Giant Bombcast 728: Loan Wolves

No, any Martinez in concert Hades the sacrifice Get tickets now at live nation calm Melanie Martinez What are you doing? Hey Tuesday? That's what you're doing. You're doing Tuesday.

I've done days. You know what? I let Monday do me So I'm a do Tuesday. That's right.

I'm a bit yours. I'm a bit yours. Yeah, sure as it's the giant bomb cast It's March 8th and Here we are to Z daisy as that one guy says Which which guys guys there's a guy on sick talk who puts up one video a week on Tuesdays. Oh, okay It just talks about how it is Tuesday and we should probably get ahold of him and License his content because it's fucking Tuesday.

Holy shit. Yeah. I mean, I can't be that expensive It's just once a week, right? No, exactly and he's I think he sells He'll think he's painting t-shirts and selling them also about a Tuesday only if they're like hair brush style that you get Like it's not like a airbrush.

I think it's like a hand finger paint like I don't know I didn't get a good look at him I don't know, but he's not okay. All right, it's a You know artistic genius that it takes to make it and honestly these two videos are I don't know that I remember his name But he's a gen Tuesday guy. Yeah, he's the Tuesday guy. Wow.

That's it. That's like a high high phrase call someone a gem It's like damn. Oh, I mean Tuesday needs all the fucking help it can get because let's let's be honest friends Yeah, we've been stinking up to the Tuesday for a decade plus now like It's true. It's true.

It's true. If you were to assign days though So easy to say as like a Tuesday, right? Right? Call out sure, but like show me a more irrelevant day of the week I I ask of you Tuesday sucks Tuesday is pointless It's very big for me because it was always the media release day.

Yeah, but it worked a black bus That's why they did kind of that's when the video game. That's why the show is on Tuesdays. That's why we did it We got to spice up some Tuesday and so everyone decided to release albums and podcasts on Tuesday because they were like poor fucking Tuesday Yeah, look at it in the gutter asking for quarters. Let's give it some let's give it some love the video game industry gave up on Tuesdays as And said like what if instead we put games out on Fridays and then if you pay the extra money you got to play on Tuesday Yeah Tuesday break up well documented.

Yeah, well, congratulations to everyone who you know got to play Babylon's fall significantly early Congratulations to us since the giant bomb cast Congratulations to me. I found one of my wife found it. I found one of these cokes So the Starlink coach early starlies it says space flavored right on it. So I thought it's a lot of space tastes like my understanding is that it's a burnt steak what yeah, I've never tried it, but IRL.

Yeah, yeah actual space If if you taste it or smell it apparently it is like a burnt steak kind of thing Oh, that doesn't sound good to know so when they write space flavored on this that seems that you know that seems like a maybe a bad thing But I think everybody knows they're taking some artistic license in what they think space tastes like Down there in Atlanta where they make the coke. Yep, they do right. Yeah next door. That's right It's on a correspondent to investigate.

That's right They don't exist down here like even the Pepsi co-owned like a restaurant's they deserve coke. They have to Otherwise I get fucking shot up. Yeah, it's right. Lana.

Jesus. We don't mess around. Yeah, try that shit on peach tree You get fucked up fuck. I was a witch peach tree.

There's a That's why nowhere safe. It smells a little fruity. I'm gonna say all right. It's fruit Yeah, just a sweetness just a generic fruity sweetness Yep, it tastes like a coke.

Okay, but also is it I can't but admire the color of it. It's got a bit of a rooty When light passes through it's got a bit of a wow look at that. It's not the normal color Ruby color. Yeah, keep drinking keep seeing if it's more like space the more you drink it It's nice.

He's grimacing. I don't know. I can't place it User discuss the desk. Yes gravity has changed the girl's busy lifting drink.

What what the I don't understand So they were like we need to figure out a way to Young people are not drinking soda anymore because they're fucking wise to the game. Yeah Water not so good. Yeah, so they fucked up one batch really bad and they're like, oh, we gotta do something with this Let's call it starlight so I keep hearing from different people reporting You know their findings with the flavor of this is that they tend to kind of report it in different ways I'm wondering if it might actually taste different per person a little bit You know you wonder like oh, are they are they bottling? Do they have multiple flavors?

Yeah, are they doing that to people to further You know joining the conversation or whatever for or the discourse. Yeah, yes, of course Discourse push a tea this new album out this way. Maybe it's like, you know, you know the mystery flavors of airheads and dumb Dumbs and how that's just the leftover flavors from other stuff in between flavors that yeah There's like a generic fruit kind of thing. Can I can I read a Coca-Cola starlight review also?

It's very thick, but that's because I don't drink regular non-diet drinks anymore So you know, you know how it told like it lingers in your mouth syrupy. Yeah, I don't know either that This is the last paragraph of a fucking Coca-Cola starlight review Coca-Cola starlight reminds me of those days when beverages Weren't afraid to march to the beat of their own drum make up strange names design crazy labels and claim the soda tasted like I don't know outer space. I'm not sure I'd buy starlight cook again Even the zero sugar version makes me want to brush my teeth from the sweetness overload, but bravo coca-cola from getting out there and reaching for the stars So reprehensible that I cannot read this author's there I refuse to do that to this person she's drag on drag I refuse how fucking oh my god is that not the most I feel a film forming on my teeth But I feel that like from where non-diet from anytime I drink our regular coke regular coke especially compared to Pepsi Which is even even regular non-diet Pepsi is not as thick as a fucking coke. Yep, and This is a fucking coke.

We also got a coke zero starlight that I maybe oh like more But yeah, I don't know this is yeah, I'm like sympathetically empathetically feeling the grime on my teeth The you know the new coke zero speed is ass. It's really really terrible Yes, I believe so that's all that you think that that would you think that'd be a good thing people are eating ass these Yes, but some sugar on me that song was about eating it. Yeah, yeah I know that yeah, but you can find with cherry and vanilla Two flavors two additional flavors cherry and vanilla with a new Coke mix new coke zero mix. Mm-hmm.

That's up. Yeah, the new coke zero just tastes flat It's weird. It's like a some cheese they made to it is like the it's sacri. Oh, man.

Really not fucking soda problems Let me tell ya. Yeah, so don't get started on just being a beverages. There's there's hard Mountain Dew coming out, isn't there? Yeah, I just missed it.

I swear to God. I just As I was leaving and I'm like no, let's go back. I want to try it Yeah, well fucking we'd have a four look over again, man. Yes, exactly But that was like making people's heart explode never did that to me, man, right?

I never got black out drunk off of any of that stuff I think that the problem is that fucking college kids can't handle their fucking liquor Beverage as the kids maybe it's not just college kids college kids technically adults adults at company holiday parties, too You got to look after them Last to the very last game spot holiday party and then they may have them now The very last game spot holiday party we had that was separate from the main company holiday party I had just come back from Japan for like it from the PSP launch and And riding that high yeah, so I'd been like awake for like 30 hours or something like that and got back and hung out And went to the party and I Was like I'm really tired. Let's I'm gonna get like three red bull and vodka's oh no Three turned into way more than three, okay, okay? I think I heard the story before and I thought it was okay as a freshly 21 year old to order red bullet vodka And I had it and I was so fucking juice afterwards. Hey, I was like yo, let's dance everybody hell.

Yeah So so what happened like time travel like what was the No, I did not black out at all instead. I get to remember every moment of Sitting in the back of Alex's car with my head out the window throwing up over the length of the Golden Gate Bridge as we drove Oh cool. That's actually the entire length. That's impressive.

That's core memory. That's amazing You yeah, that's so no one's had the Mountain Dew the hard Mountain Dew It seems like it's kind of like a high noon situation because it's not soda. There's not like added sugar in it, right? Right.

It's zero sugar. Yeah, I gotta have one of these I don't like mountain do I try But I've had the three olives Mountain Dew flavored vodka before that's a martini No, no, it's a brand of flavor. Yeah, it's very shitty brand For for frag for sorority girls, I think because I got flavors like luby which tastes like for loops and stuff For me and for me and sorority girls pretty much. Yeah Lupey really does taste like the the milk after you've had a bowl of like fruity peppers Crazy, but yeah, I tried the Mountain Dew flavor of vodka cuz I had an old man bar with my dad And we were just like what is that like spying it from across the bar and it was just this flavor called dude Like what the fuck is dude flavored vodka?

We're trying to figure it out and it was like this bright like radioactive green and we wasn't just like clicking for us We're like okay We have to like share a shot of whatever this is and we're sipping back and forth people What the fuck is this and then I'm just you know, you're weak. This is Mountain Dew and I hate it. It's disgusting. That's a key memory Yeah, I'm good.

I had a martini for the first time a couple weekends ago first fancy. I know I just never like I Always known about them. They've always been in my been around. I've seen them I love olives and like no one made the fucking connection.

No one's like oh Jeff This is very much your shit. No, you you didn't make it actually right like olive juice olives and then you know Something that's gonna get you drunk. So where were you? I guess I'm hard.

I'm a martini dude now. They're good I should look more into these. I like a drink gin. I can't All of us kind of get in the way.

I'm not an olive man. I drink the girly ones I have Apple teenies or cosmopolitan's which I think is a type of martini technically The girl drinks they're good. There was a period of time And I don't know if this is still his thing But there was a period of time where if you were around Dave Lang in a drinking situation He would just you know kind of spin up the drink machine and suddenly a bunch of Apple teenies would be around everywhere and the Apple you know you would be sucked into the zone of Apple teeny guys and the whole team zone It's just like one night that just vanished into just like I don't know seven fucking Apple teenies or some stupid like that Yeah, that was my that was my first alcoholic beverage and my dad ordered it for me. That's all my dad is He was like your 18.

You're a wedding. I'll get you an apple teeny I don't know remembering this but there was one e3 I wound up at a bar with Ben pack and I think we had coconut mojitos Wordered them and then it was a very empty bar and then they were just for coconut mojitos Oh In a cord out Tall glass and like the myth was there. It's like garbage because coconut flavor most coconut flavor things are bad Yeah, who fucks with almond joys? Let's be honest.

No, it's like what am I biting into the water motion like gross What's this dope banana boat candy bar you down right here? Like some coconut water that's about it. Yeah, that's where I'll try I'll try any mojito any flavor mojito ones That's what I want to do Whatever it's 1130 here, man. Fuck it.

It's my clock Real talk though. What's a bar with my partner's cohort for her grad class fucking went for a frozen shit was delicious frozen rosé Oh hell yes, it is Jessica I gave you a little umbrella. I was like damn. This is life.

Oh, I had a stand gree to the ones. That was a mistake Oh, it's a time. Let's get way into drinking. Yes.

All right. I haven't had any drinks So the last time I had drinks it was on camera was when we were doing e3 coverage Yeah, I have to say about the amigo You to drink And we'll get back into the amigo in the news a little later. It's a fucking mistake for that. There's been I Don't know that's a fucking shit show.

We'll get into that. But first why don't we talk about some video games? Gosh, let's see where to begin grand to Rismo 7 is out that has come out since the last time we spoke I Was driving around that's a cafe. It's Jeff cafe is fine.

It's it's good. It's good It's good. I think it there are I it is not for me. The tires are very round.

It is beautiful I think the cars look very nice I think the tracks and lighting and a lot of stuff like that is really awesome about it I think that the way you kind of move through the game You go to a cafe and then and you which is like you clicking on a menu It's like this very kind of visual menu of a bunch of buildings You visit a cafe and they'll give you missions like on this menu You need to collect these three specific cars and it just so happens we've opened up three races that will give you those three cars as rewards So you go race those three races and then go back to the cafe and then there's some text about like yeah You got those though. You got those cars. They're nice. Here's some people that will tell you about them And all of that and then you go back out and do it again and that's uh, it's just the progression and the way that it structures and stuff like that is kind of It's a little too laid back.

It's a little too. Yeah, I think a low-fi hip-hop for Studying or driving cars too, but the soundtrack isn't necessarily that like that's weird It has the vibe of that but not necessarily the music of that sitting in on that quick look it definitely felt So so chill compared to every single driving game. I've tried out in the past five years Like even for it's a horizon like as a series isn't really like hey, you're driving now get in this car But still there's like a lot of flash and pizzazz with like the presentation of stuff Yeah, it's all very subdued and Gran Turismo And I don't know if that is for me I hope for like the driving car freaks out there that this is like what they want and it's more focused on the cars rather than the like the You want this race buddy. Fuck.

Yeah, because even when you win a race in that quick look, it was just like guffers play school Here's here's a menu. Yeah, right there's back to the dashboard. You can customize your racer So on that screen, you'll see them doing the thing but that's about it. Yeah, yeah, it's uh The progression is very late back.

It opens up very very slowly like you don't get in the online menu to pop up for You know probably like 15 races or something like that and then it's like hey, do you want to race on the internet? I'm like not really But thanks and so I don't know like that's uh, it's a very different thing than forts Which you know, it's kind of become the you know comparison point or whatever, but like remember Forts are rising is a different thing. It's an open world driving game. This is very deliberately built around a fucking EDM festival So obviously that's got a different energy to it.

Uh, forts in motorsport though Is still is a drier game is it has it has a less of that? But you know remember when they were making those at the same time, you know, they were putting um Top gear in it and stuff like that and some of the weirder car soccer and some other stuff kind of made its way into motorsport Um as well. So, you know, even even they're kind of dry racing game on that side of things is still Uh, doing weird stuff that that grants her whatever grants where's my head game where you could drive a moon rover on the moon So they have they have done weird stuff in the past. Um, yeah, but yeah, I don't know I think I don't think that the AI and grants resume is like fun to race against they've seen very stuck to their line Um And I've seen additional complaints around that from people that are playing on much higher difficulty than I am where it's just as you turn it up It's just like they just are glued to their line and then it's not necessarily Um, because they don't do race against aggressive at all like they're not bullying you generally they're just kind of sticking to that line Yeah, I mean, they you know, they want to race a clean race.

It's it's you know, it's a simulation So, you know, they're not they're not bumping you for position. They are not rubbing. They are they're just racing and that's fine I think that makes total sense But also like they just don't attack and and stuff to pass you and get past the way that you would expect It doesn't feel like they are reacting to the what you are doing to try to beat you It feels more like they just like this is the way I drive if I somehow get bumped off this line the thing I'm gonna do is get back on this line and keep going and it just I don't know it just it it it continues It's another part that just kind of makes the game feel very dry and very kind of cold And um, yeah, I don't much care for that. I think that some people will will be into that And some people are certainly into it.

What they're not into is the micro transactions Um, you can just straight up buy credits. They've done micro transactions in the past everyone's done them in the car space But there's some stuff where they're like, hey, we're gonna have limited Run cars that might be like 20 million credits and then you look at how much that is gonna cost in real money If you just want to top up your account Um, that's over a hundred dollars or something. That's like it's it's for one car. I'm sorry for a car car car car For like a super high-end crazy one, you know, there's all walks of cars for a lot of different prices If you want to fucking beat up weird car, you can do that But then they've they've partnered with some, you know Real-life car club or something and have this like legends car section and and those are insanely expensive and it's Nuts, it's just nuts.

So like that side of the game seems pretty nasty And uh, yeah, I don't know it's I think it does look very nice and I think it handles fine I wish that the I wish that just like a greater variety of assistance and more kind of accessibility options and stuff like being colorblind to be nice if I could change the color of the driving line to something that sticks out a bit more Um, that is something That really sticks out both in terms of like that's something that force allows you to do But I think more importantly So many of Sony's first-party games have been wide swath of options exactly just tons of settings and tweaks and difficulty this and that and modes and accessibility and You know, like the they are they are blazing a trail um in terms of how they handle accessibility and This game has like a zero of that like it feels like it came from a different I mean a lot of this game I feel like it came from a different era, you know, right of of Sony's Output and I think it's like it's so wild that there's like any games coming out these days that don't have colorblindness modes Like it's so yeah, like I'm looking up statistics and like apparently one in 12 men and one in 200 women have color Experienced colorblindness. It's like this is so common like and it's like comparatively easy to do Like somehow Okay, one two things one the accessibility options for colorblindness are usually useless. Really? Yeah, they are often fucking garbage You can't automate that in some way?

No, because it's gonna be different like what you're gonna need is gonna be different per person because there's multiple kinds of colorblindness And it's gonna be different from game to game in terms of what matters So in Gran Turismo, the only thing I really need is when you're going into a corner when it tells you to break The lines on the road are red. They shouldn't be because I that red does not pop enough for me to be useful So if I can change that to any other color that'd be fine, but that's the only tweak I don't want a generic filter that tinges the entire game Um because that doesn't that never helps and for shooters and stuff like that or like games where there's objective indicators in the world or Crosshairs or something like that um I just want to be able to change that so that there's a bit of more contrast So that pops against the background more but that depends on what the background is going to be that depends on You know like a lot of other things. So you just need to be able to pick colors for how the elements is usually Yeah, it's usually what I need. It's a good point.

Someone who's not colorblind. I don't know it precisely like how bad those filters are I was just like oh nice. There's filters for the people who see different than me and I don't know how good those are So it just filters the entire world never never does anything and then it's not that you know That's another thing where just you know who cares, but like if you're streaming a game and you have a colorblind filter on It's just non-stop comments people. Why does it look like shit?

Any different to me so So whatever um, but yeah, I don't know like that's that's you know, it's a relatively minor point It's just one of those weird things that stands out simply because sony's doing so much work on that front right now That this just feels fucking weird in comparison to not have anything like that The microtransactions also feel very huff place for sony for that matter like geez. I got some that got pretty pricey not quite like this They had a credit cap on those that kind of kept it from getting You know to a ridiculous amount of money, but yeah Yeah, this one seems like it could get pretty nasty. We'll see how they how they handle that stuff in the long run um and I think the other thing is I don't like this is another personal taste sort of thing I don't want to play a racing game where I can't rewind. Oh Um because I don't want to do a long I don't want to do things twice in that game sure In a lot of driving game where you're gonna see a lot of those courses over and over again um I don't want to like spend seven minutes on a race and then fucking below the last turn and then finish fourth and be like shit I have to do that whole thing again I'm just not like I'm not into that enough and some people are and of course But it's another thing with it like I just yeah I'm not enough of a Gran Turismo fan to want to have to do that again.

I want to keep progressing. So Uh, no, what's the weirdest car you can drive here? Um, it's not I don't know like they they you know, there's like a fucking what like I don't know like a 2014 Honda fit, you know, uh, That's the fit is cool. Uh, let's go And yeah, but it's a lot of it's a lot of cars like that and then but it very quickly gets into Um supercars with libraries and all that other shit, you know, and that's also not really what I'm Here for I'm here for tuning production vehicles and slapping weird parts on them And you there's a lot of that in here, but I wish that there was maybe more Um Like when you go to some of the car manufacturers and stuff like that, you know, you'll see like two kind of regular Street legal vehicles and then nine that are super expensive and are covered in stickers and all those other stuff and that stuff's way less interesting To me than just like let me let me tune this car and then go drifting and do all you know, like that's the sort of stuff that I That I kind of care about.

Um, so yeah, uh, that's how now it's it seems very well made for what it is Uh, the one thing that I think is super unforgivable about it is that this is the 25th anniversary of grantorismo and in a lot of ways This game feels like it's trying to be a throwback and yet when you go wash your car It does not play the grantorismo one japanese version car wash music. Oh, and uh, I think that's tuning Yeah, I think that's terrible and so ever since I realized that I've had car wash dot wave on my Desktop ready to go. Are you gonna say on your foot pedal? Uh, I mean if you if you just give me like a moment here We can I can I can force that foot pedals versatile.

Yeah, I can I can force that upon people here just um I don't know it off the top of my head. Oh, oh shit. Yeah Got now this makes me want to buy a wheel now. Yeah, this is a foot.

This is a real foot tapper Like you should just play this is like what you're getting told. Yeah. Yeah, and it doesn't I need to wash my car so bad actually Why is it ragtime? Because you're using a rag to wash your car.

It's rag. Yeah, exactly. Shami. It's shami time.

Oh, I'm running into that one Drove right into that one. I can't actually make it stop. So, uh Gran Turismo 7's out now. Uh, it's It's also a piece of art.

I've not seen how it uh how it goes there. Um Need to license this now. Oh, yeah Because we're talking about the quality of this song and how I think good it is. It's really good But it sounds like something you'd hear in like Disney World some like well like I would just spenders playing on Main Street Yeah, like I imagine like putting a quarter in somewhere and then like some hoses pop out and while my car spins around And gets clean and lightning the queen is there Mm-hmm.

Yeah Yes, it is the angle. They play this in the bathrooms at Disneyland. Yeah, and radiator springs Um Well, there you go. How long is this song?

It's not much more. I don't think there's too much more. Oh, I also I'm feathering the foot pedal over and over again to keep it starting over again Because uh, we're just gonna let's do it for the next three hours. Um Let's see uh WWE 2K 22 is out.

Oh boy. It's uh in its most expensive form They took a year off. It's perfect now everybody. So good.

How's the wrestling? How's the DDT's? How's the flaming tables? The barbed wire wrapped baseball bats from watching Jeff play yesterday.

There's not a big look now up on the site Uh, there was a part a lot of parts of it where Jeff wasn't playing and it assumed control. Oh, yeah It's nice to do that. The game feels like someone sat down with the development team And someone with a power to fire everyone on that team got it up in front of them and said, all right If I see More than 20 different animated gifts of this game breaking in hilarious and insane ways You are all fucking fired And so the game they made is so full of canned animations where like I played a little bit more this morning and there's like Like Seth Rollins All I did was hit x and Seth Rollins turned and ran the other direction to go off the ropes and run back and and hit diesel in the head um and It was like, you know, it's like you don't expect that to happen So it's like you you push a button and then suddenly your character's running the wrong way And you're like, what the fuck broke like? Hang on.

Yeah, and so it doesn't vignette It doesn't go to a different camera angle. It doesn't do anything to tell you you are watching an animation So you're left for a second there of going like wait, oh, okay He's doing a thing and then it doesn't tell you when you're back in control of the character either and It's fucking insane that like to do that that way and I And all I can imagine is that they just said, all right We're gonna feel this with a ton of canned animations that will not break And that solves our problem our perception problem at least on the wider internet and people won't like crack jokes about how terrible we are Um That has to be why that has to be a driving factor is to why that game's that way because they rebuilt the gameplay from the ground up Um They were all they rebuilt it in a lot of ways in terms of just like the buttons and what they do and all that sort of stuff And I think it's probably technically an improvement Um, but it's such a low bar from where that game has been Um That you know like it'd be hard to you know with how like if they want to replicate the the product of wwe I feel like they could at least translate that you're not in control anymore by like flipping to a different camera angle And that's what they've done in the past like they've had things like that before and they do have that in here too Where if you're getting a signature move or something that takes some time it will cut to a different angle and and show you that stuff So like they literally do that but Not all the time and not for a lot of these kind of more standard moves. It's usually only for the kind of like high spot type of stuff and um It just feels bad. It's just like that makes the game like every every bit of it feels weird and not maybe not as responsive as it should be Um I could see that being semi-ok on like in one-on-one matches Because there's only ever one opponent to worry about but when you when you dove into like the royal rumble mode for instance Or like a battle royale tag team, etc I could see that being very very confusing as to like, okay Not only do I have to awkwardly target someone but now am I stuck in an animation?

What are we? Okay? All right. No, no, I'm actually doing a big boot to this dude Um, yeah, then I always just look so awkward when you're like trying to strike or you're grappling and it's you're just stuck in that animation While everyone else is moving around and not actually interacting with you.

Yeah Yes, it's just a it's a very weird feel thing Yeah, and you know like across the board I think a lot of it You know you kind of have to think about it as And I don't think they necessarily have earned this sort of benefit of the doubt sort of situation But in a lot of ways you need to look at it as a first-year product because they had to try and build so much to get away from Everything that was bad about it, which was almost literally everything from the models to the you know, just just up and down so Um, so I'm sure they had to do a whole lot of stuff over the you know the two years they had Um To get it into shipping shape And then that that you know surfaces in other areas where like the roster is like super out of date I mean they there's been a bit of a bloodletting over there with them cutting wrestlers and you know Some of them are now on a different television program entirely and all that sort of stuff and um You know, so the roster feels very dated to the storyline stuff that they kind of bring up um like there's stuff in there about um Like like Dana Brooke and Bobby Lashley being an item which I feel like wasn't that television stuff like forever ago Ah, Dana Brooke in that angle She might have been with one in rusev She made maybe that's something that's actually the game and I'm just remembering but like I feel like there was a Maybe that was a lot of stuff that I'm thinking of but you know Maybe I'm right there But yeah, I don't know like the the looks of the characters and how they look just feels so out of date compared to how they look now Um in a lot of cases, you know, people dressed up in ways that they do not dress anymore and names that they've changed since then and just a lot of stuff like that that just feels Um Very all over the place. Yeah when we went over that whole roster because we had to do our due diligence and go through everyone Yes, there were a lot of people maybe not a lot of people Uh, but current superstars that aren't even in the game like ray misterio sun who is an active wrestler is not there Uh, there's a trophy in the game that alludes to maybe him being like a thing you see at the end Because the the the showcase mode is built around ray cool and so maybe maybe the thing you get for finishing that mode is dominec I am your poppy dominant. Yeah, it's time for real. This time for real.

Uh, it likes lina vega's not in the game And she's like one of their current champions Uh, but you know, we talked about the quick look as well like a lot of the roster doesn't indicate Uh, how current people are like shinsuke Nakamura is still considered the king of the ring there But he hasn't been the king of the ring for like two years now. You're in some change Uh, yeah, uh, it's so so like that's you know, that's always a problem because they always have to content lock at some point and w And variable goes like hey, we just fired like 12 people, you know, so that that always happens to some extent It just feels like even more pronounced this year. Um, also like this You got the year on the title of the game. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, I'm in for sure That's also some of the wrestlers that have been released that are now actively on other products It's all over the place because you have uh, like the iconics that are now in impact Yeah, but you won't have someone that was huge at the time like adam coal even though he is also on another product Yeah, um So like they're picking and choosing I feel like is very deliberate the other odd thing that we noticed when we checked out the real rumble Is they recently let go of one of the ring announcers. Yeah, not show his face at all He was still in there, but they do not show his face Like they'll do every single awkward angle doesn't he work in it like fucking trader joe's now or something? That is someone else. It's a difference in us.

Okay. Yeah, this is the guy that was like threatening to sue Gunna Yeah, what's that gun? What's that gun? Yeah?

Um, and like he was trying to like i'm gonna get the lawyers on you for sampling my voice And then w he was like, what are you? You're not know what the fuck are you doing? Um Big deal on another televised product. Whereas you know, hey, these people are on impact is maybe a little more like, okay, that's fine who watches impact Um, you should though impact is really good right now.

They've been doing some some good stuff, but uh, but you know, um, it's just yeah I don't know from a gameplay perspective. It just feels kind of Can in a way that uh, it's really weird. Yeah And yeah, it just seems like they had to make some choices around it just like that That's my that's my take on it feels like they made choices around trying to make it look less broken And as a result, it's like sometimes it feels like you're playing an fv game Or like I made a choice and then okay now it's animated like micro league wrestling all over him. Um, and so I don't know that's It's just it's just fucking weird.

Um Also weird nelton ring. Oh my god. It seems to be weird. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, have people been sticking with it? I beat market the other day and I rerolled I rerolled on a different system. I was having such a fucking rough time with the uh The cc version just like giving me a consistent frame, right?

Um actually went to the xbox Uh, like the uh, you know series x version and my tv has you know variable refresh rate It looked fucking so much better now. Um, I'm really happy with it and and I've gotten actually farther than I was My first playthrough. There we go. Um, so so there's that, you know, uh, and same time Like I found this optional boss down on this cave in a very close to where I started and I fucking Got into like a just an epic battle like we were down to like no heels left last hit somebody's dead and I beat him I beat him good and I got this dumb fire resistance talisman.

I'm like, oh fuck there. That's not what I want So you rerolled your character? I'm gonna run it right now. It's I'm not trying to discount the game at all.

Um, I just muted. Damn I was trying to ask hey, you rerolled your character. What were you previously and what are you now? Uh, no, I was still uh, yeah, still the God dammit.

I keep calling it a commoner confessor. Um, but I kind of went a different route with the uh, um, leveling up So I wanted to try that flail real bad. So put some points in the decks and it turns out I hate the flail So I've been two handing the flail for the last oh damn full of hours. Lee damages is something great, but um, I don't like the animation I don't know whatever, but so I'm yeah, I just keep getting like little bits of disappointments.

Um, I need I need a big win I need a big win in that game to like really suck me in because right now I'm like, do I have time for this right now? I'm not sure because it's it's fighting against me. It's it's trying real hard to Uh, keep me might uh, I might play some more Elden ring on the site. Maybe we've got some time maybe tomorrow Not sure, but I have to go.

I have to go beat margin. I haven't done it yet. I've got I got I got I got him really close And I also do co-op for That'd be fun. Also.

I have an item that I bought from someone who is not trustworthy, but it claims that this item Is good for fighting margin and we'll buy margin to the crowd. Oh, right. Yeah, but I got it from someone I don't trust So I'm just like I'm half expecting to use it and it just makes a fart noise and does nothing No, it does it too, but yes, it does work. Okay.

I spent so far I feel like I've spent most of my time just rolling around going places and seeing things and it's great Yeah, like it's it's kind of the difference between this and I think a lot of their past games is your ability to just fucking keep going and run past a bunch of enemies and ride your horse through there and be like fuck you guys I'm out and So I've just been unlocking fast travel points all over the place to the east and just like going all over there and Seeing all kinds of bad stuff giant horrible rats and just nasty Stuff I read I read something saying like hey, there's a really kick-ass sword down here in this cave And I was like, oh cool. I'm gonna go down there and get it and then went down there and then pot friend was down there and I was like, oh, hey man Good to see you. Yeah, um and I was like, what's the other door? I was like, oh, it's a giant fucking fantasy star Online looking fucking dragon and that's the thing I have to fight to get this fucking so okay I'm fucked and so fought that a couple times and bailed on it because I just like, okay I haven't even beat a boss in that game or had not at that point Percher like beat a single boss in that game because I've just been running past so much So it's weird things like I feel like I'm making exploration type progress But I am not getting any better at the combat because I'm skipping so much of it and so it's like this bad feeling like I'm I'm unlocking a lot of this map and so I've got all these new places to die Leveling up at least yeah here there.

Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten like put like 20 I got a dex up to 20 and And I've been using that flail and I found like yet another poison swamp and ran around there for a while and found some more bad shit found much armor that I hate and Yeah, this armor terrible. What is this armor's for assholes?

What kind of dipshit would wear this? Um kind of I think when have you had a moment where you uh are surprised by the like the just like horrificness of an enemy that you're just like Not a boss. I mean I'm all the bosses I've come into kind of are obviously hideous in a way that makes me love this game so much But the weird bubbly fucking spear-wielding creatures that come up out of the water around the mirror. Yeah.

Yeah What about that very large lobster looking thing? But a lobster the size of a charter bus and you just Like man. I wish that lobster wasn't And use it as a charter bus to get around I was just riding around and like the red gross part of the map and I Went through a cliff and then like someone had like a summoning circle behind me and then a giant ball hits me My horse off the cliff. Yeah, that's actually a Roon.

Yeah farming spot. Yeah, I wound up looking up a video because I was like man. I'm so under leveled I need to like just farm some stuff and there was said giant ball. It's like you could just not get hit by it Try not getting hit.

Yeah, but like it's just a giant silver like pinball. I'm like, did that color do this? Yeah, buddy. Yeah, but I got to a point where I need to do something I need to feel like I've accomplished something in this game other than running around looking at night There is shit and so I went back.

I'm making friends. That's nice. I found a few friends Um, it's guy named bach. That is a cool guy.

I don't know if anyone else is run to bach, but It's weird because I started my character too And and like the people that I've met in places where they were standing and all their stuff has changed And so when I go back to the round table hold the lady that sits with me the first time I played she was there hanging out by the fire And now she's not and I don't know what I've not done to advance that or what I did the first time that did advance What the hell this is a lot of just little stuff like that that like I don't there's a Have you met blied? He's nice Maybe I don't know I'm not Is he the blacksmith guy no, he's a big wolf guy He's got a man body and he's got a wolf head and he's kind of a hunk Oh, there's a different wolf. Okay. There's a different big wolf.

It's a cool big wolf guy named blied It looks like it's spelled blade, but it's not splied, but he's awesome. I'm gonna chat about saying talk to the blacksmith to me But I did that I exhausted all talk again. I exhaust all of my long. I'm not crazy Blacksmith with different blacksmith.

There's like a giant blacksmith. Uh, whatever not gonna spoil every character Every time someone posts a screenshot of Elden ring to Twitter and I'm half thinking sometimes like you're just making this shit up Yeah, right and then an hour toward his pope. Come on I found it. Oh, it's interesting is that like the vibe I'm getting from like Elden ring like spoilers quote-unquote is that they're so weird And so out of context that you're not gonna remember it anyway Like once you get to whatever this is like 20 30 hours later, you're gonna be like, oh, yeah That doesn't spoil anything that thing that what from two months ago that I read about and it's the same thing As with Jojo's bizarre adventure because the way I got into that show it was um a friend of mine completely spoiling an entire fight That happens in like season four like the fucking climactic thing and it was so absurd It was so absurd that I was like, okay, fine.

I'll watch it and then by time it happened I'd forgotten all about it because it was such total fucking nonsense. That was so outrageous. I didn't retain any of that information Yeah, yeah, that's that's yes that game is very much that way I think too and It's cool. I don't know like I I've just been like playing anywhere from like a half hour to an hour and a half every night Just kind of fucking around and I've been having a pretty okay time with it I don't feel a real desire to like sink a six hour session into it or anything like that Like it doesn't have it took to me that way, but it's been fun to and I think that's probably also hurting my ability to Like get good right because I'm just like playing other games.

I'm just like I'm not disciplined But but I want that fighting around the camp. You know right now. I'm running around the castle Castles messed up. It's fucked up.

Yeah And it's the first it's the first spot in the game that I've been to that has felt very much like the level design of the previous game is where It's a lot of like, okay Now I have unlocked a shortcut to get back to this point And now I don't have to do this ever again And now I get you know like that stuff where the rest of it's just been so Open world to just run around this fight get over here do this like this this this feels much more in line with kind of How a lot of the levels in some of the other games have been been built So it's been kind of neat to see that and it kind of does both Yeah, for people's if this is like their first four rants with souls game I'm interested to see how they'll feel about it because um there's an obscene amount of dead ends Where you'll be like f if you don't know just to like move on Like life, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you also don't have to fight every single person But I also think me constantly running away from my problems in real life and in this game It's probably just hurting my overall progress to of life. It's the runes you don't get yeah Yeah, like I feel the same because like now that I know if shit sucks hit the bricks I think I'm maybe into it too often because I get like frustrated easily I'm just like this is not worth getting tilted over I'm gonna go someplace else But I feel like yeah, like am I not pushing myself hard enough? Am I not getting good or am I actually in a place that I'm like crazy underlevel to be hanging out in Which is often the case as well because I can't tell the difference between I'm crazy underleveled and I'm just not good at dealing with the situation sometimes I I feel like my general feeling on that game and those games is there's almost never an underleveled situation Unless you're just not doing enough damage like it really just feels like Like yeah, you can dump levels into getting more hit points, but you shouldn't be getting hit Is the actual answer right like there's there's just that aspect of like okay I need to learn these attack patterns and learn them right and and actually master this type this confrontation Uh, yeah, I think it's a mix of like learning Compounded with the leveling right where you and patience like learning how to be patient and not to get greedy Like that's a problem with mine is that like I'll be like oh shit my opening and I'll stab a guy twice instead of once Because I'm like oh, I have no I don't know that was my problem with the market fight is I kept going for three instead of two And once I just like stopped mashing the fucking buttons And started playing with a little bit more care and also summoning a fucking weird ghost jellyfish You know, yo, that kind of is great that kind of solved Yeah, market this once you get all up in that business. It's like you got to get a side cheek instead of a full Yeah, full to full dish there or stay a magic which is what it is.

I don't even have my It's magic doesn't I started looking faster and the stuff I had it might as well didn't make any sense to me I was just like I don't know is this even do anything is this an attack I don't feel like what does this even and then oh the other spell besides the heel, right? Yeah, yeah, I just I didn't I restarted as a samurai and I and I absolutely love that game now Because I wasn't using any type of projectile stuff, but I'll just use I'll just whittle away with arrow and then when they get close Just use that on sheet attack. Oh, it's so good. I went with I think it's I think it's just warrior.

I think the dual scimitar Lady. I want a lady. But yes, the typey. Yeah, and yes typey And and so I've just been leveling decks there and then went to my flail.

Yeah, and the flail's fun I like flail. I don't know because I'm running around stuff. That's that's pretty cool. Yeah, and and because I'm Doing what I can to not get hit.

I just am to handing the flail rather than holding a shield Same with the same right. Yeah, and that's been that's been going okay. It's a it's a it's a really it's a really neat game. I'm curious It is selling super well from the sounds of things and I It's that's fascinating to me because I think there's just gonna be a lot of people that Bang their heads against this thing and get out and run up to the first big dude on the horse and just get murdered And they're like what the fuck am I doing like the call up came stop at that point and trying to return it.

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, I What's your turn posy? Yeah, I have one for our business. We're a metro pcs now.

Sorry And then we also went out of business because we were a metro pcs. We're an oxygen bar You bring a copy of elder ring into an oxygen bar. They'll give you something Is worth 10 minutes with line oxygen? Yeah, we get a lot of time and then get the fuck out of here.

Never come back We got a high kalonic setup in the back though, but you know, you got to bring better games Yeah, I don't know. It's uh, yeah, they obviously there's just been a ton of discussion around and now, you know, it's a lot of It's the same right a lot of it's the difficulty discussion and all that sort of stuff and But there's been that kind of extra level of discussion of people saying like hey It's like the way the menus and maps and all this other stuff the the buttons you hit to get in the map and out of the map and all that stuff being Poorly configured sure sucks. There are there are definitely Some very valid complaints about that sort of stuff like, you know, I feel like a lot of people I've talked I've talked to keep accidentally dismounting from their horse because of the muscle memory of having to click in L3 to sprint from Most other games that have a sprint in it these days So they're accidentally clicking in the L3 or out of just panic trying to get away with something to actually click L3 And also like going into the map is pressing the the touch button thing in the center But if you press that again, it doesn't make you leave the map bring up some other menu that you're never gonna use I forget what it is. It's like For the map it's like how do you use this map and that's the map what the I'm not using the map So it's just weird stuff like this and the fact that like the like leaving the notes as you do with your little freaky ghost finger None of those are alphabetized or anything you just have to remember like where is the word dog and stuff like that You can't like look it up or anything.

Yeah favorites stuff like that So there's definitely a lot of like valid points being made I feel like most of the the outrage is coming from not those folks saying that stuff But from people reacting from them and misinterpreting them willfully and causing a ruckus over that There's yeah, I mean Strange different games and genres and consoles and all that other stuff get their defense force, right? And right I feel like the the people that are unwilling to listen to any kind of reason about these games are There's just fucking so yeah tiring is like fucking whatever man like yes Is not necessarily an attack. You know like you can still Every one of those and be like no, it's perfect as it is like No, it's also like just because someone has a couple complaints about something doesn't mean that they don't like the thing generally speaking Like now you're asking the entire internet to reconfigure itself like that. Yeah, right?

So it's impossible Yeah, yeah, I know I feel like that stuff could be better in a way that doesn't compromise the game And and streamlined in a way that makes it just make a little bit more sense and but at the same time I think a lot of this game as I've been playing more and more of it and thinking specifically about some of those complaints It made me realize that like one of the big things about this game that makes it stick out Is just how different it is from everything else out there and that totally and that happens at so many different levels including its funky s menus And the thing I realized is it just it feels like a game that came from the era before every single game before they solved it Right like like 2017 when everyone went like oh square is the reload button in every single video game That's it triangle is weapon swap in every single game. That's it circle is crouch That's we're done. We're done with this like and so many games just kind of adhered to The kind of the first person shooter the kind of like as call of duty take off took off like a lot of controls For not just first person games, but for even third person games started to move further and further in that direction And that's nice in some ways because it makes more games pick up and play and you get the muscle memory around like destiny doesn't default to that But I switched it to that because I had played so much call of duty that now I don't even know what default destiny plays like because I've been playing it with that control scheme for so fing long Um, but this feels like it gives this feels like a game that came out for the PlayStation 2 and didn't come out in the u.s This was like some weird thing you imported and you're like, I don't even know what I can't fucking read You know, I can't read any of this because it's all Japanese. I don't even know what's going on I'm just gonna run over here and hit guys and it's magical in that way the way that doesn't happen anymore because games get localized worldwide And you don't have those weird imports anymore the way that you used to this game for people that weren't around then this game actually Evokes a lot of that shit and that's kind of cool because that doesn't exist in games anymore Yeah, because of the standardization like a lot of control schemes has become so homogenized in a way that we're not used to having to to reconfigure how we interact Uh with a lot of these like even genres that it is like obviously like you said like this button usually does this button usually does that Um, and like this game isn't a shooter, but still there's certain like standardized button layouts and stuff like that That it's like bucking the traditions of um, which makes it like really interesting and a whole nother like cerebral and gameplay challenge on top The fact that it is just a fucking difficult game with a lot of bullshit in it to troll you and stuff like that Um, that being said like I still feel like there's a couple things that could have been a little nicer about like Bullshit that I write on the ground You know, there's nothing like arcane and like oh my god.

It's so full about having the map work the way it does You know, there's just stuff like that and so yes, there's I think there's stuff that they could do Without without sacrificing that feel and and still have the game just be a little bit better Um around the edges, but but yeah, I don't know and I wonder like I feel like that's the lesson to me learned here But also I don't know that like a lot of other games could get away with that You know, like if we went back to the era when every game controlled differently and everyone came up with their own weird Controls schemes and all that sort of stuff I don't know that like most games would benefit from that because I think most games actually benefited Most genres I think benefited from just being easier for like a mainstream audience to pick up and play because it's like it plays Like the other two games they play, you know, whether that's Assassin's Creed or whatever. Um, and Yeah, I think because like souls games already has a legacy of being difficult and being from like Japan initially I think it had a hard time coming over to the west. I'm not entirely correct me if I'm wrong on that Uh, but it already had this kind of like obscure feeling to it to begin with from from you know moment one So it's continued that tradition of being this this bull shitty game So it's allowed to continue being a bit bullshitty or evolve in a different way that is still keeping together this aura of like this It's hard. This isn't for like your regular casual Joe or something It's just gonna pick it up and know exactly what every button does Uh, so that works in its favor that it's not it's not a brand new IP coming out and being this difficult It has like a history of having this difficulty and of scerness to it And that's why it's so fascinating that it apparently assault 10 million copies on screen You think about Now think about like that wider audience getting dropped into this Especially if they haven't played another game like this before or like that's I really want to know how they're getting on And if they're enjoying it or not, I was talking to my wife about it My wife plays some games, but you know, it hasn't hasn't really played much in a long time And I started telling her about it and she was just like very interested And then I was like also it's like fucking insanely difficult and and like the combat Is like it's very it's very gameplay Very tough on that front and she's like, okay, then I then I probably can't I mean, that was something that kept me away from soul stuff because you know Grow grown up on the something awful forums as a teen and early adult Seeing like other people's let's play of it and it being this thing that you're just supposed to ram your head against and get good Get good get good.

That was kind of like the the kind of aura I was up against in general It was just like this isn't for you because you're not gonna keep me for sure. Yeah, but that was And now this is my first one and it's just like oh like I caught it's clicking now And it's like I feel bad that I didn't give it a chance in the past But like I don't know if it is like if there is a little something something that's Clicking for me that might not have clicked the previous ones. I don't know any of what we're gonna say back a lot I just think and I'm guilty of this for sure, but I wonder also You know, like they're there's just a lot more people playing games A lot of younger people and I think it's there's some cultural generational divides going on too where you know Yeah, just very sensitive to where we have the moment but like there's plenty of people have my age Playing games and pro and you know, I just think we have to recognize the fact that like and again Like I said, I do this also where I think like well I'm the first generation of anyone who's ever played a video game and everything else behind me is fucking bullshit You know, it's all baby games, but no like we just we got to consider that too And it's a it's a total and like I can't always relate to a generation 20 years behind me So there's not to to consider as a part of the entire equation as well. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, but it's hard I think that some of that cuts both ways right because I think that there are probably some people that grew up playing games that In an era when they didn't come with manuals So they had 90 minute tutorials in front of them and all these Zelda games that have all the colored text in two hours Of you running around doing dumb shit before they let you actually play the game and I mean start Roblox That shit don't tell you anything either Fuck am I doing? So yeah, there's definitely like it's a labyrinth of indecipherable shit And you're just like my kids just like my OP items are crazy Dad, I'm like, okay The kids are very flexible and can can learn through context very quick kids are clever as hell like when it comes to just like kind of learning through Most kids are smarter than you think I learned that from working in the escape room. They're so smart They figure things out through context like Inside keyholes Just wiggling there. That's how you win Yeah, I like it.

Yeah, I like it. Yeah. Yeah, people should check it out. They should In the words of evil Uno play Elden ring.

Yeah, you should play Elden ring. Uh, give it go It might not be for you, but you should probably give it a go Find a find a return policy that you're comfortable with. I guess you're a blockchain bar. They'll have a copy Yeah, they've got a stack in there They'll smell a little weird, but they play fine Slime flavored.

Yeah, how to lime Elden ring triangle strategy is out. Oh boy Let me tell you about these triangle strats y'all I am really liking it. Okay Confident we're confident phrase. I just heard I think what is your head I really like it I think throwing me off though is this is I mean, it's completely different game than Elden ring But where like Elden ring doesn't tell you anything unless you seek it out triangle strategy wants to tell you every single thing Like the my time with the demo was very different than my actual time restarting the game because in the demo You had the opportunity to it was maybe about like two three hours two and a half if you're reading every single thing But you at least had three combat instances in that time with the game of the demo.

Yeah, when you're starting this game fresh About 90 or so minutes in only 20 of that was actual game playing combat because there's so much story at the top Uh, it really doesn't make me feel yeah, it really does make me feel like Uh, this is following in the footsteps of a final fantasy tactics where you know We got to set up every single thing and then you can play around with a little people and put them where you got to put them Um, it's very verbose everything is voice acted, but they do give you the ability to have the scenes go on auto And I thought like oh, you know what? I'll do some working out while these cutscenes are going and then I got very tired because the cutscenes were still going Um, but they do give you the option to fast forward through them and they'll give you a little log to read through afterwards of like, okay This person said this. Oh, we're getting married now. Okay.

Sure. I like them Um, and there are moments in the cutscenes where your main character will have to make a certain choice because Um, your choice is matter in this game depending on how you're going with the dialogue and the trees of those dialogues Um, so if you are fast forwarding the game will stop and be like, all right. You got to pick something buddy. All right, cool.

We'll remember that Um And for what it's worth at least the story is really interesting. There's a lot of political intrigue I've seen a lot of people compare it to game of thrones because it's people in robes and swords and Uh, a lot of backstabbing or like moving You said this wasn't like elder ring. What the You're drawing over and Martin wrote this too. No Uh, but it does really remind me of final fantasy tactics, uh, and I can really see that this being so plot heavy at the beginning of the game We'll throw a lot of people off and and not sell a lot of folks Um, because there is so much of it Uh, but the actual gameplay once you eventually get to that I find it really satisfying There's a lot of a lot of gameplay elements are conveyed in the tile design for instance Uh, any blue tile you're safe from the range of any enemies if you step on a purple tile You can't be targeted by someone and it does a thing when you hover over Uh, an enemy it shows like their movement range or attack range and just like in final fantasy 12 I think I brought this up when we talked about the demo, but they're these like arcing, uh, Targeting lines that show like hey, this dude over there on the bird can hit me And so can this other dude with a shield can hit me, um, and positioning is super important in the game Just like in any tactics game where if you hit someone from behind it is an automatic crit Um, and it'll give you the option afterwards to position your character on the grid afterwards Uh, because wherever you face is very important instead of mana for everyone they have something called tp I forgot what tp stands for in the game toilet paper toilet paper.

Everyone's got it No one is taking technical points for the last couple years and right now is your time shine, baby Right, we got points. Um, and I like that versus the mana system because a lot of the times in a tactics game I'll be at like a resource deficit where it's like I really need to fire off the spell or do this ability But I don't have enough mana, uh, but instead here it's kind of like a you get a two-pip tp system where the little pips will recharge with every point Or every turn I should say, um And a lot of the abilities work and synergize really well with each other If you have someone stationed next to an enemy and you fire off an ability or shoot them or hit them The homey that is next next to the enemy will also hit them so that plays really well with uh, structuring folks But I think it's really interesting though is that the game takes forever to start spinning up and forever to dump you into your first combat instance But even then the combat stuff, uh, I've been playing on normal. There's four difficulties. Um Even then on normal, it still won't hold your hand about uh losing some of your characters There's no permanent permanent death thankfully, but like in that first instance I was like, all right, this is gonna be easy and then one of my dudes dies in like the second turn I'm like, oh shit.

Okay, I actually have to do I actually have to use tactics and stuff not illegal tactics in the tactical turn base game God damn it because you know, sometimes you can just swarm the enemy and just have all your units just go up front and then overwhelm them that way Um, I think this looks really really great. I know the square is really into this whole diorama style Um for a lot of devices, which you know, we almost went to it when I first hit and now I think we're you know We're a couple more games in on it. You're starting to see people like hey, yo, these all look exactly the same Yeah, I think this studio, uh, it shares the same producer as octopath I have written tamoyo asano. I'm sorry if I mispronounce the name, but they were also the producer for octopath traveler and I feel like they Handle this or do this style the best compared to square proper with like the pixel remaster stuff I try to get some videos of that and it's it's really rough.

It's not the same. It's like a good mix of like diorama style Um where there's a lot of different elements that aren't pixel-y like the water the flames and everything Um and what's neat in in the combat missions here is that a lot of the levels are indicative of how you can play around with the different elements Like you can set stuff on fire. You can melt ice. You can electrocute people if they're standing on a puddle of water, which is cool Um, I do have to fight back the temptation to really just rely on three different Uh units because there's one unit that you get really early in the game that attacks twice And then you get another archer that is has a lot of range because she rides the sick-ass bird Um, and very quickly this game dumps so many characters onto you They're like yo, you wanted an army you got a fucking army And um, I'm trying to manage all these people and in between some of the missions They'll dump you into like a semi like not a camp There is a camp you can go to but like a story area of wherever you're at where you can chat it up with your folks And there'll be instances where you'll have to convince people or you'll have the option to convince people or kind of like win their favor And then your relationship with them improves So uh, they'll level up a little bit or they'll help you out a little bit more in combat Um, one of the neat interesting things is kudos points So you get little bonuses sick drifts and you're interested drifts.

I wish I wish you could drift Um, so if you hit someone from behind or you do a specific set of actions You'll see in the corner like you'll get a locudos point Um, and you can trade those kudos points for a whole separate different slew of of items in the game And the systems of leveling up is very very extensive because you can not only level up your specific character and upgrade them to a higher class But you can also upgrade your specific weapons and each weapon for each character has a different tree in some of those are linked abilities Um, and jesus christ it's wild. I don't think I have the time to play this game The tiles feel great. Yeah, the tiles feel great. I do want to report that Um, my one question Not to keep harping on this, but you mentioned that there was blue tiles and purple tiles and any other options to change that I actually have not checked that there are any colorblind options I'm actually curious about that specifically because it's blue and purple are definitely ones for me.

They're just like I was like identical Uh, so that would be but anyway, um, it sounds neat. Yeah, it's just I It's falling or releasing in such a weird place for me personally where I want to spend as much time as I can in eldering before the next Huge thing comes out, but then here it's like, all right. I want to pay attention to the story because it wb 2k 22 already came out The next interesting already came so, you know, uh, I haven't gone over that biggie and bailey and exaver what's it rated so low? Fair enough.

That ain't right. Fair enough. But yo, if you're if you're not the type to get into eldering and you've been clamoring for like a final fantasy tactics Um or like a pre lengthy jrpg that you can kind of just set and just watch the cutscenes play out then then triangle strategies right up your alley buddy Uh, yeah, how are the, uh, cinematics and stuff? Like are the actual cinematics or is it just like kind of visual novel?

It's it's yeah, it's visual novel style, which is a little bit of a bummer because at least in Um, war of alliance, you know, they'll they'll break out into kind of cinematic sometimes. Yeah, here It's not even portraits popping up. It's just your little dudes like bouncing around in a moat Okay. Okay.

Nice. Some of the voice delivery is also really good. Some of it is also really kind of cheesy, but Yeah, you know, it sounds because at least a lot of it back a lot are you of uh, I mean, it's been steamedeck in it Oh, and how have I been steamedeck in it is quite the tail. Let me tell you I steamedeck at home On the road Getting up for deckers to speak of no, it doesn't it's not compatible with that.

All right, surprisingly No, I obviously missed the stream. I was bummed out about that. Jen sent me the steamedeck and um You didn't delete your account Well, I trusted you And so what I did was I bought a thousand dollars with games Well, so I started messing around and I was like, okay. Well, it makes sense that and I don't know if you guys discuss this at all But I was like, oh, I feel like I have access to jans account in a way that feels bad Uh, I didn't mess around like I wasn't I couldn't buy anything or maybe I didn't try We'll say we'll go ahead and try okay.

Sure, but what was interesting though was um, there were games that We're starting to show up in my library that I absolutely did not own and because our accounts both So I figured like oh, it'll probably just you know, it's probably just there because it's downloaded But because you know, I don't own it. It'll just call home say like no, you don't own it Would you like to buy it? But I was able to launch like two games of yours, um, and start to play them now I don't know if that was like I I can't I can't tell why that happened there were games that were like Do would you like to purchase this but there were a couple games? So I thought maybe they were like free to play games or something like that, but um, I'm robbing you is the I'm stealing the shit.

I'm sorry. This is how steam works that that it does that on the desktop as well. Um, what is that? You'll have to you can basically authorize people to play games from your library But it only works like if Jan was logged in playing a game on steam You would not be able to borrow a game from his library But because he's logged in on that machine Uh, you can play his games.

You could probably even install his games Yeah, I think I do have family sharing turned on because we do that a lot. Yeah, you might have to do so with family sharing You do have to turn it on for specific accounts So you may have to like go turn it on for his account on your desktop end But since you've logged into that machine and you're still technically logged in Even if you're not connected connected those games are functional They've done that yeah So you can there's some limit on how many different computers you can do it on And I assume the steam deck just counts as one of those activated machines And then a different there's a limit on the number of accounts you can share your library with So maybe that when you did try it and it didn't work It may have been that Jan was on playing something or some games don't be some games deliberately don't support the family sharing stuff Right, so they'll be so they're flagged as like not famous So they'll show up and say purchase instead of just play So that's what my suspicion was leading me to but I figured like I just assumed that you had to like give that person the family sharing access I didn't realize that like you could just have that on the same device and be done with it and call it a day Which is a pretty wild It's there's some I forget where the hooks are but there's there's the I logged in on a machine machine and you can access the games And then there's the the family sharing side of their two different things, but they're yeah, yeah Oops, and meanwhile like like every time I try to play one of my partner's games I have to we have to reconnect the family sharing thing like almost every time we want to do it and it's outrageously annoying Yeah, so who knows why it works and when it works and how it works It's always been one of these mysteries to me. I definitely tried to dabble in it at one point for VR stuff But uh, anyway, that's a interesting little thing. Yeah, that's that's cool that that stuff works It seems weird in some ways because that thing is designed to travel and might not be online all the time So I wonder if you just turn off Wi-Fi because you can just play Jans games Even if he was playing sorry, you're going to jail Steam jail.

It's all blowing back My friend you and Gordon Freeman. They're gonna throw that can and they're gonna hit you It's it. Yeah All right, that's that's it for the the video games part. We'll come back.

We'll talk about the news part after a break How's that sound? It sounds great. Let's do it All right, we're back. Let's get into the news starting with a Report from some sources to deadline hollywood amazon is apparently getting ready to do a god of war television show amazon, huh?

I'm a video. Oh, yes, they're prime marvellous service crados that jeff bezos as crados Bezos is jeff crados betos jeff crados um The deadline report says that the adaptation will come from the creators and executive producers of the expanse Mark fergus and hock ospy And the time is I can produce her a show robert runner uh rafe judkins and you know, sony pictures television and play station productions What you know they the sony people oh, yeah That's super cool. That's super cool name hock ospy has big, um dick wolf energy. Yeah, yeah, so, you know, hopefully We'll see what goes.

Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously the the story is just kind of went around relatively recently about the twisted metal tv show And is that also gonna be an amazon joint that is is that paramount? Yeah, I think you'd think that like it's only would get in bed with like one of the streaming services No, you know, if they get whoever's paying the most, right? I mean, I suppose You know playstation view isn't around anymore to be a streaming service. Oh, uh, this powers.

Yeah, uh, you know, what are you gonna do? No one does. That's fine. Um So, yeah, I don't know like twisted metal seem like a really weird stretch for me But it's you know, there's enough of a template there that you could probably stamp whatever television programming onto it And have it work god of war seems like a way more specific Sort of story and character and and all that other stuff So I feel like that makes a little more sense as an immediate translation There any other playstation properties you think that they should be ratcheting into television sly cooper.

Yeah, it's like uber. Yeah I'm surprised. We haven't seen an abundance of I mean, there was a russian clank movie wasn't there? I made into a game as well.

The game was better though. Yeah. Um, it was good. It was not bad.

Yeah, it'd be fun Give me a jack and daxter show with me. Okay. Well, okay. That's a different kind of a You all can take turns being the odd soul.

Okay, sure. I want to be the voice of daxter little big planet I can be second boy. I could play a second boy. Yes.

Thank you, sir. How do you guys go? I could not you know that Form of uncandy. Um, so who do you think's gonna get cast is kratos?

Who's worst case scenario? Who's best case scenario? What if it was the rock? I was gonna say the rock and I was like, is that a worst case scenario or best case scenario?

Kratos is based on the rock. Kratos can cover the high end the low on that one. I think yeah, uh If you want to do serious acting perhaps a dave bautista That than the rock Really throwing shade at doing it see a cell pulling off Yeah, that's the that's the other end of the spectrum him or chris pratt right just somehow Weaseling their way into a fucking creative Make a cg so chris pratt can do it. Uh Hmm.

Yeah, because I don't know a lot of the stuff that the rocket rock is in lately. It's just very like fairly family friendly Right. Yeah Who's like another big beefy dude that can grow like good meat Jason mama. Oh Actually Yeah, I think we gotta be careful because we can't make kratos too fucking sexy Why not do we have to be careful about that?

I think I think bearded kratos is way sexier than like, I don't know seeing kratos without a beard right now is fucking weird It's like he's naked. Yeah. It's like you're like watching it here. What the fuck's going on?

Yeah, exactly like I hate it beardless kratos sucks. I'll say it right here. All right. Hear me out here.

Hear me out here Right out of the three main twilight actors christen stewart christen stuart plays chris sturris diana Robert pass is now this bad man taylor lotner, baby. It's taylor lotner's time He'll play the boy. He'll play the boy. He was in a kevin james movie recently.

Okay. All right Okay, yeah, adam sandler with adam sandler adam sandler as kratos is a more compelling pairing It's just one of those big beefy halloween suits that make you look like you have muscles You know he sings a song halfway through to his boy at race Yeah, oh god. What was the kiss? Yeah?

Yeah, it's a choice. Oh boy good anymore. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Uh, michael sarah is kratos He's a boy.

Oh, here we go Is michael sarah doing stuff lately? He's like doing some stage guys. Okay. Yeah He's doing exactly the peers that he's doing exactly what he wants to be doing Right, he shows up in drunk history all the time.

They got him on speed dial lind men well marenda as kratos Get him out of here He's rapping and it's the worst raps you've ever heard. No, he should be the head the head guy whose name i'm forgetting He'll just wrap all the laurel hold on mamir mamir. Yeah, mamir. Yeah, mamir.

Yeah, mamir. Oh, it could be All right, uh Consensus there. Okay. Yeah, all the bad answers are the best to do like they're the most fun.

So yeah, michael chickless You mean the thing? Yeah The shield That's what i'm afraid of is a dirty cobs Perhaps it's a dirty cop. We think about it Epic bought band camp. Why?

Why? I get it. I get it. Um I don't know.

Yeah, uh, there's uh, you know, they both posted um bits and pieces of this You know, there's the band camp blog where the founder of band camp posted and said i'm excited Now if the band camp is joining epic games, who you may know as the makers of fortnite and unreal engine and champions for a fair and open internet Which I yeah, yeah, I'm interesting. They're in that fight with apple. That doesn't yeah, that seems a little self-serving I don't think so far as corporations can help people so far as you know, like I you know I think epic has changed conversations about the cuts going to game developers and all that sort of stuff in the way that they run their store And that's been a good thing. I Champions for fair and open internet probably technically true in some weird way, but also we're trying to take it to apple still Exactly.

Yes. Yes. That lawsuit still we're still mad about it. Um Says behind the scenes we're working with epic to expand internationally and push development forward across band camp from basics like our album pages mobile apps merch tools payment system And search and discovery features to newer initiatives like our vinyl pressing and live streaming services This one is a little weirder to me because when I think about who would I bring in to build a better Web-based storefront.

It's not the people that made the epic game store because that's not there yet It's acceptable, but yeah, it's fine band camp has better tools there. They would be better off taking whoever built band camp and going like help us make this game part better Um So the but the live streaming services is kind of one of the the parts that I kind of latch on to here If you think about it, um, you know epic bot harmonics and they have kind of disappeared Um, you know hasn't been I don't think there's any fuser dlc coming anytime soon And they presumably are working on Bright and shiny interactive music experiences that take place inside the unreal engines slash fortnight universe, you know The way that they experimented with concerts and the star wars thing and all the stuff that they've done in fortnight Um, it probably makes sense for harmonics to be doing something there So you have that piece you've got this live streaming stuff from band camp So this was the idea and a few different companies are attacking this in different ways of basically doing ticketed paid live streams With the idea being you're a musician you want to put on a show there's a pandemic So you're gonna run a live stream instead Um, okay Then you've got also just kind of you know at the at the sub fortnight level at the kind of like a real person working musician level You've got a lot more um streaming concerts and you've got this kind of phenomenons, maybe not the right word, but like, you know I attended a concert in Minecraft. Yeah, like last year the year before and I saw Ariana grande and she was 20 feet tall Yeah, or like there was like 100 decks did a show inside a minecraft server and it was fucking cool Um, and so I think as those things start to happen in different forms like Oh, we're the unreal engine. We can scale to all sorts of big and small things We should do a version of these tools that's accessible for any musician who then wants to put on their own ticketed paid interactive Thing whether that's via a live stream or via you joining with a game clients and getting into a world and doing a concert that way I think all that stuff lines up in an interesting way Um that I bet is is part of what they they are thinking here remember that the unreal engine as a part of ue5 and part of that um Matrix thing that came out all those assets and unreal engine needing to build a bigger and bigger asset store because that's one of the big things That unity has done well is let people come in and buy much assets and then put out a game in two days using the same flip assets and terrible Whatever, but no, but seriously like you can see a situation where like hey If you're a musician and you want to put your music on the unreal engine asset store as well now game developers can easily license it for use in their games Yeah, all right Creating a pathway there for those musicians to get more exposure or you know to be a part of that asset store seems like a super no-brainer Um Took me a while to get there, but all right that clicks.

Yeah, um, and so I just think when I look at what epic is doing and has done And I think about what you would do if you suddenly had a just a bevy just a fuck ton of independent artists Um in a similar store environment the ways you could bring those together That's where those things intersect and make sense to me and that's potentially exciting I think like that could be interesting opportunities as long as they don't fuck up bandcamp bandcamp was talking about eliminating bandcamp fridays Um or not announcing any further ones, which was you know every so often they would say hey this friday artists get the full cut And we don't take anything of any purchase that happens on this particular day And at one point they started back away from that on account of like you're fucking cost money. Um And step it has yes, which epic has and I think that as part of this they're like, yes, we're gonna keep doing bank at fridays. So um You know short-term I know I know people are musicians. I've been pretty fucking skittish about this Um since this got announced.

Yeah, but I look at it like there's a way through this that seems like it could be a really good opportunity Um But we'll see We'll see Definitely we you know take second on his face, but yeah, it's a weird purchase like it, but but I mean, that's the thing now. I feel like I would buy anything and you will eventually find like a reason why it would make sense and be like, oh, yeah I guess an oil company would We've built a we've buying this company that is into burning rainforests. We just thought it would be cool I see the connection. It's champions of a fair and open internet and we want to So yeah, I don't know like I yes, I think that there's definitely some potential for some really cool shit to happen there As long as they don't fuck it up.

There's also like I feel like there's a billion different ways where that goes bad, but uh But we'll see how it goes Being going bad Start engine the investor One of a number of platforms that let you invest your money into products and potentially see a return on them for companies That want to do rounds of funding kind of in the wake of a fig or republic and some of such stuff They were at a point home to a round of funding for the Intellivision amico The long-running Joke to yeah, bring a family if you're not aware of the amico. I don't blame you It's an attempt to make a family friendly console that Evokes some of the Intellivision history in terms of how they handle the controller the idea being a screen a touch screen on the controller And they made a bunch of big claims early on about like all these games need to be rated very low for family friendliness And we're not going to allow out on purchases the games need to be priced. I think it was like $10 or lower was what they said if I remember correctly They win raised much money did a bunch of crowdfunding took a bunch of pre-orders for consoles and then They keep showing Yeah, you're right Hi, there's some gameplay trailers that seem to be reusing footage from year to year and like none of it looks good on top of that And basically as you dig into this and look around the edges The whole thing looks more and more like a scam And I don't think it necessarily started that way and I'm not saying it is a scam But I'm saying like this the odds that this thing actually hits a market and all the stuff seemed low going into this Now the start engine campaign they were attempting to sell $5 million in shares in amico Alongside of that kind of campaign starting they had to do a bunch of SEC disclosures That talked a lot about like hey if this if we succeed in raising this $5 million We'll probably still need to do another one of these down the line to have enough cash to actually get this thing out the door We have a bunch of bad loans on the books and other stuff You know, there's a guy who invested a bunch of money in it And I think his son is now on the board of intellivision But also he is set to It's like an interest-free loan, but he gets $100 of each sale of each amico until he's paid back Hold the shit So i gave this 100 bucks off each piece of hardware that goes to paying this guy back That's that's a big shark deal. Whoa, that's interest-free.

So if you do it I don't know. I don't know. It's like there's just like there's a long There's a lot of mess around this long story slightly less long, but still long They attempted to raise $5 million in shares 53 people put up $47,000 and this $447,651 they closed the campaign about two months early and The SEC filing around this would seem to indicate that because of the failure of this campaign They maybe have one to two months of money left The number was slightly higher. It was up above 50,000 But I think because because the campaign did not reach its goal it gave people the opportunity to then go like oh, I want my money back I don't want to be a part of this So I just want to mention that $47,651 divided by 53 is $899 per person If if it was average, which means that there I mean there's obviously a couple of whales in there Just throwing in $10,000 for to make it look like it's going somewhere Probably Yeah, yeah People's portfolios now are fun So There's a lot more mess on this so I mean so I guess like as long as there was supposed to be a release date announcement or some kind of announcement in the February time frame that came and went we're now in March and the The CEO of Intellivision Phil Adam who has taken over I guess so Tommy Talarico is no longer the CEO.

He is definitely creative officer And Phil Adam is now helming This thing so he there was announcement from him or an email out from him to backers and and press and stuff like that Implying that they are in a quiet period as a result of talking to investors slash potential acquirers Well I feel like they have blown through a lot of crowdfunding with not a lot to show for it And they have also pushed back and pushed back and pushed back I mean, you know granted they're trying to watch hardware during a chip shortage and during a pandemic and there's a lot of moving pieces I'm not saying that this should be easy, but I just don't feel like they have a lot of credibility left at this point This is like a doomed project from the from even under normal good circumstances It seems like an incredibly difficult thing to do. Yeah, and then you layer on all the stuff that's been been going on and Yeah, it's very hard like like when you when you dig through the cc filing and granted I'm not a financial advisor But you know as other people have dug through it and I've kind of read some of those and and looked through it a bit myself I don't know who acquires this because of the amount of like debt you would take on I don't know what you're getting you're getting like A box that is powered, you know, that has like the the power of an old android phone You know like it's not It doesn't seem like that enticing of a thing unless you're also getting the full Intellivision IP and all that other stuff And maybe you could turn that into something on the other end of figuring out all that debt So how much money has gone into this at this point? I don't know the total number. I know that you know, they had more successful campaigns in the past when this stuff was was newer And and so I believe that amount is in the millions.

I don't have that in front of me So yeah, that's the the long short of a set now they claim to be in a quiet period instead of announcing anything And they're they say that they are talking to Someone that might pick it up or someone that might invest more in it Again, like after failing this and like if you look at the full breadth of what has happened with the amico story I don't understand who comes in it goes. Yeah, man I'm the next person to dump a bunch of money into this mess I just I don't it's hard to see them getting that money back out and and how that would be we're running out of suckers Yeah, yeah, I really got to do is just get someone to make a tv show based off of the amico I get the tv deal money Make it make it make it like that Enron documentary, you know how popular that was yeah And around this there's just been like so there's like a weird community of people that are like super hyped for the amico and then they look at any negative coverage of it as being like Somehow like they're haters like even as the sea the this chief operating officer has spent a lot of time in those start engine comments As people have been like hey, I have questions about this project before I invest which you know granted some of them are trolling Um, but it's just like I'm sickle haters like there's just like a lot of talk about haters But I feel like it would like slapping that attitude on top of your failure to raise money and failure to produce what the money you raised is just like what are you doing? So just feel like that goes with the psychology of being involved in something that you've invested so much time and energy and money into you know Any cult or any scam or anything like that? You have to believe it's not that so you're just gonna double down and get super defensive about it Yeah, and so they've tried to turn it into this culture war of like Um, this console is just it's just playing fun for families And you've got like youtube people out there like that have taken that side and then you see reports out of that community saying like Tommy Tallarico got on a private zoom call with a lot of us influencers and talked to us about amico stuff that hadn't been announced yet And you're like wait a minute.

Is that is that legal for him to disclose that as a In conjunction with the investors and telling them a head of investors is like highly irregular and what's going on there? And so there's a bunch of backpedaling there like oh, I never said that you know like like youtube videos get taken down Uh, and what is the same the same way as nft stuff like it's the same like brand of like cult of personality stuff going on Yeah, is he reaching out to like I don't know like old console restore people sneaker heads about The amigo it's it's uh, it seems like an older audience So that's the kind of the other weird thing is like for console that seems to be presenting itself Like where this family-friendly thing it is a bunch of gray beer do's go like yeah, television's back and like it's I don't know I don't know it's uh It's it's very interesting. There's a you know, there's been some backpedaling on the end of some of that stuff happening where that where The the coo posted in a comment on that on that thing about the sec form c filing and how the haters would use that filing to attack the company It's like Yes, it's it's an exhausting mess of like I I've been trying to keep it at arms length for as long as I could Um, but it was this was just a slow enough news week to make it happen. So it just It's a it's a goddamn mess.

The games are already on sale by the way Um, you can buy amigo games, but what you get is a box What's our fid card in the box and then the the rfad card links to because you're supposed to be able to tap cards on the console to a On that card is just a URL Yeah, uh that goes to a website that the URL that isn't live yet Uh, yes, and those they did we I was confused about this But apparently they are claiming that these rfid tags are also meant to be nft's in some fucking way So because of course they are right. I mean if you're This company's like spiraling out of control. You know, we need to find new suckers for money at some point You're like, oh Well, let's write the word nft on this document and then try to raise money that way and maybe we'll have better luck but This is the fire fest of consoles. Yeah, yeah, they're promising a lot and then being like a console held more promise than this It did it did Jesus I don't I don't I don't I don't know what to make it.

It's a mess. It's a mess long story actually short That thing is still an absolute mess and I Seriously doubt that that thing's ever gonna come out at this point like I'm certainly you know, that's not a fucking bull take like that So that's becoming a pretty common take on this thing. Um, and we'll see what happens But I just it feels like they missed their window for making something like that in a yeah And the amount of money they'll probably have to charge for they they also went back on some of the console pricing and said It's gonna maybe have to be higher than we thought. Yeah, which point you buy a switch like it's getting into this territory I'm just like you're charging the same as other actual proper consoles and why would even like even the initial promise was like absurdly low Like unfeasibly stupidly low.

It's like that's not gonna happen like use your noodle like consoles take more time and money and work And materials to make than that amount of money. Yeah, and the and the games don't like the footage that they have out there Which has been very careful and limited and all this other stuff like you know cornhole. That's not especially good I know right so That's the the saddest part about this is that you know, there was a cornhole game on the line There's also the potential that some of these games end up on phones at some point. Yeah, so maybe they see a light a day in some weird way.

I Yeah, yeah, yep I don't know what the fuck's going on. I don't think anyone really does I don't think the people trying to build this console know what the fuck's going on So how could I party wonders if those people are even getting paid like the engineer type people the people actually do the work Part of me is wondering if like even they are not getting like their chest deposited in their bag I believe there was a story where one of the people that was responsible for some architecture aspect of it had not necessarily red flags Could not have more red flags. Oh hit the mic more red flags. Yeah.

Yeah, um Anyway, I don't it's the president It's a disaster speaking of disasters if you've got a steam deck and you want to play destiny to want it You can't what if you try if you try you're gonna get fucking banned What what the destiny to help site put up an update about the steam deck and this is what they say about it in a way that is I feel Um, it sounds very final in a way that says we are not going to change this but uh, you know, we'll see right now It says destiny to is not supported for play on the steam deck or on any system utilizing steam plays proton unless windows is installed and running Players who attempt to launch destiny to on the steam deck through steam os or proton Will be unable to enter the game and we will be returned to their game library after a short time Players who are not accessing destiny to through windows and attempt to bypass the steam os proton in compatibility Will be met with a game ban. Wow. Okay, so it's not It's not like a one and done sort of no, it's not like you push the play button and then your band It's like you push the play button. It doesn't work.

But then if you try to make it work Boom you're done. So all right. So someone explained why do why do this? I don't know anti-cheat.

It's just cheating It's just the the they are concerned that uh the proton layer And this is this is the biggest problem with getting a lot of multiplayer games running on the steam deck at all Is that a lot of work has to be done to make the anti-cheat stuff work because anti-cheat software is used to see windows and when it doesn't It goes. This isn't fucking windows get the fuck out of here. Yeah, I'm scared. You're cheating Yeah, and so this is work that bungee would have to do to make their anti-cheat compatible with proton Um, and I find it interesting that there's no bit in here that says we are investigating steam deck compatibility and have nothing to announce at this time There's no like hey, uh, you know, we'd love to we would love to support the steam deck, but it's not viable We know like there's nothing like that.

It is literally this is not supported if you try and get funky with it We're banning you which seems extra fucking harsh. Yeah Um Yeah, it does like hot. Jesus Christ. Just let me fucking play my destinies.

Let me just raid on the toilet. Damn it. Yeah. Yeah, all right Look, there's there's an easy solution to this people Cheat you install you install windows.

I just need a problem solved, um, which is very much a thing So yeah, but I don't think that people have done that yet, right? Have you seen anyone that is because I know there were there were some I believe there was some stuff some driver stuff that hadn't happened there were no windows drivers for that architecture yet or something I'm pretty sure you can put windows on there. I don't know if you're playing somebody games on there, right? In fact, the review materials was basically like here's how you do it.

Okay for real. Yeah, so um Yeah, but I but there was also a lot of language like hey, there's still some graphical driver stuff that needs to get ironed out before this is a viable It sounds like the big thing is waiting on AMD drivers for for the steam deck Um, so maybe that's a viable option if you want to then devote a chunk of hard drive space to windows and then dual boot your steam deck um Which some people are gonna be able to do but some people are not gonna understand or want to do and and the steam deck It's just a layer of confusion on this stuff. So I don't know I just It seems like if the steam deck becomes popular enough then and bungee gets enough requests for it that they would have to at least consider that But it's just the language on their help pages is so weirdly final Yeah, who knows maybe it was just you know written uh by someone not uh someone summarizing a thing Someone who's sick of feeling support requests and just like look don't try it. We will fucking ban you Um Not enough people have steam decks for it to be enough of a support problem yet, but yeah, another week Yesterday was supposed to be the day that more um People were able to purchase a steam deck.

That's still like the the q1 window, right? I believe so. Yeah, that is yeah because they're I believe they're turning around and shipping immediately like people have been getting them That order them last week. Um, yeah, I did not get mine, but I'm in q2 I heard that gave newell was personally delivering some of those.

Yep, or at least just around the Seattle area But yeah for that video but like Santa Claus A lot like Santa Claus. Yeah, if you get Santa Claus 650 dollars. Yeah Well, so I'm already paid for that. He was just like people emailed him and he was like, oh, okay You know sure show up with a steam deck to your house.

You go. I'm on my way christmas. Okay. Well, okay.

That's a little more Yeah, that's a little more sad to ask because I'm closing of course Um We talked about that 2k wrestling game a little bit earlier and this was an interesting wrinkle that I had not considered at the time But it makes this year's game seem even a little bit more baffling Uh fightful a wrestling website has a story that has been recapped by wrestling at news Um implying that electronic arts and the wwe have been talking Um About potentially doing video games. Um, it might be time Uh, the story says which, you know, this is what you heard I think when the last game came out a couple of years ago Um, the quote is wwe has shown a lot of frustration with the reception and lack of success of recent games One source said the gaming market is a major selling point for them and they believe they've fallen behind the competition Uh, not that there's a lot of competing games out there, but uh, remember this is wwe and in some level They think they're competing with every other major sport and everything every entertainment thing, you know, they're like Fuck we got comedy here pal. Why would you go watch? Reno 911.

What is that? What's the radio? Um, jesus, he was only just found out about Reno 911 Yeah, hell yeah, uh It has also implied that this might be the last year for two case contract that the last uh, the story says that the last contract Signed was back in 2016 and that it was a six-year deal with an option to extend So if the game sells well and extension could be made but if it's viewed as a failure then moving to ea could become a greater possibility Um I I wonder how this game will sell but I think qualitatively It's time to go. Yeah, a hundred percent.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, just to shake it up You know, just taking a year off was certainly not enough Um to get them back to where they needed to be for sure Um, yeah, it's complete overhaul is necessary. Just new direction. Yeah, you know, ea hasn't made a wrestling game since they briefly had the wcw license Uh back in 99 Okay, say is when w mayam came out in the wcw backstage assault Uh the two games that ea published that were a different take on wrestling games And I at least welcome to that at the time because it had been so locked up in the same exact control schemes and all this other stuff When thq had all those licenses the claim and you know that uh, it was nice to at least see like a slightly different take on it mayam Was not a terrible video game.

It is not aged well. Um But at the time, at least it was different. Um, you know, ea does ufc games, um, which are not the right thing But it's probably the closest to like two shirtless dudes hitting each other Uh that the ea has right now. I don't know they took all the fighting out of the hockey game, right?

You can't pull the guys jersey off and deck and pull it off, but you can they do have like a very rudimentary punching thing Okay, it's that fighting. It's a punching thing. That's a punching thing. That's how it's been.

I guess Yeah I yes, I would I would be very interested in seeing someone else take this license over and start over from scratch I think that there's just a The game that two cages putting out this week Doesn't you know, I don't think it'll be as dire as it was two years ago But also how many fans did they lose by putting out that game two years ago? They're now gonna like wait and see on this game or wait for a sale on this game or or just not be there to Yeah, I don't know buy it. Um, I guess I just followed the sales numbers for um for these games You know, I wonder if there are people that that just buy this like they do mad and just every time it comes out You know, certainly, you know, it's the end game of town, you know, there's there's no other mainstream wrestling game You know firepro is out there. There's some other indie games and there's another indie game coming that has curdangle and some other They've gone out and licensed some real people for it.

Um, well, like do you think ww battlegrounds also left a bad taste in folks's mouths? So that was the the talk was that a lot of this conversation started up around the time of battlegrounds coming out and that game sucked So you've got that double whammy of that mess, uh, and then also 2k 20. Yeah, and uh, yeah, it doesn't feel like 2k I think the other implication is that ww is concerned Almost like they're conspiracy theorists over there that uh that not enough money has been going into the development of these games compared to 2k's basketball game, which to which I would say yeah, no shit You know what happens that people buy the basketball game. Yeah, um But you know if you're ww and you're like we got all these people watching us every week or we've got all this money coming in with our businesses This why isn't our video game bigger?

I'm sure those are the questions they're asking and at some point they will probably I would not be shocked to see this exact thing happen Um, yeah, but it wouldn't result in the game a game next year. They probably have to take you another break. Totally Um Just give me a game where I can play as kofi kinks then and the whole thing is just running on walls Right by the time hop down pancakes. Okay, something else to consider By the time okay, let's assume this happens.

Let's assume this is the last 2k wrestling game And ea signs that deal and they take two years to put a game out So we're looking at you know, like the middle of 2024 the absolute earliest Now ask me now that I answer me this is kofi kinks and still signed it to the wwe in 2024 I don't know. I don't know. I can't maybe this contract actually is that long. I don't know that that's maybe maybe they're just kind of He might be a lifer and then like flies underneath the radar just enough that he's okay with it Could be a legend at that point.

Who knows sure he's certainly gone through enough dips And I think and like how they've handled him that um and he's come back from that and I think he might be a lifer But then again, you know, uh, shane mcman who's father partially runs the company is no longer part of the company So yeah, so who is possible all bets are off for sure people in the chat are saying that uh That the the new day all three of their contracts are in the 2023 24 time frame Which cool I'm talking about. Yeah, but now I think what I believe that is I believe that is direct. Um We will see uh anyway Uh, yeah, I think it's beyond time. I think that 2k is not done And you know, I know some people have liked some of the games that they have made, but I don't think 2k has done a good job with this license at all The entire time they felt it.

I yeah, I Cool. I am unable to get into any of them. Yeah, to be fair the country doesn't handle themselves that well Oh, you're absolutely right. Like they are also bad.

Um at all this stuff and it'll be curious. I don't like when When this a w game comes along, I know they're supposed to have some new news on it at some point But they just said like I was gonna have cross play and a couple other really minor things That they're doing voiceover recording recently and stuff. So that sounds like they're they're moving along, but uh, who knows? Who knows?

Yep, I bet That game is being developed by ukes and ukes was part of the problem when 2k was had a lot, you know, like ukes made a lot of fucking terrible wrestling games, so Who knows? Um We're gonna step into the delay zone for a little bit here. Oh, I love it here We just gotta kick back and say yeah, we'll do it later. Yeah, it's nice.

We're spoken originally Do may 24th has been pushed back to october 11th. No, but birthday. Well, there you go. Nice.

Have a for spoken birthday I will they have uh, yes luminous productions put out a tweet with a graphic on it That says that uh our vision for this exciting new IP is to deliver a game world and hero that gamers across the globe We want to experience four years to come so we get right is extremely important to us at that end during the next few months We will focus all our efforts on polishing the game and can't wait for you to experience phrase during this fall Or spoken is the kind of isekai style game where the lady gets transported into a magical realm Folks who have forgotten what we're spoken about. Yeah, she's flying around. She's slipping around She's a lot of us has forgotten because the name is so generic and does not describe at all anything That's happening chaos final fantasy one. No, it's not that game is out pretty soon.

What? Okay, that game is out like in as this month. I believe yeah, it's month Yeah, holy shit. Okay.

Okay with that bid in mind now think about the release of Babylon's fall and how sent off to fucking die that game really was Yeah Yeah, deservedly so I guess uh the Uh forage mode and campaign co-op from halo infinite, uh, you know, obviously got delayed from launch. They have further Delayed that the campaign will not be a part of season two which starts on May 3rd Um, the basically they say hey, you know what it's hard Yeah Yeah, because they have to do two player split screen on top of the Uh online co-op and and getting all that to work in an open world open issue world is uh, they're saying it's more difficult than they anticipated they've also um Forage will come alongside a season three uh this year And that they have been uh issuing some of this leaked out some stuff on forage But I guess they have been sending out uh builds of forage mode to the community privately for a little bit now You test it out and do all that sort of stuff and so that's been um been happening um and meanwhile the season two of uh of halo infinite does start may 3rd they're calling it lone wolves And that'll be a whole new battle pass and all new set of stuff remember that i'm like Low Yes multiple wolves multiple lone wolves alone Wolves is that a pack i don't know that's not low. I don't i don't know wolves Pals Asking for money. Are they lonely wolves?

Oh, okay. No way. We have to take a beat on jans, uh, banker wolf joke Because of the joke man. It's just like examining whether or not these wolves want money We're talking about scams on the news right with the amico The land like lone sharks These these wolves will be a new set of cosmetics for you to purchase in the store and a new battle pass Where you turn levels on and all that sort of stuff.

So yes, the wolves definitely want money Uh-huh. I mean it all tracks my heart tracks. Uh-huh Uh, and then here's a weird story Treyarch put out a new call of duty map for black ops cold war Yeah, this is weird. That is not the current call of duty game.

No, that is I'm sorry. That is the year before that's 2020's call of duty game. No, but They put the wrong switch to attach it to the It's a remastered version of wm d which was a cool map from the original black ops Um And they imply that it is the first update for the game this year I don't know like did they did vanguard go so bad that they just like said oh shit put out more black ops stuff I mean, it's so bad. They went right to the cold war to him.

Yeah, maybe they figured like hey, you know new cold war starting We should probably get back No, that's not cool Yeah, it's great. It is very weird. They've never done this right? I can't I don't think I cannot think of another example of them releasing something especially just kind of dropping it I don't know where you wonder like was this something they started on that got cut from a season that they finished up and just like I'll screw it or is there some kind of like fire drill happening of like hey with vanguard being bad We need to make sure this is happening also remember the talk that like there will be called duty this year But Treyarch's game will not hit next year Uh, that's what the reporting has been saying so it does Treyarch just have much time on their hands They're just like well, I don't know we could we could port WMD might as well do something I don't yeah, it's well.

I don't know Um, that's a weird one Speaking of the fucking horrific real-world conflict that's been going on. There's a growing list of companies that have um Been pulling their products and services out of Russia. I've got a list of Mostly gaming companies here. Obviously like MasterCard and Visa pulled out in some form Hey, pal.

I think yeah Netflix pulled out in some form. Um, what about Spotify getting sick of getting hacked by russian? Yeah, it's yeah, uh So here's here's the list I have so far. This is probably not a complete list, but it's what I've seen so far EA is no longer selling uh games in Russia.

They've also pulled russian teams out of fifa. That's crazy. Well, yeah, um, You know, it's It's all something right microsoft has pulled out of uh, you know selling xbox products there CD project has pulled their games playstation hasn't really said much but they did yank grandsurismo 7 Just before it was set to launch their godly station store in russia just says like release a pending or something to that effect Got him. Um nintendo's e-shop no longer functions But it's hard to say if this is nintendo's doing or just a payment processor restriction seems like it is a payment processor restriction And so nintendo's position on it is maybe a little hazy apple, uh blubber team the epic games.

Yeah, you be soft and activation blizzard It's like a bunch of words and deeds now. I'm here pooping. Yeah. No, you can't play layers of fear too.

Yeah. Well, remember like the Here is the you know if If no one wants to do business with russia, yeah, then the People in russia who are like, hey, we are getting extremely fucking fucked over here This front that is another step towards getting them All lined against the war effort and uh, because it's a olig oligarchy, right? So all the billionaires are like, hey, man. We can't make money.

What the fuck? It's uh, yeah, it's kind of refreshing that there's this kind of power um And that people are getting behind this, you know, especially companies that we don't normally think of as being like I don't know the forefront of like, you know politics or anything like that. So this is yeah, like I said refreshing Yeah, it's yeah, it's yeah, there's there's certainly debate around like does pulling those products actually do anything Other than people like average lights a fire that you know needs to be lit. I think I think it's where you kind of have to Yeah, you kind of have to with all these sanctions.

You kind of have to Do what you can um So we'll see uh, I don't think that's that's not gonna push people over the line, right? But at the same time, uh, you know, it's it's fucking horrendous What's happening over there? I think I do think pulling the russian teaser fife is a little freedom-frizzy to do but the other things make sense like Yeah, well Of the ultimate team thing that you want real money. So did they get paid to?

Do it some of that money probably actually Surprised if some of that money went to fife and then fife had to distribute it amongst the teams Potentially, there's I did not know that I don't know how that deal is arranged, but there's certainly a You know, it's certainly a scenario where that does something so that's for the news Why don't we take another break? We'll come back and we'll check out a couple of emails. Well, yes Cool and we're back. We've got some emails.

Yeah, we're just emails ahead of one. I just they're late breaking news story. Oh, no What do we miss a press release that just for immediate release Atari complete a mobi games acquisition details plans for the sites continued support Um mobi games comms of course a long running game database Uh with a lot of credits for games and a lot of a lot of history in that space It's I remember a while ago There was announcement that went around that said that Atari had gotten the option to purchase it from ant stream which is one of those retro game streaming services that was bundled into that Atari vcs thing uh And apparently they have exercised that option and purchased it to the tune of 1.5 million dollars Uh There's something very strange to me about Atari especially the Atari of today Like what are they now? I don't own any games.

What are they have to nft's and hotels and speaker hats and mobi games All right, um shit The how much was it for one point five wow five Uh jeremy frayholtz who's been running the site since 2013 will remain in his role as general manager He's also posted to their message boards Um to say we will now be investing in full-time development Uh to complete the new site that's been in the works for the past few years Which will replace our 20 plus year old code base and tools today currently in beta testing with our admins and approvers We'll be expanding the beta as developing its ramped up stay tuned So I that I guess I guess good for them. That's a weird owner to have it and like what is a tari Intention how they're gonna change it. Oh Undoubtedly it'll change. Doubtedly.

I don't see them picking this up just to let it keep going as it's been going Well the the quotes here say otherwise Right From the CEO of Atari wait rosen says it's important to Atari that mobi games pertains every bit of its integrity And we're committed to supporting the site and ways that will improve the experience of both contributors and users Um That's crazy. I mean that looks out. That's cool because that site I feel like as needed in overhaul since before For a very long time 20 years. Yeah, 20 year old code base Okay, yes part of the reason that we felt we could build a wiki on this end was uh Because of you know mobi games had not updated in a very long time and sure, you know And also we would hear a lot of complaints from developers that would submit credits to mobi games and get them rejected For not being really good source even though they were the people who did it and just a weird stuff like that So, you know, it's uh Interesting interesting.