man 1 where his webs were attaching

[01:15:02] to clouds and you couldn't go lower

[01:15:05] than like the top of a building

[01:15:06] otherwise you would die.

[01:15:07] So no, that's what it felt like more.

[01:15:09] So just didn't love it.

[01:15:10] I didn't care for the story for Marvel Avengers.

[01:15:13] Although it was interesting.

[01:15:14] It wasn't enough to carry me through the hours

[01:15:16] and hours and hours it asked you to do.

[01:15:18] And before the game died and they kind of gave you

[01:15:20] all of the outfits and stuff for free,

[01:15:22] it also felt, I don't think predatory is the right word

[01:15:26] because they don't make you do it

[01:15:27] and it's all cosmetic.

[01:15:28] But anytime you wanted something cosmetic wise

[01:15:31] they were just like hey, you wanna spend some money?

[01:15:32] Hey, you wanna spend some money?

[01:15:33] Hey, you wanna spend some money?

[01:15:34] And it was just always in your face.

[01:15:37] I did not like that.

[01:15:38] Anthem on the other hand

[01:15:39] was just a bad game all around.

[01:15:41] So it could have been so cool.

[01:15:42] It never got good?

[01:15:43] Never got good, damn.

[01:15:44] It could have been cool.

[01:15:45] Like they didn't even add in content to work on it.

[01:15:48] At least to my knowledge I honestly will say

[01:15:50] that I checked out well before

[01:15:52] they added any additional content.

[01:15:53] But from what I recall they just dropped this

[01:15:55] and it's not getting any better.

[01:15:56] It's not supported.

[01:15:56] Yeah, it's not supported at all.

[01:15:57] And it's like the whole concept of it

[01:16:00] and of course I saw the same things

[01:16:01] that you did when it was coming out.

[01:16:02] I was like holy shit, this ray tracing is incredible.

[01:16:05] I've never seen a game look this good.

[01:16:06] Both them pretty games for sure.

[01:16:07] Yeah, definitely beautiful games

[01:16:09] but like the idea of being like an Iron Man

[01:16:11] in this high fantasy world

[01:16:12] like a monster hunter Iron Man game.

[01:16:14] Are you kidding me?

[01:16:15] That would be awesome.

[01:16:16] Yeah, no thank you though.

[01:16:16] No.

[01:16:17] Especially too because you thought

[01:16:18] it was gonna be really cool as Iron Man.

[01:16:20] You fly around as much as you want

[01:16:21] and get to do things et cetera

[01:16:22] and they really just cut your legs out.

[01:16:24] Like you are flying around in the actual fly mode

[01:16:27] and you have a stamina bar.

[01:16:29] So eventually your thing is overheating is what it is.

[01:16:32] What?

[01:16:32] So if you're trying to stay flying the whole time

[01:16:34] you have to like fly through a waterfall

[01:16:36] to like cool off your exo suit.

[01:16:39] But yeah, generally than that

[01:16:40] you will fly for 10, 15 seconds

[01:16:42] and then you have to fall in the ground

[01:16:43] and walk around for a little bit

[01:16:45] because your suit's overheating

[01:16:46] and then you hop back up and fly.

[01:16:48] They had those different suits

[01:16:49] that all looked cool, had their own unique things

[01:16:52] but ultimately it just didn't matter.

[01:16:54] It didn't make the gameplay feel good.

[01:16:56] The loot was atrocious.

[01:16:58] Yeah.

[01:16:59] Like anytime you got like a really good

[01:17:00] golden loot weapon it didn't feel good.

[01:17:02] It didn't feel like a game changing type of weapon

[01:17:06] and then the story was just nothing

[01:17:08] at all to write home about.

[01:17:09] Like I wish I could even remember a part of it

[01:17:11] but really you're just a person.

[01:17:12] Like for example when you're in the non-suit part

[01:17:15] you're just eyeballs.

[01:17:17] You're just in a first person mode

[01:17:18] as you're walking around talking to people

[01:17:19] and they're talking to you

[01:17:20] but there's nothing really important going on to say

[01:17:23] hey, this is something that wants to drag me

[01:17:25] through the story and get through some of the schlop

[01:17:27] that I'm playing.

[01:17:29] It's not there.

[01:17:30] Yeah, I mean if they had like a god-tier story

[01:17:33] and then kind of like crummy.

[01:17:34] And you would imagine that because it's Bioware.

[01:17:36] Yeah, exactly.

[01:17:37] This is a Bioware game.

[01:17:39] Like they went out of their way

[01:17:40] which you can go out of your way and make a game.

[01:17:42] Gorilla did that with Horizon Zero Dawn

[01:17:45] and I don't care what anybody says.

[01:17:47] Completely different game from their legacy.

[01:17:49] Yeah but at least it's good.

[01:17:50] Zero Dawn is great.

[01:17:51] If you want to say it's bad or something

[01:17:53] then that's kind of on you

[01:17:54] but at the very least it's good.

[01:17:55] People hate on the Horizon franchise

[01:17:57] because of like what Sony has done

[01:17:58] but like Horizon is legitimately

[01:18:01] and unabashedly a great game.

[01:18:02] Yep, I like them both.

[01:18:03] You gotta play Forbidden West.

[01:18:04] It's on the list.

[01:18:05] It's on the list for sure.

[01:18:06] You were talking earlier.

[01:18:06] Hold on, that was your scratch.

[01:18:09] Action.

[01:18:10] That'll definitely itch your scratch.

[01:18:10] Desire for sure.

[01:18:11] Scratch your itch, there you go.

[01:18:13] Itch your scratch.

[01:18:15] But no, so Anthem, not great, not fun.

[01:18:18] It's one of the rare games that I've played through

[01:18:20] and I've played a lot of games that are bad

[01:18:21] like Marvel Avengers for example

[01:18:23] where I beat the story

[01:18:24] and I've maybe even done more.

[01:18:25] Every once in a while I get the itch

[01:18:27] to just platinum Marvel's Avengers

[01:18:28] just to say I did it

[01:18:29] and then never touch it again.

[01:18:31] But Anthem is a game that I very rarely think

[01:18:34] about.

[01:18:35] Like now it's on Game Pass.

[01:18:36] I kinda wanna see if anyone else just wants to suffer

[01:18:38] but realistically I don't think

[01:18:40] I'll ever touch that game again.

[01:18:41] Yeah, yeah, no.

[01:18:43] No way, no way Jose.

[01:18:45] I'll play Resident Evil 6 with you though.

[01:18:49] It sounds good.

[01:18:50] I'll suffer through that game with you.

[01:18:51] Sounds good.

[01:18:52] If it's strange somewhere, sure you can.

[01:18:52] We gotta do five and six together.

[01:18:55] But yeah, no.

[01:18:55] The other secret day one purchase

[01:18:57] since I know you had a couple more in there

[01:18:59] that you wanted to add on.

[01:19:00] I'll definitely add on here

[01:19:02] and I'll just say that,

[01:19:05] love it or hate it,

[01:19:08] buying a full price version of Elden Ring day one

[01:19:12] was not a great move.

[01:19:13] It was not good for you.

[01:19:14] It was not good for me.

[01:19:15] I agree.

[01:19:15] In the same way that Red Dead Redemption 2

[01:19:17] is not good for me,

[01:19:18] not saying these games are bad,

[01:19:20] not saying that they don't have immense quality

[01:19:24] and are very good.

[01:19:25] And again, I made a very direct comparison

[01:19:27] between Elden Ring and Dragon's Dogma

[01:19:30] where it's like Elden Ring,

[01:19:31] you see something so beautiful and incredible

[01:19:33] that you have never seen before

[01:19:34] in any high fantasy game ever.

[01:19:36] Whereas Dragon's Dogma was just like a wet fart

[01:19:39] of visual design.

[01:19:40] It's like, oh great, more trees.

[01:19:42] Oh, there's a castle.

[01:19:44] The pawns are like, oh, there's a statue, me lord.

[01:19:46] Me lord, every reason I found a chest here

[01:19:49] in the other world that I was in 15 times.

[01:19:51] There's another reason why I don't fucking

[01:19:53] run around the open world

[01:19:54] because of the barks, the NPC.

[01:19:56] Anyway, anyway.

[01:19:57] I'm talking about Elden Ring.

[01:19:58] I'm getting worked up.

[01:19:59] I'm getting so worked up.

[01:20:01] It's definitely one of those games

[01:20:03] where, of course, you have to know what you're doing.

[01:20:05] You have to have experience

[01:20:07] and you have to be ready to sink 120 hours

[01:20:09] just raw into that game

[01:20:11] and do your either coffin, sword, and board build

[01:20:14] or you can do your sorcerer mimic tier.

[01:20:18] Yeah, full faith build, whatever you wanna do

[01:20:21] and go throughout that game.

[01:20:21] But even the open world mini boss encounters

[01:20:25] in that game are absurd.

[01:20:26] I remember running around on Torrent

[01:20:29] and I was running around some castle

[01:20:31] and it might have been up in Lindell

[01:20:34] when I was trying to get close

[01:20:35] to getting into the capital city

[01:20:36] and I eventually did get into the capital city

[01:20:38] but there is this bull demon

[01:20:42] that has this energy orb that's coming out of its horns

[01:20:46] and it has the ability to lift rocks up from the ground

[01:20:50] and launch it at you, meteors that are coming down.

[01:20:53] And it's like, and this is a normal open world boss.

[01:20:57] This is almost a mob boss

[01:20:59] and I'm just like, you fromsoft people are sick.

[01:21:01] You are sickos.

[01:21:03] Like what is wrong?

[01:21:04] Why would you subject yourself to this?

[01:21:05] Anyway, but no, I gotta go back.

[01:21:07] I gotta figure out a build,

[01:21:09] maybe play it a little bit some more,

[01:21:10] get it on Steam,

[01:21:12] upgrade the visuals and the fidelity of that game.

[01:21:14] But yeah, definitely a game to go back to,

[01:21:16] a game to kind of appreciate.

[01:21:18] I'm not gonna buy the DLC.

[01:21:20] I hope everybody has a lot of fun.

[01:21:22] I'll enjoy listening to Vaati Vidya talk about Mesmer

[01:21:24] and his flame and talk about whatever happened

[01:21:27] to Mickela and why he was stolen away

[01:21:31] by the brother of, no, not Malekith.

[01:21:36] Anyway, the blood dude.

[01:21:37] There's a blood god with fangs and horns and shit.

[01:21:41] He's like a demon and you find him in the underworld.

[01:21:43] That's really cool.

[01:21:44] Like all the storyline to get to that part

[01:21:46] is very, very intense.

[01:21:47] And yeah, you have to fight him

[01:21:51] and you have to do some really fucked up shit

[01:21:53] to get there in the first place.

[01:21:54] You have to do some really, really interesting,

[01:21:56] crazy stuff.

[01:21:57] But anyway, Elden Ring, any from,

[01:22:00] I'll just come out and say it.

[01:22:01] Any FromSoft game that you're gonna pay full price

[01:22:03] for day one, unless you are like a hardcore

[01:22:07] FromSoft Miyazaki stan, probably not a good move.

[01:22:10] Parents don't buy these games for your kids.

[01:22:12] Not for the children.

[01:22:13] And honorable mention because we have to talk about it

[01:22:15] in like worst game lists.

[01:22:17] Anytime that we make it is Redfall.

[01:22:18] Of course.

[01:22:19] We didn't pay full price for Redfall.

[01:22:20] So we can't really,

[01:22:22] we can't give them that benefit of the doubt,

[01:22:23] but it's just bad game.

[01:22:25] Bad game is bad game.

[01:22:26] And it had a terrible launch.

[01:22:27] Launch was bad.

[01:22:28] I can't, the launch is not gonna get any better

[01:22:30] because our game in Austin doesn't exist anymore.

[01:22:32] That's true.

[01:22:33] Very sad, but nonetheless, not a good game.

[01:22:37] Yep.

[01:22:37] Any final thoughts?

[01:22:38] Any honorable mentions on your part?

[01:22:39] Honorable mention for me would be

[01:22:41] just because of the new hype around the Fallout TV show.

[01:22:43] People are trying to be revisionist

[01:22:45] and talk about 76 being good.

[01:22:47] 76 was never good.

[01:22:48] I hear a lot of people keep talking about

[01:22:50] how fun 76 is.

[01:22:53] I can't speak to all the new

[01:22:55] dozen DLCs and upgrades that they made.

[01:22:59] The hundreds and hundreds of fixes.

[01:23:00] It just looks like a gen three game.

[01:23:04] It looks like a PS3 game.

[01:23:05] When it came out, it was terrible.

[01:23:06] It was a terrible game when it came out.

[01:23:07] So no, I'm not gonna let the revisionist win.

[01:23:10] Oh man, I can't believe Fallout 76 is a good game.

[01:23:12] It's always been a good game.

[01:23:13] False.

[01:23:14] Except Fallout 4.

[01:23:15] False on all accounts.

[01:23:16] Fallout 4 is pretty good.

[01:23:17] I played the introductory sequence to 4.

[01:23:20] Ha ha ha.

[01:23:21] It's really cool.

[01:23:22] Fallout 4 is a bad game.

[01:23:23] Whoa.

[01:23:24] It's a bad game.

[01:23:25] Oh my God, oh my God.

[01:23:26] We're gonna have to record the next episode together.

[01:23:29] We're gonna do a Fallout 4 review.

[01:23:30] Evan, did you see reviews Fallout 4 in clear the air?

[01:23:33] Well, this will be a special guest

[01:23:35] whose Courtney's coming on the show.

[01:23:37] Well, with that toxicity out of the way folks,

[01:23:40] that is gonna be it for tonight.

[01:23:42] I wanna give a big thank you to all of our listeners.

[01:23:44] If you've enjoyed our content

[01:23:45] or if you hated our content,

[01:23:47] if we've had some supremely bad takes this episode,

[01:23:49] make sure to give us a rating review.

[01:23:51] Five stars for the worst of the worst podcast

[01:23:53] that you've ever experienced.

[01:23:55] Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Good Pods, whatever it may be.

[01:23:59] Go ahead and jump in there and give us a review.

[01:24:01] Give us some feedback.

[01:24:01] We always love it.

[01:24:02] Now Will, if people wanna get out there

[01:24:05] and they wanna tell you to go ahead

[01:24:07] and get that platinum in Marvel's Avengers,

[01:24:09] where can they find you?

[01:24:10] You can find me getting some help for myself mentally.

[01:24:13] I'll be at the therapist office.

[01:24:15] I'll be getting on betterhelp.com.

[01:24:17] Exactly.

[01:24:18] Not sponsored.

[01:24:19] I don't know why you're trying to send me down

[01:24:20] that dark, dark road.

[01:24:22] But if you're trying to say something nice to me

[01:24:23] and be cool, then you can find me on Twitter.

[01:24:25] It'll be at real King Zotai.

[01:24:27] That is R-E-A-L-K-I-N-G-Z-O-S-O-T-A-I.

[01:24:32] And with that everyone, please keep gaming.

[01:24:34] Take it easy and we'll see you next Friday night.

[01:24:37] Deuces.