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1:44

But this show, the main show DLC,

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1:55

I'm your host, Jeff Kanata, the spell with two N's

1:57

and one T, and I am joined, as always, by my

1:59

friend Jeff Kanata. slash co-host slash

2:02

nemesis. The guy who

2:04

likes to eat right before we start, Mr.

2:07

Christian Spicer. Hello, Christian. Hello,

2:10

Jeff. Hello, everyone. Also some pre-show

2:12

magic. We were talking about things

2:14

breaking in opportune times. OBS

2:17

and everything just crashed for me, but I'm

2:19

back. We were ready to go. It all

2:21

stopped. That's why I panicked for half a

2:23

second. That's why I do a real long

2:26

intro is so that you have time to...

2:28

Yeah. Talk about the other shows we

2:30

give to patrons. Keep going, keep

2:33

going. Straight it out. Bad

2:36

boys that you hear. We

2:38

got a great show for you. We've

2:40

got some really exciting things to talk

2:42

about this week, some interesting news, some

2:45

cool reveals, GDC stuff. And

2:47

I played what I think is game of

2:49

the year contender for me, and it may

2:51

not be what you think, but the good

2:53

news is all of that is

2:55

gonna happen with one of our favorite

2:58

guests. You know, the DLC always stands for your

3:00

downloadable Kannada and your downloadable Christian, but this week,

3:03

once again, ooh, I'm so excited.

3:05

DLC stands for displeased

3:07

leisure centaur. There

3:09

we go. Because from

3:12

the ACG YouTube podcasting

3:14

streaming empire, we

3:17

have Carrick himself. Jeremy Penscher back

3:19

with us. Hey, Carrick, how are you? Good,

3:22

thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I'm gonna

3:24

steal that one. Oh, yeah. That

3:26

is my name from now on. I

3:28

love it. The displeased leisure centaur.

3:31

We're excited to have you back. It's been too long

3:33

since we spoke. And I know you've been playing so

3:36

much stuff lately. We're gonna dig into all that during

3:40

our playlist section, but we

3:42

got some news to dig into. So let's start the

3:44

show the way we always do. The

3:46

story of the week. Story

3:50

of the week. The story of the

3:52

week. Story of the week.

3:56

Story of the week is the part of the show where we

3:58

make our cases of some more stories. happen in the

4:00

world of games this week. You can always submit

4:02

stories for our consideration by sending us an

4:05

email to [email protected]. That's also

4:07

where you can send comments,

4:09

questions, your parting

4:11

gifts, anything you want us to know.

4:14

We love hearing from you at [email protected].

4:17

You can also hang out with other

4:19

folks that listen to the show, talk

4:21

to us, talk to them in our

4:23

Discord, which is 5x5 DLC on Discord.

4:25

Lots of really cool stuff happening there.

4:27

So I urge you to take part.

4:30

But, Garrick, you are our guest, so you

4:32

get first pick of stories. What would you

4:34

consider to be your story of the week?

4:39

Probably story of the week would be

4:41

the Larian Studio thing with

4:44

them talking about not

4:46

doing Baldur's Gate. I've

4:48

always joked that I want to see them merge

4:50

and do XCOM, like

4:53

their storytelling with an XCOM game. I think

4:55

that would be fantastic. Of course, Shadowrun, but

4:57

that IP is owned by Microsoft. But yeah,

4:59

the idea that they have basically made it

5:01

pretty clear that Baldur's Gate 3 is, at

5:04

least for whatever future

5:06

that we see now, is not going to be

5:08

something that they'll... or Baldur's Gate 4 is not

5:10

going to be something that they're working on. I'm

5:12

actually quite interested to see what they do if

5:14

they stay in that format, which that's their strength.

5:16

Even though Divine Divinity is my

5:18

favorite of their games by a good amount,

5:22

I still think all the stuff

5:24

they do is awesome. And the

5:26

idea of them jumping into a

5:28

futuristic story or jumping into something

5:31

that's just like... because as a

5:33

Shadowrun fan, Cyberpunk fan, what

5:36

is it? Sprawl goons. There's so many

5:38

different futuristic role playing games I would love

5:41

for them to jump into. But it could

5:43

also just be another Divinity Original

5:46

Sin too, I suppose. I don't know if they

5:49

made that clear. I don't know if you guys...

5:51

No, they've been real cagey about it. This new

5:53

story comes from Sven,

5:55

who is the head of

5:57

Larian, CEO of Larian. Great

5:59

guy. Yeah, really cool, dude.

6:01

Seems like a real sharp cookie and

6:03

just a really honest, decent human, it

6:05

seems like. Specifically with all the

6:07

stuff that happened when the war in Ukraine broke

6:10

out and how he took care of his people.

6:14

Really extraordinary stories. If you dig into

6:16

all that, it's worth learning about. Anyway,

6:19

he did a GDC talk this week. We had

6:21

the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this

6:24

week and he did a GDC talk at the end

6:26

of which, it was actually a really

6:28

fascinating talk about

6:30

sort of all of the trials and tribulations

6:33

on the road to releasing Baldur's Gate 3.

6:35

Baldur's Gate 3 also won

6:37

multiple awards at the Game

6:40

Developers Conference Awards as

6:42

it has done all through the

6:44

last several months of last year

6:46

winning all the big year awards.

6:48

It has crushed its huge sales.

6:50

It's been this massive hit for

6:52

them and critically, financially,

6:55

any way you wanna measure it. But

6:57

at the end of his GDC talk, he revealed the

6:59

thing that Carrick just mentioned, which is, they

7:02

are moving on from Baldur's Gate 3. He

7:05

said specifically everyone, everyone, I don't know

7:07

who the everyone's are, but everyone

7:09

has been urging them to do DLC for

7:14

Baldur's Gate 3, to do Baldur's Gate 4,

7:18

to start work on Baldur's Gate 4,

7:20

to continue squeezing more

7:23

money out of that stone, which

7:25

it seems like is the easy money choice

7:28

to make. You make more Baldur's Gate, people love

7:30

it. Give them the DLC, sell it to them,

7:33

sell more stuff. But they

7:35

have said specifically, and he announced it

7:37

in that GDC talk specifically, they are

7:39

done with Baldur's Gate 3. They will

7:41

continue to support it, update it, patch

7:43

it as needed, but there will

7:45

be no new content. This is the game, this

7:48

is the game, it's complete. And they are not

7:50

just moving on from Baldur's Gate,

7:52

but they're moving on from Dungeons and Dragons.

7:55

The next game that they are making, which

7:57

he says is a big, ambitious role-playing game.

8:00

Will not be a Baldur's Gate will not be a

8:02

Dungeons and Dragons the game now as

8:04

you mentioned He also didn't say it's

8:06

not divinity original sin 3 yeah But

8:10

we don't know what that is. He

8:12

says it's probably four to five years

8:14

away There's they've started working on it,

8:16

but it's also on this

8:18

road to creating what he envisioned as

8:21

being this His

8:23

dream of the ultimate role-playing game. He says the

8:25

next game is not it but

8:27

the next game will have this technology in

8:29

it that has not been possible so far

8:31

and He wants to work toward

8:34

his vision of what the ultimate role-playing game

8:36

is So I

8:39

love character you've mentioned that you you would love

8:41

them to move out of the sort of Tolkien

8:44

esque D&D esque fantasy genre

8:46

all together, right? Yeah.

8:48

Yeah Yeah, the idea of something

8:50

like that of futuristic Well, it doesn't even

8:53

it could be modern whatever or alternate world

8:55

or something like that. Yeah, yeah I mean

8:57

over time they've they've hit it they've hit

8:59

it since divinity original sin and

9:02

then divine divinity prior to that and yeah to

9:04

me the I just feel like I Don't

9:07

know if you guys feel this way, but when you

9:10

look at cyberpunk, I think yes it hit in some

9:12

ways But it also I think

9:14

a lot of people look at it and think it missed in a lot of

9:17

ways And so it didn't fulfill

9:19

my RPG. I'm a cyberpunk fan like

9:21

and I mean cyberpunk. I don't mean

9:23

this I mean Blade Runner everything deep

9:25

cyberpunk. So my personal love

9:28

Yeah would be I would die

9:30

to see them leap into something like that. I

9:32

just think it would be fantastic Man,

9:35

I think that would be cool to seem

9:37

to do something really different really a

9:39

different a different meal You all entirely would

9:41

be would be pretty cool. And I'm

9:43

so curious what this New technology

9:46

that he said they've been waiting to you

9:49

know develop to allow them to do the next

9:51

big thing I I Wonder

9:53

if there's an AI element to that or what

9:55

that is Certainly sends

9:57

interviews and GDC talks have

10:00

given no indication as to what that is and he said

10:02

they're not gonna talk about the next project for a while

10:04

he said 45 years out, but Christian

10:07

Spicer, I'm wondering you know you you obviously not

10:09

as big a Larian fan as I am You

10:11

didn't really play Baldur's Gate 3, but do

10:14

you have? any

10:16

kind of hope as to what this might

10:18

be or What's your

10:20

take on this approach to sort

10:22

of walking away from the Golden Goose

10:24

at its most golden? I? Mean

10:28

based totally on nothing I

10:31

wonder if They feel

10:33

they don't need the license Wizard

10:35

of the coast had a big

10:38

round of layoffs in December

10:40

of last year Hasbro has done

10:42

some reorg of what Wizards is

10:46

Game licenses and IPs aren't free we

10:48

you know We've seen what the Marvel

10:50

license costs for folks making those games

10:52

EA recently said they're gonna pull back

10:54

from licensed game like excuse

10:56

me games and try working on

10:59

their own IP again and try to build those

11:01

things back up and I wonder if Larian

11:04

was looking at things and they certainly made their

11:06

own games before but if they

11:08

are the bigger name now

11:10

if Baldur's Gate 3

11:12

is big enough that whenever their next game

11:14

comes out They can write on their own

11:17

coattails, and they don't need to pay that

11:19

license To have something else

11:21

happen. I actually agree with a lot of that

11:23

Christian one of the things that Was

11:27

also revealed in the GDC

11:29

talk was that they pitched

11:33

Larian pitched on the

11:35

Baldur's Gate 3 project two Wizards

11:37

of the coast before Divinity

11:40

original sin 2 was released

11:43

so they were already you know

11:45

the the success of Original

11:48

sin 2 hadn't really happened yet

11:50

before they were like hey let us work on

11:52

this You know your IP

11:54

your your property we

11:56

will do a Dungeons and Dragons game and

12:00

I wonder, obviously, they

12:02

went through with that and to flying success,

12:04

worked on it for many years. And I

12:07

think it does

12:09

make more sense for a company

12:11

to want to own everything that

12:13

it's making, specifically Larian, who has

12:16

become its own publisher and

12:18

really has consolidated all the

12:21

things that a lot of developers have

12:23

to farm out. They do themselves because

12:25

they've had the success that allows them

12:28

to do that. They are completely self-owned.

12:32

They are completely self-published. They

12:34

are the masters of their own

12:36

fate. And to work

12:38

on someone else's IP, they have enriched

12:41

the Dungeons and Dragons brand

12:43

immeasurably. Obviously, it

12:45

was already on the rise. D&D has been on the

12:47

rise for many years now. But

12:49

I think Baldur's Gate

12:51

3 has even more

12:53

mainstreamized the D&D rule set

12:56

and done huge favors for Hasbro

12:58

and Wizards of the Coast. And

13:01

I can only imagine that their desire at this

13:03

point would be like, well, let's

13:05

reap the benefit from all of

13:07

our efforts across the board. Let's

13:09

not enrich these other people and

13:12

popularize other rule sets. We can

13:15

have all of that effort

13:17

realized for ourselves. And I can't blame them

13:19

for that. Carrick,

13:22

is there any part of you that is abums to here?

13:26

We won't be getting any more Baldur's Gate, at least from

13:28

Larian? No,

13:31

I'm fine with that. I

13:33

don't know about you guys. Did you guys replay it a bunch of times? I

13:36

mean, I've replayed the first act a bunch of

13:38

times in early access, but the

13:40

full game, no, I have not. So I'm

13:42

one of the people who, other than messing around with the

13:45

classes for the review, I actually feel like I had a

13:47

classic game experience with the game. I played it one time

13:49

all the way through and I never want to return to

13:51

it. It's off. It's not

13:53

even installed. I'm completely, absolutely 100%

13:56

fine with what I got from them. Am I

13:58

bummed a little bit? We've seen other

14:00

companies now, including the Star Wars EA thing

14:02

that just happened where they said, we want

14:05

to sort of look at our own IPs.

14:07

I do see that smaller companies are saying,

14:09

well, if we have a good IP, why

14:11

aren't we reaping the benefits, like you said,

14:13

of like the big companies are? So if

14:15

there's a Star Wars out there, great, but

14:17

why can't we make divinity original sense Star

14:20

Wars for us? And

14:22

that is what they should do. And so

14:24

I don't, I also don't feel that they

14:26

hinged. Yes, Baldur's Gate 3 hinges on like

14:29

forgotten realms and all that kind of stuff.

14:31

But overall, they can

14:33

do that on their own. They can make their

14:35

own world and maybe their own

14:37

rule set if they wanted to, and just

14:39

be like, let's do our own thing and,

14:42

you know, be masters of our own fate

14:44

without being connected. Even

14:46

if you ignore the other problems that

14:48

that company has outside of the Dean,

14:50

the video game spectrum, that company in

14:52

particular has their own stuff back and

14:54

forth within the actual

14:56

role playing realm as well. So I think it's good

14:58

for them. I think it's awesome. Yeah,

15:01

it'll be interesting to see again, you know, we're several

15:03

years away from hearing anything else from

15:05

them. And it certainly doesn't sound like we'll be hearing

15:07

anything short term, you know, obviously, there's not going to

15:09

be any DLC for Baldur's Gate. So but you know,

15:11

there's plenty of game there. It's not like they left

15:13

anything on the table. It's

15:15

all in the game. And

15:18

I think that's pretty impressive in and of itself. And

15:21

they've proven a really

15:23

interesting business model can work with,

15:26

you know, that being, we

15:28

made the act, we made act one, put it

15:30

out in early access, and iterated and

15:33

iterated and iterated. And then actually, when three are

15:35

the final product, you know, a lot of people

15:37

thought they would, you know, would

15:39

be kind of shooting themselves in the foot by doing that. And

15:41

it turned out to be the opposite. So it'll

15:44

be interesting to see what they do next. And

15:46

again, very smart people who are clearly very ambitious.

15:48

And he talks about it as

15:51

the next thing as being another

15:53

really big swing, another really big,

15:55

ambitious game. So I'm excited. I,

15:57

I, Larian is one of my favorite developers and I can't wait to

15:59

see what's next. Agree. Cool. Spicy,

16:02

what's your story of the week? GDC,

16:06

which is where we got this information

16:08

about Larian and their next

16:10

game. Also as an

16:12

annual tradition, it seems, maybe

16:15

not since the beginning of GDC, but for

16:17

the past few years, certainly, we get a

16:19

state of unreal given at GDC. And

16:22

part of the Unreal presentation this year

16:25

was the cinematic reveal

16:27

of Marvel 1943 Rise

16:32

of Hydra. I think it was maybe three

16:34

or four years ago, we saw the

16:37

Star Wars ray tracing kind

16:39

of tech demo that Unreal put out for

16:41

what the engine could do and be. And

16:43

now we're seeing Marvel

16:46

1943 Rise of Hydra and

16:48

all in-game graphics, they said,

16:51

running in Unreal 5, Captain

16:54

America, Black Panther, set

16:57

in the World War II era,

16:59

Hydra kind of just beginning. And

17:02

the specifics of that game,

17:05

Amy Hennig attached

17:07

to it as well, single

17:09

player, action game, whatever.

17:11

But I think to me, what was

17:14

most impressive about it was, those were

17:16

real graphics. Yeah. Yeah.

17:19

Because they look real purdy. Unreal

17:21

Engine 5.4, which is the

17:24

newest, latest, best version of the

17:26

Unreal Engine that they're touting all the bells and whistles.

17:29

And there's no game play here shown,

17:31

but it was a pretty, I would

17:33

say pretty meaty, like two and a

17:35

half minute trailer of cut-sceney

17:38

looking stuff that's all done real

17:40

time, all done in engine. And

17:44

it looks a lot like human

17:46

beings dressed up in costumes. I

17:49

mean, it was real impressive. And Cara, what did you

17:51

think of Marvel 1943 Rise of Hydra's

17:53

trailer? Well, I'm

17:56

glad you guys put it on the itinerary

17:58

because I had, I steer clear. of

18:00

the in-game cinematic trailers just because as

18:02

a reviewer you start to go, alright,

18:04

I get it. But I

18:07

do want to point out an older game that sort of stunned

18:09

me that makes me hope for this one.

18:11

That's the Order 1886. Ignoring

18:13

all the other issues the Order had,

18:15

short and maybe not the most complex

18:18

gameplay, it really, I mean

18:20

it does show what somebody can do even

18:22

back then and we're starting to move forward.

18:24

And as somebody who is always talking to

18:27

devs about Unreal, and GDC by the way,

18:29

anybody who has

18:31

any desire to cover games or even

18:33

look at games, GDC vaults the greatest

18:35

thing in the universe. Like you

18:37

can find every developer talking about everything from AI

18:39

to graphics so this will be there of course

18:41

and then it's out and about. But I love

18:44

it. I like the idea but I

18:47

am nervous whenever I see those because

18:49

I'm all, it looked amazing but

18:51

then I do know enough about the tech

18:53

to go, well there's some fill rate

18:55

issues. Like there's some like

18:58

there's that's asking a lot from a graphics

19:00

card in you know an APU and

19:02

in a let's say a PS5 or

19:04

an Xbox. So there's just sometimes I

19:07

get that little bit of like realism

19:09

that pops up but what I

19:11

saw looked amazing and there were two scenes

19:13

in particular where they're face to

19:15

face and I honestly did actually think

19:17

it was actors just about two hours

19:19

ago when I was looking and I

19:22

was like oh I'm gonna go watch this trailer. I looked at it

19:24

was like oh they put out that's weird

19:26

FMV well that's like the food in Dragon's Dogma

19:28

and I was like nope that's not FMV that's...

19:32

That's pretty insane. So I'm excited. We'll just

19:35

have to see. So this game is

19:37

set to come out in 2025 so

19:39

who knows what the console scene will look like at this

19:41

point. I'm guessing we'll have a PlayStation

19:44

5 Pro at the very least. You

19:46

have to switch to who knows what

19:48

you know 50 series Nvidia cards will

19:50

be out etc etc. But

19:52

yeah but you know

19:55

looking at a little peek into the future you

19:57

know a year or so into the future. of

20:01

what games are gonna look like.

20:03

It's pretty exciting technology. And really,

20:05

you get to the point where

20:07

you're like, man, we're not that far away from photo

20:10

real humans in

20:12

playable photo real humans,

20:14

not just in pre-rendered

20:16

stuff, but in actual

20:19

moment to moment gameplay. So it's

20:22

a pretty exciting thing. And I think a really

20:24

cool IP to show it off with because we

20:26

all know what superheroes played

20:28

by actors on

20:31

the big screen. It's a cool way

20:33

to kind of show off that tech. And I

20:35

think the concept of the game seems

20:38

really neat as well. As

20:41

Christian said, World War II era Marvel story is

20:44

not really something we've seen a lot. And

20:47

having T'Challa's grandfather,

20:51

the contemporary Black Panther of 1943 with

20:55

Steve Rogers pre-getting frozen and

20:58

woken up in today's time period,

21:00

really cool idea. I'm

21:03

expecting some great stuff

21:05

from Amy Henig who

21:09

knows how to tell a story, knows how to tell a story

21:11

in video games. So this is

21:13

a pretty exciting project. And I think it's

21:15

great that Unreal is using it as a

21:17

flagship showing off our tech project. So they'll

21:19

probably be giving it a lot of love

21:21

over the next year or so as well.

21:25

But man, it got me jazzed

21:27

for what's right around the corner. I mean,

21:30

this feels like what

21:32

we all thought the PlayStation

21:34

5 Xbox series generation was

21:36

going to bring. This

21:38

feels like it's finally sort of hitting

21:42

its stride instead of just being this kind

21:44

of weird cross-generational console

21:47

generation. That really

21:49

feels like, man, that's the next level. And

21:52

if they can deliver on this, it's wild to

21:54

think that we're going to be getting superhero video

21:56

games with better graphics than

21:59

superhero movies. You know like if

22:01

you go back and watch the sam rammy

22:03

spider-man movie. Yeah Blue

22:08

screen because the mania, I don't know

22:13

Yeah, but newer The

22:15

second one did you guys see of strength

22:17

dr. Strange? I remember there were times where

22:19

it got a little too eclectic a little

22:21

too graphic e and yeah You almost noticed

22:23

it so he's right like the idea of

22:25

seeing it as just a game is that's

22:27

awesome Yeah, I can't

22:29

wait to see what's next Speaking

22:31

of what's next my story of

22:33

the week is next but first we're gonna take a quick break

22:35

for a sponsor This episode

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22:44

What would you do? If

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mind that you would do with an extra

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23:00

other shoe to drop and I'm over analyzing what's

23:02

happening and I'm debating what I should be doing

23:04

And then the hours gone. Yes, that's easy Wow,

23:08

that doesn't sound like a well a good use of your hour

23:10

I feel like a lot of people are in the in

23:12

the same boat boat Even though we

23:14

all wish we had more time It's we you you

23:16

think oh my gosh All I need is more

23:18

time and then when you you squeeze out

23:21

some more time You don't know what to do with

23:23

it. You don't know how to use it. You don't

23:25

know how to maximize What

23:28

you have because you don't know what

23:30

you want Well, I'm

23:33

here to tell you Therapy can

23:35

help you find what matters to you so

23:38

you can do more of it I've

23:41

certainly done some work on

23:43

myself over the years and

23:45

tried to isolate the things That

23:48

I want because sometimes that's not even the easiest

23:50

question to answer. What do you want? What do

23:53

you want Christian? What do you want? Why

23:56

are you putting this pressure on me right now? How

23:58

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24:57

right. Boy, some interesting stories

25:00

here still to pluck from, but I got to

25:02

say, I think the one that I

25:05

guess is news, but we could all see

25:07

coming a mile away is still a rumor.

25:10

We don't have confirmation on this, but we

25:13

just came off of not too long

25:15

ago, the big splashy Grand Theft Auto

25:17

6 trailer, the biggest game

25:20

trailer, the biggest sequel in

25:22

video games, another vision

25:24

of the future, another look at this

25:27

is how games are going to look. Grand Theft Auto 6, it's

25:30

incredible. These incredibly dense locations with

25:32

so much stuff going on, amazing,

25:34

amazing graphics we saw in the

25:36

trailer. Well, there

25:39

may be some trouble in paradise, and

25:41

by paradise, I mean a faux Miami,

25:43

because word

25:46

is, according to Kotaku, citing sources

25:48

with insider knowledge on the development

25:50

of GTA 6, that

25:53

already the game may be slipping

25:55

from its proposed spring 2025 release

25:57

and falling. slipping

26:00

well into 2026. Now,

26:03

of course, we don't have confirmation of this, but

26:05

anybody that's ever anticipated a

26:07

rock star game in the last 20 years

26:11

probably could have seen it coming. They

26:14

say that the sources have cited

26:17

they're falling behind. A lot

26:19

of this, we heard there was a

26:22

lot of contention within rock star about

26:24

forcing people to come back into offices

26:26

from remote work from COVID. There's been

26:29

some friction there and they

26:31

say that that has led to a lot of

26:34

the delays. My

26:36

question to you, Carrick, is why

26:39

even give a date? Thank

26:42

you. It's

26:44

like, right? We just got this

26:46

trailer, what, three months ago? How

26:48

long ago was it? Not that

26:50

long. Already,

26:53

we're talking delay. It feels like

26:55

a self-own at this point. It feels like an

26:58

unforced error is what I'm saying. Yeah.

27:00

I would say that we've all seen all

27:03

the delays from all the companies lately, especially

27:05

when you come out of isolation and you

27:07

have these games that are popping. We've

27:09

started to notice already a bunch came at the starting

27:11

of these three months and you start to look at

27:14

the later three months this year and go, oh, it's

27:16

a little leaner. It's

27:19

obvious that there's issues with how everything was

27:21

patterned out and rock star ignores for the

27:23

most part all that, but they can't ignore

27:25

a world changing event. I do think

27:28

that there are probably issues with, and as

27:30

somebody who works remotely and has worked also

27:32

locally, there are differences in how you work

27:34

and how teams work and communication.

27:37

It is different and maybe they didn't

27:39

make that transition, but I would say

27:41

this rock star, I've already made a

27:43

bet with all the people on my podcast that rock stars

27:45

minimum is

27:47

late or mid 2026.

27:51

We made that months ago. I was like, I don't

27:53

think 2035. By the way, I love to

27:55

be wrong because 2025 would be great. That

27:58

game looks fun. We broke down. on the trailer,

28:00

there were things going on in that trailer that

28:02

were like, Ooh, you know, what's

28:04

14 FPS on like

28:07

on the, what are we going to see on the

28:09

consoles? But it looks phenomenal. And I also think that

28:11

they're one of the few companies that

28:14

I firmly, I just

28:16

want them to do their thing, man. Like I know

28:18

that gamers get excited and they're stupid for saying the

28:20

date or if they're, if they're talking about even a

28:22

year, I would rather just let them, let

28:25

them be their thing and

28:27

come to me whenever, cause rock or red

28:29

dead, how old red dead, red dead two,

28:32

that's like four or five or six,

28:35

maybe four or five years. I can't remember when that might be

28:37

more than that. I think it might be seven, something like that.

28:39

Did you go ahead and use the

28:41

patch? It was the weird, like I know

28:44

where patch that added like, yeah, yeah. But

28:48

they have so many years between GTA five and

28:50

this, they've released that in the middle. I say

28:53

just let them go, let them cook. They do

28:55

a really good job and I'm 100% behind

28:58

them delaying it, but you're a right cell phone. Yeah.

29:01

You know, you don't want to say you're going to do amazing in a,

29:03

in a game and then, you know, miss

29:06

the don't. Yeah. Sorry.

29:09

I interrupt. Twenty, twenty, eighteen. Good.

29:11

Red dead two. Oh my God.

29:14

October 28. It's like horizons for

29:16

been West. It looks like it

29:18

was made today. I just don't

29:20

know how gorilla and like

29:22

rockstar make their games, but whatever magic

29:24

juice, I wish everybody got a little

29:27

squeeze of it. These little extra holy

29:29

hell. Yeah. Christian, I

29:31

know that a game the size of GTA

29:33

six and the selling

29:35

power of, of grand theft auto

29:37

moves markets. And I know you

29:39

got to kind of tell the

29:41

powers to be, you're not just speaking to the people

29:43

that are going to buy your game. You're speaking to,

29:45

you know, the entire

29:47

industry when you say, Hey, we're coming out in spring

29:50

2025. So

29:52

I know that there are forces grander than

29:54

just when it's actually, you know, going to

29:56

go on sale. It's, it's, it's influencing all

29:58

kinds of things. You

30:02

know, but also

30:04

you just told us, you

30:06

know, can you not, is it, is it just a complete surprise?

30:09

I don't understand how you can be like, yeah, spring. And then, you know,

30:11

three months later, it's like, I don't know how we got that wrong.

30:16

It makes no sense to me. Well, Jeff, remember that

30:18

question in a few months when we're talking about Marvel 1943,

30:20

Rise of Hydra. Yeah,

30:24

absolutely. Sure. Being

30:26

delayed. I do, one, this is a

30:28

rumor. This is,

30:30

you know, Rockstar

30:33

just gave a year. If GPA 6 comes

30:35

out New Year's Eve 2025, they did it.

30:39

Yep. Also, there are rumors

30:41

of the studio having a lot of

30:43

crunch. So it might

30:46

hit their year, but at what cost? They

30:49

have, you know, a lot of people are saying, you

30:51

know, they're going to be like, they

30:54

have openly talked about wanting to

30:56

get people back to the office. And

30:59

so I'm not sure what tea leaves are being

31:01

read or what insider sources are actually saying that

31:03

is leading to this idea of, hey, we're falling

31:05

behind. It's going to be late. But

31:08

it does seem as if every

31:10

game gets delayed. And

31:13

I don't know the reason for saying the,

31:16

I mean, Starfield did it recently. You know,

31:18

they planted their flag. This is the

31:20

thing. I mean, they had a couple of other games. I mean,

31:22

they had a lot of fun. I mean, they had a lot

31:24

of fun. And I was like, oh, I think we're going to

31:26

do it. We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

31:28

We're going to do it. We're going to do it. We're

31:31

going to do it. I think they etched the date on Harley

31:33

Quinn's bat and it was like, we're going to do it. And

31:35

then they're like, we're not doing it. She lost that bat. Time

31:37

to find a new bat and a new date. It

31:41

does just seem like a joke, right? You see the

31:43

year. Okay. Just kidding, but

31:45

yeah, I don't know. We'll see. We'll

31:48

see. I do

31:50

believe Rockstar is probably the only company in the

31:52

world that their announcement might cause

31:54

a company that has done fab

31:56

work on their pro or work

31:58

on their new. new systems and you

32:00

look at how many they've sold and it is,

32:03

I mean, industry defining

32:05

series of titles. It is, I wonder

32:08

sometimes if like the other companies who are

32:10

releasing a pro Xbox, you know,

32:12

Sony are like, Hey, we'd love to get our

32:14

system out right before GTA comes out so that

32:16

we can say we're the top. Yeah.

32:19

And in a weird way, if it is delayed, it

32:21

gives Xbox, which we've heard rumors a new hardware this

32:23

year, but it doesn't sound like a pro. It sounds

32:25

like what we've seen in the leaked documents, but it

32:27

would also give, you know, switch

32:29

to, which I don't, I don't think we'll be seeing

32:32

this running on switch to, but it does give, it

32:34

might give Microsoft a little extra room to sort of

32:36

squeeze in a pro of their own, which we know

32:38

that they, you know, are sort of trying to figure

32:40

out and work on. But I think

32:42

with Sony, man, I think the

32:44

pro rumors we're hearing and stuff, I bet you Sony

32:47

would have loved to have been like, boom, here's

32:49

our pro. Oh, guess what? Boom. We

32:52

play the best GTA six. I mean, that's a, that's

32:55

a big deal. That's a, yeah. No, I

32:57

mean, yeah. Or was it, um,

33:00

it may have happened with starfield. It

33:02

certainly happened with halo infinite where the,

33:05

like the themed console came out and

33:07

the game, cyberpunk also had a theme

33:09

to Xbox one. Get

33:13

the themed console game. And that's

33:15

the day months away. And

33:18

you know, inside, I mean, they all put on

33:20

a good face, but, uh, yeah,

33:23

I definitely, I know at least a

33:25

couple of people I've talked to who don't work anymore

33:27

who are like, yeah, there's some times where the people

33:29

internally are like, are you kidding

33:31

me? Seriously? We've,

33:33

we've painted a console for

33:35

you. Yeah. Yeah. We

33:38

paint. Yeah. Or

33:40

here's the war. We stenciled some gears on your console. What

33:42

do you mean? You're not coming out right now. Yeah. I

33:45

totally, I mean, yes, these are huge industry

33:47

defining moments. And I also wonder if there

33:49

are other companies who were like, Hey,

33:53

Hey boys. Uh, you,

33:55

we should, there are 25. Just open

33:57

up for us. Let's

34:00

get cranking on that game because we got

34:02

people dollars that we can be spent on

34:04

our game. There are people on the back

34:07

just doing karate chop. Yeah! You

34:09

know, they're just celebrating. Yeah. Yeah.

34:13

Yeah. It is a wild thing. Again, Christian,

34:15

very right to reiterate the fact that this

34:17

is only a rumor. We haven't heard combination

34:20

yet. But I mean, even I

34:22

don't think there's anybody that has followed the

34:24

video game industry for the last few years

34:26

that didn't see Rockstar say, say, 2025 and

34:28

go, let's hope. Let's

34:32

just hope. So. Jeff,

34:34

do you have a lot of previous? You

34:38

do preview footage. So there's a

34:40

particular game. Well, I mean, we can talk about it

34:42

now, but I remember I was playing Warhammer 2 for

34:44

a preview. And

34:47

they were talking about the date and I was like, nope. Not

34:52

even. I turned it on. Nope. That's

34:55

not happening. And you're just waiting the entire time when

34:57

previews are coming out. You're like, somebody's

35:00

going to say something, right? What

35:02

are we going to do? And then it's like, oh, we've decided to delay.

35:04

And I'm like, yeah, you way before I

35:06

got that code, you for sure decided

35:08

to delay. Yeah. Yep.

35:11

We'll see. I mean, we've got a

35:13

lot of stuff to play in the interim. And

35:16

on that note, let's talk about the games we

35:18

have been playing because there's some big ones. So

35:21

let's get into the playlist. Oh,

35:32

Eric, I know as you always are, you

35:34

are crank it on games,

35:37

giving out great reviews. Your content

35:39

is fantastic. And

35:41

I'm so interested to hear, I know

35:44

that you put a ton of hours into

35:46

Dragon's Dogma 2, the big release this week.

35:48

You got it early. What

35:51

is your take on this massive

35:53

sequel from Capcom? Well, other

35:55

than the micro transaction thing, which sucks,

35:58

and then Which

36:00

again as somebody who played Dragon's

36:02

Vogma 1 sub HD Felt

36:05

like it was 14 FPS when I first

36:07

played it I I was hoping this would

36:09

arrive a little you know a little

36:11

less hot it popped in definitely

36:14

some performance issues It

36:16

does prove to me that games are above

36:19

the discussion of tech sometimes especially when it

36:21

comes to pure fun and that

36:23

game is it is pure it is It

36:27

is pure fun. It is ridiculous

36:29

and I'm still playing it and Like

36:32

I've sure you know a couple people have been like you want to

36:35

review a game and I'm like, you know what? I'm

36:38

actually doing we had 27 people

36:40

on our discord just today streaming and no matter

36:42

what game everybody thought of doing Riserone and what

36:45

have you they jump back to Dragon's Vogmas just

36:47

a very very fun game and it

36:50

also shows that The intelligence

36:53

level of consumers is higher the

36:55

expectations are higher Which is GTA

36:58

you can go right back to GTA 6 or

37:00

you can go to Warhammer and say companies need

37:02

to deliver and continue to deliver Technically

37:05

smooth titles and stuff like

37:07

that. Um, but what's

37:09

interesting is even despite that it has

37:11

been one of them

37:13

one of the better moments in gaming when

37:15

it comes to watching people talk

37:18

about it and That's what I

37:20

like even outside of games I can razz on

37:22

a game but and that's fun. It's fun to

37:24

tease a game You're like, oh, yeah, this is

37:26

just terrible or what have you this golem is

37:28

well, yeah Like what's going on at this game

37:30

aid? But then you

37:32

get people genuinely

37:35

Stating out loud when they're playing.

37:37

Oh my god,

37:39

this is Absolutely

37:42

awesome And it doesn't

37:45

like there's there's almost nothing

37:47

better like as a person who

37:49

covers games to just be like dude That

37:52

is a cool time. And that's what this

37:54

is delivered and that's probably been It's

37:57

been a while since I can remember, you

37:59

know people Just really haven't a good

38:01

time even despite the issues. you know,

38:03

which is unfortunate, but it's been a

38:05

blast. See. A play on Pc I

38:07

assume with the issues easy X box and Playstation

38:09

Five okay but the Playstation but I gotta expect

38:12

go in the Pc code. have been playing a

38:14

mall pcs law shady. Especially

38:16

in cities. Then you get out. It's like

38:18

hottentot. two thousand frames per second, half like

38:20

an atomic test. When you're out, you're like

38:23

this. everything smooth and then you go into

38:25

a a city and a ghost crap. Councils

38:27

are a little bit better in a weird

38:29

way because. That variance is not.

38:31

I get a little sit. With at

38:33

like. Sixty Thirty Sixty Thirty. or

38:36

are some like that? I start to get

38:38

a little almost queasy if you get a

38:40

of a huge jump. So we we were

38:42

playing X Box and P C. Mostly though

38:44

yeah, you see, mostly. Ah, I

38:47

tried to go back and find my

38:49

old review of Dragon's Dogma one. I

38:51

couldn't Music: I am assuming. Ah

38:54

I ordered. Ps. Every plate of on

38:56

three six yeah makes sense I. I.

38:59

Found the episode of my old podcast

39:01

that it was on now, but I

39:03

couldn't find a way to download or

39:05

listen to that episode. The lump wasn't

39:07

listed it, but I didn't have to

39:09

be. A. It's if some of

39:11

the things you find weekend internet archive baby. I

39:13

guess it in an an archive would be the

39:15

place to go anyway. I couldn't do it or

39:17

hadn't done it at this point, so I don't

39:19

I don't remember exactly what I said about the

39:21

first game, but I do recall in my lazy

39:23

old man memory. Having

39:26

mixed feelings about for some liking

39:28

it. My man it is it

39:30

is kind of am. A.

39:33

Kind. Of at a beautiful for it's

39:35

flaws are one of those games that are

39:37

unruly and kind of rough around the edges

39:39

but you sound like it for that and

39:41

I I get the since the second one

39:44

is the same and that it. Really,

39:46

the magic of Dragon's Dogma is in it's

39:48

emergent gameplay. In like those all the things

39:51

is thrown at you at any given time

39:53

and all the sort of zany things that

39:55

can happen. Odds. Physics

39:58

based combat that is always. kind

40:00

of a little bit unpredictable things

40:03

in the world that are often just

40:05

a little hair brained a little quirky.

40:09

Was that your experience with Dragon's Dogma 2? Yeah,

40:12

I'd like to give you an example of a

40:14

normal thing I saw as in I saw crazier

40:16

stuff than this. I saw

40:18

yesterday there were people playing and one guy was on

40:20

top of a tower. He was fighting

40:22

Harpies. Harpy picked him up dropped him to the

40:24

second level of the tower but his pawn hadn't

40:26

jumped up the second level. So the pawn caught

40:28

him, put him down and as the pawn put

40:31

him down, the pawn next to him put

40:33

his shield up and he bounced back up onto the

40:35

second level of the tower and killed the Harpy. I

40:38

was watching it in real time because I'm just watching

40:40

all these streams going like what in that? It

40:45

sucks that they come in janky

40:47

but sometimes I also wonder if

40:49

the, that's why you do see the FPS

40:51

issues at times because that jankiness, what's going

40:53

on under the, it's sort

40:55

of, sometimes a football team may

40:57

get it right but it looks a little, you know, it's

41:00

not perfect. And that's the way

41:02

the game, the game plays

41:04

almost all the time. Like the story, it's

41:08

not good. Wow,

41:10

like wow, it's, it's, I am

41:12

telling you guys, AI would

41:14

look at that and go, you're AI. That's

41:17

how bad the story is. It's like, you are

41:20

the arisen. Okay, so anyway, and it walks off,

41:22

you know, whoa, it come back. But

41:25

it's all about go out and prove

41:27

yourself and every single vocation

41:29

in that game. So if you played old

41:31

style D&D, it used to be really defined.

41:33

So it's like warrior, you know, like the

41:35

things even the attributes, you know, there were

41:37

a lot of games only had like, you

41:39

know, very few attributes even. That's

41:41

the way Dragon's dogma feels. It feels like

41:44

when you pick a warrior versus

41:46

a fighter, the dramatic difference between

41:48

a warrior and a fighter is

41:50

so profound that it feels like

41:52

a completely different, I mean, style

41:54

and experience for every single thing

41:56

to the point that it impacts

41:59

your pawns. who you choose and and

42:01

all that. So the fighter would be sword

42:03

and shield, you know, sword and board, as

42:05

they call it. Warriors, two handed like. Yeah.

42:07

Yeah. So by the way, even

42:09

that warrior, he just doesn't care about crap,

42:11

man. The difference between stuns

42:13

is even dramatically improved on that character.

42:15

So where an ogre might knock you

42:18

down, the warrior is just like, hang

42:20

on a second. Hang on a second.

42:22

I'm going to swing. I'm going to swing. And you're just

42:24

sitting there going like, when's he going to hit him? But

42:26

then he does. And he just, you know, he does massive

42:28

damage. And you see these players who are figuring

42:31

this out on Twitter. I was I was looking at

42:33

Twitter today because it was trending. And I was just

42:35

watching people play go. How is it in

42:38

80 plus hours and then another 20 now? And

42:40

all these people that I'm seeing brand new stuff in

42:43

their Twitter that I just

42:45

I saw somebody leap from a harpy back to a

42:47

harpy back. I was like, what? How the hell? Like,

42:49

I don't even know if the devs know, by the

42:52

way, because of physics. I don't know if the devs

42:54

know what is possible because they just sort of say,

42:57

let it go out there and then and then

43:00

see how this how people interact with

43:02

it. And it's a blast, man. So

43:04

true blast. Just to take the 2000 foot

43:07

view, if folks aren't familiar with the

43:10

franchise, Dragon's Dogma 2 is

43:12

you are this arisen character. You

43:14

are the the chosen one or

43:16

one of several chosen ones. And

43:20

there is like a whole subclass of

43:22

people that just exist and serve

43:25

you. They're called pawns and

43:27

they die. I mean, you're introduced to one

43:29

where he's like, I'm being I'm being pulled

43:31

down to hell. No problem. I'll be back.

43:33

You're the original. It's all cool. You can

43:35

resurrect me at any stone over there. No

43:37

big deal. So you have

43:40

these these little sidekick

43:42

characters that you can swap in

43:44

and swap out. You can actually

43:47

send to other people's universes, their

43:49

game dynamically.

43:52

And they they have their own classes, the

43:54

same classes that you have. But you can

43:56

assign them a class that complements yours. You're

44:02

going from place to place, often being asked

44:04

to do separate things. There's

44:08

no fast travel really. The

44:12

save system is kind of wonky. The game tells you

44:14

straight out, like, hey, don't

44:16

expect the autosave system to help you

44:18

at all. You're going to

44:20

have to manually save. Sleep at an inn. Don't

44:24

blame us if you lose your save.

44:26

It's like straight up just talking to

44:28

the player that way. It's

44:32

a very quirky mentality to play. There's a

44:34

lot of things it doesn't explain to you.

44:37

It's constantly diverting you

44:39

off the path by throwing things in

44:41

your way and just getting from

44:44

place to place is kind of half the adventure in

44:46

Dragon's Talk. Not only that, but

44:48

the pawns are incredible. This is

44:50

the system I liked from the original. I did a

44:52

walk in the walk on the original, getting some developer

44:54

input of what put the game together. The pawns, for

44:57

instance, if they do a quest, they remember that quest.

44:59

If you hire that pawn, they'll lead you as

45:01

an interactive HUD. I'm a

45:04

big fan of interactive HUDs, so Ghost, a

45:06

couple games of ad HUDs, or I turn them

45:09

off in Assassin's Creed or the

45:11

Far Cry games, the open world games sometimes I'll turn

45:13

them off. I'm a huge fan

45:15

of interactive HUDs, and that's what they are. They're

45:17

the interactive map markers. When

45:20

you do a quest with a pawn, that pawn

45:22

then knows the quest. Then

45:26

when your friend rents your pawn, they know

45:28

it. What I had said in the review is

45:30

it really is, when you high five a pawn

45:32

after killing an ogre,

45:34

it's not the celebration of the cheerleader and

45:37

the high school football game. It's the coach

45:39

who goes, and that's it, and just points

45:41

at you. It's

45:44

dog ... You did good. Yeah,

45:46

and it's like dogs in their

45:48

loyalty, which actually bothers me, the

45:51

beast runner only cats, because I

45:53

weirdly enough think they missed an

45:55

opportunity, because the pawns are very much

45:57

with the loyalty of a good dog.

46:00

Like there's a family dog. They're very smart But

46:02

they the way they deal with things like when

46:04

a pawn will see a box They'll say I

46:06

can try to get their master and if they

46:08

have let's say levitate They'll just levitate

46:10

up to the chest instead of you having to find a

46:13

way up there They'll be like I got it and you're

46:15

like dude seriously, and then they come back and you just

46:17

go and you high five It's the weirdest You're

46:20

why you're playing you're like what but what it

46:22

reminds me of Final Fantasy 15 had this with

46:24

the camaraderie of the players Or

46:27

other characters the boy band kind of Final

46:29

Fantasy 15 that existed that 16 was missing

46:31

16 was more dire and

46:33

more You know Emo

46:35

as I say, but whatever you what whatever term you want

46:37

to say It's got this amazing

46:39

feel like a indie D&D game if you're

46:42

a if you're a pen and paper player

46:44

Where maybe you didn't play dungeon and Dragons

46:46

official, but one of your friends made home

46:48

rules That's what the game is like and

46:51

the interactive HUD is Every

46:54

game I wish every game figured this out doesn't have

46:56

to be pawns But also

46:58

having your friends know your pawn is awesome

47:00

Like somebody will DM you and be like

47:02

Carrick man your pawn would not stop smashing

47:04

stuff like Like

47:09

dude have you seen me play Exactly

47:11

what I'm gonna do and you can train them

47:13

like if you get to a chest and you

47:15

keep lofting them up They it's almost like a

47:17

drive a tar and they'll pick up on it

47:20

And they'll take it home and you'll see Pete

47:22

you'll see your pawns doing some pretty

47:24

gnarly stuff It is it's just

47:26

really fascinating from a gameplay

47:28

perspective Christian you'll

47:30

appreciate this point as well You know

47:32

there are a number of quests where

47:35

for example be like there's a boy

47:37

and he's he's trying dying You

47:39

got to get to him and you're like cool. That's like

47:41

one of six quests. I have on my thing I'll get

47:44

to it whenever one and then you show up and they're

47:46

like yeah that boy died because you didn't get here Those

47:48

so good you didn't you took too

47:51

long in your meandering walks through the

47:53

countryside and the boy died From

47:55

the poisoning and then you're like oh well

47:59

But I got this resurrection thing and they're

48:01

like, I'm sorry, his body's not here.

48:04

You can't resurrect it. And then you can go to

48:07

the morgue, find his

48:09

body and resurrect it. And they're

48:11

like, you saved our son. You

48:14

did it. It's

48:16

a crazy, it's a crazy game of just

48:18

like weird outside the

48:20

box, kind of wacky.

48:24

I heard somebody describe it as an

48:26

anecdote generator, you know, it's like, he

48:28

just tells stories about playing dragon's dog.

48:30

The game doesn't tell you its story.

48:32

As you said, it's story, not that

48:34

great, but your story while playing it

48:37

top tier. Pretty,

48:40

uh, pretty wild. So, so that's what you

48:43

mean when you say it's fun. It's

48:46

fun above all because the

48:48

systems create these moments, right?

48:51

Yeah. And luckily the FPS issues in the city is

48:53

good because since the story ain't great, a couple of

48:55

missions you have in the city you're done with, or

48:57

you don't go back to I yesterday, one of the

48:59

guys that I know had maxed out two vacations and

49:02

had not done a single mission in the city. So

49:05

it does. It's, it is about Skyrim. I

49:07

mean, I'm just being brutally honest. I don't

49:09

know about, you know, you guys,

49:11

but Bethesda games have never stunned me with their

49:13

writing either. I'm not an elder scrolls lore fan

49:15

as much. Not, I don't, I'm

49:17

not really into reading about kajit, kajit,

49:19

having wares and some books somewhere like

49:21

it doesn't grab me. So when I

49:23

played this, I wanted a better story. It ain't there

49:26

at all. But luckily

49:28

the outdoors, which is the majority of

49:30

it is, is where the

49:32

gameplay happens, it's where the, it's where

49:34

the juice is. And I squeeze that

49:36

thing dry twice already. And

49:39

it, it just, it's

49:41

resilient in a weird way too. I've noticed,

49:44

you know how some games we talk about

49:46

the tech and then the tech, cyberpunk

49:48

had this so many bugs and all that stuff. And

49:50

once you get it together, even with cyberpunk, I've liked

49:52

it now since it's been patched up, but it still

49:54

didn't deliver what I wanted. Dragon's dog,

49:57

Mattoo has delivered what I wanted despite

49:59

the issues. And I think that

50:01

that's also where even if people get mad at

50:03

me like I could care less like I've Unsubscribed

50:06

and subscribed to multiple reviewers in my

50:09

lifetime like and whatever. I mean that's

50:11

that's that's life But when it

50:13

comes down to it the honest truth is is that

50:15

I like fun games and when something

50:17

is fun You have to

50:19

talk about it because if you

50:21

get everything lost, I think we

50:24

lose There's something

50:26

that gets sort of lost when

50:28

you just analyze everything to

50:30

the nth degree and we forget that a

50:32

game has a mechanics loop and We

50:35

should at least see how that mechanics loop worked

50:37

out how that gameplay loop works out and that

50:39

does work out here In no

50:41

way shape or form denying that they botched

50:44

it the really they they botched it

50:46

Yeah, I mean you mentioned it right at the

50:49

top, but there has been a fair bit of

50:51

controversy I know there's been some review bombing all

50:53

because of this Microtransaction

50:56

system that was not revealed to reviewers

50:58

who had the code early. I want

51:00

to correct that it was

51:02

okay So what they

51:04

said was be offline and guess

51:06

what? You can't see a store when you're offline

51:09

So they had a PDF attached and a lot

51:11

of people miss the PDF in multiple miles And

51:13

so some people saw it and thought I've heard

51:15

people do videos later and say okay It wasn't

51:17

a big deal to me and

51:19

I didn't do it in my review because it's

51:21

it's a one-time purchase to Jeff weird DLC you

51:23

can only buy it once so it's not like

51:26

you can even get the things a

51:28

bunch of times But for me personally, that's what

51:30

I said my podcast is always like oh I

51:32

definitely saw a store because I love to talk

51:34

about stores because I think it affects the mechanics

51:37

or could affect the mechanics of a game Assassin's

51:39

Creed are good examples of that and

51:41

this one doesn't affect the mechanics of the

51:44

game because those mechanics exist in Dragon's

51:46

Dog mode one for example

51:48

lack of fast travel being Instantly

51:51

there right? I just wanted to point that

51:53

out just no no, I was a good point That's a

51:55

good point I wasn't aware of that and I know a

51:57

lot of people have have been frustrated by the fact They

52:00

would you know tie microtransaction real

52:02

human dollars to just stuff like

52:04

fast traveling and and Resing

52:07

your character and stuff like that but

52:11

There are ways to earn all that stuff in

52:14

game, right? It's not just locked behind The only

52:16

one that's not there is starting a new you

52:18

can delete a character You can delete your save

52:20

and start a new save that one's that one's

52:23

a purchase as well, which is weird Second

52:25

character third character. Yeah, it's yeah, it's all it's

52:27

all in the game and it's also easy to

52:29

get which is what I heard Some other people

52:31

saying later when I started watching videos because I

52:33

was like, what is everybody saying? And some people

52:36

were like I played this for 80 hours

52:38

for the review and didn't even know there were you

52:40

know They didn't check or what have you or they never

52:42

thought, you know, they never felt the impact You still

52:44

need to cover him in reviews though, including

52:46

myself like that's one of the things I'll be

52:49

I mean people know especially Because I will cover

52:51

it in multiple reviews and to having not done

52:53

so that's on me It's like oh, yeah, that's

52:55

for sure a big deal like people need to

52:57

know because they're very worried of a

52:59

game that releases micros We just saw this

53:01

with tech and eight they released a

53:04

store Two or

53:06

three weeks after it released and people were like, oh

53:08

is does that indicate? You know

53:10

some of the stuff wasn't in the main game,

53:12

you know, those kind of questions are real questions

53:14

We've seen it go wrong before yeah, and Capcom's

53:17

done this many many Many

53:20

times with their DLC in these games Having

53:23

it it hasn't always impacted the game,

53:25

but they they're certainly known for this

53:27

which is unfortunate Well,

53:30

that's dragons dogma too, I think we'll be talking

53:32

a lot more about it as the weeks progress

53:34

But I love hearing your take on it Christian

53:37

I think If

53:39

memory if I recall I wanted to check this

53:41

but again, I couldn't figure out the internet this

53:43

week evidently But I think dragons dog with the

53:46

original is where I when I first

53:48

said the phrase. It's more fun than it is good

53:51

That was the game that that pointed that phrase for

53:53

me. Anyway Another game

53:55

on your list Carrick is a game.

53:57

We had another guest rave about Pacific

54:00

Drive. Are you as high on this

54:03

one as we've heard? Yeah.

54:05

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, there you go. Yeah.

54:08

I don't want to take up your entire podcast

54:10

with me talking. That's why you're

54:12

here. We love hearing you talk. Yeah. Pacific

54:14

Drive is absolutely... Pacific Drive got me to

54:16

like a survival game when all I do

54:18

is ever, and my podcast complain about, I

54:20

don't want to chop another tree down in

54:23

my life. Ever. I may look like

54:25

a lumberjack, doesn't mean I want to go out there and try a tree.

54:28

And I'm telling you, I

54:30

was chopping a car door

54:32

off, but it was really a tree, just

54:34

made of metal. That is really what it

54:36

is. And the atmosphere and the delivery of

54:39

that game is so primo

54:41

in what I like. I'm a

54:43

fan of like sci-fi, fringe, SCP,

54:46

all that kind of stuff. And that game,

54:49

it's gorgeous. It's

54:52

weird. It's like a

54:54

survival game that has a car. And weirdly enough,

54:56

I said there should be a pet the car

54:58

button on the game because I truly believe it's

55:01

like a steed. It's like a horse. It's got

55:03

loyalty, which is all your car to you. Yeah.

55:05

Yeah. It's like pet. Good job, buddy. It's good.

55:08

Did you guys play it? I

55:10

have... This game does

55:12

not like my super ultrawide monitor at

55:15

all. I'm having a hard time getting

55:18

it to play nicely with my monitor. So

55:20

I have not really delved into it, but I'm

55:22

excited to because it seems like my jam. This

55:25

is weird hybrid of like a roguelike, but like

55:28

driving game. I don't know. It seems very

55:31

wild. Yeah. Yeah. It's very good.

55:33

You should check it out if you get a chance.

55:35

Okay. That specific drive. I

55:38

know that both of you guys, Christian and

55:40

Carrick both, have the

55:42

rise of the Ronin on

55:44

your playlist. Carrick, did you

55:46

finish this one this week? I think you said

55:48

you were intending to. Yeah. Yeah. I'm finished

55:50

with it, but I'll let Christian go. I

55:53

don't want to... I don't want to... Please.

55:55

I want to know your thoughts

55:57

on it, but I'm happy to dip my toe in

55:59

first. Um, Jeff, we talked

56:01

about our preview impressions when those were

56:03

allowed to be discussed. Um, and we

56:06

can talk more in depth about the

56:08

game now. I

56:10

unfortunately did not love Rise of the

56:12

Ronin. Rise of the Ronin to

56:15

me feels like

56:18

a very solid six

56:20

to seven game if I'm using

56:23

the full 10 point spectrum and

56:25

not a more fun than it

56:27

is good seven. It's

56:30

more of a, the pieces never

56:32

came together in a way that

56:34

made all of them interesting

56:37

or, or necessary for

56:39

this delicious pie. Like there's some

56:41

really cool things that you can

56:44

really wait, you know, get into and the

56:46

combat we talked about during the preview, like

56:48

that could be the thing that could carry

56:50

you through the game. And I think that

56:53

combat, especially in some of

56:55

the boss fights is the thing

56:57

that is the banner that's what you hang

56:59

your hat on. That's what, you know, you come

57:01

to the game for, I think, but that

57:05

alone isn't enough when there are

57:07

so many games that do incredible

57:11

Perry time-based

57:14

stamina based combat. I don't want to say

57:16

souls like, cause this isn't a full souls

57:18

like combat, but it's enough

57:21

of that type of combat that we've

57:23

seen before. And I don't think

57:25

rise of the Ronin does it the best. And

57:28

then it adds in a bunch of other

57:30

things to the game that I think kind

57:32

of detract from that core

57:34

thesis. It's team

57:36

ninjas first open world game. And

57:39

I think a lot of that detracts from that

57:42

mainline combat. I'm getting better.

57:44

I the player I'm getting

57:46

better as I engage in

57:48

these mechanics with a

57:52

kind of, I think lost

57:55

choose your own adventure. Somewhat

57:58

both sides is I'm telling. of

58:00

this real period in history that

58:03

allows the character player as a

58:05

silent protagonist to choose different paths,

58:08

but at least in my save scumming

58:10

and coming back, they all kind of

58:12

come back to major points here and

58:15

there without having super

58:17

weighty options

58:20

for folks or some. But

58:22

in the open world map, I think is a

58:25

little tedious. There were moments where I was just

58:27

trying to really explore that open world area, and

58:30

the game essentially told me like, hey, you're not

58:32

going to get anything else by doing this. You

58:35

know, everybody likes you here. You did it. You

58:37

chose the thing. You did the thing. But there

58:39

were still several things to do in that area.

58:41

So that felt weird. It

58:43

just felt like the things didn't quite

58:47

come together, and it had all these

58:49

pieces that in

58:52

other games work better. And

58:55

then that combined with the game

58:57

not looking extraordinary

58:59

either, be it the

59:01

animations or just the raw image on screen,

59:04

I felt like I could

59:06

be getting a better experience playing another

59:08

game. So I kind of just

59:10

felt, it's not bad, but

59:12

I just kind of felt like, yeah, it's a

59:15

game. So I walked

59:18

away from it nonplussed, I

59:20

think. It's not bad. I just didn't love

59:22

it. Carrick,

59:25

what was your feeling about Rise of the Rondin? Do you agree

59:27

or do you like it a little more or less? Yeah, no,

59:29

I agree. It reminds me of like when you're... And

59:33

this is weird because Dragon's Dogma developers

59:35

talked about the trinity of like how you put

59:37

together your atmosphere, how you deliver it, and then

59:39

the gameplay. And I would

59:42

say that it reminds me of like those games

59:44

or like a slider on a face where you're

59:46

sliding your little thing around to indicate like, I

59:49

want the nose to be bigger or I want it

59:51

to be fatter. I want it to be skinnier.

59:53

This game doesn't know where to go, really. It's

59:55

just sort of lost sometimes in that slider. It's

59:57

like sometimes the gameplay takes sort of

59:59

center. stage, but then it backs away

1:00:02

really quickly. And then it reminds

1:00:04

me of lone wolf or choose your own adventure

1:00:07

where no matter what your 350 is the page

1:00:09

you go to. Like if you want to read

1:00:11

it, you always know what page and

1:00:13

they do two things incredibly well and

1:00:15

should be done by every time. And

1:00:17

this is not hyperbole. This

1:00:20

is what Outcast did well the remake their

1:00:22

glossary system outcast is a little better if

1:00:24

you hold a trigger while people are saying

1:00:26

words they pop up but Rise of the

1:00:28

Rhone and has a really incredible you can

1:00:30

dive in and read more and all

1:00:32

that kind of stuff and I love those the Edo

1:00:34

period is fascinating to me. So that kind

1:00:36

of stuff. Incredible. The bond

1:00:38

system is also the idea

1:00:41

behind it is incredible. I

1:00:43

love those kinds of things in open world

1:00:45

games there. That is what makes it and

1:00:47

it's why I like to pawns because they

1:00:49

have a bond system. When

1:00:52

an open world game comes out it can't just be

1:00:54

an open world. It doesn't make

1:00:56

sense anymore. We're past that. We're so far past

1:00:58

that in games and they tried a lot of

1:01:00

stuff. But my idea is I would love to

1:01:03

see them join like from soft and then join

1:01:05

up and like try to figure out a way

1:01:07

to do a weird open

1:01:09

world and then their combat. And instead

1:01:12

what we got is something that feels

1:01:14

very close to Dynasty Warriors plus it

1:01:16

is a very close. There's

1:01:19

something about it that felt like Dynasty Warriors could

1:01:21

just be that the horses looked like they really

1:01:23

need a vet visit through the entire

1:01:26

time you're playing Rides of the Rhone and you're like something's

1:01:28

wrong with this horse man. Like you know trigger needs to

1:01:30

be checked out

1:01:32

but it had great

1:01:35

combat sometimes but then it wasn't as complex

1:01:37

as I wanted sometimes. And this is the

1:01:39

big thing about being a reviewer man. I

1:01:41

will get people who play a game for

1:01:43

two hours and they'll be like Carrick you

1:01:45

didn't like this game or you did you

1:01:47

said wait which doesn't mean terrible. You

1:01:49

said wait I played two hours you're

1:01:51

wrong and I'm like come back after you've played 60

1:01:53

hours of this thing. That is

1:01:55

what happens with Rides of Rhone. You

1:01:58

can jump in there's some stuff. That's

1:02:00

good. And then it

1:02:02

really starts to sort of peel

1:02:04

away and become less and less.

1:02:07

Separate. Really less and less of it's own

1:02:09

thing, and more like these weird other parts of

1:02:11

other open world games that don't come together very

1:02:14

well. And he has a it's

1:02:16

they tried. It takes talent. Insane

1:02:19

talent to do this stuff and sometimes it takes to

1:02:21

try or to. Get yeah, it's

1:02:23

not a bad game, it just gets

1:02:25

in it's own way. Sometimes I think

1:02:28

some of the combat is at it's

1:02:30

best when it allows you to be

1:02:32

free and to glide and to a

1:02:35

horse to jump to have grappled to

1:02:37

a stealth kill. But those things aren't

1:02:39

always. Possible. And

1:02:41

it's at it's worst when you're in

1:02:44

a low raz. Room.

1:02:46

Fighting. A character about moves faster than

1:02:48

you and you and your other character your

1:02:51

co op part me to move fast and

1:02:53

the cameras constrained because the can't figure out

1:02:55

where to go in the roofs on fire

1:02:57

and everything and it's just. A

1:03:00

get to this own way. And so even

1:03:02

in it's combat, there are moments where the

1:03:04

game kind of. Can't figure out where

1:03:06

it's strengths are and I think I think

1:03:08

that's kind of a bummer. and I think

1:03:10

and and. Metaphor.

1:03:12

For I think the other issues I had with

1:03:14

the game or doesn't really cool things and then

1:03:17

you get on your horse to ride somewhere in

1:03:19

you click you are just click the button just

1:03:21

a ride me there is in the horse just

1:03:23

runs into a wall. And

1:03:26

that's all it does. And I'm I guess we're

1:03:28

not there horse. Yeah,

1:03:31

a restaurant ago. I'm yeah.

1:03:33

it's again. Yeah. I

1:03:36

don't have words. Rise of your loan and. I

1:03:38

want to ask person real creep, did you like the

1:03:40

cared for greater cause? I thought that was very good.

1:03:42

I doubt it sounds like a weird thing to pick

1:03:44

on, but I actually I enjoyed that character. Greater than

1:03:47

that the male female or well, I made. A. Man. I

1:03:50

I I like the character creator, but I

1:03:52

think the more time I spent with it,

1:03:54

the less I enjoyed it because my character

1:03:56

felt so empty. In. in the game like

1:03:58

he was cool the way i got to create them and

1:04:00

then that kind of doesn't pay

1:04:04

off, I guess, in a way in terms of like getting the gear

1:04:06

and you can keep the cool stuff on that

1:04:08

you want. And I like that. But the gear felt

1:04:10

random to me a little bit too, where I would

1:04:12

finish a mission without knowing that

1:04:14

this is what it was going to be. And

1:04:16

I was like, congratulations, you got this sword. I'm

1:04:18

like, well, I'm not that fighter. Yeah.

1:04:21

Yeah. Okay, thanks. Yeah. That's

1:04:25

what I wanted. Yeah. And on

1:04:27

the Unkeric and Christian's playlist,

1:04:30

Christian Spicer, you and I played a

1:04:32

game. I don't

1:04:34

know how it didn't make your top five of the year.

1:04:38

It was very high on my list

1:04:40

when it was originally released on PlayStation 5. But

1:04:43

now it has come out on

1:04:45

PC as Horizon Forbidden West Complete

1:04:47

Edition, including the DLC

1:04:49

pack. And it

1:04:52

is on PC and oh boy,

1:04:56

is the game a gorgeous

1:04:59

on the PC, especially if you're playing with beefy Jeepies

1:05:01

like we are. It

1:05:04

shipped supporting DLSS. You

1:05:10

could turn on the bells and whistles. It supports, as

1:05:13

I mentioned, my super ultra wide monitor. And

1:05:15

it's just one of

1:05:17

the most visually dazzling PC releases

1:05:19

I can point to. I mean,

1:05:22

this is a showpiece

1:05:24

of a PC release, Horizon

1:05:27

Forbidden West Complete Edition. As

1:05:29

I said, I think it was like my number two or three

1:05:31

on my list. Was it last year it

1:05:33

came out? Year before? Yeah.

1:05:36

2022 on that one. Year before. At

1:05:38

the time, it was a flat circle. Anyway,

1:05:41

what is your take on the Complete Edition

1:05:43

PC release of Horizon Forbidden West, Yeah,

1:05:46

for patrons, I put out, I was all on

1:05:48

my lonesome and I decided to put out a

1:05:50

let's play on Patreon. So I put up my

1:05:52

first hour on the on the PC version, kind

1:05:54

of walking through some of that DLSS 3.0 tech.

1:05:57

So folks could see that because we talk about it on the show a

1:05:59

lot. And we never haven't put out just

1:06:01

a little video for it I

1:06:05

mean it's stunning. It is absolutely stunning

1:06:07

and I think playing it

1:06:09

and We talked about this

1:06:11

with the first Horizon game

1:06:14

how it in my opinion is kind of

1:06:16

the best version of

1:06:18

the of the Generic quote

1:06:20

unquote open world video game, you know Like tears

1:06:23

of the kingdom did its own thing breath of

1:06:25

the wild Elden ring kind of did tweaks to

1:06:27

the formula But this idea of the open world

1:06:29

game that Ubisoft has done so well and so

1:06:32

many others have followed suit in I

1:06:34

think Gorilla and Horizon have mastered

1:06:37

and Having that now this

1:06:40

PC version that is just stunning that

1:06:42

I'm playing as I'm winding down Rise

1:06:44

of the Rhone in I'm like, oh

1:06:46

Oh, I see I see

1:06:49

differences I see how systems can work

1:06:51

together and reinforce a theme of

1:06:53

a game and how they can kind of feel disparate and

1:06:55

and Not really

1:06:57

cohesive but Horizon for Britain West

1:07:00

complete edition on PC with the

1:07:02

beefy GP I mean it's

1:07:04

stunning to be able to get all of the

1:07:06

bells and whistles and I

1:07:08

was running the LSS Three on

1:07:10

balanced is where I found my kind

1:07:13

of sweet spot and I was you

1:07:15

know over 90 frames per second everything

1:07:17

turned a very high It's

1:07:20

just so smooth and so fast

1:07:22

and having those combat encounters not

1:07:24

needing to pick between 30

1:07:27

frames or 60 frames the way you had to on ps5

1:07:31

Is absolutely stunning what I haven't gotten to Jeff and

1:07:33

I'm curious It may be on PC

1:07:35

will be the thing that will get you to finish burning

1:07:37

shores And I haven't got to

1:07:39

the burning shores part of the game yet

1:07:41

on PC Because that was

1:07:44

touted as needing the ps5, you know burning

1:07:46

shores is not available on ps4 And

1:07:49

I have a fast SSD and and everything

1:07:51

in my PC But I'm curious how it

1:07:54

the burning shores part of the game Runs

1:07:56

on PC and if it continues being incredible.

1:07:58

I mean, this is my My biggest

1:08:00

gripe is that there

1:08:03

is no cross progression on

1:08:06

for the PC version of any

1:08:08

of the Sony PC titles. They

1:08:10

really have approached this endeavor as

1:08:13

we're opening this up to a whole new audience,

1:08:15

not, hey, the same idiots that bought it on

1:08:17

PS4 and 5 are buying it again like this

1:08:20

idiot. But the- Do

1:08:22

you be clear, we got codes. Yeah, we didn't even have to buy

1:08:24

it, but you know what I'm saying. But

1:08:26

I turned this thing on and I was like, oh

1:08:28

my God, am I going to put 60 more hours into

1:08:31

this game again? Because

1:08:33

it's so beautiful and I just wanted

1:08:35

to keep playing, especially in the Super

1:08:37

Ultra Wide. It's

1:08:39

so, so stunning. And because

1:08:41

it supports DLSS, the

1:08:43

frame rate is silky smooth.

1:08:46

It's butter. It is

1:08:48

butter. I

1:08:50

mean, on PS5, I'm playing on

1:08:52

PS5 and making decisions on

1:08:55

whether I'm going to go frame

1:08:57

rate or gravity. PC,

1:08:59

and again, granted I have a very nice

1:09:02

GPU, but I don't

1:09:04

have to make those tradeoffs. I just get all

1:09:06

of it all the time with the buttery,

1:09:09

buttery frame rate on all the

1:09:11

ray tracing, gorgeous,

1:09:14

gorgeousness happening. And

1:09:16

I'm like, I want to play. So that

1:09:18

is my biggest gripe is that, yeah,

1:09:20

I want to finish the DLC and

1:09:22

now I have less inclination to play

1:09:24

on PS5, although it's sitting there on

1:09:26

my PS5 installed. But I

1:09:28

got to get to that point on the PC

1:09:31

version because I can't just bring my save over. So

1:09:34

I'm conflicted because I

1:09:37

could seriously just replay this whole game. I

1:09:39

played like the first two hours on

1:09:41

PC and went, I just

1:09:43

want to keep playing this. It's so fun.

1:09:47

I love taking down robot

1:09:49

dinos. I love Aloy. I

1:09:52

love the world building. I love

1:09:54

all the costume design of the

1:09:57

world. I love everything

1:09:59

about. It just speaks to me.

1:10:01

I just it is one of my

1:10:03

favorite franchises that exists and

1:10:05

I am So

1:10:07

delighted with because I'll be frank and if

1:10:10

people remember I said it at the time

1:10:12

the PC version of the first Horizon game

1:10:15

Not good when it was released if they patched

1:10:17

it and they patched it heavily

1:10:19

to make it acceptable, but boy

1:10:22

it was Very problematic

1:10:24

when it first released on PC not

1:10:26

so with the sequel for it Forbidden

1:10:28

West Came out the

1:10:30

gate on my PC rocking Beautiful

1:10:32

no issues. No complaints other than

1:10:35

I wish it would let me Take

1:10:38

my save over it links to the to

1:10:40

the PlayStation to your PlayStation ID So

1:10:42

I'm like just let me pull my save data over

1:10:45

come on That's

1:10:48

a big the biggest a bummer but easy

1:10:50

to recommend this especially if you don't have a PlayStation

1:10:52

5 if you do have a PC Especially

1:10:54

if you have a nice PC with a nice GPU in

1:10:57

it it is

1:10:59

really going to melt

1:11:01

your eyeballs and It's

1:11:03

just a game. I love so

1:11:06

and a question a few folks were asking

1:11:08

me was Did you just jump in

1:11:10

to this game to yeah Forbidden West? I

1:11:13

say no I think you start

1:11:15

with the first game because this game

1:11:17

is a narrative. It is the Empire

1:11:19

Strikes Back It is a direct sequel

1:11:21

you continue to have great relationships with

1:11:23

characters You've met in the first game

1:11:26

the world exists off of the first

1:11:28

games reveals. Is it needed? No,

1:11:30

you can watch Empire. You can skip a new hope

1:11:32

and just watch Empire But I think that they also

1:11:34

have a like a little catch you up cutscene at

1:11:36

the beginning, which is nice yeah,

1:11:38

you can but I feel like the

1:11:41

PC version of Horizon

1:11:44

the first game is good now and

1:11:46

also cheap that I think you should

1:11:48

start with that and the mechanics are

1:11:50

fairly similar And then

1:11:52

by the time you finish that and you're ready for Forbidden West

1:11:54

it also will be cheap. I Want

1:11:58

to disagree with any of that I think you're You're

1:12:00

absolutely right story wise, it is the continuation

1:12:02

and you had some cool twists at the

1:12:04

end of the first game that are paid

1:12:06

off and continued here. That said,

1:12:09

you won't be lost. You can certainly jump in

1:12:11

and have a great time. The game

1:12:13

does catch you up at the beginning with a

1:12:15

cutscene that's like the story so far, which

1:12:18

is by the way, my only other annoyance with

1:12:21

this game is on skippable. Why?

1:12:24

Why? Especially if you've

1:12:26

the game has been out for two years on

1:12:28

another platform. Unskippable

1:12:30

beginning cuts, five

1:12:32

minute beginning cutscene. Let me

1:12:34

get behind the scenes. They're probably

1:12:37

probably doing stuff you think

1:12:39

some compiling things. Well, the decimae engine, first

1:12:41

of all, is incredible. It's unbelievable. They did

1:12:44

the first one like I covered it in

1:12:46

multiple videos and I've done a walk in

1:12:48

the walk for Verizon Forbidden West at burning

1:12:50

shores works fine on the PS five or

1:12:52

the the PC, by the way, even with

1:12:54

a slower SSD. We all know the old

1:12:56

SSD trick the wink. Yeah, only

1:12:59

only available on the PS five.

1:13:01

Sure, it is because it's only made on the

1:13:03

PS five at this exact time. But

1:13:05

the game is phenomenal. It is basically Bob

1:13:08

Ross and dinosaurs and neon.

1:13:11

It's it's fantastic. That game is awesome.

1:13:13

That entire series is awesome. You know,

1:13:16

sad about Lance Reddick because like he's

1:13:18

a phenomenal actor, but he's in there

1:13:20

too. So if you want to see a good actor,

1:13:22

good acting versus Dragon Dogma, you know,

1:13:24

40 FPS in a city.

1:13:29

There you go. I mean, yeah,

1:13:31

Dragon's Dogma is not an unattractive

1:13:33

game, but compared to But it

1:13:36

ain't come on. Yeah,

1:13:38

you got the honest end. They

1:13:40

feel generationally different. Agreed.

1:13:43

The Sony Santa Monica,

1:13:45

Naughty Dog, Gorilla,

1:13:49

Gorilla, and it sucker punch. You go

1:13:51

to Sashima. I'm totally blanking. Yeah, sucker

1:13:53

punch sucker punch. I mean,

1:13:55

tier of the round. How can

1:13:57

we say technically Finn? Studios

1:14:00

now that they patched up days gone on the PC.

1:14:02

Yeah, there's I can't wait to see what they do

1:14:04

next I didn't like that game,

1:14:06

but I when you look at it technically

1:14:08

now Yeah, oh yeah pretty phenomenal, you

1:14:11

know on some of their 100 zombies running out.

1:14:13

Yeah. Yeah, it's not easy to do I mean

1:14:15

it looked better than state of decay state of

1:14:17

decay is like Dragon's dogma

1:14:19

versus you know Sometimes

1:14:23

agree All

1:14:25

right Christian you have something else on your playlist as well, right?

1:14:28

Yeah speaking of huge differences So I talked

1:14:30

about it a few weeks ago that I

1:14:32

was running a lot of my wheel still

1:14:34

set up behind me of Grand Theresa's most

1:14:36

seven in VR and running specifically Willow

1:14:38

Springs International Raceway Because

1:14:41

I was going to go to Willow Springs. This

1:14:43

would be my first opportunity to from

1:14:45

the screen to real

1:14:48

life Track to track have that

1:14:50

experience. I played a lot of Racing

1:14:52

games in my life that kid in the

1:14:54

movie in the Grand Tour You know movie

1:14:56

like the kid in the movie if only

1:14:58

someone learned to play from video games and

1:15:01

then crashed a car into a wall No, um, and

1:15:03

they got to take their skills to realize this is

1:15:05

my I had track time a lot

1:15:08

of track time in real life Before and a lot of track

1:15:10

time in video games, but I've never done the real like I

1:15:12

was doing it in game Now I'm doing it in real life,

1:15:14

right? Part of the reason why I

1:15:16

was snacking as we started this episode is I'm

1:15:19

Literally back like as we

1:15:22

started this episode fresh back from Willow Springs.

1:15:24

I got up at it was today It

1:15:26

was today got up at 450 this morning drove

1:15:29

to the track Had a bunch

1:15:31

of track sessions Came back

1:15:34

recording this show and it

1:15:36

is incredible to me how

1:15:38

accurate Video games can

1:15:40

be I racing all that stuff people like yeah,

1:15:42

we know there's again. There's a video. There's a

1:15:44

movie about it but playing

1:15:47

it in PSVR 2 and

1:15:49

getting familiar with the track in

1:15:51

a way and then going

1:15:53

there today having never been to this track

1:15:55

in real life Never set foot in this

1:15:57

track and immediately knowing what? I

1:16:00

want to try to do going

1:16:02

off turn three into four and five and coming

1:16:04

around and how I want to tackle turns eight

1:16:06

into nine. And when I can hit that apex

1:16:08

and come out of it. And yes, it's different

1:16:10

because I'm feeling the G's my butt

1:16:12

in the seat. And it's different to know like,

1:16:14

I'm gonna lose the rear, I'm gonna lose the

1:16:16

rear in real life when you're like, you're

1:16:19

actually there. And you lose the rear

1:16:21

in the car, dress farther than

1:16:24

you want to versus in a game where you can't

1:16:26

quite feel when it's gonna unlock on

1:16:28

you. But just an

1:16:30

absolutely incredible experience. And I

1:16:34

recommend it to anyone if you have a track that

1:16:36

is in a video game near

1:16:38

you, I cannot recommend

1:16:41

more highly going to that track in real

1:16:43

life, even if you're not going to whatever

1:16:45

it is rent a car, find a club,

1:16:47

a race day sometimes. Yeah, you can take

1:16:49

whatever you can take your you know, your

1:16:51

suburban out there, you know, like anything odd.

1:16:54

These tracks just came out. Yeah,

1:16:56

you just come out and it's you know, they do it in

1:16:58

a safe way, or go with an

1:17:00

instructor and to experience that video

1:17:03

game to real life transition.

1:17:05

It's it's one of life's pure

1:17:08

joys, in my opinion, being able to do this

1:17:10

recreated talk to you, man, because as somebody who

1:17:12

like that's what I do with all my cars

1:17:14

whenever we get them is like we

1:17:16

got a G 70 twin turbo. It's not

1:17:18

not a sporty car, but it's fun enough

1:17:21

and take down the track and then go

1:17:23

play forza play gt seven you

1:17:25

throw you find one of those cars that's even

1:17:27

even somewhat close to it and you're like, Oh,

1:17:29

whoa, I could probably improve my real my

1:17:32

real time, you know, race times on this

1:17:34

thing. It's it is stunning how close tracks

1:17:36

are and how accurate some of these are

1:17:38

now. That's awesome. Do that. And

1:17:40

it's I love it because I love video games so much. And

1:17:42

I feel like I'm never going to

1:17:45

play NBA 2k24 and then go that's

1:17:47

how I feel about NBA 2k24 throw

1:17:49

some hoops on the end. This is

1:17:51

like exactly how it feels to be

1:17:53

Steph Curry. Oh, he

1:17:55

passes the ball. Don't pass Jeff the body goes

1:17:58

left stick right stick. Oh, yeah. And

1:18:00

again, it's not there are like $50,000 sim things

1:18:05

that are pretty much exactly one to one, but just

1:18:07

a even a dual sense

1:18:09

and what is available in your

1:18:12

consumer grade Racing game are

1:18:14

so good now and I think it's such

1:18:16

a cool opportunity again to see video

1:18:19

game to real life in such a fun

1:18:21

way and showing the passion of these developers

1:18:23

and what they bring home to people in

1:18:26

These video games because again, I can't play dragons dogma

1:18:28

to and then go out and go to my

1:18:30

children Which

1:18:37

is another fun part of video games is living out

1:18:39

that fantasy that you could never have in real life

1:18:42

But right I think being able to see that recreation

1:18:45

the simulation Yeah, yeah, it's

1:18:47

just it's absolutely incredible and it

1:18:49

was very cool to go to this place I had never

1:18:52

been to in real life and been like I've

1:18:54

been to Pandora. I know that crack in

1:18:56

the sidewalk. Oh, absolutely Overshot

1:18:59

that turned seven just like I did in

1:19:01

the video game Wow Awesome

1:19:05

Wow you guys great stuff in both

1:19:07

of your playlists I you know, we

1:19:10

talked about some really excellent games some

1:19:12

really fun games I'm

1:19:14

about to go a little nuts About

1:19:17

a game that I have just discovered it

1:19:19

just was released on PC evidently has been

1:19:21

out on Android for some

1:19:24

time now I

1:19:26

do not have any Android devices. So I did

1:19:28

not know about this game. I Randomly

1:19:31

downloaded it because it

1:19:33

was like suggested in my based on

1:19:35

things I like Well, let me

1:19:37

tell you ladies and gentlemen, this might

1:19:39

be my game of the year like

1:19:43

bar none Right

1:19:45

now and it is, you

1:19:47

know, I've talked about these like Pure

1:19:50

mechanic games that I fall in love with

1:19:53

that are on my Mount Rushmore games

1:19:55

like Slay the Spire and vampire

1:19:59

survivor Balatro

1:20:01

was just in that

1:20:03

Pantheon for me. Like this just, this

1:20:06

doesn't come around but

1:20:08

once every few years for me.

1:20:10

And yet we're having back to

1:20:12

back moments where Balatro has just

1:20:15

ate my life. But I imagine

1:20:17

there are some of you out there who are

1:20:19

like, Balatro, I've heard Jeff rave about Balatro. I've

1:20:21

heard him say, you gotta try it. Just

1:20:24

not into cards. There's

1:20:26

nothing exciting to me about looking

1:20:28

at simulated poker hands. Like maybe

1:20:30

it's addictive, maybe it's great. I

1:20:34

want some theme, some theme.

1:20:38

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I

1:20:40

bring you my latest

1:20:43

concentrated addiction in

1:20:45

the form of a game called

1:20:47

Slice and Dice. I

1:20:52

can't express to you how

1:20:54

much I love this game. So

1:20:56

this is, I think made by a

1:20:58

single person. It is

1:21:00

a very simplistic, pure

1:21:03

fighting experience. But

1:21:06

it is wrapped in a classic Dungeons and

1:21:08

Dragons type theme where

1:21:13

you've got classes of characters going

1:21:15

up against classic monsters, goblins

1:21:17

and all kinds of stuff like that. What

1:21:21

you are doing is you are rolling

1:21:23

dice and then applying those

1:21:25

dice to the bad guys. That

1:21:28

is the entire game. Each character

1:21:30

in your party is represented by

1:21:33

a single die in

1:21:35

your hand. You have a

1:21:37

group of adventurers in your

1:21:39

party. Therefore you have a

1:21:41

group of dice. You roll those virtual dice

1:21:43

at the beginning of each round and

1:21:46

those dice come up on various sides.

1:21:48

The sides of those, these are all

1:21:50

D6s. So it's not

1:21:52

even like D20s or crazy Dungeons

1:21:55

and Dragons type dice. It's all D6s. Each

1:21:58

side of that dice, the face. of

1:22:00

that die will

1:22:04

trigger some sort of

1:22:06

effect, some sort of

1:22:10

attack or defense or magic, some

1:22:12

thing that you would expect from

1:22:14

a fantasy

1:22:16

fighting game. The

1:22:20

thing that's so brilliant about slice

1:22:22

and dice is how

1:22:24

much control it

1:22:26

allows the player and still

1:22:29

create something challenging, interesting,

1:22:31

and addictive. Because

1:22:34

the first thing that's brilliant is

1:22:36

how a six-sided die

1:22:39

can convey a class

1:22:43

in a video game. So there

1:22:46

are dozens of classes to unlock

1:22:48

in slice and dice. And again,

1:22:50

each of them is just

1:22:53

the six sides of a die. And

1:22:56

sometimes one or

1:22:58

more of those sides will do

1:23:00

nothing at all, will just be

1:23:02

a dead side of the die.

1:23:09

Usually when that's the case, the other

1:23:11

sides are very powerful, but it's creating

1:23:13

a situation where it's less likely for

1:23:15

the good sides to come up. But

1:23:17

you're always allowed up to two re-rolls

1:23:19

per turn. So

1:23:23

you always have the ability to re-roll. You can

1:23:25

also always undo. You can undo

1:23:28

to your heart's content. The

1:23:30

amount of power it gives the

1:23:32

player is really wonderful. It doesn't

1:23:35

intend to be punitive in your decision-making.

1:23:37

It wants you to make the best

1:23:39

decisions you can every turn. But

1:23:42

so when you unlock

1:23:44

a new class, it'll show you

1:23:47

the six-sided die kind of unfolded

1:23:50

like you would like a

1:23:52

paper craft cube. It's showing

1:23:54

you all the sides of

1:23:56

the die. And

1:23:58

each of those squares is

1:24:00

the amount

1:24:03

of variety that they come up with what you can

1:24:05

do. Some things are as simple as like it does

1:24:07

three damage, or it does two damage,

1:24:09

or it does three defense, or

1:24:12

it'll allow you to dodge or something

1:24:14

like that. But then it gets more

1:24:16

and more interesting and complex and layers

1:24:18

on abilities. And there's an entire magic

1:24:20

system where some dice just open up,

1:24:22

give you mana that you can then

1:24:24

apply to magical spells that are unlocked

1:24:27

from different classes. But

1:24:29

fundamentally, what's happening is you

1:24:31

are rolling dice, and you

1:24:33

are trying to decide how you

1:24:37

are going to apply what you have rolled

1:24:39

to the bad guys. So you've got a

1:24:41

group of bad guys, a group of your

1:24:43

party. You know exactly what

1:24:45

the bad guys are going to do every

1:24:47

turn. It shows you what

1:24:49

they rolled and who they're going to

1:24:51

attack. And before those attacks go

1:24:53

off, you have the opportunity to try to

1:24:55

kill them or stop

1:24:58

their attack or defend yourself so it

1:25:01

mitigates the damage that they're doing. It

1:25:03

gives you all the information that you

1:25:05

want. You can work out

1:25:07

an entire system of how you're going to

1:25:09

apply your dice, undo all of it, any

1:25:12

portion of it, reapply it. It gives you

1:25:14

complete freedom as to how you're going to

1:25:16

do it. But it

1:25:18

keeps ramping up the challenge because

1:25:21

the bad guys' attacks get more and more

1:25:23

potent and more and more powerful and cooler.

1:25:28

Do you see the bad guys' roll? You

1:25:30

do see their roll. You see their

1:25:32

roll. You see what comes up. You can look

1:25:34

at their dice because each

1:25:36

of the classes of bad guy

1:25:39

like Ogre and Giant and Demon

1:25:41

and whatever, you

1:25:44

can see all of their

1:25:46

dice. Their class basically

1:25:48

is a die as well. And you can see what

1:25:50

their die has on it. And you can see how

1:25:52

likely it is that the thing that comes up is

1:25:54

going to come up, et cetera, et cetera. And

1:25:58

you are trying. trying

1:26:00

to plan out trying to maximize

1:26:04

your efficiency and you know

1:26:06

it's a roguelike so you're trying to get through

1:26:08

20 battles and

1:26:10

they're just getting harder and harder and harder

1:26:12

but you are also leveling up as you

1:26:15

go so you get now and this is

1:26:17

the coolest thing about this game is you

1:26:19

get you start with whatever your

1:26:21

party is certain

1:26:23

classes level up into other classes works kind

1:26:25

of like Dragon's Dogma to where you start

1:26:27

with very base classes and then you you

1:26:30

get these subclasses that are more and more

1:26:32

specialized and more and more powerful so

1:26:35

you are as you

1:26:38

know you complete a battle sometimes that battle

1:26:40

results in you being able to level up

1:26:43

choose between two classes that will transform

1:26:45

a die into a different die to

1:26:47

a different class and you can peruse

1:26:49

those and go oh my gosh look

1:26:51

at the cool stuff I get look

1:26:53

at this amazing stuff or when you

1:26:55

finish a battle you may get the

1:26:58

opportunity to get an item now

1:27:00

an item transforms

1:27:04

one of your die in some way

1:27:06

so you'll recall I mentioned that

1:27:08

sometimes you'll have a class that's super powerful but

1:27:10

I'll have a blank side and you can roll

1:27:12

your dice you get a blank side you're like

1:27:14

ah it doesn't do anything reroll ah I didn't

1:27:17

do anything reroll ah I didn't do anything ah

1:27:19

no I

1:27:21

didn't get anything out of that turn well

1:27:23

you can get items that replace

1:27:27

sides of the die so you

1:27:29

can put on like replace

1:27:31

out those blank sides so you

1:27:34

can like buff out your character

1:27:36

and it effectively does buff them

1:27:38

out because now you're not rolling

1:27:40

blanks anymore you're just getting cool

1:27:43

stuff every time and some of

1:27:45

the items will only

1:27:47

replace the side like when

1:27:49

you unfold that paper craft and you look

1:27:51

at it all unfolded it'll only replace the

1:27:53

very right hand one or the very left

1:27:55

hand one or the very tight one so

1:27:57

you have to like apply it strategically where

1:28:00

your blanks are or where your

1:28:02

underpowered sides are. So there's all

1:28:05

these wonderful, juicy decisions that you

1:28:07

get to make as you

1:28:09

level up through this roguelike progression. And

1:28:12

just like Vampire Survivor and

1:28:15

Slay the Spire and all these other games that

1:28:17

I think this game belongs in the Pantheon with.

1:28:21

You are just unlocking a

1:28:23

almost bottomless well of awesome.

1:28:26

There is every single

1:28:28

thing feels rad. You

1:28:31

get there's tons of achievements, there's tons of

1:28:34

you look at the menu and

1:28:36

it shows you just this

1:28:39

dozens and dozens and dozens

1:28:41

of unlocked or not unlocked, still

1:28:43

locked, I guess is the term classes.

1:28:47

But also the game says, hey, do you want to

1:28:49

just push a button and unlock everything? We'll let you do

1:28:51

that. If that's the way you want to play, just unlock

1:28:53

everything right off the top. It

1:28:55

just gives the player complete

1:28:58

freedom. Do you

1:29:00

play this how you want to play it? Don't

1:29:03

feel bad ever about mistakes. It's going

1:29:05

to be hard. There's

1:29:08

tons of modes. There's tons

1:29:10

of difficulty levels. I crushed the normal

1:29:12

difficulty level. The first time I played it,

1:29:14

I got through. Yeah, you did. You're so

1:29:16

good. No, normal difficulty. I was like, I

1:29:18

got through all twenty fights. And I was

1:29:21

like, oh, I'm loving this. I

1:29:23

absolutely adore this game, but I just beat

1:29:25

it on my first. No, dude, that's

1:29:28

the beginning. That was that was like,

1:29:30

welcome to the addiction, my friend. That's

1:29:33

the Fortnite letting you get a victory

1:29:35

royale on your foot. Yeah, we're throwing

1:29:37

some bots in, but not really making

1:29:39

it clear. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm in.

1:29:44

Because I went to the entire twenty level thing without

1:29:46

knowing there was even a magic system in the game.

1:29:49

Because then it's like, he's like, you want to you

1:29:51

want to play hard next? I'm like, oh, yeah, hard.

1:29:53

Okay. Well, hard, you're going to choose a curse to

1:29:55

start. And the curses are brutal.

1:29:59

And. But then it's like well, there's

1:30:01

a magic system now So some some

1:30:04

classes just give you magic spells that you

1:30:06

can use you have to earn mana and

1:30:08

apply mana It's like oh my god, there's

1:30:11

layers and layers and layers of new mechanical

1:30:16

Systems that interact This

1:30:19

game is very special very special slice

1:30:22

and dice is what it's called I Cannot

1:30:26

recommend it higher. It's nine dollars

1:30:30

Steam and again, I think it's

1:30:32

been available for a long time on Android I

1:30:35

it's the first time I've known about it. My only

1:30:38

gripe about this game is It

1:30:41

doesn't play super nice with

1:30:44

steam deck. I played it mostly on to a

1:30:46

deck Not

1:30:48

that it like doesn't work it works fine. It's

1:30:50

you know, it's all Pixel

1:30:53

or it's not pushing the steam deck

1:30:55

part at all. It's just

1:30:57

that it doesn't Like you

1:30:59

can play it touchscreen Because it

1:31:01

was an old Android game or

1:31:03

you can play virtual mouse So,

1:31:06

you know how the steam deck has like a the

1:31:09

thumb touchpad that works like a mouse what

1:31:11

it doesn't let you do is use the

1:31:13

sticks or the d-pad

1:31:16

to just Select

1:31:18

things. Yeah, which is a bummer

1:31:20

like that's how I want to play it on steam deck

1:31:22

I that's I want to just like tab

1:31:24

over to the thing press the button Can't

1:31:27

you got to use a virtual mouse

1:31:29

to scroll the little cursor over which

1:31:32

hey Didn't stop me from putting in many

1:31:34

hours of this game on steam deck I

1:31:37

just hope that it'll

1:31:40

be patched to better support

1:31:42

it in the way I'd prefer And

1:31:44

I think people are probably gonna write in and tell me

1:31:46

oh you can go in on the back end on steam

1:31:48

deck and like Trick the game into

1:31:51

working that way. I just haven't

1:31:53

done that. So maybe you can either

1:31:56

way I wish it just automatically had that

1:31:58

ability to do but Minor what

1:32:01

is what is a stellar nine

1:32:03

dollar game? What Android phone

1:32:05

did you just buy? Yeah,

1:32:07

dude Anyway

1:32:12

that is slice and dice and It

1:32:15

is like between that

1:32:17

and Bellatro. I mean who has time for Dragons

1:32:20

dogma to you know exactly to just

1:32:22

swallow my life these games Well

1:32:24

more and more And

1:32:26

I haven't talked a lot more Final Fantasy

1:32:29

7 rebirth yet I hope to talk about

1:32:31

it again, but that also has

1:32:33

a very good Mini

1:32:36

game in it and I feel like someone's

1:32:38

gonna put slice and dice like the Witcher

1:32:40

had it's like Gwent and that that's the

1:32:42

Fear is that Dragons dogma too is going

1:32:44

to have Bellatro in it, you know Yeah,

1:32:47

yeah, I don't know about you guys, but

1:32:49

yaka's is the same way With

1:32:52

the minigames is and there's something

1:32:54

magical something that was missing for example many

1:32:56

things were missing but starfield They don't have

1:32:58

a lot of the minigames that within the

1:33:01

universe things and I do feel that when

1:33:03

I get a big RPG And I'm

1:33:05

accustomed to yakuza or Final Fantasy with Queen's blood

1:33:07

I think was what it was called in front

1:33:09

of the new the card Yeah card game and the

1:33:11

others that exist in those I miss them and

1:33:14

it's funny that Jeff mentions this game I bought it by the

1:33:16

way Somebody

1:33:19

who loves TSR in the old days that dragon

1:33:21

dice which is sort of Really

1:33:23

sounds identical to this and then now you have like

1:33:25

dice thrown and these other Physical analog

1:33:27

games are like this people don't realize That's

1:33:30

an easy way to get somebody into D&D if

1:33:32

you like if you want to introduce somebody into

1:33:35

the mechanics of thinking and not

1:33:37

you know, not necessarily like See

1:33:40

it or the mind but be like hey, this

1:33:43

is your character and yeah I know it doesn't

1:33:45

make sense in Dragons dogma But what if you

1:33:47

were a dice some people can parse six-sided dice

1:33:49

much easier than me saying you're a warrior They're

1:33:51

like, well, I don't know what that means anybody

1:33:53

can swing a sword. You're like, oh, okay Yeah,

1:33:57

this is awesome. I bought it right away like this is my kind

1:33:59

of game I think you're gonna love it. That

1:34:01

looks awesome. I will. I mean,

1:34:03

it already is legitimately my kind of game. It's

1:34:05

so cool too, because immediately, you know, I go,

1:34:08

virtual dice. I want to feel dice. Right.

1:34:12

But then you go, well, this game, I mean, there is a

1:34:14

way to do it physically, but it really

1:34:16

does take advantage of its digitalness because

1:34:18

you're changing things in and

1:34:20

out. Switching out the dice face. Yeah,

1:34:22

it's really clever at how

1:34:25

it works. And it's just a brilliant, brilliant

1:34:27

design all the way around. So

1:34:29

yeah, another one I want

1:34:31

to add to the pile though, of minigames that I got

1:34:34

sucked into in

1:34:36

the context of a bigger game, Jedi survivor.

1:34:39

I really love that miniatures

1:34:42

game that's inside Jedi survivor. Super

1:34:44

fun. Imagine if

1:34:47

Midnight Sun had Marvel

1:34:49

Snap in it. You know, like, why, how was that?

1:34:52

How was Marvel Snap? Maybe Midnight Sun? Is that

1:34:54

what it is? Yeah. I

1:34:56

mean, Marvel have Marvel's, like, old timey

1:34:58

version of Marvel. Oh,

1:35:02

you know how the devs look and talk and they see

1:35:04

another company do it and they're like blah, blah, blah. Those

1:35:06

are the things I would love for them to do. The

1:35:09

open world stuff can get a little boring. You know, there's

1:35:11

times where they try to do stuff, but it's like, you

1:35:13

know what? If you grabbed a couple

1:35:15

minigames, throw them in there somewhere, you can sit down.

1:35:18

Every Assassin's Creed's had something. You

1:35:20

know, it's like those kind of things are awesome. Ben

1:35:22

West has a great one too. Yeah. I

1:35:25

just, I would like to see more do

1:35:27

it because there's something about the time waster

1:35:29

within the universe that feel, for example, fishing

1:35:31

is my jam, but not a fishing game.

1:35:34

I will, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I will

1:35:36

throw a rope into the water

1:35:38

and sit and listen to a podcast or Far

1:35:41

Cry. Well, you're not going to fly a fishing

1:35:43

game. But I'm not going to buy, a hunter

1:35:45

simulator I love, but yeah, overall I will never

1:35:47

do that. And so instead, I'm in

1:35:49

Assassin's Creed or I'm in Far Cry going, what in the

1:35:51

heck am I doing in here? I'll be

1:35:53

in there for 40 hours. I'll be like,

1:35:56

this is so weird. So I love the idea of.

1:36:00

Or I got attacked by a honey badger one of the two

1:36:02

if it's a far cry game. I'm sure I'm probably dead by

1:36:05

that Well, we

1:36:07

gotta have you back to talk about Tabletop

1:36:09

stuff cuz I know you had a bunch of tabletop stuff on here,

1:36:11

but we don't keep you any longer This has been so much fun

1:36:13

having you back on the show Yeah,

1:36:15

tell us tell us all about how we can

1:36:17

keep up with you and all the cool stuff you do online

1:36:20

Yeah, sure Jeremy Pinter on Twitter

1:36:23

and then angry centaur gaming which yes is

1:36:25

the old name when before I knew I was gonna

1:36:28

That was a that was a Xbox

1:36:30

profile name But that's the patron and

1:36:32

I do video game reviews as well

1:36:35

as twice a week podcasts where

1:36:37

we it's for friends None of them are influencers

1:36:39

other than me I just invited for

1:36:41

you know Three other friends on and like let's

1:36:43

talk about games and science and books and stuff

1:36:45

like that And that's that's pretty much what I

1:36:47

do right now. I'm trying to sort of branch

1:36:50

out, but right now It's been a it's

1:36:52

been an amazing time, and I'm excited for

1:36:54

a super busy year My hopes are we

1:36:56

have a couple unannounced games as

1:36:58

well. We'll have to see if that if that occurs very

1:37:01

cool Christian Spicer, what about you? Yeah?

1:37:03

What do you got going on this week? Well,

1:37:06

I have a newsletter where I write Conversational

1:37:09

pieces about video games you can

1:37:11

find on substack Christian Spicer dot

1:37:13

substack calm Usually

1:37:16

every other Friday this past Friday one did not come

1:37:18

out because I wrote three versions of it And I

1:37:20

was like these aren't fun. This isn't what I I

1:37:23

want. They're positive They're not all celebratory,

1:37:25

but like fun conversations about video games,

1:37:27

and I found myself not

1:37:30

enjoying Some games I

1:37:32

was playing and some media I was watching and I

1:37:34

wrote some things that I was like no one needs to

1:37:36

read these I don't need to put this out Into the

1:37:38

world so I didn't send one Then

1:37:41

that's perfectly okay, too And

1:37:45

then I'm on threads and

1:37:47

Instagram as Christian underscore Spicer

1:37:51

You can follow me on socials as Jeff

1:37:53

Kahn which which is spelled with two

1:37:56

n's and one T. I have other

1:37:58

shows including the fan controlled the

1:38:00

show, show about sports on the fan

1:38:02

controlled sports and entertainment network. I

1:38:04

also do We Have Concerns,

1:38:06

the comedy science show with

1:38:08

Anthony Carboni and the

1:38:10

film cast talking about movies and

1:38:13

TV shows. All of those are

1:38:15

available wherever you get podcasts, also

1:38:17

on YouTube and other places, you

1:38:19

know where to find stuff. Let's

1:38:22

wrap this show up now with

1:38:24

our parting gifts. Hey!

1:38:36

Eric, do you have a suggestion to help people get through

1:38:38

their week? Yeah. Go!

1:38:41

And find Travelers, the

1:38:43

TV show. I believe it's on Netflix.

1:38:46

One of the greatest sci-fi time travel TV shows

1:38:48

I've ever seen in my life, three episodes, or

1:38:50

three seasons. The guy from

1:38:52

Will and Grace can't remember his name, main

1:38:55

actor from that, about time travelers who go

1:38:57

back into the bodies of people who just

1:38:59

die and they're trying to stop a future

1:39:01

apocalypse. Fantastic. Also, ultimately depressing. Just want to

1:39:03

make sure everybody understands that. But as a

1:39:06

sci-fi fan, I love to suggest new sci-fi

1:39:08

shows to people. I think they're just

1:39:10

awesome when I can find a good one.

1:39:12

And this will be my sixth rewatch of

1:39:14

all three seasons. Wow. Awesome.

1:39:16

Yeah. It's a yeah, rewatch a lot of shows. Yeah,

1:39:20

that's a high praise indeed. I have not seen this.

1:39:22

I'll have to check it out. Travelers

1:39:24

on Netflix. Yeah, Netflix. Christian

1:39:27

Spicer, what's your parting gift? In

1:39:29

many ways, it feels like a rewatch, even though it is

1:39:31

brand new. X-Men 97 is out on Disney

1:39:35

Plus. I think the first two

1:39:37

episodes, the third one I think

1:39:39

comes out on Wednesday. I think

1:39:41

they're doing Wednesday releases for the

1:39:43

show. And it is a continuation

1:39:45

of the X-Men cartoon from 1997.

1:39:48

And that cartoon, the

1:39:51

original cartoon, I feel

1:39:53

like encapsulated so much of what's

1:39:55

cool about the X-Men back then

1:39:58

without overly re-rounding

1:40:00

the edges. The X-Men are

1:40:03

messy and complex, and

1:40:05

they have a continent on

1:40:07

Earth that they inhabit and they

1:40:09

own, and also space and all

1:40:11

this like big, broad, messy, silly

1:40:14

things, but also at its core,

1:40:16

it is very much about being

1:40:19

a minority, being an outcast, the

1:40:21

Holocaust, growing up as an outsider

1:40:23

for human beings told

1:40:26

through this metaphor, this lens

1:40:28

of mutant beings. And

1:40:30

then within that, interpersonal dynamics of a

1:40:32

team, be it a classroom, a sports

1:40:34

team, things that everyone can relate to.

1:40:37

And the fact that they did this so

1:40:40

well back in the late 90s

1:40:42

with that first X-Men cartoon, yes, it is