#37: Games As A Disservice

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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.

This is episode 37. My name is Colin Moriarty. I'm joined as always by his t-shirt is tucked in. Chris Raygun.

Is this? Yeah, your t-shirt's tucked in. Oh, whoa. That was a mistake.

How did you do that? I thought it was a look. So you're wearing your usual black jeans, your sneakers, your black coat. That's kind of like a black coat.

Like a sweatshirt and also a vest. Yeah, it's a mix. And then you have a t-shirt and the t-shirt is tucked in. And I thought this was part of the look.

No, I woke up in a complete haze this morning because I couldn't sleep. I have this weird habit of waking up and then going back to sleep. I'm trying to like not do that, but it didn't work this morning. I have a weird habit the last couple of weeks, because I said I've just been staying up exorbitantly late, five, six, seven in the morning.

Yeah. And three days ago, I started watching Game of Thrones again, because I stopped watching Game of Thrones somewhere. I think in the third season or something. And I watched one whole season of Game of Thrones in one day, and then the second season in the second day.

And I was out of 10 episodes the third day, while playing Vita and just sticking around and getting worked on. So I'm not really like very close attention to it. But I'm going to now because now I'm getting into the territory I've never seen before. And it's an interesting show.

So I was throwing off my schedule as well, my schedule, as they might say in the UK. That's gross and wrong. Schedule. Yeah, I like that.

Legendary. It's very labored. I mean, we thought about this before. It's very difficult to speak English that way.

Well, like in the English way? Yeah, in the English fashion. You're not speaking simplified as so much, haven't we? Oh, yeah.

I'm convinced we won the war because they kept adding unnecessary use into things that don't need them. Well, that gave them away. They gave their spy letters away. We know that this is from a British Tory because there is a you in labor.

Yeah, exactly. And who would put a you in labor? Who would put a you in all of these words? A downright terrorist.

They are a little terrorist. Aren't they a little lost? They're backs. Chris, we're glad to be here for those that don't know.

This is a PlayStation podcast. It goes up every Tuesday on patreon.com slash Collins last and add free exclusive. But if you want to listen to it for free on free feeds, be free loaders with ads. That's okay, too.

We appreciate you there. Well, leave us nice reviews on it. Etc. But if you want early access, the ability to submit questions, comments, concerns, alternatives, and ideas, exclusive podcasts, et cetera, consider supporting us on patreon.

We're going to talk a little more deeply about patreon in just a moment because someone wrote in about it. I wanted to start out, though, Chris, before we get any further noting that Sekiro, Shadow's Dactoise, which is the upcoming from software game being interestingly published by Activision, which is an unusual marriage. That game comes out on March 22nd-ish. And word is going around that review copies simply are not going to be put out into the wilds for even for, you know, even for podcasts, but press two.

And I reached out to Activision last week and I haven't heard back from them about this. But I wanted to let you guys know because this is a game Chris and I want to play, but it seems like they're not going to get early access to it. I don't know if that bodes well for the game or not. I can't imagine from is making a bad game, but maybe it's not very good.

That's really good to think about review copies for their other games. Call of Duty is typically very close to the best and often Activision would send people to places to play the game early. So when I was in media, which was a while ago, I don't know if they still do this, basically instead of sending us the game, which would be 99 out of 100 games, they would fly us to like a hotel somewhere and just put us up in a room with the game and that's how you play it. So I don't know if they're doing that for a second or maybe they are, but I just wanted to throw that out there because we would like to talk about the game, but we're probably going to be a little bit late on that.

And Activision has worked with us in the past. So that's not a huge concern for us. I also want to shout out because Chris noticed I was downloading the Division 2 while he walked in that our friend Bunty King, who you guys might know, with our Quibbequat friend up there in Montreal. You know, he's a gamer, he's a friend of ours, he's a comedian, he's a funny guy, very handsome, beautiful smile.

I mean, he's okay. And he reached out to me because we've been talking about the Division for a while. The Division 2's game we're all very excited about. And he was like, well, what's going on with Ubisoft PR?

And so I actually reached out to Ubisoft and again, reached out on their Twitter account as well. I've not heard back from anyone, but Bunty put me in touch with like an agency person in Quebec or in Canada that was handling Canadian press and he gave me a quote. Well, Canada did something good for one. So I was happy about that.

We have some foreign love. He asked the PR guy, very nice man. He asked us if we have a Canadian audience. And I was like, of course we have a Canadian audience.

For a sacred symbol is global. I hear you guys especially like listen to it in cities like Calgary and Winnipeg and Yellowknife and Moose Jaw and Madison Hat. Those are all real places in Canada. That's cool.

Yeah, Yellowknife. I think Yellowknife was or is the capital of the Northwest Territories, which I don't even think exists anymore. I think it's got another name now. I forget what it's name was, but I think in the late 90s or early 2000s, they created a new province that was for the Inuit, like for the Native peoples.

And that used to be called the Northwest Territories. I think I have no Canadian scholar. Chris, the other question I want to ask is we've been getting some complaints. They're not many.

Not many people say anything about it, but we do drop every week. We read the game list off. This is a tradition of mine going way back to podcast beyond. And the reason we started doing this a lot of times ago is because there's always something terrible in there.

But we've been getting some complaints like, why are we doing this? And so when this podcast goes live on Patreon, concurrent to this podcast going on on Patreon, there will be a poll. Only patrons will be able to give us their opinions on the poll, but that's what it's going to be. And the poll is simply going to read, should we continue to read the games or not?

Every week. The answer to that poll, which will run until Sunday right before episode their year goes live, will determine the future of the drop. Okay. That's how democratic we're going to be.

That's pretty good. I like it. This could very well be the last episode we ever do it. It's a damn shame.

It is what it is. I want to please the people. Yeah. Christian Ruos wrote in what's on Patreon just like you can and said, clarification or correction on the yearly passes of division two.

Though I don't think you got anything wrong in the past specifics, it is important to note that this is not the first time you was not done the early access to DLC content specifically with games like Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor. These games also have yearly passes that give you access to characters a week early. Though these characters can be unlocked through in game currencies. Though I'll be curious what division two will be like for the community since it is expansions and character classes that are being given early.

Thank you for your time. I wanted to read that out because we did get an error last week in talking about the division two's DLC pack, which gives everyone basically a pass for just early access to things that will be free. According to Christian, this is not necessarily uncommon with you. But I never played For Honor because I'm not a gigantic nerd.

And Rainbow Six Siege, of course, is not a game for comic. It's just not a game for comic. For Honor was pretty good. It reminded me of the early spirit of UFC in a weird way.

Remember how you were like with a sumo wrestler with a taquando guy who was kind of like a really street fighter? It's kind of cool to watch a samurai in a night fight, I guess. It was like Def Jam Bendetta or something. Yeah, it was like fighters.

Yes, exactly. That's an even better reference. Thank you for that. Connor Peterman wrote in what's said, Hi Studios, Colin and Saul Werkress.

When can we expect a Vida funeral pyre? Would you like to do a video together? If the latter, I would like to do something with an element of comedy. Thanks for all you guys do.

So I reached out briefly to Chris yesterday. I want to hire Chris to make the video. We have to talk about how much that's going to cost and what we can do. But what would happen if I were to simply say Chris, make a five minute or less video about the death of the Vida?

The only vision I have, this is a funny vision I have. I don't know if I should share on the show. I don't know if it's really even that funny. You know how you have like, you know, you die and you have the Paul Bears that carry the, like the cast.

It'd be funny to make a very small casket for the people. And I like, yeah, I have like a bunch of people carrying out, but just small, very small. I think I was super similar actually. So there could be, so we're working on it.

Yeah, and we have Chris, but we haven't really talked about it. Unfortunately, I have a doctor's appointment right after this episode. So we will not be able to convene on it. But Chris is the man that will, I hope you take care of it if we can meet his price.

And Chris is often very Steve. Okay, Matthew said a penny right into us and said, Hey, Colin, Chris, I need to apologize to you. I'm a bit of a patreon noob. I just became a patron.

I would become a patron way and he says way or otherwise. But I was under the impression that all of your podcasts were streamed only for day one access. This obviously isn't the case. Maybe there are other noobs like me out there.

Keep up the amazing content. So when I see this and I see questions like this, everyone's from Walker's, am I not being clear? Am I not being loose because I don't try to talk about patreon like forever. I put a little ad in front of the show and then we mentioned it a couple times, but am I not being lucid about what it's all about?

So I want to just be really clear. The show is free for everybody. The show is totally free. And you can listen to it.

And most of you do listen on iTunes. We put it on YouTube as an audio only five because I feel like listen to it there. You listen to it on, you know, sit here and whatever. So I'm very clear that you don't have to pay for the show, but the 5,000 or so people that do pay for the show get extra perks over patreon.com slash columns last stand.

So if you submit a dollar a month or pledge that here, you get an exclusive podcast from one of my runs, whether it's not back or sacred symbols. Two dollars a month is how you submit questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, ideas, five dollars a month is how you get early entry access to all the shows, etc. So go over there and check it out and read carefully. You know, in case I'm not being clear, we don't stream anything.

We don't do anything live. That's not the column where we are anyway. So that is the question I got when watching you on Twitter every so often. Yeah, sometimes you basically put out a Twitch message like when you went live saying about how you were basically begging for early death.

But it was much funnier than that. You can have custom like you've just gone live. Sorry, so I switched up every time. Yeah, it was very funny.

It was very cute. I just want to throw that out there in case people are confused and finally will Han run into us before we get into what we're playing. He says, Hey guys, so this is a question for you, Colin. I heard from Dagan's Q and I know Dagan is my brother and we mentioned him all the time, but he does my other podcast, knock back with me.

He said that you have never chewed gum in your life. Is this true? If so, that's insane. Even if you don't like gum, I feel like you have to have a once in your life.

This question must be answered. So I've never had gum. What? And I hate it.

I mean, how can you know if you hate it? Because I just don't like this idea. Like I don't like being around people chewing gum. What does that mean?

I don't understand. Like I don't like the smell of the gum. I don't like the noise of the gum. I don't like this idea that you're eating this thing over and over again for perhaps hours of time.

I'm very put off by it. It's the thing over and over again. I'm very put off by it. That's so shocking.

That's genuinely shocking to me, especially considering the fact that you grew up in New York where the streets are like half gum. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm a dad shoot. You know, not so much anymore.

They used to. But I'm so gross out by it. And it's like something that people around me know, but I have a confession. I never talked about this publicly.

OK. When I was like in fourth or fifth grade, my mom, when I was young for a long time, she was like an executive at this Delta connecting airline that was based in New England. She was like ahead of the flight attendants. And so I used to travel with her like sometimes on weekends and shit.

And we were in New Hampshire at Pease Airport, which is like this very small airport in Newington in Portsmouth in Southern New Hampshire. And there was like a machine and they didn't have like food machine. They didn't have like anything in it. Yeah.

So the only thing they had were like these gum packets and I got winter fresh gum, like the blue packet of gum. Yeah. And then I tried it. Like just tried like smelled it through the way.

And I was the closest I ever got to eating and having a piece of gum. I thought you were going to say something like traumatic because it's like the first confession that I have. But it's really just you tried you vaguely tried a piece of gum and then didn't continue. Yeah.

As I recall, I might have even been like in the bathroom when I was doing it or something. Well, that's pretty disgusting. Yeah. I don't know why I was a secret.

You know, I don't know. I don't really have this big memory. That's really weird, man. I don't know what to say about that one.

Yeah, it is a little weird, isn't it? Chris, what games are we playing? Let's start with you. You have a few interesting games written down here talking about your gameplay last week.

Yes, I'm continuing with Far Cry and Anthem and I'm getting a little bit more into them. I was initially kind of put off by them. But like I feel like I have this thing where like the game that I've just finished playing, I expect kind of that experience out of the next thing because I'm just like acclimated to experience. So I'm getting into Far Cry a little bit more.

I'm doing a little bit more than I was initially. Anthem is still kind of weird for me. I'm kind of getting the hang of it. I still think it's a bit undercooked, but I think I'm starting to get what they're trying to do.

But I haven't playing a lot of Delmay Cry. Delmay Cry 5 was the most recent thing that I've been playing. And it's very, very good. I don't really, I haven't played a lot of the previous ones or at least not to completion.

That was the very divisive game for people I don't know. DMC was what an into theory game. Yeah, yeah. I came out maybe five years ago.

I definitely, I feel like it wouldn't have had such a bad time if it wasn't called Delmay Cry, if it was just called something else. That game was entirely fine to me. But this game's really, I'm really liking it and I didn't think I would just, you know, it's never really grabbed me in the past. Sure, very fast.

Very. Yeah. It just feels good to play. It's goofy.

It's got a lot of ridiculous slo-mo that I feel like is, I feel like it's really at home in like a kind of comedy tone game like this. It's not like a verily comedy. It's not like Borderlands comedy, but it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's fun, the combat is super fluid, it's satisfying to get chains, it's satisfying to get S-Rank.

They have this weird multiplayer aspect of it, but I thought it was kind of like Dark Souls in a sense where like you see other people playing the game with you as different characters, and you get to see their performance, and you get to rank them at the end. I thought that was kind of cool. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's weird.

So you get to rank them. You get to be like, oh, that was pretty stylish. Oh. X-X, uh, uh, razorbeamtikun.com.

Right. Yeah. That's probably the name somewhere. Cool.

There is some controversy now, people have been writing it. I don't know that I even put it in here anywhere. Is there a controversy about it? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, let's just skip ahead. Yeah. Brandon Hardman wrote into us, we're going to do this at the end of the show.

Let's just take his question now. He wrote it in the head of the show and he crissed with all the hub ups surrounding the release of DMC5. I have to ask, should reviewers take points off and he puts take points in quotes off of an otherwise highly polished gaming experience just because they find the combat or content rather marginally offensive? I understand that offensive subject matter can affect someone's enjoyment of a game, but that seems like a pretty subjective thing to critique a game on.

Now, I don't know if you've seen this, but the game is being apparently or has been mildly censored for Western PlayStation 4 gamers only on Xbox One everywhere. It's fine. I'll PC everywhere. It's fine.

I'm PS4 in Japan. It's fine. And there's some screenshots. I guess a shot of maybe not there, someone carrying a naked girl and you can't see her vaginal area from behind.

I don't think they actually show it. There's a lens flare now. Yeah, I saw that. I thought it was either of those silly, but I don't think it's a huge controversy.

I think it's a loose point for that. That's a bit strange. No, I think so too. And I think Brandon is more right in because I wasn't reading too much about it.

I don't really care about this game, but from the predictable corners of games media, whatever people have been harping on the game, sexual content, whatever the case might be. And I don't know. I don't know how you feel that Brandon's safe in here, but to me, I just feel like everything about a review with really rare exception, like the specific frame rate or what a platform the game plays on or whatever, everything subjective matter of you. So taking points off of it for being too sexual or whatever, I don't think that's necessarily an invalid critique.

I don't know that I would share that critique, but I feel that way sometimes we just like my game of thrones. I'm like, sometimes this is like really quite erotic. You know, like if somebody asked me to review it, I think it would be stronger if this wasn't there all the time personally. Right.

So it's a similar thing. So who might have said that that subjectivity is not necessarily that doesn't necessarily belong in a review course does. I don't know if I really feel any which way better. I think it's kind of silly that it's being censored, but I also just don't really care all that much because the game is really good and it doesn't get worse with the addition of censorship to me.

I prefer it not happen, but at the end of the day, the game is still the same ultimately. Right. And it's a good game and you should play it. It's really solid.

Yeah, I think it looks pretty cool too. I might pick it up. I mean, there's so many other games. I really want to get to the Devil May Cry.

I think there's some sort of collection back off PS3 and then I think they ported it to the PS4 and then I would like to play that even first because I'm so I don't think I played Devil May Cry since PS2. Yeah, I never got into it, but I think I might want to know what I'm done with this. I might retroactively go back into the catalog. There's no reason not to.

Now Brandon, to your point, I think it's a strong point, but I just think you guys got to remember that reviews are subjective. They're totally subjective. So to say that this is also a subjective critique is silly to me. I think you can critique the content of a game.

I think that you have the right subjectively to the critique of the content and so on and so forth. And I think that there's plenty of critiques that are ridiculous, but having a problem with sexualized content in a game, I don't know is necessarily a problem for me because I'm a bit prudish with that stuff in show sometimes just because I think it's such a waste of time. Game of Thrones runtime is an hour and then there's like 15 minutes of just sex boring. Like it's just a waste of time.

I don't mind watching it. We all watch porn. It's not offensive to me in that regard. Chris, I've been playing just a few random games.

I played more far cry. I knew Dawn. And by the way, I'm done with the game. I beat the game.

I'm putting it away for a while because there's this one trophy in the game. Ironically called anger management, which is perfect. And you have to use the skill that you get in the game. You know, I don't want to ruin it.

It's too new. But you basically got a skill in the game that lets you like be super powers and you have to get 10 kills within one bout of using the super powers. And since I didn't do the trophy until late in the game, I have only strong enemies and strong outposts and strong additions. And there's ways to do it.

And I was close a couple times, but I spent hours trying to get the trophy and it's fucking annoying me. And so I'm just going to put the game away for now and I'll just go back and replay the game probably later in the year and just get to that point and keep all the expeditions like level one and then just quickly get that trophy. So I kind of put that game down. It's kind of ruined it for me.

And I think that's shitty because the game is great and that's just my trophy OCD. So still a great game. But I wanted to note that by the way, if you have any tips out there that are unorthodox for high level people to get anger management, then let me know. But the helicopter trick and the expedition trick and I can't get anything to work, but I'm also somewhat stupid.

I've also played in Platinum 2 Vita games this week. I picked up the game that we were talking about last week. Cool boy. I was saying that the game was pretty cool.

It's on PS4 and I played it on Vita. It's fine. It's very pretty in some places. It's incredibly unstable on Vita.

It crashed and froze a ton of times on me. It's not incredibly satisfying. I don't really recommend it. Maybe it is more playable on PS4, but I saw it through to the end nonetheless.

It's like some Castlevania vibes in there. And I also picked up the game. I've actually had it for a while called Emerald Shores, which is like this kind of budget side-scroller. It doesn't seem like it's incredibly sophisticated.

It doesn't seem like it was made by more than one or two people. But I was looking for something to play while I was watching Game of Thrones when I don't really have to pay attention to the game. And I plan on that too. It's fine.

It crashed my Vita again. Really? It's the Vita crash often? No, I should be clear.

The Vita itself. I don't think I've ever had the Vita itself a lock up. And I have to restart it. But games crash in different ways where you get...

For Goop Boy, the game would just freeze and then I'd have to shut it. And then sometimes it would crash. But Emerald Shores would get a pop-up crash with a notification and then it would crash. So I don't know if it's just these two games I chose.

Really not good. By the way, the Goop Boy port inexplicable load times. Like ridiculous load times for what it is. So if you want to play it, I think it looks cool and maybe you'll like it, but don't play on Vita.

And that's basically it. I'm looking forward to playing the Division. I'm sure I'll be spending a lot of time with that. As I said last week, I've been having quite a bit of writer's block with SideQuest, my YouTube channel.

I just don't really know what to talk about. Like, I just don't feel like there's anything interesting happening really that I want to talk about. So I think maybe I'll focus on the Division 2 and playing it solo, maybe do a piece on that next week or two, so you guys can keep it on out for that. Otherwise, let's just get into the news, shall we?

Number one. Days Gone, the first big PlayStation 4 exclusive release of 2019, has officially gone gold. Meaning the development team is done working on the core game and is preparing it for publish. The game is being developed by Sony-owned Oregon-based Ben Studio and Word of this milestone comes from their Twitter account.

The game is still due out on April 26. They were calling out the game was originally slated to have come out on February 22nd. It's openly delayed in order to give the game more room to breathe, honestly, he's calendar. It's been noted online that the game is set to receive post-release DLC as well, though the nature and breadth of that DLC as well as it's timing remains to be seen.

There were a series of hands-on with Days Gone recently, we were not invited by Sony. So we don't have any input on that. I'm glad I don't really want to play the game really. I think I get it.

It's pretty straightforward. I think Kataku noted that I think they called it like its AAA, the video game that I think highly described it. Really? Yeah, which is interesting.

That's an interesting way to find it. So we'll see. Neo JD wrote it on Patreon though and said hello, Colin, and silly Chris. He's got his officially gone gold.

I remember the first time I ever heard about this game was from Colin when he mentioned Dead Don't Ride, which feels like Ages ago. Dead Don't Ride for people that don't know was the original name of the game that I first heard in 2013 or 2014. I think it's a better name to be heard. I think so too.

They never publicly talked about it, that name. But that was what it was called. What are your feelings heading into the game now after recent previews have come out and make it sound like the game isn't a much better place than previous builds? I have not been paying close attention to the build quality as people have been going hands on with it.

The last time I saw it was at E3 in 2016 behind closed doors and it was fine and I've seen enough. I don't want to see any more of it. I have no idea who the characters are. I don't know anything about the story.

All I know is about the setting, the motorcycles, the so called free cures, there's zombies. Otherwise I'm just kind of holding pattern. I'm waiting and we'll see how it all turns out from there. It looks entirely fine.

I feel like it's going to be one of those really pretty good games is what it strikes me as. I feel like I'm glad I played that. I don't think we're going to see something like the last set of it. I think it's going to be a pretty solid game.

I think that's okay. Games can just be okay. Games can just be pretty good. You don't have to have a 10 out of 10 mind blowing experience every time.

There's room for Deloume cries. They're just really solid. I absolutely agree. I am curious how much Sony has spent on this game, but we did get a letter that I wanted to read as well.

This one comes from Ryan Mullan who wrote a name calling. Just wondering if you've seen the rumor that the last of us part will be releasing in October this year. The League apparently comes from Peruvian retailer Law Gamers. Not the most reliable source but it comes after the destination playstation event so I'm hoping there might be something in it.

With the release date of April for a day is gone, it does seem like an October release actually. The last of us now gives the game enough of a buffer. I do wonder if the last of us end dreams at some point in its early access form. That might be all we get this year.

I wonder if Go to Sushima's getting or maybe always assumed to be in 2020. We're going to read a little bit about that stranding in a minute. I agree with you, Days Gone is interesting from the perspective of what it is, but it's also interesting from the perspective of its proximity to the last of us. I'm not so sure if I was all convinced that Go Sushima's coming out this year just because we've seen so little of it and it's already like March.

I feel like it's probably a 2020 game at this point, especially if the last of us is being pushed, which we don't know, but it seems like it's possible. Who knows? I mean, Sony's been very tight-lipped about this, which I think is smart. I think everyone has the flexibility to work on their games.

It really is no rush that PS4 is still doing great. There's lots of third party games. But I'm excited about Days Gone. I'm looking forward to playing it.

I hope it's great. I am worried a little bit about Ben's long-term future and I think it obviously depends on how the game is received. This game is their first release since 2011. It's 2019.

That's a long time to make a game. I understand that there were other things that they were doing. I had heard rumors that I think they were importing Gold in the best for instance, the PlayStation 3 for a while. They have banned that idea.

Other kind of starts and stops maybe with Seifen Filter. It's also a smaller team. I don't know if it's really as expensive as it seems, but it just seems like Ben really needs to release a game that is worth it. And Sony doesn't shy away from shutting down its teams that don't actually perform.

Not only well, but very well. They shut down Cambridge, they shut down Zipper, they shut down a lot of these teams after they release these games that are good, but that don't do well. So hopefully, Days Gone has some momentum behind it. We have not had a PS4 exclusive Triple X exclusive since Spider-Man.

So I think the audience might be engaged just because of that. We'll have to see. People seem to be pretty good on it. So number two.

We have no idea when Death Stranding is supposed to come out and we already know that the game is falling behind in production. Word comes by way by Jan, which translated and interviewed Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima gave with Japanese publication Jey Wave. He said, quote, it's common for studios to fall behind their planned release date. And Death Stranding is very slightly behind our initial plan, but not behind by much end quote.

Death Stranding is being held by Kojima famous for a separating of the Metal Gear and Metal Gear style franchise and is being published by Sony exclusively for PlayStation platforms. It's announced for PS4, by the way, but Chris and I still believe it's a PS4 game as well. The game entered pre-production in 2015 and was revealed at Sony's E3 Press Conference in 2016. There was some speculation that the game would come out this year, but that was unlikely to ever be in the cards.

I think anyone thought that the game was coming out this year is insane. You're talking about a team that's making a triple A game they take years to make and you're talking about Kojima. Yeah. Who famously takes forever to make games?

So 2020, I think we might even be pushing it. But anyway, Death Stranding, all we know about it is that it is now slightly behind schedule. I would be surprised at all of the CG, the beautiful cutscenes and all that came out long before anything was working because I think they're using the Decimate Engine to make the game, which is the same engine. Yeah, it's Gorilla's Engine.

And so they have a close connection with them. And I don't know. I think that you're probably right. I think Sony probably signed this deal with their eyes closed.

And what's important to remember about this deal though, Chris, is that it is a second party relationship. So what I'm interested in is if Sony has any backend kind of deals where they're going to be able to keep Kojima from multiple games or obviously can only IP. But should this game not do well, should this game be a dud, should this game do whatever he can always walk away after this and with his team and make another game. The big thing for me would be if Konami contracted Kojima Productions to make another Metal Gear game as an outside team.

Like if they could bury their hatchets and get him the series back. I think that's kind of what people want. I mean, that'd be a nice little dream in a fantasy world. Nice things happen all the time.

No, nice things will never happen in my world. I don't know about your words. Number three, PlayStation 4's newest firmware update, patch 6.5, 0 is now live and it's a mandatory update. If you've not yet downloaded it.

The big addition of PS4 via this firmware is the ability to remote play your PS4 games on iOS connected devices using the PS4 remote play app on your phone or tablet. This is something that was only tethered to PS Vita and later computers and laptops. But now that functionality can be brought with you on the go as well. Jordan Brozroden said, Hey fellas, I read recently that the new PS4 update allows the streaming of PS4 games to be recently released PS remote play app for iOS.

This is further abolished any hope of a Vita successor or does it instead open the path for some sort of official PlayStation device that uses the streaming tech. Does this idea or technology interest either of you? I myself feel a small twinge in my ball sack. But I'm afraid it's too soon to get a good feel for it.

If you start feeling the twinge in your ball sack, you are definitely on to something. Yeah. And you should pay attention to the feeling of the grumble. But for me Chris, I don't get excited about this because of the lack of the tactile nature of a phone.

So even the connection was good. I just don't understand how you play some of these games. I think that they're releasing or there are controllers and kind of solutions that you can do. But I'm holding my iPhone.

People can't see this in a video, but I'm holding my iPhone. I'm going to play on this. Yeah. That's a little weird.

I think the tech behind it and the idea behind it is really cool. The idea that, Hey, I can play Spider-Man on my phone whenever I want to. I just have to hook up some weird controller. That's awesome.

That's one of the coolest things that I've heard coming out of Sony in a while. But yeah, I wonder how often I would even be tempted to utilize it just because the form factor of a phone is so annoying to play games on. Vita is on the tip of the tongue because of what's going on with it right now in terms of its ending production. I'm sure Sony has researched a new Vita and a new Vita or an D or has R and D things.

But if this works, then this certainly doesn't injure any reason to have it at all. I think it's very possible that phones are just going to become the places that handhelds go eventually. I honestly think handhelds are kind of like on their last like with especially with the fact that Nintendo DS is kind of dead. Switch is only unique because it's also a console.

And that's the only reason why I still around. I don't know if I would have been tempted to pick up another handheld. Did you see this thing? Is it Labo or a Labo?

Nintendo Labo, the cardboard thing? Yeah, now they released the new or they announced the new one where it's going to make the Switch into a VR headset. And as I tweeted out, like, only Nintendo released cart, like literal cardboard. Okay, I'm not like just making that up.

It's literally literally just cardboard. And everyone just fain's excitement for this. Well, hey, man. Tired of it.

Well, Google did it. Yeah, that's what people were saying to me. Google, that's like, oh, I think Google sucks too. It was literally called Google cardboard.

I actually don't think Nintendo sucks. Actually, Google does suck. I use them for everything. And they know everything about me.

It's like Amazon. It's like Amazon. It's like, I have these people terrible, but I'm going to get my packages real soon. Yeah, why not?

So why not? That's a good point. Did I have it? No, I guess I ordered envelopes.

A hundred envelopes. It's the second anniversary of CLS soon. So I ordered new art and I'm going to set it to our biggest supporters just the nice piece of art that's signed to celebrate the anniversary. So I ordered these envelopes.

I ordered them last night. Okay. And they came this morning. I just don't understand.

I did the prime shipping. So it's like two days, but I'm like, how did this happen? It's hard. Fine.

To be quite right. Probably some demonic totem being used. Yeah. Maybe some kind of like egg from a different reality that's being hatched slowly by the blood of innocence.

I don't know. Very weird. They're doing something. Yeah, it's very weird.

They're doing something. They're doing something that's probably a great concern. I mean, I'm almost positive it's a great concern, but you know, what can we do about it? Number four, publisher electronic arts is following Sony's lead for E3 2019 and won't be having a press conference of any kind at the show.

Instead, EA will be focusing much of its energy on its EA Play 2019 event, which actually occurs the weekend before E3 even begins running from June 7 through June 9. Admission to their event is free. Instead of a live stream, EA will run smaller live streams during E3. I'm sorry, I said my press conference.

EA will run smaller live streams during E3 itself. That will show off some of its new products. It remains unclear if EA will still have a shelf for presence as well. I couldn't find any information on that.

I don't know. I'm sure they probably will. Phil Pronorated and said EA has become the next studio to drop out of E3 opting for scheduled streams of specific games. Are we heading to a future where everyone just adopts an Nintendo Direct Model and carves out their own day and we pronounce it?

I know EA isn't doing that exactly, but it makes far more sense to me to space these announcements out if you're a publisher. This is interesting because I really do feel like E3 is buckling under its own weight now. I don't feel like it's smart for these publishers to continue to show up there when they could just announce something and carve out their own whatever. Like Sony could just say like August 6th we're going to announce all these games and that would be just as big as their E3 press conference.

And they wouldn't have any other competition to deal with. I know people think I hate E3 and it's because I've been to so many of them and I'm just tired of going there. But people are like E3 is relevant. It's more populated than ever because they're inviting people to the show.

I think the only reason I went to E3 last time was because I had friends that were going. I would have never gone otherwise. It's far more satisfying to sit at home and watch it than it is to actually go. And I think that's kind of what I like about is the kind of Super Bowl nature where it's like, hey everybody gets a thing that they're excited about.

I am happy that we're seeing people kind of believe it though. Just because I feel like it lets things settle for a little bit. It's not as cluttered. It's not as crowded.

Like last year there was so much stuff that I couldn't even really keep track of really any of it. Except for like security. The only thing that stood out to me because I was just like, oh my god there's so much here. It's like overload.

It's sensory overload. And it's nice to see it kind of scale back a little bit. I have like what was it? Microsoft and I guess Ubisoft I guess we'll do one.

Bethesda will presumably have one. EA won't. Square Enix had that video last year which was fine. That was perfect.

Yeah. So yeah, there was three now. Yeah, so I'm more digestible. I agree with you though in the sense that without that Super Bowl like Wonder, without that excitement, it just actually, I think it's an order of magnitude sort of thing.

Like when one company pulls out, I think that that weight is felt more than the weight of that company because it starts this cascading effect. And some people are saying, well, all these companies will be back next year. So they'll come back next year. I'm like, that's totally possible.

But I think what they're going to learn and I think what we're edging towards is PlayStation experience every year being a thing where they can announce all their games and make it huge by having the real press conference there. As opposed to the kind of very nerdy press conference that you used to do with PSX, which I loved because it was all about like these small beat of games. But that doesn't get anyone excited. Like, so I think we're going to have a PlayStation experience that is going to host and how is the real annual E3 Light Press Conference.

That will make that show a real event. And I think it's smart for all these teams to start considering doing that. And no offense, but like, again, E3 is being catered towards like a player base now that goes and plays the games and then maybe evangelizes them online or whatever. But without creators buying in, without media buying in, it really doesn't hold any way.

It's actually a massive waste of money and a massive waste of commitment. All teams have to stop doing what they're doing and make builds for the show. It's a complete nightmare. So I know that people and rightfully so are selfishly excited about E3, but from a development standpoint, from a publisher standpoint, from a money standpoint, from a time standpoint, none of it makes any sense.

I'm happy to see E3, but hopefully we'll continue to see this cascading away from it. And then we'll have little E3s every couple months. I think that's much more exciting. And by the way, this also lets me focus entirely on Xbox this E3, which is going to be fun.

Yeah, it's going to be a fun one. I think we'll actually do an episode of the show only about Xbox, which I think will be fun because I think it is incredibly relevant to our audience. You know, what Sony will do in the future. I think we have to very much focus on what Xbox will do first.

Especially E3 because they're going to have probably the biggest presence. Indeed. I'm excited, honestly, just to see what the hell happens. Me too.

I'm super stoked to see what Xbox is. A lot of rumors, you know, about new disc list Xbox One, or they're being disc list next Xbox. Yeah. I don't know.

We're going to find out. Number five. Last week, we briefly discussed THQ Nordics widely condemned snafu, which attempted to conduct an AMA on infamous message board Achan, and somewhat disastrous results. So this week, it would only be fair to report that the publisher has acknowledged it's mistake and apologized.

THQ Nordics CLRs, WinFurs released the following statement. Quote, this letter is offered by Sincerest Apologies and Grett for THQ Nordics Vienna's interactions with the controversial website Achan last Tuesday, February 26th. I condemn all unethical content this website stands for. Even if no one within the THQ Nordic group would ever endorse a content.

I realize simply appearing there gave an implicit impression that we did. As co-founder and group CEO of THQ Nordics, I take full responsibility for all THQ Nordics actions and communications. I spent the last several days conducting an internal investigation into this matter. I assure you that every member of the organization has learned from this past of weeks events.

I take this matter very seriously, and we will take appropriate action to make sure we have the right policies and systems in place to avoid similar mistakes in the future. Quote, since we talked about it, I thought it would only be fair. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That we mentioned that.

I have nothing else to really say about it. Yeah. Not really. I didn't really think it was that big of a deal the first place.

Me neither. I mean, it's certainly a very bad taste, but I don't think it's worth the world ending. That's mostly what I was saying earlier about having mental block with side quests, because I was even thinking about writing about that. I'm like, this is dumb.

This is just feeding the cycle. I got to wait for something meaningful to happen. Yeah. Number six.

Yakuza spinoff game judgment is officially coming westward exclusively on PlayStation 4. The game is set to launch on June 25th in the west, and will be published as always by Sega. The game launched in Japan back in December of last year. The game's Wikipedia page describes it as quote, a legal thriller set in the Yakuza world, end quote.

Tanner Brett wrote it and said, hey, guys, it was just revealed that judgment, the new game by the Yakuza studio will release on June 25th. But if you pre-order the digital version, you get it on June 21st. How do you feel about this as a way to incentivize people to purchase the digital version? What do you think of that, Chris?

That's fine. Yeah. Honestly, to me, it's especially with Anthem's like weird, really scheduled. Everything seems like benign in comparison.

We were talking about that where, because before I got code and before I did, I was going to just buy the $100 special edition again. But really, I was only getting the season pass for early access to already free content and the ability to play three days early for 40 bucks. And I just, I don't know. People think this is spread.

By the way, there's one more that's $119 and I couldn't even figure out what that gave me. That doesn't come with the other one. I think I got a shotgun or something. So I see how people find this spread.

But again, let your wallet speak. Yeah, I feel like the people who are going to pay a little bit extra play early are probably going to be the ones who would have done it anyway. I gotta be honest, if I had, this week's a little muddled for me, so I don't know that I'm going to have a credible amount of time to play the division initially. I'm so excited about the division too.

I'm often looking forward to it. But I might have paid the extra $4 just to play it a little bit early. Not even worry about it. By the time the season pass comes out, I'm going to be long done with the division.

That's true. Yeah. So I'm literally, it's like the equivalent of $13.33 a day to play it early. Plus the $6 via the division.

Whatever. Yeah. Last week with a little concrete information to go on, we briefly reported on the fact that some Anthem players were having major issues with the game on PlayStation 4, with some even reporting catastrophic crashes and brick consoles. Finally, BioWare itself has spoken out about the issue after rumor of Sony providing almost unprecedented refunds for the game.

Chad Robertson, who is the developer of BioWare's head of live services, tweeted that he and the team have quote identified several causes for the temp-powerdown crash. Some PS4 users experience fixes for the top issue are in the patch next week. So that's this week. If you encounter a game crash where your PS4 console won't respond, you can manually power down and restart it.

No risk of damage. After thorough review, we have not encountered an instant where Anthem has ripped a PS4 console and quote. So important piece of news. And I did not believe that particular part of it to begin with because that is an unbelievable thing to get through QA, especially for a triploid game.

Yeah, I kind of had extreme deaths. Everybody, because I was playing it on the stream and everybody was like, watch it. It's gonna break your console. I was like, I don't think so.

I really doubt. I really doubt. Especially on a pro. Especially.

Like maybe, I could see maybe like a base PS4 that's like shambling on its last leg. It's got like a cane. It's got smoke on the back. Maybe.

Maybe then. Like a clicker. Like a clicker. Like a freaker.