Is Death Stranding 2 a AAAA Game? A Glaze Session

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Elder Trolls Gaming podcast. If you are new in joining us, we are two brothers who get together and talk about gaming. We may also talk to TV movies and other needy, nerdy, needy, geeky stuff too. We talk about needy things. But I'm nasty, Naida, and. I'm taking easy Johnno, and you're sweating profusely for some reason. Well I'll tell you why in a minute. But first today we will be talking about the birth of Quadruple Games question. No, No, I don't believe it. No, but maybe I do. Maybe, But yeah, we it was a busy weekend, man, Like I think of the busiest weeknd I've had in. A very long time. Yeah, I was been able to do jack shit. Same and I ate pizza four days and five days in a row. I like that hold on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. But not like my I didn't go like it just happened. You know, I've been eating pizza four days. Like I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to, but like we had some dinner thing at some pizza place, some pizza place on Presdent Spmost to be really good. We've had plans for like weeks and they kept getting canceled and canceled, and then we finally did it. On Thursday. Okay, we go to this pizza place, really good, really good, really good pies. Okay, it's just Schoolhouse Pizza. It's called Schoolhouse Pizza and sonya yeah whatever day. Next day is Friday, I ate the leftover okay, pizza obviously. Saturday, which is yesterday, we go home and of course what do we have. They order pizza and I'm like, oh my god, pizza again. Third day and I'm like, fine, okay, I'll eat it. Then today we go over to panms Panms family's place. They're ordering pizza. Oh I'm like, dude, what the fuck? Man, I'm just gonna order a sandwich. Okay. So I ordered pizza suth I a club sandwich, and then I ate one slice of pizza just because I had to. It was right there. I'm like, I'm not gonna. Nod eat it, am a fiend. If there is a pizza, I can't stop eating it. Yeah, like I can't. I can't not eat the pizza if it's right there and there's. Like if there's stacks, like if there's stacks of pizzas like pizza boxes and everyone's like, oh, I'm full, and there's like pizza left, Like, I will continue to eat the pizza. I can't stop myself eating pizza. It is my favorite food of all time. Of course, it's it's delicious. It's the best food. It's just fucking cheese bread, Like, it's so good. What's better than cheese, bread sauce, meat, in any combination of it's it's the best. Yeah, no better? Yeah, going home like that? When I come home, guess what happened. I come home and I walk into the house. First of all, I wanted to be home a lot earlier than we did, but we get home at like six o'clock. So we left the dogs for a good seven hours. Okay, usually they're pretty good seven hours, but lately we can't walk them because so goddamn hot out, so I can only walk them for like a half an hour in the morning, and then like that's it. So I get home and I'm like, what the hell is that stench? I'm like, fuck, they shit in the house again, didn't they? And I like go around. I'm like, oh, no, shit, I go downstairs into my photography studio, and they pissed on the walls, like down in the corners, like three massive puddles of piss, Like it was so much piss, and I was like, fuck, Like I'm exhausted. I'm like, tie, yeah, baby's got to go down, the baby's gotta go to bed. And I'm just like, well, now I gotta clean off all this piss. And then I'm was like, oh, they ship upstairs. So then I go upstairs to the kitchen and in the dining room around the corner there's piles of shit on the fucking floor and I'm like, oh my god, and I just wanted to kill them. I wanted to kill the dogs right then and there. So it took me, like I don't know, that's so long to clean that up. And then I was just so fucking exhausted. Man, it's so hard to drive. I know, it's so hard to drive so much an hour and fifteen minutes. Yeah, after like eating a bunch, being outside all day, drinking beer, drinking a couple of beer, I'm just like, yeah. Good thing for AI. Yeah, fucking. And then just then like slapping myself well, trying to fucking. Yeah, and today's headshots, the headgshots and them were babyproofing the house. So then that's what I was doing before this, and I'm just moving it around and sweating my ass off. I was fucking playing a game, and then I wanted to nap. I would have loved it nap, but I was playing bizarre instead playing games. You know, all right, you want to get into that, I'll be playing. Actually, I wanted to do this real quick. Can we talk about that. It'suka Yomi game that fucking grind my gears there. Your gears have been grunned. Yes, I don't think that's a word. I see you, Yeah, I see you wrote that here, and I don't think it's a word. It's in the Nasty Night dictionary. Yeah. Cal Apple, the game developer messages us on keymailer to give their to give their card game a try, okay, and they sent us a review copy. Key. I was like, okay, I'll do a first impressions video, you know, record it, but boot I boot the game up, and it tells me if a boot boot, I boot the game up. If I'm making content for this game or for this review copy, I have to put across the screen, saying the footage is from an early access demo. I'm like, okay, so I put that across the screen and I record the video. Oh or sorry, I put that across screen. So I thought to myself, since they sent me this key to download this copy and it's telling me it's early access, then the game is an early access, right. So I was like, okay, I'll make the video with that in mind and collect my thoughts on like a first impressions video. I make the video, blah blah blah. I edit it, and now I'm looking for like images to do the thumbnail with and to do like some kind of transitions with. And I click on a link and it brings me to the Steam page and the game's already out and it's free to play. Yeah, I'm like what, So what the fuck did they just send me an early access review copy? That is, like, what did they send you the key on? Like what did they send it to you in? And that keymailer thing like a download. They send you a key, a Steam key, and it downloads the review copy. I sent you a Steam key for a free to play game. Yes, a review copy of a free to play game that was out a month before they sent me the key man. I was so fucking pissed. But it's not. So it's not an early access anymore. No, it's out, it's free, you can play it. So like, why didn't they just why didn't they just tell me, oh, would you if you could review a game? It's out right now, go download it on Steam. It's free to play, right. Oh my god. So I wrote a really polite email to them telling them to really look out next time. So it was not the different game. It was not a different version of the game, though, yes, you downloaded it from Steam. No, because in the game, it told me like a big pop up game up, this is early access demo, early access demo, and it had all these like are you sure the thing that's on Steam right now doesn't have that? I didn't download, but it's maybe it does as play. Now, not in early access. It's been out for a month. And there was noatorial Like when I was playing my copy, there's noatorial, there's nothing. It was just threw me into the game and I was like, what the hell's going on? Was like figuring this out as I go, Like really, yeah, so there's my first impressions, right, there first impressions not good. Not good. Fucking guys, get your shit together, jeez man, let's head over. Well. I was going to say, we're well, you had something else here about your controller. You're going to do a controller review today, but you had too much piss and shit to clean up. This weekend yet. But but I wanted to mention we are now an Amazon affiliate. Talk about the Amazon affiliate. I can create affiliate links to any products we talk about. If it interests people enough that they may want, you know, make up their minds into buying something. That's great. If they can, they can click on our link if they want, and anything they purchase in that browser session would count towards our affiliate link. It doesn't have to be just the thing I linked. It could be anything that they buy during that session. So yeah, so that's cool. We'll get a little kickback from Amazon. Doesn't cost anyone a thing. It's just a link, that's all it is. So that's how. Another way you could support the show is buy through our link. There you go buy. You're gonna do it anyway. Stuff, You're gonna go to Amazon anyway. Yeah, you're gonna buy video game shit, anyway, might as well just use our link. Just use our link. That's it. If you need a controller, we got controller reviews. Yeah, we got the TV video. We did lots of TV models on there. If you're gonna buy TV, check that video out. Because this is still kind of applies. And this is those all countries, right, this is very. Yes, I have it for Canada, US and the UK. So I created three. Those are the three that are there. There'll be a link for your country. You're corresponding link for your country. So if you're in this eights, scroll down to wherever it says Amazon USA and click onto those links. Et cetera, etchetra, etchet ra. That would be cool. So hopefully, well product video we do put one of those links in there. Maybe get some because we fucking man if I had it on that TV video, yep, I wonder. We just got a bunch. We just paid for the year of Spreaker, our podcast podcasting host, with the money we made from VR rock cool. I gonna break it, even break it even. That's it. But like out of let's say eighteen let's say the eighteen thousand or twenty thousand people who watch that video whatever, let's say, fucking I don't know how many people out of eighteen thousand maybe bought a TV you know, let's say twenty people. Even if it's twenty people out of eighteen thousand who are like, okay, oh, they got the link in the description, let's check out Amazon. Okay, this is this is the one that they said. Leave their brows open. Twenty people at an average of two thousand dollars. I don't know what the commission is. It's like two percent or something. Two percent of two thousand dollars. What's that? Twenty bucks? Two hundred bucks? No, twenty bucks not very smart, boy, so forty bucks on average. If twenty people, you know, had bought it, but it would have been not bad, that's like eight hundred bucks. Now they know. And it's not just a link in our linkature you have to go to one of these videos. Yeah, yeah, we can't just send you the link. You have to click on the links from our sources, from our videos or our episodes. But yeah, pretty cool. Hopefully you know we get something from that. Keep the show going, keep it, keep the lights on, you know, I keep the lights on. I say, that's cool, that's cool, alright, uh, game time, game time, let's go hm uh. So obviously we're playing Death Rating two. I don't want to talk too much about it. We're gonna talk about it, well, I guess, well, I don't want to give it away. We have Me and Alma have been playing the game Peak. It's a co op on Steam. I got it for ten dollars Steam Peak. I don't think it's called Peak. It's a fun kind of survival climbing co op game where you and your friends have to climb mountains and survive before the fog creeps up the mountain kills you to you crash land on an island and you got to go up. So you'll find paths such averse the mountain and it's like rag doll physics, and it's really funny because the way the character's handle and if you want like the full experience, you have to use like proximity chat because you can get lost and then not be able to find your partner or like your team. Right, so if you keep proximity Chat on, you can you have to stay close to each other, but like you can use your bugle because you're like boy scouts, You're like the scouts. I guess that crash and you have like you can have a you have a bugle, you have a flare. So if you play your bugle in proximity Chat, you can like hear it out into the distance and then you can like follow if you get lost, you can follow the bugle noise to get interesting. Yeah, okay, so that's really funny. But then there's like checkpoints at the top of each little mountain, and then you have little marshmallows to get your stamina back. And yes, it's very funny. You unlock funny cosmetics to where it's it's very funny, very nice. Pequ joined me and Alma playing it the other night. Man, it was so fucking funny because we were climbing up this mountain, and with each mountain there's like new things they introduce for you to like watch out, like obstacles or traps. So there's like these exploding berry bushes and Alma like nudges one and she blows up, she flies and hits me. I fly off the mountain and I'm just like in the proximity chat at the top, just watching this happens. Fun funny, and then I was like, oh no, she turns around to see what happened. Then she hits another fucking exploding berry bush and she goes fucking fly off. It was so stupid, but it was very very funny. Is it cross play? No, it's just PC? I think, Oh really, Peak damn just PC. Huh Yeah. I bought it on the Legion Go for Almond. Then I bought it on my PC for me. That's funny. That would be a funny game to play. Very cross play, too bad. It was like ten bucks. Yeah, I see that ten dollars here on Steam Canadian dollars. Other than that, trying to grind Pokemon tc TCGP. The latest set is not great. I'm not a big fan. It's called Evy Grove. It's just a bunch of Evy evolutions and shit, it's not great. I'm not a big fan of. This expansion doing that in the in the actual TCG as well. Ev like an evolution set. Yeah, this is that's pretty much it. Yeah, prismatic evolutions is that what it is? No, not prismatic, just like a bunch of like they have all ex cards of their evolutions for this for this pack, but like I'm finding hard to find a deck that I like to try to grind the ladder with, and everyone's still using the same ranked deck that was out like two packs ago. Mm hmm, because the last couple of packs weren't great. Actually, there's there's a buzz swole deck that's just like all over the ladder right now, and it's so opiate. Buzz. Yeah, there is an evolution set and. I'm like trying to find a deck to counter it, and it's just it's so fast, like I can't even set up. He's a bug. Yeah, he's grass, yeah, Grass and bug and. Then he and then there's another because it's like ultra beasts. I don't know if they have that in the regular card deck, but like it's called he's an ultrabeast so he can swap there's a there's a card deck in swop ultra Beasts for free in the active spot and the bench for free, so he'll smack you for one hundred and twenty and then use but to put him back on the bench until his attacks ready to go again, and then he just keeps swapping them around. It so stupid. Yeah, yeah, there's always something stupid like that. And Pokemon, the last one I did was like mute. If he had like a special energy on MEW, he could use any attack from any of your bench Pokemon. Oh yes, actually something like that. Yeah, yeah, fusion something. It was so annoying. And then they would put MEW two on their bench or something and do some crazy cheaper yeah, because it only costs two It only costs two energy and then you could use a four energy attack if you have it on your bench. Yeah, I was dumb. I remember that. That's it for me. Not much other than death straining too. Yes, whatever, whatever time I have it goes to death strainding, like must play more. Yeah, I've been playing playing a few things. I've been playing some Switch to Mary kart World. We played SA Mario kart World. Yeah, we played SA Mario kart World on the weekend. I played online with Rob Kelv and Tony Aka Samurai k I B I j I KEYBG not key GB. As Rob says, it was fun. It was a bit frustrating though. Because yeah, just a bunch of AI. Well yeah, with the AI, so like twenty four total characters and it's going crazy, Like the knockout mode is insane because like if you get in first place, there's so many people behind you that they're all tossing shit at you, Like you'll never stay in first place unless you're like so far ahead uh or year later on in the game, and it's easier to stay in first because there's less people behind you tossing like shit at you. Yeah, but like it's just chaos that mode. Like I could not win the knockout mode, but I won like a few grand priests. But the knocko mote is insane, Like I don't know why, but you fuck up once, Like you turn the wrong way and you say, oh, you know what I mean, Like you make the wrong kind of turn, You're gone, You're done. Everyone passes you, and you're just like, well, start over. I've been grinding the Bazaar. I've been able to play more ranked. So I'm actually at grinding the ladder because I subscribed to the Pass, like the Battle Pass thing. It's ten bucks. It's ten bucks a month, but this is what it gives you. Listen to this. It gives you double Battle Pass XP and double the amount of chess rewards from ranked games. Okay, so because of that, you always are able to play into ranked. You're always able to either you'll have a ticket from a reward on the Battle Pass, and you don't have to pay for it. You can get all this for free by doing dailies. But the thing is it's like one hundred levels long, so not having the subscription, it's just really slow getting those rewards. But since I get them so fast because it's double, I always have a ranked ticket or you know, have like a bunch of the gems saved up, so I can play ranked all the time and you can actually grind. It's not like before or before I had it, I was like, okay, I didn't do so well. You only got like a bronze or a silver victory, so I didn't get enough gems to buy another fucking ranked game because you have to pay into Ranked like most games, it costs costs something to get in. But yeah, before I was like, okay, I have to play normal mode. Now, like that's it. It's pointless playing with normal mode, like absolutely pointless unless you're just fucking around and trying to learn the figure something out. Or you can't like force builds, you know what I mean. You can't just force a build because it's random. It's like, oh, that's right, you can't play what you want all the time. You could never see it, it could never come up. So but yeah, it's I'm like halfway through silver now I'm getting I'm getting up there. It's it's tough though. It's tough though because it's a lot of range and that sucks. But but I also has rang. I know, and some of the shit, like the guys I play against the are just fucking It's like, what is this? How do you have this this early in the game, Like this crazy shit, just like pure luck shit. I'm just like, this is brutal, and I also maybe the most unlucky player in the game. I should record like a few matches and see how many times I get krit with like a ten percent or less chance, Like all the fucking time, Like I get pounded and one shot and I mouse over the guy's item it's like six percent crit. I'm like, cool, cool, really cool, very sweet, Like I would have won if you hadn't rolled a fucking ninety four on that like roll, like, give me a fucking break. It happens all the time. Man, I get krit all the time by low crit chance. It's so stupid. I get so mad. But yeah, I'm playing that and destrainting too. Of course, of course I'm about twenty five hours in. I'm not doing the main quest. I'm kind of just you're not that far ahead of me, no, because I haven't been. I've just been like delivering package, just making some zipline roots you know. The zipline yet really? But I love making roads and just driving on the roads and taking photos. Driving on the roads takes too long, man, It takes way too long. Man. The scenery is sick on the roads. It's sick sick on the ziplines. Man, you need the ziplines. You can get the zip list. I go up and over a mountain. Do you get any other vehicles? It's just the bike in the truck. Yeah, I think so, not like a monster truck, not that I haven't seen yet, but maybe maybe. But the truck is sweet. I love the truck. Did you get the did you get the attachments on it yet? Like I got the sticky gun. I got Max battery on it. With the sticky gun and the sticky. Gun, it's fucking hilarious. You just drive around, it's like just picking everything up what I wish, like, look at my personal storage and I have like all this lost card, I'm going to deliver all this. Just go and deliver it. Yeah. It's like a bit of a cozy game, you know. And I wish, I wish if you ran over the crystalis or the little crystal things that I wish you could just run them aver. No, you have to use it. You have to be in the trike for that, on the on the bike. Yeah, you can't do it from the truck. No, but yeah, anyway, that's uh. Yeah, there was a I was streaming it. I streamed a couple of times, a couple of nights there, A few people showed up. It was cool. There was a really sick part that happened in the story on the first night that I streamed, super fucking cool part that I was just like, my god, this is it was like the coolest thing that I have seen. So far in these I experienced it. You did see that, Okay, So I was like, okay, so you're like right behind me then yeah, yeah, because I didn't really do much after that. Oh really no, So I'm collecting every time I can't collect the animals for the animal place, I don't nothing happens. I think it was a sneak up behind them and like grab them. Yeah, I have snuck up behind a kangaroo and it didn't give me the option to catch them. And then I like kept and I touched him and they like kicked me. Oh, you might have to have something on you, like the. Oh, because he's not a carrier, he's not a small critter. You have the floating carrier. You might have to have that, maybe said I automatically have a carrier. Yeah, you need to have the floating carrier too, because you can't carry it on your fucking back, I think. I mean, I've caught a couple of random ones, but whatever. Yeah, very cool. But that's how it was just crazy. I was just like, oh, I'm still trying to figure out what actually happened, like with tomorrow. Yeah, like she kicks asses, kicks those robots asses. I'm not there yet. Oh then what fucking part are you talking? Well, we collect her from that other world? Oh yeah that was crazy. Yeah no, no I'm not talking about that. I'm talking with something else. Like it's great, you'll know okay, you'll know it enough and then you'll be like you'll tell me and you'll be like, oh, Wow. Okay, every cut scene is fucking amazing. All right. While we talked about this, you might as well just get into the main topic. Okay, okay. Sure. A first, a word from our VR sponsors. Hello, everyone, we are thrilled to announce an excitingnew partnership with vrrock dot com. Get ready to enhance your VR experience with vr rocks protective lenses, available for both prescription and non prescription users. As a fellow VR enthusiasts, I opted for their blue light canceling lenses. These lenses are designed to protect my PSVR twos stock lenses from scuffs and scratches, while helping to reduce eyestrain caused by prolonged exposure to blue light during extensive VR gaming sessions. Installing vr rocks lenses is a breeze. A simple click and a magnet snap and you're all set for a comfortable and immersive VR adventure. The best part are Rinds at vr rock dot com have a special offer for you, guys, our listeners. You can head over to vr dash rock dot com that's vr hyphen rock dot com and by using the coupon code elder Trolls on checkout you'll enjoy an exclusive ten percent discount on your order. Vr rock dot com ships worldwide, and all their products are tax free. We extend our sincere gratitude to vr rock dot com for supporting us and making our VR experiences safer and more enjoyable. So don't miss out, Grab your vr rock lenses, and get ready for an unforgettable gaming journey. We're beck now today's topic. Okay, after playing Death Stranding, I've been blown away at every every corner, you know, everything that happens. I'm just like, what it's amazing? Oh so good? Bad? Right? And I was like, Death Stranding two is truly a next gen game? Like this is? Could you call this game a quadruple A game? That's what sparked my brain. What would separate a triple A game from a quadruple A game? And Stranding be the beginning of quad Death Raining two be this beginning of quadruple A games. I don't know. The first Death Stranding was equally as like impressive when I played it, and I played it five years after, so I mean, maybe we had a quadruple A game this whole time. Maybe let's go the first game. Let's go back a little bit. Let's go into the history books. Skull and Bones. Remember that game? Oh yes, the game. Remember Daniel wanted to Daniel wanted it wanted to play. Labeled a quadruple A game by the company, specifically by the CEO Eves Gill, What give us, Eves Why? Yes, Guillemont to signify its large scale and development costs exceeding typical triple A type. While not a formal industry classification, the term quadruple A is used to suggest a game with an exceptionally high budget, scope and ambition, potentially justifying a higher price point when the game releases. Now I'm jumping around on the line and I was trying to get people's takes on like what would make a quadruple game, and everyone was mostly saying, like the budget, and like yeah, yeah, yeah da. You know, well that's what usually the triple A means, like, right, it's triple A, big budget studio, you know. So with Skull and Bones, Allegedly, sources within Ubisoft told YouTuber end meon, endmeon that Skull and Bones cost between six hundred and fifty to eight hundred and fifty million dollars over its ten year production that's uh, that's staggering. That is like double cyberpunk more than doubles. It's probably because they scrapped so much stuff. Yeah, like they might have built a bunch of stuff and then just grapped it and started over because they had to finish it or something. Didn't they ya of these because. They had some sort of deal with the whatever. Yeah, there was a government deal with Singapore or something. It was super weird, Like, what the hell. Was that Ubisoft Skull and Bones, developed partly with funding from the Singaporean government, faced significant development challenges and delays, but ultimately launched due to an agreement with the government to fulfill obligations tied to the subsidies. Wow. So they had to release. They had to couldn't cancel it. They couldn't cancel it. It's just they just kept pushing on through, pushing it through. Wow. The game's development was reportedly impacted by a toxic work environment and leadership issues at Ubisoft Singapore. Despite these issues, the game was released in twenty twenty four after years of delays and despite mixed reviews. Because Ubisoft was obligated to launch the game or allowed to launch the original games in return for the financial support. So they had to release the game to get the financial support. They just needed to release it because they got funding, because they got the funding right from the government. Damn, that's crazy. Okay, that's insane. Debate over the term the use of quadruple A has sparked debate within the gaming community, with some questioning whether it's a legitimate classification or just marketing hype. But like, eventually, it's got to happen. Quadruple A. There's there's double A, there's QUA, there's there's triple A, there's quadruple A. Yeah, it's got to happen, maybe, I guess. I mean, well, if what's quadruple A a billion dollars, like Call of Duty costs a fucking billion dollars almost to make you know what I mean. Well, GGA six will definitely cost up there is. G six might be quadruple A. You know, it's just that extra that extra quality. You know. Maybe it doesn't have to do with a budget, you know, it. May not exactly That is where I'm like, it doesn't. It could probably cost the same as a triple A. But I think it has to go beyond what what we get now is a triple A. Yeah, they're ship. Yeah, their garbage trash. Exactly like you could have a triple game. It doesn't matter. It's trash, that's ship like. So with that Skull and Bones. Okay, just in the back of your head. You can now get Skull and Bones for seventeen dollars. Wow, on sale on Xbox Sale last week. Well, we should probably play it. Maybe we should. I should should have picked it up. I'm sure it's gonna go down even moment. Yeah, you're waiting for it to bottom already, absolute rock bottom, going lower. It's going lower, it's going lower, it's coming down. When I played Skull and Bones, it was like the beta, but it felt gross, clunky, didn't look great. It looked like every other Assassin's creed. You know. It didn't give me that quality feel. Even the beta didn't really give me the idea that it was going to be quality quality Okay, I'm talking quality. Well it's a beta, but yeah, yeah, but what did they response? Did they say it was a quadruple A game like when they weren't launched the beta like at that time. Yeah, oh yeah, they were trying to market hype it. As Oh wow, how could you even say that. Oh man, that's that's such bad things that you can't say that. Right, Yeah, that's done. It's like putting your you're saying, you're putting it above every other game that's ever been released, you know, ever been released. In response to Ubisoft's quadruple A claim, CD Project read playfully announced that they would be developing I would say. That five a's five a's what's a five A like quinn tup quinn tuplet a games? Yeah, starting with the Witcher four and Cyberpunk sequel. This highlights subjective natures of these labels and ongoing discussions about. Yeah, cive quintuplet quintuplet quintuple A a quintuple A. Quintuple A game, but that goes and constitutes a game beyond the triple A level. So they were joking, right, because they don't know. No one knows. No one knows the meaning of a triple the meaning of a quadruple A game. The term is not universally agreed upon, but generally implies a game is significantly larger budget, scope and ambition. Like we said above, a triple A title. You maybe what your four will be one? Yeah, man. Maybe maybe. Okay, with all that being said, let's match up Death Straining to and see if we can call Death Straining to a quadruple A game. Okay, okay, I asked Claude, Claude, what does he know? Oh he searches the internet ship Now it's crazy. Okay, ask Claude what game would would what? I asked Claude what a game would have to do or be to be labeled a quadruple A game? And this is what he said. This is ridiculous. He said. A quadruple A game would need to transcend current industry standards in multiple dimensions simultaneously. Like okay, revolutionary technical achievement. Now, the game would need to push hardware to its absolute limits while maintaining flawless performance. Yes, death stranding, yes, yes, yes, tic tic tic right on the money. Okay. I have not had one single bug or crash or hitch or walk through wall like nothing. Nothing same either. Twenty five hours. Twenty yeah, I'm at twenty two hours, perfect, absolutely perfect. The performance, the performance of the game at thirty fps is astounding. It's the best thirty fps I've ever played. Probably And oh again, like I said, you could even make that for the first game, I never had any glitches. I never have any bugs. It ran fucking flawlessly. It looked amazing, the same thing playing on PC with the graphics cranked at four K like it was ran perfectly. Now do we have numbers on how much it costs to make this game? That's trying too. I mean, regardless, it's regardless at least triple A. But once you hit that triple A, I guess you could call it the budget barrier, yeah, or the studio budget barrier. You have to check off like these other boxes. Like we're saying, like optimization and performance is gotta be at the top of the list. It's gonna be at the top of the list, okay, because if you can make this game look that good and have all these systems and put it together without a hitch so it runs this smoothly, like that is an extra that's an extra thing that most triple A games do not have. They don't have it. Like, you can call yourself a triple A game all you fucking want, because you spend this much money and you're your Ubi software, you're whoever you are, Capcom looking at you, your game runs like ass and it looks like shit, like out of the box on PC and you're using up scaling, you're forcing up scaling and all this crap. Look at Death Stranding too. This is a benchmark, like a a baseline for a quadruple A game. It takes it to the next level. And I can't believe it's on PS five on a base psive. On a base PS five, I cannot with that hard. Yeah, yeah, I still cannot believe this. So they now I couldn't find exact numbers, but estimated cost because the exact numbers are unknown, is only ranging from like two hundred to three hundred million. Okay, well it's in a triple A range. Yeah, this doesn't put it in a quadruple A to it territory, but probably yet. But I'm look at it called quadruple A a budget barrier. That's not what I'm saying. I don't think so quadruple A transcends as Clode said, it transcends the budget barrier. Okay, it's more, it's more than that. Now we can talk about this game. I'm gonna say it is a quadriple A game. Okay, I'm gonna say I was gonna wait for the end to say that. I'm gonna say it is but because of these things. Okay, well we already said. The big thing for me is just the quality and everything that it is, and it runs just absolutely perfectly. Number One, the visuals. It's one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Yes, you know what else, Claude said that photo realistic graphics that are indistinguishable from reality. M I mean the environments look real. Exactly what happened When I first the camera was swooping in at the beginning of the game, I thought it was a movie. I thought it was like a real that's like a filmed move, I thought. I thought, Yeah, the same thing happened in the intro for the first game when it showed it was showing the landscape. That's the first shot. It's like a kind of sweeping and I was like, what this game is from twenty like eighteen or twenty nineteen. I'm like, this looks real, Like what is this the same thing? The same thing happened. So yeah, the graphics are, the environments look real, the mountains, all that stuff. The modeling, like the models, like the care model models really good. Yeah, not a lot of popping, you know, not a lot of blurredness or like weird jagged edges of fact, like they're so clean. It's so clean, it's so clean. Is this Is this the Decima engine? That's just what it is? Is that what it is? Well in the hands of Kojima Son. Yeah maybe yeah, well, I mean other Decima games look pretty good too, Yeah, but not this good. No. No, Horizon was in this Decima engine, and there was another game. I forget what it was called, but apparently it looked really good for the time when it came out a few years ago. But yeah, like the HDR on this game also is master to perfection. I was saying on the stream. It makes my monitor, like my desk monitor just pop, like it doesn't ever do in Windows playing anything else. Wow. Okay, that's also an issue with the console games. HDR is just better than Windows. Games like it than Windows because that's just the way it is. Like on the TV in the basement, same thing. The HDR looks amazing. There's an unbelievable looking part in the game. You're past this part already with the sparks and shower all everywhere. As you're walking around like it's the best display of HDR I've ever seen in a game. It's absolutely like you just stop and I was just like, what, like, what is this? Like? I couldn't believe it. Even album was like wow, Yeah, I was like, look at this. She's like, oh my god, I couldn't believe it. The colors, it's insane. That's like the new demo for HDR should have created a save. I forgot I was going to create a save like at that part so you could go back to it and just experience it again whenever you want it. But like, this is a demo for HDR. This should be on every like high end TV in the store kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, like that's what it is. That's what it's all about. That is what it's about. Now check it out. While you say that, Claude said another thing to look out for Quadruple Games would be cultural impact beyond gaming. I don't know about that. Cultural transform transform trans transformative innovation. I mean, they're doing things that have not been done, Like clearly, just with the even just with the the graphics and the fidelity and the quality of everything alone has just never been done that I've seen. It's just not like a hull Blade two. Senua's Senua's Saga. That's the second one. Really good looking game, amazing, one of the best I've ever seen. But the HDR. I played it on Windows, so the HDR wasn't really like that. You know, maybe if I'd played it on Xbox I would have noticed it. But this is just on a whole other level. That was really good though. That was really good even now, like looking back it was a while ago. Two, Like, if you haven't played that game, that's a freaking gorgeous, gorgeous game. And the sound in that game too. Oh, it has some of the qualities of a quadruple game. Yeah, I would say, but yeah, this is just like man, the sound. Yeah, let's take a game. The sound in the game is. Every well done. Everything that happens is like finessed to perfection. Each sound that I hear, the crunkling of the rocks under his feet when he's running, or like the lightning and the rain spatter on the like when you're on like a metal surface, when you're when you're in like one of the main areas, when you're dropping off packages, it's like steel you know. The sound Oh, man, so good and like just the hydraulics whenever you're getting in and out of your truck or. Just playing on the headphones. Yeah, I've got the headphones with the virtual surround three D audio okay and unbelievable. And I've I did the the PS five thing where it like maps it to you you, Yeah, it configures it to your ears. How does it do that? So like you just tell it where you yeah, hear it from where you. Well, it has like a whole sphere around you, around your brain or your head, and it will do like a like a diagonal like swoosh, and you have to you have to select where you see it on the on the sphere, where you hear it, Yeah, where you hear it on the sphere, and then it'll give you another one and you have to try to get it where you hear it on the sphere like every and it does it like a whole shitload of times. Interesting because I'm playing it on a on the dedicated home theater, which is where I guess you notice the well, I guess you can notice it if you have the virtuals around things. But it's really really good. The object tracking, the crispness and the quality of it is really nice. It's completely different experience than than playing in headphones. I mean because you're like you hear it everywhere. Yeah, like you hear it in your in your ears, but on the speakers it allows the room to to help to affect it and to give you a little more space, you know what I mean. It Yeah, feels there's space around you. The soundtrack is really interesting and lead lends heavily to the flow and the vibe of the game. The voice acting is it's not it's not the best I've ever heard, but it's still good with known like actors. The direction to m hm. Like cinematic, the cinematic camera is. Just yes, yes, that was gonna say that. There's like the top tier camera work. Yeah, it's like unbelievable, just the sweeping work, and like it's when it allows you to kind of enable yeah, like or during each each cut scene, like the camera is right where it's supposed to be and it needs to be all the time. He's fucking this is genius. You're you're calling him a genius. Now he's a fucking genius. I thought he was a crazy man, Like I played his games before, right, I played his Mail your Solid one two, I didn't play Metal Scare three. Yeah, but you were also a lot younger when that. Yeah, so I wonder if we went back. I wasn't really yeah, and it wasn't really No. I try and the camera was absolute dog shit. On Mail year two, I was like, I can't play this. It's like you run into a room and it's like in the corner of the room the camera, and like your controls change every time you're in a different room because where the camera is. I think that's what's it called tent tent cameras. Like it's kind of like what Resident Evil used to do. I don't like that. So I'd run into a room, the controls would change, and he'd run back out of that room. Yeah, it's something. Stupid like that. But but this is like the camera work is so good. It engages you, it hooks you, and it like pushes that story bit like perfectly at the pace as supposed to go. And then the story is a unique premise, gives you, you know, nice bread crumbs of things and leads you along, makes you want more and find out more. It's just everything about the game is just a really is good quality. It's a triple plus, triple plus or a quadruple A. You know what's the difference. It's another level. Yeah, it's another level. Yeah, but like yeah, on the home theater, it's sick and the I just love it. I just love the HDR. I love when the game does that good and I can use it utilizes the money that I spent on my ship. You know what I'm saying, thank you, thank you, mister Kojima, thank you. You know what I mean. It's like, oh, yes, I have Dolby at most five point one point two, but the most speakers are only as good as the studio masters is exactly and uses them, and half of them fucking don't. They don't take the time, you know, because it's not making them any extra money. But it's people who care, and it's people who are passionate. Those are the ones. Those studios get it right, and they do it for the fans, they do it for the people at home, They do it for those people. That's what it is. And you can tell that everyone wants to work with this guy, with Kojima, and they just want to be part of his world, you know. And it's like coming to O'Brien in the first one. Did you see that clip said it's so stupid he's wearing the otter hat. I actually found an otter hat in the in the second one, and I was like, oh, the otter hat. But like I can't, I can't put it's it's really it's hard to explain, like he he had this vision right the first one. It's like the first one had had been done already. I had never played the first one, so coming into the second one, I was fresh, right, and everyone's like, the second one does everything the first thing of the first one does, but like better, that's what everyone is saying online. Yeah, and. Like that's just nice quality of life stuff too. Some things easier, there's not. There was more. It was harder to get around in the first one then this one for sure, like it was more of a walking simulator. You had to traverse, you had to like build your ship. But like that's why the ziplines were so huge for me. In the first one was like ziplines everywhere, boom boom, boom boom. But now you don't even have to really use the zip lines because they give you zip lines on the monoail thing. So it's like, oh, that's really good. And you can tie your zip lines to those two. So it's like, really, and when I unlocked the zip lines, can't I see other people's ziplines that I've already been placed? If it makes it your way, makes their way into your game? Yeah, m hm yeah, I have tons of ziplines. I don't really know how that is actually working. That whole thing where you can spec into it and you'll see more stuff, but I don't know. I did so I could try to see more stuff. I was like, I want to see more shit, so I spell that way. You're not If you don't have zip block planes unlocked, you're not going to see anything but like generators and watch towers and ship. Right okay, yeah, where were we? So we covered how amazing the game looks. Okay, it's top tier. It's like it's the best looking game I've ever seen, like that I've played. The motion capture and the animations of everything is like I can't describe how how perfect the animations are. Like the motion cap that they do in this game is better than everything I've ever seen. No one's walking into walls like no one like his foot whenever he walks on the rocks. Right, you trip over little fucking rocks, and. You see his weight shift when he goes up onto like a larger boulder or whatever. Like you could see his weight because that's part of the mechanic of the game. Right. It's so fucking cool. It's so sick, just like whenever the cinematics happen. The facial expressions are spot on. Just the way they move. They're not robotic, you know, they're not. They don't have that video game like motion video game like in Henry, there's video game motion in their in their mo cap, you can tell it's like a video game. Like if you were to put some sort of filter on this game, like a different lighting, because it doesn't have rate racing, so the lighting isn't as close to perfect as you can get. It's very good, right, but it's not rate traced lighting. If this was right race lighting, it would look real, it would be real. It would be a movie. You're playing a movie, maybe yeah, but maybe yeah maybe. But like, even even without the race racing, it's phenomenal with with the screen space reflections that they have and and the lighting that they're using is it's crazy good. It's crazy good. So this brings me to my point. In photo mode, I can alter the lights. They give you the option to add lights, like light here, you want to light here? Oh you want to Spider Man game, do that too? Yes, you want to light here, you want to light there? You want to light there? Sure have lights. Okay, this photo mode is the best photo mode I've ever I've ever played. Everything in this game is the best I've ever seen and played and felt. It's crazy. I'm like, oh, the way they did that, that's the best I've That's the best I've seen it. Those characters, the best looking, the best looking characters i've seen, environments, best looking, everything best best best best best HDR. Yeah, we have a game of the year on our hands. I'm I've not done it yet, but if the if, the if the ending can land right and bring me together here and not make me like, oh, that's kind of stupid that if the ending can land then like this is. This is amazing. This game is shaping up to be my game of the year for sure. It actually is getting better than Henry, just. Because I don't know, if I haven't as much fun as I I was playing Henry in terms of fun factor and yes, okay, and just playing and sinking time in and just like, you know what I mean, having a blast. Maybe there's different. It's different. It's more of a journey. It's a cinematic, yeah, experience, it's different. It's different than that. So I don't want to compare Kingdom Kingdom, Come Deliverance too and Death Stranding to I don't really because they're kind of separate. But we're gonna have to in one of our episodes coming up, in our Game of the Year episodes, We're gonna have to make a decision. You know. It's gonna be tough. And then yeah, Ghost of Yote is gonna come out before Oh my god, that looks insane too. Yeah, well yeah, like it like, I can't say enough good things about this game, and I can never wait to play more of it. And I'm not even doing anything. I'm just going around delivering fucking packages, you know, and listening to the sick tunes on the music player that I get from the musician. Do you just have them playing all the time, I'll. Have the play I created my custom playlist with the ones I like, and I just when I feel like when I'm on the road, you know, I get on the I'll turn it on, turn on, and I'll listen to the playlist. Okay, m hm cool. Yeah, I haven't done that yet. I haven't created the playlist. I just kind of But sometimes it gives you music anyway, Like when you come up to a part or something and you're yeah, yeah, you're you're heading into a delivery, one of the storyline deliveries. Maybe it'll start playing a song from the soundtrack and it gives you a little gives you a little vibe and gets you gets you in the next part of the story, which is cool. But yeah, I mean, what else can we say. I don't know if we really care to add these monikers like Quadruple A, but if there was one, then Scull and Bones is not not it. It's not it, and Death Stranding too. Is. Yeah. I think it's as I think it's as close as I could say. Like it's better than Like the experience is better than any other Triple A game that I've played, like the performance, the graphics to performance, the audio, the visuals, the the mechanics so fun. I just love the mechanic of the delivering the packages and like falling over stumbling, Like I was stumbling so much at the beginning. It was fucking funny. And I was laughing the sandstorms, how I can hide in the damp storms, dude. But I'm fucking stumbling. There was one time I'm like tripped over something like I look away. I don't know, I looked away from the TV or something for one second and he's like, and I look back at I have this giant stack of fucking shit on my back and he's like whoa. I'm like, well fuck, and then he's like he writes himtuff like I got the grips on it, and he's like, fuck dude. He said that. I'm like, dude, I literally said the same fucking thing, and the fourth line, yeah, like Norman Maritas fucking said it. Right after. I was just like, fuck dude, and he's like, fuck dude. I was like, oh my god, it was so funny. It was sweet guy. What a sweet guy he's I. Thought he'd be typecast forever with what's it called Walking Dead, but like he's landed very nicely in this game. He doesn't talk too much, you know, he's doesn't need to talk too much, and he's just like there, he's that dependable delivery man that you need to deliver your goods. He's gonna fucking do. It delivering pizzas. I delivered a hot pizza two minutes through a field of BET's, just drove right through and then one of them. They were those giant ones. I don't know if you've come across these fucking massive giant they're called watchers or something. I only got the one where they pulled me under the tar and it dragged me across the map. It was like a it was like a lion. They had like a face, like a butthole face. Oh it's like a monster. Oh, this is just like one of the BET's, but they're like bigger. Anyway, grabbed my truck and stopped me, and I was like no, no, and I have a pizza and I got out. I just got out and started tossing blood grenades and it killed him and I was like, yes, I get back in and fucking b line it to the delivery two minute pizza. Imagine that unbelievable. What I was gonna say. Back to uh its development. De's training too has been in development for some. Viewers five years. I think five years with an original release day of twenty twenty three, but the development cycle significantly got significantly impacted by COVID nineteen. Initial story concepts were conceived in late twenty nineteen early twenty twenty, but the pandemic led to a rewrite of the narrative and the end release date of twenty twenty five. So it really hit like full development began in twenty twenty two because of the pandemic complications with the motion capture and other key production phases like imagine that came out in twenty twenty three. Would it look as good? You think? Would it be as good? Probably? There's no ray tracing. I mean why not? PS five was out in twenty twenty three. That's true? Yeah, why would look better now? I mean they have more time to work on this thing. I guess could have. Yeah, But like this, like every everything that I can, you know, Claude comes up with some really ridiculous things that I don't think we will ever see. Like transformative innovation. The game would need to fundamentally change how we think about interacting entertainment. This could be breakthrough in VR and AR integrations, revolution revolutionary AI companions that feel truly alive or mechanics true that have never been attempted before. This mechanic was never attempted before. What the delivering and like the stumbling and you have to like keep yourself balanced. There's delivery games, paper Boy, Nintendo did it. Paper Boy. Tossed in papers. Like you could say, you could say death straining to half of this stuff. Like can you say another game that is mechanically like death straining? No, not that I've played off the top of my head. I can't. Just delivering stuff. And like just the way he delivers them and how you're like you're just like upgrading your suit, you upgrade your boots, upgrade, like just to get like you know, your boots where you're not killing people. You never kill anybody, right or because of the of what happens. If you you can't in this game. But you could kill people in the first game and then you had to you had to take their body to a fucking incinerator. Oh that's cool. Why did they get rid of that? I don't know, m that's but yeah, I had to do it a couple of times. I was like, fuck that, man, I'm not doing that again. Like you never do that because you're just like, then I have to deliver this guy halfway across the map to an incinerator because there's only. Like before you get a game over. Well, yeah, he'll explode. Wow that's crazy. See that is crazy because then you're like, no, I don't want to kill this guy, like fuck that. Yeah, you know that's unbelievable. So like that kind of thing. So, you know, graphics, sound, the narrative is fantastic. It's keeping me going, like everything about it, everything about animations, motion captures, the polish on this game. I've never seen a game this polish before, never. Drew never, that's correct, that's a fact, has never happened. And the fact that it's a PS five exclusive for what's going to be what a year or two maybe, but that's bonkers. That's crazy. Yeah, this is huge for PS five. Yeah. PS five pro. It must look fucking. Unbelievable, Yeah, must I don't know if it looks much better. Probably they probably do it like sixty instead of thirty. Maybe maybe I think a Digital foundry actually had a video on it. Oh yeah, probably, but but man I can't. I just want to play now, Yeah, I just want to freaking play it. Well, I think we've said everything. I think we've said everything. But do we believe in triple quadruple A games? And I think we do. I think we do. I think this is the start of quadruple A gaming. This, this could be it. Just the quality, this overall quality has beat everything I've ever played in my entire life. Just the quality, the polish, and the perfection of everything he's put his brain to and his fingers touching in this game. There's nothing I can't point and say, eh, you know what I mean, or I don't like that, there's nothing I've I've come to nothing. If there's a tedious task, he's made it somehow fun or or. You didn't notice one thing. I didn't notice that. The there is if your zip lines are kind of too far away, you can't really see them until you get a little bit closer, which is a little annoying because I want to know where I'm going next, and I can't see the next zip line until I'm like within three hundred meters. Okay, but I mean you can see forever you see peckle limitations. You can see across the freaking map though, Like, if I want to see my little my next zipline. I want to see the two the two bright ass blue lights that are burning my retinas because they're so bright on the HDR. I'm like, oh, there's my zip line. But yeah, that's a small thing. Yeah, like I have I have yet to say why the hell do you do that? Like why why am I doing this? I say that in every game, like oh, they shouldn't have done that, this is annoying, or like something there's always something okay, like in Kingdom Come to Limers too, there's multiple of those, multiple of times where I was like, oh, not to do this, or I'd like I'd like to do this, but it's so tedious and like they could have sped it up or whatever. But like everything he's put into this game feels like it was crafted and polished to perfection where it's just like while you're doing it, you don't feel like it's a chore. And you can fast travel in this game too, yeah, if you want. I have. I did a one because I did not want to go back to the the animal because getting to the animal place really sucks. Because I have to build a ZIP network. Got it all Yeah until then, But like I don't want to go up there again. So I was like, I'll just fast trouble. I don't care m hm. And and it was there and I could do it. Yeah, you just get less reward for that. Yeah, I don't care about that less XP though, But. What uh so good, so good? And I was like playing in the photo mode and I was like, thank you for this photo mode. I've got so many good photos out of this one. It's incredible. It's incredible nice. But yeah, like that's it. I can't say anything else about. How quadruple games just an amazing experience about it. It's a quadruple a game. Yep. There you go, like, if you have a PS five prol you should be buying this game. Maybe this is the stuff that PlayStation is going to start coming up with. Now. We were waiting a long time, like we were talking about, we were waiting what was the last PlayStation game before this? You know what I mean? Like that I played it was like God of War, was it, Ragnarok? Spider Man two? Spider Man two, Spider Man two, yep, this is like on another. Level what you buy a PlayStation for. Yeah, exactly. And Ghost of Yote I think it looks like it might be kind of similar. So if this is what you get when you when you buy a PlayStation five and you you have to wait for between those titles, but you get something like this, I mean exactly. Yep, that's you get to wait for quality. M hmm. This is the utmost cast. That's what it is. That's what it is. You wait, that's what That's what the Sony life cycle is. You're just waiting for the for the IP and. They've been playing with their they've been playing with their dick in their hand for so. Long because they've been remastering sixty five different versions of Last of Us or whatever the fuck they're doing. Come on, but this isn't Sony, this is this is Kojima, right. Yes, but yeah, right, it's just I'm talking Sony in general. Yeah, PlayStation in general. Maybe he was like, I need to put this on PlayStation because this is like, this is what PlayStation gamers want. He's Japanese, he's always been a PlayStation guy. Fuck the suits over in America, you know, fuck those dirty suits firing guy. Yeah for sure. Anyway, Uh yeah, anything else, No, I think I think that's it. I think that's it nice short one, nice short one here for you for your peeps. Uh. That's it for this week's episode. We want to thank everyone for taking the time to listen, in or watch. Please be sure to like, a subscribe on YouTube and give us a rating and review on Spotify or Apple if you could. It helps us get out there to more listeners who may enjoy the show. Also, we are part of the super Pod Network, a network of podcasts. You can find it, browse and check out over at superpodnetwork dot com. Remember, you can always leave us a DM on Facebook, Instagram. Maybe you can tweet us now. What do you mean? Why now? Or message us on Blue Sky And if you have any comments or want to ask any questions. Because Elon Musk broke up with Trump and it's not a propaganda shove down my throat every five seconds. It's still full of bots. Yes that's you. It's fake. Yeah, yeah, maybe that's why I have five hundred followers. Anyhow, thanks again everyone, and we hope you have a wonderful day or night whenever you are listening to this. Peace out Peace