What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Gamescast, episode 190. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside two of the coolest dudes in video games, Jared Petty. Doki Doki.
And Steve Bolling from Nintendo Life. What's up, everyone? Thanks for having me. Now, many people know you, of course, from Choking at the PAX Tournament.
Yeah. This was covered in depth, of course, on the pre-show when it was discovered. We never posted the PAX Tournament video. We're down there.
Yeah, we're badmists. It's okay. My chains will live forever. Steve, here's what I want you to do, though.
Sure. Give me the pitch here. Tell me about your career. You're the U.S.
editor at Nintendo Life. Yeah. What does that mean, exactly? Well, being U.S.
editor at Nintendo Life means that I put together all of our coverage for the States insofar as I coordinate and review copies for our review team here in America because we're headquartered out in the U.K. So Darren, Damien, Alex, all our executive staff, if you will, are out there. So I handle E3, the PAXs, media events that happen here in America while they handle literally everything else. But yeah, most of it is just managing relationships with publishers, doing U.S.-based coverage.
So if we get something that they can't get out there, we handle it here. So for Nintendo Life, is it more reviews? Is it more news? Is it equal size?
Oh, it's definitely equal. So we'll post, obviously, anything Nintendo-related news-wise. We do reviews of as many games as we can handle with the staff that we have. We used to try to do everything, but now with the Switch being popular, that's way too hard.
Look at Wii U days. It was super easy. Yeah, it was. I remember we reviewed Neerun.
So really, we had some time on our hands. Now things are a little busier. Have you seen, I guess, with the uptick in Nintendo's resurgence in popularity with people carrying on the Switch? Has that been reflected on the website?
Oh, absolutely. Our traffic is way up since the Switch came out. We're easily the largest Nintendo-centric website in the world. We get about 3 million unique visitors a month, 12 million page views a month, which a couple years ago, we were maybe half that.
So it's definitely gone way up since the Switch came out. Does it open up new opportunities for you there? Oh, absolutely. We talked to Bethesda.
I mean, digest that for a moment. Like, Bethesda talking to a Nintendo site. Would you have guessed that five years ago? Probably not.
So, yeah, we get, you know, it's weird when we get hit up by companies that traditionally steered away from Nintendo, and now we're kind of having to meet new people and make friends with new people in the industry and cover new things that we weren't even really thinking about before. That's awesome. Yeah, it really is. So now, I think that whenever we bring something new on the shows, you know, there's so many people trying to do what we do or exist in the same ecosystem as either the reviewer or personality, however you want to describe it.
What was your journey where you are now? How long have you been professionally writing about video games? Sure. So, I've only been doing it about six years.
I started out when I was, my first daughter was about to be born. So, you know, six years ago, she's five now, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to play games anymore, so I wanted to have a way to stay connected to what I love, and so I decided to start writing about them. At the time, Kotaku had a small community blog where anyone could write whatever they want, and so I signed up there and started writing little articles just about, you know, Miiverse and stuff like that, and it grew into, you know, I discovered that I really enjoyed it and wanted to go further with that, so I ended up finding a small local controller shop in Tempe, Arizona, and they let me do a tour and take pictures, and I wrote up a really in-depth article about it, and Tina Mee from Kotaku at the time, friend of the show, Tina Mee, yeah, friend of the show, uh, noticed the article and liked it and shared it on Kotaku's main page, and from there it got tens of thousands of views and many people telling me I'm stupid, and- On the internet? Weird, right, can you check this out on the internet?
Yeah, I'll tell you, thanks. Oh, thank you. Um, so yeah, after that, I started just writing more and more, and I started conversing with Tina about the possibility of doing freelance work, and she gave me the great opportunity to write one of the, one of my favorite pieces I've ever written, which was about the Perry mechanic in Street Fighter III and how much I just love it, and I don't know if you've ever seen Evo Moment 47, where Daigo, you know, is down to like a sliver of life and full Perry's, uh, Justin Wong's super, and then destroys him, and people lose their damn minds about the whole thing, but it was basically an article centered around that and what made that moment so great. That's where I first became familiar with you, was that article, actually.
I didn't know that was you until today when you walked in and told that story. I had not connected reading that article with the fact that you wrote it until today, but that is still one of my all-time favorite things that was ever on Kotaku. It's a great article. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Did you hear that Kotaku? Hi, Steven. So, um, yeah, I, Tina left, and, you know, she went on to different things. She watched that.
No one knows where Tina did. Yeah, no one knows what happened to her. They should really do a where I am now. Yeah, exactly.
She was on here, what, three weeks ago? She runs IG editorial. Yeah, she's running the biggest site in the world. But, um, yeah, so she left, and that stream kind of dried up.
New management wasn't really interested in syndicating my stuff, so I started writing for Nintendo Life just reviewing anything they would let me review, and from there I decided to, and I was telling Jared this in between shows, I flew out to New York on my own dime to go to the Switch reveal event, and I ended up hitting up Rich George, former IGN. Sure, friend of you. Yeah, and, uh, told him, hey, I'm gonna go to New York, and I would just love to look at the Switch, and, you know, he graciously let me in with a couple friends that I snuck in, sorry, Rich. And, uh, we, I wrote a bunch of articles and showed them off to the guys running Nintendo Life, and they were like, holy shit, you know, why don't you come do this more in a greater capacity?
So since then, I've been, you know, doing it more professionally and loving every minute of it. Is it your job? Do you have another job, or are you just writing, or are you just making the video game stuff for it? Right now, I am just making the video game stuff.
That's awesome. That's awesome. Three Mega Man 8 bosses on your list of the top 10 Mega Man bosses. And they're amazing bosses, man.
You know what? This is a sad state of affairs. Just America. You can't have different opinions.
Yeah, I think we were talking about, I was teasing about this earlier on the show, but I think it's pretty rad that you made such a bold move. What a flash. Oh, thank you. Let's go right next.
Whatever they ask me to. Who's paying? It's what they want. That's what I'm doing.
What was Dave Chappelle's line? Drink Pepsi more recently, so it tastes better. Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't know this, this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. Each and every, we, no, every, I've never done, I've never had to read it on the fly, right?
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I'll keep him. The ship going by supporting us on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. There's no sponsor today. So let's just say Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games is the sponsor, right?
I'll go over there. Help people. What'd you say? I said morning show.
Let's go to the morning show. You want the morning show to support this? No, the Patreon, right? Here's the thing.
I'll be dead on the ground before I ever fucking support or promote Nick Scarpino shows. Are you starting to have a game for bullshit? I don't want to talk about that, dude. All right.
I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to talk about verification on Instagram. I just want to point it out. Wait, did I verify too?
No, it's just him. But Nick continues to point it out at the morning shows. And then I get many people tweeting me about it. I don't know what that's all about.
I don't like that. Did you do this for you? Did you do that? No, I didn't.
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And then, of course, Extra Life 2018 is November 3rd. We'll be streaming games and shenanigans for 24 hours as we raise money for the Children's Miracle Network. Join or donate now over at Kind of Funny dot com slash Extra Life. That's exciting.
I love Extra Life. That's fantastic. We're going to get some cool stuff for that. And then, of course, this is the first game, right?
Since we announced that we're doing a press conference? Yep. Yep. That's a lot of work, it turns out.
But that's a lot of work. I've seen the screenshots of your email on Twitter. It's only worse, dude. It's only worse.
And now it's gone so long. Now I'm getting the emails again. I'm like, hey, did you get my email? I'm like, oh, fuck.
Do you need help to link this? I need you. Stop trying to steal this from me, Jared. I'm just trying to help.
The numbers are exploding, you're saying? It's been a really good few days. Yeah, that's good. And now it's just a funny way to monetize it.
I'm getting views now. Now I'm just going to see if I can get the support to keep going. Cheers up. That's where we're at right now.
Maybe one day patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games will sponsor you, too. But maybe not today. Time to talk about what we've been playing. Andy, I know you have to go assemble some Gundams, so I don't want to waste any more of your time.
Thanks for this work. What have you been playing? I decided to give Forza Horizon 4 a go. And totally, like, not in my case.
Like, that's just not something I do. I don't play racing games. I talked on Twitter about how the last racing game I played was Need for Speed Underground on PS2. Like, it's been so long since I've given a shit about this world.
Of course, there's a subreddit thread on the Kind of Funny Subreddit. Like, hey, why aren't they talking about Forza Horizon? And many people are like, well, not in racing games. Yeah, and I commented, yeah, I thought about playing it.
But last night, I saw that it was free on Game Pass. And so I decided to download it. And I am having a lot of fun with it. It's hard to describe what I like about it.
Because I'm just not an authority on racing games. No, don't get a good word about that. You know, like, I don't know. I'm sure a lot of stuff in this game was in the prior iteration of the game.
But I... What is hooking you? Throw that away. If somebody wants to, hey, compare it to the last couple games, look at that.
There's always these shiny numbers that pop up on the top to let you know how you're doing, Greg. And just that instant dopamine hit, you know what I mean? Oh, sure, yeah, yeah. Anytime you drift, it's popping up.
And it's like, hey, good job, good job. It's just a lot of compliments. I need to possibly reinforce it in my life. For fuck's sake, everybody, okay?
And so, yeah, it reminds me of the things I love about driving in Grand Theft Auto. Where I find it straight away, and I just go as fast as I can. There's a lot of things around the world, and I love the idea of the open-world racing game. Ever since, what, Diddy Kong racing?
I love the idea that you're going to hubs, and you're not just, all right, let me go to a menu, select the next thing I want to do. It's gorgeous to look at. I'm playing on an Xbox One X, so playing it in 4K, I don't know if it's true 4K or not, but it looks gorgeous. Or you can switch to performance mode, which is 1080p, 60 frames per second.
And it's gorgeous regardless of what you pick, because the HDR just pops really well. You have a really nice TV. All the events around the world where maybe you want to do a dirt race, and you sort of climb up the ladder, and they're saying, hey, whoa, who's this new racer? You're going through different seasons.
So you start off in the spring, and the world looks one way, and then you go into the fall circuit, and you have to get a certain amount of, I can't think of the word right now, it's like meditation points. I think you go to the summer circuit, probably next, right? No, okay, you start off in the circuit, summer, sorry. And then you go to the fall, and now I'm in the winter circuit or whatever.
Sure. And I found myself playing for like 5 hours last night, which is I want to go to the next race, I want to see what I can unlock. You eventually get like a little house, and where all your vehicles get stored. And in there you can customize the vehicles.
It has this really cool system of, it's almost like loot boxes, I guess it is, but you spin a wheel, it's kind of like Wheel of Fortune or something. Are you spending money on it? No, no, this is all stuff that I've just earned in the game or whatever. And so every time you spin it, you can maybe unlock a shirt for your avatar, or you can, if you're lucky, land on like an epic or legendary car.
And so they have the sort of cars, you know, classed out like they do, you know, weapons and, you know, RPGs and stuff like that. You have like the common, the epic, no, the common, the rare, epic, and legendary. And so you can use reputation points, that's not the right word, but it's kind of like reputation when you drive around. Sure, you're earning.
Yeah, you're earning like XP, I guess. And you can use those points to maybe buy 100,000 points Aston Martin or like a James Bond car. Or you can spend, you know, 30,000 on a really nice like Subaru off-road or something like that. It's gorgeous to play, it's really fun, it's a dick thing.
Do you want to keep going back to it? Yeah, yeah, I mean this morning it was weird because I, it was like 3.30 in the morning last night, I was like I gotta stop playing this shit because I need to go to bed. And I woke up this morning before my, like an hour before my alarms went off. And I woke up kind of like energetic and I was like I'm just gonna play some more Forza.
So that's what I did and I'm having a lot of fun with it and I would have never thought that'd be the case. I think it might be good next Wednesday to get you and Gary down together because we were reacting to the same thread on Games Daily the other day and Gary's played quite a bit of it too and he's kind of a racing game guy so I'd really love to hear like somebody that's new to it and somebody that's played a lot of these talk back and forth about this. Yeah, like I'm just so new to this world. I have nothing, I don't really know much about the Forza games at all other than like oh it's a free game, let me check it out.
And now to the point where it's like yeah I want to throw in 10, 15 bucks here because I'm enjoying this and I've put in 6 hours now or whatever so I want to like see, you know, how can I support this? You know, you download for free with Games Pass. I'm sure they're still getting a nice little stipend from Microsoft or whatever but yeah, I want to support the developer. Did you see it pop on Xbox Game Pass?
I felt the same way with Forza Horizon 3. It's okay. Nah, I want you to do a goddamn dollar now. What?
Every time I say Xbox Games. Oh, I did? Yeah, I appreciate it. What about it?
What makes you play Forza? I think it was the, I was always intrigued by Forza Horizon 3. That's the one that took place in Australia I believe. That sounds right.
At the time it came out and I was really into watching Top Gear and I just like the idea of this open world where there really are no rules you can just sort of free drive wherever you want and there's all these little perks all around the world and that idea always intrigued me but the fact that it was free definitely drove me to it to say, I might as well give it a shot. Why not? I have nothing else to really do right now and it was a lot of fun. Nice you said drove me to it.
Huh? Nice you said drove me to it. Something steered you in that direction. So now here's my question for you guys as a panel.
Andy, I want your opinion too. You've been talking a lot to shut up. Sure, yeah. Is this the power of Xbox Game Pass?
Is this the whole entire reason Xbox is doing this? To put games out there that Andy or a gamer or whoever might not normally give a shit? He was intrigued about Forza Horizon 3. Never touched it, right?
Never wanted to plump down the 60 bucks for it. It's part of it. It's not all of it. That's the beginning.
That's the hook. It's also there to highlight games that maybe never got the attention they deserved so that sequels can have built up, so the DLC can be sold against this game so that they can keep multiplayer communities. That's a huge deal. Whether it be Horizon or if you look at something like a shooter maybe that didn't get the attention to the server first time around, if you lose that server population, you lose the game.
So why not keep making revenue? How do you do that? Throw it in Games Pass? It's free.
More people are populating the servers. I think that's a huge part of it. I think it's a gateway drug towards some sort of eventual, what I've heard Gary called the other day, Netflix. Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
What we want from Nintendo Online, right? Exactly. And I think that this could very well be them investigating another kind of blue ocean revenue model. Some places that they're not making money yet that they could be.
But the gateway drug is ultimately keeping multiplayer servers populated on good games that didn't get the attention they deserve the first time around. Steve, how do you really follow that? I agree 100% with Jared. It's a way to get more eyes on Xbox One first-party titles.
I mean, it's pretty clear that the Xbox One is in a distant third place right now. You know, there isn't a lot of buzz around it. Key games like Scalebound, Crackdown 3 are kind of missing. Well, either canceled completely or missing an action and get delayed.
Giving people the opportunity to highlight some of those games for $10 a month is actually a pretty killer deal. I think it is a way to... I think the appeal of it from what I've heard from friends that are PlayStation-centric is that they'd be willing to throw down $10 a month. That might drive them to go buy an Xbox One just because they know they wouldn't have to buy games for it.
For them, $10 a month is way more appealing than dropping $60 to see if Thieves is any good. And I have a few friends who have gone and done exactly that. They've plunked down the $200 plus $10 or $300 plus $10 depending on which model you're going for and only played games that were available on Game Pass. And so far, that's working out for those folks that I know that have done that.
I have Game Pass. I never use it. I was telling someone earlier today that I think my relationship with my Xbox is I turn it on once every six months and I think to myself, why don't I do this more often? And then I repeat the cycle.
I love my Xbox, I just never use it, and I pay for Game Pass the entire time I don't use it. I mean, that's what Xbox wants, right? In a lot of ways, I'm just like, give me the $10, forget about it. It's what Netflix wants out of me, you know what I mean?
Because I have Game Pass, it was provided by Microsoft. And in the same way, I find it so fascinating that we got all, we have, I've had the Forza Codes forever, and Gary Wood was the only one who really pressed interest in it, right? And I think it's so interesting that, for Andy, somebody who has access to that, and you might not even know that they were chilling or whatever, but that you know you can reach out and I can get you pretty much anything you want. But it was the nudge of just going to get home one night and be on a whim.
All right, that's out, and I had that ability to get it, and I was interested in the last one, and now you're doing the thing that I was talking about with my games, right? Where, sure, I get the game for free, but if I really love it and I'm enjoying it, here's the Season Pass, I'll pay for the Season Pass as a way to get back to you and encourage you to keep doing stuff, even if I don't get to that content. And the way it's the exception of that Fortnite mentality where why are so many people playing? One of the reasons, frankly, is it's free.
It works everywhere. In our minds, we can reach a place. Free-esque. We think of it as free.
We barely think about the fact that we're paying for Netflix anymore. Here's your free PlayStation Plus games in the month. I'm like, no, I pay for PlayStation Plus. I understand I'm getting...
Whatever, yeah, okay. But I think that it kind of slips through. And increasingly, many of us, I think, think about some of these things almost like e-utility. I live without it.
That's ridiculous, but that's how they get you. Yeah, that's how they get you. All right, I'm going to drift away now. Hey, can I ask for one favor?
Take a break. Can you make a pit stop and make me another iced coffee at the seventh line? What, yeah? Can you put ice in from the door to the fridge and just put a coffee in there?
Thanks, thank you, buddy. But you didn't react to my pit stop thing because it's like you're driving away. You can't sit in the left, so I was like, I think. Yeah, I stopped halfway.
Andy, may I really also request an iced coffee? Sure. Steve, would you... Like a refill on the water?
Sure, sure. Thank you, buddy. I don't have a hard time, though, but, you know. It's fine, they're all dead now.
They rolled over. I need some caffeine. Sure, okay. Is there caffeine in LaCroix?
Oh, no, that's your saying. You're giving us coffee. Also, if you're a video viewer, by the way, officially wide release here in the States, I think, until the 9th, I believe. Well, then, luckily, I tucked the fact sheet into the box.
Even though we're not unboxing now, Steve, you get ready. October 9th, October 9th. Oh, I got time. I got time.
Steve, with all this time you've had on your hands, Greg, what have you been playing? So, I have been playing a few games. I've been playing, and mostly indies, which is kind of interesting. This is on Switch, I assume, right?
Yeah, yeah. I literally don't play anything else. You joke about only starting your Xbox every six months. Yeah.
But is it pretty much legitimately for the job and what you're doing, you're just playing Switch? Yeah, for the most part. I mean, I did take a long break to play Spider-Man, because there was no fucking way I was playing Spider-Man. Exactly.
I have needs, food, water, shelter, and Spider-Man. You're happy to do that shirtless Spider-Man cameo. I did. I actually went hunting for that once I found out it was there.
I'm very proud of him. He's done a lot of great work. Yeah, he's a real hero. But I spent, I've been spending a lot of time with The Messenger.
Jared was talking about him before. Where are you right now? And no spoilers, but into The Messenger. How far are you?
Ballpark. I think I'm close to the end. Have you beat me to Jared? No, that game is a Surgeon General's warning for how awesome it is.
Yeah, it is so fantastic. I keep coming back to it. It's like, I'll pick it up, I'll play it, I'll complete one or two objectives, and I'll leave it for days at a time. But I always want to come back to it.
Whenever I have idle time, I'm like, oh, I should play Messenger. And it's easily my favorite indie game this year. Okay, hold on one second. I always want to do this.
Ethics, of course. My wife, Jen, does brand management for Mester. I didn't even know. The $20 is in the mail.
No, my question for you. Okay, so that's interesting you say that. Because last time, was it a game daily or a game cast? You and I were talking about it.
It was a game daily we were talking about this. I'm instantly reminded of Ninja Gaiden on my NES when I was a kid, you know, sitting on the floor of my parents' fucking living room playing on a ridiculously tiny CRT. Whereas Celeste feels more like something that was made this year. And so it doesn't have that same nostalgia factor for me.
And while it's a fun game, I'm not drawn into it the same way. Do you feel the Messenger not overcomes it, because that's a great thing, but does it do more than just nostalgia? Oh, absolutely. I mean, mechanically, the Messenger feels like something completely new.
I mean, but it feels like something that legitimately could have been done back then. Like, you know, the whole jumping mechanic and hitting enemies and being able to flip off them. And just the way it ramps up its challenge so steadily as you go through the game. Like, I was playing on the flight here, I was playing Messenger, and I was trying to get through this one room where there are no platforms and nothing to grapple onto, just enemies floating around that are moving, and you have to basically jump and cut your way through to the other side of this chasm with a massive dip in between.
So you have to let yourself fall and then continue to springboard off of enemies to the other side. And it was incredibly frustrating, but once I got through it, I just felt so good about myself. For that one moment, everything in my life was right. Yeah, I think that's around the moment where I realized that this was the sequel to Klonoa I'd never gotten always wanted.
Oh, I know, right? I never even thought about that. It's the bonus stage in Klonoa. It's just like, oh, look, use enemies to move through the air.
The whole game's built around that, and it's just so beautifully put together. I'm really glad you're enjoying it. For me, it's definitely in the game of the year discussion, but I tend to think of it as almost a deconstruction of the way the platformers put together. It's sort of like you go back at a movie like The Man Who Shot Liberty Balance, and it's what John Ford taking his whole career of tropes and what makes things work apart in another movie by him, and then making something beautiful anyway out of all that.
I think the Messenger kind of does that for platformers and its design, and I love it for that. Yeah, it is a fantastic game. I can't say enough good things about it. And that's why I want to give you a question.
There's something I similarly asked, Jared, I think. Do you think it waited too long for its hook or the bit? Because I don't even know what it is. I do tend to play through more.
I touch it and whatever. I get it. I want to play the player controls for it. But I know there's an 8-bit to 16-bit, but I know there's a story moment where the game suddenly becomes something different.
Right, there's another hook, and I think it gets dangerously close to that but doesn't get to that point. I think by the time you reach that kind of moment where the game tonally shifts in a way, you're almost getting to that point where you're tired of what you've been doing. And I think that's really critical to what makes it such a good game is because it pushes you right to that edge of, okay, I've done this enough, and then it says, hey, we're a whole new game now. So you get to do a whole different set of mechanics and a whole different, you know, you play the game in a completely different way.
And the thing that I love most about it is that while it changes, you're still, you're finding new things out about familiar locations that you've already visited. And whenever a game does that, I'm in love with it. It makes me think of Skyward Sword when you had the time stones and you would have these little pockets of the future or the past and you're traveling through a landscape. It's just whenever games can repurpose their existing locations and make something completely new and exciting out of it, I just fall in love with that.
Oh, sure. So for me, it's always Ocarina of Time, right? Like when you come out of Temple of Time as an adult link or whatever, older link, right? And it's just destroyed.
Oh, yeah. My story, I know, is right for old listeners, but I'm in control of it all the time now. Like I remember being in honors English class, junior year of high school, and it was, they wanted us to write a sample college essay. So, you know, you're getting that, thanks for the great assignment, but you know, all that stuff.
And so it was a compare and contrast two different time periods from any one of these books. And it was like 25 books and I had read none of them. And I was like, all right, before my ACT test and played it way too late that night. You know what I mean?
That was a poor choice. No, I still did find the ACTs. Ocarina of Time was one of those games that I had a friend who was like, you need to play this, you need to play this, you need to play this. And it became that thing of me being like, well, no, now it's just gonna be like, I'll never play it.
And like a blockbuster was closing and they were just doing a game sale. I remember going there and seeing the gold NES N64 cartridge for it. Oh, wow. And for like 10 bucks around there and I was like, I didn't even buy it.
And I told them about it later. They're like, you're a fucking idiot. And sure enough, running to the field for the first time. Now you look at it, it's just like totally flat and there's like two butchers in an enemy but it was like, what the fuck, oh my God, games.
But you get in there and it's just such a living, breathing place and all these characters I cared about and side stories I cared about and then you go in a temple and come on and everyone's a zombie. You're like, what the fuck? And that's how you got that repurpose world. And repurposing usually feels like something in a game that feels lazy.
Something that was done because oh man, I'm gonna use these assets again. And it can be. I wouldn't say usually. I mean, it can be.
Often, I would say. When I encounter repurposing in games it's more often than I'm bummed. Are you thinking back to SNES days? There's a lot of stuff.
I think you see it more now than you did then. But there are exceptions. Like For Me to the Inverted Castle instead of the other night. Or like, think about all the reuse of assets in an undead nightmare.
And that created an amazing... Yeah, exactly. And that was the same thing. Hey, this fucking world.
That means that in four hours. It's now this brand new thing. And that's great. I love when that gets pulled off right.
I love when that gets pulled off right. Boom. Jared made his point. I made the point.
So, you think Messenger. I think you play this year. Oh, absolutely. By a mile.
Would you say... This is going to be a loaded question. You played a lot of Indies this year? Because the Switch, obviously...
Oh, yeah. There's like 15 every Thursday now for you to get into. Oh, yeah. I play a lot of Indies.
I have a 512 gig card in my Switch. Fool. Yeah. Don't applaud.
I'm the same way. I have one of the bigger cards. Kevin, do you remember a card? 128?
No, Kevin's confused. But I have a bigger card in there. And it's like that weird thing of now hitting that ceiling. I'm like, fucking off to go to Lisa.
I'm like, there's so many games I haven't even opened yet. Oh, yeah. Flipping death. Fuck, I really want to play that.
All right, delete something else. Come back. Remember, it's there. Is this yours or mine?
Which one? The ice. Oh, the ice is for everybody. Andy's never made an ice coffee, apparently, so he put two cubes in every cup and then was like, oh, this isn't enough.
Cup your hand over it. I was wondering why my ice coffee was so warm. Can we appreciate a moment Jared's fabulous Nintendo Switch cup? Oh, that is a wonderful piece of random merchandise.
Yeah, I won one. Well, it was when Damon Baker came by, right? He came by with a million cups. It was at the end of the...
What the hell? He gave me a business card and a pat on the shoulder. Well, this was a San Francisco press tour. And we were last stopped.
So he's like, hey, here are all these Nintendo Switch pens and cups I want to bring back. We're like, all right, cool, thanks. Also, when Damon Baker gives you a pat on the shoulder, you need to understand this kind of like when Jesus touched you and so you were blessed. I actually figured I might make a successful indie game now.
Like if I use this shoulder. Because you blew the indie dust on you. It's such a great idea as a platform. Tell me about Grip, Steve.
I can't say a whole lot about Grip because it's super early. Here, I'll tell you, honestly, I don't know what Grip is. I don't have a... When you say you're playing that, I don't know the visual of what that game is.
Right, so it's a combat racing game. Things like Twisted Metal or something like that. Vigilante Gate, something like that. This is a series?
Yes. There's been groups before. Yeah, it's like one of those developer comes back and makes a spiritual successor kind of thing. I don't have a release date for you.
They sent me a code and they didn't send me an embargo. So I was like, hey, we can talk about it. It's usually the sign of please say something about it. So when did you fall in the Chronicett and Twisted Metal to Vigilante Gate to Interstate 76 scale?
Oh, that's hard. Like I said, it's still a really early game so I'm not sure where it's going to land to be honest. It's like, you know, assets aren't completely done. I mean, like the earliest game I've ever played on a retail console ever so I'm a little surprised that they sent it to me.
Are you seeing glimmers of this could be good? Yeah, it definitely could be good. So the idea of the game is that you can race around the tracks and they're all kind of tubular tracks so you can race on the ceiling or on the floor or on the sides and you can pick up weapons and destroy the racers. Kind of, yeah.
Are you racing or are you fighting? Both. You are racing but you are heavily encouraged to kill people on the way through. So there's a goal line.
Yes, there's a goal line in their laps and yeah, it's like Mario Kart but people die. Okay, all right. So it's not like the Vigilante 8 we're just going to wait to one minute. Right, right.
It's not a real combat like Twisted Metal or Vigilante. Yeah, so it's a fun little game but I definitely need to spend more than 48 minutes with it. So keep going on your way around. Yeah, it's something I'm still actively playing but to be honest it's taking a backseat other stuff just because I'm waiting for more updates to come out for it.
Sure, right. And then what about Crossing Souls? Crossing Souls is another indie of course and it's published by Devolver. So it's weird as fuck.
It is. What is this one dude? Who's exploding or fucking Cthulhu's having sex while I'm going to be more? It's like a Saturday morning 80s cartoon.
And the cutscenes are exactly like that. They're animated in that really cheesy kind of weird way that 80s cartoons were and you play as a group of kids in a sleepy town that discover this stone that lets them see ghosts and it ends up you have to work together with ghosts to solve issues in your town that usually involves beating the shit out of things with a baseball bat. Can I please see each other for Crossing Souls? This game sounds like 120% regular.
Yeah, it is a really fun game. I mean, I've been enjoying it. I would say I'm about 60-70% through. So I've uncovered most of the main story beats now.
I've seen a bunch of the really cool animated cutscenes and I keep coming back to it. It's just really fun. It plays almost like an old school Zelda. What turned on to it?
Well, the fact that they sent me a code for it. No, I actually really liked the trailer for it. So this is what turned me on to it. Let's take a look.
Yeah, show it up for the kids too. And I'll describe it for this for Ratic. Devolver Digital. We have the tape.
Oh, yeah, I love it. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, yes. This looks fucking awesome.
Yeah, I'm telling you, guys, I'm sorry. These guys look like I ought to be representing Burger King in a brand. So is the story good? The characters are really cool.
You can switch between one of, I want to say, four living kids. Like, you can see them all in the trailer here. And they each have unique abilities like the blue-haired kid uses a bat, the orange-haired girl uses a bat. Oh, yeah.
There's a dragon. It's Miko! Yeah. You're supposed to be supposed to be young.
Yeah, and of course, in true 80s fashion, the kids are like a super genius that can make anything. It's different explorers. Yeah, it's fun. It is an awesome game.
It's too many games, guys. Is this the problem with our lives? I saw an article on somewhere. I'm probably going on Orkutake this week.
Too many games. Maybe if we weren't writing about games all the time. Maybe if we're just playing them all the time. Can we work on that and become independently wealthy and just play games all the time?
I think that's good. I mean, you're kind of on your way there, right? If we could just stop talking about it. If we could just have a Twitch stream every day and just play that, you know what I mean?
But make the same amount of money. Yeah, very good. I'm excited to stop this show now. I'm going to get and I'm usually like, okay, I'll wake up in six hours.
And when she gets up I'm like, oh crap, I could just turn on the TV and play some Assassin's Creed. And before I know it, she's coming back from the gym and she's like, oh, you didn't go back to bed? I was like, there are people to kill. I found a spear.
Yeah, it is just such an And it's funny because it builds so much off the back of Origins And I didn't like Origins How much Origins did you play? Oh, I played through the whole thing Okay, good This has been Not I like Origins And I played through a good chunk of it And you're in love with Odyssey now, right? Okay, cool I'm going to bring in a reader question, right? Do it, dude AwesomeNik94 Responded to my tweet Twitter.com slash GameOverGreggie It said, which is better?
Origins or Odyssey? And why should I bother playing Odyssey When I have so much Origins left to play? What do you want to see improved for the next Assassin's Creed Now that's taking another year-long break? Let's start at the top, though Steve, Origins or Odyssey?
I mean, I didn't like Bayek or Egypt I thought it was a boring setting And a boring protagonist Damn In your face, Kevin Did you like Bayek and setting? I didn't like Bayek so much I did like the setting I thought the biggest issue was Everything was really, really spread apart Right, Egypt was really sparse There wasn't stuff to climb and skulk about And kill people from the shadows Which is what I feel Makes an Assassin's Creed game And I feel like Odyssey addresses that Ancient Greece feels like So much better of a setting And while I haven't played enough, unfortunately To really get a feel for Alexios or Cassandra's characters I've played enough to know That mechanically it's just leagues better I mean, the environments And the way missions are constructed Is just on a whole other level And it feels good I'm 20-some hours in now And so I'm in love with Cassandra And I'm sure if it was Alexios It would be the same thing Just the fact that They are cool characters And the little And it's not an RPG The twinges of choice Am I gonna kill this guy? Am I gonna tell him I'm gonna kill him? You know what I mean?
That stuff It really does let me personalize her To a character like I really like you And her story is amazing The story beats they've given me It is the first Assassin's Creed I think ever Where I'm literally like Fuck this side shit Let's get to I gotta see where this is Where is this person? I'm the opposite I'm like, give me every side mission Do you like the story From what you've seen? No, I do like it Just to be clear They've constructed those side missions In such a way that When I open up a new area I'm excited to go to the little things I'm gonna take all the missions And then see the little pops on the map And when I'm running to do one mission I see another one as I'm walking by I'm like, I wanna stop Talk to this person And have that in my Don't get me wrong I love the side missions too I think they're exceptionally well crafted They have really interesting stories And characters But I just really I'm so Her thing Her motivations Why I'm off on this quest And I'm like, I'm fucking on Oh yeah It's such a fantastically put together story From the small amount That I've seen so far And I just like the dialogue Between the characters The relationships that they have With each other It's way better than Origins I just think Origins Can't hold a candle to Odyssey at all So this was coming out Right around the time I had it off for vacation This game's made for me I read ancient Greek This is what I did in college That's what I care about We like the language? But the fact that Red Dead is on the way Plus the fact that we just learned That there's something to All this Google stuff for sure And that they're gonna be streaming this I signed up the day of The release that that was gonna be streamable That Odyssey So my hope is That when Project Stream opens up I'll make it in And that's when I'm gonna play this I've decided to wait and see Until Project Stream opens As a quick quick note So what it is is that Yeah Google announced Project Stream That basically they're gonna Put out this They're doing a beta Where people are gonna be able To play Assassin's Creed Odyssey Through their browser Just Google Chrome Yeah just play and Chrome So I've decided to wait To experience the game That way I'll be able to be like I can come in here honestly And tell you whether or not I think that that's an awesome tech Whether or not the game was fun Without having it kind of corrupted By having had previous exposure Ken Awesome next second part there Why should I bother playing Odyssey When I have so much Origins left to play So I put I think like 60 hours into Origin And same thing Where I've been doing a lot of the side Maybe a little less Maybe 40 Doing a lot of the side missions Moving the story along But like there's just something about Odyssey It's so It's tighter everywhere And it's Like I'm sure the origin story is cool I didn't really care about it To begin with Like it was too cut up Like the fact that it starts And then it jumps forward And then it's like Wait you missed this segment It just I wasn't into it And Odyssey the whole time I'm like holy shit This is awesome This is a cool story Immediately like You find out who the big like boss Is going to be And then you keep going It's like oh It keeps thriving Kevin is it analogous to the jump That happened between Assassin's Creed And Assassin's Creed 2 I mean back in the day I mean I'd say so We were talking No I think that's a bridge too far personally Really?
Yeah I think it's a perfect analogy To be honest Yeah I was just mentioning that In between shows earlier That it definitely feels like If Origins was a reboot for the series And this is the new Assassin's Creed 2 I think it proves so much upon Origins But I think Assassin's Creed Assassin's Creed 2 Was so dramatically like Oh this sucks and that sucks And this took too long And they did all these things Right I mean the fact that So many people are looking at Obviously being like It just looks like Origin Why is everybody freaking out Right there's more under the hood Smaller things But maybe I'm talking about stories We're talking about what we love Storyline side quests That doesn't show in the same way Gameplay changes from 1 to 2 maybe That's true I feel like there's been A fair amount of gameplay changes Like this seems like A vastly improved version Like I enjoyed Origin But I could put it down This I woke up to this morning Had to move my cars around There's like too many cars First of all problems Poor Kevin and his fucking 15 cars His ass in Martins None of them are nice But I was like Oh I have like 20 minutes to kill Let me just open up A new part of the map I hadn't seen before And then I got hooked Doing like these Infiltrating this like lava base With people that were like Ranking like 3 higher than me I want to call out Steven Satilo over Akitaku He put up an article called What Assassin's Creed Odyssey Changes from Origins Which gives a detailed rundown On all the things we're talking about But very specifically How they improve stealth And what they did here And why this is like Why it's getting the acclaimed it is And so many people are like It looks like Origins And it does on the surface But it's all the simple things Like the UI things It's all quality stuff But it's so much better of a game And definitely read Steven's article It is a really great read And he's a huge fan of the series He picks every single one apart In crazy detail every Well not every year anymore But whenever they release Next up on my list of things I play This is the thing I've actually played the most Because I was talking about the pre-show I had a friend in town Poe of course Catch him on the game over Greggie show And what we did is Went back to our roots from a few years ago Because our friendship is founded on video games When we became best friends in junior high It was that He liked playing Madden as much as I did So he came over and we played a ton of Madden on Genesis Years ago when I bought him his PlayStation 4 And we brought it home And we put it in The first thing I downloaded was Overcooked And we stayed up until like 2 in the morning Playing Overcooked And so when he came out to visit I was like Overcooked 2 is here You and I Overcooked 2 fucks up the Platinums You and I Poe Are going to Platinum it Maybe he'll get me to Platinum He doesn't get my trophies fuck him And so that's what we played Like all You know what I mean We restarted all the levels We had all the Kevin levels We restarted all those My trophies My trophy list is down to You know Throw away 500 items or whatever it is Or watch this when we play All the stupid like just you know Midi gritty stuff But man what a fucking game So he didn't actually make a Platinum No but we did all the stuff I really need a second player for And of course then Just to fuck with me I think Team 17 put out DLC this week So now there's new trophies to get Now they don't apply my Platinum But they're right there I'm thinking about maybe bringing in The one and only Joey A long time ago Joey was a big Overcooked fan When Overcooked 2 got announced Like we're going to do this And then it came And then Joey started playing on Switch And then I never invited her over And then Poe came and did it You know what I mean But maybe this is the perfect opportunity Play more Firewall No there are too many games Play more Firewall There's too many games Here's the problem I have Is that we have this weekend now It is a wifeless weekend Jen's still in Montreal working very hard So I'm thinking Saturday Pajamas and Pizza And I just play Wait Hard stop You're going to eat more pizza You spent several days Doing nothing but tweet about pizza One day One day all I see Then the next day Sort my life out Get groceries You know what I mean Do this But then maybe invite Joey over Because it's three new levels Or three new worlds I should say for Overcooked New mechanics stuff like that Maybe not got this trophy Can you guys share your pizza with Joey? Well let's be the next day Let's be trying to fix my life Kevin I don't know what you want me to do You know what I mean I have Fortnite We all have Fortnite too There's Fortnite, there's Fireteam There's Firewall There's fucking Astro Bot On VR I gotta play There's too many things to play Cool Greg Don't come in here Try to find me Cool Greg I came with those guys Overcooked 2 though We already knew it was great mechanically But to play through the entire thing Like awesome My critique is So what it is You play the story levels right Certain ones of them Are you know If you do a certain thing They're hidden objectives They're hidden levels for the dog And all those levels are Steaming stuff Like making dumplings and stuff Which I know doesn't sound Any different than the rest of Overcooked But when you just save those for last It's like Man I wish I was making anything else I would just say And also not nearly as hard as Overcooked 1 was Especially the final boss Because the final boss of Overcooked 1 Was me and Poe screaming at each other Like fuck it Three in the morning Yelling into pillows We're going to wake the sun or whatever We're playing this damn thing We've already seen Steve's masterful Overcooked 2 skills Played on stage Of course One day I need to do But how good are you I'm excellent at Overcooked 2 Here's the thing about Overcooked 2 All Overcooked 2 is Is making a plan and executing it And that's why I love it Because when Poe and I play We play the right way of You get that real You know it pops up With the information So you're looking okay And you look at it You pause Alright I think how it's gonna work Is I'll stand over here Make this you do it You start doing it And then every level We fuck around for a while It's like alright restart it We got it I'm sitting over here You sit over there You do this you do that You run around the fire extinguisher Like Poe is a gamer He likes playing games But he's not like us Who live and die about this stuff And we were playing one level And he was We were basically The fire keeps spitting out And you gotta keep running over The fire extinguisher And putting it out And he shocked me Because I'm so caught up In the moment to moment We're close to maximizing the score Let's just do this And finally he's like The fire's alternating sides Every time I put it out up top The next one's definitely coming down low And if I put it down low It's going up top So he finally figured out I got this And he was just running around The fire extinguisher Put it down and drop it low And then get whatever he needed to do And I was like Zampo That's my quality stuff right there Post on top Yeah Overcooked is fantastic I'm going to play the deal eventually Maybe with Joey I was hoping yelling about it We'd call her in but it didn't Poe played Creed Rise of the Glory In front of me on PlayStation VR A game I had seen at Judges Week And I'm like I don't know about this thing right He'd never played PlayStation VR or VR Of anything before So he wanted to try something Put that on him Definitely wore him out I'm like you guys see Superhot He's like you play and show me I'm like alright Creed looked like fun though Like I don't It's a boxing game And it's got this whole weird Creed influence of the movie Right now I need something Less intense What do I want to do What do I want to do I know what I want to do Go to the PlayStation store And I buy Jack and Jill DX Oh Remember this one No This is the 10 minute platinum I was telling you about all that That thing Yes exactly So it's an endless runner Where you run You bounce off the wall And you switch directions You pick up coins And the platinum is incredibly easy And it took 10 minutes And then you get it on Vita 2 And hoo wee And if you want to talk about Greg Miller getting excited Woo doctor It's the fact that of course Lucy James She's here from the UK She brought her UK PlayStation right She has a UK PlayStation account I'm like what What if I pay you money Lucy But she's already there It's just easy now Jared At this point I'm just like I wish that the Infinity's God That had chosen me Right at this moment Just pssst No way The power on the North American PlayStation store Won't put out Sly The renamed 1000 star trophies Easy 2 second platinum But they put out Sly on the UK store So I get that That's one And I know a lot of these games Have separate PlayStation North America PlayStation UK I'm thinking about it That sounds like a cool Vanilla winner game or something No I didn't Let's run a racket trophies It wasn't a bad game though For the record Like you know how I played That little Time of Prairie run That was garbage It isn't that It's an easy platinum They put it in there But it's like Cool Once you play the game For the platinum Stop the lead You know what I mean Then it got on the video The next day What a life might tell you You know what I mean God bless you Hey Yoshida for trophies And this idea he came up with Of putting achievements in the games Jared what have you been playing Oh let's see Do I remember from what I put the list Why don't you tell me what I've been playing Tell me about Tanglewood Alright let's talk about Tanglewood So in this world Of brand new video games That we could all be playing You know exciting things Like Assassin's Creed That I don't have time for Red Dead's coming out Get ready for that Could be playing for Spider-Man But no I'm playing A brand new Sega Genesis game No I'm playing Tanglewood Which is a 2018 Sega Genesis game On a cartridge Nice The developer sent me a press cartridge And I sat down It works fine in my restaurant 5 Tanglewood is beautiful Interesting Intriguing Lovingly crafted Really really atmospheric I am a big fan Of what I've played with Tanglewood so far Have you seen this at all I haven't Have you seen Greg I heard about the Genesis games Yeah but I don't know what the game is You get a new Genesis game every few years But usually it's an RPG or something This however is a side scrolling Platformer slash puzzle game It feels almost like If you were playing an old Commodore Amiga game Where you'd be like It's exploring the world Interacting with another world Or something like that It's kind of got that vibe Where I'm hopping from tree to tree But I'm solving puzzles While avoiding enemies I'm a cute little fox That can turn into like a flying squirrel And it's all about Avoiding things that are way more dangerous than you And trying to think your way Through these action puzzles I'm a fan so far I need to play more of it Before I render a final judgment But this is a game that If you've got a retron If you've got an old Sega Genesis game And also it's being made available On other platforms But the original It's A lot of places back in the day I think it'd be a classic Wow Because it's just so visually impressive It's like a 2D side-scrolling Action puzzler Like exploratory puzzle Again Did you ever play flashback Or anything like that It's a genre you don't see much of anymore Think like a Metroidvania But instead of fighting enemies You're avoiding them Maybe like limbo Kind of That kind of vibe But with a little more mobility And that's what you've got Correct me if I'm wrong It's on Genesis cartridge But you can also get it on Steam I'm playing it on the original Genesis cartridge That's got to be a fucking feeling Does it come in the old Checkered box All I have is So all I have Is literally just little label stuff on I don't want the final cartridge But I'm playing it right now On a retron My next step is going to be Get my CRT monitor out Get the original Genesis out Plug it in See what it looks like Because you get really good Upscaling out of the Out of the reference 5 The simulator is very clean looking But these games always look different On original hardware And I want to see what it looks like There next This is a feat I don't think it's just a novelty I think somebody obviously Put a lot of love into Tanglewood And I wanted to Kind of draw people's attention to it That's awesome I don't know the final data I should have been ready to talk about this But I don't actually know When the cartridge version is going to be Give me your updated Mega Man 11 impressions My updated Mega Man 11 impressions Are that Mega Man 11 is real good I like it a lot I like it more than Some people in the press That I've read That's the one thing I knew you were positive about it Before Review Embargo I remain positive about it I'm not finished with it But I really enjoy it I like the fact that It has adjustable difficulty I like the fact that Beyond blatant adjustable difficulty And being a nice gateway For people that don't want to Get beat up by Mega Man games all day Additionally I can choose How much and how to use my gears system And how that allows me To make the game easier or harder I can just choose not to use gears And play it like a super precise Hardcore really fast Mega Man game I can use gears in all the clever Puzzly ways to solve things That it throws at me Or I can use it to make the game easier If I choose to play at that pace I like it Are you playing it at all? Yeah, yeah I agree with you completely I played through the main story And there's stuff you can do afterwards But I won't obviously spoil that But I love it I mentioned to you earlier That I think it's probably My favorite mainline Mega Man game And the gear system is a huge part of that Because like you were saying You can either use it all the time Not at all Whatever you really fancy And there were definitely levels where To get the hang of them, I'd use the gear system to slow time down and get the timing on some of the platforming, and then I'd run back through without it, and I'd feel like, oh man, now I know all this, I can jump on. There's one specific level that has a lot of rotating gears that tend to fall and drop off and are turning, so that if you stay on them too long, you're going to die.
And I used the speed gear, sorry, I was searching for the name of the name of it. Which slows time down. Yeah, speed gear, which slows time down to get the timing on all the jumps for that, and then I inevitably died somewhere else and realized, now that I know it, I can just jump through this whole thing and not use the gears at all. And I really, really love that they've curved that difficulty in a way that doesn't ruin it for people that want that hardcore challenge.
Right, you don't have to use it, but it's not just to make the game an easier game. It's also really useful in certain situations just to gain a fun advantage. Sometimes it's not about making it easier, sometimes it's about, I'm just going to blast this thing right now, or I'm going to solve this puzzle. And it's adding new mechanics to a base Mega Man game, which is usually a bad idea.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, everything after the slide has been a terrible idea. Until this, which has been wonderful. Yeah, I love it.
I really do. Do you think the gears were added to make Mega Man more approachable to new players, or were they added to make it more a twist for the people who've been around forever? In my opinion, all of the above, Steve. I agree as well.
I think that it's something that improves the accessibility of it, but also gives players that are really used to Mega Man an interesting twist on the gameplay. That's interesting, because that was always my thing with Mega Man. You know, jumping in and trying to understand, you know, being sick and missing all that stuff. Coming back to them, I was always like, he's just too heavy.
This feels like they need me to be too precise. It was just stuff I didn't enjoy. Like, I understand why that matters. I understand why people love it, you know what I mean?
But for me personally, that's what draws me to games. So, like, this is interesting. Like, all right, cool, here are different ways to augment the gameplay so I get around the parts that annoy me a bit more, maybe. Yeah, and I've got comparisons to 7 based on speed that Mega Man moves.
I think the character size is smaller than 7, and I'm not entirely aligned with that criticism. I feel like he's way more mobile than he felt in 7. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I really enjoyed him there.
I understand where that's coming from, because there are moments where the game seems to be paced more deliberately. But I never felt like it was applaud or slow, either. No. The grindy feel that 5 and 6 sometimes have, for example.
Right, not at all. I felt like going through the game, like I said, it took me about four hours to get through the main campaign, and it was a really enjoyable four hours. I breezed through the game, you know, in an afternoon, and it never felt like I was having to push myself to complete it. Before I knew it, it was done.
And I was like, shit, I'm ready to go. I really want to keep playing. Unfortunately, there's stuff to do after, but I haven't yet touched it, just because I'm kind of saving it for when I'm feeling like there's a hole in my library that I need something. Yeah, there are the great Mega Man games and there are the good Mega Man games.
There's not a lot of not good Mega Man games. They're mostly superb games. But at this point, my impression is this one falls in the upper bucket. 9 is my all-time favorite, and I don't think this one is 9.
This is my all-time favorite, yeah. But I really do like this game that I've played so far, and I'll keep you updated. Jared, tell me about the Sega Aces. Oh, okay, you do Sega Aces.
Yeah, okay, Sega Aces. You played BuzzFitch, Jeff. Oh, yeah, I was a Sega kid growing up, just like Mr. Greg here.
So, yeah, Sega Aces is near and dear to my heart. And I've been playing Sonic and Lightning. Yep, Lightning Force. Lightning Force, right.
Lightning Force. Lightning, it's important. Lightning Force. It's not Lightning Force, it's Lightning Force.
Yeah, that quality control was not what it is now a long time ago. So, let's talk about Sega Aces. Why would you want to spend $8 to buy a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog in 2018? All games in 2018.
Because the new Sega Aces is produced by M2, and M2 does emulation better than just about anybody. It's going to be the most perfect version of any of these games that you can play outside of original hardware, because that's their reputation, and that's what they build on. But it's also things like, hey, you want to play the international version? You can play that.
You want to play the Japanese version? You can play that. You want to play the arcade version of Sonic the Hedgehog? We've got it on here.
You want to play, you know, and all those little tweaks, all kinds of quality of life stuff on, you know, do you want to play with scan lines or without filters? Do you want to play with that? Do you want to play with that? Plus time attack modes.