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I'm going to show you how to make a robot. This is a

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let's get started. Yeah,

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2:00

pod, but this show, the main show

2:02

DLC, it's the show all

2:04

about games and their many forms games

2:06

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2:09

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cardboard. I'm your host Jeff Kanata, the

2:13

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2:15

always by my friend slash co-host slash

2:19

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2:23

giving his daughter the gift of Netflix. Mr.

2:26

Christian Spicer. Hello Christian. Hello

2:29

Jeff. Hello everyone. Maybe you just came

2:31

back from your daughter's recital where she

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you ate a corn chowder soup and

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you're listening to this episode as you're

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recording it because you are one of

2:54

the hosts of it that might be

2:57

specific. Could be. That might be specific.

2:59

Maybe that's you. You joke that I'm too

3:01

specific, but there's some person out there who's

3:03

like I just did come from my daughter's

3:05

birthday party. Like they're doing

3:07

the show just for me and that's what I

3:09

go for in that moment. Somebody's like, Jared, Jared,

3:12

duck! This week is just

3:14

for me. It's

3:17

always just for you ladies and gentlemen. We're here just

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for you. We got a big show We got a

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fun stuff a lot of fun stuff to talk about

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some really cool games We're gonna get to some tabletop

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3:27

fun and we have an awesome guest to do all

3:29

that with you know the DLC Always stands

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but this week. Oh,

3:36

I'm excited because DLC stands

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for dimensional

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lines combined Because

3:44

that's a bit like a voxel and

3:46

we have the host of the voxel

3:48

show Max Neal joining us

3:50

for the first time. Hello max. How's it

3:52

going? Everyone? Glad to be here. Glad to

3:55

have you Yeah, you come highly recommended for

3:57

members of our audience who that's amazing had

3:59

a writing campaign to have me

4:01

reach out and meet you and

4:03

come to find out we live in the same

4:05

town. I know practically neighbors, right? Kind of wild.

4:08

Yeah. Beginning of a beautiful friendship. I

4:10

got to say you reached out and you know, we joke

4:12

kind of in the kind of creative space about like making

4:14

it like when have you made it? And honestly, I think

4:16

being on the podcast here has been like the moment where

4:18

I had to breathe

4:20

like ask myself like, oh my gosh, have I made

4:22

it? I could just quit today. Because that's what you

4:24

do at your peak, right? As you just... You

4:27

say that to all the podcasts. Also,

4:30

Max, you definitely don't quit at your peak because

4:32

Jeff and I are still doing it. So I

4:34

can tell you. Yeah. Yeah.

4:37

I'm stoked to have you, man. It's gonna be fun. Yeah.

4:40

It's gonna be a lot of fun. Let's dive right in.

4:43

We got a lot to get to. Let's start the show

4:45

the way we always do with Story of the Week. Story

4:47

of the Week

4:50

is the part of the show where

4:53

we make our case for the most

4:55

important stories that happened in the world of

4:57

games this week. You can always

4:59

submit stories for our consideration by sending

5:01

us an email to dlcfeedbackatgmail.com. That's also

5:04

where you can send comments, questions, advice,

5:08

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5:10

We love hearing from you, dlcfeedbackatgmail.com.

5:14

But that's not the only way. You can

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also hang out in our Discord, which is

5:18

5x5DLC on Discord. Great

5:20

folks hanging out, talking about all sorts of stuff. And

5:23

why not? Why not join

5:25

the Discord? It's good times. But

5:27

Max, you are our guest, so you get first pick of

5:30

Story. Which would you

5:32

consider to be your Story of the

5:34

Week? Yeah. It has to

5:36

be the threat to democracy. I think

5:38

that that erupted the last couple of

5:40

days here. We're talking about Helldivers 2.

5:44

Man, I've been playing the game for a

5:46

while, pretty much since launch, because I loved the original. It

5:48

was absolutely fantastic. And of course, we all know that Helldivers

5:50

2 kind of exploded on the scene and became

5:53

very popular, incredibly popular. But

5:56

a couple days ago, there

5:58

was an announcement. posted by,

6:00

I think it was the Helldivers Twitter

6:03

account, if I'm not mistaken, via Sony.

6:05

I guess they were kind

6:07

of sending

6:09

Sony's message along explaining that players

6:11

are going to have to create

6:14

and connect a PlayStation Network

6:16

account. If they don't have one already, they can

6:18

create one for free, but they have to connect

6:20

it by June 4th or lose

6:22

access to being

6:25

able to play Helldivers too. And

6:29

I'm kind of in awe of this

6:31

decision. It's perhaps not terribly surprising from

6:34

Sony's perspective that they want this, but

6:36

what has happened because of this is

6:39

there are many, many,

6:41

many, many, many countries in the

6:43

world that are basically forbidden from

6:45

creating PlayStation Network accounts. And so

6:47

players in these countries who can't

6:50

create a PlayStation Network account will not be able to

6:52

continue to play the game that they spent, what was

6:54

it? 30, 30 bucks, 40

6:56

bucks on release, something like that, right? It was pretty

6:58

cheap. It's 170 countries

7:00

just to be precise.

7:03

Yes. Unbelievable. And so,

7:06

of course, as a result of this, or, you know,

7:08

the, the, many

7:10

players and many people, presumably that

7:12

didn't review the game prior to

7:14

this, have gone and review bombed

7:17

Helldivers 2 on Steam. 211,000 negative

7:19

reviews in the last three days.

7:24

211,000. That is

7:28

just mind blowing. Mind

7:30

blowing. Most games would be thrilled with that

7:32

number of copies sold. Sure. Yeah. Sure.

7:34

Yeah. And that's, that's a testament to it,

7:36

right? Like clearly, it's a, you know, there's

7:38

a big movement, you know,

7:41

in, in frustration about this. And

7:43

I've been, I've been thinking about this for

7:46

the last couple of days now, because on

7:48

one side of it, you know, we know gamers sometimes

7:50

to be a little bit reactionary, a little bit quick

7:52

to, to jump at an

7:55

opportunity to, you know, to

7:57

criticize developers, publishers.

8:00

whoever it is. You know, there's a line

8:02

there between advocacy

8:04

and sticking up for people and,

8:06

you know, raging about it. But

8:08

I think this is legitimate. I

8:10

think it's really upsetting that effectively

8:12

what Sony's hard line is on this, at

8:14

least as we know it right now,

8:17

because they released it on, was it Friday? Friday

8:19

right before they went out to the office and then

8:22

left for the weekend. Well, have

8:24

a great weekend everybody. Be on

8:26

Monday. And of course, this

8:28

is the long weekend in Japan. I'm not sure

8:30

which Sony, you know, kind of threw the hammer

8:32

down on this, but it's a long weekend in

8:34

Japan, which means they're not back till Tuesday. And

8:37

it's, it has erupted in

8:40

the space here. The whole diverse space. It's

8:42

really upsetting. But to be fair, before anyone

8:44

could review bomb it on Steam, they had

8:46

to first get the activation codes, and

8:48

then they had to go arm the terminal. So it

8:50

was like two steps before you could... It's hard to

8:53

review it because you push up, down, left, left, down.

8:56

Yeah. It's really just being

8:58

down, down, down, down, down, down. This

9:04

is a wild thing. Talk about

9:06

something that went from having just

9:09

almost universal player goodwill to

9:12

flushing that down the toilet in one fell

9:14

swoop. There is a

9:16

comment from the Helldivers

9:19

2 community manager that was posted on

9:21

the official discord for Helldivers 2.

9:24

That is, I think revealing in its, let's

9:28

say, this

9:31

doesn't seem to be very veiled in its

9:36

apparent expression of, hey,

9:38

we didn't make this decision,

9:40

everybody. It says,

9:42

quote, internal discussions are ongoing about

9:44

the mandatory linking of PSN accounts.

9:47

And while I can't reveal details,

9:49

the response from our dev teams

9:51

has been pretty universally negative and

9:53

we're looking for better options. I

9:56

worked in consulting for a couple of years, and

9:58

this is like perfect. We don't

10:00

want to say that there's a problem

10:02

that we disagree with, but we definitely

10:05

disagree with it. And it sounds like

10:07

a confirmation of this was a top

10:09

down decision, not a bottom up decision.

10:11

And we're at the bottom and

10:14

we're screaming in unison with

10:16

all of you, but we don't get

10:18

to make the decision. It's a big,

10:20

you know, we're seeing the divide there

10:23

between the developer and the publisher, right?

10:25

And the powers that they both hold,

10:27

because, you know, in an ideal world,

10:29

developers who typically are pretty close to

10:31

gamers and players and understand what they

10:33

want would have a little bit more

10:35

power in these kinds of

10:37

conversations. But, you know, I look at this

10:39

and I think we

10:41

have this ongoing console

10:43

war in this big next five years

10:45

between Sony and Microsoft, this big question

10:47

of, you know, who is going to

10:50

be the more dominant console over the

10:52

next, you know, 2025 to 2030, assuming

10:54

that we have consoles in the next five years, right? Like,

10:57

who knows? And I would imagine

10:59

that both Sony and Microsoft want as

11:01

much as possible to get as many

11:03

people on their platform, you know, your

11:06

friends, your achievements, your games, you know,

11:08

where your habits lie, right? The games

11:10

that you play and how you access

11:12

them. And this is

11:15

a pretty clear move by Sony

11:18

in a way to try

11:20

to get people onto that platform. It would seem, right?

11:22

We don't exactly know from them why

11:25

this needs to be this way, why it's

11:27

a necessity. Because as far as I know,

11:29

I think there's been cross play in

11:32

the game between PlayStation

11:34

and PC. Perhaps maybe

11:36

that requires the linking of your PlayStation Network account in order

11:38

to make that happen. But, well,

11:41

we don't know, like you say, we

11:43

don't know the details. But it sure seems to me,

11:45

if I had to put some money down, it

11:48

sure seems to me that, you

11:52

know, this was the first sort of day

11:54

and date Sony cross release

11:56

between PC and PlayStation.

11:59

And I think we

12:01

were applauding that we were like, oh my

12:04

gosh, Sony's been having these big lags between

12:06

when the games arrive on their console and

12:08

you know eventual PC releases and it was

12:10

awesome that they were embracing PC as a

12:13

platform. But here was the first time

12:15

where it was day and date. It was simultaneous

12:18

and really seemed like a cool thing and Christian

12:22

and I, you know, you and I both. Spoke

12:25

at length about how we think that is

12:27

part of the recipe for the success of

12:29

Helldivers 2. The fact that

12:32

PC gamers got in on this day

12:34

one propelled the game to the heights

12:37

it reached or has reached and

12:39

I think it got a lot of

12:41

that momentum because of that. And

12:44

it sure seems to me that some person

12:46

wearing a business suit in a room went,

12:48

hey guys, now

12:51

that this game has been a smash

12:53

success on PC, can't

12:55

we get a little rub off that in some

12:57

way? Can't we,

12:59

I don't know, leverage that

13:02

success in some way that

13:04

benefits us more directly? And

13:07

this feels like an idea

13:10

that was late in coming that came

13:13

from the success of this game and

13:16

I think that's why it doesn't pass the

13:18

smell test. I have no proof of

13:20

any of that, but man, that's sure what it seems

13:22

like. And without, with

13:24

plenty of actually of, what

13:28

is it, the word I'm looking for, kind

13:31

of examples in the space of requiring people or

13:33

asking people to sign up for your service. I

13:35

think of Borderlands, for instance, right? They

13:37

had their own email sign up

13:39

that you could sign up for, but if

13:42

you signed up for it, it was optional. If you signed

13:44

up for it, you got codes that you could enter into

13:46

the game and get cool weapons in the game. And

13:48

this effectively has come down and we

13:50

haven't seen much of the marketing around

13:53

this. We haven't seen the in-game requirement

13:55

where it says you must, you know,

13:57

fill this out or else. I think

13:59

that actually... starts tomorrow. So of course,

14:01

we'll see tomorrow what that looks like. But you

14:04

know, if it were, hey, sign up with

14:06

your PlayStation Network account, and you will

14:08

get x armor or x weapon, which of

14:10

course, hell divers to players, myself included,

14:12

would love to have, you know, it's

14:14

a little bit more carrot a little bit

14:17

less sick. But what we

14:19

have is, unfortunately, a lot of rumor.

14:21

Yeah, pure punet feels very punitive. It

14:23

feels very, like you say, very stick.

14:26

And I can understand

14:28

why people are pushing back, especially if you're in one

14:30

of those countries where it's like, Oh, you don't get

14:32

to play this anymore. That

14:34

feels incredibly punitive. Christian,

14:38

is there any way to look

14:41

at this? That makes sense from

14:43

Sony's perspective that we're overlooking, because it

14:45

sure seems like a pretty, you know,

14:48

it's one of those things where it's like, Oh,

14:52

my information is

14:54

that valuable that you're willing to

14:56

just shut out a whole

14:59

section of your player base in order

15:01

to get my juicy,

15:03

juicy info. That

15:06

doesn't feel very good. Is there

15:08

any way to look at this? That

15:11

doesn't doesn't feel gross from

15:13

the end users perspective? Yeah,

15:15

maybe by the time you're listening to this,

15:17

we'll have that answer. Maybe when you're coming

15:20

home from your child's birthday, and this episode

15:22

is perfectly timed for you, you will

15:24

have that answer. I think

15:26

that this is going to change the first part of the

15:28

week. So I, by the time you listen

15:30

to this, there may have already been an announcement of like, we

15:33

were kidding. We just request

15:35

that you have a PSN

15:37

account. So large companies often

15:39

make bad statements,

15:43

uninformed, not all the information. It's

15:46

not infrequent, unfortunately. And so if

15:48

I'm looking at a lot of

15:51

recent Sony moves, and I try

15:53

to find the best justification I

15:55

can for this, I'll look at

15:57

the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima. PC

16:00

port, which I'm very excited about. I

16:02

love that game on PS4. I love

16:04

the PS5 update. Very excited for the

16:06

PC features they've already talked about. They've

16:09

also talked about that game having a PlayStation

16:12

Overlay, where you will

16:14

have access to your PlayStation friends, you'll

16:16

get PlayStation achievements if you have I

16:19

believe this next part is accurate. If you

16:21

have whatever account you need to have cloud

16:23

saves that save can carry over, you'll be

16:25

able to cross play for the legend stuff.

16:28

And I think that is really cool. That is

16:30

nice carrot. That's nice value add people

16:33

like their achievements people that Sony UI

16:35

is nice, I like it. And I

16:37

think being able to have that on

16:39

the PC experience makes it

16:41

feel cohesive. It maybe welcomes

16:43

you into the PlayStation family in a way

16:45

that when you do buy a PlayStation five

16:47

or something like that, you feel

16:49

comfortable, you're used to it, you're playing with people that

16:51

have it. I like all of that. So

16:54

maybe there's a part of this

16:56

for hell divers that to bring

16:58

that experience over requires

17:00

a PlayStation user account as the first

17:02

step. So perhaps they're announcing, hey, you

17:04

got to have this account and then

17:06

maybe at not eat three.

17:08

So when he comes out and says

17:10

we have this major update for hell divers to where

17:12

we're you're going to go, it's going

17:15

to you're gonna have Killzone enemies, you're going to have

17:17

Kratos, I don't know, whatever, right, but they're gonna have

17:19

a big moment for hell divers to we're bringing the

17:21

UI over so you can get achievements on PC. So

17:24

all of this stuff is part of this corporate

17:27

bad word I'm about to say, sorry,

17:29

parents synergy of

17:32

creating this cohesive whole, I

17:35

would like to believe that that is part

17:37

of it. And this is just poor messaging

17:39

coming just like a clumsy way to get

17:41

there. Yes. stubbed your toe on

17:43

your way into your office to report a podcast

17:45

as everyone listening to this did tonight. The

17:48

other side of it that I think, well, the

17:51

internet loves being outraged. The

17:53

other side of it that I

17:55

think maybe is less gross for

17:57

Sony is don't get don't get

17:59

me wrong this sucks. But everyone else has

18:01

already been doing this not revoking access after

18:03

they've had it. But like to play a

18:06

Ubisoft game and OBS keeps crashing. Sorry, audio

18:08

people, there's probably no video of this. To

18:12

have to play a Ubisoft game, the amount of hoops I

18:14

have to jump through to like play

18:16

it on every day, it's like sign into this

18:19

got to have this account, you got

18:21

to do this account or someone who

18:23

now is playing through old Activision games

18:25

now that Microsoft owns them and Bobby

18:27

left. I think I have like a

18:29

blizznet account for some games, I have

18:31

an Activision account for other games, I

18:33

think two of the Call of Duty's

18:35

required different logins than a Microsoft account

18:37

to have it online. Microsoft accounts are

18:39

required for a lot of Steam games

18:41

online. And I believe

18:44

Helldivers 2 when launch said and like

18:46

all that stuff that no one reads,

18:48

that there there is a third party

18:51

login requirement which so many of these

18:53

other PC games also have. And so

18:55

I think there's, you

18:57

know, crappy, but the state of gaming in 2024 reasons

19:00

for it. I think the really,

19:02

really bad stuff here for this

19:04

is A the messaging and B

19:06

if all these players do in

19:08

fact, lose access, I guessing they

19:11

won't, which then goes back to

19:13

a crappy message. Well, I mean,

19:15

it's entirely messaging, right? Because yeah, you're

19:17

absolutely right. If if this is like,

19:20

hey, welcome to Helldivers 2, we

19:22

need you to have this account in

19:24

order to continue. Nobody blinks an eye,

19:27

right? It's right. You've been playing Helldivers

19:29

2 for three months. You

19:31

better get this account now or we're kicking

19:33

you off now. We need a daily active

19:35

user number up. That's what we report to

19:37

shareholders is our mdows and we want to

19:39

monetize these dows. So and admittedly,

19:41

the growing patents for Sony are going to

19:43

be higher if you think about comparatively to

19:46

Microsoft, right? Like you if you're assuming you're

19:48

using a Windows computer and game pass, your

19:50

Windows computer asks you what is your Outlook

19:53

account or what is your Microsoft account and

19:55

then the first time you log into Xbox

19:57

it goes well, I'll make the assumption that this

19:59

is going to be a good time. be your Xbox account, here

20:01

you go. And it's relatively seamless for the

20:03

user that doesn't know any better or doesn't

20:05

have the history of Xbox previous to that,

20:07

right? If you're an Xbox player, like I

20:09

was who played Xbox 360, and then kind

20:11

of ended there, I ended up getting the

20:13

PS4 and kind of jumping ship to Sony.

20:16

Don't, you know, don't kill me about this.

20:18

But it, it, it was a

20:20

little bit harder to do that, where, you

20:22

know, my account on my computer was different,

20:24

and I had to, you know, find a

20:26

different gaming account for my Xbox account. Now

20:28

with Game Pass, it's so much easier for

20:30

Microsoft to get people on that platform. It's

20:32

it's practically seamless. And Sony has to do

20:35

a little bit more work, clearly a little

20:37

bit more marketing and PR work with with

20:39

players to set, you

20:41

know, to make it make sense

20:43

to them. That aside from having

20:45

your game taken away from you, because you

20:47

can't make an account, which is just yeah,

20:49

tragic. I said that that is the one

20:51

that is just it throws it into the

20:54

realm of like indefensible it's like, well, I

20:56

don't understand how you can defend that decision.

20:58

And as we've said numerous times, by the

21:00

time you're listening to this, there may be some rollback

21:03

of that in some way that we're

21:05

not aware of yet. But sitting here,

21:07

you know, on Sunday night, after

21:09

this went into effect, you know, three

21:12

days ago, it, it feels

21:14

like a something

21:16

that could have been foreseen very easily by

21:20

by the people who put it into effect. And, you

21:23

know, it's one of

21:25

those unforced errors that you just wonder

21:27

how these things get past multiple layers

21:29

of people having to sign off on

21:31

it. And all that to

21:33

say to just because we're kind of, you know, reaching

21:36

some kind of, you know, an audience here, right? Like,

21:38

there's a lot of hate, you know,

21:41

directed towards the developers. But the reality

21:43

is these conversations behind the scenes are

21:45

very multifaceted, there may

21:47

not be and it clearly arrowhead

21:50

and their messaging is, is saying,

21:52

Hey, we're trying to push back on

21:54

this, we're on your side, we don't want this.

21:56

And so, you know, when you think about expressing

21:59

yourself in this topic,

22:01

please. There are real

22:03

human beings behind the scenes who are working on

22:06

this. And there's a publishing company that really wants

22:08

you to sign up for your account.

22:10

Great point. It's a great point

22:12

that should be reinforced. I can

22:15

only imagine, again, this is a fiction that I'm

22:17

creating in my mind, but it seems plausible. I

22:19

can only imagine the poor dad's

22:22

like, yeah, I'm

22:24

leaving another message. I know you guys are gone for

22:27

the weekend, but I just wanted to see if there's

22:29

any way you could get back to me before Monday.

22:33

We really would love to roll

22:35

back, tell the audience something. Again,

22:38

211,000 negative reviews at

22:41

this point. Just call me back. Call me back. Okay. Call

22:44

me back. That's

22:46

what it seems like to me. Anyway,

22:49

fingers crossed for resolution of this.

22:51

All three of us are united

22:54

in the fact that this is a great game and

22:56

it has been a great game. It has been a

22:58

huge hit. It's one of the stories of 2024 in

23:00

gaming. This kind of came out of

23:02

nowhere, been a huge hit, huge

23:05

quality game. It's

23:08

just a shame that it has this shadow over it now. Patrons

23:12

can watch Jeff and I carry Dave Chen

23:14

on a vod of our Let's Play from

23:16

Friday, where Dave was just dying nonstop. He's

23:18

level 42 and I'm level 11 and Christian's

23:20

level 14. I think that

23:24

alone tells you who has the most

23:27

skills. It's like golf. Exactly.

23:31

Christian Spicer, what is your story of the week? Speaking

23:33

of corporate overlords making

23:36

crappy decisions. Take

23:40

two, the announcement came out

23:42

this past week that they are shutting

23:45

down and laying off the

23:48

folks at Roll7 and

23:50

Intercept Games. Kerbal

23:54

Space Program 2, which is not out yet, Intercept

23:57

Games. Roll7 are one of

23:59

the my favorite devs

24:01

of recent memory, Not a

24:03

Hero, Fantastic, Ollie

24:06

Ollie games, I think Ollie Ollie World

24:08

was one of my,

24:10

I mean, I talked about it every week

24:12

because the two DLCs for that also were

24:14

fantastic. Absolutely incredible. Yes, it's a

24:16

skateboarding game, but it is one of the

24:18

best precision platform

24:20

games of all time. I

24:22

mean, it's up there like Celeste levels of

24:24

excellent for me in the way that it's

24:26

welcoming for new players, but rewards that precision

24:29

in that practice. And take

24:31

two is shutting both of them down. Roller drums too,

24:33

I don't want you to miss out. Oh yeah, roller

24:35

drum. That's a game you and I both loved was

24:37

on our end of the year, what year

24:40

before last, I think. Thank

24:43

you. We loved roller drum. Yeah, roll

24:45

seven, just a top tier studio and-

24:47

Hit after hit. Yeah, hit

24:49

after hit, gone, gone, just

24:52

gone. And then also part

24:55

of this is private

24:57

division who have been responsible for

24:59

a lot of really great, I

25:02

mean, I guess maybe they're not indie games if

25:04

private division is part of take two, but indie

25:06

games and ushering in these really great games and

25:08

giving them a publishing platform, it

25:10

seems like private division also lost or is

25:12

losing a lot of folks across a lot

25:14

of their offices. And

25:17

it sucks. There's still going to be a

25:19

million great games to play. As a player, there's always gonna

25:21

be a million great games to play, but this

25:24

feels like a candle

25:26

being snuffed out. These were studios

25:29

that made really interesting

25:31

games and genres that

25:33

weren't a dime a dozen,

25:35

and they all played really well. They controlled

25:38

really well, and they brought something fun, new,

25:40

and unique to the industry. And

25:42

it sucks to see them go away,

25:46

especially from a company that

25:49

by all accounts has all the money. And

25:52

it just really sucks that there wasn't a

25:54

way to make this work. They just acquired

25:56

Gearbox for 460 million. They've

26:00

got a pretty big game coming out in the form

26:02

of Grand Theft Auto 6 I

26:04

know that got delayed but it seems like they're gonna make

26:07

some money with that one when that comes out We

26:10

got a really interesting Tweet

26:15

from a design consultant for

26:17

role 7 I assume you know,

26:19

she does not care anymore

26:22

Because this is a bit of a bridge burn, but I

26:25

thought very telling and beautiful tweet Design

26:28

consultant Anissa sinusi tweeted

26:31

the team at role 7 was some of the

26:33

best people I've ever worked with and they deserved

26:35

Way better than this we won

26:38

an effing BAFTA literally a

26:40

year ago. This is such a

26:42

dumbass industry Hard

26:46

to That you've

26:48

beyond just you know, the fact that these games

26:50

control mechanically their works of art I mean all

26:53

the Oli world is one of the most beautiful

26:55

games. I've seen a long time their their use

26:57

of color in that game was It

26:59

drew me in as somebody who doesn't normally play a

27:01

lot of skateboarding games So I did in the past

27:04

and I fell in love with that game

27:06

from that alone And it's it's

27:08

really just the status and you know, Kerbal

27:10

Space Program, too I mean I have played

27:12

a ton of the original and was really

27:14

looking forward to this I'm not mistaken Kerbal

27:16

Space Program to was made early access and

27:18

I will say it came

27:21

out Pretty rough like it needed

27:23

a little bit of work and the the

27:25

announcement from take two is that they were

27:27

going to continue support For

27:29

the game And I think a lot

27:31

of people who have played Kerbal Space Program to

27:33

would agree that the game needs a lot more

27:35

than Support at this point needs a bit more

27:37

development work and it's just so Tragic

27:40

and heartbreaking to hear that that just

27:42

will not come it will not ever

27:44

Probably indeed You know, we've

27:46

talked about stories like this ad nauseam over

27:49

the last two years It just seems like

27:51

they keep happening more more

27:53

people fired. This one was resulting in over

27:55

500 jobs and

27:58

You know these two to studios being shut

28:01

down and it feels like this is nonstop

28:04

and every time it comes up, we

28:07

repeat the same stuff. I think there's

28:10

another statement from

28:13

one of the director of publishing at Larian,

28:17

who is not directly involved with this, but commented on

28:19

it anyway. His name is Michael Douse. He

28:22

said, quote, the large corporate cycle

28:25

is just gushing about people, culture,

28:27

the human element, teamwork and pride.

28:30

And then when operational failures

28:32

lead to mass layoffs, the

28:34

human element is so deliberately

28:36

thrown away. The mask

28:38

peeled off. Corporations

28:40

do not care about you. The

28:43

idea that this period paves the way for

28:45

a brighter future is so far

28:47

from the truth. Performative

28:49

butchery might look proactive for a

28:52

fiscal year, but damn, are

28:54

we going to see the knock on effects in

28:56

a market that's already too unpredictable to keep up

28:58

with. Yeah,

29:01

when I heard about this news, I was thinking to

29:03

myself, like, hey, it's obviously it's tragic.

29:05

A lot of people are affected. Hopefully, maybe

29:08

they can band together and go on to this and whatever

29:10

the next thing is for them. But

29:13

you think about the trend that

29:15

we've seen in gaming and what's been happening

29:17

to these companies laying people off and supposedly

29:21

possibly because it's there in financial straits. If

29:23

you imagine somebody starting up a company and

29:25

going to a bank and saying, hey, I

29:27

need a small business loan because I want

29:30

to hire 10 people on to

29:32

a video game company. What is that bank going

29:34

to think when all we see

29:36

in the news is layoff, layoff, layoff,

29:38

layoff, layoff? I

29:40

hope it's not that way. I hope that

29:42

there's some hope for these people and

29:45

these people affected. We

29:47

saw the numbers from last year, from 2023, and then thinking,

29:49

okay, that's behind us. Hopefully,

29:52

2024 is better and it's just more of

29:54

the same. It's really, really good. First half of

29:56

the year, we're just already

29:58

outpacing the entire. year. Yeah, it's

30:01

it's tragic. And every time I try

30:03

to find some sort of silver

30:06

lining, like you say, like, oh, maybe this

30:08

will give folks the opportunity to do their

30:11

passion project, or I

30:13

hear, you know, I read something like

30:15

what Michael Douse wrote, and it's it's

30:17

hard to think that this

30:19

there's there is any silver line to this kind of

30:22

stuff. It's just brutal. So

30:28

on that cheery note, pour

30:30

one out for Roll7 and

30:34

an intercept. I never played any of the

30:36

Kerbal Space Program games, either

30:38

of them. I

30:41

can't say how you

30:43

should go play Ollie Ollie World. I

30:48

do know that if you buy it, I don't

30:50

think that Roll7 gets any money. I won't say

30:52

how you should play it, but go play it.

30:55

I cannot recommend Rollerdrome enough. What an

30:57

awesome match up to

30:59

very disparate genres. And somehow

31:01

it works. Like, what if

31:04

Tony Hawk and a third

31:06

person action shooter were

31:08

the same game? It's like Mad

31:10

Max, you know, like, it's like,

31:13

or like Hunger Games. So

31:15

in the soundtracks, and both are

31:17

great. Yeah, it sucks. And for

31:20

those looking forward to KSB2, what

31:22

it seems like is a lot of the community

31:24

is kind of shifting back to the original. And

31:27

there's a big modding community for this game. I'm

31:29

not sure how deep these mods go, though, from

31:31

what I've played, that's it, they can have some

31:33

pretty game changing effects. So so

31:35

if you haven't played them, and if you're interested

31:38

in simulation games, I gotta

31:40

say Kerbal Space Program one was an

31:42

amazing game. It's fantastic. It still holds

31:44

up today to the point where when

31:46

they announced KSB2, I was thinking, why?

31:50

Like, the original, the original is great. It's

31:52

fantastic. We don't need a second one. But

31:55

hey, KSB1 is still there

31:57

with plenty of mod support and a really

31:59

passionate community. willing to help you learn it if

32:01

you want to There you go Alright,

32:04

we're gonna take a quick break for a sponsor

32:06

and we'll be right back right after this This

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my purple iPhone And this looks like

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it matches really well and like the thing that

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gets me We all

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have our earbuds we like your earbuds, but I also

33:44

like sharing music and so now I'm

33:47

thinking like oh This is gonna way to be the way

33:49

to do it because I can have multi-point connectivity So

33:52

it's like hey everybody listen to

33:54

what dad's listening to Think

33:58

it's exciting cuz a lot of times we have our earbuds and

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35:38

All right, my story of the week. I'm gonna do something

35:40

a little more fun, at least for me. And

35:43

that is a

35:45

new Batman Arkham game was announced,

35:49

ladies and gentlemen. And guess what? They

35:52

got my letters. It's

35:55

gonna be in VR. It's gonna be

35:57

exclusive to Metacrest 3. It's called Batman

35:59

Arkham. Shadow we

36:01

are going to find out more about this game at

36:04

summer game fest soon. Yeah. Yeah,

36:07

but Just

36:09

the announcement of it just the awareness that it's a

36:11

thing Has me so excited.

36:13

It's gonna be my story of the week this week. I Am

36:17

very excited. It's it's Camouflage

36:19

which is the developer of the Iron

36:21

Man VR game. So they're jumping ship

36:24

from Marvel to DC But

36:26

that game is very underrated I think

36:29

because it originally came out on

36:31

PS VR and had a lot of compromised Visual

36:35

if they are one. Yeah, the first

36:37

yeah exactly and it looked

36:39

pretty rough when it came out played

36:41

I thought great the the mechanics of

36:44

flying the Iron Man suit suit with

36:46

hand repulsors. Ah, so cool Very

36:49

very clever. Well done But

36:52

I don't think even though the game was then

36:54

repurposed as a Metacrest

36:57

game I had some updates. I don't

36:59

think it ever really got the attention

37:01

that it deserved So I'm hoping this

37:04

Batman Arkham shadow game will

37:06

allow camouflage to Reveal

37:09

themselves, huh? I'm

37:14

super excited about this. We don't know Mechanically

37:17

anything about the game. There's a

37:19

teaser trailer that accompanied the announcement

37:22

that is just via or excuse me just Pre-rendered

37:25

shows, you know kind of a

37:27

POV of maybe the Batman rats

37:30

in the city Gotham

37:34

Streets and then just a silhouette or just a sort of a

37:36

shadow Because it's Arkham shadow So

37:39

we don't know anything about how it'll play But

37:42

it has me excited. I mean Rocksteady is

37:45

not involved, but I do think camouflage is

37:48

clearly experienced with VR and knows how to

37:51

Deliver a superhero experience and

37:53

if that original PlayStation

37:55

VR Batman Sort

37:58

of tease experience Is the

38:01

template that they're going for that

38:03

thing while brief and you know,

38:06

not a full game I Has

38:09

me very excited about what the potential for Batman

38:12

Arkham shadow could be Max

38:15

are you a VR gamer at

38:17

all? I'm not yet It's been something

38:19

that I want to get into so

38:21

so much myself But I

38:24

do remember actually Batman Arkham VR on the

38:26

PS VR because it was the first time

38:28

I think Maybe

38:30

ever that I put on a VR headset and I

38:32

was it was in a best buy just

38:34

in the in in the middle of the large aisle

38:36

kind of running down the best buy and I

38:39

put the headset on they said hey Well, we'll let

38:42

up Batman for you and I was blown away at

38:44

that at that time but I think the the demo

38:46

had you kind of Put

38:48

your pretend hands on a pretend handlebar

38:50

and lean over the handlebar and look

38:52

down And I got

38:54

you know full-on like that fear that sensation of

38:57

oh my gosh I'm gonna fall like I can't

38:59

I can't do this in the middle of a

39:01

best buy Fell flat on

39:03

my ass and just you know, just embarrass

39:05

myself In front of the

39:07

line of people waiting to try the PS VR. Um,

39:10

I am just so excited for

39:13

this Kind of almost this

39:16

next ten years of virtual reality because we're

39:18

finally getting the point where these experiences feel

39:21

Really? Immersive. It's not just

39:23

hey, I've got the helmet on my head

39:26

and I've got some sound in here But

39:28

actually, you know the motions and

39:30

the movements of your bodies that feel that way and

39:32

we might be getting into it today Maybe not but

39:35

I got a chance to try out a

39:37

really cool experience Universal Studios, Japan That

39:40

just blew me away. So well,

39:42

why don't you mention it now? Yeah, I'd

39:44

love to hear more about it Yeah, so

39:46

so we went to Universal Studios, Japan while

39:48

we were there it's a quick trip out of

39:50

Osaka to get there and You

39:53

can pay it was about 20

39:56

bucks a ticket to get into

39:58

a monster hunter iceborn theme they

40:00

call it XR, but it's a VR

40:03

experience. And you walk in there and

40:06

you walk into this warehouse and you get

40:08

to choose little elements about your character and kind

40:10

of customize your character and give them a name.

40:12

And you get to choose one of five weapons

40:15

that you're gonna be able to use in this

40:17

experience. And then they put on your body, the

40:19

full computer and a headset and

40:21

the wrist trackers and all of

40:23

this. And the moment they

40:26

put the headset on, you are in, effectively

40:28

in Monster Hunter. And

40:30

I loved Monster Hunter World. It was

40:33

one of my favorite games of all

40:35

time. It really just was freaking

40:37

awesome. So we knew we had to try this. They

40:39

put the headset on and you

40:41

play cooperatively with three other players.

40:44

So you're walking around

40:47

this warehouse and you

40:49

have free range of movement because you're not connected

40:51

to cables in the ceiling or on the floor

40:53

or back to your computer because you're wearing the

40:55

computer on your back. And at some

40:57

point, you're climbing vines and

41:00

you're shooting your grappling hook and you're

41:02

fighting monsters, of course. At some point, they

41:04

give you, in real life,

41:07

they hand you what is probably not a

41:09

full-size weapon, but a foam

41:11

replica weapon of your weapon. And then

41:13

in the game, you see that weapon.

41:15

And of course the weapons in Monster Hunter are

41:17

absolutely ridiculous. They're larger than life and nobody, no

41:20

average human would be able to pick them up

41:22

and actually use them, but you feel like you're

41:24

using it. And it was

41:26

just, it was so cool. And it was

41:28

even cooler by the fact that there's four

41:30

of you, but I only went with myself

41:33

and my fiance. We were paired up with

41:35

these two Korean girls who were

41:37

just over the moon excited

41:39

for the experience. So the four of us

41:41

are geeking out, walking through and oohing and

41:43

ahing at this environment. And as you're walking

41:45

through, a monster might hit you with

41:47

a breath attack and you get shot with a burst

41:49

of cold air. It

41:52

was the most immersive and incredible

41:54

VR experience I've ever, ever, ever

41:56

experienced. It was close to

41:58

that future that we... C right where we

42:01

were were in a skin suit and you get

42:03

a full body like the I got a holiday,

42:05

a lot of punches and yeah stabbed and like

42:07

I am because of of course we want All

42:09

these things vary but it was. It was so

42:11

close to that. And. Just really

42:13

inspiring to be able to to to

42:15

try that out of really really cool.

42:18

Has some really cool as author, the

42:20

Journal Moss or nothing. hadn't even heard

42:22

of that. Yeah, we'll universal seduce you

42:24

Pansy basically cut out all of the

42:27

Us based stuff like know Transformers know

42:29

a chemical, what the other. the other

42:31

big attractions are here in the United

42:33

States and they were placed them all

42:36

with Anna Mae and with Saddam was

42:38

real games and it's just it's the

42:40

other side of pop culture under the.

42:42

At presumably under the Universal brand,

42:44

right? right? bucket? I'm in a

42:46

way that we wouldn't have gotten

42:48

access to. Here in the

42:51

states so I really strongly recommend if anybody's in

42:53

Osaka in of doing except is pandering to. I

42:55

bet it was a must see and and you

42:57

get the tickets in addition to your universal ticket

42:59

and it was absolutely worth it to try it

43:02

out. It's a it's not a long thing. I

43:04

think the activity was like twenty minutes on, but

43:06

it was. It was just so. Great.

43:09

To be a part of something that was

43:11

like one step beyond the virtual reality. My

43:13

room? yeah song yeah I've made during a

43:16

sort of the first boom of of Vr

43:18

when the first Akio Us is coming out

43:20

and them the vibe. Or advised

43:22

vibe the five had that was

43:25

coming up. I got invited to

43:27

a number of them. Events

43:30

like data that were location specific. I

43:32

was a Terminator one I did of

43:34

Star Wars one I did. and yeah,

43:36

I mean it's a whole other ballgame

43:38

when the like. The geometry of the

43:40

room works. Is

43:42

it was just is very cool stuff.

43:46

Now. Contrast that. With

43:48

how I've seen this

43:50

announcement reported which is

43:52

almost universally on web

43:54

sites. There's. A New

43:57

Batman Arkham Game. unfortunately.

44:02

It's not what you want. It's

44:05

not, here's the disappointing

44:07

part. It's going to be exclusive

44:09

to Quest. And

44:12

there's a part of me that understands that, right? I

44:16

feel like VR, AR is

44:18

one of those technologies that for whatever reason, I think

44:20

it's price point. There's

44:23

a certain glee around announcing

44:26

its downfall. And

44:28

so all of the reporting I've

44:30

seen about Batman Arkham Shadow has been, hey,

44:33

they're making

44:35

another Batman Arkham game just like we wanted, except

44:37

not at all how we want it to be

44:40

without knowing anything about how this game is

44:42

going to be. And also setting aside the

44:44

fact that the meta Quest 2 and 3

44:47

have sold very, very well. And there's a

44:49

pretty strong install base for these

44:52

things. So Christian, what

44:55

do you make of Batman Arkham Shadow?

44:57

Is this a disappointment? Is

44:59

this meta just throwing money at

45:01

something? Or are we actually going to

45:04

see something that kind of pushes people

45:06

into this space a little? Both.

45:10

I think all of the above. I'm

45:13

trying to think, does meta

45:16

own camouflage? I was just starting to Google that.

45:18

I feel like I've been- I don't think so.

45:20

Do they buy them? I don't know. I thought

45:22

buy meta. I'm

45:24

going to find out real quick. What

45:27

bums me out about this, yeah, they

45:29

did. 2022, they acquired camouflage.

45:32

What bums me out about this

45:34

announcement is I feel

45:37

like maybe there's some undecided

45:40

folks at Max,

45:43

because that's what the whole parent company is called,

45:45

right, Max? The one to watch for HBO? Yeah.

45:48

About what the heck the Arkham universe is. Because

45:52

Suicide Squad killed the Justice League came

45:54

out and was very

45:56

much- Rocksteady developed very much-

46:00

said this is a continuation of the

46:02

Arkham series. This is in

46:04

that canon. This is the same franchise.

46:07

We're continuing that story. Yes, it looks

46:09

completely different. Yes, that franchise

46:11

ended with Batman going

46:13

away, but don't worry, we have him back. And then broad

46:17

spoilers for that game. That game

46:19

brings that Batman, Suicide Squad, brings that

46:21

Batman back and kind

46:23

of does them dirty. And

46:26

now this game is announced as another Arkham game and

46:28

it's like, is this? So

46:31

this is before Suicide Squad? Or is

46:33

this like after Suicide Squad and Brainiac

46:35

is eventually defeated? And then he's like,

46:37

just kidding, I'm fine. And now I'm

46:39

back fighting Ratcatcher, whoever, you know, this

46:41

villain ends up being. Or is this

46:43

part of the Arkham Origins branch

46:46

of the Arkham franchise that

46:48

Rocksteady never acknowledged as being

46:50

part of the Arkham universe, even though it is.

46:54

So I love Batman.

46:57

Arkham VR was super cool, even though I'm

46:59

going to spoil that's a very old game. I'm going

47:02

to spoil a thing in that game. They just straight

47:04

up kill Nightwing in a way that's like, also done

47:06

kind of dirty. It's like, you know, this blub and

47:09

get and it's like, just for shock value, mechanically,

47:11

very cool, very cool to put on the

47:13

cowl, do detective mode, all that stuff. Very

47:15

cool. But as someone who

47:17

loves the Arkham games, including

47:19

Origins, it became patched and became very good. And I

47:22

think had some of my favorite boss fights of any

47:24

of those. I don't know

47:26

what the Arkham franchise is anymore.

47:28

And so I'm stoked that camouflage

47:30

is making Batman VR game. And

47:34

I wish it wasn't called Arkham. I

47:36

think that's my like, that's my umbrella

47:38

where my parents are killed as acrobats that I

47:40

live under. In a way, that's quintessential Batman though,

47:43

right? Because, you know, we reboot Batman every five

47:45

years with a with a new actor, but the

47:47

same story over and over. And I get like

47:49

we you know, it's his origin. And and of

47:51

course, you know, you can't discount that you have

47:54

new people coming into the space and and seeing

47:56

it for the first time. I remember you know,

47:58

some of the old old Batman the

48:00

old Batman TV show frankly with him and

48:02

Robin, you know running around and trouncing

48:05

around and then to be Introduced reintroduced to him

48:07

again in another movie and then another movie and

48:09

another movie Kind of kind of the same

48:11

but there's no continuity, right? I do

48:14

it like someone was like Arkham will sell

48:16

us 10x more copies of this game So

48:18

we're putting Arkham in the title, like you

48:20

know, like we're not Not

48:23

going to put Arkham in this game. It's

48:25

code for good Batman video game But

48:28

that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, I

48:31

um, I I

48:35

Don't even need to speculate on how it will

48:37

play like I kind of already know how it's

48:39

gonna play Like I I'm gonna be able to

48:41

throw a batarang. Hopefully I'll be able to grappling

48:43

hook my way around Maybe I'll be able to

48:46

glide over the city all of that in VR.

48:48

It's gonna be incredible incredible,

48:50

I Detective

48:52

mode sure do it awesome, but

48:56

This game has the potential of being

48:58

extremely cool extremely fun. I

49:01

just hope it You

49:03

know, it's not restricted by being it only

49:05

on the headset game I Think

49:09

I mean it is the right like it's gonna

49:11

be 100% gonna be only on the headset game

49:14

Yes, but I hope it doesn't I mean Asgard's

49:16

wrath too is

49:19

Need to talk about that more. I talked about the end of

49:22

last year and I haven't talked about it since but That

49:25

game for all the people that are like,

49:27

oh boo VR There

49:29

is not a more fun incredible

49:32

experience, I think Asgard's wrath 2 is as

49:36

good as Any game you want

49:38

to put up against it and I know I'm

49:40

small it's super short. It's very tiny Just not

49:42

120 hour Deep

49:45

experience it is indeed but you

49:47

know it So

49:50

that is possible right that is a

49:52

possibility that this is gonna be awesome And I

49:55

think the Assassin's Creed VR game is awesome. I

49:57

had a blast with it so

50:00

So, you know, I have high hopes that this is going to be great.

50:02

And it just, it kind

50:04

of traps my hide a bit that the

50:09

sort of general

50:13

reporting around it is all like, well,

50:15

you'll be disappointed because it's on a VR

50:17

headset. It's like, no, this is going to

50:20

be amazing. Anyway.

50:22

While we're in this mini VR talk segment, I

50:25

am curious what else might come out from

50:28

META around this time. They've already announced, you

50:30

know, the part, the Metacrest three headset partnership

50:32

with that Microsoft is going to be like

50:34

the Xbox branded or co-branded headset to bring

50:36

that experience. They've also announced

50:39

opening up their OS to

50:41

other manufacturers. And

50:43

so, and there's a huge, that's

50:45

huge. Their financial show that they continue to

50:47

lose billions of dollars or spend, I guess

50:49

you're not losing it if you're planning to

50:52

recoup it later by with market dominance. But

50:54

at this point, lose billions of dollars in

50:56

this space. I think they are

50:58

showing a continued commitment to trying to be

51:00

the winner in it, whether or not that's

51:03

a good thing or bad thing. It

51:05

depends on how you feel about META. But

51:08

I feel like announcing another

51:10

big game like this, that

51:13

is already more expensive because

51:15

they have to pay DC for Batman.

51:19

This isn't the booster gold VR

51:21

game. You know, that would have

51:23

been cheaper or the original IP

51:26

VR game where you're still doing the same things. This

51:28

is Batman. And so they spent all that

51:30

money on house guards, wrath to a very

51:32

expensive game. They're spending money on this, it

51:34

seems like in continuing to build this stuff

51:36

out. I think is exciting

51:39

for what the future continues to be

51:41

right now for VR. It's,

51:46

it's the way to move

51:49

the needle is get

51:51

great software on it. Yeah.

51:55

That's exactly why everybody is so,

51:57

you know, jumping up and down to talk

51:59

about how The Vision Pro is underperforming.

52:02

It's like, well, there's just

52:04

not enough to do on it. You know,

52:06

if you had a Batman Arkham

52:08

game on Vision Pro, I think people would

52:10

be talking about it. I think that's, it's

52:14

just not enough to do on it. And I, you know,

52:16

and I think that a lot of people think that's the

52:18

case with all VRs.

52:20

Like, what am I gonna do on it? At this

52:22

point, there's so much awesome stuff. On a Quest III,

52:24

like a Quest III, it feels like a no-brainer. I

52:27

know it's not an inexpensive purchase, but it's a

52:29

heck of a lot less than a Steam Deck,

52:31

and nobody seems to have any qualms about recommending

52:33

that. I don't know if it's, I think

52:35

it's like the same as a Steam Deck. You're

52:38

right, that's about the same. I

52:40

shouldn't have said a heck of a lot less, you're

52:42

right. But it's- To be fair, I do strap my

52:44

Steam Deck to my face though, just for neck exercises.

52:48

So I'm gonna get a line for that comparison. I

52:50

apologize. People are gonna be like, but I have my

52:52

whole library already on Steam. I get it. It's

52:55

a different equation. I just, you know, I'm a fan of

52:58

VR. All right. Let's

53:00

move on. I'm excited about this Batman game.

53:03

Let's talk about the games that we've been playing though.

53:06

And the playlist. ["The

53:08

Star-Spangled Banner"] Max,

53:16

what has been on your playlist lately?

53:18

Yeah, so I've got three, maybe four,

53:21

but I'm gonna give one to Christian, because I see

53:23

we've got some overlap, probably for similar reasons. But

53:26

I've been playing Final Fantasy Rebirth.

53:28

It's my first time playing Final

53:31

Fantasy VII. And I

53:33

never played the original. I was, hate

53:36

to date myself, but what was I? Was

53:38

I one? Was I five? I was quite the long

53:41

time we had, Max. Well, that's not the time we

53:43

have, Max. You cut out Max. Did you say 55?

53:46

I missed the first number you said.

53:48

It was, it came out, you know,

53:50

around that age, but I remember how

53:52

much people would talk about that game.

53:54

I mean, throughout the 90s and the 2000s, people

53:58

would say it is the best game ever. made.

54:00

It's the best game I've ever played.

54:02

And I felt this sort of outsider

54:06

feeling in that because

54:08

I never really played it and didn't for

54:10

years and years and years. It really didn't

54:12

even touch most of the Final Fantasy series

54:14

because I was a Nintendo and

54:16

an Xbox boy. And then to be given

54:21

a chance now, 2020 was

54:24

the release of the remake, kind

54:26

of setting you

54:28

up for the first little bit of the

54:30

game and then Rebirth coming out this year. I

54:33

am blown away by this

54:35

game. I played the remake

54:38

and I think I cried at

54:40

least two or three times. Just

54:43

emotionally from some of the emotional beats in

54:45

that game and the use

54:47

of music and the way that

54:49

they told these characters stories, but

54:52

also from the meta perspective, not

54:54

the company, but looking at

54:56

it from the top down, the fact

54:58

that there was so much passion

55:01

and love for this game that

55:04

it deserved getting a full

55:06

remake, completely polished from the

55:08

ground up, made

55:10

me so emotional to be

55:12

a part of that, to be able to experience

55:15

what I had heard people say was the greatest

55:17

game of all time. And of course, they're not

55:19

the same game. Final

55:21

Fantasy 7 was a relic

55:23

of its time. And in many ways, it

55:25

was unique because of what it was doing

55:27

that other games weren't doing then. But

55:30

to be given almost what feels like

55:32

a second chance to be

55:34

part of that conversation, to be part of

55:36

that space, to be part of that moment,

55:39

feels really great, really incredible.

55:42

And Rebirth is wonderful.

55:44

It's beautifully done. It runs relatively

55:46

well on my PS5. I really

55:49

enjoy it. I will say

55:51

I'm nine chapters in and I'm starting to

55:53

feel a little bit open

55:56

world did out by it, right?

55:59

There's the side quests and

56:01

I love playing Queen's Gambit. It's

56:03

absolutely awesome. I am a big

56:05

fan. I cannot wait until they

56:07

release either a mobile version or

56:10

some other version of the game. I would love to

56:12

be able to play that a little bit more. Give

56:14

me Queen's Gambit as like a Hearthstone variant. I would

56:17

be over the moon, like super happy. But

56:20

I'm feeling a little bit of the

56:22

burn of, okay, I am now, what,

56:25

60, 70, 80 hours

56:27

into this game. I would love to be

56:29

able to move on to the next thing.

56:31

And at the same time, I've done everything.

56:33

Right? I've completed all the zone. I've

56:36

completed all the side quests. I've done all

56:38

the Queen's Gambit battles up

56:40

till now. And so it's almost like

56:42

a waste to blow it off, you

56:45

know, so deep in the game. Otherwise,

56:48

I'm just I'm still enjoying it. And I'm still

56:50

loving it. It's one of those games I find

56:52

myself gravitating to games that constantly have

56:55

something new to learn, constantly are giving

56:57

you new mechanics, something new to try,

56:59

you know, whether that's a new weapon

57:01

or a new ability or whatever it

57:04

is. And this is

57:06

one of those perfect games that, you

57:08

know, 80 hours in, you're given a

57:10

new tool to use that you can

57:12

experiment with and try new things out.

57:14

And I just that keeps my brain

57:17

firing, you know, keeps me interested, keeps me

57:19

in that experience.

57:21

Otherwise, I blip off games too

57:23

quickly. If, if they aren't

57:25

giving me more, you know, soon

57:27

enough and throughout that experience, I won't get

57:30

into the Witcher three and the trouble that

57:32

I had playing that game because that was

57:34

that was tough. I know it's

57:36

probably my hottest take first 10 hours of the

57:38

game. It was just the same. No

57:40

new abilities, no new spells, no

57:43

new anything, right? It was a

57:45

new story. And that

57:47

was and that was great. And if you're the type of person

57:49

who really kind of gloms on to

57:51

the story and those characters, or you have

57:53

that kind of intrinsic drive to follow those

57:55

things, then I think you end up

57:57

loving the Witcher three. I wanted

58:00

mechanically a little bit

58:02

more from the game and I just didn't get

58:04

it soon enough. And maybe it's at

58:07

11 hours, it's there, right? Maybe it's 15

58:09

hours, maybe it's 20 hours. But

58:11

at a certain point, I had to kind of cut it off and go, you know what,

58:13

it's not giving me enough. And Rebirth is giving

58:15

me that constantly. And

58:18

I hope it's not a byproduct

58:20

of this generation that we have to

58:22

just constantly be thrown like

58:25

new information, new information, constantly the

58:27

entire time through. But I'm definitely a person that

58:29

loves learning. And if a game

58:32

can keep teaching me throughout the entire

58:34

experience, I'm a big fan. I don't know

58:36

if you guys have played Rebirth or the

58:38

remake originally? Yes, Christian, very deep into Rebirth,

58:40

right buddy? I am still

58:42

working my way through it. It is, Max, I'm with

58:44

you and I probably said this before on the

58:47

show, where oftentimes in open

58:49

world games, I abandon the open

58:51

world-iness because I just want to

58:53

move the plot forward. My

58:56

two favorite parts about Rebirth are the combat

58:59

and the characters. And

59:01

what air quotes sucks for me is

59:03

that I love the characters so much

59:06

that I end up doing these stupid

59:08

side quests where I don't care. I

59:10

don't want to go whatever it

59:12

is, catch four, I have rats on the brain still, it's

59:14

rat catcher. It's got to be rat catcher as a villain

59:16

for that Batman game. Anyway, it does seem to be pointing

59:19

that way. It does seem to be pointing that way. Go

59:21

do this thing. And I'm like, I'm definitely not going to

59:23

do that. I see it in my HUD. I'm

59:25

not going to do it. And then Aerith is

59:27

like, do you want to come catch these rats? And I'm like,

59:29

yes, I do. I want

59:31

to hear what you have to say. Anything to do, Aerith. I can't

59:33

turn you down. Yeah, I'm coming.

59:36

I see your not happy face when I look at you

59:38

and my character. So that game

59:40

keeps pulling me into it side quest,

59:43

so it's going slower than I otherwise probably would

59:45

have progressed with the story. But it's

59:47

just a fantastic time. This might feel

59:49

weird to some folks, but I think last week I compared

59:51

it a little bit to Horizon, a couple weeks ago, to

59:53

Horizon, where you're hanging out with your crew. It

59:56

also very much feels like I'm listening

59:58

to a podcast. I kind of I

1:00:00

wish I could play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

1:00:02

while doing something else. You know, I'm like,

1:00:04

oh, I got my buddies with me, and

1:00:06

I'm also writing this script or whatever. I

1:00:10

will not lie, there are moments where, you know, characters

1:00:12

are talking to each other in these side quests, and

1:00:14

I just pull out my phone, and I'm browsing Reddit.

1:00:17

I'm going, you know, I

1:00:19

hate to do it, but this is a

1:00:21

pretty low stakes little side quest. Yeah, hanging

1:00:23

out. Yep, I've caught the chickens, and now

1:00:25

I have to wait for the person to

1:00:27

explain that I've caught the chickens, and I

1:00:30

don't have to listen to everything that they have to

1:00:32

say at this very moment. Reddit has a little bit

1:00:34

more. That's pulling me in. Sorry. That

1:00:37

is a huge turnoff for me. I

1:00:40

can appreciate what you guys are saying.

1:00:42

It's a chill. It's a vibe. I

1:00:44

get it. I want to do it. You

1:00:46

know what I mean? Right. But

1:00:49

why? The problem is if you want to finish

1:00:51

it just for the sake of finishing it. If

1:00:53

you want to complete it just for the sake of

1:00:55

completing it, it doesn't feel like that's quality

1:00:58

content, right? Yeah. Like

1:01:00

is that side mission, does that really matter? Well, I

1:01:02

think oftentimes I think, yeah, I think oftentimes the content

1:01:04

of some of the side missions, and again,

1:01:06

I've not finished it, but I think they do become,

1:01:08

hard to wish isn't quite the

1:01:10

right term, but like annoying,

1:01:13

and then there's so many of the same

1:01:15

ones. You start seeing the same ones over

1:01:17

and over again, but the dialogue isn't always

1:01:19

the same, and sometimes they throw some other

1:01:22

cool character moment, and I have played Seven

1:01:24

and experienced Seven OG before that. For me,

1:01:26

what I'm here for is to spend time

1:01:28

with my best friends again, and so that's

1:01:30

where I kind of end up choosing to

1:01:32

do more of them than I otherwise would

1:01:35

in a standard open world game

1:01:37

for my play style. I was curious a little

1:01:39

bit whether you were disinterested in the

1:01:41

side missions because they just didn't

1:01:43

add to your original experience of

1:01:45

Seven. Like I don't know how much –

1:01:47

I don't really have the context of how much of this

1:01:49

game existed in the original game.

1:01:52

Jeff, I mean you can probably speak to this

1:01:54

too. I mean Seven had some stupid ass side

1:01:56

missions. Oh yeah. Like the game didn't always have

1:01:58

been quirky and weird. It

1:02:03

was a video game. The

1:02:05

fact that it had a good story was the surprise.

1:02:12

Yeah. It's a

1:02:14

great game. I'm really enjoying it. Rebirth was

1:02:16

fantastic so far. And the remake

1:02:18

is, I think, it

1:02:20

may have weaseled its way into my top ten. It was that good. If

1:02:24

I really feel something from a video game, if

1:02:26

I feel an emotion that makes me go, man,

1:02:30

that was special. That's a

1:02:32

great game. And I really,

1:02:34

truly think the remake was

1:02:36

one of the greats on this. That's amazing.

1:02:38

That's wonderful. I love getting that perspective of somebody that

1:02:41

is fresh to this story,

1:02:43

this iteration. Very cool.

1:02:47

Yeah. Alongside that, doing some Man of Lords. I

1:02:50

know you guys talked about it a little bit last week, so I

1:02:52

won't go too much into it. But this

1:02:54

game is fantastic. It's so good.

1:02:57

As a survival crafter

1:03:00

lover, Man of Lords is

1:03:02

one of the greatest types of these games

1:03:04

created. And

1:03:07

we're finally seeing some really great colony

1:03:10

crafters, colony builders style games coming out

1:03:12

with Man of Lords, but

1:03:14

also with Farther's Frontier. Both games

1:03:17

that I highly recommend to people because they're

1:03:19

just doing something, I think, with the technology

1:03:21

that we have access to now in PCs

1:03:24

that has never been done before, to be able

1:03:26

to have unit by

1:03:28

unit characters in the

1:03:30

game, moving around and doing things

1:03:32

and doing their jobs. It's not

1:03:34

just an abstraction of,

1:03:37

hey, I've assigned a woodsman and in

1:03:39

four minutes he's going to bring me

1:03:41

a piece of lumber. There

1:03:43

is an actual character who is the woodsman, and

1:03:45

they have to go out in the woods and

1:03:48

chop down that actual tree. And it's only possible

1:03:50

because computers have gotten to the point where they

1:03:52

can actually keep all of these

1:03:54

variables and all of these values at the

1:03:56

exact same time and manage them. And it's

1:03:59

so good. so cool

1:04:01

to see that evolution of

1:04:03

this genre that started out pretty dinky,

1:04:05

right? When we look back at

1:04:08

colony, you know, builders and that kind of

1:04:10

that style that genre, really

1:04:12

come into its own with this,

1:04:15

this new technology available to it. So

1:04:18

freaking cool. I'm loving it. That's

1:04:20

awesome. So it's the level of

1:04:22

sophistication and the does

1:04:24

that create a more emotional connection because

1:04:26

you're actually able to intermingle with all

1:04:29

the people that are Yeah. Yeah. You

1:04:31

feel like it is a living, breathing

1:04:33

village city, what have you. Exactly. And

1:04:35

that the people, you know, they all

1:04:38

have a name, right? And they

1:04:40

have a family that they belong to,

1:04:42

right? And one dies in battle. Like,

1:04:44

you know, that's part

1:04:46

of a family that's been lost.

1:04:48

I gotta call the Anderson tonight.

1:04:51

Give him the bad news. Give

1:04:53

him the bad news. You know, spirit through

1:04:55

the heart by a by a raid. Sorry.

1:04:57

But, you know, and then at the level

1:05:00

of like, you know, emotional connections that deep

1:05:02

because because these these elements are pretty abstracted

1:05:04

from the game, right? You don't you don't

1:05:06

see, you know, Robert Anderson has been has

1:05:08

been murdered. But you do

1:05:10

see your numbers start to trickle down. And then actually,

1:05:12

if you go, you know, to their home and knock

1:05:14

on the door, like there's only two people there. It's

1:05:17

like, Oh, God, this is getting real. But

1:05:20

but it's so cool. And mannerlords is, it

1:05:22

is, of course, it's in early access.

1:05:24

And it is just at the beginning of

1:05:27

the development of this game, even though it's

1:05:29

taken seven years to get to this point.

1:05:31

You know what that means for the next

1:05:33

two, three years, potentially, maybe longer until 1.0,

1:05:37

depending on how that transition goes

1:05:39

from kind of a solar solo

1:05:41

style developer to more of a team

1:05:43

based development style. I'm

1:05:45

so excited for what they

1:05:48

might bring to this game, because I think it's going to be

1:05:50

the pinnacle of the genre. And I felt

1:05:52

that way about farthest frontier. And and

1:05:55

still kind of do I think farthest frontier and mannerlords

1:05:57

are kind of neck and neck in terms of Uh,

1:06:00

just really amazing games

1:06:02

in that genre really cool stuff There

1:06:05

you have it manner lords. Uh,

1:06:07

it's uh, it's getting a lot of great buzz I still

1:06:09

haven't been in the shop, but i'm i'm gonna play it

1:06:11

this week. I think that's one One i'm

1:06:13

gonna download it's on game pass. I got no reason not

1:06:15

to on game. Nice. Yeah Uh,

1:06:18

and what else is on your uh, yeah, so,

1:06:20

uh, the last thing last week or yeah, I

1:06:22

guess was last week last week I was in

1:06:24

japan and you got a chance to go

1:06:26

to What I still think is Kind

1:06:29

of the mecca of video games and

1:06:31

nerd culture right inside of tokyo We

1:06:34

went went to a neighborhood in tokyo called

1:06:36

akihabara. It's the electric town Where

1:06:38

if you've ever seen photos from tokyo and

1:06:41

video game culture with all of the uh,

1:06:43

the the neon signs and the you know

1:06:45

The lit up arcades and you walk down

1:06:47

that street and it's just

1:06:49

noise blasted at you from all

1:06:51

different angles from the arcades and

1:06:53

from the um from the uh,

1:06:55

the gacha machine, you know Real

1:06:57

life cyberpunk, right? Yeah, right. Exactly.

1:06:59

Exactly though packed with The

1:07:01

the ditzy tourist who doesn't you know is

1:07:03

kind of staring around upwards at all the

1:07:05

fingers around them instead of uh, instead of

1:07:07

bad guys to kill and um,

1:07:10

I got a chance to play this

1:07:12

Really freaking cool game called some gokushi

1:07:14

tyson I played it my last trip

1:07:16

to japan and kind of got hooked

1:07:18

But we don't have the machines here

1:07:20

in america really access to them What

1:07:23

japan those of you that don't know

1:07:25

japan has a really big arcade culture,

1:07:27

right? The the ideas behind

1:07:29

this was that the typical

1:07:31

japanese person living in a smaller unit

1:07:33

wouldn't have access to you know A

1:07:35

pc room to play pc games and

1:07:38

so they go out, you know after

1:07:40

after work or after school and head

1:07:42

down to the arcade and

1:07:44

arcades in the last five or ten

1:07:46

years have come out with this I

1:07:49

don't even know how to describe it. It is Elements

1:07:52

or mechanics that transcend just the

1:07:54

video game element of it. So this

1:07:57

game prints out cards and the cards

1:07:59

have what I think is

1:08:01

an infrared code to

1:08:04

them. And then you put the cards

1:08:06

on the arcade table and you move

1:08:09

them around and your

1:08:11

units in the game move based on

1:08:13

the positioning of the cards. It

1:08:16

is so cool. It

1:08:18

is like you're living in 30 years in the future,

1:08:20

right? Being

1:08:22

able to control the characters with

1:08:24

your hands, physically, not with a controller,

1:08:27

but moving three, four, five different units

1:08:29

around the board, it's really

1:08:31

fantastic. Really, really fun stuff. And pretty accessible

1:08:33

to foreigners if you've got a phone in

1:08:35

your pocket, because now of course we can

1:08:37

just translate everything, right, with Google Translate and

1:08:39

hold it up to the screen and translate

1:08:41

from Japanese to English. And so I'm sitting

1:08:43

there with, of course, like native Japanese speakers

1:08:46

around me staring at me as I'm

1:08:48

translating word for word, like what's showing

1:08:50

up on the screen so I can

1:08:53

understand it. But it's really fantastic. And

1:08:55

just something

1:08:57

that I've never seen done in the West,

1:09:00

here in America or elsewhere in terms

1:09:03

of access to a game. The closest

1:09:05

I can think of is Amiibo, perhaps,

1:09:08

with Nintendo Switch, right? And being able to like

1:09:11

tap a card on your Switch and a character

1:09:13

appears in your game. Similar

1:09:15

to that is probably the closest

1:09:17

analog that we have here.

1:09:20

But I would say Goku Chi Taisen,

1:09:22

it's really cool. It's like the promise

1:09:25

of the old original Microsoft Surface table.

1:09:27

Exactly, yes, where we would be able

1:09:29

to play like board games or whatnot

1:09:32

in the alternate reality

1:09:34

kind of version of

1:09:36

it. Exactly right, yeah. It's

1:09:38

really cool. I went to an

1:09:40

arcade just last

1:09:43

week with my son, my

1:09:45

whole family, but my son was all excited about going. It

1:09:47

was one of these arcades. And

1:09:49

I was struck at how many of the modern games,

1:09:52

and they had a bunch of classic stand-up

1:09:54

arcade games, but they had some modern

1:09:57

releases, like there's a Halo, light

1:10:00

gun shooter game. It's called like elite

1:10:02

strike team or something like that. So

1:10:04

there's new stuff coming out. There's a

1:10:06

you know, there's like a Resident Evil

1:10:08

game that's based on the RE4 remake

1:10:10

or RE5. Doesn't

1:10:13

matter. The point is, there is also a

1:10:16

standup arcade version of

1:10:18

Minecraft Dungeons. Yeah,

1:10:21

it's also available on Game Pass. And

1:10:24

this the one that we were playing spit

1:10:26

out little cards. Yes. And

1:10:28

it didn't work like what you're talking about. But it's been a little

1:10:30

cards and you could then it was like

1:10:33

a randomizer for like, you got this

1:10:35

item. It's like, oh, cool. I got a physical card

1:10:37

of this item. And then you place that on a

1:10:39

reader on the arcade machine and

1:10:41

your character gets that item. So

1:10:44

you could theoretically like trade cards with

1:10:46

with your friends, and then go and

1:10:48

play that arcade game and get that

1:10:50

those items, which is

1:10:53

pretty neat, I think, but something

1:10:55

I could have gotten into when I was a

1:10:57

little kid, but it also feels very wastey because

1:10:59

it's just constantly spitting out these cards. Yeah. And

1:11:02

the cards are what are kind of used for

1:11:04

one single game, right? Like you go to the

1:11:06

arcade and what we've learned since the last time

1:11:08

we went to Japan is they've updated

1:11:11

the version of Sango Kushi Tyson. And

1:11:13

so all of our old cards were

1:11:15

worthless. So you have to

1:11:17

collect, you know, make your collection once more, you know,

1:11:19

from scratch. But the the technology

1:11:22

there for the arcade space is

1:11:24

is getting really cool. And I honestly

1:11:26

love that kind of that

1:11:28

transcending just the digital space and

1:11:30

having something physical feels grounding

1:11:32

in a way. It reminds me a little bit

1:11:35

of of getting a game and

1:11:37

opening it up and having the manual for

1:11:39

the game, right in there and being able

1:11:41

to hold that and read that on your

1:11:43

way home. That was real. Yeah, something real

1:11:45

to hold and touch. I think

1:11:47

these things are important for us, but they're

1:11:49

kind of disappearing except for in very specific

1:11:52

little niches. They're out there. Yeah,

1:11:54

it was beautifully said.

1:11:57

That's Sango Kushi Tyson. And

1:11:59

if you're in Japan, seek it out. All

1:12:02

right. Before we get to Christian's playlist,

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at here you are az.com. All

1:13:09

right, Christian Spicer. What is on your playlist this

1:13:11

week? I finished

1:13:13

the fallout TV show, which

1:13:16

I don't think we've ever, and it doesn't look like

1:13:18

today either. I don't think we've ever had it as

1:13:20

an official parting gift, but I also

1:13:22

think Jeff and I, you and I both would

1:13:24

officially recommend it as a hard intent caliber.

1:13:27

Incredible. Fantastic. I kind of

1:13:29

don't think we need to

1:13:31

because evidently it's like become

1:13:33

Amazon Prime's most watched show

1:13:35

ever. So I think people are

1:13:37

hip to how good it is, but man, it's very

1:13:40

good. It's very good. It's

1:13:42

very, very good. So I

1:13:44

like the millions of others

1:13:46

and a lot of PlayStation players.

1:13:48

I did see that like a lot of people

1:13:50

on PlayStation, it's like Microsoft has the top 10

1:13:52

games on PlayStation right now. Everybody's

1:13:55

going back to fallout. I went

1:13:57

back to fallout and I wanted to spend more time in.

1:14:00

the wasteland and I thought, how

1:14:03

am I going to, what wasteland am I going

1:14:05

to choose? I almost went to New Vegas because

1:14:07

I have probably the least amount of time in that. But

1:14:10

I was like, you know, I want to go back to 76. Every

1:14:12

year, it seems

1:14:14

like, or maybe even more than regularly

1:14:16

than that, we get some update about

1:14:19

this is for you, this is for

1:14:21

the fans, we've introduced all this stuff

1:14:23

and they have been plugging away on

1:14:25

that game. Yeah, I

1:14:27

have not gone back to it since

1:14:29

launch. I don't know, Jeff, if

1:14:31

you've gone back to it, Max, I don't know your history

1:14:34

with it, but I played it

1:14:36

at launch. And I'm sure the internet

1:14:39

always remembers. I'm sure I said

1:14:41

some pretty not happy

1:14:43

things about the game. It was not great

1:14:45

at launch. It was really bad. We had

1:14:47

the same experience. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, it

1:14:49

was it was not enjoyable.

1:14:53

And they kept plugging away on it. And I kept

1:14:55

being like, Yeah, I should maybe but I have a

1:14:57

million other things to do. The show

1:15:00

made me put those million other

1:15:02

things aside, they want to redive

1:15:04

in to Fallout 76. It has

1:15:06

been so long since I played it that

1:15:08

when I played it, because it's on game

1:15:11

pass, and I'm like, well, Microsoft owns it.

1:15:13

That's I'm going to play it now. I

1:15:15

don't remember where I played it before because

1:15:17

Max, I don't think was born when I

1:15:19

was like, I'm going to play it on

1:15:21

my Series X or whatever. And

1:15:23

I loaded up and like, having this debate as it's

1:15:25

like downloading, I'm like, do I continue where I was,

1:15:27

or I just create a new character? I was like,

1:15:29

ah, I guess I'll just create a new character and

1:15:32

see. And then my friends, I got to

1:15:34

learn I had to create a new character. Because I've

1:15:36

played it originally, I bought it on

1:15:38

PlayStation four forever ago, like that's where my

1:15:40

that's where my current wasteland live. Right? I

1:15:42

was like, Oh, yeah, it's been forever since

1:15:44

I played this game. And

1:15:47

so I started from scratch, build my whole character.

1:15:50

I've played five hours four

1:15:53

to five hours here as of

1:15:55

this recording. It's

1:15:57

I don't know how much it changes after this four

1:16:00

five hours, but this first four or five

1:16:02

hours, gentlemen, it

1:16:04

is a completely different

1:16:06

game than I played,

1:16:09

you know, whenever back in the 1900s,

1:16:11

whenever it first came out. I mean, I don't

1:16:13

think it was that old, but just

1:16:16

a completely different game. One of the

1:16:18

criticisms I remember having about Fallout

1:16:20

76 when it first launched is there

1:16:23

are no people in the Fallout world is

1:16:25

always so interesting to meet these other NPCs

1:16:27

and have these wonderful interactions with them. And

1:16:29

when 76 first launched, there was just voice

1:16:31

recordings that you could pick up and you'd

1:16:33

hear, you know, it's like the world where

1:16:35

everybody died. But as they died, they were

1:16:37

like, here's my life story. I'm gonna throw

1:16:40

this in a trash can dump their, their

1:16:42

their voice recorder Pip boy in a trash

1:16:44

can and there are no people and there

1:16:46

were bots or whatever, in mutants

1:16:48

and stuff like that. October

1:16:52

23rd, 2018. Forever

1:16:55

ago. It's a lot number

1:16:57

doesn't seem like that long ago, but that's

1:17:00

the six years six years. Yeah,

1:17:04

it's a long time. Well, in

1:17:06

that six years, a lot of people have

1:17:08

moved into the wasteland. It seems like a

1:17:10

lot of NPCs. I mean, even the opening

1:17:12

minutes of how you guys you create your

1:17:14

character and you come in of your vault feel

1:17:16

felt totally different to me.

1:17:19

And as you go out, you I

1:17:21

encountered all these human being NPCs that

1:17:24

sure enough, gave the world

1:17:26

this richness that I think was

1:17:28

missing. Originally, where

1:17:31

I can see that there's these warring factions going

1:17:33

on. And this group wants me to do this

1:17:35

thing. And I'm going to take this to these

1:17:37

other people. And I'm going to interact with these

1:17:39

people this way. And here's this ghoul that I'm

1:17:41

going to meet that's going to tell me this

1:17:44

thing. And I see the brutality of the world,

1:17:46

but also with the humor like very early in

1:17:48

the game, this person kills this other person and

1:17:50

the reaction to it is just like, you

1:17:52

know, perfect. Fallout three

1:17:55

Fallout four style humor of these

1:17:57

interactions. And it's, I

1:17:59

don't I don't know how long I'm going to

1:18:01

stick with it. One of the Let's Chat games

1:18:04

I'm working on is the idea of celebrating an

1:18:06

ending. I love endings. I

1:18:09

have a hard time with forever games because I start to

1:18:11

lose my purpose. So I don't know

1:18:13

how long I'm going to keep playing Fallout 76, at

1:18:16

what point I will lose that thread. But

1:18:18

five hours in, I have a main

1:18:20

quest, a pretty

1:18:22

substantial feeling, meaty main

1:18:24

quest thread, and

1:18:26

at least three really interesting

1:18:29

side quests so far. And

1:18:31

I've been playing solo. You

1:18:34

know, I see other, the tendrils

1:18:36

of the online connected world.

1:18:39

But, I mean, don't get me wrong, it

1:18:41

looks like butt. I was going to

1:18:43

ask if it feels dated, right? Because MMOs and

1:18:45

those, that live, you know, live service games kind

1:18:48

of have that issue for the first couple of

1:18:50

hours of feeling like, oh, God, this is from

1:18:52

2018. It looked like a 2018 game.

1:18:54

When it came out in 2018, it

1:18:57

wasn't, you know, Last of Us. It

1:18:59

wasn't a showstopper visual game. But

1:19:02

it seems to be doing everything

1:19:04

right. And I'm really curious,

1:19:07

you know, for the millions of people that are looking

1:19:09

to experience more Fallout, which

1:19:11

experience is maybe the one to recommend?

1:19:14

And again, only five hours in, replaying 76.

1:19:18

But for my money right now, I think I'd maybe

1:19:20

pick it over four, because

1:19:22

it's full of so much stuff

1:19:26

that doesn't seem as

1:19:33

held back by a main campaign, if

1:19:35

that makes sense. Like it is kind

1:19:37

of just this sandbox. And

1:19:39

I'm fascinated by it. I am fascinated

1:19:42

by it. And the last thing I'll say,

1:19:44

I'm also fascinated by the millions of people

1:19:46

that are maybe looking to experience Fallout, because

1:19:49

that show is so polished. It's

1:19:51

so beautiful. The VFX look great. And I'm

1:19:53

very curious how fans are reacting to playing

1:19:55

the games and being like, Oh, this

1:19:58

is buggy as hell. Well the

1:20:00

answer to your question of what's the best

1:20:02

one to go to, the answer to your

1:20:04

question is Fallout 4 with mods. With a

1:20:06

lot. Not the re-release that they put out.

1:20:08

No. The

1:20:11

old mods. OG Fallout

1:20:13

4 loaded down with mods. That's

1:20:15

the way you're going to get a beautiful... You're not

1:20:17

encumbered at that point? Yeah,

1:20:19

you might be. Actually, it's a mod to get rid of

1:20:22

encumbrance. But

1:20:24

you know what's also amazing? In the same vein,

1:20:27

Elder Scrolls Online. It's

1:20:30

still going strong and it's incredible and

1:20:32

there's tons of content in it. And

1:20:34

neither of these games get the attention

1:20:36

that another standalone

1:20:39

release in those franchises would get.

1:20:42

But they're both like, chock full

1:20:44

of tons of great content. Thriving,

1:20:47

great systems. Yeah,

1:20:50

I mean I haven't played Fallout 76.

1:20:52

I'm just piggybacking on what you're saying.

1:20:54

But I have played ESO recently and

1:20:57

that game still is

1:20:59

excellent and delivers a great Elder

1:21:01

Scrolls experience. For all I

1:21:03

know, someone has pulled their car over and

1:21:05

is currently emailing us at dlcfeedbackatgmail.com being like,

1:21:08

They added human NPCs ten years ago. No,

1:21:10

I don't know how recent it is. Where

1:21:13

have you been? You might be right.

1:21:15

I've been in a vault. I apologize. But

1:21:18

Jeff, you should – I specifically

1:21:20

want you to also play it because we

1:21:23

both did not like 76. And

1:21:25

I am blown away by

1:21:28

how these opening hours are meaningful

1:21:31

in a way they just weren't. I

1:21:33

was the guy that reinstalled Fallout 4 VR

1:21:35

after the show. That was the thing

1:21:38

that made – that's what I reinstalled and

1:21:40

loaded that bad boy down with mods. Well,

1:21:43

Max was the guy who set off

1:21:45

a nuclear blast and stared at it.

1:21:47

But he did experience. I

1:21:50

remember that moment actually from – was

1:21:52

that Fallout 3, right? Like you had

1:21:54

the choice between Megaton and the other?

1:21:57

I remember – Such a cruel moment, by

1:21:59

the way. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do

1:22:01

the whole age thing again But I was at

1:22:03

an age where staring at nuclear explosions was like

1:22:05

the coolest thing in the world I

1:22:08

remember just I would do an autosave

1:22:10

and then just load it over and

1:22:12

over and over I think

1:22:14

if my parents knew what I was playing they would

1:22:16

kind of start to worry But how divers to says

1:22:18

it's still the coolest thing to look at it is

1:22:21

right. Yeah, exactly I Loaded

1:22:23

up actually because of you Christian I loaded up

1:22:25

fallout 4 for the first time and got into

1:22:27

the the series on on Amazon and I'm

1:22:30

I decided to do the fallout 4

1:22:32

survival mode, which they had added many

1:22:34

years back but but basically one step

1:22:36

beyond hard you you have, you know,

1:22:38

you have to eat you have to

1:22:40

drink and Quite

1:22:42

frustratingly and and the element that I I

1:22:45

dislike the most from it is that you

1:22:47

can't save the game You

1:22:49

can you you can only save when

1:22:51

you sleep and so you

1:22:53

have to find Not

1:22:55

only do you have to find beds and and and bed

1:22:58

rolls to sleep out But you have to find beds and

1:23:00

bed rolls that aren't owned by other players who are gonna

1:23:02

come into the bedroom and go well, what the heck like

1:23:05

why you sleep into my bed, which sometimes you

1:23:07

have to do because Right

1:23:11

because because the guy to lock sound is gonna

1:23:13

Molotov me out of nowhere 360

1:23:16

Molotov out of nowhere and I'd rather

1:23:18

that not delete four hours Progress

1:23:24

Your bed Universe

1:23:29

where I must say Which

1:23:32

you know Given the mental states of

1:23:34

a lot of people in the fallout universe wouldn't

1:23:36

be that too far off and I have to

1:23:38

say You know your your points on on this

1:23:40

the series on Amazon are spot-on I mean last

1:23:42

week you talked about how it has this just

1:23:46

giddy Humor to

1:23:48

it this just This

1:23:50

beautiful humor to the the series that

1:23:52

is so true to the games and

1:23:54

and the universes that they built games

1:23:56

that really don't Take themselves too seriously

1:23:58

anything can happen You've

1:24:00

got a creature with freaking fingers

1:24:02

in its mouth and it's just that's what

1:24:04

it is. That's what this creature is. And

1:24:06

that's so cool and they've done such an

1:24:08

amazing job of the series that is just,

1:24:11

everyone has to go watch it. I agree.

1:24:14

It is a triumph in translating

1:24:16

a video game world to

1:24:19

a different medium. And

1:24:21

I think that's the secret sauce

1:24:23

that has driven people to

1:24:25

reinstall Fallout games in huge

1:24:28

numbers. As

1:24:30

much as I love, we love, I

1:24:32

think is universally loved

1:24:35

the Last of Us adaptation.

1:24:37

It is an extraordinary adaptation. I don't

1:24:39

think it had the effect of people

1:24:41

really wanting to reinstall those

1:24:43

games in the same way. And it's

1:24:45

because the Fallout

1:24:48

series succeeds in making

1:24:50

the place desirable

1:24:54

to be like, it looks like a

1:24:56

place I want to experience. It's not

1:24:58

going to be necessarily positive all the

1:25:01

time. You know, that stuff happens in

1:25:03

it. But it looks like

1:25:05

a place that, oh my gosh, isn't it

1:25:07

crazy that I get the opportunity to like

1:25:10

go to the, I've been watching this TV

1:25:12

show and I can actually wander around in

1:25:14

this place. That is an

1:25:16

incredible draw. And I don't think any

1:25:19

video game adaptation before it has

1:25:21

had that effect in that same way. And

1:25:24

without knowing what the end of it is. The

1:25:28

Last of Us followed so closely to the game

1:25:30

that you're going, okay, I get it. These are

1:25:32

the story beats that I've experienced maybe once, maybe

1:25:34

twice, depending on how many times you play the

1:25:36

game. And with some variation

1:25:38

and some difference in there. But to

1:25:40

have Fallout deviate from what

1:25:43

we've known. And of course it can because that's

1:25:45

what the games are. They take place in the

1:25:47

same shared universe, but with different stories every single

1:25:49

time, just kind of like Batman. And

1:25:52

if you do that, don't do that.

1:25:56

But to be able to sit and experience that

1:25:58

without going, oh. I know what's

1:26:01

gonna happen next means that you can

1:26:03

sit there and really just enjoy it.

1:26:05

Yeah, like really they can it It's

1:26:07

it's fantastic. Oh, yeah, it's funny how

1:26:09

many stories have come out of people

1:26:11

just asking Todd Howard why? Prioritize

1:26:15

making another Like

1:26:18

hey this shows a massive hit don't you

1:26:20

guys wish you had a fallout game and

1:26:22

they're like, yes We

1:26:25

do we are slow at making And

1:26:28

and the whole argument about what is cannon and

1:26:30

what's not cannon? I can feel every

1:26:32

quote from Todd getting getting you know

1:26:34

more and more frustrated like it doesn't

1:26:36

matter Yeah, enjoy it. Just enjoy

1:26:38

it doesn't matter what's cannon what's not cannon

1:26:41

just enjoy the universe and the show we've

1:26:43

made Please said

1:26:45

you wanted another Elder Scrolls game. That's what

1:26:47

we've been working on now this what are

1:26:50

we supposed to do? It

1:26:52

highlights as we're kind of dancing

1:26:54

around in some tangents I will continue to dance it

1:26:57

highlights two other things that blow my mind about it

1:27:00

one How big

1:27:02

of a fumble? Halo the show

1:27:04

and I don't know how much of that is

1:27:06

the show itself I think a lot I

1:27:09

think a lot of it is the show it's a

1:27:11

harder show to make perhaps visually even though fallout Walter

1:27:14

Goggins knows It's a

1:27:16

work of art in fallout the VFX

1:27:18

in that show are incredible lack of

1:27:20

nose. Yes Halo had

1:27:22

a lot of VFX shots But just

1:27:25

like I'm gonna do some broad spoilers for

1:27:27

the Halo show like Master Chief's But no

1:27:29

one was like that's gonna bring it Master

1:27:32

Chief having a

1:27:34

romantic relations like It

1:27:38

didn't seem to be delivering on What

1:27:43

is the best thing about that Franchise

1:27:45

for a long time and in Paramount Plus, so

1:27:47

I think the show shoulder some of the blame

1:27:50

I think Paramount also shoulder some of the blame

1:27:52

because everybody has prime whether you want it or

1:27:54

not because you have some other version of You

1:27:56

have your Amazon Prime subscription. So I think it's

1:27:59

a bigger subscriber base in Paramount. It

1:28:01

blows my mind how big of a fumble Halo seemed to be.

1:28:04

And I know they've announced a big update

1:28:06

for Starfield. But re

1:28:08

exploring Fallout 76 highlights

1:28:11

to me, more of

1:28:13

the shortcomings with Starfield. And

1:28:15

what I typically love about Bethesda games,

1:28:18

is that discovery and stumbling into

1:28:20

something and Starfield took a lot

1:28:22

of that away where it needed

1:28:24

to be an intentional click planet

1:28:27

go load set

1:28:29

C instead of I walked out of

1:28:31

the forest. Oh my god, that's a

1:28:33

bear. You know, and like, where

1:28:36

is this gonna go? And 76 has

1:28:38

that in spades. And I missed that. So

1:28:40

that feels like a nice Bethesda blanket again

1:28:42

that I that I've been missing. I

1:28:45

had a little bit of a similar but

1:28:47

but opposite experience, actually, because I played about

1:28:49

100 hours of the Starfield. I loved it.

1:28:51

I really enjoyed the game. I had to

1:28:53

almost turn off social media because people are

1:28:55

kind of kind of bashing on it. And

1:28:57

with with good reason, because I can understand,

1:28:59

you know, the issues, especially the planetary stuff.

1:29:01

I mean, everybody was expecting no man's sky,

1:29:03

but made by Bethesda. And we got, you

1:29:05

know, starship menu simulator with

1:29:07

Bethesda put on top of it.

1:29:10

But I remember playing Starfield and feeling

1:29:12

like this is frustrating. There are

1:29:14

all these bugs, there's all these quirks, I

1:29:16

don't understand why the game isn't just running the

1:29:18

way it should run. And when I booted

1:29:21

up Fallout four again, I realized

1:29:23

that that was a buggy mess, too. It

1:29:25

was all sorts

1:29:27

of crazy stuff would happen game game

1:29:29

crashing bugs that that we kind of,

1:29:31

you know, bared our way through.

1:29:33

And of course, follow for was kind of critically

1:29:37

accepted by people for various reasons.

1:29:39

But I grew an

1:29:41

appreciation for Starfield's bugginess and kind

1:29:44

of wonkyness again, thanks to replaying

1:29:46

Fallout, because because the games are

1:29:48

charming in that way with what

1:29:51

you have to go through to

1:29:53

be able to experience them and get

1:29:55

to the end. It's

1:29:58

amazing. It's a weird thing. for this

1:30:00

company to have this resurgence because of the

1:30:02

TV show and sort of be ill

1:30:04

prepared for it in so many ways. Very

1:30:07

very funny. But man, what a great show.

1:30:11

Anyway, that is what's on

1:30:13

Christian's playlist. Quickly I

1:30:15

want to talk about a game on my playlist that I

1:30:17

have been playing this week that was a

1:30:19

big surprise. I got a code for this game. It

1:30:22

is still in early access. But you

1:30:25

know, it's kind of Jeff's Rogue

1:30:27

Light of the Week. I

1:30:30

love Rogue Lights. So

1:30:35

I tried this game called Shadow of

1:30:37

the Depth, which is a

1:30:39

very clunky title. But

1:30:41

I honestly had very low expectations for this game, but

1:30:43

I booted it. I got a code for it. I

1:30:46

thought I'd check it out. This

1:30:48

is an action

1:30:50

roguelike from the

1:30:53

pure top-down perspective.

1:30:55

Not isometric, pure

1:30:57

top-down. We're talking D&D map

1:31:01

style top-down. We're talking gauntlet.

1:31:05

We're talking looking down and seeing

1:31:08

shoulders and head. That's what

1:31:10

we're seeing. And

1:31:12

they don't make very many games from that

1:31:15

perspective anymore. I was sort

1:31:17

of taken by that attempt, which

1:31:19

is pretty cool. I'm going to give this game a

1:31:21

shot. I got to say, very

1:31:26

pleasantly surprised by Shadow of the

1:31:28

Depth. This game is really fun.

1:31:31

It really does feel like a

1:31:35

take on gauntlet, the old arcade

1:31:38

game gauntlet, but with

1:31:40

modern trappings, roguelike

1:31:42

trappings. There

1:31:45

are a number of different classes. You start

1:31:47

with only one available, which is this big

1:31:49

burly sword and shield guy. I've

1:31:51

unlocked a couple of others, and

1:31:53

they play very differently from one another. But

1:31:57

you're into this... dungeon

1:32:01

And you're wandering around and you're smacking lots of things

1:32:04

that attack you there are times when a wall

1:32:06

will will Manifest around you locking

1:32:08

you into a certain enclosed space

1:32:10

enough to kill everything before it'll

1:32:12

unlock but you're finding

1:32:16

treasure chests that

1:32:18

have various resources in them

1:32:20

gold and upgrades

1:32:23

and you'll find You'll

1:32:25

find weapons in there and

1:32:28

the weapon is a really cool thing. There's

1:32:30

no inventory system you

1:32:32

have the opportunity of either picking that

1:32:34

weapon up and upgrading your weapon right

1:32:37

now or Immediately

1:32:39

cashing that weapon in for gold or you

1:32:41

can just leave it there and walk away

1:32:43

from it That's fine, too And

1:32:45

you could you know return to that spot later,

1:32:47

but you're not going to because you're getting deeper

1:32:49

and deeper into the dungeon so I

1:32:52

like the Forcing you

1:32:54

into a decision right now like it's it's

1:32:56

it's mildly better. It's got different stats It's

1:32:58

got some different abilities attached to it. Are

1:33:00

you gonna use it right now? Are you

1:33:03

gonna are you gonna change no sell it

1:33:05

like I love that. It's so streamlined.

1:33:07

It's so beautiful I really

1:33:10

dig it and You

1:33:12

have a number of you have

1:33:14

you know basic attacks and some combos. There's

1:33:17

some fun like Time

1:33:19

based combos where you like press press way

1:33:21

press and it will do something different than

1:33:23

just press press press, you know That's

1:33:26

fun and you get you'll

1:33:29

get an ultimate ability that has a long cooldown

1:33:31

You get a side ability and all

1:33:33

of the abilities that you well not all

1:33:35

the the side ability that you get

1:33:37

is attached to your weapon So when you change out

1:33:40

weapons It'll often have a different side ability and so

1:33:42

part of the decision about whether or not you want

1:33:44

to change a weapon is Which of these

1:33:46

other abilities do you like? You

1:33:48

can get pets and cool things that

1:33:50

follow you around some of the classes have they

1:33:54

play the classes play very differently from one

1:33:56

another and ultimately

1:33:58

the best part of Shadow of

1:34:00

the Depth is that I

1:34:03

think the combat feels really good.

1:34:06

It's very arcadey. This

1:34:08

is not a Souls-like. You

1:34:10

do have a parry, you do have a

1:34:12

block, you do have

1:34:14

a dodge. All of

1:34:17

those things are modern trappings of

1:34:19

video games that you would expect, but you

1:34:21

can also just go in guns blazing and

1:34:23

smack things around. And that's what I like.

1:34:25

I really enjoy that. It does feel like

1:34:27

there's 40 enemies coming at

1:34:29

you. There's a certain bullet... It's

1:34:32

fast too. It's fast. The

1:34:34

characters, yeah. There's a certain bullet hell

1:34:36

nature to it at times when there

1:34:38

are things that like telegraph their fast

1:34:40

movement, whether it be like an arrow

1:34:42

and they'll shoot at you that direction

1:34:44

or there are other enemies that literally

1:34:47

do shoot off beams that are coming

1:34:49

out into a pattern, bullet

1:34:51

hell style. And you have this cool dodge and

1:34:53

you're dodging your way around things. It's

1:34:57

fast, it's kinetic, it feels good

1:34:59

when you smack something. There's

1:35:03

a weight to it. Smacking

1:35:05

something usually prevents it from attacking

1:35:08

you, which I love. I hate

1:35:10

games where I hit something and

1:35:13

it was no impediment to their attack against me. And

1:35:17

ultimately, it's got these

1:35:20

roguelite things that I

1:35:22

like where I'm having a meta of

1:35:25

course upgrade path where

1:35:27

even when I die, I can upgrade

1:35:29

things. I have resources that I've collected that I

1:35:32

can upgrade. So my next turn through

1:35:34

the dungeon will be slightly more

1:35:37

powerful. I

1:35:39

think those things could be handled in a

1:35:41

more satisfying way. You're just kind

1:35:43

of just getting plus two to this, plus two to

1:35:45

that, whatever. There could

1:35:47

be cooler upgrades, but overall, it's

1:35:50

really solid. It's really fun. I

1:35:52

think it looks sharp. I

1:35:55

find the unlocking the new

1:35:57

classes is really satisfying because they play

1:35:59

really different. from from one another. I don't

1:36:02

think there's a ton of content in the game right now,

1:36:04

but it's an early access and I think they're going to add

1:36:06

more to it. This was a huge

1:36:08

surprise for me for man, I

1:36:11

found myself wanting to return to it and keep playing

1:36:13

it because it was just fun. It was one of

1:36:15

those like, it's got that

1:36:18

Diablo, I can kind of

1:36:20

turn my brain off and

1:36:22

relax in the chaos of it,

1:36:25

but also there

1:36:27

is a certain element of, you

1:36:29

know, that the

1:36:32

feedback loop is really, really good in

1:36:34

this game. I'm getting new, I'm getting

1:36:36

new weapons. I'm right

1:36:38

now I'm deciding to change out my weapon right

1:36:40

now. I'm getting more powerful. Right now I got

1:36:43

a new ultimate ability. Right now I got a

1:36:45

cool upgrade that I have to think about. Ooh,

1:36:47

that's a cool pass of a bill. Oh, lightning

1:36:49

will shoot off of me anytime I get hit.

1:36:51

Yes. Want that, you know, like it's, it's

1:36:54

a pretty solid game. I'm really digging it.

1:36:57

If you're into roguelikes, this isn't

1:36:59

one to ignore. I think this is, you

1:37:01

know, a game easily overlooked by

1:37:03

a lot of people. I like

1:37:05

it. Shadow of the depth. All

1:37:08

right. Let's move now,

1:37:10

because Max is a board gamer. So

1:37:13

we're going to give you a little

1:37:15

bit of tabletop time. Right

1:37:22

now. Right now. All

1:37:29

right. I know, ladies and gentlemen, it's few

1:37:31

and far between when we have tabletop time

1:37:34

lately. But when we have a guest like

1:37:36

Max who's in it, I want

1:37:38

to pick his brain, particularly because I think

1:37:41

it's behind me. Well, there's two games on your list that

1:37:43

are behind me right now. Oh, yeah. And

1:37:45

the other is still in

1:37:47

shrink wrap. I think it's over

1:37:49

there somewhere. Ark Nova. I want to hear

1:37:51

about both of those. You can start wherever

1:37:54

you like. Sure. I'm going to do a

1:37:56

spoiler free Frosthaven, because I know it's really

1:37:58

easy to spoil these games. So we're not

1:38:00

going to talk about classes. We're not going

1:38:02

to get into any of that. We're about

1:38:04

30 missions in with my dedicated Frosthaven group.

1:38:07

We've played all of Gloomhaven, and then

1:38:09

we've played about 30 missions of Frosthaven.

1:38:12

I am loving this game. I

1:38:14

mean, I talked at the top of

1:38:16

the podcast about how I love games

1:38:19

that you're constantly learning. And this is

1:38:21

like quintessential, you're constantly learning. You're unlocking

1:38:23

a new class, and then you get

1:38:25

access to a whole bunch of

1:38:27

abilities, and you have to learn how they work

1:38:30

and what different builds your class has access

1:38:32

to. And Frosthaven just does all of that

1:38:34

that Gloomhaven did so well and

1:38:36

more. And the same thing goes for

1:38:39

those of you that have played maybe

1:38:41

the spinoff kind of standalone games, like

1:38:43

Jaws of the Lion and others.

1:38:46

These games are amazing.

1:38:48

You do kind of need

1:38:50

to have a dedicated group for these. You need to

1:38:52

have people that will show up week after week or

1:38:55

month after month, however long it takes you to do

1:38:57

it. But if you can ideally keep the same group

1:38:59

and have people that are willing to

1:39:01

show up and are not going to bail on

1:39:03

you and are not going to get into weird

1:39:06

little snippy fights, because they're very easy in these

1:39:08

games with little fiddly pieces and parts and things

1:39:11

that you can kind of steal from each other, they

1:39:13

have to be very good friends. But if you have this

1:39:15

game group, man, Gloomhaven

1:39:18

and Frosthaven are just amazing.

1:39:20

They're just so good. Frosthaven

1:39:23

has added a little bit of

1:39:25

a section

1:39:27

in between matches that Gloomhaven did not

1:39:29

have. I will say it gets

1:39:32

a little tiring to have to do

1:39:34

a lot of that management in between

1:39:36

games. There are times where our play

1:39:38

sessions last two, three hours maybe, and

1:39:40

that's for a single mission. We

1:39:43

tend to play pretty tactically and

1:39:45

kind of within

1:39:47

the rules of the game, kind of talk about, hey, I'm going to

1:39:49

do this and you're going to do this and let's set this up

1:39:51

so that we can pull off some really cool things. And

1:39:54

at the end of that, I don't want to

1:39:56

have to do six

1:39:59

other. little things to micromanage this

1:40:01

other piece that it adds. I'm not going to

1:40:03

spoil what it is, but it's very cool. It's

1:40:05

quite neat. It's a

1:40:07

nice addition to it and it

1:40:10

still holds up. The story is still

1:40:12

relatively, you know, gloom haven-y. It's not going

1:40:15

to blow your mind. It's not going to

1:40:17

be like, whoa, this is the greatest thing

1:40:19

I've ever experienced in my entire life. But

1:40:21

you are going to get that sort of

1:40:23

like next level of D&D without the Dungeon

1:40:25

Master, where you're being guided through these

1:40:28

missions and this story that's unfolding and

1:40:30

these little subplots that you can go

1:40:32