#140: The Cost of Immersion

Sacred symbols, a PlayStation podcast is brought to you by, well, you. If you want to learn how to support our show, go to patreon.com slash last and media. Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to Sacred symbols, a PlayStation podcast.

This is episode 140. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always by the styling Chris Reagan, who just got his COVID test. You just got a COVID test.

When he talked to me earlier today, I thought he was telling me he was getting his COVID vaccine. No. So I don't, I'm illiterate, apparently, but Chris, how are you today? I'm doing all right.

Did I write vaccine? I definitely did. Okay. No, you certainly didn't.

I'm not going insane on my, on my, on my, but, yeah, no, I'm doing all right. It's, I'm in New York right now. So that's been a, that's been a thing. Yeah.

That's been happening. How's it going? It's good. It's good.

I'm, I already, I've already had more pizza in the last, um, I think three days than I have in the last several months. So that's nice. And I feel great too. Like I feel heavy, you know, like, like, like a dense, but I wouldn't have it any other way quite honestly.

You feel a dough in mozzarella. Oh, it's wonderful. I can't, I can't believe how much I miss this. Oh, yeah.

Well, welcome back and see you of course. And Dustin, we have you, you here with us again this week, Dustin from an executive producer of Last Amedia. How's life in Western Pennsylvania and Butler, Pennsylvania, am I allowed to say that? Yeah, that's fine.

Yeah, things are, things are good. I'm starting to like, do you guys get a thing where in like mid March, I'm just like feels like, obviously everyone's day feels the same because of COVID, but when like, especially when it's cold, I'm not leaving the house. And so it's like, I've no concept of what day it is, what time it is. And, um, I think I'm dying, honestly, I think I'm losing my mind or I just don't know anymore.

I was kind of tailor made for the situation. So I don't feel like my life's changed that much. Yeah. The weather's getting nicer.

So I'm outside walking around more with the dog and digging around the house in the yard. But yeah, those kind of blurring to each other. March is a very, I don't know, it's very vanilla month because you kind of getting out of the winter, you're waiting for the spring. I was thinking, when I was walking, I was literally thinking myself yesterday, I'm like, what is that saying?

Oh, yeah, April showers bring me flowers. So you are, we're just waiting for something to happen right now. You know, we're waiting for the April showers to bring me flowers as it were. Yeah, never been a big fan of March personally.

No, it just kind of exists. The thing about March is you might get a warm day or two, but it's just a tease because it's going to be fucking terrible the next week after. That's what happened to me. It's like 60 degrees two days ago.

And now, no good. Now you. It's also, I was talking to Mike about this. It's hard.

You know, you can tell you it's this time of year because it doesn't retain any heat. Like it's really nice during the day, but then it just gets really cold at night because just the ground is like emanating freezing and it is a strange time. But nonetheless, I get to see you both and good to see you all out there. Our wonderful audience, Sacred Simples, our weekly PlayStation podcast, supported on Patreon and patreon.com slash last stand media.

We appreciate your support over there. By the way, I was looking at the numbers today and this continues to be true. We have more subscribers on Patreon at the $5 level, just the $5 level, not $5 up or $5, just the $5 level in every other level combined. And I feel like people should be looking at that level even more.

It's got it's a chock full of value right now because Sacred Simples, Sacred Simples plus defining Duke, defining Duke ultimate knockback is on there as well. And the knockback video, of course, that we're doing and then your ability to submit questions, comments, concerns, and ideas and all that. Now, some of those are available below at those tiers. If you want to join us at $1 or $2, but just wanted to reiterate, thanks to everyone that supports us.

And especially thank you to everyone that's at that $5 tier and the kind words that you are submitting based on that. We are very proud of that $5 tier and we would love to have you on Patreon. The $5 tier is definitely out. Could be argued.

It's an irresponsible amount of value. Yeah. That probably is. I mean, I probably could have raised prices, but I'm not going to.

I'm not going to do that. No. Seems, you know, I'm all about trying to generate revenue with volume. I'm supposed to ask people for too much.

We just want to have as many people on board at a lower price as possible and then distribute the wealth evenly in a very communistic style situation we have. But thank you so much for supporting us. If you don't listen to us on YouTube, listen to us on free feeds, leave us nice reviews, comment on the videos, leave a thumbs up, whatever. Dustin and I were just, I mean, I heard myself on the background now, but we were just talking about how awesome the podcast is doing on YouTube.

And you'll notice, by the way, things are happening back here now in the background. We're not anywhere near being done, but I got a shelf here. Did you hang your things up finally? No, no, certainly not.

I hung two things up in the house so far. Right. A resistance retribution post right there. Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it for years.

It's above my bed and my bedroom. Now that was my good idea. And it's actually really cool because it's the, it's that famous lapsed picture of like the Eiffel Tower being built. So it's like, Eiffel Tower.

It's people go look at it. It's like a famous shot where it's like nothing and then it's like a base and then it grows right. And then so that shot and then the final shot is the Chimera destroying it. And it's like a really cool little post.

So I hung that up and I hung something in my kitchen. But that's it. But I have this shelf. I didn't put it together.

Mike did it. I don't know how to do it, but there are things on here. The little, you know, Montekuma, which is also on Dusins. Sure.

Right now we got Earl Slime. That's Tinker Knight right there from Shole Knight. It's Dr. Wily.

You got to get your shit in order, man. You got to get, how long have you been in that house and you hung two things up? I bought this. Yeah, I've moved in June 15th of 2020.

So we're moving on a rapid and brisk pace. Yeah, but I wanted to let everyone know that those things are happening as well. Yeah, well, now things are happening. So now we're really moving.

I'm sure that shelf look very different next week. I'm sure it won't actually. All right, let me open up the document here. I haven't even looked at it.

Oh, merch. So it's funny. So Dusins has been mostly dealing with this. We're dealing with a guy named Rob, American Prince on Demand.

Nice guy. He actually emailed me. I have to email him back because I haven't been talking to him at all. But I don't think he'll mind.

I'm going to read this part of his email verbatim because I really am so honored by this. He's a listener of the show. He said that. I mean, he said that email, which is very cool.

And by the way, he plugged you to Dusins saying how good of a person you were to work with. But here's what he said, which I wanted to thank in part. Here's what Rob said. Maybe I should have stood up at the time and said something.

Matthew O'Malley speaks for all of them. He says, what the hell, Colin? May Chris call his mother back right now and tell her that he loves her before hanging up. I don't know what Eldritch Hole Chris clawed his way out of with his tiny little soft hands.

But this is ridiculous. I was in complete disbelief when you and Dusins let this unimaginable disrespect transpire. What is this absolute heresy you're letting fester on this podcast? Anytime your mother calls you answer it to tell her that you're busy, you better at the very least tell her that you'll ever before hanging up.

You're on Thin Ice Chris and Summer's coming, buddy. Whoa. Chris, what do you think of that? So he's referencing in the last week's episode your mom called you during the show.

You obviously couldn't accommodate her at that time, but you just kind of whisked her away as if she was a telemarker. What do you think of that? I mean, I don't know. The words I love you are not often said in my family.

They're said whenever people are leaving or whatever the hell. But it's very, I don't know. We have in my immediate family, we have a very casual, casual, because that's not really the way it goes. But it's very kind of friendly.

It's very much just like, hey, listen, I can't talk right now. I gotta go buy. It's very much like, she's done this to me multiple times as well. So I don't feel too bad about it.

But obviously my mom's amazing. And she's hilarious. I found it interesting because you are very close to your family. So it's not like you came from, you were born in a barn or something like that.

A lot of people don't also get along with their families. We kind of take that for granted, right? Because we get along with ours. So you're not in those situations.

And so it just goes to show you that it's different strokes for different folks. Is it not? I think it is. I normally would be like, yeah, I love you by whatever the fuck, but I wasn't thinking.

I was in recording mode quite honestly. You were confused and I think you did a nice job with it. But nonetheless, I was surprised. We got quite a bit of feedback about this and I wanted to acknowledge it.

That means most people are kind-hearted, I guess. You know, all the stuff that's going on with, I promise it's not political. I'm telling you because I just wanted to tell you. You know, all the stuff going on with Andrew Cuomo and the governor in New York right now was being accused of.

So I was watching his press conference. I don't usually watch the stuff, but I was watching his press conference and he was going, I don't know if you guys saw this particular part where he sang like there are hundreds of pictures of him kissing people and stuff like that. And in my mind, I was like, you know, I'm not a huge Cuomo fan. I don't know if you're a fan of his dad either.

He used to be the governor in New York. But when he was explaining because he's Italian, he was saying like, oh, you know, I kissed everyone. I said hello to him. You know, we hug and we kiss and stuff.

And part of me was like, regardless of what he's being accused of, which is a painless, part of me was like, oh, yeah, I guess my family does that too. Like I kissed my uncle on the cheek when I see him and you know, like my cousins and, you know, it's a very Italian thing. So we all kind of meet in different ways, but I think it's just based on what you're used to. And for some reason, we Italians just make it out with everyone.

You know, open face, make it out. That is something that I've noticed around a lot of Italian families. It's like, yeah, that's how that goes. Yeah, everyone's just kissing each other.

Yeah, it's just constantly kissing each other. I expect a kiss. Well, next time. Sure.

All right, Seth Bain wrote in with something. I thought this was, I don't know, this is very deep. And I'm surprised that he's not talking about it here. This is, this requires some sort of analysis.

He says, Casey and see, Dustin's also here. He says, my friend and I both had dreams about sleeping with each other's girlfriends within the same week. Does this make us emotional swingers? Should we tell our girlfriends about this?

Any and all advice is welcome. So this is interesting. This is interesting on many levels because, all right, you have a dream about sleeping. People can control the dreams they have about it.

I'm sure it means something, but people have dreams about sleeping with people all the time. It's not about a huge deal. But your friends girlfriend and then he had the same dream with your girlfriend. So that's another layer of the.

And then the third layer of the is, should you tell your girlfriends? I don't know, of course. What do you think? No, what?

Definitely not. Definitely don't mention this to anyone. The fact that you even wrote this into us attached to your name, it's bad enough. Hopefully, I hope to God this is like a pseudonym for you because this is not information that you want out in the wild.

It's not really means all that much. You're not going to be able to explain that away. You're not going to be able to casually and logically explain any part of this. Right.

So it's best to just, you just got to pretend like none of this happened. If it happens again, then maybe consult like a psychic or something. You know, because that would be weird if it happened again. And both of you like synchronize the same dream again.

That's cosmic shit that I have no, you know. Yeah, we can understand that level of universal fabric. That would be required for that sort of anomaly. Dustin, what do you think about this situation?

I just don't think that if I had that kind of dream that I would tell my friend that. I don't think I would really tell anybody that because like let's just, you know, you tell your friend it's like, Hey, I had a dream about sleeping with your girlfriend. That's basically saying, Hey, my subconscious brain wants to have sex with your lawyer. Yeah, that definitely is what I mean.

So I just don't, I just, I'm surprised that it even got, it's multiple layers here. First of all, they told each other and then second that they wrote in to this show about it. And they're even considering taking another step by telling the ladies involved. And I just don't know.

You're going to open up a lot of questions. I think he wants to. I'm starting to wonder if Seth wants to because I'm starting to wonder if like what they really want to do is swing. Yeah, that's cool.

I mean, that's cool. If you want to do it, because you're asking are you guys emotional swingers? No, it's a dream. I've had dreams about all sorts of shit.

I don't really feel like you're responsible for that. It's not fucking minority or something, but it's interesting that you then, because what's interesting about is he had the dream. So then he had to make a decision about telling someone like Chris was saying, right? He told his friend.

But then the weirder cosmic thing, Chris's point is that his friend then also had the same dream in the inverse. Also made the decision to tell him. Yeah. And I don't know what your intent is here, Seth, but I think I do.

I think I know your intent is. And that's fine to each his own. Yeah, like if your goal is to just get to see if this is possible at the risk of possibly destroying two relationships. Then I guess like, hey man, if that's the value that you've weighed on this whole situation, go ahead and do it.

And by all means, let us know how that goes. Please do. Like I would be beyond curious to see like how this, what the fallout of this is. You know, because there's a chance, there's a chance man that this works out perfectly.

And, uh, hey man, you know, how many years you got on this planet? Maybe 70 to 100. That's like a good estimate. Why not?

Why not? Go ahead. Well, I mean, I'm in the right direction. Been in the right direction.

It's a great indicator of the square root of the whole. So, you know, I, I, who I, who I am, I've, I've just said a whole, which is a very specific place in space where it's just perturbed in certain ways. And that's what he's gotta hit. Yeah, he's gotta hit that.

He'll pardon the pun. There's no sexual in the window there. He's got it. He's got to thread the needle.

Yeah. And it's gonna be a difficult thing for you to do. You know? So.

No. So. You have something in the hand. Doesn't he'll get hurt.

He'll get hurt. You know? I mean, I have this problem that I can't help. Now my subconscious is gonna get back.

Maybe there's a revenge situation going on. It's like black mirror. Yeah That's a kind of a black mirror situation. We don't know the order of opera This could have been simultaneous to it could have been like hey man.

I had a dream It could have been like hey, I had a dream about your girlfriend. It's like yo, what wild me too It's like what was the dream? It's like oh, this was like what me too. What the hell like we don't know We don't know the specifics of this of this story.

I don't really think they're important really I just I'm I'm curious as to how this is gonna play out So so please please I'm wondering if they have such a a like a connection that Let's say Seth was having sex with his girlfriend while his friend was dreaming whoa of having sex with his girlfriend Then they discover when they get really into the meat that they're like he's like so what you know They were like oh, you know, it was like missionary or something like that. Well, I was I was in other words He was it was like a body double situation. Oh, it was like the it was like the Assassin's Creed Animus type deal right Yeah, yeah, that's a whole another Let's move on please Get some video game news now. We're not gonna get into the news news Yeah, but there are a few things you should touch on here I actually wanted to start with this Elden ring stuff because uh and us and you're here so we should really take advantage of that You're for some reason very excited about this game I understand why I just in some ways I don't understand why because I don't really know what the hell it is But Elden ring was some of this what it leaked apparently.

I mean it looks real It doesn't look very high quality, but it looks real I don't I still can't tell what it is and we still don't have anything people were kind of hypothesizing that it was gonna be soon What are your thoughts on this saga? So to my understanding? This is an internal trailer that was never meant to be for the public and so I I haven't watched it just because It's like seriously It was looks like it was recorded with like a rate a Motorola razer from 2006 Like I don't know it almost feels like blatantly bad quality on purpose like it's very weird I saw the first five seconds like I was scrolling Twitter in the morning I was like you know what's this and then I moved on but I still think it's it seems like all the rumors are pointing that we're going to get an Actual reveal trailer sometime this month those rumors are still out and about to spike this leak, but yeah, it's very exciting I'm curious about what their strategy everything points to a 2021 release at the time so yeah Definitely not gonna happen now. I would assume but there isn't a lot of hype building for this Microsoft event Yeah, Maddie's been talking about it.

I think I'm defining to there's like rumblings of like something possibly being pretty big But like you know who the hell no This is just like this is like rumors of rumors at this point You know it's so early on and so little is known that it's possible. We see some other ring stuff I don't know why would see at the Microsoft event. They debuted the trailer. Oh, yeah They might have a marketing deal.

We don't know yeah, it's not me it seems like they probably do If the baby view half in there, but I don't know it seems everything's backed up now because of covid so who knows what the plan was I agree with you I thought that it was funny because you know you see secret or like I'm sorry when you see well Yeah, secret stuff whether it's real or whether it's fake right and it's always a horrible quality to convince you that it's real or fake Yeah, and like you would see those Nintendo like write-ups that happen like the internal documents in there or whatever in that or I remember when Gears of War Redux for PlayStation 3 I think it was leaked and quotes and all that and so you kind of have to death all baked into the cake It's interesting like people are like well, we have to make it So it was I watched the footage and I really couldn't even tell quite what it was but it was like you're right It was it seemed to me like the person was definitely knowledgeable They didn't get trouble if whoever wasn't they like very quickly or something took some video or also There's no identifying marks about who true who might be everyone the we you guys were when the we you leaked This was back in the neo-gapte is and someone found the roof in the reflection of the screen What they thought was like the front of a Ubisoft dev studio team like there was a reflection in it and then someone someone like went on Google Maps or something and found where the we you apparently leaked from people are nuts Yeah, be careful. Yeah, that's it because like that's it's amazing like I remember when um when the Xbox 360 did their first like major dashboard Refresh some people were like leaking leaking screenshots of it, but like what they didn't realize was that The main menu had like a little Xbox logo in the corner and like ripples on the ground is like part of the graphics design But apparently those ripples signified like a barcode kind of so they could read like a no exactly what console send it and like what exactly like Interesting. Yes, and they all just got completely nuked and it was pretty good. Yeah, it's a good stuff I mean, it's the same way how artists often put text or something in like one gradient off from the sky or something in the Corner of a piece of art and you won't even see it and that's how they find people that steal their stuff That's one of marks.

Yeah, definitely so yeah Well, keep an eye out for Elden Ring especially with Dustin's finger on the pulse Chris for you rumors of death stranded extended edition These rumors are pretty consistent and the rumor is that they're done This seems believable mean and I feel like this is actually what was being teased by Phil Spencer on his shelf I do think there was something to that maybe maybe maybe not but Do you want more death stranded? I don't know like I I Really really loved and I don't know if I'm gonna go through it. I'm going to stranded by with this training I don't know why I'm calling that. Yeah, sorry.

That's fine But I loved death's running like very very dearly I think it's like one of the best games I've ever played because it's so strange and so unique and just so cool And I'm glad I got made I don't know if I'll go through it again because it was like even as much as I enjoyed it I I don't think it needed like I don't know what the extended edition could possibly be like more deliveries Like I don't know if I want more of those You know I mean I feel like the game was already kind of getting to the point where I was like this is a bit long Like this doesn't need to be as long as it is I like it and I appreciate it But it's it could stand to be cut a little bit so I don't know if an extended edition interests me so much as the interesting idea of Phil Spencer possibly teasing this as like yeah, I could like a Death training is gonna be on Xbox which is that would be pretty wild because that's something that I wouldn't expect it even though it is on PC So that's if that's the case that's really cool Because I think that game deserves to be as spread out as possible I think anybody who hasn't experienced it really should at least give it a shot and the fact that entire potential new user base of people Will have that experience is pretty cool, but I don't know if I'm necessarily itching for more death stranding per se So much as I'm interested in just seeing what cojima is gonna do next, you know It will be weird because There are so many things that would say that that's not even possible. Yeah, mostly that Sony Publish the game and owns the IP and it's running on Playcations engine in Decima, but I feel like there's more to this Relationship because not only of the 505 games publishing the PC version Sony opting not to but just because they must have made serious concessions with coaching But it get him and the deal is people will remember was like a fire sale It happened really quickly after he left Konami So they probably were there were probably a lot of eager people trying to lock him down and so you would imagine that this would be a Game where it would be possible simply because by virtue of coaching but being involved and maybe getting some different things out of them Including maybe you fund the game up front Maybe we do use your engine in your technology and we have the right to do with what we want with the game later And I think it would be a really cool thing to see just because that would break open the possibility that it can happen Maybe with more second party games. Yeah, I'm trying to see those games go to Xbox as well and He's gone. It's like that.

Yeah, wow Dustin. Yes. Did you see and did you both see the BAFTA Game Awards nominations that went out? BAFTA of course a really well respected Up there with the I was saying terms of like industry awards that are meaningful.

I was thinking before about how these words don't really mean anything for us, but they're really important to attract talent and People don't really pay attention to what wins the game awards, but they do internally pay attention to what wins dice awards and BAFTA So I wanted to bring up that Sony PlayStation, you know, exclusive games dominate the BAFTA nominations I think a third of them or so a third of the categories or so have a PlayStation game in them including the last of us part two with 13 nominations Best game of the year Animal Crossing goes to Sashima Hades Half-Life Alex Miles Morales in the last of us part two And they have an award obviously because it's British award show and British award series for British press British game Dreams is nominated for that along with Stackboy a big adventure and then in animation Doom internals in there, but Final Fantasy 7 remake is in there and then Miles Morales and last part two are also in there Some Xbox up as well with Ori and the Will of the Wisps and then artistic achievement This is an interesting one mostly because um cyberpunk 2077 is in there I think it'll be pretty controversial that one but then dreams is in there goes to Sashima Hades Half-Life Alex in the last Let's part two so people can go look at the award nominations, but um, yeah, a lot of PlayStation games in there It doesn't do care about that. No, I'm looking at them now, and I mean the cyberpunk thing it'll be I hope it does I mean, I don't know I don't I'm looking at the artistic achievement one now, and it's like yeah that game is Gorgeous on PC it very well made deserved to win that award So it just to me that'd be silly if people were upset about that But I think you're right in that they will be Yeah, it would be it would be very interesting just based on the the tenor of the industry right now Another interesting piece of just passing news Takashi Mochizuki at Bloomberg in Japan notes that PlayStation 5 will likely get open up It's storage capabilities this summer. I'm here somewhere so You know if you're filling up that hard drive really quickly which as we noted I think Chris noted last week, you know call of duty is almost a terabyte now I think yeah, it's updated can't really fit on ps5 or it's getting to that point There was a story recently like I think the last week or two where like call duty war zone or whatever the hell the most recent Call duty wouldn't even fit on a ps4 in general like or something like that like a base you for the ps4 just can't do it It's incredible. It's a really it's pretty bold especially game should be getting smaller now even the big triple A games because of the way The SSD reads things I think right so yeah because the way it streams down.

They don't need to like yeah They don't need to like replicate assets and stuff like that So I wanted to throw that out there Bloomberg also notes that and I'm sick of talking about the topic already But Harry Potter Hogwarts legacy the avalanche game is coming out in some controversy right now Apparently allowing for transgender characters in the game. This isn't a huge surprise I doubt this has anything to do with the controversy actually but Chris are you what do you think about this idea of including trans characters? I mean I know that this was a thing in them with cyberpunk as well Which makes a lot of sense with gender fluidity and the entire idea of cyberpunk but I feel like this is just I have no problem with it But I just don't understand why this is a talking point apart from the controversy Yeah, like it's on the back of the box as like a selling point It's as it seems like they're trying to make it into a song point which is a little weird like I would just be like hey This says it it should just be normal, you know Like it shouldn't like I mean the last of us and cyberpunk didn't have like a As far as I know maybe they did maybe I just missed it But like they didn't really make like a big deal out of the fact that there were trans characters in it, right? No as usual it was the audience they made a much bigger deal than the game which did it much more impressing in fact I think you could pretty easily even I don't know if you would miss it, but I don't want to say anymore actually I want to spoil you.

I forgot not everyone is played the last part to you're stupid if you haven't so Dustin yes, what do you make of this whole saga? It seems like it's kind of wrapping up although I think it might kick up because I was reading today HBO is an HBO Max are saying that they have like a bunch of stuff lined up with JK Rowling or rolling I've been told that I'm saying her name wrong, so I feel like this is just gonna be in perpetual the perpetual situation I just don't know why this is such a flashpoint for people I was actually I like the youtuber ContraPoints. She's a transgender political commentator And she does like these really high quality videos and I was watching her JK rolling video today Which is like an hour and a half long and I still don't know that I really I feel like it's a lot of this is kind of like overreaction or reading between the lines of things that people aren't really saying or meaning and then it's being Projected onto the game and onto a project that's somewhat innocent from all of this as well And then this thing that I feel like would actually be much more powerful if it was just there as a Afterthought as opposed to making it something would be much more impactful because then normal people are even people with what you might call bigoted or closed-minded views Would see that and be like oh, it's just here. It's just an option.

We're not even gonna make a big deal out This is the way it is, you know, so that's kind of where my mind is that but what do you what do you think Hogwarts? What kind of Hogwarts like a sea situation right now? Yeah, I feel like this is a big story just because of any kind of Social related thing with this game is going to be a story because it being related to JK Rowling at the moment So I don't know it's one of those things where I'm agreement that kind of just feels like a non-story because I'm guessing from here on out And that character creators are going to have transgender options And I think that's a good thing Yes, but because it's you're creating a character to roleplay you should be able to have as many options as you want So is this still newer so as far as giving people an option to do this? But it seems pretty singled out in this instance because people will they know that people click it because this game has been in the headlines Yeah, for a bunch of reasons that's for the most part unrelated to the game I mean sure there's the story about that we talked about last week with the the designer that has the YouTube channel But for the most part this game has been in the headlines for Things that aren't even really related to it.

Yeah, it's also one of these things where it feels like things just get attention Just because they're new and not because they're really controversial You know where it's it's kind of like the whole we kind of accept no shirt No shoes no service, you know as like a premise like we just kind of understand that but then like a mask is suddenly like infringing on people's rights And then people flip the fuck out where it's like if they had required a mask for the last 50 years Like you wouldn't have like you wouldn't care like it would just be part of it, you know That's a fair point and I just feel like this is kind of another one of those things where it's like They might be talking about it to make a I don't know who's talking about this and like for what purpose or like whether or not This is like a marketing thing to just get the game out to people's attention Or if it's just kind of preemptively kind of get ahead of the like one angry gamers of the world You know like the like those websites that are just like insane dude I just speaking about website by the way, I Wasn't recently but maybe within the last year I you know clicked on a link that I saw on Twitter that's saying it's fucking horrible Like I actually I actually didn't realize how bad it was I thought it was like this right wing reactionary thing I didn't really think twice about it's wildly unhinged like I remember I read one thing where there was like a I think Celeste was promoting like It was like something about Celeste how there's like a trans flag in it and so it was like oh that's right It was just some crazy shit like some wild conspiracy level stuff And I love that site for like entirely opposite reasons to yeah A parody it's like why it's like reading cracked but like everything is real, you know You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely it's like I love that satire site the Babylon B and they have another Twitter account That's not Babylon B, which is real stuff that you would think would be on the back Yeah, we're like reading stuff on like hard drive or something It's like this is wild that this is just a real person Kristin you get put on some kind of list. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that happening thing.

It was awesome Updating the list and I don't know what did you do you did something? I don't know what it was but I think somebody I can't remember somebody somebody on Twitter was like would you Somebody was grilling me. They were like I bet you'd find it too controversial to say black lives matter something I just tweeted not black lives matter whatever and they put me in that they put me on some list of oh Yeah, cuz I think the thing was like you if anyone even said it and so people were baiting or whatever right? Yeah, it's uh, you know back to the topic at hand about that the trans characters though What's I don't mean to reduce a trans person's existence in this way, but in terms of video games?

It's very simple to do so it's obvious to do because you're not you're not going into the psychological Gender dysphoria or the real-life social implications or you know all the shit that comes along with it that people have to deal with when they come out as trans in The in the game you're basically just saying like maybe we take a male character and I have like one of the female voices or Have the male clothes on the female. Yeah, it's just a model or whatever like it's it's not that hard. It's not a big deal You know, it's it's just not it's literally just asset adjustments and that's literally it. It's not it makes people feel more welcome.

That's cool Yeah, that's it's an answer really yeah, I agree. That's why we just talked about it for 25 minutes All right, and finally I just wanted it has nothing to do with PlayStation But this is an interesting industry story They just want to this story is fucking crazy between Nikon the publisher and Frogwares the developer and the game the sinking city which just came out specifically on PC Although the game was stripped off of PSN and and other things there's like this basic basically if you want to go read about it The developer and the publisher like at each other's the roads over this game and the publisher is basic the developers Basically claiming that the publisher has no right to bring the game the steam and actually reverse engineered like an earlier copy that They have a legal access to and they have this way where they prove apparently like where all the things are so let's just wild So people want to go read about it. Just look up Nikon and and I'm sorry C. Oh and frogwares You know, you know fine It's very weird and fascinating business story and then finally on PS4 8.50 beta invites are going out So you still give a shit about PS4 firmware and you are in that ecosystem You might get your beta invites soon and finally before we get to what we're playing Jennifer Louviano I'll write in once on patreon she says hey Colin and Chris from until dawn of course doesn't this still here as well If you can make one thing illegal What would it be if you can make one thing illegal?

What would it be? Do you have an answer for us? Hmm you think I was gonna call you first I wasn't expected to be calling first now. I mean I try to think of Paper straws.

Oh, yeah, I hate those man. Oh, I would rather get any drink that I'm having if I had the choice between intravenous like like an IV bag and a paper strive I would pick the bag I would pick the needle in the vein because a paper straw is so Unfathomably worthless an item. It just feels like eventually like if you wait too long You're just drinking glue you're drinking like this paper mache. Oh, it's fucking terrible to straw rips right where like the straw goes through the Cup with with the four little plastic pins going through it and it just becomes this weird soggy mess It doesn't help anybody like this isn't helping people this is it's not helping sea animals either.

I would wager. No, it's not helping It's not anything they're thinking like man, you know, I miss this straw Well, you remember you believe this is a random thing But Chris and I used to sometimes go to this diner in Santa Monica and one time Chris and I went I brought my own straw Because I was so sick of getting paper straws and I would like I would have the time where it's like I'm not ready to drink This quite yet in that because once you once you put the straw in you're on the clock and I agree with you It's such a fucking stupid thing plastic straws are meaningless who cares, you know, I'm sorry Like who cares like the only bigger things to worry about the environment than plastic straws look I look I get that plastic in the ocean is probably like the biggest like because it actually is like I think I read I could be wrong not a scientist, but I read that that is like the biggest problem where like it's like it's like air pollution And all this other shit is like that's that's also be problem But the fact that most of our oxygen does come from like algae in the sea and shit It's not ideal that we're plasticking up our ocean, but but paper straws are really bad like they're worse I think I just think my point is because you're right there are like artificial islands in the Pacific Ocean where the jet streams like come But like it's really bad. It's real bad Islands, but my whole thing is with straws is like come on man Like there are plastic things that are first of all we recycle Prodigiously in many parts of the world now and second of all, it's like sometimes things are just worth It's it's me. It's like styrofoam I hate to say but styrofoam's really bad for the environment and you've noticed that it's not gone away because there are some things That you just can't do without styrofoam, you know, it still comes in every fucking package you buy and you know styrofoam peanuts and Chick-fil-a-cups I just I just find it insulting just don't give me the straw don't give me a straw at all like if you're going to give me a Paper straw don't give me a straw at all like I'll figure it out I'll drink it like I like I drink everything else out of a fucking cup like an adult human being who's capable of doing such a thing I'll get my own metal rubber mixed straw whatever the hell and I'll bring that with me I'll do what I need to do to avoid a paper straw, but if you're going to offer a straw It's plastic or nothing don't give me don't don't give me the fucking paper strong done I'm done with my little just throw the drink in my face.

Yeah, you might as well shoot me where I stand Dustin what should be illegal Do it take me something or you have something to add? No, I was good for my illegal thing initially I was thinking like what's really frustrating me frustrated me lately and I was gonna say people on Twitter that are so quick to tweet about shows That just came out either while they're airing or the day of then I want to just take it a step further and just let's make Wandavision illegal period. I know people are enjoying it. I'm tired of hearing about it.

Wandavision. It's gone. You know what? Marvel that would be great.

I would love that just because we can maybe get some new movies. Yes Enough Marvel enough. It's illegal now and I don't I don't care if you're enjoying it. I enjoyed it at one point It's done now, especially a wandavision double illegal.

I don't know what that means Yeah, I mean it could be they could cancel each other out and it could just be it could just be legal then shit But uh me. I mean it's it's simple. It's not mustard. I mean you just make mustard illegal and I agree It was trending the other day on Twitter which I noticed people were talking about what they put on hot dogs It's like come on man.

It's like I seen this word. I'm sick of hearing about this catastrophic Condiment, you know doesn't serve any purpose anyway, it's getting what we're playing Dustin. We'll start with you sure So I'm playing the free PlayStation Plus game that we're gonna talk about in the news But it's called maket and it's from Anna Perna is the publisher the developer is graceful decay To actually don't know if this is their debut outing is their first game. I think I can look like you talk Yeah, but so this game is pretty interesting in that it's all about like perspective in fact I was trying to figure out how to even explain how it plays It's all about how it's like there's like a diorama in the middle of the play area that the map or whatever you want to call it and so That's like a mini version of the world that you're in and so when you interact and change things in the diorama It changes in the larger world and so you're like moving different things to get to different places and stuff like that So pretty interesting idea for a puzzle game.

So I've been enjoying that aspect. There's a Love story that's kind of told over top of it that the voice acting is not so hot and also I'm just not really enjoying that aspect of it at all But it's there and the other just one thing is that it just simply does not run very well on PlayStation 5 It has the same weird issue as bug snacks where it's just there doesn't seem to be any reason why this wouldn't run at a consistent frame rate But the biggest thing that I wanted to mention I wanted to see what you guys thought about this is that while I was playing this game I broke it two to three times I think it was maybe three times where I broke the game and I had to reload the save because I made it so the puzzle was Unwinnable and I had to do that in game like no he was set up Well, you just have to reload to an auto saves it. The auto saves really good So I never lost progress But I was thinking about it and I'm like this is really bad because from here on there were moments where I'm like Okay, am I an idiot or did I break the game and I can never trust the game right like Unpositive there are ways to break games like portal or the witness, but I never broke it in my encounter I never talked to people during normal play so I always had a good trust with the game that it wasn't it was me Not the game and so the fact that I broke it twice during the during my play I'm like this is not good This game is broken my trust that I do not know whether whose fault it is so just as a warning out there everybody for this game That's interesting. I was also reading I don't know where I read it that there are like a lot of spelling errors in the game Really?

Yeah, that's true in cyberpunk as well. Yeah, it's almost more excusable cyberpunk is they're Polish the studio I mean this game is in San Francisco. Maybe not the most later place in the United States certainly but not only right But yeah, I noticed that um, yeah, it's their first game as far as I can tell from looking and so he seems to be securing some of these Um, the stopgap games I mean I think young horses with bugs snacks was a bigger get for them, but my cat is the only ps5 offering this month So I'm not gonna play it, but we'll see how I think it did pretty well with reviews So we'll see people like Chris says here you're playing demon souls. Yes.

I'm going through demon souls I brought my uh, so the stuff that I brought to New York is obviously not the stuff that I packed to come here is obviously I'm gonna be getting here for a couple for like a week or two or a week and some days So I managed I made sure to bring my ps5 which by the way took an entire suitcase I bet I mean I did just ridiculous But I have it now I was just thinking about like what to play is like what haven't I really? Jumped into and I figured you know, I'll jump back into demon souls while I don't have anything else to play Well, I don't have any of my other machines to distract me while I don't have my PC to play like, you know 4k 60 like modern like 380 power games. I figured like yeah, I'll do demons sold and I'm doing it But my 4k TV isn't here so I'm playing it on like a 2010 2010 HD TV and it's like It's hard. It's hard to because like so much of that game is like specifically demon souls We have so much of the value in that game.

I think it's just how fucking gorgeous it is So I'm having a bit of a rough time focusing because I'm just too I'm man. This is rough on old TVs. It's like I'm in but I've gotten further in it than I did when I first tried it out So I'm just looking forward to getting through it I still feel like I'm just not good at these games, but I'm gonna give it a Give a solid college try as they sure, you know sure, but I like it. It's good good I feel like demons souls is just gonna continue to be attracted to people too because there's just nothing to play No offense, but there's nothing really to play and I'm kind of um I remarked on it last week on the show I just go to the PlayStation's like Jesus Christ.

There really isn't anything coming out. It's very It's kind of what I want. I mean people have said this man Twitter shoots what exactly what I asked for So I guess be carefully asked for just because I was like I said It's like sometimes you need that that jumpstart you want to play some of the old things get them out of the way But then you need that new game jumpstart and I'm missing that new game jumpstart right now But all right, so I'm playing three games three very different games one of them I can't believe I even started playing it and I'm actually really excited to talk about it because it is Shocking what they've done to this game. So I'll leave that one for last sparklight is one game that I'm playing This is a game that was recommended to me by the audience.

It's by a studio called merge games and It's kind of like a rogue like randomly generated game almost like a dark cloud or something or natural dreams Where you're going in and out of the world and seeing how long you can survive and you get out you buy your grades You go back in so nothing too crazy there But what's interesting about it is that it's it's kind of like a cell game like an old deli game And it's really cute. I don't think it's great I don't think it explains things very well, and it seems pretty limited once you figure out the bosses and stuff But it's some it's cool. I like the game a lot. I'm glad to play it I'm glad to continue to play it I've also gone back on my Vita and started playing Replaying steam world dig which I never beat and I've always wanted to play the sequel which is supposed to be much superior But I feel like a poser jumping into the sequel without having first beaten the original so for people I don't know steam world dig is kind of like some mixture of it's like a digging game but also kind of like a metroidvania and there's like a currency system and actually multiple currency systems and an equipment system and some interesting characters and Permanence in the world when you dig something it's dug forever.

It's pretty cool. It's all played out on Vita It came out way back in 2014 on Vita It was actually as people might remember a 3ds game first came out in 2013 And then the game that I have gone back to that I'm eager to talk to you guys about is generation zero and Now this game came out in March 2019 and I played it when it came out and Chris and I people not remember that Chris You know I destroyed this game when it came out. It was horrible Yeah, I couldn't leave it I played it at your place right your living room just to give it because you were talking about it You're like this is the worst shit I was like it can't be that bad like it can't be and I played it and it really was it was really It really was not good. Whatever the hell I played back then.

So I'm really curious as to what the hell is new about this It's very weird. So for people that don't know I'll just frame it this way generation zero comes from avalanche studios But you know avalanche is kind of not the same avalanche that's doing Hogwarts This is like the kind of the real avalanche and they split into three teams as people might recall So like expansive worlds is one of those things that avalanche which does just cause like avalanche itself And then one of the teams is systemic reaction. They're the ones that did this game and generation zero takes place in 1989 It takes like some Sweden's like a post-apocalyptic game. It's like full of robots It's really strange and weird and when I played it it was like this empty first place It was like this empty voidless boring generic shooter with no point no purpose the mechanics were bad the enemies were sterile It didn't really make any sense and I kind of just delete I'm not playing this again And then for some reason I was just scrolling through my games and the game popped down I'm like you know what like I'm just gonna download generation zero and try again And when I did I was shocked because it's still not great by any stretch of the imagination But they are still updating this game almost every month and there is a huge Not only a huge but a substantial enough player base that they're continuing to release updates for this game including two DLC expansions and I had no idea that this was happening So I went back into the game and I don't know if people remember when I told the story about how I went Early in the game I went and like searched this peninsil and there was like nothing on it in the middle of the pencil There was like this cabin and so I'll go to the cabin you couldn't even go in the cabin right and so I went back to this place in the Game and it's totally different like now There's like some there's like a new building there like in their dead bodies and things to find and robots attacking there I'm like they're upgrading this game and I it so I went to the website and they have this huge patch list and It seemed I'm kind of puzzled by it because I'm like what's the purpose of this game?

Are you guys trying to experiment with modular? updateable single player games are you Messing with your with your engine because it's built on apex which is the engine use for everything I don't know what caused them to continue to support it But they are and so I give them some credit for that and the game is still I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it But I'm intrigued by it because I'm like what the hell is going on with this game like I haven't met anyone in the game There's no voice acting but they're like all these letters and weird shit you find someone like I'm gonna keep playing generation zero So there it is I couldn't believe that I went back to it. There were a dead story. Yeah, very interesting I had no idea.

Yeah, that was happening with generation zero So do I recommend you check it out? Not necessarily But you can go read about it and see if it's for you I bought it because when it came out because I paid 60 bucks for by the way because it sounded great, but We can never buy games based on that. No All right, boys there's quite a new thing to get through this week None of its huge news, but there are things for us to discuss and what I wanted to start with this week was Sony's kind of surprising deluge of PSVR announcements not PSVR two announcements Which we talked about last week PS VR So here's number one on the heels of Sony's head not announcement of PlayStation's VR successor the so called PSVR Two the official PlayStation blog has announced six upcoming games for the existing PS VR all of which will be coming out by the end of this year Perhaps the biggest game of the bunch is doom three VR edition of your enabled version of the classic 2004 id software developed shooter It comes to PS VR on March 29th with all DLC included second is cover based FPS frat which launches this summer on PS VR What's interesting about this game is that it comes from dev team in dreams Which is one of the biggest developers in PlayStation 3's long dead online space PlayStation home when I saw that name I was like in dreams the PlayStation home dudes and it's them So that's their game looks pretty cool and then next up is shell games is I expect you to die to the spy in the liar the sequel to the 2016 original it also also launches on PSVR later this year then their survival game embrace the primal wilderness Which also comes to PS VR later the year via the studio 17 bit known for the 2013 Xbox live arcade game skulls of the show Gun that came to PS4 and later and 2015's a space shooter galaxy people might remember galaxy is being like one of those very early PS4 indie games So called MMO JRPG zenith from developer ramen VR is likewise coming to PS VR later this year This game had already been really revealed for rival VR units The final game comes in the form of co-op shooter after the fall from vertigo games Furtigo games is the embrace your group own team behind one of PS VR's biggest hits to 2016 FPS Arizona sunshine and while after the fall Was revealed several years ago it has fallen off the PS VR radar the cross platform closed beta is ongoing with a yet unrevealed release date for the final game Well, we don't know yet about what the headset will look at itself when it comes to PS VR to Controller patents keep getting filed while these new games are announced as noted by games industry.biz website among them is a patent for What is essentially the ability to swap everyday items in the real world into the game as a controller or peripheral? I don't know if you guys saw this that it's making the rounds as a banana Yeah, because in the in the schematics Sony basically replaces whatever the controller be with a banana Which you can then actually even put buttons on to and press them.

It's very weird You guys got to go look at the at the um the patents But the six PS VR games came out of nowhere and I know I wanted to instead of talking about them individually We can talk about any of the games we want that stick out But I was wondering if we can make some sort of pact on the show right now where maybe we need to start giving a little bit more Attention to PS VR in a more active way because I really believe that we should play what we want to play I think that's true I don't want to work for people to play games They want to play that working for me But we're just ignoring this platform kind of and there's definitely games on it that we would want to play if we just Played them so I'm wondering could we put a more concerted effort into trying to cover PS VR the chickers? Yeah, I don't see why not I think mine's on its way, so that's good. But you still have a camera I have a camera here actually. Oh, okay good.

Yeah, that's right. I just got mine like bleaker to go. Oh, cool. Never ends.

It's always something Yeah, but no, yeah, I mean there's there's stuff on PS rather than one of the play I think Moss was great like when I play when I play through Moss That was the last one I played I think that was probably the last I think objectively stand out one You know, I think we should I think we should make a concerted effort to play more stuff on PS VR at the same time I don't think it's necessarily our fault that we haven't been I think just the platform just needs to be a little bit more enticing You know and the fact that these are the first new games that we've heard of from from PS VR in like a pretty long time Let's be real like every week we go through the you know the MPD group and we go through like the biggest sales on PlayStation PlayStation and every time we go to VR it's always the same games like it's it's and you know There's overlap with with normal PlayStation titles too We're like you know called it is always up there But there's definitely more variation there than there is in the VR space because it's just so little there's so little into VR space To play with and I think and I think we might have mentioned this kind of recently in an episode where it's like they got to start leveraging The IP that they have to get eyes on this like I know people who don't even know that PlayStation has a VR component Like that's a real thing like people like in my age group who are interested in tech who like play video games I think I mentioned PS VR to a friend of mine. It was like what is it? What is that? It's like a PlayStation VR components and he's like what do you mean?

Like I had to show him I had to like send him an image of it This is a real thing is like whoa this thing's been around for five years Yeah, it's just all the amount 2016 now too. So yeah, so like I don't know like they've It's good that we're getting all these games, but again It's like all of these look like to me when I see these games like all I see his words You know what I mean like I see words on a list like what is it? What are some of these do we know the names of these yeah? We have doing the re VR which we know but then we have Fracked that's one of them I expected to fall you know like I don't know anything about these titles you know I have no idea I don't even know what I'm looking for nothing nothing about the name really tells me anything about it and The way that I feel about it as like somebody who is interested in this stuff I feel barely compelled to even check out what these things are you know?

So what is your average consumer gonna think you know your average consumer is gonna be even less interested what they're going to pay attention to is like Whoa resistance VR. What's that? You know horizon VR What's that like you need those big tentpole IP to draw people in and then those people who come in because of those I big IP are going to be More open to experimenting with these other titles and that's how you that's how you draw people in this just how that's how it's so Seems to understand that that's how exclusive works how exclusives work with consoles But for some reason in the VR space they just don't leverage any of this power that they have and it's just weird I just think it's like a really missed opportunity and they've had five years to do it You know so it's not even like this is an unwarranted like criticism right out of the gate It's just they've had a lot of time. What do you think about these these announcements?

Doesn't yeah, I think that um like I went watch the trailers for almost all of them and I think that they look really cool especially What was the the running gun shooter from in dreams? Which one is that that's a what is that record or correct? Right. Yeah, that one looks awesome.

Yeah, and also shout out to shell games one of Pittsburgh's only developers So shout out to the home team here, but yeah, I mean I would love the idea of covering PS VR more and I think that also I mean not to call you guys out There's a long list of PS VR titles and I'm pretty sure that you guys haven't checked out that I would hide it true Yeah, it's all yeah, it's only true because because the Chris's point see this was what was weird doesn't was like I liked that Sony was having a concerted effort to support PS VR it almost puts PS VR 2 is kind of weird announcement in context because they Wanted to announce these games probably they don't want people holding back We now know the backwards compatibility all that so they kind of put their ducks around I appreciate in respect that But when you go look at how they did this they announced these games a half an hour apart for each other They asked one then 30 minutes later. They asked another then 30 minute. I'm like, what are you doing? I don't and they almost said it in the blog post like we're doing it differently this year It's like you didn't this is horrible because then why not why not make a big deal out of one of them a week or have a PS VR state of play Yes, exactly what I was gonna say Yeah, you know do like it just do like it just and keep things keep the expectations realistic be like hey This is a ps VR focus they to play that way nobody goes in there expecting like, you know God of war Ragnarok footage, you know people going there expecting to see cool new stuff for VR And you know I that would have been a way better way to do this because it would allow people to first of all see these things Instead of just reading about them, which I think is ideal Yeah, man.

They just need to be better at announcing this stuff And I'm gonna Chris I'm gonna green it with you that I think that they've done a poor job of leveraging their IP completely and yeah You know, there's there's no big PlayStation game or I'm trying to remember is there really any big tie in with any big IP at all There's not a single one there's not a single one's and that's basically it to their defense though They have gone like really hard with like a lot of quality titles that may not have been exclusive but or at least started like Tetris effect amazing VR component Skyrim VR also awesome. Those are those are no longer exclusive So it is kind of interesting that there's this dynamic of it's like okay. Well, you're leading with quality content, which is fantastic But you're not baiting people the right way to dive in yeah Like it doesn't matter like how much quality content is there what matters is how many eyes are paying attention to it And the reality is that your big IP are going to get more eyes on it You know and you know that's not to say that these games don't matter or that they're not as good in many cases hell Like if they make a horizon VR I wouldn't be surprised if it's not even half as good as some of the best shit on PS VR But the important thing is that you have eyes in that space and then you get that space out there to more people and then when they're done with Horizon VR they might be like that was okay But VR is kind of cool and like what else is available and then they'll stumble across stuff like frack then maybe they'll love it It's just basic marketing that I feel like they understand but for some reason It's just it's just very strange that they haven't leveraged this all especially because they've been working with I mean I know they've recently purchased Insomniac but they've been working pretty closely with Insomniac for a while and PSVR has been out for a while and Insomniac has it has a really potent VR team This is very strange It's just very it feels like all the ingredients are there for this to have been a lot more flesh out for the last five years than it has been It just just hasn't materialized in a way that I think most people would see reasonable So I don't know like I do think we need to make a conscious effort to play more PSVR But also they they got to get their shit in a row man like they they because I'm just not compelled Like I just don't feel compelled. Yeah the content it's interesting because it's always been a challenge VR Content is just not compelling in the same way other content is because you can't really figure it out By watching it even when they shot and I appreciate they show like real footage of it And it looks like shit, you know compared to what we see these days because that's what VR looks like when you have the heads on But that's the way they need to that's the way they need to show it You know there are some big games here in Vertigo is a pretty big studio now and Arizona sunshine was a huge hit on PSVR But to doesn't point like I'm not even played Arizona sunshine I bought it but I don't I never played it and so I we do need to be better about this But I just I wouldn't cool to do a state of play I agree one more push with PSVR But I think it's a good sign that they really are gonna stick with this thing and I appreciate that too because a lot of people went out and spent a lot of money on this thing and Some of them seem happy about it We're gonna talk about actually one of the big PS plus games to their credit as well is a big PSVR game So they're trying I think a little bit more and so we will in turn try as well because I play so much Vida Which doesn't even really have resonance that I should probably play PSVR to PSVR comma I think the interesting thing about PSVR is that also you mentioned Vida And this is what made me think of this is that I think it has a Vida like quality that the people that have it buy a lot of games For it so it's like once once they scoop someone into into the ecosystem people end up buying a lot of games I'm curious about what that what the numbers on that look like yeah me too Because Chris had brought it up already we don't have our own numbers, but he's totally right it's the same shit every month So it's not like anything is breaching that list and we'll have to keep a close eye Chris is these games come out of any of these games Yeah, probably I assume that some of them will I imagine yeah, I imagine that audience is very hungry for new stuff So I wouldn't be surprised of all of them make it to the top of some list But it'll be easy to spot because it would just be a break in the consistent Same as every month list that we've been used to reading for the last like however many years at this point, you know So it'll be definitely easy to notice when one of these skyrockets through and displaces I don't beat saber or you know asked for about rest your mission or whatever the hell doing three is up first as I said Later this month and not for nothing.

I mean I'm sure this deal is in place for a long time at another Microsoft I'm coming to play safe. Yeah, all right. I wanted to see what you guys thought about this isn't huge news But I feel like you can kind of read between the lines with this So let's read it out and then see what we think number two in tweets sent a week apart Directors of two of play stations big exclusive hits in recent years the last of us in God of war Let audiences know to keep expectations in check when it comes to the timing of their upcoming games versus Corey Barlog of Santa Monica Studio who tweeted in part quote I don't know who needs to hear this but when it's done so he's saying when it's done trust that it's what's best for everyone and quote Such news is understandable considering how surprising or considerably difficult the COVID environment has been for game development However, it's also surprising as Sony revealed the next God of War game unprompted and went even further by stamping a 2021 date on it When no one would have been the wiser if it wasn't planned for this year Santa Monica Studio is a claim to God of War reboot came to PS4 in 2018 and is one of PlayStation 4's highest scoring and best-selling games It was a 2018 that got to work out. Yeah, we talked about this before the show Yeah, it was because that was a that was Spider-Man year that was Spider-Man God of War and Detroit right right yeah God of War came out before we did the show I think I think that's why I might maybe I'm confused I don't know if we I think the show wasn't even didn't even exist yet.

Yeah, no, yeah Neil Druckman of Naughty Dog for his part was a little more straightforward in his Twitter proclamation noting quote if you tweet at me asking about a future project I can't say anything please stay patient. We have several cool things We can't wait to share with you as soon as we can we will end quote the last part to launch this past summer scoring huge with critics and selling millions of copies Naughty Dog is openly developing a standalone sequel to the original Last of Us's multiplayer mode called factions But it sounds like they have more than one game in development the original last of us came to PS3 in 2013 and PS4 in 2014 So I can't help but feel like this is somewhat coordinated If not literally then maybe somewhat figuratively based on conversations going on in the first party behind the scenes because I Don't know why else you would say this of course you can't just talk to us on Twitter We know that I mean that's been the case since Twitter existed it. I don't know why they needed to come out and clarify that Chris What do you think about them both coming out and saying keep your expectations and check in so many words? Yeah, I don't know if it means that much it seems to me like people who because even I've felt like saying this I know it doesn't really make a difference ultimately people are still going to ask you like because chances are the people who are online today Are not going to be online tomorrow or the people who are not online today are gonna be online tomorrow and there You know it's just completely different audience every time that's going to be and they're just gonna be like asking you questions regardless But sometimes you just feel compelled to be like hey listen It's I'm working on it calm down and I think that's probably all that's happening here I do it is just so weird to me that they just stamped dot of war with a 2021 day Like I don't know why because immediately when I saw it like the moment I saw it.

I was like that's just not true It's just it was so blatantly false that Like I don't know what the purpose was because if you didn't do that presumably, you know Cory would be getting a lot if you were questions about it I know it's been three years so people would have been curious about it anyway But certainly less so because we're three months into the year that this game is supposedly coming out and there's nothing to say about it So obviously people are gonna be like what and last of us too as well with like factions multiplayer Which was you know announced quite a while ago at this point We've seen very very little if anything we've not seen anything about it really they technically having really properly announced it I think remember they announced it when people were disappointed that there was not gonna be a factions mode in last But it's when they said we're gonna do something separate and that's all we've heard Yes, it's barely even real like you know And but people know about it so they're going to be they're going to be asking questions But I think the first part because I was asking questions about insomnia You know because we know that they're going to be putting out Russian clank We know that they're just a spider-man No, he's curious about that because we know so I just think this is just an example of just two of the studios that are shrouded in the Most mystery and simultaneously the most transparently working on other things that it's just it's just the audience being Like what the hell's going on and just being really curious and probably like around the same time presumably in the same group chats You know presumably in the same email chains, we're just like yeah I'm getting that a lot too and maybe they'll say something and then you know the second guy's probably like oh yeah He said something else something I don't know if there's really that much to read into it all I know is that that Nogog's definitely working on something else at least in the pre-production phase I'm sure they're working on whatever the hell their next thing is going to be I hope it's not another last of us But you know God God willing I suspect it won't be I don't I've said before I'm not even totally convinced They wanted to do a second one to begin with yeah, I don't think so although I think it's an extraordinary The game I think they would have been happy to do something else but uh, Dustin What do you make of this coincidence or not of Corey and Neil kind of checking everyone a little bit So the the main thing that came to mind means is just that you have to imagine that some of this reaction comes from just What it's like being on on Twitter day-to-day as a studio Project lead or whatever you want to call it just because even for me like I have I've less than 4,000 Twitter followers And sometimes I feel like I you know everyone's wants I can't keep up with everyone either trying to say something to me or get back to people So I'm sure that they have dozens of people asking them every day about these things and under you know Even if we you know you can you can know that Twitter is not a representation of reality But when 12 to 30 however many people are knocking at your door every day saying the same thing I'm sure it's gonna start to bother you so I have some some sympathy for that if that's what this is spawning from but Yeah, I as far as the the games themselves. I don't have much to add it from what Chris said other than it's like just I Don't know Sony felt like slapping 2021 on that card of war trailer would entice people to buy it's that little extra Step to get people to buy a PS5 and they're just like well We know it's not 2021 but it will it might encourage someone to buy one as fast as possible as opposed to waiting So I think I definitely what it was yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's possible I don't see why that wouldn't be true. They always want to compel someone with future promises It could be also an identification that they realize early on like we're gonna have a gap of games things are not lining up for us internally And obviously covid has been been quite troubling for them and for every every publisher of games and developer games So I feel like there's probably not too much here It just to me it indicates like you gotta let go of that god award 2021 dream at the very least I Feel like we can say that because even if God was ready in 2021 See this is this goes to show you that even six months ago They didn't quite know what the lineup of games was gonna be because why would you announce God of war in 2021 horizon? Is coming out in the fall of 2021?

There's no way you would release those games next to each other so that would be nuts I think that's something I'd be so mad because I was like why would you do that those games should be separated by a year It or more, you know so that to me says like horizon this wall if that I still am not convinced horizon's gonna come out this year either I think that if that's true They're gonna pull a drive club and not say anything for a long time But then it goes to show you like everything's getting bumped and then creates interesting questions will return on ratch it and then You know, you know, we assume horizon, but I don't all right number three is just kind of a clarification We talked about this last week and last week we relayed word from website video games chronicle that PlayStation's have wanted first party team Japan studio is being heavily reworked the report noted that on the back of weakening internal sales and a changing focus on Western development Resources and second and third-party partnerships many longtime employees of the studio haven't been renewed over the past few months Thening the herd by design this now puts high profile exits in recent months in full context The original report noted that Japan studio would basically be turned over to team a soby The developer behind PS VR is ps4 and ps5's ashrbox games in a statement given to the website after last week's episode Sony confirmed the reporting it said in part quote in an effort to further strengthen business operations SIE can confirm PlayStation Studio is Japan studio will be reorganized into a new organization on April 1st Japan studio will be Resented to team a soby the creative team behind Asher's playroom allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Ashra's playroom in addition the roles of external production software localization and IP management of Japan's Studio titles will be concentrated within the global functions of PlayStation studios and quote in other words They've cleaned house even more extensively than originally reported Japan studio was founded in 1993 and was long known for its production support Helping to shepherd many more games than it made internally. However, it also incubated a number of internal teams including team Eco team gravity and others real radic wrote in and said hey See Sean laden reply who's the old CEO of PlayStation replied to a tweet to the Sony Japan or reorganization with a sad face of parappa the rapper Another guy who came out of a studio Japan not to conspiratorial But do you think this could have been one of the driving factors for him to leave Sean laden has long ties to the brand having worked Both out of his out of Sony Japan and Sony Europe in the ps1 and ps2 era working on titles like Vib ribbon and medieval His departure always seems sudden to me and do you think so many Japan will be a different place now if you stay in charge? Take care guys and keep up the great work I don't know I it's pretty clear to me that laden was probably just not renewed himself or pushed out in that regard that happens to CEOs all the time And a lot of that stuff is just quietly handled mostly because the CEOs the ex CEOs have no Reason to tell you or break NDA when they're getting paid five ten fifteen twenty million dollars So I don't know that it has anything to do with it But I am a little concerned about losing Japan the more I think about it the more I feel like we're losing something because Team is always great, but Japan studio had this unlike even their logo appearing before a game It kind of felt heavy and yeah as I mentioned last week. They are the original Sony development studio that's only own They're not the oldest studio, but they're the first one that Sony founded itself.

So there's something there, too What do you think Chris? Yeah, it's super depressing. I think Japan studio, you know, I think there's a lot of um I mean, there's obviously a lot of history there But I agree with what you said about like the heft of that logo and just the heft of that name where it really connected PlayStation to Japan a lot of ways and I think a lot of people are kind of maybe they're reading into things and maybe they're not but It just feels kind of interesting that Japan studio is closing and you know Sony is having this like far greater focus on, you know The West as far as like their marketing goes and as far as their releasing goes as far as their games go And as far as like their dev studios go it's it's it does feel like Sony is I want to it's weird because I want this to sound like an inherently negative thing, but it feels like they're Americanizing Sony, you know definitely they definitely are to lose Japan studio is kind of a That's kind of a big deal I think internally and just for the culture of PlayStation because that's just like how do you that's just such a Just feel like that's a big deal even if those games aren't necessarily like these aren't uncharted These aren't last those these aren't God of Wars But these are you know part of the ecosystem that I think maintained a big part of the character of the ecosystem and kind of Created this kind of interesting environment like I remember whenever I would see that logo I would know that I was in for something that was like inherently unique and inherently interesting And I feel that way about God of War and uncharted to but in a very very different way like whenever I saw Naughty Dog or Santa Monica studio I knew that I was in for something cool, but Japan studio was something that I knew that I was in for something like Just interesting and art and you know artistic and and very I don't know I this is this is sad This is there's no way to really argue that I think it's really sad Yeah, I think we haven't really seen the fruits of Japan studio in a long time When you think about per-app of the rapper and rain and Tokyo jungle and all that stuff. It's like these are not Wild successes, but they were really weird And I think can only come from the incubation of that studio and and the kind of the spirit of that studio and only longtime PlayStation fans are really experienced with PlayStation games for a long time will know that like you said it was like a Seasoning it wasn't really the meat of the ramen.

It wasn't the pork of the togatsu, right? It was like the seasoning made it what it was and it's it's I agree with you play station is gonna feel a little bit different I don't know. I don't know how a Japan list. It's not I mean We're not be I don't be dramatic but a PlayStation which has removed Japan from being that important is a different PlayStation and to your point I mean we knew that they were organizing around America and then America won the back I can tell you this just from my own knowledge, but it's been reported like there was a civil war behind the scenes between Europe and America and Japan and America one they started winning with PS4 when they got PS4 first year But they re they brought the headquarters like that this the whole kind of chain of command from Tokyo to San Mateo outside of San Francisco So the whole company is running out of here now So that's part of it but doesn't have you feel about kind of Japan studio kind of moving into the ether and Kind of the partnerships that they you know I think about level five and think about PlayStation camp and all these different developers that kind of came through and Clap hands and whatever I don't know what do you think?

I feel like it's the kind of one of the final remnants of a Japan focused Sony and PlayStation like there's a I was trying to find a source for it but there is an article over at PlayStation lifestyle net from Rebecca Smith that basically the Nintendo has completely dominated Japan to the point where they have all but pushed Sony out and so Sony's probably looking at this thinking like Let's shift our resources to a more global focus as much as we can because we're not winning in our home market anymore So why would we make stuff tailored for mostly them? But may apply to people over here like Colin you and I like Japanese stuff quite a bit, but so I to me I mean it's unfortunate, but it just seems like a logical progression of the market This is wild to see Sony pulling out of Japan in that way because it's it's just such a Xbox thing You know, I mean like Xbox is typically like, you know, we're not winning in Japan Let's just like whatever. Let's focus on the U.S. It's just very strange to see Sony but kind of doing that It's just very very bizarre because I think You know Xbox is in a unique position as like the soul American developer where they're not really in at risk of losing What many Xbox players would consider to be there their culture, you know in fact They stand only to gain really from like all these investments and like Bethesda even if they invest in like Japanese studios It's like oh great.

We get we get some more like interesting games from American Consul manufacturer, but like Sony pulling out Japan means there's like a loss there that wouldn't be felt with with Microsoft and It's certainly never going to be felt in Nintendo because they just own it It's just weird. It's a very weird future that we're heading into and we have to remember too that Sony burned a lot of their Japanese audience With the way that they were censoring games. So that has to be at least maybe not the main driver But it's definitely an element you would think yeah I think I think you're right just from I think a lot of it has to do with just kind of a series of things that have happened where You you look at and you feel like Sony hasn't known to blame with themselves that they lost that territory only because They let themselves lose it. It's not to say that they were ever winning in the handheld market They weren't in those dominated the hand-held market, but as we've noticed or I'm sorry as we've noted PSP stole 80 million units.

It's still a quite a successful handle and Vina still is being sold over in Japan So they seeded that territory. It's what I've said for years It's like you were you are letting them win without even trying to fight them And it's why I really feel like they should make a handheld again It's not only because I really want one of course I do But it's like what are you doing you know, especially with the now these rumors are coming out that they're you know Nintendo's gonna make a new OLED switch with 4k output and something like you guys you guys are fucking up You need to figure out a way to get back into this territory And I think it's a cop out to say well just phones and tablets and you'll connect your dual sense to your tab So no look at what your competitors doing you're in the same market What are you doing? You know and also look at the games they sell I talked about this on one of the shows I appeared on as a guest recently they have like five games on switch in Nintendo That is sold twice as many copies as any PlayStation game, you know They have they have event games and as much as I as much as I think that the last of us and frankly just the last Was a straight up better game than anything switch right God worth better game than I can switch that's my true opinion But we don't have event games right they do animal crossing is a game that will be played for years Smash Brothers is a game that's being updated for years Mario Kart, which is the second best switch game is not even a real switch game And they sold 30 million units At full price by the way, so I don't know why Sony thinks they can just continue to ignore this because actually It's just like classic if you study military history and you say you tack this like you keep backing up and they're gonna keep coming You know, it's not like they're just gonna stop you like well They're backing up and they're retreating it's like no you're just giving them more and more and more territory and they're gonna Start coming for you on your territory now because they don't have to worry about handhelds now They dominate so now what can they do in the console space? Well the rumors out of Japan are that like I said They're gonna have a 4k capable of handled you're gonna have to dock it But they're there now now one of your advantages is gone again Because it you're so for me if I were in charge of zoning I'm not a part of PlayStation which Jim Ryan is I'd be like we got to invest in new hardware that could compete with switch They're the enemy as far as I if I were be like that's we want them We want people that have switch to start by our animal crossing we want people to switch to buy our Zelda we have we have to do something for them and I don't know It's so I think I think you're right to us I think that that that's just another ingredient in this in this weird stew that they're making where because the censorship stuff was a big deal too and by the way that push people to switch to because Nintendo's like oh we're not censoring anything and that was weird Dude fucking Nintendo.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense They were like crosses in their games at one point like literal Christian crosses were not allowed in Zelda and in a like Castelliniens like that. That's why they called it a boomerang, you know, it's very strange. So The other question I guess Chris is um, what does team of so we do? I mean, it's pretty clear that they're gonna make more after a pop up, but they're gonna hinge an entire studio around this character It's kind of kind of risky.

I think it's a very it's a very Microsoft decision, isn't it? Yeah It's very curious like I don't know what exactly they're doing because they seem to be taking The cues that Sony learns learns from or chooses to mimic are always the most confusing ones You know, I really don't know what they're gonna do with the sobi like surely they're not going to just tie them to Astrobot Like surely they'll let them do Something at least like develop something else while they're doing the next axe Astrobot because I was playroom quite frankly is I think probably the best thing I'm not the PS5 right now. It's also it's the most approachable thing. It's it's the most next gen feeling thing It's you know, it even so is beautiful obviously, but I think um, I think Astros playroom is really like the only thing On next gen consoles that really feels next gen mainly because they they have such an AP escape like focus on their controller and kind of showcasing that But I think it's so he's probably going to just take the mantle of like the entirety all the responsibilities of previous studio Japan And maybe they'll grow so be maybe so be will be in charge of more than just Astrobot Maybe they'll put them in charge of some other IP that maybe Japan studios either didn't finish or didn't or maybe they own or and didn't get started on Or something I really don't know I have no idea what their plan is but they're putting a lot of pressure on a sobi feels like You know imagine your entire team gets wiped out and you're like the sole player, you know That's that's a while though like even if that's not exactly how it works obviously because like people individuals are not one-to-one studios But that's a lot of weight to put on a sobi definitely it's definitely a great point They almost are like the last one standing when you guys the internal team to make neck and all these other things Everyone's kind of falling off and I wonder how they feel about it I wonder if they feel like a like a 2009 EA studio, you know, like I wonder if they're like, yo, what everybody's gone Pandemic was right there.

Yeah, I hope the verbiage from Sony indicates that they will continue with Astro But I feel like you can't just continue with Astro and it's mostly because I guess a rescue mission is different But most of these games are kind of bundle in or cheap cheaper games that are meant to show hardware off And I don't know you don't really need them to do that again. I guess maybe with PS VR to them I would assume it's a given that they're gonna make a PS VR to game But that's probably what they're doing. Yeah, Dustin. Do you think that they're gonna name this is unclear to me too?

Do you think that Japan studio as a vapor first will just not be the name anymore and it's gonna be Team so yeah, it's hard for me to understand this is why I get so annoyed I don't talk to someone anymore, but if they send me that statement I would have so many questions That I feel like we're not known asked because they just printed the statement Do you think that the name will change? I mean you would think that if it's really double down on team of soby Why would they keep Japan studio as the name like people don't when they think of Astrobot? I don't know. It's a weird title.

I guess to me. I think of team soby making it not Japan studio So why would you even keep that branding? It's not like for that title and specifically it has any kind of luster to it But it's not shadow the Colossus or something right, you know, all right Well, we wish everyone the best over there as these things continue to work their way out number four We've been from earlier Sony has revealed marches 2021's free games replacement plus users And as of the time this podcast goes live you can download them now as long as you have an active PS Plus account This month we're given four games three for PS4 and one for PS5 the biggest game of the bunch by far is PlayStation 4's Final Fantasy 7 remake Square Enix's 2020 smash hit also on PS4 is remnant from the ashes gunfire games as well received 2019 shooter RPG finally PS4 will also receive farpoint when a PlayStation VR is most popular games a second party FPS from developer impulse gear published by Sony back in 2017 over on PlayStation 5 players get first-person puzzle game McKett which Justin talked about earlier a brand new title from developer Graceville Decay published by Anna Perna recall that PS5 players can also still download destruction all stars this month for free as well So that's still going as well as always we recommend that you add these games to your download list this month Even if you don't tend on playing them now as you may want to later new notable games have also been added to PlayStation now's roster Extremeable and otherwise downloadable games the biggest of the bunches no doubt infamous second-sun sucker punches 2014 PS4 debut and the last game in the infamous series The date band I'm goes 2019 air combat sim Ace Combat 7 skies unknown has also been added to the service for PS4 as well Save her interactive world war Z co-op shooter from 2019 and super hot which came to PS VR in 2017 remains one of the platforms most popular games I forgot to write this as well But Ratchet and Clank also free for everyone again reminder this month 2016 Ratchet regardless of if you have PS plus or not It's the stay-at-home game. So definitely down with that if you're anticipating the new Ratchet and Clank game this June Yeah, Kyle Melendez wrote a no since hello C and C and I bet D Just want to say all PS plus subscribers I know the big one is Final Fantasy 7 but Colin Chris I want you to demand people download and try out remnant from the ashes what a fantastic souls like their person shooter with procedurally generated world The game deserves to be tried by more people so please give it a whirl that is all hope you guys have an awesome weekend I actually looked it up when it was when I was when I knew the name But I didn't know exactly what it was I know gunfire made it as I said and there the guys that do dark ciders I the souls like stuff usually turns me off But I'm so much better at shooters than I am at I'm not back at them I'm much better at shooter style hard games than I am at hack and slash style hard games in 3d Yeah, that it sounded quite interesting.

Chris have you played this game? No, this is one This is one that I kept hearing about though So I am curious I might add it to the download list I might jump into it because it is one of those things where I keep seeing it and I keep hearing about it So I feel like at this point I might as well just jump in you know Yes, you would fall out free free free won't guess what's the matter any of these games though appeal you? No, I mean I have far point because I bought it with the aim controller and I did not think it was very good That was a lot of years ago. So I don't even really remember it But I don't think you need the aim controller.

I think you can just play with a move or maybe even a dual shock Yeah, I don't think you ever need I don't think you ever need that controller, right? Do you maybe is there a game that I was using it? Maybe I don't know but I don't know that would really isolate you Can you imagine a game you need the PS4 you need a PS VR you need a PlayStation move controllers Then you need this gun peripheral as well the place like all right? Yeah, I think the gun peripheral just is just like a series of inputs wired in a different way and it just arranges the The ps move controllers in such a way that it's consistent.

I don't think it actually is something that's a supplier It does have sticks. Yeah, but it's just like it's like it's like detachable inputs basically, right? So yeah, it's not necessary. I will say world war z is pretty good.

Honestly that that's um zombie shoot It's just like third person leopard ed it's a very loose very very just very enjoyable Honestly, like I was surprised when I played that yeah, I was surprised that PS now didn't also already have infamous So I guess they are being a little more clever by staggering things out at four point I think I bought as well digitally I was trying to buy a lot of PS VR games early on just to show my support and then never played any of them So I think I own that we're gonna talk about Final Fantasy 7 in a little while because there is a very specific note on that Downward looking at his people off because I thought that we were gonna get real clever with it and then they thought twice about that So we'll talk about that in a moment But first number five an all new co-op shooter is hitting PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 this summer and don't roll your eyes Because this one has a chance of survival based solely on its IP the gaming question is aliens fire team and according to I Janet's a left for dead style of the replayer co-op PV e shooter that was actually first teased by its developer back in 2018 at that time The nascent team behind the game called iron studios was purchased by Fox subsidiary Fox next from its original owner perfect world For which it developed a free to play games for Disney So we're gonna actually talk about perfect world in a while fire team takes place several decades after the original film trilogy And we'll come packing a full story campaign I Jan my friend Ryan McCaffrey over that Jan has like a whole exclusive month of previews for the game coming up Chris Are you this this kind of felt like a game? You might be interested in but I don't know for sure how you feel like the alien IP or if you're looking for a game like this Yeah, so this is the issue right like I love co-op shooters like this. I love leffordad I'm looking forward to back for blood I like anything like this, but the issue that I have is and I don't know if maybe you feel this way Aliens is so tainted by colonial Marines that I can't like even when I think I forget about colonial Marines every time aliens comes up I remember especially in the video game space. I just remember colonial Marines and I don't know like I'm curious about this.

I know that that's not fair You know, it's like obviously this is an entirely different game entirely different team entirely different premise And it's going for an entirely different vibe obviously aliens I think it's a good IP for video games. I think there's a lot to mine there I think isolation was particularly pretty good. That's a beloved game. Yeah, it's a good one And but that's the thing it's like when I when I played what little I played a alien isolation I wasn't reminded of colonial Marines, but this one does and I don't know if that's me being too judgmental I don't know if that's me being unfair or if that's warranted.

I'm gonna have to look a little bit more into it I've only seen like maybe like 20 30 seconds of gameplay. So I'm not super sure I've got to do some more research, but it's definitely something that I'm going to At the very least look into because I think aliens deserves to have a good shooter like this It really sucks that gearbox is totally drop the ball with us the IP and just I think people really underestimate how bad colonial Marines was for that IP and just and just for its general image in the industry because it really It really is just something that I can't forget and that's not by the way that's somebody like I'm saying this and I'm not even really that big into aliens You know like I didn't have like a deep love for the series that was like betrayed or anything It's just it's just this awful game that is just in my head now forever It's funny man because with colonial Marines. I remember seeing it I was at the preview or like the reveal event at Comic-Con I remember in the New York Comic-Con I think I might have been 2012 and they had like all the stars and movies there and stuff and the game looked really cool But then people might not remember this was the beginning of people hating gearbox because there was this whole conspiracy theory about Studio time-gate I think made much of the game SEGA published it obviously and then there was rumors that gearbox like basically took Basically was like taking the money for aliens putting it into borderlands and hoping to take the money from borderlands and putting it in Aliens and kind of triangulating whether or not that ended up happening or not a sure But they were like lawsuits filed it was a big deal back in 2013 when the game came out It was before PS4 even came out and I never actually played colonial Marines I really wanted to because I remember I think Jim Sterling did a video on it back in the day where they were showing the enemies in the game and like how you know You freak out a game and you're like firing things because you're Firing things are gonna attack you and hurt you But if you just went into the rooms a lot of the enemies would just walk by you and like not do anything It was all fucked up and I really wanted to experience it. Yeah I want to find a vision because I want to fly I want to play it on patch as well Yeah, did we do like a oh my god Didn't we do a story about it how like the whole AI script was like broken but it was like fixed by like one typo or something Yeah, that's right That's exactly right We left you and thought about how someone discovered that there was like a typo and like a dot I and I file or something and it would like fix like half the game's problems Which is awesome, which is awesome.

So you saw that New York Comic Con in 2012 you were there. Yeah, so it was that's the only Comic Con that I've been to oh, yeah I was I love knowing that when like you crop your at something like a game or something like a I've been like Yankee games or jazz games or I was there too Yeah, that was my first one is our call that was also the year that I saw until dawn when until dawn was a ps3 move game Which people might remember and then it was like basically shut down and they moved it to ps4 So yeah, I was like at some bar and it was like this real elaborate thing And I hate those kinds of events and I think I left during the Q&A. I was like I don't care about this But I didn't know I didn't know that was gonna be in fact I went because we thought it was gonna be like a really big deal, you know And it was a big deal for all the wrong reasons so what's I run a colony's you and I first crossed paths At New York Comic Con in 2014. That's right.

That's right. That was the comic con I knew I quit I jam but didn't tell anyone yeah, yeah, and I was on a long island I was I must admit I also went to the comic on the near and didn't do any work right Right, I'm ready a legend of core a party. Oh, that's right. That was in that hotel or something right or yeah in the tower Yeah, right we used to be this weird stuff kind of funny where we would get like publisher sponsorship So they see we just pays for parties and we'd be like you know the hitman party sponsored by a square annex It would just be our party.

I don't have the audaciousness to do that my own anywhere But Greg certainly did and you always got those things set up so yes, that's right. That's what we met well I was gonna say we do a last standing up we're gonna get it sponsored by like that mayo that you really like like we Don't gaming sponsor. I would love that. Hey, by the way mayo news So as people know a couple when I moved to the South I abandoned helmets for dukes.

Oh, right. Yeah, dukes That's it but then I went to Or actually I saw in the store that there's bores head means oh shit And but they only sell bores at condiments and like a little char is you know what I'm talking about and so it's a little Fus like they're mustnards in there their oils and whatnot and there's mayo and so I got the mail and it's it's really good But the thing is is that they don't sell enough of it where I can't use enough of it You know like I want to I want to use the main names. I want to just get your own with bores head last Stand media meet up in 2030 when the world is open again sponsored by dukes mayonnaise Yeah, I mean, I don't know when I'm gonna be comfortable ever meeting someone again Now I really have an excuse All right number six if you love Vida like we do then there's some good news a new noteworthy game is coming to the handheld relatively soon The game in question is scour or scourge bringer scourge bringer. I hate that word a 2d rogue light that has been announced for PlayStation 4 as well The game comes to both platforms on April 22nd the studio behind the game is called flying oak games and while perhaps better known for in the iOS and PC spaces They're so-called twin stick shooter RPG neuro voider came to ps4 back in 2016 That was another game that people recommended me in that run of games that I am that I talked about a few weeks ago I ended up buying indeed Scourge bringer already launched on other platforms having come to the likes of switch last wall the game is coming in a bit of In at a bit of a premium price for the platform 1699 and it's unclear if the game will be crossed by between PS4 and Vida Physical collectors will note that the game is getting a physical release on both platforms as well likely making it one of Vida's final physical titles It was cute because they I retweeted them because we love the Vida, but they did a little question We're like could this be the last beta game and I was like, please But but nonetheless really excited about it gonna buy it sight unseen just to support them number seven a couple of notable developers I've been purchased by large parent companies while another developer owned by a large parent company has seen layoffs for starters The good news at the top epic games the publisher and developer of Fortnite and the owner and provider of the unreal engine has purchased Media tonic and the tonic games group the developers and ownership group behind 2020's smash it fall guys ultimate knockout This is the second major studio acquisition epic has made in the last few years having purchased rocket league team Psyonix back in 2019 before hitting gold with fall guys media tonic was a four higher developer doing largely iOS and free to play work They also did again.

I say this every time they did that game foul play which is a beat up That's so good meanwhile Zinga Which was once known for its gigantic Facebook games and has since recalibrated what's left of it into core games space has acquired entry games extra is an action RPG studio made up of explicit employees and some people I think from I'm from relic and others and is most recently known for the PS4 game torch late 3 which came out in late 2020 the team of this The terms of this deal are likewise unknown those in good notes in its announcement post that the team will be entering into development of quote A new yet to be announced RPG for cross-platform play and quote the promise bad news comes in the form of layoffs at paradox owned Harzoot hardsuit labs we talked about them last week Which is shed headcount on the back of it being removed as a developer of vampire the masquerade of bloodlines too Paradox claims only a small number of employees have been affected and that the team is working on existing and unannounced projects So some industry news there, but what I really wanted to ask you guys about and Chris I'm curious I only knew about this reading about it this week Zinga is kind of making like a core games play Yeah, I don't know the exact nature of it But they're alive and well, well, well, they're alive And they are trying to enter into the hardcore space. What do you think? Yeah, I don't know When I first saw Zinga mentioned like in this article I thought like oh, that's gotta be the bad news, right? Like the thing is gotta be associated with the bad news But I guess I guess not I had no idea that they were even thinking about doing this Obviously, there's like a bias here because we just know of zinga is making these like kind of shitty like Do they do like Facebook games and stuff like that?

They did for a villain So I mean they were they were the proprietors of that original movement of Facebook mobile yeah, yeah And so like the association that I have with them is just like fairly negative because they're just like all these like kind of low effort kind of Time-wasting experiences, but I don't know man If they're making a play with the developer of torchlight like that's that's definitely something that I wouldn't expect a couple years ago It's definitely didn't expect now. So maybe that's good is done. No, no don't magic left zinga, didn't he? Yeah, not tricks got yeah, he's gone.

They have a new CEO now and Well, see yeah, well, it's interesting because you look at their level their series of acquisitions I was reading their acquisitions Let's you guys might remember words with friends was like one of the original iOS hits and they bought those guys right like 10 years ago They bought like a bunch of studios But I was you know the almost interesting studio They bought and I didn't even know this was available but in 2017 they bought Harpen which is um, I guess an old PC or like publishing company And they own free cell and pyramid and spider solitaire and all that stuff. So now zinga owns that stuff Which is kind of cool. I didn't even know that those things were like necessarily available for purchase Yeah, and then they bought they bought a bunch of technology companies as well But you might be surprised to learn they still employ more than a thousand people outside of their studio So they then they're publicly traded too So they have their revenues public and we can learn more about them But we would otherwise not talk about them on this show with the exception of the fact that they are now gonna maybe make console games Yeah, maybe they'll maybe we'll pay closer attention to zinga Because I've had no reason to pay attention to zinga for the last like 10 years, you know, so it'll be interesting to see how they make this play Definitely and doesn't I'm curious what you think about a epic jumping in buying media tonic. This is um Epic seems to be very selective with the developers They buy now in fact, we'll call that they started selling a bunch of shit I mean they own like people can fly and they own gears of war and they let all that stuff go So now they're recompiling again And I feel like media tonics actually a perfect studio for them because scionics is their only other major team and they're very similar in that They're making totally unique platform agnostic games.

What do you think? Yeah, it's it's just so funny thinking back I was so wrong about fall guys when I then and I covered it then our editor we covered it at PAX last year And I think we were like talking about it We're like this game is gonna it's gonna be no player base and it's it's it's gonna be done before it even really starts and We were clearly very wrong. I mean now what's cool for them? What makes me excited for media tonic is that I'm pretty sure that the core team that made fall guys is pretty small I don't know much about tonic games group, but either way they got very rich very fast from fall guys And now they are even richer on top of that so they've just like totally Completely did a home run and I always love to see huge success stories like that And so I don't know what I'm what I'm curious about is like if you look at the the Rocket League community if they've been happy with how Epic's new ownership has been to their community, which obviously there's no pro false fall guys community or eSports community for fall guys Maybe there is I don't know but I'll be curious to see how that transition you have to imagine the next step is free to play I was gonna say I think fall guys was so heavily buttressed in the same way rocket league was which was PlayStation Plus You know, I mean both of those games really lived and died by I remember talking to Jeremy Dunham was a friend of mine He was the vice president of science.

He's the founder of podcast beyond he's my boss at IGN And I remember talking to him and they and how fucking scared they were because they were like we don't know we're selling the farm right away To get this game on the PS Plus and we don't know if it's we're gonna win or lose and it was the smartest thing I could have done, but I think nine out of ten times It's it's not so epic see epic's got that money They're throwing it around and I like what you said doesn't the media tonic guys did do the double cash out within about six months, which is Huge I mean just huge if you're one of the owners of that company yeah, I mean do you you profit at tens of millions of dollars Alright promise to get back to Final Fantasy 7 number eight last week We talked extensively about PlayStation 5's version of Final Fantasy 7 remake called intergrade Which is launching on the console on June 10th as a reminder this version of the game will allow I'm sorry 4k resolutions or 60 frames per second frame rates as a photo mode dual sense reports faster loading and more However, the biggest addition as we know is the new so-called episodes featuring you fee The Ninja star wielding optional playable character from the original Final Fantasy 7 a character who considering around where remake leaves off Would be the next edition your party you'd meet in the original for starters and FAQ on the game's official website though Makes clear that the ufdlc will only be available for PlayStation 5 users So there was some confusion on if they would cross over whatever we know for sure now But you know although those who own the game on ps4 so if you own the original game on ps4 you can upgrade the game for free on the new console However, and this is where things get this is where I thought you're gonna get cute with PS plus and I've never seen this before People can write in and tell me if I'm wrong, but I've never seen games separated like this You'll note that Final Fantasy 7 remake is available for free on PS plus for ps4 users And if you grab that version of the game you'll need to pay outright for the ps5 version So in other words, they're tracking whether you paid for the ps4 version or not if you paid for the ps4 version You get the ps5 version for free if you got the ps4 version from ps plus you have to pay for the ps5 version of the game I've never seen this so I don't know there I'm sure there are other examples people can write in so it's not quite as elegant as we once thought however Square is also openly talking about Final Fantasy 7 remake part two the publisher confirmed in Japanese publication Fimitsu that Neoki Hamaguchi will be the sole director of the new title removing Tetsuya Nomura from that role and putting him in charge of the Entire Final Fantasy 7 initiative which also includes some old games which we're not gonna talk about Hamaguchi acted as co-director of part one and previously directed 2015's lightning returns Final Fantasy 13 He was previously a programmer and animator going back to Final Fantasy 12 launched on PS2 in 2006 So just some confirmation about what we know about Ufi and the episode and integrate But Dustin what do you make about this this PS plus stuff? I mean this is kind of I knew I mean in your mind You're like this is too good to be true right because you're basically porting the game people can just grab it for free And they're not allowing you to do it and it kind of makes me a little nervous about it They're gonna start pulling this kind of bullshit or if they're only doing it because of the partner involved in Square Enix It doesn't make any sense I mean it makes sense on the surface initially you're like oh they're trying to get sales for PS5 version but my question is So first of all is there gonna be an upgrade path like can you pay for an upgrade if you got it from PlayStation Plus right now It seems like no no it seems like you'll have to buy it straight up again See if you got it for PS plus yeah, right so to me though It's like they're so they're coming out with a new product Which is the DLC the uv dlc and so you're not even letting those people buy it unless they buy the ps5 upgrade Right in other words you have to buy it one you have to buy the get you have had to have had to buy the game once Which I understand I mean so it's you know I mean like you have to either bought the game on PS4 or PS5 and then you get uv which we have to pay for on top of that So everyone's gonna play for you pay for uv uv is only available on PS5 if you bought it on PS4 you get it on PS5 The game if you didn't and got it through PS was by the game and uv it's really quite confused I mean it's not that confusing I'm making it more confusing probably than it is But I don't recall this ever happening before usually you get the benefits of PS plus and that's what I thought they were doing actually was like They're like alright. We run the water out of this stone Let's make Final Fantasy 7 free get the real money from Sony and then people buy the DLC and for 20 bucks or whatever But it seems like they're actually gonna be going in for integrate probably 72 so you're looking at yeah, you know Well, if you buy the $70 PS5 skew it comes with the uv DLC. Oh, okay cool But still imagine this scenario because this is gonna happen to thousands of people They're gonna get it on PS plus They're gonna play it maybe they love it and then they put it down and then when the uv DLC comes out They're like, oh, how do I get this uv DLC wait?

I have to buy the game again. I have to buy it now for $70 to play the uv DLC They're just I'm guessing most people are gonna say yeah, fuck off and then and just not play it I that's what I would do be like are you kidding me. It just doesn't make any sense They're trying to protect their bottom line. I I get that but I don't know Chris What do you think about the idea of having to rebuy the game?

I just it just seems Anti-thetical to what they're setting up for everyone else You know square next one gets a pass the issue to me is that they're not putting the DLC on ps4 like that is the big thing to me Like I understand like if I see seven remake is it's just a year old there's really no reason It's kind of not super fair if you're just gonna get the whole game from PS plus like a year later For basically free and then you just get the free upgrade like I could see why that would be like kind of infuriating But at the same time, it's like there's no reason why that DLC should be locked to PlayStation 5 then You know what I mean because it's it's running off of a PlayStation 4 game There's nothing that's there's nothing that's presumably in this DLC that's gonna like be so wildly powerful and wildly unimaginable that like it Just couldn't run on ps4 that to me is like a big thing It's like it seems they're intentionally locking DLC as a as a means to get people to pay for a game to their own In some capacity if they got to do ps plus which I think is shitty I think I think the DLC should be available on ps4 and ps5 I think the the the main reason why you would want people to upgrade or the main push to upgrade your game to ps5 in the first place Should just be the fact that it's a better experience. It should just be like hey This is 4k 60 it's way smoother way better like why would you not want this as opposed to hey? We're locking content behind this wall. I just don't I don't agree with that as a premise.

Yeah, it's you know Maybe I'm getting square and it's too much credit with this I'm sure I probably am but the only way I can think out of this the only thing would be like are you creating some sort of Saved chain that will connect to the new game and therefore You know in coming years and that's only gonna be on ps5 and so you're trying to get people to move over is that something to do with that? But I don't think it's that simple like I think I am of the mind that Sony is lying with swearing nicks at the right time Not only with final fantasy 7 remake and remake part 2 which clearly is also going to be a PlayStation exclusive at least time But final fantasy 16 is the time to play station exclusive and Dragon Quest 11 was on ps4 only and then came to switch last year But the new drag quest is probably a PlayStation exclusive too. So There with square I think they're willing to bite the bullet with square annexes are quite valuable Maybe it goes back to what we were saying earlier where that's kind of how you get your Japanese player This room is from your publishing partners since you're not willing to put the work in yourself anymore All right more square annex news number nine square annexes security tantalizing deal with one of the industries emerging stars when it comes to remakes Where it comes by way of website games industry that is which notes that the studio in question is forever entertainment Though it's frustrating is that while we know what they're working on with square annex we Or that I'm sorry that we know they're working with square annex we don't know what they're working on however Whatever IP they're working on they're making multiple remakes within and the possibilities are endless forever entertainment is a Polish team responsible for a ton of smaller games But it's a game from 2020 panjor-dreguun remake that grabbed global attention panjor-dreguun of course is a famous sega rail shooter first released on saturday In 1995 forever is currently working on a remake of panjor-dreguun sequel the 1996 Saturn game panjor-dreguun 2's way And has also been working on house with the dead remakes for sega since 2019 though The release dates are still unknown forever has actually worked with square annex in the past when 2018's a pure effect said no Which I totally forgot about was released with the publishers blessing continuing the long gourmand fear effect series from idos Now owned by square annexing from the ps1 days So you guys remember the square annex collective this term This was when they were gonna let and they were letting basically publisher developers pitch them on games from their IP And one of those games that was allowed was a new fear effect game Which is a pretty obscure old idos series So these guys have already been in the ecosystem But I was surprised to hear that this wasn't really being reported anywhere because I don't know what they're making It's pretty tantalizing. I don't they say they're working on with square annex on one IP Multiple games.

Yeah, Dustin. Hmm. What is it? My gut initially said maybe they're tapping back into chrono trigger But with multiple games, there's only two yeah chrono trigger and crone across My thought was front mission Because what they were saying there's all this weird stuff in the polish release like that's translated where it's like we're remaking multiple games Under one IP and we're keeping them really true to form.

So I was like, all right. What could it be? It's not final fantasy. They would do that internally.

It's not drag quest. They would do that internally So it's gotta be I don't know it could be the other thing I was thinking is it could be Tomb Raider But not like the 90s Tomb Raiders, you know, oh got a fly Like there's a fly that's been flying around this room And I'm just trying to not pull a mic pence and have it like yeah land on your hand on me and that was like the closest it's Com so far. Yeah, it's almost fly season. So I don't know we don't know we'll keep an eye on this I do love that studios are starting to get known for very specific things and these guys are known for remaking games And it's very similar to blue point.

I think that that's pretty cool and and segah identify these guys early So props to them because they got them down for four games before squaring exactly nailed them down again My theory will continue to be my hope will continue to be front mission because I love that series it's a strategy RPG series, but I don't know I'm taking back my theory. It's gonna be gex They own gex as well. I feel like Tomb Raider might be it, but I don't know The people really want to play it to me one two and three again. I could if they remake them well I could see that being yeah I don't see why not like the main issue with Tomb Raider is one through three are the controls and if they just like fix the controls and you'd probably have a Pretty good pretty good little trilogy games there.

Yeah, that's like a run ps1 those games don't have stick control Also, yeah, but I remember loving those games like I was a kid I played them recently I'm like I don't even know how I managed this but you know, I think there's value there Although I would love to see gex. I wonder how all those like 90s references That's those 90s references that are just like completely like lost to time Jesus Christ. Very weird. Very interesting.

Yeah, I love little little mysteries like this. So we'll we'll keep an eye out All right number 10 in the coming months Sony will see selling movies and television shows through the PlayStation Store Service began offering on both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable beginning with the advent of PlayStation Network some 15 years ago In a brief and vague post on the official PlayStation blog Sony's head of video of an s. Lee wrote in part quote We've seen tremendous growth from PlayStation fans using subscription based and ad based entertainment streaming services on our consoles With the shift in customer behavior We have decided to no longer offer movie and TV purchases and rentals through the PlayStation Store as of August 31st 2021 When this change takes effect users can still access movies and TV content They have purchased the PlayStation Store for on demand playback on their ps4 ps5 and mobile devices I'm quote while not stated explicitly Sony has seemingly always struggled the attraction with its allocart offerings and weak demand almost certainly led to this decision being made Connor bright roading was on patreon and he says hey boys just wanted to get proper respect While we all laid to rest an entire category on the PlayStation Network movie and TV rentals and purchases RIP to the service none of us knew we had and even fewer used I must say and I'm curious dusted Have you ever bought anything on um ps4 because I have I have not much But you know how they have that search functionality, which is really cool that universal search functionality where it's like, you know You search for movies like it's on Netflix on Amazon So there a couple times for not back where I've searched or something It was only on the PlayStation Store at least with the things that available so I purchased things through them before but certainly not regularly What do you think about them dropping out? They've been behind for a long time I remember specifically when the PlayStation 4 Pro came out and first of all the PlayStation 4 Pro didn't have a 4k Blu-ray player in it An Xbox Series S did which I thought was weird, but they didn't offer 4k rentals on their own search Which I just thought was really weird.

You had to go elsewhere I was like this is the only 4k ready device. I have in my house and their service doesn't even offer 4k rentals And I still don't believe that they do so and that's a pretty standard now across whether it's Amazon or Apple TV or whatever And so yeah, they're just completely dominated by everyone else at this point. So what's the point? Yeah, yeah, what do you what Chris?

Have you ever bought anything Chris on a ps4 with movies and TV shows? Not in the PlayStation Store I have bought like movies and and TV shows through the Xbox store though Because when I was younger I had like a 3 16 was like the first thing that I and you would you have to buy like Microsoft points On cards whatever and I would always have these spare Microsoft points. I'm like what am I gonna buy? I guess like I don't know episode two season one of the Andy Mullenakis show or something Really just random things that like I have I still have if I open up my Xbox library I just have all these shows from like eight like eons ago like acceptable TV season one Which is like a Dan Harmon Justin Royland thing before we can work in like 2008 on vh1 and like I think I the most recent thing I rented I rented a movie on Xbox live like I think Two to three weeks ago because it was I couldn't find it anywhere else I was looking for a streaming service that had and none of them had it so I rented the kid detective 3x Box 5 I've never I never used the PlayStation for it, but even the Xbox I barely used for that like it's like what the hell What are you gonna do that for you just stream everything?

Yeah? It seems like maybe they were just acknowledging it's more work than it was Yeah, it was worth but I always just feel like giving your people as many options as possible as cool I have to give them credit they could have very easily Put themselves given themselves preference when you search for that stuff You know they could have definitely made it hard for you to find anything you wanted and driven people the PlayStation source So I respect that they they didn't do that because they could have gone away with it too Service so I wouldn't have been really you would have ever had the expectation it would have been any different so you know So I pee I don't even know what I would I had on there that I do own but it's probably like the extra system some weird shit like that Like there was literally like a couple movies like maybe Rosemary's baby or something where I was like this is not available anywhere around the PlayStation Store for some reason yeah, all right number 11 our post-covid world may be taking shape in the summer of 2021 Maybe a hell of a lot closer to normal than many of us may think but we're going to go through the calendar year without perhaps two of the biggest Physical events in their culture for starters website video game chronicle reports that e3 2021 has been cancelled at least when it comes to an in-person show This isn't a huge surprise all things considered But the ESA the owner and operator of the show still hasn't publicly commented instead word comes by way of a new report from the board of Los Angeles Convention and tourism development commission Which the website scoured and the report it clearly states that the show is cancelled though livestream events are also still possible with 2022 and 2023 still unsecured So they haven't put down money to get the LACC in June and 2022 and 2023. So I think either he might be in real peril We'll see meanwhile San Diego comic con is also canceled. However, it's still unclear whether the event will return in July of 2022 Only or if there will possibly be a smaller in-person event also in San Diego perhaps in November So just a couple of things out there.

We're talking about enough about either. We know it's not gonna happen We knew with this things were gonna happen. These are just official words that they're not happening I can't wait to ask you guys about this one. I almost wanted to put this one at the top But it's really not domain to the most interesting about our show, but this is fucking weird I think this is by far the weirdest story of the week I love it actor Tom Holland gave an interview to men's magazine GQ and which he basically confirmed for everyone completely Unprompted that his performance is Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted film is unlikely up the stuff the magazine notes that the character drapes emphasis on quote Looking cool was an experiment in vanity that left an odd taste in the actor's mouth and quote He told the magazine in part quote as soon as you start worrying about do I look good in the shot acting becomes something other than playing a Character I think there are elements of my performance and Uncharted where I kind of felt under that spell of being I want to look good now I wanted this to be my cool moment I had this guy to play this very tough very still a guy basically be Mark Wahlberg my character is supposed to be a fucking action hero in this moment Look, I haven't seen it So I don't know if I succeeded in that but it was an important lesson learned because at times it was less about landing a mark And go through the scene and more about land more about landing marks stand like this and see my bulging piceps It was a mistake and is something that I will probably never do again end quote Tom Holland is perhaps best known in his role as spider-man dating back 2016's Captain America Civil War and is on charted film directed by Ruben Fleischer is due out in February of 2022 and perhaps smaller news We also have word on the Netflix adaptation of the division as you be saw Tom Clancy brand continues to expand into the streaming world The film will start Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Chastain and will be directed by Ross and Marshall Thurber Gyllenhaal is best known as well known actor I'm sorry who became famous on the back of 2001's Donnie Darko with notable turns in 2005's Brokeback Mountain 2007 Zodiac 2014's Nightcrawler and many others Chastain's most famous film roles are likely in 2014's Interstellar in 2015's The Martian while there is the writer and director of the 2004 comedy dodge wall As well as the writer and director of the 2018 action film Skyscraper starring the rock Alright, so What?

Alright, so there's there are a few things about this first of all Tom Holland is sandbagging the movie so that's obvious So expectation should be in the gutter for the Uncharted movie as far as I'm concerned Here's the thing that I think is weird. He's describing the character as if he has no idea who Nathan Drake even is You look at Nathan Drake for his cool moments when you're looking at his glistening biceps What the fuck are you talking about? Nathan Drake is an action hero with a mouth. He's smart.

He's intelligent He has his little notebook. He's the exact opposite of what he's describing You know Nathan Drake looks cool because he's not trying to look cool Nathan Drake is cool because he is not trying to be cool And Jake Chillin Hall is I'm sorry. I'm Tom Holland is describing a character who is completely foreign to me as a huge Uncharted fan Chris what do you think I think it's interesting because I think he's like he's they're obviously making a movie and This is obviously like an action hero role So he might be playing a character that it's not that he looks cool because he's trying to look cool But at the same time if you're playing the character you kind of have to you kind of have to look like you're looking cool without trying to look cool So I kind of like understand what he's talking about but it's hilarious to be Tom Holland is like notorious for having like a really really open He's like notorious for spoiling things. They never give him like the real Scripts for things.

They never give him like the real names of the movies that he's in because he always leaks him He always just talks like really really candidly about things. I'm actually like a sonish that he has a career still Not as like an insult I just like you know like I like Tom Holland. I think he's pretty good in most of things He's not it's just it's just staggering like how not type of type Lipses and just how how blatant this kind of Keep your expectations and check guys kind of thing is you know, it's like a very wild thing to see in the Why here's the thing that really bothered me Dustin. He says I had a play this very tough very stoic guy Basically be Mark Wahlberg then why the fuck didn't you cast Mark Wahlberg who plays Sully as Nathan Drake.

It doesn't even make any sense like have you ever played on charted? I'm sorry like I understand what you're saying Chris, but like I agree is not describing Nathan Drake, you know What do you think of this? It's just a wonder it real quick by the way, I'm sorry before I forget Neil Druckman had shit talk this movie Yeah, yeah, and you can kind of tell now why I'm sorry going it I mean it should be noted that like he's an actor So he's going by whatever the held the director's telling him, you know like the director is ultimately in charge of like The performance and like and like leading people into playing characters in an accurate true to form way So like even even if this is bad like I which it likely probably will be because it's a fucking video game movie and none of these are good But I still would say like I don't really think it would be Tom Hollins fault I think it would be whoever put it whoever put the idea in his head that he should be acting like a stoic action hero And like you know what I mean? Like that's the director telling him like clearly giving him notes that would push him in this direction, right?

So it's like why would why would you direct your actor that way? Yeah, that's a fair. Yeah, but you're right the black has to stop with someone I think you're probably right It's just like it just bothers me whenever I see like really really good actors like kind of like given the brunt of It's like Jared Lado's fucking stupid Joker, you know with like damage like he didn't decide to write damage on his forehead, you know Right, you know, we're going to make up booth and or the makeup trailer and do that There's only so much an actor can do with the material that they're given and you know I would say you know, I'm curious about this movie But I've always maintained long maintained that if you're gonna do a video game adaptation a TV show is the best way to do it And that's why I'm like farmer interested in Castlevania and all these other like kind of like TV offshoots Even the last of us will probably be more promising. Yeah, even the last of us like everything on TV just seems like it would just be a better fit So this intro this I tried a movie to me is already garbage, but it was it was before this so whatever Dustin what do you what do you make about the way he describes the character?

This is I'm really hung up on this like I'm really hung up on being like I have to play a stoic Nathan Drake is stoic What maybe I'm right is the antithesis of stoic. He's like a he's like a clown I just don't understand what the hell I don't know. I'm really maybe just so bothered by this that I almost put it as number one on the news because I want to talk about it It is a sounding so let me put a different spin on this which I think you guys are right But just let's just think out loud for a minute I don't know Tom Holland, but when I see the way that he is Setting the table so to say he's setting expectations reads like something that I would do as someone who has low often has low self-confidence That you set the expectations low just because you have low self-confidence in yourself So who knows maybe it's a very it was a different role for him Maybe and maybe he just doesn't feel confidence in himself and so he feels the need to set expectations low. Maybe we'll be surprised But probably not Like no, I think you guys right it's weird because spider-man is closer to Nathan Drake than whatever the hell character like he's Describing when he gets though, you know, I mean like Spider-man's like a witty kind of like talkback.

He kind of Jerk, you know, he's also really smart, you know, so it's almost like he wouldn't it's almost like really good casting if you look at it that way You know where it's like oh, yeah get this spider-man guy to play Nathan Drake that actually seems perfect All he's just doing he's just not swinging and even in the movie like actually like Nathan Drake swings a lot Yeah, I think about gaming swings a lot. I mean it's uh, it's almost like he hit his head and forgot what character is talking about Yeah, yeah, I thought I Think it's more likely that they just wrote a bad movie and like and like you know they wrote a terribly like realized version of this character It just doesn't match up with what the games portray and Tom Holland's just like I got to do the character That's on the script so I guess like he's so like so like is not aware that I would use a described Nathan Drake at all No, so like is like so is like like Master Chief is so like like yeah, even Joel is so like I know like there's it's very it's very weird. It was almost as if he was describing a different movie I'm like the Mandalorian is right right exactly it's almost as if to me It's like did you read the wrongs? The wrong script you play the wrong character Tom.

I want to read this though This is somewhat unrelated, but we got this from the audience. I'm really interested to you guys think of this I mean running ones so hey guys. This is a movie game question on Jaffy's podcast David Jaffy's a couple weeks ago He interviewed the ex-head of the secret San Diego team They formed he said that the team was originally planned to make video game movies based on their first party IP What's interesting though is that the team would make these full-length movies in the engine of the game that was based on so a God Of War movie would be made with the God of War engine They used to make the game and uncharted movie with the engine etc. What do you think about making game movies being done in engine with the same character Models etc while I usually wouldn't want video game movies to be made I couldn't help it think this would have been a great idea Wouldn't alleviate most of the criticisms most game movie movies have fans wouldn't have to worry about the actors being too different or the game Would be captured the right way would also tie into the games in more seamless way I think what do you guys think this was interesting what he's basically saying is that they would basically have animated films built on Decima built on whatever engines they're using for the various games internally It's an interesting idea, but I don't I don't think that's what PlayStation fans want What do you think Chris?

I don't know like cuz it reminds me of like advent children You know where like advent children wasn't built on the engine obviously because like I was way way back before CG and gameplay was All that similar but like I think now like modern engines, you know like Kingdom Hearts looks like shit But it also looks better than you know Toy Story 2, you know It looks better than a lot of CG movies like even in gameplay. So like I think I Don't know I think this could be like a cool idea I still think in general like the goal of trying to get a movie out of these series It's just like misguided I think if you're going to want to tell a story if you're gonna want to tell a story about this these universes They need to be serialized. They need to be TV shows. There's just no way you're going to condense the plot of even the most simple game in One an hour and a half, you know to two hours like even something like portal I think you would need and portal has like two characters You know and I feel like even portal would need like more than like an hour to get like to get all of the like Interpresees like the rat man and an aperture science and all this other shit that goes on I just think that the goal of a movie is just misguided But I do think the the application of in engine kind of you know Highly like highly detailed and rendered cutscenes that use kind of all the engines processing power on just rendering like individual like You know pre-rendered animations and not having to worry about rendering things in real time And like I think that would be really interesting show Not only would it be an interesting showcase for the engines themselves as like a way to attract kind of talent and a way to show off What your tech is but I do think that is not necessarily a bad idea of like maybe doing like a mini series in engine Because that's what I've wanted for a long time for like a lot of the series I like I would love a Metal Gear solid show that was just honestly like even if it was just in the middle-gird solid three-engine I think that would be fun as hell.

It's almost like machinima in a way, right? It is the small and machinima like the red versus blue stuff back in the day and all that right? Yeah, obviously with more production. Yeah, I mean better But that's the same idea.

Yeah, yeah, but I think the reason why machinima was so like red versus blue was so successful Was it is because it kind of played off of your understanding of the aesthetics of that world and kind of made everything like a little bit more not believable but more? Natural then it would have been if it was just like somebody animating it from scratch or if it was somebody just like Putting on those costumes and just acting it out There's a charm and there's a familiarity to engines and their assets and their aesthetics and their art styles that I think would Honestly be a really good idea I just don't think the movie is the right the right call I agree That's what did you do you think about this kind of this idea of a San Diego having a spinoff to do that would promote in engine animation? I think it would be most effectively used if you were using it to tell Stories maybe within the game timeline or world that wouldn't lend well to gameplay, right? Like maybe they do a God of War.

I guess it wouldn't be prequel I know the time between God of War 3 and God of War 2018 Maybe maybe they could tell in many series using the game engine about what was Kratos life between them and then yeah You know something that wouldn't necessarily I mean they might be able to make a game out of that but something that wouldn't necessarily make sense for a game But would make sense for a movie or something some sort of passive storytelling We'll say lore kind of like stuff that you would like maybe read on Like collectibles in the last of us or something that would be like something that usually would be relegated to like maybe like a People novel or something like a book tie-in I think I have a good idea Yeah, it would help flush out the universe it would help ground it in the universe because it's using the same assets and it's using the same Kind of general feel of the of the game that's based on it again I think I don't think this idea is entirely about merit. I think it's actually kind of good alright number 13 is a wrap up It's extensive so everyone sit back. Oh boy. What's like a monster reports card game signs of the sojourner and puzzle game rate in raise of the light Are both coming to PS4 and March 17 strategy RPG black legend is coming to PS4 and PS5 on March 25th Horror game Wraith the oblivion afterlife is coming to play station VR on April 22nd JRPG Naptunia reverse is coming to PS5 on June 8th adventure game ever forward is coming to PS4 and PS5 on June 29th Frantic shooter from any creates blaster master 0 3 is coming to PS4 on July 29th beat him up soccer game guts and goals is coming to PS4 NPS 5 on August 31st FPS exo phobia is you'd like that when you should check that one out Chris is coming to PS4 and PS5 on October 5th adventure game Tranquil is coming to PS4 and PS5 this summer eagerly anticipated roguelike sequel the binding of Isaac repentance is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in the third quarter of 2021 and both dungeon RPG undernotts labyrinth of yoni and arcade shooter Paki and rocky reshrine Which also looks awesome are coming to PS4 this fall The website also relays word that the American Games rating board ESRB has rated both old school like action game Katana 0 and 3d platformer demon turf For launch on PlayStation Katana 0 for PS4 and demon turf for PS5 developer arc system works has announced a delay to its anticipated upcoming PS4 NPS 5 fighting game guildie gear drive bouncing it from April 9th to June 11th Let's see developer hidden path entertainment has revealed that it's working on an open-world RPG set in the dungeons and dragons universe They're hiring for it now the release date hasn't been given website push where reports FPS sniper ghost warrior contracts to is coming to PS4 MPS 5 on June 4th and shooters on the land VR headshot is coming to PS VR later this year The website also confirms that RPG disco Elysium the final cut is still of PS4 and PS5 bound this month though Still has no date website IGN reports survival game breath read just coming to PS4 on April 6th publisher Coe Techmo is revealed a delay of dynasty warriors nine empires which now has an indefinite release date on PS4 and PS5 publisher electronic arts Meanwhile tells public website polygon that it's delaying its upcoming still unannounced need for speed game and development Criterion so that the team can help dice with the upcoming battlefield game for PlayStation 5 Which is still slated for a fall 2020 release date We'll see about that Sony own developer San Diego studio has revealed a huge new mode and it's long-running MLB the show franchise Though it'll only be in the next inversions like MLB the show 21 on PlayStation 5 a stadium creator There's a whole god.

This is a huge deal apparently I didn't know there's a whole trailer for it people are really excited about it and finally publisher team 17 has revealed that the King kitchens 2019 game of blasphemous has surpassed 1 million copies sold I bought that game a long time ago when it came to PS4 I didn't play too much of it everyone recommends it's basically a soul's born in Castlevania. Yeah, yeah I came that's a lot so I don't know if you know about Katana zero but Katana zero is awesome and you do I do I've been waiting for it to come to PS4 because it's on switch I believe right and PC maybe yeah It's on it's I played on it was on game pass. It's a real good. It's very bizarre and Breath is a breathing should whatever the hell yeah, brethren.

I don't have to say that I saw that on IGN Yeah, breathage breathing whatever it looks okay looks like subnautica in space, but I hear that that's actually like not super accurate It's only like a surface level accuracy so and like I said Chris that that FPS exophobias right up your alley. Yeah Yeah, yeah, it's like an old school doom type game sick Alright, let's get into listener messages listener mail as we always do tradition to Kate We wrap up every episode of sacred symbols with six questions comments concerns That's ideas from patreon patreon.com slash last media remember go support us there We could really use your help Dan root wrote in and said hey cdc first time long time also new to patreon welcome Dan Just curious about your thoughts about fanboys. Why is it such a bad thing? Everyone has their favorite sports team They bleed for so why can't this apply to PlayStation Xbox?

Well everything you guys do? I think this is a totally compelling argument. I wonder Dustin. Sorry.

What do you what do you make of the fanboys and if they're The purpose of them if they're good or bad and how kind of differentiates from being a fan remember that the term fan comes from fanatic I think we often lose sight of that so fanboy is really just bringing the word back to fanatic in some sense I'm a huge fanboy of the Jets and and you know my sports teams But I think the difference Dustin is that I call these companies these organizations out when they because I'm a place in family in some way too But part of that is being a calling them out being honest all that so I talk to me about your thoughts I think we're getting into a game of definitions here, right like I have a PlayStation neon sign back here Some might consider that makes me a fanboy and I have like tons of PlayStation merch right to me though when when the the term fanboy is used that means like international following of a brand or an entity or something like you see these people that They create their entire Twitter persona around Xbox or PlayStation and they solely exist on the platform to fight with people That's what I think of when I think of a fanboy someone who's like follows something to a religious degree So again, I don't know if that's what Dan is advocating for so again That's why I was saying it comes down to what is our definition of fanboy some people would probably think I'm a fanboy of PlayStation and And that's fine, but like you said oh wait, I see the fly. I didn't see it I'm getting paranoid now. I'm gonna lose my mind by the end of the show You know the video so if you can't have Mike Pence moment without you having published it yourself, you know Right, but what am I gonna do like CG like or like put up like you know is it feel like you're being interviewed and you don't want your face You know right that's where you're facing entire episode So anyway, yeah, so what do you guys think as far as as fanboys go? Yeah, corsim you're with your thoughts on this Well, I'll just dispute the claim that everybody has their favorite sports team that they bleed for I don't even know Like I like the Yankees I guess because I'm from New York But that doesn't even really that's just because I've seen Seinfeld I know who Keith Hernandez is like I don't play for the match so well even there.

There you go exactly That's my knowledge of this the same shit honestly to me, but to me like it is just kind of a definitions game where it's we are kind of at this point where there's a difference between being like a really really interested in something and Going to bat for it even when it's just Blatenly obvious that you're in the wrong and I think that's really kind of the separation of what we're trying to talk about here Like and it depends on what side of that you consider fanboy to be on You know I would say that it's totally fine to be like a huge huge fan of something to really like really appreciate something to really Inam yourself in in the iconography of something or in am yourself in the world of something I'm a huge halo fan I'm never like I'm never more than like four feet away from something related to that series Right, but I'm also like super critical of it and I'm super skeptical of it And I'm super you know I just want and that's partially because I want the best for it because I appreciate it so much and I'm the same way with a lot of You know a lot of the game systems that I've grown up and that I've uh that I've grown up around and that I've used around my time Like a ps1 is my favorite console of all time of the ps1 you know But is the ps1 better than a ps5? No, like obviously not you know and there's like basic value propositions And there's basically there's objective reality that we kind of need to pay attention to and it's like if you're a PlayStation fan And you really really love the ecosystem and you love the culture there There's nothing wrong with that but then when Sony does something that is you know arguably not consumer friendly I don't like I think you should be allowed to call that out in fact I think you have an even higher obligation to because you're supposed to really care about the brand and how well it's received And you know how well it does I think it's almost an onus on you if you're a fanboy to really take these things to task Even more than like a normal person would right? Yeah, I think it's very well said I'm a huge sports fan. I like I said I have my my teams It's a little different though than to because part of being a fan of sports teams is hoping for the best But also it's each team kind of has their own Feel right like part of being a Jets fan is being real fatalistic for instance like that's part of part of what it is It's fatalism.

It's we're always gonna lose this team sucks like that's part of being a fan of the Jets It's part of how you grow up as a Jets fan It's fun like it's it sucks that we lose but it's like that's part of what it is and Every team kind of has their own genetic makeup in that way and so with PlayStation I'm a huge PlayStation fan, but yeah, I agree I think it's very well said like you the onus is on you to kind of hold them to account and I do that That's why I just when people call me a PlayStation fan boy I just ignore them because I'm like there's no way you listen to me if you think that like if you think that I'm like One of those and you do not listen to what I say so you're just here to try to hurt me or something So Dan, thank you for writing in for your support on patreon. We appreciate you glad to have you here Kato Brian wrote it in was and said hello gentlemen does it seem like Sony is leaving return on out to die the game's combat looks great And how smart is a phenomenal developer? However, it seems the majority of the conversation around the game is that it's a roguelike And has a $70 price tag does Sony need to do a better job when it comes to marketing its exclusive games Dustin when you think about this because I agree it seems like when return on comes up unfortunately most people are talking about how expensive it is The unfortunate thing and Chris and I thought about this in the past is that it's really too late for them to take the price back Because it reduces and removes the whole value proposition of the game to begin with they don't believe that it's worth it So they are committed that they have to be committed to that price tag they did get destruction all starts down to 20 or whatever But they first had to make it free in order to even get that to be acceptable So what do you make of the whole of a returnals shot? I think by the way, I do want to point out I think we're trying to bring a shot of being bigger than people think because there's nothing else to Play people are gonna buy it.

So what do you think I think that this is what we said last week I think the shot in the arm that this game needs is a 20 minute rundown of or even they don't even do anything extensive like Oftentimes they'll go to someone like IGN and they'll be like here's 20 minutes of return on gameplay We just need to see what the moment to moment of this this game is because what we've seen like that Trailer they showed in state of play. I thought looked pretty compelling, but again I still don't know really what how this game is structured at all. So I think it's it's come the the hesitancy isn't from the fact that the game Looks bad. It's because it's the unknowns about the game still So I think if they just start to fill in some of those gaps they can steal some confidence in the people that might be Interested in people like me.

So I don't know Sony marketing and PR will continue has been a mystery and will continue to be one Yeah, well, what do you think Chris about specifically about the price tag the value propositions is always what you see first and I understand people's hesitance, but I still I don't want to try to sell this game I love house I don't want to try to sell people on return but I feel like a game can be worth and like just because it's a Role light doesn't mean that's not worth $70. I just but I understand I were a consumer that didn't have a bent for House Mark, I would be waiting to see if this was any good. No, yeah, of course Yeah, I think I do think 70 is a bit steep only because you know This is how smart and they're really they're really good developer and they're known for a very specific style And this this game does have like some remnants of that style to even if it isn't in a very different space But I think the fact that it is in a different space and the fact that a lot of people are probably like let's say Like you have a casual person who is just interested enough in the industry to kind of look things up But not super negligible about like you know the history and like all this other thing They're going to maybe see how smart what have they made and then they'll look back and they'll see like all these 2d games and like maybe they Play them and you know maybe it's like oh, that's interesting They're probably going to be at least a little skeptical that this thing is going to be up to snapp especially when you're comparing You know I think it's also a victim of just being kind of lumped in with the Sony first party as well Like we're coming off of like go sushima and like last of us and we're gonna get ratchet and Klein soon And then people are expecting God of War as well and then you just see kind of this roguelike game that doesn't seem to look all that different like even Even the gameplay that we've seen like I've never seen one screenshot of return all that looks particularly different from another one You know like it is very not samey because I don't know if that's necessarily the right word but Not necessarily super fluctuating and it's in its aesthetic or its style and that gives the impression that the game is really not that big And maybe there's not much to it. So I think I think if I don't know if like a $60 price I would have been better I think it might have I do think it's going to get a shot in the arm regardless of the fact that it's like it's a ps4 It's a ps5 exclusive and you know, there's not much else to play I do think that's going well for it But I do think this discourse is probably more damaging to the reputation of the game than It's placement in a ps in a PlayStation store not surrounded by anything I think it has a potential to do more damage than you know, then the positivity that it's placement in the store We'll see we'll see I keep reiterating we still don't really have any first party games on PlayStation 5 So we're continuing to get which is the exception of miles around so just isn't a ps5 exclusive So we'll find out I'm really wishing for the best one What do I hope so too, but I'm also like I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of people don't even realize that this is a Sony exclusive, you know what I mean like yeah, if I saw this trailer, I like I just wouldn't assume that so We gotta see we gotta wait and see but I would expect honestly like I would expect this game to come to PC eventually Yeah, I would assume so too.

It's only seven weeks away I mean so we'll find out soon enough Walter Boli. I'm sorry Walter Boli run in west and said greeting sacred symbols I'm writing in the follow up on something Colin said last episode when discussing days guns medic Or if 71 when the score came up Colin you pretty emphatically said quote that game is not a 71 and quote implying by your tone That you think it deserves higher. This confuse me. Why do you think that why do you think that Colin?

Do you think the critics whose reviews make up medic or lying about their experience? I've heard you speak on medic or it's this way before though I can't remember the specific examples in my opinion It's perfectly okay to really enjoy a game that other people didn't I find myself in that position frequently another one was treating a seven Like a ten thanks dudes. I hope you're saying healthy. Thank you.

You. All right. They're multiple reasons I wanted to bring that up. I feel like first of all I don't really give a shit about scores Yeah, he's gone is an example I've hit over and over again as an example at Sony really hurt the game is not a 71.

It's not I'm sorry It's not a 71. I it has that score because of how bad it was see what I'm saying is that it's literally not a 71 It's not even a figurative thing right? It's literally not a 71 because of the how people reviewed the game So if their lowest baseline was a 71 average then it's not a 71 and that was Sony's fault coincidentally when I start pointing I don't want Sony PR stop talking to us because they really screwed that game up and so no I hear you but my other problem with medicrittic and this was the thing we experienced at IGN and people might not know this is that medicrittic is not a It's not an even division of you know review score by number of views. It's not that's not at all Yeah, some reviews has a way higher weight, you know Yeah, exactly like IGN scores count like many times So if you have like ten scores You're actually dividing by like 25 because IGN's counts like ten and then like the little the little sex might not even count once So that's my and medicrittic's formula is totally secret So no one even knows how it works Like you have to revert try to reverse engineer the numbers that even see and people have done it to try to figure out Like what everyone's weights are they won't tell you what your weight is that they don't acknowledge the different way it's All that so that's my major problem with medicrittic.

I don't want to get too hung up on it But so no, I don't think anyone's lying about their experience I just think that the game days gone is a very specific example of a game's medic Score not reflecting the product now. I know Chris doesn't like the game I might be a 71 or even lower to him. That's fine. I think it's about accurate for me My personal experience with it, but there's more people who like it, you know, so like I don't know So whatever all right, I won't hang up on that one too much not Patterson really wants though I said hi CDC is a time to cancel my ps5 pre-wear I'm in Australia and my pre-order is with EB games their game stop you guys remember Natural so people know EB and GameStop were once separate companies in the United States, but GameStop bought EB So it's it's there's a common years of I call up every few weeks to check when I could reasonably expect it to arrive And they keep telling me you're in the next batch while shipping's coming go and my console still hasn't arrived I find myself becoming less and less excited about it and from the sound of things maybe I'm not really missing much at the stage So if you were in my position Would you take the money a cool $500 deposit and run or just keep perpetually waiting for the nebulous arrival date to me?

I don't feel like why wouldn't you try to do both? I mean if you if you really want to PS5 and you can get your money back would you say here I mean you say would you take the money and run or would you perpetually wait? Why can't you do both things in other words keep the pre-order and then actively try to get a PS5 else where and then cancel If you need to I mean that seems to be the most logical conclusion to me Dustin what do you think? Yeah, I would hate to see him take his pre-order out and then something get announced or a shadow drop Something happens that he regrets it's not unless you're like, you know feed my family and take the pre-order money out or something Unless you're like really desperate need that $500 just keep it.

Yeah, I agree You think so too Chris yeah, there's no reason like if you're like on a list at that point Like you might as well just keep your place nonless because like redoing that is going to put you even further behind and and it's a kind of Crap you right now anyway, so I would just keep them like like doesn't say unless you're I was trying to decide whether or not you you want to still live in your place You know by the end of the month like I would say just you might as well just keep the pre-order I agree. I feel like so this I just want a little parables it where I'm a pretty nice person in my everyday life I think I have this this reputation online of being like someone I'm really not a really nice kind patient person with people And I've learned owning a house that I've been way too nice with people and way too patient with people and so I want to bring That up in that too just because like if shibbons are coming and going your consoles not arriving and everything you got to push back like They're clearly getting PS5 I mean it's ridiculous to assume that they just are not getting any consoles and that they can't find anything for you So maybe push back a little bit and I can't come just because I had a problem with my fence installed last summer They put part of the fence in the wrong place Which is their fault and I was so nice to them for so long where I was like Can you guys just come fix it and like when can you come do it and we work things out and eventually they were just ignoring me I emailed them literally yesterday and I'm like listen This is fucking nonsense and you need to come fix the fucking fence now and lo and behold they're coming on Monday after literally months of just Being nice every few weeks and be like hey, you have an update for me Thank you for your time, you know, so sometimes you got to kind of Trust the shoulder a little bit. Yeah, niceness doesn't doesn't forget results a lot of the time It's unfortunate because I don't do business like that Yeah, no, it sucks because it sucks to feel like you have to be a dick but like sometimes you really There's a reason why a lot of shit gets done in New York, you know, yeah, I mean we're up that place and I feel like Yeah, it happened to me over and over again where I almost feel like I'm getting taken advantage of just because I'm the nice guy It's same with my house like with the builders coming back to fixing stuff I think I'm just a push over in that regard and sometimes you and it's because I really have such a version of conflict You know, I really do I have a total of version of conflict in my real life because people want to fuck with me So online that and in my real life on my please just leave me alone You know, just do whatever you want alright Daxter days wrote in and said hey gentlemen any advice on HDMI cord optimization My TV only has reports and one is taken up for the sound bar another for the ps4 So if I want to play Xbox one switch or ps3 I have to get up and change the cord not a major issue Just a minor inconvenience the best any fun tips would help thanks boys So I find this problem too Although I know that they create they have switchers and stuff that you can plug into it That's another box or another dongle that's hanging off your TV and it's fucking that's not a solution for me that doesn't vibe with my OCD So I have three ports as well and one for my ps5 ones for my ps4 and one is like the the cable box Which is also the Xbox which is also the switch and that gets changed around Chris you have any Daxter wants fun tips for HDMI fun cord optimization. You have any fun tips for him?

I know you have one fun tip for him. Do you have any fun? Listen, there are no fun ways to optimize cables cables cable management is is Quite honestly the most infuriatingly dull and tedious thing about like having a lot of electronics or a lot of equipment It's the worst shit because it's all ugly like it's just all hideous like there's no way You're gonna get it looking good even when you got like the like the PVC tubing or whatever the hell like it just looks like this hideous tube That's like it's all bad like I'm sorry man. There's no way to there's no way around it.

I would suggest command strips and A switcher like an HDMI switcher like I would so instead of it hanging off your TV You can like do the adhesive strips and like maybe adhere it to the back of your TV So that way it's not like dangling and that's that's what I did and I had my other TV Which had like two HDMI ports and I had to swap between shit constantly another thing is just maybe consider You know what what do you use most often and maybe like you know Like I know I barely play my switch, but I especially barely play it on the TV Like I always play at handheld so for that I never have the HDMI hooked up I just sort of have the dock where I can charge it and I take it up and I go and that way I have a free HDMI free And but it's also important to remember that these new machines especially Require HDMI what is it? What was it? HDMI 2.1 2.1 2.1 to really take advantage of like the majority of features and maybe some some splitters might not really translate that well It's it's a bitch, but I would say Maybe like in the same way that like I have a USB thing for my laptop it doesn't Like because I don't have enough I don't have enough USBs on my laptop so I have this extra thing. I have a command strip too Yeah, shout out to command strips by the way.

They're great. They're awesome They're probably the most useful item that I that I have experienced in the last like 20 years. Yeah, that clicking sound It's perfect. It's quite satisfying.

I got my capture card back in LA like on the like on the wall and it's like it's beautiful It looks perfect, but um, I would I would suggest I was just getting like a maybe a splitter of some kind or like a like a hub That adds more HDMI's because that is ultimately like the simplest solution and just come and strip it to the back And that's that's a good way to manage clutter. It's pretty thorough. Dustin you have any additions? No, I'm with Chris the only thing and Chris touched on this is that you gotta be careful I wouldn't spend too much money on a switcher Just because yeah If you bought an ex there are people that bought expensive switchers or sound systems when 4k came out and they're already having to upgrade because of HDMI 2.1 So the thing about like this scenario Like I was trying to figure out a way that I could cable like do a wiring system to have my computer connect to my TV downstairs And it was so complicated knowing I just bought another TV for my upstairs office.

So yes, sometimes that's what you yes Dude what I'm experiencing now with my cables first of all my TV looks in my living room looks awesome front on because everything's buried in the wall But when you're coming down the stairs and you see the side of the it's like a fucking it's not so it's a battlefield It's completely insane, but I'm unpacking and getting anything as we noted early very slowly And I have so many cables that I don't even know what to do with them But I'm afraid of throwing any of them out and I'm not a pro I love throwing stuff out as people know I love throwing things I love getting rid of shit. I love not having a lot of stuff But I've done I'm like oh I have 25 HDMI cables might as well keep them all yep So I don't know what I'm gonna do with all this. It's just because some of them are mostly probably not 2.1 So they're useless and I don't know I gotta figure all the time the I guarantee the overwhelming majority of them are not 2.1 And that's kind of the thing It's like but they're still useful like in a bind like if you're in like I have the same problem I throw everything away like I'll throw like shit away that like is I'll throw pennies away and that's money You know like I'll literally throw money away But I have one of the things that I packed my car with my ship my car out here was I had a bin full Just full of wires that I was like I don't know what any of this is but I know I'm probably gonna need at least one of these At some point and I'll dig through it and it'll be like a fucking mess But I know I'm gonna need that HDMI that HDMI cable or that USB mini or micro Where the hell USB mini that's the new one that's the new one that's the new one That's the new micro is the second one mini is the first one right? That's the PS3 one Yeah, I was the PS4 and be a one and then the new one is but there's these weird things that you have that are still useful that use each That use like USB mini and it's like where the fuck do I have that?

Oh, yeah in that bin of wires like the Elgato Like my capture card uses that you just get in the PS3 move many the yeah That's the fucking move controllers use that yeah Which they're still forcing us and you need that for PS VR. Yeah currently. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's very interesting Well Daxxer wishing you the best by the way He was talking about cord management with a CH he kept writing its CH ORD.

Oh like I appreciate it And I was thinking that would be an awesome band name cord management cord management like a really nerdy math rock band or something like that Yeah, yeah, Zac Higginson has the final inquiry says hey guys What are your thoughts on PSN constantly having sales sometimes multiple sales simultaneously? I feel like I'm constantly grabbing a game for 9.99 that I thought was interesting a few years ago It seems like we are a new territory for the amount of competition games are going to have retention and dollars with PS4 content transferring over to this Gen do you think new releases are going to struggle a bit once we get further into this generation? Thanks for all the great content Zac I kind of want to back up and just talk about if I might the idea of sales because I am noticing that PSN is constantly having sales Hundreds of games as of the time recordings are on sale right now And it's becoming very steam-like where I think they realize people just buy games on steam because they're cheap They don't like I'm playing them, you know at some point I mean at some point I felt that a rabbit hole too and it really started with PS4 because PS3 didn't do that so PS4 was the one that was really like here's a game for three bucks remember the division two was two bucks Yeah for a while stuff like that So Dustin what do you think about the constant sales my problem with it is getting is the downside of buying something and finding out It's on sale later, but that's kind of just the cost of doing business. What do you think?

Yeah, it's like you said let let the people spend money on games They won't play because we've all done it every single one of us I've gotten a lot better at it con like you mentioned like I was Obsessed with steam sales at one point. This was before a PlayStation did and I have so many hands I'd never played and so I've gotten good at it, but there is something we said about if you're constantly putting games on sale Are you you know are there people that are not are gonna refuse to buy a game because they know it will go on sale regular? That's me. I like if I see a game.

That's older. That's even like if I say a game. It's a year old. It's not on sale It's just 59.99.

I'm like no fucking way am I buying that book price it will eventually go on sale I'll wait so it is an interesting, you know, they got to weigh out the the options And it's what we always say right about the tendo is that the one major advantage they have and perhaps why they sell so many games actually Is because they don't drop their prices ever so people don't get scared of going and buying smash brothers because it is literally never going to drop in price So what do you do you think that there's a value in that maybe even in the first party? Would you imagine a scene where so you're like all our first party game for always 60 bucks? They're never gonna be cheaper because that's what so that's what Nintendo does and they get away with it. I think that's fine I think the only issue is that they have a history of not doing that and Sorry, right.

That's a great point. It's the second the second you have a history because you know I remember when Xbox live came out right and it was you had to pay for it and when I was a kid I was like I don't have money that sucks, but also like I get it. Yeah, you pay for cable I guess right that's how I thought about it. It's like you pay for it PlayStation that was like unacceptable You know when the p.s.

Three was I was like I can't believe you pay for online But then Sony did it and then you know there were some people who were like the fanboys were just like oh now It's okay suddenly suddenly. It's okay, but then there were people who were just like you know, it's like Because they had a history of not doing that it was less okay You know because it was almost like kind of going against their own kind of philosophy or it was hypocritical or whatever They want to call it so I think it's Sony and Microsoft both would have a hard time kind of establishing this new kind of cost Strategy I suppose an intended which is just always done it But I do think there's probably like a ton of value and just making sure that your games are always premium price Like I think all do either that for a long time Like I remember trying to buy an old call duty game because I was just curious about it And it was still like 50 bucks or something. I was like what this is two generations ago It was still expensive I couldn't believe it but as far as like a piece of the PlayStation sales go like they don't bother me I've done the same thing with like steam sales and I'm just like bought shit like I bought and this is when I think After the new Tomb Raiders came out like after the new first Tomb Raider I think it was just called Tomb Raider right yeah, yeah, yeah the reboot after that came out all the Tomb Raider games went on sale And you could get all of them every single Tomb Raider game the original 3 the anniversaries the ps2 games and the the ps4 New reboot title. I got those all for seven dollars I was like that's certain like I don't even really care for Tomb Raider that much But like that's so many games for seven dollars that I can't possibly justify not buying this and lo and behold I played three of them like like three out of that I don't even know how many there were in that bundled like 10 I think the it's funny Chris because there is this this notion I don't know who said it to me I might have been someone at IGN once it was quite sage which was you're not saving any money if you're buying games that you weren't gonna Buy anyway, no, yeah, the game is five bucks and you weren't and you weren't gonna buy it and now you bought it for five bucks You never gonna play you just lost five bucks It's actually it's very logical when you hear it said out loud, but people don't think like that well There's an argument to be made that like maybe when you're like when you're old and retired and like you're in your little retirement home And then you you lug your PC Yeah, and suddenly you just like the world's your oyster now because even you managed to spend seven dollars But then by then it's like those games would be free anyway Yeah, that's true And I'm also quite cynical about it too Just because I feel like like with those examples like Tomb Raider right or when the division was they were trying to promote DLC But a lot of that is also to push you in it so that they can raise their sales numbers Not yeah, they're finances, but to say like we sold a million copies of this Well, it's like how many million how many of that million were sold at full price and how many did you just sell for half Right and that's that's part of the game too And we're realizing that with our games now that they're finally going on sale for the first time like we can't really differentiate even What's selling for what you know, so at some point you lose track of it and then you have to like divide them It's not even a lot of talk about all right.