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Without you, Sacred Symbols and all things Collins' last stand would not exist. But enough of that. Onto the show. Greetings and citations.
Welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always, actually not as always because he wasn't here last week for the first time ever, but he's back. Chris Reagan.
I'm back. Hey! Welcome back. Yeah.
How was your life? It's pretty good. I feel energized. Do you?
Yeah. That's good. I'm going back to Manhattan. I did the math on this.
I walked 13 miles on one day. Wow. So I'm feeling pretty exhilarated. That is maybe more than I've walked in six months.
No, it's a lot. I walked from the Seinfeld restaurant to Union to down by South Street is ridiculous. That's very cool. I missed New York.
I was very jealous seeing your pictures and whatnot as I didn't go to New York this winter, but I'm glad you're back. The people missed you. I did a solo episode for the first time in the public feed, episode 27. This is episode 28.
You were missed. And solo album? You were missed. It was a solo album.
It wasn't as well received as the usual. It's like when you got to his own record and everyone wanted Wu Tang Records. Very similar to that. Good to have you back, Chris.
Good to be back with a normal show. This is our first recording of the New Year. So I first wanted to just take the time to wish everyone a happy New Year. Your celebration with your family was good New Year's Christmas.
Yeah, it's got a lot of food, a lot of paella and bananas and stuff. It's great. It's always just like home cooked food. That's the only reason I go home.
It's like I can't miss. I love paella. Yeah. So your parents, they cooked in the Puerto Rican style, let's say.
Yeah, I would say so. Okay. I'm going to do a bit of a hyperbole here, but we like 15 pounds of wings and like a turkey fryer that couldn't fit inside the house. So we did it outside.
It was a lot of fun. You should never fry deep fry anything in the house. My dad who's as everyone knows, I think ex F the NY firefighter found out once I was deep frying a turkey in the apartment. It was like, dude, you can't be doing shit.
Like he's like, I think you put out like 25 fires in my career. People exploding turkeys in their houses in Brooklyn. So really? Is that frown on?
Apparently, like if you put something frozen or cold in one of those things, it could explode. Oh, yeah. No, you got to defrost. Yeah.
Well, I'm not very smart. So I hope everyone had a great break. Everyone's kind of back to the grind. So we're glad to be back there or back here with you.
There's a few notes that I need to go over first and foremost. Now that we're through the holiday thing. The first thing I have to do is correct something. Chris wasn't even here.
So he's gonna have no idea what we're talking about. But last week I made the point that there has been a PlayStation console that hasn't outsold its competitor. And I was really talking about that in terms of Xbox, but that's clearly not true. Obviously we outsold PS3.
I was really talking about PlayStation 3 versus Xbox 3, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, but I did bring the game queue up and stuff. So I do want to correct that. That's obviously not true. Sean Plummer did write in as well in his High Collin.
Great episode. Around the one hour, Marcus and Nintendo has blown their load and only has one exclusive Pokemon coming out in 2019. I just wanted to add the ones you've missed. Animal Crossing is listed on the Nintendo website is coming out in 2019.
New Leaf, the last entry in the series sold 12 million copies and was only beaten by mainline Pokemon games. Mario Kart 7, New Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario 3D Land. Luigi's Mansion 3 is set to release in 2019 as well.
The previous entry in the series sold 5.5 million. So while not huge, it should be a significant release to the Switch this year. Metroid Prime 4 probably won't come out in the series never sells well, but it is always critically claimed that people are chomping at the bit to play this game. Fire Emblem at 3 houses looks great and is a beloved critically acclaimed series.
It just sells at least 2 million. Other exclusives include New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Yoshi's Crafted World, Town. What is that?
World? There's a game called Town or is the game called Yoshi's Crafted World Town? Oh, there's a town is an untitled project. I think it was just called Town.
Oh, okay. It was an unveil that one of the direct. I thought they were really getting weird with the titles there. And then Daemon across Machina.
Yes, but the point I was trying to make last week, and Kristin here, I knew this was that none of these games are going to sell Switches. That's the only point I was trying to make. Yeah, and they're also not enormous games for people who are outside of the Nintendo ecosystem. Like Smash is something that I think even if you're a die-hard Xbox person or a PlayStation person, you probably will play the new Smash at some point and you probably have a good time with it.
Zelda is another one of those console leaping releases. People are going to play Animal Crossing for it since probably own a Switch over it. Yeah, exactly. I think Pokemon is the only game that will get people to buy the console and mass.
Although I will say that I hope Nintendo is great. I mean, it's nothing against it. I know I was just really making a point. And by the way, you could support the show on Patreon.com.
I stand out how letters, questions, comments, concerns, and ideas are submitted to our show as you guys know. If you support us over there, so we appreciate that. I bring that up, Chris, only because we're going to make some changes over there for 2019. And I guess the massive change really is in regard to something people have been asking for, which is us to put this show on video.
Now, a majority of the audience, I would say probably two thirds of the audience probably more than that listen to the show and audio formats on podcast services like iTunes and Google Play and stuff. We appreciate that. But there is an audience that listens to the show on YouTube, and we only put it up as an image on YouTube and they wanted it on video. And so this is something that I needed to figure out and need to think about, and I've come up with some sort of solution, I think.
So as you guys know, as we just said, Patreon.com slash.com, I stand support, Stigert symbols gets you the show three days early and free. It gets you support for the other shows that I do like knock back my retro series, etc. So here's the goal. I never do stretch goals over there.
I never really try to rely on that. If we get the 5,000 subscribers and maintain that, then you and I will start doing a Let's Player to a Month that will live on side quests YouTube channel. So that will be fun, like PlayStation, let's not even do stuff with that. If we reach 5,500 patrons and we can sustain that level month over month, and as long as we sustain that level, we will put sacred symbols on video.
Okay, we will have one static camera shot. I've got to start to figure out how we might do that and we'll make that happen. So the ball is back in your quarter. That's something you want, please do consider supporting the show at any level, $2, $5, $5 a month seems to be the sweet spot that's about where half of the subscribers are because I get to you early ad free access, the ability to make questions, the exclusive podcast, etc.
So I want to let you guys know I'm here and you are listening to you, the solutions in either. Hopefully we can do it. Very exciting stuff. Then I'll have to like, I look at my beard, I look like I'm homeless right now.
So I would have to probably do something about that if we, you know. That's the thing about doing videos that you have to not look like shit. It's gonna be a problem for you. I like coming here looking like shit.
You look fine. I mean, I saw you, you know, you walked in, you got into the building. You looked very, very nice. I thought I'm doing pretty well for the fact that considering the fact that I got here at like 2am.
Yeah. So your flight was delayed or did you take a red eye? No, I'm a psycho and I take red eyes. No, I do too.
I do. There's no problem with that. It saves money. Yeah, there's no reason not to as long as you can get through that.
So yeah, I'm gonna have to like my beard is very asymmetric right now. Like my beard grows in weird. It is on the bottom. Like it grows like half like faster on one side than the other.
When I had people over last week for fireside chats, I hadn't really seen anyone except for Aaron and a few other people like for weeks because I've just been, you know, hanging out and I realized like I let these people in and I looked at myself in the mirror later. I'm like, I really gotta do so. I gotta clean myself up a little bit. It's a little ridiculous.
It's a little ridiculous. I'm just a little bit homeless. Amir Rosenberg wrote into us on Patreon like you guys kind of said, hi guys, greetings from Israel. My question today is fairly simple and I'm sorry if you already addressed it on an earlier episode, my memory sucks.
Do you guys think it's possible for you to interview game developers? Maybe in the format of fireside chats but in a three so that's a little dirty, which will be much more sexy. I'm talking exclusively of the big guns dudes like Neil Druckman, Corey Barlog, Joseph Ferris, etc. In my opinion, it will be much more interesting than interview double-a developers or even some from the indie scene.
No matter which developer doing the interview in the CLS format will be super cool. So this is something that Chris and I want to do and I've been working on and the reason that I wanted to bring this up today Chris is because we've been trying and I've been trying to get people on the show. Now, there are a few fireside chats. That's my interview series where I had a guy on from Unity a few weeks ago that was really interesting about how to be an indie game dev and get involved in that.
We've had some smaller game devs on and authors and stuff like that. But as far as the big guns are concerned, listen, I like to be open with the audience as Chris knows, everyone knows we talked about it. I will still treat them fairly and buy their games when they come out. But Sony has pretty much ignored every interview request that I put in since it was began.
Everyone of them. But I want to let you guys know that I'm not ignoring you. I'm trying. It's just that we're not able to do it.
We're not able to make it happen yet. But hopefully 2019 will be a little bit different. And so there's that. And then Tony Colton wrote in was and said, the one other good question earlier and now I can't remember it.
I like that he wrote it in. It's not really useful to be honest with you. It's the thought that counts. It is the thought that counts and I appreciate that.
Chris, it's been a vacation. You've been traveling much more than I have. I've been home so I've been able to play a lot. I want to start with what you've been playing though.
If there's anything that you can throw into the mix over these last few weeks since we last met. I've been messing around with Hitman 2 and a little bit more with Just Cause which I've been having a blast with because it's just such a ridiculous thing. I don't know what the hell's going on in that game. I have no idea what the narrative is.
But that grappling is something else. You like that? I like it. It's definitely more of a sandbox game than anything else which I personally miss.
I feel like we don't really have that many of those anymore. At least not any like physics based playgrounds or not as many as we used to. It's nice to see that but Hitman 2 is still a ton of fun somehow. That's a game I love even though I suck at it.
And that's kind of a testament to that game I think. If I'm bad at a game I like it that's something else. It looks really great. It's like on my cross media bar it's a game that I really want to get into but I just don't know if I'm out of the time.
It demands a lot of attention from you. But it's so hilarious to fail. It's just so much fun failing in that game. I don't know how to describe it.
You brought your PlayStation one home and I saw a picture and you were talking about this so you had your PS1 with you. I do. I'm excited. I brought all my games to it like a disc sleeve to play those games especially because the classic was just so not.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I got to figure that out.
I have all the original cables, but obviously it's not compatible with modern TVs. I'm going to look through my options. I'm not really sure. I've never really done that.
I've never taken an old console and hooked it up to 4K TV. Yeah, there's TV. I don't even know if it's possible. Because it's interesting I was thinking that even new TVs won't even have component or no.
They won't have composite cables. Composite cables are the old ones. The component cables are the ones that they did like 720. Yeah, I'm not sure.
I have an old TV that I could probably hook it up too. I'll figure it out. Alright. I'm still unpacking pretty much to be honest.
I like to unpack as quickly as possible when I get home. I passed out the second I got home. I was done. Oh, OK, fair enough.
Now, I played a lot of games during our little hiatus. Here, in other words, I'm the hiatus for the show, as you guys know, we recorded an episode early. I did my solo episode as we said, so you guys didn't really notice, maybe, but we haven't really talked about the games that I've been playing in a couple of weeks. So I want to start with a game called Time Spinner.
This was a game that was introduced to me, just online, me looking around for Metroidvanias and just good games to play. This game is phenomenal. Now, yeah, it's created by a studio, a small studio called Lunar Ray Games, Lunar Ray Games. And Time Spinner is on PS4 and Vita.
I assume it'll come elsewhere at some point. It's a Metroidvani game with pixel art and awesome music and audio and an interesting sci-fi story. It is very true to Symphony of the Night. And it's kind of like Symphony of the Night, but in a sci-fi almost like fantasy star setting.
It is excellent. It is an excellent game. I'm telling you guys, you've got to go play Time Spinner if you are into any of that. And I did my Game of the Year video on my SideQuest YouTube channel, and I put it in there so you guys can go see Game Play of it.
But really seriously, look that Game of Time Spinner. I played it on PS4. I heard it doesn't play the greatest at all times on Vita, but you guys can be the judge of that. I played Tacoma finally, which comes from Fulbright, the guys that did Gone Home.
It's a short experience. You can beat it in a few hours. I platmed it. Now, it crashed about five times on PS4.
I was reading about it. And it's apparently not uncommon for the game not to run poorly, not only on PS4, but else where. But nonetheless, really, really great game. I mean, if you can get past the obvious technical limitations of it, it's really cool.
It's about a space station in orbit around Earth and kind of your center to figure out what happened to the people that lived there. And it's super, super cool and very different and much more dynamic than Gone Home. I really liked it. So I wanted to recommend that.
We talked about Revery. Already, it's kind of like Earthbound. I finally played a little bit more of it. I liked it.
Still have a lot more to do. Super Life of Pixel still working on. And finally, went back a few days ago and started playing Far Cry Primal again. That's an interesting thing on that list.
It's because of this Far Cry New Dawn game that's coming out, I guess, which is kind of the sequel to Far Cry 5. And I just wanted something to play. And I didn't really know what to play. And it was in my list.
I was originally going to play Metro 2033, which I played already. And I think I'll go back to at some point in preparation for Exodus. But I don't know. I just want to play Far Cry Primal.
I think I'm like 20% through the game. It's fun. There's nothing really much to play. I'm in communication with Capcom now about Animusha and Resident Evil.
So we should be getting those soon. But in the meantime, those were the games. So those were the games that kept me company while we were apart, while we were thinking of each other, at least I was thinking of you, Chris. It's going to list.
Now, this is going to be a normal episode of the show. We're going to do the news. After that, there is no drop this week. They have not given us a drop on PlayStation Blog.
So I have no idea what's coming out. That's just the way it's going to be. In lieu of that, we're going to do our Game of the Year awards. Chris and I both put our top three games down.
And we also made up 10 awards each. Random awards that we want to give out the random games, which I think will be fun and we'll do that. But first, let's get into the new scripts that we shall. Let's do it.
Number one, this month's Free PlayStation Plus Games for the month of January 2019 have been revealed, and are currently available for you to download, so long as you have an active PS Plus account. When it comes to PlayStation 4, you can download Open World's Snow Sport Game Steep, as well as Action RPG Portal Knights. On PlayStation 3, you can grab Kojima compilation, Zone of the Enders HD Collection, and Music Rhythm Game Amplitude. And finally, on PlayStation Vita, you can grab RPG Fallen Legion Flames of Rebellion, an arcade shooter, Super Mutant, Alien Assault.
Fallen Legion is also available on PS4. I went to download yesterday on Vita. I couldn't figure out how to do it without having to pay for it, so something might be wrong. Remember, even if you don't intend on playing these games right now, you should still add them to your download list so you can play them later if you like, so long as your PlayStation Plus account is active.
Remember, there's only two more months of Free PS Plus Games for Vita and PS3. That's great. So let's enjoy it, and then we don't know what's going to happen after that. Anything's possible after that.
Shane Hendrickson wrote a note on Patreon like you guys can and said, hey, guys, we're just a couple of months away from Sony Tropping PS3 and Vita Games from the monthly PlayStation Plus lineup. What do you think this means for the future? Will we start getting PSVR games? Will they increase the number of PS4 games?
Or will we just be getting fewer games per month? What are your thoughts? Thanks as always for delivering such a fantastic PlayStation discussion. It's one of the highlights of my week.
Thank you so much, Shane. What do you think they should do? So right now, because we get six games for Free PlayStation Plus. Two PS4, two PS3, two Vita.
Sometimes the PS3 and the Vita games interact with each other. Sometimes those games are also available on PS4. So it kind of works out. What do you think they should do about this once they get rid of the, you know, they're jettisoning PS3 and Vita games.
So they have some sort of replacement, right? I mean, there's probably, at this point, enough games on the PS4 platform that they'll probably just put out more PS4 games, right? At this point, we're pretty late into the cycle. There's probably only a year or two left on the PS4's life cycle to begin with.
So I imagine we just see older PS4 games. I would assume so as well. I don't think we're going to get six games, but I think that probably my prediction is we're going to get four PS4 games a month. And I think that one of them will be a PSBR game.
So I think you're going to get three PS4 games plus a PSBR, optional or PSBR mandatory game. I think that's the way they're going to move forward with it from here on out. Are there enough PSBR games that they could reliably do that consistently now? I think so.
I mean, think about the drop. Like all these random games come out every time. I guess so, yeah. There's probably hundreds of PSBR games now.
So or PSBR enabled games. So if you were starting to just give those away, you would take your years to catch up. And I think that you probably could make that happen. It'll be a nice little advertisement for the unit too.
So I think Shane, that's what they're going to do. We're going to find out. I'm super eager to see what they're going to do. And I assume that they'll announce their intentions before it all goes away.
Although, like Sony, I hope they don't. And they leave us all in suspense. That'll be really great. You just forget.
Number two, the dream's closed beta is officially underway. And it's accepting sign-ups now. Dreams, which is a PlayStation 4 exclusive game for media molecule, the team behind a little big landed and tearaway, was officially announced in 2014, though teased in early 2013 and the development since at least 2012. Dreams beta launch is a big deal.
And as a beta was promised for 2016, 2017, and 2018, though none materialized, and Dreams will mark the first console release for media molecules since 2011 when the team released a little big planet, 2 on PS3. To find the sign-up website, just Google Dreams creator beta trial. And you guys will find it there. And yes, tearaway did come to console.
It doesn't count. And it's actually happening. Are you excited? I'm interested.
I'm definitely interested. I'll put it that way. I'm going to take that as a no. I'm just really curious.
I have no doubt the game's going to be good. I'm curious how it sells. Yeah, that's the main thing. That's all I can and marketability of it.
Yeah, exactly. I'll be interested to see where you've been fit in this pretty amorphous release catalog that we have right now. Number three, Days Gone could have had a multiplayer mode. And it could have been developed by Saber Interactive, the team currently working on a World War Z title.
In an interview with Gamesbeat, Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch noted that, quote, at some point, I want to Sonya said, I've seen what you're doing with Days Gone. Look what we're doing with World War Z. Maybe we can help you with a multiplayer component, end quote. But they were obviously too focused understandably on what they needed to do to get that game out.
End quote, Saber Interactive is perhaps known for 2007. It's time shift, 2012's inversion, the recent Shackful Legend reborn, and it's worked in both the Halo and NBA Playgrants franchises. It's World War Z game is slated for launch on PS4 in 2019, while Sonya Ben's Days Gone is still set for launch exclusively on PS4 on April 26, 2019. Caleb Haver wrote in a once and said, it's tally ho lads.
I prefer to say that anymore. What's your thoughts on Days Gone's multiplayer pitch getting denied by Sony? I was a little disappointed by this. I know I'm in the minority with multiplayer and Sony titles.
A lot of the extensions last about some on charges. But if it doesn't come at the cost of the single player experience, who cares? Wouldn't this give the game an extra lag? And what is Sonya's reasoning?
How do you feel about this? Sonya basically being approached about an external developer working on Days Gone's multiplayer component, and then basically saying no. I personally have no problem with this. Although I think Caleb makes a good point that there is no opportunity cost here if Ben wasn't going to work on it themselves.
Although this is obviously a monetary investment that Sony would have to make. I think it's better that the game just exists as it is, and is put out in the best state that it can. I don't think it needs a multiplayer mode. I don't think it necessarily screams.
I can't even fathom what a multiplayer component to that game would look like based on what I've seen. It just doesn't maybe a cooperative horde mode type deal, but even then, it just seems like it's just going to split focus, not necessarily between developers, but just as to what the game even is, and who's playing it and for what reason? It just seems to unfocused. I agree with you, and I also think that they've just shown in the last year that they don't really need multiplayer games to succeed on PS4.
Now, I know that they're going to be relying more on multiplayer games going forward. There's rumors about so-com being revived and all this kind of stuff. Who knows if any of that's true. But they're going to be multiplayer and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 exclusive games.
There's no doubt about that. They need to get in that space whether it's free to play or paid, double-A or triple-A. But I agree with you, Chris, I think that Days Gone needs to speak on its own as a single-player game, just like Spider-Man did, just like the Troy did, obviously, and just like God of worth it. So what's the point of that?
So I think that Sony probably looks at it and says, we don't really want to make the monetary investment of X million dollars to make this stuff. We get this developed. It's not going to sell any more copies of the game. We have to worry about it on the back end.
And this might be a distraction to Sony better. So I think you're absolutely right. And I was happy to see that. Although, surprise, that he was so open about that conversation.
It makes you wonder if it was really ever a serious conversation or just something I was like mentioned over lunch one day. Yeah. And it's also worth noting that any time a multiplayer component is done for a game that the development of said project is under the wing of a completely different studio. It tends to not really do as well as a multiplayer component done in-house under the same roof.
The thing that comes to mind immediately, ha ha, mean, doom, which had a horrendous multiplayer component that was not done by the primary team that made this fantastic single player. And this is consistent to even say we're interactive who I'm familiar with with their work on previous Halo games. You really could take it and leave it. Multiplayer needs to be done by people in-house who understand what the game is, who aren't just kind of being pawned off this project.
I think it's a smart decision not to force it in there. I think it is too. And I will say that it kind of almost harkens back to a different era. Now that it's 2019, this was basically a 10-year-old, eight-year-old era of games where like Bioshock 2 had its multiplayer component made somewhere else.
So every game had a multiplayer component. And it was to try to stop you from selling the game and stuff. I feel like the game industry has kind of come over that hump and realized that you just have to put things out there with meaning. That's basically it.
If there's no meaning and no intent, other than some sort of economic game, which is fine. This isn't an altruistic exercise video games. But I think that they realize that it's not the mid- or early PS3 and Xbox 360 era where everything had multiplayer and season passes and they didn't want you to sell your games back and all that. The day's gone really need that kind of support.
I don't think so. And that's worth considering as well. Number four, the third episode of the third season of The Walking Dead, the game is imminent. As you may recall, the third season, which was being episodically released as always, was caught short following the demise of Telltale Games.
However, Skybound, the company founded by The Walking Dead's creator, to control the game and reveal that episode three will launch on January 15th on PS4 and elsewhere. It's called Broken Toys. It can be purchased individually or as part of the larger season. I think the season is supposed to be four episodes.
There'll be one more after that. So you guys can look forward to that. It looks like they turned it around pretty quickly. Makes you wonder if the game was that far along, which I'm sure was how Telltale couldn't get any funding to finish it.
So we are very interesting. Number five, publisher Atlas and its internal development studio persona team have announced Persona 5R. But even after a teaser trailer, no one has any idea what it is. At least not yet.
It's unlikely to be a port of the game to other consoles, as the brief trailer begins with a PlayStation logo. Though the trailer does note new projects, in quotes multiple times with the teased month of March 2019. The trailer reads, take your heart in quotes at both the beginning and the end. It's most likely an enhanced version of the original Persona 5, which launched in Japan in late 2016 and everywhere else in the world in the early part of 2017, exclusively on PS4 and PS3.
Remember, both Persona 3 and Persona 4 got special, enhanced editions following their releases too. So I assume that's what this is. This is like a Persona 4 Golden on Vita. I assume this will be something similar.
A lot of people are saying, oh, it's a Switch port. It's an Xbox port. I really doubt that simply because there is a PlayStation logo at the beginning of the trailer. And that was pretty much the dead giveaway that they can't be.
But maybe it is. I can see them putting it on Switch though, especially with the announced Joker for Smash. Yeah, there is some sort of weird continuity. Remember, it took time.
We saw Cloud in Smash from Final Fantasy 7 as well. And it took them, what, over a year to get Final Fantasy 7 over to Switch after that. So maybe it is something that's a lead-in. But Atlas' kind of relationship with Sony, in terms of the Persona franchise, is pretty much cemented.
I mean, there are other Persona spin-offs on other consoles. There's mainly a PlayStation series, kind of a second party series. So I wouldn't get my hopes of a Furious Switch fan. At least not yet, but we'll see.
I wouldn't mind seeing that game everywhere. I know people love it. Demo number one launches on January 25th. They'll have to pre-order the game to gain access.
That demo will run through January 27th. On February 1st, however, demo number two goes live. And that'll be available for everyone. That public demo will run through February 3rd.
Two questions for you, Chris. Did you see I, Jan, is doing a bunch of coverage on Anthem this month? So there's a bunch of video and all that kind of stuff. I haven't actually seen much of it yet.
So I'm curious if you haven't what you think of that. And we'll start there. And then I'm also curious if your anticipation for the game is growing now that we're less than too much away. So I saw that there was coverage of it, but I have not seen any of it.
And I think I'm probably going to keep it that way. Because I feel like the more I look into a game like Anthem, or the more I look into a game like a Division 2, or like a Destiny, I feel like the more prone I am to be disappointed. I feel like this is the first time that I've just organically managed to avoid any details about a game. And I think I might just keep it that way.
I feel like that could be more of a positive experience for me when I get my hands on it. I am definitely interested in it, but I'm also interested in just completely preserving my knowledge about the game completely where it is. I agree with you there. I mean, it's a game that I'll probably, we'll get it from EA, and I'll probably play it a little bit.
I'm really want to play by myself. I want to see how that experience is. I'm super just almost morbidly curious about that. But it's not a game I have a lot of anticipation around.
Now, I saw from my friend Ryan McCaffrey, who's leading up the IJN coverage over there that the coverage is doing great traffic, which is a good sign, I guess, for EA. Although I've seen mixed reactions just anecdotally about it, some people saying it's really nothing to write home about, and maybe it looks a little de-await of some people. I really don't think we can possibly know how the market will react until the market has the opportunity to react to it. So we'll find out.
But yes, it seems like we've been talking about it for a while, and it's only six weeks away or so. So we'll have more information on that soon. And we'll rely mostly on Chris to give you guys impressions because God knows I'm not going to have anything useful to say. Number seven, FromSoftware has apologized for the Bloodborne Easter Eggs in its PSBR game, Dresnay.
In the same interview with Four Gamer Reference earlier, now I put these out of order. We're going to reference Bloodborne and FromSoftware again in a little while, the same story. So just so you guys know, this time via website, DualShocker's FromSoftware has hit a talk on Miyazaki said, quote, I'm sorry for getting everyone's hopes up, but we'll only put those Easter Eggs in for fun. Many people on Dresnay's staff and of course myself really loved Bloodborne, so we wanted to put references to it.
But we went overboard. We're reflecting on it, end quote. The biggest Easter Egg and Dresnay reference an unfinished tail, which obviously seemed to indicate a Bloodborne too. While Bloodborne too likely will be developed and released at some point, whether it's FromSoftware or elsewhere, it seems that neither FromSoftware nor Sony indicated to tease the game so heavily in the PSBR experience.
I find that kind of shitty because, and I don't know how you feel about this, like FromSoftware's name helped sell the rest of the day to whoever bought it, but I feel like the Bloodborne Easter Eggs helped sell even more. And so it's easy for them now a couple months later to go, oh, sorry, we didn't mean anything by putting the fucking doll from Bloodborne in the game and quoting unfinished tails and all sorts of shit. That's a bit much. Unfinished tails is a bit of a, I could see like a doll or an asset or something like that, but unfinished tail seems pretty deliberate to me.
That's not even like something from Bloodborne One that you could justify as like, oh, it's a little callback. That's just straight up being like, ah, it's not finished. I don't know. I really hear.
That's so strange. I have more to say about the problem to save it for, because we're gonna talk about it from again in just a moment. So I'll save it for that, Chris. Sure.
Number eight, the ratings board leaks from late 2018 were obviously true. Both hitman blood money and hitman absolution are coming to PS4 under the moniker of the hitman HD enhanced collection. And it's coming out, or it's already coming out, depending on when you're listening to this, the week this podcast goes live. According to the official hitman Twitter account, the collection supports 4K resolution, runs at 60 frames, and packs improved lighting effects and controls.
Hitman Blood Money was a late release PS2 game that launched in the spring of 2006, while hitman absolution was on PS3 and elsewhere, and came out in late 2012. Marcus Brown, who was on Patreon, Chris, and said, hey Colin and Chris, I'm sure you guys may have already planned the news of the show, but just in case you didn't, I went or active, I've announced an HD enhanced collection of hitman blood money and hitman absolution. My question is, will you guys play this? And what remaster collection you guys personally want for the PS4 are upcoming five.
You guys are great and keep up the great work. To answer the last question first, I'd love to see Sony give some love to resistance. We've talked about that in the past. I don't know why they're ignoring that franchise, so I'd love to see that on PS4.
I don't know if it would make sense on PS5. But are you gonna play these? I know you're a bigger hitman than I am. Blood Money and Absolution are imminent on PS4, Chris, will you give them a go?
Listen, the issue here is that they're coupling one of the most critically acclaimed hitman games with the objective worst one. I didn't know anything about that. It's popular. Hitman Absolution is not good.
I don't like it. I don't know anybody who's a hitman who particularly likes it. They went very, very linear with it. They went very, this isn't, not even a certainly an action game, but it's a narrative adventure about Agent 47.
Ah, how mysterious. I just wanna be left alone in a sandbox and hitman people. That's what I wanna do. I don't care about this at all.
I believe they call that assassinating people. Yeah, I don't know. It sounds like a bit of verb to me. And then Blood Money was good.
I didn't play Blood Money was great. Blood Money was great. So that's the thing. It's like, do I really, I can't imagine what would come to me to go back to Absolution at all.
How about a collection? Was there any couple of situations you'd like to see? On PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5? God, dude, I ain't got all mine.
I got my spyware. I got my crash. I got my crash. I got my crash.
I got my crash. I got my crash. I got my crash. I got my crash.
And this is back to FromSoftware. It appears FromSoftware, the Japanese studio behind Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and The upcoming Sekiro, among others, has two unannounced games in the works. Word comes by way of Web Psycho Matsu, which translated an interview from FromSoftware's president, Hidebuhi Azaka. This is the same interview we quoted above.
And he gave it to 4-Gamer. He said, quote, while it isn't the time to discuss details, they're both from Software S Games. We'll need a little more time, and we'll be able to tell everyone more about them once they take shape. And quote, FromSoftware's newest game Sekiro, Shadows Die Twice launches on PS4 and elsewhere on March 22nd, and comes by way of publisher Activision.
This is what I wanted to talk about before, because one of those games has to be Bloodborne 2. I don't give a fuck what anyone says or what they say. There's no way that Bloodborne isn't getting a sequel. You know?
Well, maybe. Who knows? It could be even folks too, or something, but they're getting a new game. Yeah, no, it's definitely, I would wager on it probably being furthest away.
Probably like the last game that they're working on, but yeah, I don't imagine that they're not working on Bloodborne 2. On a side note though, I'm beyond pumped for Sekiro. I'm actually so excited. I didn't think I would be this excited for it.
It looks great. I came out of nowhere. I did a list of the games that I wanted to keep an eye on for the next two months for both of us. Some of these games want to appeal to you, I don't think, but I have here written down Tales of Aspiria, which you're not going to care about.
I'm so excited. I asked for that. I copied that. Onimusha and Resident Evil, I asked for copies for us already.
Far Cry New Dawn, I'm going to be interested in it, but obviously you were so excited to give us that. Anthem then comes out the next week, and Metro Exodus comes out the same day. So those are the games, but when I was doing this list, I'm like, oh, isn't Sekiro in February? No, March.
So we have a little bit more time to think about it. I'm excited, dude. Well, I'm going to be quick one, but Resident Evil 2, remade is going to be great. I'm excited for that.
I never played Resident Evil 2. And Metro Exodus is going to be great. I do want to play 2033 and what is it called? Metro Last Light.
Yeah, Metro Last Light I think was the last one. And so I do want to play both of them. I want to play them again in preparation on PS4, because I think I played them on PS3. I actually think I played 2033 on Xbox 360, believe it or not.
So I need to get all that sorted. But anyway, that's just a labyrinthine way of saying that Sekiro is more further out than I thought it was. But I'm very excited about that. I don't know what the second game could be.
Because they own weird IP from software owns, I think the MechWarrior IP or something. Not MechWarrior, what is it? Armicore, they own Tentshue, which obviously became... So it could be almost anything.
They might be working on a Dark Souls game again with Ban Danco. But I would say if I were a betting man, Bloodborne 2 or Demonsoults who were something, some other one off, PlayStation exclusive's definitely. Armicore would be pretty sweet. Maybe.
Do we really care about those games anymore? Does anyone care about Armicore anymore? I guess someone cares about it. I like it.
What I would really love in the terms of mech games is a new front mission game from Square. Although they made, you know, front mission was a strategy RPG about mechs. It was really great. was really great and then they made it into something else.
And that's kind of died. Yeah, pretty quick. Yeah, they did. Timefall 2 was like the last good game I played.
We'll probably get another Titanfall game as well. So I wonder if that will also strengthen the push for my game. Are we getting another Titanfall game? Because I thought Respawn is working on that poorly announced.
Sorry. No, I think that they are still working on Titanfall as well. I don't think they're going to get up to ghost on that one. Number 10.
The SRB has rated the Serious Sam Collection for PlayStation 4 all but confirming its imminent release. As website push square points out, a Serious Sam Collection was already on PS3 and this is presumably a port of that. The Collection launched in 2013 and included four separate games. Serious Sam HD, the first encounter, Serious Sam HD, the second encounter, Serious Sam BFE and Serious Sam double DX XL.
Originally from 2001, 2002, 2011 and 2013, Chris was yawning during that. So I assume that's all we need to know. And number one. I'm tired.
I'm flying a lot. Well, it looks like publisher Warner Brothers has taken Lego Lord of the Rings and Lego the Hobbit down from Digital storefronts, including PlayStation Network. And there's no word on when they'll be reposted or if they will be at all. While there's no confirmation licensing issues are almost certainly at the heart of the takedown and whether the issues will be solved or means to be seen.
Brandon Hardman wrote into us over on Patreon and said, I just read a story about how WB has pulled the Lego Lord of the Rings and Hobbit games from all digital marketplaces. How much of a problem do you see things like this being in the next generation where the digital market will be even bigger than it is now? So how do you feel like this? This is interesting because if you don't own a physical copy of the game, you may never be able to, unless you bought it already, you will never be able to acquire it ever again.
And that is, this isn't the first time that's happened. PT is a great example of that, but it is strange that this is happening. It's more likely with licensed properties like that because it wasn't there something about like a Marvel, was it Ultimate Alliance that got pulled down? I think so.
It was something like that or Marvel's Heroes or something. It was some Marvel game that got took down because the license ran out. It's like, geez, well, I don't know. I mean, presumably if you like those games enough to even pay attention to that kind of thing or feel anything in regards to that, you probably own the game already, where you have some access to it.
So I mean, listen, if you like a licensed game, get away. My bigger thing about this though, Chris, is that the Lego War of the Rings games, I'm not sure about the dates of them, but I'm sure the Lego and the Hobbit games are a little newer because of the movies that come out a little bit more recently. So I can understand maybe older games or re-release games not having that all in the licensing language. Like they couldn't anticipate digital marketplaces, whatever.
I'm not sure about that, but I guess I just find it weird that there was nothing in the language for the newer games that are like, well, PSN exists and Xbox Live exists, so we have these in perpetuity and all this kind of stuff. So I'm sure not something to do with a Tolkien estate or something, because you would have to assume they would be more buttoned up than that. That's just weird to me. It is super odd.
You know, like I understand like why you can't release crazy taxi with real audio because they couldn't anticipate that this would happen, but this is 2019 now. So you would think that things are a little bit different. That's the big takeaway for me. It's not that like digital marketplaces are under siege or games are going to start disappearing, but just that they're not more buttoned up in the language of keeping the games there permanently.
I think that's a bigger problem. Yeah. Do you say 2000 or 20? I don't know.
I was thinking about that recently. Sometimes I say 2019, sometimes I say 2019. Well, because that's what I was thinking too because it is a little psychotic because we said 1999, 1987. So why when we say 2054?
We didn't say 1951. The year 1951. I don't think we said that. Maybe we could get into existential.
It's getting a little weird. Alright, Chris, that's all for the news. Now we have no games to announce this week as I said at the top, the PlayStation vlog doesn't have a drop for us this week. So we are going to do our game of the year awards here instead.
Before we get into it, I wanted to set the stage with just a couple of inquiries or comments. A.K.H. Vids wrote it and said, Hey, CNC 2018 has been just a sell or year for video games. A Spider-Man and Red Dead tying for my game of the year.
And I still need to play the Troi and God of War. My question is when it comes to the game of the year, does DLC or modes edit later change your mind or affect the game's status or is it purely based on the gameplay or story that the game has? The base game has. Keep up the great work.
I think we have to examine the games as they exist right now. Yeah. You think so? I think the way I look at it is I don't even really count DLC or anything like that when I'm reflecting about a game that came out that grabbed me because to me, if I enjoyed it without all the new stuff, then that's good enough for me.
If I didn't enjoy it with the new stuff, then the game wasn't finished and that's a detriment in the games. I don't know if I give that much leeway to or give that much credit to DLC as good or not good as it could be. Well, I guess you're right in the sense that I don't know that I would consider DLC specifically because I didn't play any DLC for a say Spider-Man. But I do, he's saying the game's status and I guess that that's a bigger thing.
How does the game run right now? What does the community like right now? We do see games like Warframe go on for years and years and years. We see games like League of Legends and stuff, they change and they evolve.
So I guess what I'm saying is that we have to judge a base on the lens of right now. We don't have to bring extra products or whatever. But I'm not going to take any of these awards, these esteemed awards back from anyone who happens to win one. And some of these awards you definitely don't want to win.
So I'm just running that out there. Tyler Mitchell also running with Skryst and hey guys, I have a huge problem with the game of the year discussion. That's so prevalent in the gaming conversation. I always have felt that it does two really negative things.
Number one, it forces those with the widest audiences to rush to complete a handful of games that have been deemed more important simply because of their release date. If a game is released late in the year, it stands up as a chance of being played and placed on these lists that have been released through much prior, regardless of the quality. I remember this specifically being an issue with Far Cry 3. We'll talk about that in a minute because you're absolutely right.
Number two, it discourages people from taking their time with the game and enjoying its nuances. This isn't only the game of the year conversation. I recall Chris felt this way about Red Dead Redemption 2 for the podcast you guys did. I feel like this would unfairly force people to misjudge games, which greatly benefit from taking time.
And finally, this ultimately is a huge sales push for games. If a game wins game of the year, it is very likely to see a sales bump, which in my mind could discourage devs from creating more games that are slower paced. So what do you think of the more negative aspects of the game of the year discussion? Because I agree with him.
If you're talking about big publications and the so-called conversation around games, I hate that fucking term. But if you're talking about that, then he's probably right. That game of the year has a detrimental effect on being able to play everything, having a full breadth of range of experiences and does benefit the games that have come out by, say, October. As opposed to the games that came out later.
And Chris, he brought up Far Cry 3. And that's a great example because Far Cry 3 came out in 2012 and I was at IGN at the time. And I remember specifically this moment. I remember it.
I remember it. I remember it was yesterday. We had come up with our 10 games. And so it was games like Journey was on there.
The unfinished Swan was on there. It was like the Walking Dead Season 1 Hotline Miami. There was a bunch of great games on there. It dishonored.
And then I remember Mitch Dyer, who actually works at EA now as a writer. He co-wrote Battlefront 2 with the Star Wars game. And he was a buddy of mine back in the day. I remember him coming in and being like, Far Cry 3 had come out really late that year.