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this show, the main show, DLC It's

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the show all about games In their

1:43

many forms, games played on desktops, laptops,

1:46

and consoles Also games that

1:48

involve dice, luck, and cardboard I'm your

1:50

host, Jeff Kanata That's spelled with two N's and

1:52

one T And I am joined, as always, by my friend

1:55

Slash co-host Slash

1:57

nemesis The guy Who

2:00

knows I'll either be crying

2:02

or crying today as we

2:05

sit here on the precipice of unknowing. Mr.

2:08

Christian Spicer. Hello, Christian. This

2:10

is what it sounds like when

2:13

Jeff cries. We don't

2:15

know if it's a happy

2:17

cry. Is that a sad cry? That's right. You, dear listener,

2:20

already know. You might still be

2:22

crying while you're listening to this come Wednesday

2:24

or whenever you find it in your podcast

2:26

player of choice. Just picture

2:28

Jeff weeping. Picture the Michael Jordan

2:30

meme, but make it Jeff's face

2:32

and just pretend. Just pretend. Either

2:34

either positive cries or negative cries.

2:36

We'll find out. We are recording

2:38

a little early so that

2:40

I can watch my beloved 49ers play in the

2:42

superb owl. And idiot 49ers. How

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could you do that? You know, they

2:47

will be beloved no matter what. But

2:51

here's hoping that I'm I have a smile on my face

2:53

when you're listening to this, ladies and gentlemen, and

2:55

not a sad, sad frown. Either way, we

2:57

have an awesome show for you regardless

3:00

because we got tons of cool stuff

3:02

to talk about some really juicy, interesting

3:04

news. A bunch of great games. It

3:06

was Steam Next Fest Week, one of

3:09

my favorite weeks of the year in gaming. And

3:12

we have an awesome guest to

3:14

do it with. You know, the

3:16

DLC always stands for your downloadable

3:18

Kannada and your downloadable Christian. But

3:20

this week, I'm excited because DLC

3:22

stands for Dot's Leading

3:24

Contributor. Because we have

3:27

gaming editor at Dot

3:29

Esports. Vic Hood is joining

3:31

us for the first time. Hi, Vic. Hi,

3:34

I'm really happy to be here. I can't

3:36

quite hit those Prince notes that Christian counts.

3:38

I'm not even going to try. I

3:40

appreciate you lying and pretending like I hit

3:42

them. We're

3:45

delighted to have you on the show. And, you

3:48

know, I do have to remind everybody that

3:50

the greatest halftime show of all time is Prince

3:52

and always will be. You know, he's

3:54

the greatest. He's the greatest that ever was, ever will be. But

3:57

we got a lot to get into. So let's jump right

3:59

in and. start the show the way we always do,

4:02

what story of the week? Story

4:04

of the week, story of the

4:06

week, story of the week.

4:11

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

4:13

a new case of the most important stories that happened in the world

4:15

of games this week. You can

4:17

always submit stories for our consideration

4:19

by sending us an email to

4:21

dlcfeedbackatgmail.com. You can also send comments,

4:23

questions, anything you'd like us to

4:25

know. We love hearing from ya.

4:27

dlcfeedbackatgmail.com is where you do that.

4:29

Another great way to reach out

4:31

to us and hang out with

4:33

like-minded members of the community is

4:36

by visiting our Discord, which is 5x5

4:38

DLC on Discord. Check it out, hang

4:40

out, get in on the

4:42

fun. Lots of folks talking about games and all sorts of

4:44

other stuff. But Vic, you

4:46

are our guest, so you get first pick of

4:49

stories. What would you consider to

4:51

be your story of the week? I'd

4:54

say it probably is

4:56

this Disney Fortnite investment

4:59

that is just ridiculous

5:01

amounts of money, but also like,

5:04

I'm so interested to see what's gonna

5:06

happen there. Like, it could go so

5:08

badly, but it could genuinely

5:11

go so well. Like, it's

5:13

madness at the minute. Like, Fortnite

5:16

is, you'd think it would never

5:18

reach bigger sort of platform than

5:20

it is. Like, Epic Games is

5:22

teaming up with Disney and

5:24

there's gonna be some sort of

5:26

virtual theme park, maybe. Like, I

5:30

just, it's, I'm so

5:32

curious to see what's gonna happen there. It could

5:34

either be such a major flop or like, such

5:37

an amazing, like, Disneyland's

5:40

from a controller, you know? Yes,

5:43

Vic is referring to a major

5:45

announcement this week that Disney has

5:47

invested 1.5 billion with

5:51

a B into Epic

5:53

Games. They are

5:55

in the Fortnite business

5:57

now. Disney wants to be... closely

6:00

associated with Epic. In fact, this

6:03

was announced with the

6:05

title Disney X Epic. So

6:07

Disney cross epic, the

6:10

two huge brands

6:12

teaming up to create something.

6:15

Now, as Vic referenced, we

6:17

don't quite know what that something is

6:20

gonna be. It's

6:22

not exactly a game, although it

6:24

might be. It's not exactly an

6:26

application, although it might be. It's

6:28

kind of part Fortnite, part who

6:30

knows what. Disney is

6:33

teasing this with a pretty

6:35

slick video that shows

6:38

all of the wild Disney brands

6:40

that we know and love. Star

6:42

Wars, Avengers, Disney

6:44

characters, theme parks, all of the

6:47

stuff that makes Disney such a

6:49

mega brand. And even

6:52

cruise ships and amusement parks and

6:54

all kinds of stuff done

6:58

one thinks inside of

7:01

perhaps Fortnite, perhaps other type

7:04

of Epic created applications,

7:07

or maybe even dare we use

7:09

the term metaverse.

7:12

People, you know, we have Facebook

7:15

slash meta doing all

7:17

they can to create a metaverse. And here comes Disney

7:19

and Epic like, oh, we already kind of have one.

7:21

Let's just invest all of the IP that you love

7:24

into it. Disney is using

7:26

the two words, watch and

7:29

shop to verbs there, which

7:32

of course are central to the

7:35

Disney experience and are verbs

7:37

that you can do inside of

7:39

Fortnite already. Watching concerts and movies

7:41

and stuff has been part of

7:44

Fortnite and shopping certainly is a

7:46

big part of Fortnite and Disney

7:48

loves showing you things and selling

7:50

you things. So my

7:52

question to you, Vic, is in your

7:55

best possible version of this, what

7:58

are you hoping will come of it? Oh,

8:01

I don't know what I would like, but

8:04

I don't think it's what they're going for is the

8:06

sort of the way Fortnite's become a platform and

8:09

now there's all these sort of games coming off

8:11

of it like, you know, Fortnite Festival and you've

8:13

got sort of the racing and all

8:15

of this stuff. I think it'd be good if you

8:17

almost had like this one-stop shop

8:19

for a lot of different Disney

8:21

games almost, but like decent

8:24

Disney games. I don't know how to sort of

8:27

describe that, but like you went into, I

8:29

don't know, you went into like a Nightmare

8:31

Before Christmas universe and there's a really good

8:33

like, fleshed out Nightmare

8:35

Before Christmas style game. Like best

8:38

scenario would be like all those like PS2, like

8:41

when Disney used to do like games after every

8:43

movie that came out, but you're kind of going

8:45

from place to place, place stuff like

8:48

that. But what I feel like

8:50

it's probably going to be is that

8:53

theme park style and I don't know if it's

8:55

going to be I'm pretending I'm on, you

8:57

know, Mr. Tony's Wild Ride.

8:59

You know, yeah, like I

9:02

don't know. I feel like it could be

9:04

that and that really takes me back to

9:06

like, with Disney used to do like DHS

9:08

tapes of like, come to Disneyland and you

9:10

were like, what sort of like, here's our

9:12

cruises and here's our rides and you'd be

9:14

like, I'm not there, but I could be.

9:19

I think that's a compelling idea. Is that something you would want

9:21

to do? I don't think so.

9:23

Like I went to Disneyland as a

9:26

kid and like we plan to go on

9:28

like our honeymoon and there's just something about being

9:30

there. Like something about the magic of like

9:33

being there. And I know that's very cliche,

9:35

but like, you know, it's

9:37

seeing these massive buildings, like the

9:39

stuff from movies come to life

9:41

in this, in this actual

9:44

created world, I guess. And I don't

9:46

think you can quite capture that in

9:48

a game and you can capture a lot with

9:50

games. They can be immersive, but I don't think

9:53

anything gets up. But I guess it's also a good

9:55

thing for those people that maybe will never get to

9:57

Disney Labs, will never get to Disney World, will never

9:59

get. to do that for whatever

10:01

reason to get a little taste of you

10:04

know what it what it could could

10:06

be like but I just feel like it if

10:09

that's the route they're going they need to do

10:11

something much more interesting

10:13

than they've ever tried to deny

10:16

you know I I

10:18

don't disagree with that I think that is a

10:20

I think that is is a high watermark

10:23

to create something compelling enough if you're gonna

10:25

create kind of a virtual theme park or

10:27

virtual world there's

10:29

been a lot of attempts at doing stuff like

10:32

that and most of it has felt a little

10:34

flat and and soulless

10:37

maybe they will crack the code certainly Epic

10:40

is the company that

10:43

has proven that they can create a virtual

10:45

world that has all kinds of different kinds

10:47

of things to do and brings people to

10:49

it and makes compelling experiences so it

10:52

does feel like a huge vote of confidence

10:55

in Epic as a company and Christian

10:57

I know you've been a big

11:01

proponent of a big fan of what

11:03

Epic has done with fortnight broadening it

11:05

in all these other kinds of experiences

11:07

and you've you've you've

11:09

applauded all of their efforts

11:12

thus far obviously

11:14

that I think the thing that comes to

11:16

everybody's mind hearing this is ready player one

11:18

you know that kind of like it's got all

11:21

the IP go to the Star Wars planet then

11:23

go to the Avengers planet then go to the

11:25

Moana planet then you know I bear before Christmas

11:27

plant all you know that kind of all your

11:29

IP are in one place and you just log

11:32

on to the game and go to any IP

11:34

you want fortnight is toying

11:37

with that with skins IP based skins but

11:39

this feels like a whole

11:41

other level of ambition and

11:44

I wonder what you think their

11:46

ability to pull this off might be

11:50

yeah I think it's easy to be

11:52

perhaps cynical about this I think I

11:54

you know perhaps naturally cynical I'm like oh I don't

11:57

know about that but then I need to sit there

11:59

and think uh, Lego X

12:01

Fortnite rules. It's really, really

12:03

well done. It's a combination

12:05

of the brands in

12:07

a, dare I say, respectful way, a

12:09

smart way, and a very full

12:12

and complete game. A game that

12:14

feels well made, not just

12:16

kind of slapped together to, you know, put

12:18

these two brands in front of people's faces

12:20

and have them spend money because they love

12:22

those brands. It's a good survival

12:25

crafting game, a game that my family

12:27

and I keep going back to because

12:29

of the compelling hooks within the game

12:31

itself. And I think the same

12:33

thing is kind of true thinking about

12:35

what Disney can do. And I think it's easy to

12:37

kind of go, Oh, well, this isn't gonna pan out.

12:39

This is just going to be a cash grab. It's

12:42

just, you know, another move

12:44

for them to stay relevant with the youths

12:46

or something like that. But also Disney's

12:48

kind of been doing this stuff for

12:50

forever. You know, club Penguin way back

12:52

when was, was Disney. And it was

12:54

kind of a foray into this idea

12:56

of a metaverse,

12:59

always connected world that had different bespoke games

13:02

in it. And how did that turn out?

13:04

Well, ahead of its time, how

13:07

did, how did the Dreamcast internet connection

13:09

turn out? You know, sometimes

13:11

you're a little, you're a little early. Well,

13:14

I agree with that, but also if it had been

13:16

a massive hit, club Penguin would still be around in

13:18

some shape or form. But they do

13:20

have Disney Dreamlight Valley to be fair. And

13:22

that remains like that, I think is

13:25

closer to maybe where we're going. Like

13:27

Dreamlight Valley has still has so many

13:29

people playing, even if like people

13:31

aren't paying as much attention to it

13:33

on the surface or seemingly like that

13:35

game is already integrating those IPs in

13:38

this sort of, you know, MMO.

13:41

And maybe this is just that next step

13:43

on from that where, you know, you're not

13:45

a character of Finne, you're yourself, but you're

13:47

visiting these IPs. And I guess even with

13:49

Kingdom Hearts, you've seen, you know, all

13:52

these Disney planets and it's maybe not

13:54

quite that, but again, we can see

13:56

them straight into this area somewhat, but

13:59

maybe, you know. I mean,

14:01

I think

14:04

it's like just shown too bright. I went to

14:06

a Club Penguin, you know, 2.0 or some

14:09

launch party and they rented out the baseball

14:11

stadium in San Francisco that at the time

14:13

was brand new. And there were maybe 100

14:15

of us there and we had the whole

14:17

there's no way this was cheap Club Penguin.

14:19

Like what are you thinking? Like I think

14:21

there were other problems. There

14:24

may have been more than 100 people is

14:26

just so big you didn't run into any.

14:28

Yeah, you know, we were playing

14:30

a survival horror game. We just didn't know it. It was fine.

14:33

Somebody else. But I also think part

14:35

of this investment is a bigger

14:37

collaboration between these companies. Disney

14:40

uses epic technology in their what

14:42

is it the vault or the

14:44

shooting space that they make all

14:46

their shows on the Mandalorian and

14:48

so many of those show volume,

14:51

volume, thank you are

14:53

is epic graphics and epic technology.

14:55

Unreal Engine, right? Yeah. Yes. And

14:57

so I think there's connection there

15:00

and fostering this relationship. I

15:02

do think it's interesting that and I'm not the first

15:04

person to have this thought by any many means. But

15:07

Disney and Apple historically have a pretty

15:09

good relationship. Epic and Apple

15:11

historically have a not very good

15:14

relationship. And I'm curious kind of

15:16

how how this will shake

15:18

out in terms of these corporate behemoths,

15:20

you know, maybe outside the scope of

15:23

gaming, but these corporate behemoths kind of

15:25

jockeying for friendly

15:28

status, perhaps a way to

15:30

put it. That's a great point to bring

15:32

up. I didn't even think about that. That's

15:34

really interesting to see how that plays out

15:36

because one one assumes that whatever comes of

15:38

this will live in an Apple ecosystem as

15:40

well as every other platform on the on

15:42

the planet. Or as a third load aside

15:44

loaded as the Apple opened up stuff in

15:46

the in the European side of things

15:48

a little bit now and what is this

15:51

a storefront, you know, like how Fortnite already

15:53

is. But again, how much of it is

15:55

you don't even think you're playing a game

15:57

or think that you're open. You

16:00

don't even think about Xbox or PlayStation or any of that

16:02

stuff. You just think I open this.

16:04

It's your steam. It's your whatever. And it has all

16:07

your stuff in it. And I think that's fascinating. For

16:10

me, the most, uh, interesting part

16:12

of this is that Disney could have

16:14

done this by themselves, like

16:16

they have a games division. As you said,

16:18

they've done club penguin. They've done all these

16:20

other things. They could do it by themselves,

16:22

but they see enough value, 1.5

16:25

billion in value in, in

16:28

Epic to partner with Epic.

16:31

And I think that really does, I

16:33

said it's a vote of confidence for Epic,

16:35

but I really do think it elevates Epic

16:38

to a really, uh, rarefied air

16:40

as far as what they offer

16:42

and what Fortnite represents. I think

16:44

we all knew that, but it's.

16:47

It now it's in cold, hard numbers, right? Disney

16:49

is like, we, we need you.

16:52

We, we see value in you and what

16:54

you bring to the table and what you're

16:56

able to have what you've already done with,

16:58

uh, with Fortnite. The other

17:00

thing I read, uh, somebody, I think in

17:03

Forbes or somebody was saying like, this

17:05

basically means every company

17:08

is going to be a games company

17:10

moving forward, like Disney is the

17:12

canary in the coal mine saying gaming

17:15

is so mainstream. Now it is

17:17

such a core pillar to what

17:19

any media company needs to be

17:21

doing that this is

17:23

what you're going to see going forward is

17:25

that every, every company is going

17:27

to be a gaming company in

17:29

the near future. And I think that is a,

17:31

as somebody that, you know, much

17:34

older than Vic and, you know, has been

17:36

around to the, the, uh, the

17:40

beginnings of video games as, as

17:42

a medium. It's pretty

17:44

amazing to see how far it's come and

17:46

how much a footprint on the culture it

17:48

is now. And I think Disney is recognizing

17:50

that. Yeah, that's such

17:52

a big thing. And also like, just on

17:55

your point of kind of Epic

17:57

and that confidence, like Disney days,

17:59

last. off their metaverse team last

18:01

year. So like it's almost

18:03

like an interesting thing of like Disney almost

18:07

felt maybe like they couldn't do

18:09

it themselves. Like they need epic

18:11

games on them. Yeah, I think

18:13

the sort of Disney dream like volley and

18:16

starting to dip your toes and we are

18:18

saying like please just start to dip their

18:20

toes in more and more because

18:22

like the like overall games are starting to

18:25

become you know it is

18:27

becoming more of a mainstream thing.

18:29

It's starting to become like actors

18:32

for example. You're seeing big name

18:34

actors now happily you know

18:36

promoting themselves as seeing

18:38

in you know the new Death Strand, you know

18:40

the new whatever and they're not kind of, I

18:42

just remember it used to kind of be the

18:44

kind of shy away. I was like I was

18:46

in this thing you know where it was like

18:48

yeah I was like and now it's like yeah

18:50

it's cool yeah they're now like proud to be

18:52

in it and I think it's all this stuff

18:55

of like people are now proud to be

18:57

in it. It's a you know a

18:59

medium that people are starting to get

19:01

that whole it's bigger in economy and

19:03

everything else and probably as well with

19:05

like the pandemic that will have opened

19:08

a lot of people's eyes to like these are spaces

19:10

that people can connect with and that's

19:12

not just like those people everyone was stuck in

19:15

during the pandemic but there's a lot of people

19:17

that just can't get out and these are these

19:19

spaces for people you

19:21

know to be social and to be immersed

19:23

and it is you know a

19:25

medium that's more interactive than anything else.

19:28

So I think all these sort of

19:30

combinations of like how gaming

19:32

popped off and how

19:34

actors are taking it seriously that's not

19:36

just coming all full circle to people

19:39

being like actually you know

19:41

what maybe that is the

19:43

thing we should start taking a bit more a

19:46

bit more seriously and it is nice to see and

19:48

it's nice to you know not feel

19:50

like you're a little geek being like

19:52

no you talk everyone everyone played Fortnite

19:54

or everyone was playing Among Us or

19:57

everyone was playing these sorts of games

19:59

right. Suddenly you're not. You know, Pretend.

20:02

That people don't think I've been in the

20:04

basement. Decisive battle. I agree. I agree. I

20:06

think it's a positive thing for the hobby.

20:08

I think that.the piece that I. Have

20:11

a hard time wrapping my head around I think.

20:14

The. Reason ready. Player one became

20:16

a pit book and turned

20:18

into a film. I think

20:20

the reason it caught on

20:23

and captured people's imaginations is

20:25

because it's. Imagines

20:27

this. Single.

20:29

Space. Where. All the

20:32

I p live right week

20:34

but. I'm. Not

20:36

entirely certain at maybe that's proof

20:38

enough that people want that, maybe

20:40

that the idea the back captured

20:42

the imagination of everybody is proof

20:44

enough. And maybe. The. Fact

20:46

that I can be baba fat inside a

20:49

fortnight and I can also be Black Widow

20:51

Insiders Fortnight and I can also be X,

20:53

y, or Z character. Maybe. That

20:55

is also proof, but I'm still

20:57

not convinced. That.

21:00

Logging onto one saying. That.

21:02

Is all the things. Is

21:05

better. Than. I've

21:07

got a Star Wars game. I've got. A

21:10

Nightmare Before Christmas game. Is

21:12

Vicky? Do you believe? That.

21:15

Is a compelling. Idea.

21:19

To. People that we have one place

21:21

where everything lives. I do not like

21:23

as would have said no. Before the source

21:25

expansive a fortnight because people seem to

21:27

one all their different games and services

21:30

there with but distracted in some way

21:32

that are alternate to buy this. overall

21:34

France you know I think that's me

21:36

the a bad way people one that

21:38

it's like one platform one place to

21:40

be that easy Galil. This. Stuff and

21:43

not necessarily. And might. One.

21:45

G M. I don't know like as the

21:47

alleged even if you started to get into ready

21:49

player. One tears we would probably not going to get

21:51

the as with the penis or to fighting. Yes will

21:53

will be in the same game as you like. There's

21:56

There's just kind of space. Two months

21:58

there for them suddenly. put their egos

22:00

aside and put all their stuff together for the

22:02

sake of players. But I think that... The way

22:04

we do it, C, is we have one company

22:06

that just acquires everybody. Yeah, yeah. And

22:09

then it's fine. Did we sign up all

22:11

of it? We're totally fine. But I

22:13

think that the best way to do it is that sort

22:15

of fortnightly platform where

22:17

you've kind of got

22:19

the client and then you've got a

22:21

fortnight, but then you've got a variation

22:23

that's something else with Lego and then you've got a

22:26

festival. And I think that's maybe a

22:28

better place where everything's a one-stop shop, but there

22:30

is a degree of division between them.

22:33

Yeah. No, I think that's the key phrase, right? One-stop

22:36

shop. Because I think

22:38

the promise of a quote unquote metaverse

22:41

is I paid my dollar

22:44

bucks for some cool

22:48

bling and it works

22:50

across everything that I want to

22:52

play. So I bought

22:54

the cool Princess Leia hair

22:56

buns and now I

22:58

can have those in any game, any

23:01

universe, any place I get to express myself.

23:03

I bought it once and it applies because

23:05

it's the same place and everything is there.

23:08

There is something, I think, understandably

23:11

attractive about that notion. But

23:14

Christian, I'm curious what your

23:16

answer to the question is. Do you think that

23:18

a metaverse is now just

23:21

such a tired phrase that it's hard

23:23

to even use it? But I

23:25

think you know what I mean by it. A Ready Player

23:27

One type with Disney is kind of teasing

23:30

here this notion of

23:33

all the IP in one

23:36

application that you go and do a

23:39

variety of different activities in. The Fortnite-ification

23:41

of all Disney IP. Yeah,

23:43

I think we're going to continue to see both

23:46

approaches for a while. I mean Disney, we're still

23:48

getting Star Wars outlaws this year. Wolverine

23:52

next year. We're

23:54

still seeing all those other types of

23:56

games. Just the same way there's Disney

23:59

XD. and Disney

24:01

Junior and Hulu and

24:04

regular Disney Channel movies, Zombies

24:06

3, and they're still

24:08

also making whatever

24:11

it is, the next Marvel movie. I

24:13

don't think they're going to go all

24:15

in, but I think this is an

24:17

important avenue for them. I

24:20

think Vic brought up a grid point, and the way I

24:22

was thinking about it is, Fortnite as

24:25

the application, it's like, oh, do we want all

24:27

our IPs in this one application? I think that's

24:29

an easy way to get people to recoil to

24:31

the thought, but if I said, Jeff, do

24:34

you want all of your games on Steam, where

24:36

all your friends are, and you can chat,

24:38

and you can't bring everything from every game

24:40

over, but do you know what you can

24:42

bring over on Steam? My Steam profile picture

24:44

and my Steam messaging. So if you think

24:47

of Fortnite as that, where maybe

24:49

some of your skins can work

24:51

between experiences within that launcher,

24:53

I think is the term Vic used

24:56

for the application, and

24:59

what a bonus. Right now, I can't

25:01

use every character in LEGO Fortnite, but I can

25:03

use a lot, and it's so cool that so

25:05

many of them can be. But

25:07

do you know what is even cooler is

25:09

that all my friends are there, and I

25:11

can be chatting with them, because I see

25:14

Vic's playing festival. Jeff, you're playing racing, and

25:16

I'm playing LEGO, and we can still talk

25:18

and cross-communicate, and it's easy for me now

25:20

to jump into your game and your experience.

25:23

I think people have been trying this

25:25

for a long time. It's PlayStation Home

25:27

forever ago, where you have all

25:29

of this stuff that lives within your home, and

25:31

it doesn't necessarily mean you can take your Killzone

25:36

armor from your home experience into

25:38

The Last of Us, and now

25:41

be Joel with Killzone armor, but

25:43

you can bring that core experience,

25:45

this hub of when you're socializing,

25:48

and see that stuff, and then maybe bring

25:50

some of it over. And I think that's pretty

25:52

compelling. I think

25:54

there's something sticky there, and I think that's

25:56

where they're going to lean into first and foremost, and

25:58

then we'll see what happens. what develops after that.

26:02

Well, it is not an insignificant

26:04

amount of money. And Disney certainly

26:06

has, I think, big, big hopes

26:08

and plans with regard to

26:10

this team up. And I think it I

26:12

think it does more to Epic than

26:14

it does to Disney. So I think it's going to be

26:16

a big, big deal moving forward. This is this is one

26:19

of those kind of megaton is early

26:21

in the year, but you know, stories of the

26:23

year kind of potential

26:26

for being something that's really going to have ripples.

26:28

And so it's a it's a fascinating

26:30

bit of news. And we don't really know, you

26:33

know, it's vague at this point, but I think it's

26:35

substantial. Alright,

26:38

before we get to Christian's story of the week,

26:40

let's take a quick break for a sponsor. This

26:43

episode of DLC is brought

26:45

to you by better help.

26:47

Christian, you know, we talk about therapy

26:50

and bettering yourself and working on you

26:52

and how that can help in your

26:55

relationships. And I think, you know, you

26:57

and I are both married. Marriages

27:00

are hard. But in a

27:02

way, we're also married to each other. I would

27:07

say, honestly, if

27:11

I didn't work on myself

27:13

and try to, you know, improve

27:15

the way I deal with adversity

27:18

and getting myself and being hard on me and

27:20

being hard on the people in my life, I

27:22

think it would make doing

27:24

a show like this with you for

27:27

over 10 years, much

27:29

harder. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what your perspective is

27:31

on it. But I think I

27:33

value the work that I've done on me.

27:37

No, I agree. And I would say, you know,

27:39

pitting back the curtain, friends slash co

27:41

host slash nemesis, I would say, you're one of

27:43

my very best friends, Mr. Canada. And that doesn't

27:46

mean that it's been a perfect friendship. It doesn't

27:48

mean that it's always been easy.

27:51

It doesn't mean that everything about this show, we've

27:53

always gotten along and seen eye to eye on

27:55

what it should be or how to do things.

27:57

But I think because

28:00

Not to speak for you, but we both put in

28:02

time on working on ourselves I

28:05

think it's made this relationship more rewarding

28:08

and I think it can be the case for a lot of people

28:10

that that that can happen Junk

28:12

food versus learning how to cook something

28:14

yourself personally. Yeah, I'm putting in that

28:17

time. I think it's a misconception that

28:20

Relationships have to be easy to be right,

28:22

you know, I'm not saying that I

28:24

think our relationship isn't Isn't hard

28:26

But you know I think you

28:28

you you do have to

28:31

put in some work on on things

28:33

sometimes and Therapy can be a place

28:35

to work through the challenges you face

28:37

in all of your relationships where whether

28:39

they are with a significant other or

28:42

with friends or with work and I

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know that you and I have both benefited from

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that in our lives if you're

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29:25

All right Christian, what is your story of the week We've

29:27

talked about various versions of this over

29:29

the past few months as more games

29:32

kind of get leaked or rumored or

29:34

associated with Sega's

29:37

relaunching rebranding Remembering

29:41

of their cherished IPS and rebooting

29:43

them and the newest one now

29:46

is there's rumors virtual virtue of

29:48

fighter getting a second or fifth

29:50

or sixth or tenth lease on

29:52

life and that they're going to

29:55

look to develop A new

29:57

entry. A new version of. Virtua

30:00

fighter and I think. I

30:02

think this makes a lot of sense

30:04

in terms of one say good already

30:06

come out straight up said we're looking

30:09

to minor old successful ip. We want

30:11

to do that and even now some.

30:13

Officially, we've talked about those and now

30:15

everybody's kind of find other ones that

30:17

they might do it with. But the

30:19

fighting game community is as big as

30:21

vibrant now as it's ever been. Street

30:23

food or six is incredible tech and

30:25

eight is incredible. Mortal Kombat wine came

30:27

out the big splash as well. I

30:29

know there's been some, you know, Micro

30:31

Transaction or Aqua Skyn. Pricing with all of

30:33

those games and kind of how things get

30:35

released after that. But. I think. Virtual.

30:38

Fighters been dormant for long enough now think

30:40

five was the last main entry, and there's

30:42

kind of been some. Updates

30:45

of five that have come out and er

30:47

bb only in arcades in Japan but kind

30:49

of different versions of five but I think

30:52

I think there's appetite for it and I

30:54

think folks getting exposed to it in the

30:56

like a dragon games where it's often and

30:58

arcade of an arcade cabinet have some form

31:00

or fashion. Having a virtual fighter I think

31:03

is. Getting. Folks exposed to

31:05

the Ip. Am and I

31:07

may. I love Virtua Fighter Some excited about

31:09

what it would be. And Twenty

31:11

Twenty six, You know, whenever it comes

31:14

out like what's the next evolution of

31:16

Street Fighter and how does it Perhaps

31:18

continue this travels And I've. Been.

31:20

A lesser he said Street Fighter Ss.

31:22

I want both of them. Yes, Virtual

31:24

Fighter think you are as close. think

31:26

he has three butter. Introduce the more

31:29

casual controls and tech and has lived

31:31

as want to have fun beat him

31:33

up story moments and I'm curious what

31:35

that means for Virtua Fighter which has

31:37

been a pretty technical game for a

31:39

while and can may increase it's reached

31:41

by making it also more casual orders

31:43

that lean into the. You. Know

31:45

where the Elites game and that's gonna

31:47

be are nice. I'm excited. I'm curious

31:49

what it ends up being. if if

31:51

it happens. yeah, the if is the

31:53

is. It needs to be underscored because

31:55

this is clearly in the rumor category.

31:57

At this point, this was. supposedly

32:00

leaked online by

32:03

a On social media by someone

32:05

that was in the know that this is sort

32:07

of in the early stages of Concepts

32:10

and production so we don't know if this

32:12

is actually happening But I agree with your

32:14

assessment that you know, we're in this kind

32:16

of new golden age of

32:19

fighting games virtual fighter still has Franchise

32:22

cache and I think they would be

32:24

wise to figure out what that is

32:27

Vic do you have any any fond

32:29

memories of virtual fighter? Are you are

32:31

you hoping this happens? I've never been

32:33

about crying game fans But I really

32:35

like the sort of shifts that we're

32:37

seeing like Christian mentioned it a bit

32:39

where things are becoming a bit more

32:41

accessible to people like me where my

32:43

thing with fighting games was Mash them

32:45

buttons because I can't see the combos

32:47

and now you're starting to see where

32:49

you know It's after coming

32:51

much easier like particularly with tech and I

32:53

love that sort of idea of you know

32:56

AI is a bit of a dirty word But this this

32:59

whole kind of AI ghost fire thing to

33:01

kind of train you up I'm

33:03

for someone like me doesn't play them a lot or

33:05

is a bit intimidated. I The

33:07

genre generally then it

33:10

kind of appeals to me, but I also do

33:13

get that sense that like, you know Maybe

33:16

it is going too far another way Maybe

33:18

there do still need to be like almost

33:20

tears of like I know that maybe I

33:22

can play tech and but virtual fire is

33:25

not my sort of game. I'm I think

33:27

they're starting to be a bit more of

33:30

That with fighting games and you're starting

33:32

to see sort of maybe street fires

33:34

a bit more accessible Attack and in

33:36

for Mortal Kombat still not quite and

33:38

they're almost like layering themselves up And

33:41

you probably do need a bit more of that that

33:43

sort of talk like you need to

33:45

do the combos we're not going to be

33:47

the you we're not going to hand told you like

33:49

I Can

33:52

still be absolutely fine with that while

33:54

I do my my easy controls on

33:56

on tacking, you know Yeah,

33:58

no, I like that notion I like

34:00

the idea of a Virtua Fighter or who

34:02

knows what other franchise just

34:05

kind of leaning into okay, we'll we'll

34:09

Embrace this niche up here and say hey,

34:11

we're really the high-end You

34:14

know high skill ceiling high

34:18

skill floor type of a

34:20

franchise which I Think

34:23

there's room for I think there's people are hungry

34:25

for that certainly It's not gonna be the mass

34:27

market appeal that you're getting with some of these

34:29

these games now because as you said it opens

34:31

It up to a whole wider audience, but I'm

34:34

curious. I'm curious what they What

34:36

they envision Virtua Fighter as being

34:39

because for me? You

34:42

know, I didn't play I guess the most

34:44

recent one as Christian mentioned was 2020 the

34:46

re-release of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate

34:49

showdown. I did not play it. I

34:51

was not even aware it came out. You know, I kind of ignored it.

34:54

So I It's

34:56

been you know since the heyday of Virtua

34:58

Fighter that I've even really paid attention to this

35:00

franchise in a real way but you

35:03

know maybe because of that my Immediate

35:07

mental image when I think of Virtua

35:09

Fighter is very blocky clunky, you know

35:12

primitive vector graphics And

35:16

I wonder if they can kind of lean

35:18

into that in a way or make that or

35:20

maybe they completely abandon that I don't know. I'm

35:22

sure Virtua Fighter 5 didn't look anything like that

35:24

I think that's funny because Virtua Fighter for me

35:26

has always been the upper edge of what graphics

35:29

can be But it

35:31

launched as this like that You know

35:33

classic image and there's action figures of it to her dolls

35:35

that are of that polygonal It's like old

35:37

school Lara Croft. That's what a lot

35:40

of us. Yeah legacy gamers remember but

35:43

Lara hasn't been that since what 98, you know

35:46

Where it is and when when Lara was that

35:49

that was the cutting edge of graphics and the

35:51

same for Virtua Fighter 1 When

35:53

it was doing that a full

35:55

3d polygonal fighting game that was bleeding

35:57

edge and I think two and three

36:00

three and four and five have pushed

36:02

that graphical envelope. But I agree with you Jeff, I

36:04

think when a lot of people think of it, they

36:06

think of Valheim, you know,

36:08

like the full style graphics. The

36:11

title Virtua was like, was

36:14

indicating that at the time, when it first

36:16

was released, Virtua meant we're

36:19

in polygons, baby. You

36:22

know, it's like we're setting ourselves apart from the

36:24

2D sprites that you're used to, because we're

36:26

Virtua, you know, it's like it's a virtual

36:29

three dimensional space. And

36:32

I don't know, I guess I'm stuck in that paradigm in

36:34

my head, but obviously hasn't been

36:36

there for a long time. Anyway.

36:39

I think a lot of people are. I think a lot

36:42

of people are, when they think of it, that's what they

36:44

think of. Maybe there is room for them to play on

36:46

that. And, you know, a lot of games have had success

36:48

going back to those old graphical styles. So there might be

36:50

something there where they go, no, we're gonna be a legacy

36:52

game. We're gonna play the hits.

36:54

We're gonna open with Freebird, you know, nothing

36:57

off our new album. Yeah. There's

37:00

a Steam Fest game, Steam

37:02

Next Fest game that I played this week that was doing that as

37:04

well. That was kind of like intentionally looks

37:06

like the original

37:09

Half-Life, you know? I

37:11

think it's a choice now, right? It's an

37:13

aesthetic choice and it's a production

37:15

design idea. Anyway, I don't know, we'll see.

37:18

Or maybe we won't, it's a rumor. My

37:22

story of the week is also kind of in the

37:24

rumor category. This

37:27

is about what the next Call of Duty is

37:29

gonna be because this year's Call of Duty has

37:31

had a bit of a rocky road. And

37:34

I think it has not been

37:36

a solid, you know, I'm

37:39

sure it's sold more copies than 99% of

37:42

the other video games that came out this year. But still,

37:45

you know, in the- Last

37:48

year's. 20, model one, 23.

37:50

This last one. The

37:52

most recent one that I've ever come up

37:54

with. So I think it, you know, disappointing

37:56

on some levels and certainly was not a

37:59

critical hit, was not- Embraced by

38:01

the community full-throated but Next

38:05

year's is already being discussed and we kind

38:07

of know we talked about this I think

38:10

a few weeks ago, we know that the

38:13

the setting is going to be the Gulf War

38:15

Which is already to me kind of a tricky

38:18

thing to make work well But

38:21

more than that this week the rumor

38:24

is that not only will it be

38:26

in the Gulf War but the game

38:30

Is going to embrace a much more

38:32

open world kind of gameplay

38:35

style They're comparing it

38:38

to far cry So

38:40

evidently there will still be some

38:43

levels that are kind of that traditional Obviously,

38:45

this is the campaign talking about the campaign not

38:48

the multiplayer, but there will evidently

38:50

still be some traditional Call

38:53

of Duty campaign linear story missions

38:56

But there will be the majority of the campaign

38:58

will be in this sort of far cry esque

39:01

Open world go capture points do what you want

39:03

go where you want map your way

39:05

through it exploration

39:08

vehicles that kind of stuff

39:10

and Even

39:13

more than that is this will be the

39:15

new Paradigm for a

39:17

call of duty going forward that this isn't

39:20

just a one on The idea

39:23

being that that you know the game after 2024

39:26

is Call of Duty is already in

39:28

development. Although we don't know what studio

39:30

is doing it Supposedly

39:32

that would have been infinity Ward,

39:35

but you know in the three

39:37

studio revolving structure that Activision has

39:39

previously established 2025

39:42

call of duty would be infinity Ward's turn, but

39:45

they have not been officially announced as the Studio

39:49

and usually by this point that has happened. So

39:51

we don't know much about 2025 but supposedly That

39:56

one will also be due be embracing a

39:59

Open world world type situation. So

40:04

it's been a long time since I've been too excited

40:06

about Call of Duty in any real way. But

40:09

you know, it still is a major, major force in

40:11

the industry. And Vic, I wonder what you think if

40:13

you think this is a risky

40:15

gambit, or if this is just a sign

40:17

of the times that everything has to be

40:20

a little bit more open worldy. And that's

40:22

just what gamers expect now. I

40:24

don't know. I think it is risky, because I

40:26

don't know, it seems to be like the

40:28

cycle of every year kind of college, it

40:30

comes out, but you know, it doesn't

40:33

change a whole lot. And there's people that

40:35

really like that, they just want the same

40:37

thing again and again every year. And

40:39

then there's people that want something different.

40:41

But how different you want that is

40:43

like a very hard line to balance

40:46

because open world is

40:48

almost like completely left feeling you're

40:50

going, you're going in another

40:52

direction altogether. And it

40:54

could be that like they do it

40:56

and it doesn't work. They go back

40:58

to the kind of normal structure. It could

41:01

be that you know, it does work. And

41:03

this is a whole new lease of life

41:05

for for Call of Duty. And like you

41:07

get lots more people in playing that maybe

41:09

wouldn't play it. Like I stopped playing years

41:11

ago, because it was just every year felt

41:13

the same and just updated and I just

41:15

needed to buy the new version of the

41:17

last thing. And so yeah,

41:19

a bit more of an open world. I

41:22

don't know how much it'll work. It depends on what

41:24

they kind of do with

41:26

it. It just feels like it's not Call of

41:28

Duty to me. But I also am very aware

41:30

of that sort of Microsoft

41:32

potential influence that's now

41:35

coming into Activision. Obviously,

41:37

they got rid of some of Infinity Ward and a

41:39

few of the Call of Duty, you

41:42

know, studios are losing people if they've not

41:44

already lost them. So I don't know

41:46

if there's maybe like a little Microsoft in the

41:49

year going, you should do Smoke and World really

41:51

good at that. Or when

41:53

everyone's kind of going Oh,

41:56

Halo Infinite. Yeah. I

42:00

think it's a big risk because I

42:02

don't think whatever someone does they're going

42:04

to make cold-duty players happy genuinely. I

42:06

think you're going to either like really

42:08

upset like one half of the community

42:10

or you'll upset maybe another

42:13

half so finding that balance is

42:15

you know tricky but also I think it does need

42:17

a shake-up. A franchise needs a bit of a you

42:20

know a bit of a face list frankly

42:22

in my opinion so maybe

42:24

you know if you know if

42:26

this is the one maybe this is a bigger

42:29

shake-up than we thought but you know it's a

42:31

shake-up nonetheless. Yeah

42:33

it's curious I mean the campaign has always

42:35

been or not always but

42:37

has recent in recent years for

42:40

the last you know several

42:42

years has been the place

42:44

where it doesn't seem to have an

42:47

identity and you know this last year's campaign

42:49

really got scathing reviews of people who just

42:51

felt like it was cobbled together out of

42:53

multiplayer maps and it really was kind

42:56

of a half-hearted effort

42:59

and you know we had I think there was

43:01

a year not too long ago where they were

43:03

like we're not even gonna do a campaign people

43:05

just buying it for the multiplayer. So

43:08

Christian I'm curious what you think about the far crayification

43:11

of Call of Duty. Do you think it would

43:13

be a positive step forward for the franchise or

43:16

a shakier notion? I

43:19

think it could be a positive step forward.

43:21

Modern Warfare 3, this last

43:23

one had some open sections

43:26

and I think the reason why players

43:28

didn't really react that well to those sections

43:30

is it really felt disparate from the other

43:32

things where in those open world sections it

43:34

felt like you were playing war

43:36

zone style out like you'd get armor and

43:39

you'd equip your armor the way you do

43:41

in the war zone multiplayer and then you

43:43

go into the linear levels and you didn't

43:45

do that. It was it just

43:47

didn't feel cohesive but they were

43:49

already playing with this idea of open

43:52

world style you know

43:55

go to this point do things your

43:57

own way and I think there's something

43:59

there. that could add

44:01

longevity to the single

44:04

player, part

44:06

of Call of Duty, where I think

44:09

it would require a lot of resources

44:11

initially. And as Vic mentioned,

44:13

I think fans would probably be, some fans would be

44:16

vocal and how upset they are at this isn't their

44:18

Call of Duty, this isn't what they come to that

44:20

game for. But I think there's

44:22

something to be said for building out an

44:25

interesting open world style campaign that

44:27

would then allow them to continue

44:29

to add to it, which dear

44:31

developers listening, I love you and

44:33

I realize what I'm saying is

44:35

far easier to say than do.

44:39

But the possibility is there in a

44:41

way of having this map that can

44:43

be explored and added to and in

44:45

the good side of a game

44:49

as service, a game we'll talk about a little

44:51

bit later with Helldivers 2, where

44:54

they can add new planets and they can

44:56

change that you haven't conquered this outpost or

44:58

a new terrorist organization

45:00

has sprung up in the

45:03

west side and you need to go

45:05

do that and now oh the north

45:07

side tyrant has emerged and so you

45:10

can have this stuff that allows the

45:13

single player aspect of things to be

45:15

more compelling, I think versus the traditional

45:17

roller coaster. And I think if they

45:19

nail that, I think it adds a

45:21

lot of stickiness to non-PVP

45:24

Call of Duty and maybe it

45:26

is, maybe it does go PVE

45:29

and there's that whole world of possibilities there.

45:31

So I think it's a smart thought

45:34

exercise and I

45:38

feel for the developers that are trying to implement

45:40

it if they are because it sounds Herculean. Well,

45:43

I mean, I think what you're describing is very

45:45

similar to what the promise of Halo Infinite was,

45:47

right? That's why they put infinite on it because

45:49

it was like, hey, we can just add stuff

45:51

to it all the time and it will be

45:53

this living organism that we get to, you

45:56

know, grow and change and it which is easy

45:58

and cheap to do as well. I

46:02

mean, obviously, of all

46:04

the franchises, Call of Duty cares

46:06

the least about easy or cheap,

46:09

right? They need, they have the

46:11

coffers, they have the size of the

46:13

team, they have the momentum to be able

46:15

to do stuff like that. So

46:17

maybe they can pull it off in a way that

46:19

Halo Infinite seems to not have. But

46:23

for me, I'm torn

46:26

because I do think that

46:28

part of the fun of Call of Duty's

46:30

campaigns in the past for me has been

46:33

the roller coaster ride of it. We were

46:35

talking Disney and theme parks. It felt like

46:37

the most theme parky kind of video games

46:39

have been the Call of Duty games because you

46:41

get on this wacky ride and it is over the

46:44

top and then it goes to 11 and then it

46:46

goes to 12. They

46:48

just keep upping the ante of the crazy stuff that you're

46:50

doing. But I

46:53

also haven't been tempted to play

46:55

those games in years because once

46:58

you go to 11 and 12,

47:00

it's like, I don't need 13. I

47:04

went to 11. We did it. It was

47:07

the craziest thing. So maybe that's

47:09

the answer because I am more interested

47:12

in open world

47:14

type experience. I do have fun in

47:16

those kinds of games. So maybe this will be a way

47:19

to, as Vic said, revitalize

47:22

the campaign in these franchise. We'll

47:25

see. I also wonder what a honest

47:28

to goodness, serious and tone

47:31

Far Cry would look like. Far Cry 2 is

47:33

probably the closest to that. Far Cry 2 is

47:35

pretty much that. Had a lot of rogue type

47:37

elements in it and it was serious. And then

47:39

since then, they continue to expand on the open

47:42

world, but they also like you put a rocket

47:44

launcher on an alligator, the parachute,

47:46

put them out of a helicopter, but also

47:48

like serious themes of oppression. And

47:51

I don't know if Call of Duty could be

47:53

the game to do it, but I do wonder

47:55

if there is an open world military tactical game

47:57

that is. Serious

48:00

and I ghost recon and some wild lands

48:02

and some of those had some of those

48:04

elements But then also when you make it

48:06

four player co-op again, I'm taking

48:08

a helicopter and just jumping out But

48:14

yeah, that's a good point I think that's it and far

48:16

cry 2 is my favorite far cry so That's

48:20

that's interesting idea We

48:22

shall see very interesting stuff But

48:25

we got games to talk about so let's jump into the

48:27

games that we have been playing In

48:30

the segment we call the playlist Vic

48:42

what has been on your playlist

48:44

lately? I feel bad because

48:46

I've not been writing these like new

48:48

releases at the minute a lot of

48:50

the time Contrary to belief I don't

48:52

end up playing all the new games all of the

48:54

time The time for

48:56

it, but what I'm sort of

48:59

getting massively back into is dead by daylight

49:02

And I've also been playing Still

49:06

kind of lingering around the last of those part

49:08

two remasters since I kind of

49:10

finished the review on that I'm just kind

49:12

of taking my time with with it

49:14

now and Because it's one of my

49:17

my favorites. But yeah dead by daylight is kind

49:19

of something I've started once they brought in sort

49:21

of the Alan Wake DLC

49:24

that kind of you know was the

49:26

melding of my interest And

49:29

so I was right back right

49:31

back in there again feeling

49:33

horribly So

49:36

you it sounds like you and Christian are sympathetic

49:38

on a number of levels with the last

49:40

of us and Alan the way Tell

49:43

me about dead like dead by daylight you you sounds

49:45

like you had been playing this Previously

49:47

and then took some time away from it

49:49

and have returned is that accurate? Yeah So

49:51

it's kind of it's my sort of like

49:53

me and like you know my

49:55

online game It's my one where it's like

49:57

everyone kind of has their one And

50:00

yeah, all in all for the past few years,

50:02

like, um, myself

50:05

and my cousin will play together and we'll kind of

50:07

go through parts where we're kind of

50:09

playing and enjoying everything's got a bit CME. He's

50:12

not got a new killer or anything coming in for

50:14

a while. And then you kind of go out again

50:16

and then suddenly Chuckie's in it and you kind of

50:18

back in to pick your toes and you

50:20

know, go out and for punishment. So it's

50:23

kind of been a bit of that for

50:25

for a while. But yeah, with the Alan Wake one,

50:27

like I can't use his

50:29

character in the way I want, but also it's just

50:31

kind of pulled me back in because it reminds me

50:33

like you know, there's some

50:36

really good licensed stuff going on here.

50:38

Like it's a it's a good horror

50:41

game that I can kind of jump

50:43

in and out of without, you know,

50:45

completely like being

50:47

terrified. Which is

50:50

lovely. Just a nice like chill finished work

50:52

and then gets you stoned by Ghostface.

50:54

He doesn't want that. Admittedly,

50:58

I don't but you know, a lot of people do. That's

51:02

that's cool. I mean, so is

51:05

there some I'm I want

51:07

to kind of get to the to the notion of

51:09

what is it about this one? Because I

51:11

feel like there's a number of games that kind of

51:13

offer that maybe is it is it the IP? Is

51:15

it that you're actually talking about Ghostface and and these

51:18

other because I started playing it before so it's the

51:20

IP you started being in it just so much. And

51:23

I don't know what it is. Like I like the idea

51:25

of so I used to play Friday

51:28

for teams. I'm in that concept that kind of asymmetrical

51:30

came out. That came as a little bit of a

51:32

nightmare. But I love this sort of idea of you've

51:35

got this killer and you're working together and it's

51:37

all like you're very much on the edge the

51:39

way you would be in

51:41

any horror, but you're not alone. And

51:43

like the action

51:45

mechanics and what you need to do is

51:47

pretty straightforward. That's it. It's just it's

51:50

almost it's the adrenaline of

51:52

it. And then yeah,

51:54

as that sort of throne it's become

51:56

like oh I'm getting chased on by

52:00

horror villain that I've seen in

52:02

all these movies. And, you know, now I'm

52:04

playing the horror villain. I'm going to have

52:06

Michael Myers, like, speak up on everybody. And

52:09

I don't know what it

52:11

is. Like, I'm a big horror fan and, you

52:14

know, getting into horror and then being immersed, it

52:17

does feel sometimes like a very single mind.

52:20

And it's just you, you're very like

52:22

in it. I'll sort

52:24

of play them with my partner watching, but

52:26

it is you by yourself. And

52:28

sometimes that's just a bit too much

52:30

stress. With other people,

52:33

like, you know, almost being the lamp

52:35

floor while I chase off

52:37

on battle for his generator, I don't

52:40

know what it is. It's just it's enough

52:42

thrill without stressing me all

52:45

in that way or whatever it is.

52:47

Like the mechanic is so simple, generally,

52:49

apart from if you're doing proper strategies,

52:51

but like it just lets

52:54

me kind of relax a

52:56

bit. I don't know. I think that's like. Weird,

52:58

but fun stuff. No,

53:00

I love it. You don't count it intuitive to

53:02

me, but I love it. I love that you're

53:04

like, I relax by being chased by an axe

53:07

murderer. Yeah, sometimes I am the axe murderer. I'm

53:09

not even more relaxing because I'm just like,

53:11

OK, I've hung up like four survivors.

53:13

That's dumb. I'm going to go, you

53:15

know, have dinner now. I mean,

53:17

you know, delightful. I

53:21

love it. That's a lot of dead by

53:23

daylight. You mentioned that you're also still

53:26

playing Last of Us Part 2

53:28

Remastered, which came out a few weeks ago. What

53:31

is your take on it as far as

53:33

whether it, you know, it was a lot

53:35

of people thought maybe a little too soon

53:38

to have a remaster for that game. But

53:40

do you think that it's worthwhile that

53:42

what it brings to the table over and above what

53:44

you can already do on the PlayStation 4 version?

53:46

I think it's hard because like when

53:48

the first one came out, it was right

53:50

a couple of months before the PS5

53:53

came out. And I think in

53:55

that sort of period, like it

53:57

was pushing the PS4. You're

54:00

like right. This is like the step into

54:02

the next level. Um, so like

54:04

when I'm playing I'm like, okay I can

54:06

see the sort of difference But at that point it never

54:08

felt even though it was like right at the

54:11

tail end of that ps4s life cycle It never felt

54:13

like it was I did

54:15

it looking right gorgeous already I'm on

54:17

PS5 it looks better like it's it's

54:19

particularly like the brutal scenes are the

54:21

ones you know was that in the

54:23

most the

54:25

relaxing scenes But

54:32

yeah, I think like for me it's just

54:34

almost it's kind of is the Definitive

54:37

edition is it looks so much better and I

54:39

think even if you play it in ps4 And

54:42

it is like my favorite game of all time

54:44

Like if you play it on ps4 you weren't

54:46

losing out on ps4 And

54:49

on ps5 it looks fair and there is sort of

54:51

the lost levels attached which is the ones that were

54:53

cut and then they've kind of added them so you

54:55

can pull them and get a bit of idea and

54:59

Yeah in that respect I'm kind of like these

55:01

are just a nice insight into game development

55:03

and what gets cut and like mostly for

55:05

piercing and and why it does They

55:08

don't add a whole lot more and the no

55:10

return mode Which is like, you know

55:12

the sort of you know,

55:14

you do the wrong like rogue like

55:16

run right through and it's a little

55:19

bit Sort of I

55:21

don't know if I don't feel like it's

55:23

gonna be long teal It's an interesting concept

55:25

is a bit repetitive. So in that aspect

55:27

with it, like this isn't adding much I'm

55:30

not a huge fan of that but the game

55:32

was a five-star game to me, but he

55:34

can then yeah I think I

55:37

marked it maybe four four and a half

55:39

only because there's extra elements Didn't

55:41

bring anything to the table. But the

55:43

game as it stands remains like you

55:46

can't change it being the game, right? Yeah,

55:49

yeah Yeah so I

55:51

think it's it's worse if someone like

55:54

missed it all and they got the ps5 and

55:56

they didn't kind of want to have That or

55:58

if you're master sound like me It's

56:00

absolutely worth it. Um, but I

56:02

think like if someone kind of played it in PS4, I was like,

56:04

eh, then you're not really getting a

56:06

whole lot. Whole lot

56:08

more than what, what you would have already had

56:10

there, you know? And that's the case with any

56:12

remaster a lot of the time, you know? Yeah.

56:15

No, I think that's fair assessment. That's kind of what

56:17

Christian came to with your remarks on

56:19

it too. Right, bud? Yeah. I mean,

56:21

it's the best version of one of my favorite games

56:23

of all time. Is it necessary?

56:26

For me, you bet your life it is, you know? I

56:30

mean, for most people, no, probably

56:32

not, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't

56:34

exist. I love every criterion, Blu-ray that

56:36

gets announced. I own very few of

56:38

them, but I always love when they

56:40

get announced and that's what this feels

56:43

like. So, you know, it's hard

56:45

to not hear the people being like, oh,

56:47

they're wasting resources or, oh, give us a

56:49

new one. Or why spend time on that?

56:51

And that's out of my control way above

56:53

my pay grade. So I'm glad it exists

56:55

and I hope people love it. And it

56:57

is the best version of one of my all

56:59

time favorite games. What's not to love? Yeah. There

57:02

you go. Last of us, part two remastered.

57:05

Uh, Christian, your

57:07

playlist, uh, we share one game. What you want to

57:10

start with the other one? Yeah,

57:12

let's do that. We'll start. We'll start with the

57:14

other one. Um, and it

57:16

is the final fantasy re

57:19

final fantasy seven rebirth demo, which

57:21

for a final fantasy game, short

57:23

title. Um, good point. Final

57:27

fantasy seven rebirth demo. We have now

57:30

had the state of play. I

57:32

think last week we had not had the final

57:34

fantasy seven rebirth state of

57:36

play. That one off full deep dive

57:39

into final time. Excuse me. Final

57:41

fantasy seven rebirth. So we didn't really talk

57:43

about it as story of the week here

57:45

today. Cause I knew I'd get to talking

57:47

about it here, but what a fantastic deep

57:50

dive developer deep thought dive. I love

57:52

that we get these things. Um,

57:54

the starfield one for X box. I thought

57:56

was fantastic. And this was a really awesome

57:58

look at what final. Final Fantasy

58:00

VII Rebirth is going

58:02

to bring to the table on how huge of

58:05

a game it is, how

58:07

full of a game it is for

58:10

being part of a prior game. They're

58:12

continuing to blow out these portions of

58:14

Final Fantasy VII in really fun and

58:17

interesting ways and

58:19

ways that don't feel less than. Yes,

58:22

there are cliffhangers, you know, around.

58:25

But I don't think that's necessarily a problem. I think

58:27

when it was first announced that Final Fantasy VII would

58:29

be these multiple games. Some people were maybe

58:31

a little apprehensive as to what that

58:33

would mean. But I think

58:36

with the first game, and now with

58:38

the deep dive state of play, they've

58:40

shown the care and craft they're putting

58:42

into it. And so they released

58:44

this demo, which I love. I love the

58:46

Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown demo. I

58:49

love getting demos for exciting

58:52

games. And I think it's this

58:54

type of demo, I think is really cool too,

58:56

where with the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth demo, you're

58:58

getting a chunk of the game that if you

59:01

play through the demo, and then

59:03

you buy the game, you can import

59:05

your save from the demo and have

59:07

that be your play experience for that

59:09

portion of the game. But it's also

59:11

a kind of flashback side story portion

59:13

of the game. So it's not as

59:15

if you're thrown into the middle of

59:17

it, you're trying to level up your

59:19

character. So I think the way that

59:21

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth handled their demo, and the

59:23

way Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown handled their

59:25

demo, which was different, it's a bespoke, only exists

59:27

in this demo world. We're going to show you

59:30

some of the late game powers to get you

59:32

hyped for what the game is. But

59:34

it's just kind of this custom made thing,

59:36

are both really interesting ways to handle demos

59:39

for bigger games.

59:42

So I love demos. I

59:44

love the way that Final Fantasy

59:47

VII Rebirth chose to do

59:49

their demo by taking a piece of the

59:51

story that can stand on its own, but

59:53

also allows you to import that save into

59:55

the final version of the game. I

59:58

also love that this is the first Final Fantasy VII. That

1:00:00

is ps5 only and they talked

1:00:02

about in the deep dive

1:00:05

what it means for the developers and how

1:00:07

they're able to Leverage

1:00:09

that technology. I think that's cool and I'm

1:00:11

excited to see more of it all

1:00:14

of that positive stuff said I Didn't

1:00:17

love the demo Rock

1:00:21

it You didn't like it as

1:00:23

a demo or you didn't like what it seems

1:00:25

to indicate about the game So I

1:00:28

love it as a demo But

1:00:30

it is the game like that boy it is this

1:00:32

part of the game I should say and that's what

1:00:34

I think was I feel

1:00:36

conflicted because The deep

1:00:38

dive that was shown the same day this

1:00:40

demo was released showed all these other amazing

1:00:42

things that they're kind of promising that you

1:00:44

can do all these side missions that feels

1:00:46

like it's 40 hours of Incredible

1:00:49

content that kind of the way spider-man

1:00:51

2 had side missions that you didn't

1:00:53

need to do they are side missions

1:00:55

But if you did them had rewarding

1:00:57

story moments or cyberpunk 2077 again side

1:00:59

mission But

1:01:02

if you do it has meaningful payoff

1:01:04

for your characters or paints the world

1:01:06

in an interesting light that Appears to

1:01:08

be what Final Fantasy 7 rebirths side

1:01:10

missions are going to be yes side

1:01:13

missions, but lengthy meaty Interesting

1:01:15

have character moments for your characters

1:01:17

fill in backstory all of that

1:01:20

stuff about the world and seems

1:01:22

really interesting This

1:01:24

demo which is free. I

1:01:27

guess when most demos are not they're not shipped

1:01:29

on discs with magazine We

1:01:35

got a free magazine with it so

1:01:39

I encourage folks to play it but it feels If

1:01:43

it feels like it's not quite delivering on

1:01:46

the promise of the premise of the developer

1:01:48

deep dive And so it's

1:01:50

very limited in scope with a town that

1:01:52

you're in and the combat Doesn't feel to

1:01:54

me at least like it opened up in

1:01:56

a way that I was expecting after my

1:01:59

gosh forgetting the subtitle of the first

1:02:01

part. Final

1:02:03

Fantasy 7, whatever the first remake, yeah. The

1:02:06

remake, but it had a name also, whatever

1:02:08

that one was. So

1:02:10

I think it's in a little bit of a

1:02:12

difficult spot. I don't think the town is super

1:02:14

interesting, but again, it's a flashback to when these

1:02:16

characters were meeting. So it's doing

1:02:18

interesting stuff that perhaps in the context of

1:02:20

the full game, when you get to it,

1:02:23

might work as a palette cleanse or

1:02:25

as some other moment.

1:02:29

But I was less

1:02:32

ready to click pre-order after playing the

1:02:34

demo than I was after watching the

1:02:36

deep dive. And so I don't know

1:02:38

what that says about one being good

1:02:40

and the other not, or one being

1:02:42

too good and the other also being

1:02:44

good still. Are you worried that the

1:02:46

game will, are you less excited about

1:02:48

the game based on the demo? Yes.

1:02:52

Wow. All right. Wow,

1:02:54

I know. That makes me want to play it now. I was just gonna

1:02:56

be worried, because I'm like, I'm gonna play this no matter what. I'm

1:02:58

curious. That's the

1:03:01

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo. The

1:03:04

other game that is on your playlist, it's also on

1:03:06

my playlist. In fact, we played it together quite a

1:03:09

lot. It's Helldivers

1:03:11

2, which just

1:03:13

hit PC and PlayStation 5.

1:03:15

It is notable because

1:03:18

it is a day-in-date Sony

1:03:20

exclusive that

1:03:23

has come out on PC, which

1:03:26

obviously we've seen Sony embrace

1:03:29

the PC marketplace much

1:03:31

more in the last few years. But

1:03:34

most of the time, those exclusives

1:03:36

are staggered. You'll

1:03:39

get that Horizon release

1:03:41

a few months after the PlayStation

1:03:43

5 version. Not

1:03:45

so with Helldivers 2. And a lot of that is

1:03:47

because this is a live service game that

1:03:50

really lives and dies on having a

1:03:52

robust community. And it looks

1:03:54

like the Calculus was, Let's

1:03:56

get as many people as we can play

1:03:58

in this thing. So people are playing with each

1:04:01

other and I think that was smart. I

1:04:03

think both of us are playing on Pc,

1:04:05

right? Christian. I'm close.

1:04:08

I have to be received codes which he

1:04:10

i that. Idea of

1:04:13

code for both. I've yet to

1:04:15

fire up the Playstation Five version.

1:04:17

I'm I'm waiting for across Progress

1:04:19

in which the developers have said

1:04:21

is coming but is not day

1:04:23

and Dave I started wearing is

1:04:25

available. His arguments usa with people

1:04:27

on either platform in your party

1:04:29

but cross progression are moving between

1:04:32

platforms. Is not yet. They're. Yes,

1:04:34

I've been playing on Pc. I did play

1:04:37

on Steam Deck when the game first launched.

1:04:39

It was oddly incompatible with Steam Deck where

1:04:41

folks for finding in a little hacks are

1:04:43

ways to get it in a different experimental

1:04:45

protons to get it to work. And then

1:04:48

they released an update. Having

1:04:50

a Bp Gp in a way that I can

1:04:52

sit down and play this had a desktop. Steam

1:04:54

deck is not the way I would choose to

1:04:56

play it if you have the option but I

1:04:59

had a locked thirty frames experience. I win and

1:05:01

I played solo. A couple of easy missions I

1:05:03

squandered up with some randoms ended up for person

1:05:05

thing on steam deck. I was super impressed that

1:05:07

it ran and was play a ball. On

1:05:10

Dec but on Pc. My.

1:05:12

Goodness what a treat This This game's awesome. We've

1:05:14

if people want to see us play at. We

1:05:17

played with Dave Ten I talked him into buying

1:05:19

it. It was not that hard to talk him

1:05:21

into a said hey you should buy this lets

1:05:23

play And he did sell some ice and forty

1:05:25

bucks not sixty or seventy Yes! and so people

1:05:27

want to see our plate drive a Daves streamed

1:05:30

them so they're on his his twitch you can

1:05:32

see us kind of being the first impressions Jeff

1:05:34

I love this game. I think the to yeah

1:05:36

we really have so much fun playing together. Oh

1:05:38

my gosh so far just and I mean this

1:05:41

in the best way possible. What. A dumb

1:05:43

game. And why Aids Handsomely

1:05:45

Damn right? Yes, it, yes, it is

1:05:47

very much Starship Troopers If you've ever

1:05:49

seen the film version from God, what

1:05:52

year was that? But.

1:05:54

That that that aesthetic of.

1:05:57

A big dumb self aware we

1:05:59

know, what we're doing type game.

1:06:02

So it's, it's, I think dumb is

1:06:04

a compliment in this case. Yes, I

1:06:06

agree. And it, but beautiful,

1:06:09

you know, like, it, yeah, it's like, I

1:06:11

said, intentionally, the like, you're liberating, you know,

1:06:14

kill them bugs, kill these droids, you got

1:06:16

to take back for democracy, all

1:06:18

that stuff in your face. Yeah, that kind of,

1:06:20

that kind of, not today, a lot of very

1:06:24

silly, intentional things, but graphically

1:06:27

and gameplay wise, it

1:06:30

is a top tier game delivering

1:06:32

on experiences in such a frenetic

1:06:35

and fun way. So I played

1:06:37

the first hell divers on my

1:06:40

Vita way back when and it

1:06:42

was isometric, similar in

1:06:44

time in scope and that you're going down and

1:06:46

trying to doing these things with the squad. But

1:06:48

I think the move to hell divers to and

1:06:50

the developers talked about

1:06:52

this with adding the third or switching

1:06:54

to third person makes it a

1:06:56

little more claustrophobic. Like Jeff, when we're playing there are

1:06:58

moments where it's like, oh, people Northwest and you know,

1:07:00

I'm taking them down. And then there were multiple times

1:07:02

where we were like, you know,

1:07:05

behind you, behind you. Because

1:07:07

your cameras brought in or you step on

1:07:10

a mine as you're backing up because a

1:07:12

charger is coming at you. And you don't

1:07:14

know that Dave, it was definitely Dave deployed

1:07:16

a minefield behind you because you can't you

1:07:18

don't have that spatial awareness. And it allows

1:07:20

for hilarity in

1:07:23

ways that is never frustrating,

1:07:25

right? Again, you

1:07:28

said it when we were playing and to

1:07:30

quote our friend Dan Trachtenberg, it's all

1:07:32

all the good suck, right? Like so

1:07:35

much of it is encumbering

1:07:37

you in a way that if

1:07:39

you just told someone you'd have to do this, it's like, I

1:07:41

would not want to do that. Yeah,

1:07:43

the game is like the mechanics of the game

1:07:46

are intentionally

1:07:49

difficult and cumbersome, difficult, the wrong

1:07:51

word, cumbersome, laborious,

1:07:53

right? Words that you don't

1:07:56

associate with fun. Everything takes

1:08:00

12 steps. Everything

1:08:03

requires a laborious

1:08:06

input of multiple

1:08:08

commands, and all of that

1:08:11

is to create these

1:08:13

moments of tension. So the

1:08:16

game really relies on what

1:08:18

they call stratagems, which

1:08:20

are basically, you know,

1:08:23

you are a hell diver, meaning you're

1:08:25

diving into hell, meaning you are on

1:08:27

a spaceship, these planets are overrun by

1:08:30

various awful bugs and bad

1:08:32

baddies, and you have to

1:08:34

try to liberate them by, you know, murdering

1:08:36

them or recapturing points or doing all kinds

1:08:38

of different quests. Murdering them. You're

1:08:40

shot down, you're diving down from the

1:08:42

orbiting spaceship, landing on the planet, having

1:08:45

to do certain things. Once

1:08:47

you do it, you have to then escape and

1:08:49

get, you know, evac'd out of there. But

1:08:53

the ships remain in orbit, and

1:08:55

so much of what you're able

1:08:57

to do relies

1:09:00

on calling to those ships and

1:09:02

having those ships send you things,

1:09:04

be they supplies or turrets or

1:09:06

extra stuff or a laser

1:09:09

strike from the sky. And

1:09:12

oftentimes, those

1:09:14

are basically the special moves of this

1:09:16

world. So you've got guns, you've got

1:09:18

grenades, you're running around, third person action

1:09:20

shooter, destiny in third

1:09:22

person, killing a bunch of stuff.

1:09:25

But your special attacks, your coolest

1:09:27

stuff, your magic, so to speak,

1:09:30

is calling down stuff

1:09:32

from the orbiting spaceships.

1:09:35

But the way you do that is

1:09:38

you have to input basically a

1:09:40

Konami code style series

1:09:42

of laborious

1:09:44

inputs. And

1:09:46

each of the things that you're able

1:09:49

to do and you can decide your

1:09:51

loadout mission to mission based on what

1:09:53

you've purchased, acquiring

1:09:55

the in game currency and then, you know,

1:09:58

buying the cool stuff that you want to outfit

1:10:00

your guy with. And

1:10:03

those, so there's a list of like, you

1:10:05

know, six or seven different things you can

1:10:07

call down at any given time, but they're

1:10:09

all like left, right, up, down, right, right,

1:10:11

left, up, down. And you got

1:10:13

to do that on the fly, while

1:10:15

you're being swarmed on all sides by

1:10:18

hordes of

1:10:20

bad guys, icky

1:10:22

bugs and robots and all kinds of stuff. And

1:10:24

it shows you the prompts, you don't need to

1:10:26

memorize it. And I think sometimes they're different. I

1:10:28

don't I've played probably seven hours as of recording.

1:10:30

And I'm still not sure if all

1:10:33

of the commands are always the same or not, because I just

1:10:35

don't see the battle. But

1:10:39

all of it is there to

1:10:42

specifically be cumbersome.

1:10:44

And you've got to like, take

1:10:47

your mind and put it into this like, intricate

1:10:50

series of commands, while also

1:10:52

kiting a giant space bug

1:10:55

that's spewing acid at your

1:10:57

face. So and walking through mud that

1:10:59

slows you down 20%. And you've run

1:11:03

out of stamina to sprint also clips

1:11:05

out of two bullets left, go reload.

1:11:08

And I am well aware that that kind

1:11:11

of sounds dreadfully unfun, you

1:11:13

know, it sounds like that's just

1:11:16

a tedious and awful.

1:11:21

But in the heat of it, it just create

1:11:23

and because, because it

1:11:25

really is a game intended to be played

1:11:27

in groups, you know, it

1:11:30

just engenders these

1:11:33

incredible moments of being

1:11:36

at the frayed edge of sanity, you

1:11:38

know, it's like what what the game

1:11:41

is trying to create is, oh, and

1:11:46

it really does that a lot. You know,

1:11:48

it really does a great job of just

1:11:51

throwing things at you and knocking

1:11:53

you off your your

1:11:56

perfect plan and making bloopers it's

1:11:58

full of blooper reels friend. fire

1:12:00

cannot be turned off. You're shooting your

1:12:02

friends, you're accidentally calling down an orbital

1:12:04

strike and your friend walks in the

1:12:07

path. You're trying to do a thing

1:12:09

and you

1:12:13

haven't done it right and there's 14 steps

1:12:15

to the mission and you've got to

1:12:17

carry this thing that slows you down

1:12:19

to 5% of your walking speed

1:12:22

while your friend is screaming that there's 400

1:12:25

alien bugs coming over the ridge. It

1:12:28

really does create those

1:12:30

stories that I think

1:12:32

make multiplayer gaming so much fun is,

1:12:35

oh my god, you remember what you

1:12:37

were doing and you shot me. That

1:12:40

kind of wacky,

1:12:44

everything is a snowball going down

1:12:46

the hill, out of control type

1:12:48

situation. So we

1:12:50

had a blast. The other thing

1:12:53

I want to say that I think is

1:12:55

genius is because all

1:12:58

of the orbital call downs are

1:13:00

done in this fashion that I've

1:13:03

described of these Konami code style

1:13:05

intricate inputs. And then you get

1:13:07

a pokeball basically that you throw

1:13:10

into the world and that's where

1:13:12

the ammo will land. The biggest

1:13:15

thing of genius I think in this whole

1:13:17

game is that's also how you revive a

1:13:19

teammate. So in every other

1:13:21

game, you have to run up to

1:13:23

your teammates fallen corpse and hold

1:13:26

X or whatever you do to revive the teammate.

1:13:28

And there's a certain tension and fun in that.

1:13:31

But this game tries something

1:13:33

completely different and I think it is

1:13:35

a huge success because you don't have

1:13:37

to get anywhere near your teammate. Your

1:13:40

teammate goes down who cares

1:13:42

where they are. But

1:13:44

you have to call in this

1:13:46

really intricate goofy code to and

1:13:49

then throw a ball to find

1:13:51

out where they're going to respawn. You threw me right

1:13:53

by the big guy. Oh yeah,

1:13:56

it's it is genius because it creates

1:13:58

it just completely. completely changes

1:14:00

up that entire process of

1:14:03

your teammate goes down, what do you do? Who's

1:14:06

on it? Who's doing it? Oh

1:14:08

my gosh, I'm being swarmed. I don't

1:14:10

have time to move my thumb over and put

1:14:13

in these crazy up, up, down, down, left, right,

1:14:15

left, right, B, A, B, A, select start, you

1:14:17

know? But

1:14:20

again, all of it is there to just

1:14:23

make it, you

1:14:26

know, walking and chewing gum. It's

1:14:29

all trying to juggle 14 things. You're

1:14:32

juggling chainsaws, you know? It's just that kind

1:14:34

of game. And it's fun. It's super fun.

1:14:37

I agree. You think that by daylight you find

1:14:39

like, chill. Like,

1:14:41

you cannot judge me being like, oh, that by

1:14:43

daylight, how are you relaxing? Like that sounds like

1:14:46

a nightmare, a wonderful nightmare, but nobody

1:14:48

can judge me. To

1:14:51

be fair, it is not relaxing. No.

1:14:53

You play games to relax.

1:14:58

But we, we had so much fun

1:15:00

and Christian is right. The game is

1:15:02

really attractive. I love the art design.

1:15:05

It is, there's all kinds of

1:15:08

goofy stuff that will hurt you if

1:15:10

you walk over it and run into

1:15:12

it, slow you down and

1:15:14

all of it looks attractive. Like, oh, look at that

1:15:16

beautiful glute. Oh, it hurt me. Why

1:15:19

didn't you know? It's all just, it's

1:15:21

so well designed and the world really

1:15:23

does feel like you're dropping into hell.

1:15:25

You know, it's, it's how they

1:15:28

describe Pandora in the first Avatar movie where

1:15:30

it's like, everything wants to eat

1:15:32

your eyes as jujubes, you know, that,

1:15:35

that monologue. So everything

1:15:37

feels dangerous. Everything feels scary. You're

1:15:40

you have a time limit for your missions. So

1:15:42

it's like, there's optional

1:15:44

stuff that you can get you

1:15:46

more XP, more cool currency

1:15:50

that you can spend on awesome stuff. So you want to

1:15:52

do it, but tick, tick, tick, you know, you got it.

1:15:54

It's you got to push your luck element as well. Christian,

1:15:57

we had so much fun, right? I

1:16:00

mean, yes, I maybe

1:16:02

am thinking about do I have time to

1:16:04

play today between after doing this and maybe

1:16:07

do something else. I think also,

1:16:09

well, one, I should say for us, it was

1:16:12

a very smooth launch, which I know people playing

1:16:14

now if you hear us and they want to

1:16:17

buy it, you're out of that launch window, it

1:16:19

doesn't affect you. But I think so many of

1:16:21

these games launch in very difficult states at

1:16:23

launch. For my personal

1:16:25

play experience, it was fantastic.

1:16:28

Absolutely phenomenal day one launch, playing online

1:16:30

with friends, people I wanted to play

1:16:33

with, playing with randoms, matchmaking, I had

1:16:35

a great time. I had one hard

1:16:37

crash to desktop on PC. And

1:16:40

immediately as I rebooted it, it downloaded a

1:16:42

patch and I haven't had a single issue

1:16:44

since. So yeah, that's great. I do that.

1:16:47

Again, Christian and I have BVGP. So

1:16:50

on PC, I've heard that people with sort

1:16:52

of lower end specs are having a harder

1:16:54

time of it. But I

1:16:56

heard the PS5 version is very stable. And

1:16:59

then the other thing I want to call out is

1:17:01

it's games as service element. It

1:17:03

has the Fortnite made

1:17:05

famous battle pass style thing. And there's

1:17:07

a free one, war bonds is

1:17:10

what they call them. And then there is a paid one.

1:17:12

And in those war

1:17:14

bonds is where you're going to

1:17:16

unlock different guns, different armor sets

1:17:18

that are often just cosmetic. The

1:17:20

guns do have perks are like

1:17:22

better or stronger guns. The

1:17:24

armor does too. Some of the

1:17:26

armor does. Yes. And you're

1:17:28

working through those things. Jeff and I in our

1:17:30

code, we got the premium war bond as well,

1:17:32

which is a different set of things that you're

1:17:34

using your end game currency to unlock

1:17:36

your way through. And

1:17:39

I enjoy those types of progressions.

1:17:41

I enjoy the Fortnite battle pass. I

1:17:43

think they can be fun. My only

1:17:45

frustration with Helldivers 2 so far and

1:17:48

their war bonds is that it

1:17:51

does the thing that Fortnite started to do maybe four

1:17:53

or five seasons ago, where it's

1:17:55

pages of stuff. And

1:17:57

you can't, let's say Spider-Gwen is on page.

1:18:00

I can't just save up

1:18:02

120 trinkets and go to

1:18:04

page seven and buy spider-gwen I

1:18:06

need to spend enough trinkets on

1:18:09

each page like each page is

1:18:11

gated By trinket spend to get

1:18:13

to the next so it'd be like if you walked into

1:18:15

Walmart It's like you want to go

1:18:17

to the video game section great. Well, you got to buy ten

1:18:20

packs of underwear first Where

1:18:22

where you got to buy underwear? I

1:18:24

don't want that that department is before

1:18:26

the video game department. Sorry Yeah, and

1:18:28

welcome to vegetables. I Know

1:18:31

greeting cards is next And

1:18:34

there is some of that and I think some of

1:18:36

the things more so I would say on the premium

1:18:38

war bond It seems like a

1:18:40

pretty hefty cost like I think the premium

1:18:42

war bond its spend 25 medals Before

1:18:47

you can unlock the second page like

1:18:49

it requires buying almost everything on that

1:18:51

first page. I Don't

1:18:53

love that That

1:18:55

said I don't feel like

1:18:58

I necessarily need the best guns

1:19:00

to have fun With

1:19:02

friends because I'm not trying to min max

1:19:04

my way through this game Agree otter conceit

1:19:06

is earth or new earth whatever it's called

1:19:09

is safe But all the

1:19:11

planets around it are deadly and dangerous

1:19:13

And so the other aspect of the game

1:19:16

of service that it's doing is you see

1:19:18

these bars like Jeff we liberated heath We

1:19:20

were part of you know, all the players

1:19:22

in the world that have now freed this

1:19:24

planet And we've killed all the

1:19:26

enemies on it and now there's going to be

1:19:28

new planets that we have to go to and

1:19:30

fight So you're always making progress in that larger

1:19:33

meta, even if you don't have the

1:19:35

best Shotgun or railgun to

1:19:37

go down and do it with you're still chipping away

1:19:39

at that. So I still find that exciting

1:19:42

and rewarding and I hope that they kind

1:19:44

of tweak the cost of pages

1:19:46

of war bonds, but I love I Love

1:19:49

this game and I would love to play it with you

1:19:51

if you're sad or happy after the Super Bowl Yeah,

1:19:55

either way it also has capes capes,

1:19:58

you know You know,

1:20:01

any game that has capes, I already like it. It's

1:20:03

a plus one to me liking it. It

1:20:05

would not be a good incredible then. No

1:20:07

capes. But

1:20:10

yeah, I mean, I feel like I'm gonna be playing this

1:20:13

for a while. It really does feel fun. It

1:20:16

is grindy, as you kind

1:20:18

of indicated. It does feel pretty grindy. You

1:20:22

know, the coolest stuff is all

1:20:24

the, you know, bring it

1:20:26

down from the sky stuff. You

1:20:28

don't really get new abilities per

1:20:30

se. That's the way you get abilities

1:20:32

is new stuff from the sky. So you kind of have

1:20:34

to embrace that if you're gonna play. But

1:20:37

I think the shooting feels really good. Like

1:20:39

laying into a giant

1:20:42

bug that's running at you feels

1:20:45

really good. Like it, they get, you

1:20:47

know, ripped apart by your, by

1:20:50

your gunfire in such a satisfying way, the

1:20:52

way you would want, the way it looks

1:20:54

in Starship Troopers, the movie, the way like

1:20:56

bits and pieces are being torn off of

1:20:58

them and they're tumbling and they're for, you

1:21:01

know, arachnid legs are kind of crumpling

1:21:03

underneath them. It's just very well

1:21:05

done. So just the pure

1:21:08

base gameplay loop of kill a bunch of

1:21:11

bugs just feels really good. And

1:21:14

the game looks great. Play is great. It

1:21:16

supports super ultra wide. I, this

1:21:19

is a huge thumbs up for me. I just, I'm so

1:21:21

impressed with it. I did not expect to like it as

1:21:23

much as I do. Yeah, I agree.

1:21:26

It's great. So that's hell divers too.

1:21:30

And on my playlist, Christian

1:21:33

played the demo for final fantasy seven rebirth.

1:21:35

I played a lot of demos, all the

1:21:38

demos, next fest week. I

1:21:40

love, I love indie games. As anybody who listens

1:21:43

to the show knows I love

1:21:45

steam next fest because it is drinking

1:21:47

from the fire hose of indie games.

1:21:50

I heard that during

1:21:53

this steam next fest, there

1:21:55

were over a

1:21:57

thousand game demos available.

1:22:01

That's a lot. That just seems impossible. I

1:22:03

don't know how anybody makes money in this

1:22:05

space. That just seems overwhelming and nuts. I

1:22:08

played, I think, around 30 of

1:22:10

them. I tried to do my

1:22:12

best. And I feel like my job, my role

1:22:15

here on the show is to

1:22:17

kind of relate the

1:22:19

best of the best to you, dear listener. So

1:22:22

I'm going to give you my top

1:22:24

five of the about 30 that I

1:22:26

played with one bonus game

1:22:28

as well. So in no particular order.

1:22:31

And of course, you know, if you've listened to the show, you know

1:22:33

my proclivities, my tastes.

1:22:37

I like a roguelite. I like

1:22:41

a turn-based. I like a card game. Although

1:22:44

I don't think there's any card games in

1:22:46

my top five. I

1:22:48

will tell you one thing I have observed overall

1:22:50

from a 10,000 foot view of

1:22:52

the Steam Next Fest is we

1:22:55

have gotten to that place that I

1:22:58

remember talking about way long ago on

1:23:00

back on weekend confirmed, Christian. I

1:23:02

remember saying, we're going

1:23:04

to have an entire generation of

1:23:06

game developers that

1:23:09

grew up. And the thing that defined

1:23:11

what video games were was Minecraft. And

1:23:13

they're going to come of age. And

1:23:15

they're going to have a completely different

1:23:17

expectation about what a video game does.

1:23:20

And I kind of feel like that's come

1:23:23

to come to pass because my

1:23:25

my 10,000 foot view of Steam

1:23:28

Fest is everything has

1:23:30

crafting. Everything.

1:23:34

Everything is crafting. It is. It is

1:23:36

wild to see. There is just like

1:23:38

every game is like, and

1:23:41

you're also crafting and you're doing this, but

1:23:43

also you can build all these things. It's

1:23:45

like, that's just what I think

1:23:47

a whole generation of people just expect games do.

1:23:49

Anyway, so here we go. I

1:23:54

really enjoyed a game called Rotwood, which

1:23:56

is the next

1:23:59

game. from the

1:24:01

developers of what is it oh Man

1:24:05

a game you would know and I can't think of it

1:24:07

right now. It is Don't

1:24:10

starve a great game. Don't starve developers of

1:24:12

don't starve doing rottewood This is a game

1:24:15

style that Christian you and I both like

1:24:17

it is basically a brawler beat

1:24:20

them up kind of style of game art

1:24:22

is Gorgeous. I

1:24:25

love it very cartoonish a

1:24:27

very beautiful beautiful game A rogue

1:24:30

light where you are, you know, you

1:24:32

can play co-op one to

1:24:34

four players of co-op in a pure

1:24:37

kind of beat-em-up fashion You're going from

1:24:39

room to room fighting all these things

1:24:41

fighting bosses getting a currency upgrading yourself

1:24:44

getting new cool stuff to do very

1:24:46

conventional in its Mechanics, but just the

1:24:48

execution is what made it special because

1:24:51

of how great it looks how great

1:24:53

it feels the combos feel very cool

1:24:55

The bad guys are all really unique

1:24:57

and interesting rottewood

1:25:00

one of my top five The

1:25:03

next is a game called Kings grave

1:25:06

which is a great

1:25:08

example of what I was talking about where everything

1:25:10

is got crafting this is the idea of this

1:25:12

game is a Kingdom

1:25:15

has fallen under a blight

1:25:18

that destroyed it You are the

1:25:20

king and you have to sort

1:25:22

of rebuild the kingdom by going

1:25:24

out in the world and defeating

1:25:26

bad guys and then Finding exploring

1:25:29

the remnants of your kingdom finding

1:25:31

these pockets of holdouts of villagers

1:25:34

Convincing them that the kingdom is back and and

1:25:36

then sort of rebuilding Elements

1:25:38

of the key kingdom that will then allow

1:25:40

you to do new things. So this is

1:25:43

a really cool. It's pixel art top

1:25:46

down kind of look to it

1:25:48

almost looks like gauntlet in a weird way, but You're

1:25:52

you how you can you fight stuff? But mostly

1:25:54

what you're doing is kind of solving little puzzles

1:25:56

to unlock areas of the map find new areas

1:25:58

of the map that then

1:26:01

let you build functional

1:26:04

new buildings that

1:26:08

give you new abilities. So you can

1:26:10

build the building that lets you make

1:26:12

a new kind of weapon or that

1:26:14

lets you clear rubble that lets you

1:26:16

unlock even more areas of the map.

1:26:18

So you're kind of like finding these

1:26:20

areas, collecting resources that then you use

1:26:22

to build up the areas of your

1:26:25

kingdom that unlock new abilities

1:26:27

that let you continue to

1:26:29

do that. I really enjoyed this. Kingsgrave

1:26:31

is what it's called, comes out in

1:26:33

April. I will be playing

1:26:35

it then. I'm excited about it. Another

1:26:39

game called Terra Memoria, which

1:26:41

is actually kind of a similar concept

1:26:44

in that, well, this

1:26:46

is a turn-based JRPG

1:26:48

style role-playing game. That

1:26:52

is very much a JRPG style term,

1:26:54

almost like Grandia 2, which is one

1:26:56

of my favorite JRPGs of all time.

1:26:59

It's got this cool turn-based system where

1:27:01

you can see the timeline

1:27:03

of when all the bad guys and you

1:27:05

are set to have your next move go

1:27:07

off, and you can choose your move based

1:27:10

on where it places you in the timeline.

1:27:12

So if I do this move, it's powerful,

1:27:14

but it's gonna take longer for me to

1:27:16

move again, and more bad guys will get

1:27:19

to go before me than if I do

1:27:21

something less powerful, but I can do it

1:27:23

more frequently and maybe kill off the bad

1:27:25

guys before they even get a chance to

1:27:27

go. And you can do certain things to

1:27:29

stun them and move them back the timeline,

1:27:31

farther back up the timeline to let you

1:27:33

move more often. Really cool, I love that

1:27:35

turn-based strategy layer of the combat. This

1:27:37

is another game that is beautiful,

1:27:40

beautiful. And as I mentioned last week,

1:27:42

art goes a long

1:27:44

way, look and feel goes a long way

1:27:46

for me to fall in love with something.

1:27:49

And I just love being in the world

1:27:51

of Terra Memoria. It is kind

1:27:53

of this painterly, beautiful backgrounds,

1:27:56

and then pixel

1:27:58

sprites for all. the characters. So there's,

1:28:01

they're not the same art style. It's two

1:28:03

disparate art styles that kind of live with

1:28:06

each other and is, I think works really, really

1:28:08

well. Anthropomorphized animals, you're moving

1:28:10

around your, and again, there's a crafting element.

1:28:12

You can create things and place them on

1:28:14

the screen in certain

1:28:17

areas to solve puzzles and

1:28:19

stuff. I really

1:28:21

like the combat style. I really

1:28:23

like the storytelling of Terra memoria.

1:28:25

All right. And then a straight

1:28:27

up rogue light, like full

1:28:29

on twin stick action, rogue like,

1:28:32

like a Hades style, like pure

1:28:34

action rogue light called

1:28:36

gatekeeper, which, oh man, I just

1:28:38

had so much fun with. That

1:28:41

is a sort of futuristic,

1:28:44

pure action. Go into a stage,

1:28:48

stuff comes swarming at you from all

1:28:51

sides. You're pulling off your moves. You've

1:28:53

got a variety. Different characters have different

1:28:55

movesets, a variety of different moves, and

1:28:57

you're upgrading in real time, like

1:28:59

a mobile would where you're leveling up as you

1:29:01

go. And as soon as you level up, you

1:29:03

can unlock a new thing. You can get

1:29:06

new abilities. You can increase your attack speed,

1:29:08

have different builds and you're just

1:29:10

acquiring more and more, getting more and more powerful. The

1:29:12

deeper you go level by level by

1:29:15

level. But it is another game that has

1:29:17

a really cool art style. The, the,

1:29:19

the combat is very satisfying. The

1:29:21

characters play very different from one

1:29:23

another. You level up, you feel

1:29:25

more powerful as you go instantly

1:29:28

gatekeeper, one to keep your eye

1:29:30

on. If you like rogue

1:29:32

lights, like I do really,

1:29:34

really slick game gatekeeper. All

1:29:37

right. Then my fifth game, which

1:29:40

I think for me, the best game I played

1:29:42

period and the one that I

1:29:45

want Christian to play the most Christian, this

1:29:47

is going to be your catnip. You

1:29:50

will love this game. It is

1:29:53

called Pepper Grinder. When

1:29:55

I saw the name, all I could think of is that SNL sketch.

1:30:00

You want a bit of a, you like it to juice. Um,

1:30:05

Pepper grinder. Yeah. Clever title. This

1:30:08

is a, a

1:30:11

side scrolling action

1:30:13

platformer. So already in

1:30:16

Christian's wheelhouse, I read here.

1:30:18

Protagonist red, red hair. Protagonist blue hair,

1:30:20

but you know, there's also, you can

1:30:22

unlock a palette swap. Actually I'm not

1:30:25

even joking. You can't. So then you

1:30:27

can pick a red hair. Um,

1:30:31

she encounters, uh, in the first

1:30:33

few seconds of this game, she

1:30:36

discovers a giant drill,

1:30:38

like the head of a drill that she

1:30:41

holds. Like she's holding a, you know,

1:30:43

a giant, uh, gun

1:30:46

from aliens, you know, like that

1:30:48

big two handed gun, but she

1:30:50

holds this giant drill bit, this

1:30:53

big spinning drill and

1:30:57

that allows her not only to, you

1:30:59

know, turn it, she, it's

1:31:01

kind of like a combination between a drill and a

1:31:03

chainsaw where like, and then it spins, you

1:31:07

know, and she can

1:31:09

use that to destroy enemies, but

1:31:12

also she

1:31:14

can use it to dig into

1:31:16

soft areas of the screen. So

1:31:18

I described this game, this game is

1:31:20

kind of like, what if Celeste and

1:31:23

dig dug had a baby. So

1:31:26

what it allows you to do is

1:31:28

you dig into these soft areas.

1:31:31

And when she's digging, she moves

1:31:33

much quicker and the

1:31:35

level design is so brilliant

1:31:37

because there'll be these soft

1:31:40

areas and then there'll be a gap between them

1:31:42

and then another soft area. And so you can

1:31:44

push the button as you get to the edge

1:31:46

of the soft area. And she'll like cat, she'll

1:31:49

rev the, the drill bit up

1:31:51

as it spins faster and it propels her

1:31:53

out. So you have to sort of

1:31:55

like shoot yourself between these dig

1:31:58

duggy little areas to. solve

1:32:00

puzzles, you'll be hitting enemies

1:32:02

in between, you'll be drilling resources

1:32:04

like diamonds and stuff that's in

1:32:06

there, and you're hopping around and

1:32:08

doing these really cool, I mean it's

1:32:11

almost got an element also of Sonic

1:32:13

the Hedgehog, because you have to have

1:32:15

momentum to get yourself over the gap,

1:32:17

because if you're not touching

1:32:19

any soft dirt, you don't

1:32:21

have any momentum, so you have to like shoot yourself

1:32:23

up and keep it going and keep your momentum and

1:32:25

shoot yourself for the next one. Oh

1:32:28

dude, it's so satisfying,

1:32:30

so fun, again 2D

1:32:32

pixel art style, Celeste style,

1:32:36

action platformer, I think Christian you would

1:32:38

love this, I had so much fun,

1:32:41

it's called Pepper Grinder, and I

1:32:44

don't know when it's coming out, but it's... It's

1:32:47

coming to Switch as well, and Switch just

1:32:50

listed as general 2024, it's

1:32:52

a Devolver Digital game. Devolver Digital, yeah.

1:32:54

Yeah, it looks very pretty. Man,

1:32:57

yeah, it was the game that I was most

1:32:59

thrilled with, but so many great... I mean I'm leaving

1:33:01

out a half dozen others that I

1:33:03

think were super fun. I want to

1:33:06

say, talk about one last

1:33:08

game though, because we

1:33:10

got an email to

1:33:13

[email protected], this comes from Arden.

1:33:17

Arden works at Lion Ark Games, and Arden

1:33:19

said, hey I've been a listener to DLC

1:33:21

since the weekend, confirmed days, love the show,

1:33:24

thanks for keeping it going all these years, I honestly

1:33:26

feel like the show has only gotten better in the last few

1:33:28

years, I'm running in because my brother

1:33:30

and I are indie game devs and

1:33:33

just released a public demo for our

1:33:35

first game, Ember the Werefox, which

1:33:37

is participating in the current Steam Next Fest.

1:33:41

So I had to check this out, compliments

1:33:43

will get you everywhere in this world, at least with

1:33:45

me. And so

1:33:47

I checked out Ember the Werefox,

1:33:49

and this is a delightful

1:33:51

pixel art, also

1:33:55

a roguelite. You play

1:33:57

as Ember, who is a redheaded little

1:33:59

girl, who... is

1:34:01

has goes to bed and dreams

1:34:03

that she is in the forest

1:34:05

and While she

1:34:07

is in the forest daytime she

1:34:11

can harvest Fruits

1:34:14

and vegetables she can

1:34:16

find little critters

1:34:18

worms and grubs and things

1:34:21

she can Find

1:34:23

sticks and twigs and rocks and all kinds

1:34:25

of other things do unlock little puzzles find

1:34:28

stuff in the daytime But

1:34:30

tick tick tick tick tick that Sun is

1:34:32

moving from through the sky very quickly and

1:34:34

all of a sudden It's nighttime and once

1:34:36

nighttime happens in her dreams The

1:34:38

dark will harm her and all kinds

1:34:40

of bad guys start coming out from

1:34:42

the dark to attack her The

1:34:45

good news is she happens to be a

1:34:47

werefox So at night,

1:34:49

she also transforms into a fox

1:34:51

and is able to fight the

1:34:53

bad guys so The

1:34:56

way this game works is the

1:34:58

daytime phase you're basically preparing for

1:35:01

the nighttime phase because

1:35:03

once the nighttime phase happens all

1:35:05

the little grubs and Vegetables and things

1:35:08

that you've picked can be food that

1:35:10

you can then eat as the werefox

1:35:12

and they will give you Power-ups,

1:35:15

so it has this entire skill

1:35:17

tree system That is like

1:35:19

if you eat this thing it makes your tail Shoot

1:35:22

fire from it if you eat that thing

1:35:24

it means you have a boost it gives

1:35:26

you new powers So you have to sort

1:35:28

of and every night it resets

1:35:31

right you have to do it all on

1:35:33

you You have to feed yourself so that

1:35:35

daytime phase is super important and you can

1:35:37

also set up Campfires and torches so you

1:35:39

have little pockets of light to stand in

1:35:41

and fight the bad guys and the

1:35:43

bad guys are coming like Vampire

1:35:45

survival style it's it vampire

1:35:47

survivor. It's just a horde

1:35:49

coming you from all sides So it's just how long

1:35:51

can I survive can I survive through the whole night

1:35:54

to get through the whole night to become a little

1:35:56

girl again, and the

1:35:59

and then you can spend your

1:36:02

courage, you get courage

1:36:04

by defeating the bad guys, you

1:36:06

can spend your courage on having

1:36:08

permanent power-ups that

1:36:10

persist through the day night cycle and persist

1:36:13

through waking up from the dream. Dying

1:36:15

means you wake up from the dream and you go

1:36:17

and you hug your little teddy bear in your room

1:36:20

and the teddy bear is like, I loved your courage,

1:36:22

you can spend your courage on new things, but it

1:36:24

also takes courage to go back

1:36:26

to sleep. It takes courage to go and

1:36:28

sleep and dream again of the scary things.

1:36:31

So it uses up courage. It's a very

1:36:33

adorable game, very clever. The

1:36:35

other cool thing about it is all the crafting

1:36:37

systems. You craft, because

1:36:39

everything is crafting, but

1:36:42

it's completely menu-less crafting.

1:36:45

You literally just pick something up and you

1:36:47

combine it with something in the world. You

1:36:49

can pick up a stick, pick up multiple

1:36:51

sticks, she's holding them over her head, walk

1:36:53

over to something, combine the stick with some

1:36:55

cotton and it turns into a torch. Very

1:36:58

clever, intuitive

1:37:00

way to handle that kind of stuff.

1:37:03

And I really enjoyed Ember the Werefox.

1:37:05

So thank you, Arden, for writing

1:37:07

in and bringing that to our attention. Please,

1:37:10

you and your brother should be congratulated. I

1:37:12

hope more folks check out Ember the

1:37:15

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1:38:18

I know that was a lot. We're

1:38:20

not done yet because Christian checked

1:38:23

out the Appdivision Pro. So

1:38:26

let's hear about that. Christian

1:38:29

Spicer, I talked at length

1:38:32

about the Appdivision Pro last

1:38:34

week, but you finally got

1:38:43

your appointment. Vic, have

1:38:46

you any interest in

1:38:48

Appdivision Pro? Have you seen

1:38:50

anyone that used it? Have you talked to anyone?

1:38:52

Have you been to a store? What's your current

1:38:54

status? I have seen bits and pieces of it. I'm

1:38:58

still VR skeptic and I hate to say that.

1:39:03

I still feel like there's not been that

1:39:05

thing that has grabbed me with it. There's

1:39:07

not been that thing that has encouraged

1:39:10

me to go out and

1:39:12

buy increasingly expensive headsets. I

1:39:16

don't know. I think it's just I

1:39:19

don't like the idea of being so

1:39:21

insular almost. Which is weird.

1:39:24

I'm always

1:39:26

interested in seeing how the

1:39:29

stuff goes and

1:39:31

what the new inventions are. I'm excited

1:39:33

to see what Christian's thoughts are. Maybe

1:39:38

this will be the thing that grabs me. I don't know. Well,

1:39:41

the price point certainly wouldn't grab you. Christian

1:39:45

you went in and had a demo in store,

1:39:47

which anybody can do. You can sign up and

1:39:50

get a time and you can

1:39:52

come down and there's no expectation

1:39:55

that you're going to buy one. You're just testing it

1:39:57

out. So what was your experience doing that? A

1:40:01

couple caveats. One, I don't own a

1:40:03

Quest 3. I have borrowed one. I've

1:40:06

had extensive face-on time with it. I

1:40:10

own a lot of Apple products

1:40:12

as the other caveat. I am definitely

1:40:14

in that ecosystem. A phone, watch, my

1:40:16

laptop, iPad. We are in that Apple

1:40:19

ecosystem. Jeff,

1:40:22

I don't think you did this thing. I think

1:40:25

you did it a little dirty last week.

1:40:27

I don't think you said you didn't present

1:40:29

enough. I don't think you were. The other

1:40:31

caveat you already mentioned, and it's the only

1:40:33

time I'm going to mention it, it's expensive.

1:40:35

It's $3,500 in the US. But

1:40:38

oftentimes, we don't talk about other

1:40:40

products, games associated with

1:40:44

their price, how much fun it can or cannot

1:40:46

be. I want to acknowledge the price, but now

1:40:48

leave it out of everything else that I'm going