2:00

best low quality graphics

2:02

award and

2:05

that will go to lethal company

2:08

so lethal company if you're not

2:10

aware is a multiplayer

2:12

co-op looting game where basically you

2:14

are sent to a moon and

2:17

you have to loot there's like a

2:19

abandoned facility there but there's also full of

2:22

monsters which are incredibly terrifying

2:25

and they attack you with

2:27

inside and outside the building but

2:29

the company is super ruthless and you have a

2:31

profit quota that you have to meet and if

2:33

you don't meet it you get jettisoned out into

2:36

space and die so

2:38

it's pretty fun pretty good game

2:40

pretty good time with friends because

2:42

everyone is talking over the

2:44

in-game microphones we've got

2:46

like walkie-talkies and things like that so it's

2:49

yeah very immersive but

2:52

the reason that

2:54

I'm giving it the best ad

2:56

slash low quality graphics award is because

2:58

it's so hard to see anything in

3:01

that game but that somehow makes it

3:03

better it's essentially like

3:05

super heavily stylized so there's like

3:07

a filter over everything

3:10

the 3d world is all there but it's

3:13

really like low-res low-poly like like

3:16

a ps1 game kind of style

3:18

it's by choice rather than just being

3:20

a poorly developed game yeah yeah it's

3:22

like it's a deliberate choice but it also makes

3:26

it more immersive

3:28

and a lot harder like you you initially

3:30

can't see anything there's it's

3:33

all the effectively lose out is

3:35

it almost like VHS like film

3:37

grain to it yeah

3:39

kind of I think

3:41

when it might my friend joined the game for the first

3:44

time he was like I think my graphics are

3:46

broken like it kind of it looks

3:48

like it's not really supposed

3:50

to be that way because it's so like bleached out

3:52

when the light hits and then the shadows are just

3:55

so like murky and muddy really can't see

3:57

much at all and it's like

3:59

I I guess the whole aesthetic of the game as

4:01

well is the

4:03

physics when you die, you just kind of

4:06

ragdoll everywhere and it kind of glitches and

4:08

you get all these polygons and all that

4:10

part. It just adds to it because it feels

4:13

scarier that it's kind of

4:15

like not working right in some way. It's

4:18

almost that kind of like, you know, how... Because

4:20

the original Slenderman had a bit of that kind

4:22

of like when he got close it like messed

4:24

up all your visuals, didn't it? And

4:27

I guess kind of like the

4:29

real low quality of those kind of

4:31

creepypasta games is what makes them all

4:34

the more terrifying, right? Yeah,

4:36

exactly. Like I think this game,

4:39

Lethal Company, a lot of the monsters are inspired

4:41

by the SCP kind

4:44

of creatures as well. So there's

4:47

a lot of that kind of like creepypasta element

4:51

going in and yeah,

4:53

the monsters like you don't really know anything

4:55

about them. They just turn

4:57

up and kill you or

5:00

like... There's like a little ghost girl

5:02

skipping towards you in a creepy way that would

5:04

be almost less creepy if

5:06

it wasn't so like

5:08

heavily pixelated and distorted. This

5:12

thing's been like a steam phenomenon, hasn't

5:14

it? Like this like really exploded. I

5:16

think you can kind of... It

5:18

almost feels like in a world of roadblocks where everything

5:20

just looks like really badly put together Lego bricks. It's

5:23

kind of like no one actually really

5:25

cares about graphical fidelity anymore. It's like

5:27

the worst looking things can become the

5:31

biggest things on the planet and part of that is kind

5:33

of like the not charm of

5:35

it looking bad but like the effect that

5:37

you get out of it looking weird. Yeah,

5:41

it's definitely part of the charm and it's non

5:43

obstacle. As you say, it's massive. There are so

5:45

many people playing that game right now. The one

5:47

thing I will say though, makes it very hard

5:49

to take screenshots because that's part of my job

5:51

for guides. I have to take screenshots of all

5:53

of the monsters and I'm like,

5:55

oh, I got it and I check my screenshot and it's just

5:57

like a muddy puddle with me.

6:00

like what even is that? That's not helpful

6:02

to anyone. I'm

6:05

just watching the trailer and

6:07

yeah parts of it are incredibly dark, incredibly

6:10

foggy or misty but it

6:12

does feel super atmospheric. Yeah

6:15

it is. It's actually, it's definitely

6:19

scary even though so when

6:21

I was playing I was playing it for guide

6:23

reasons so I had to kind of like run

6:25

face first into everything. And

6:28

then suddenly you're meant to be like hey I'm going to avoid

6:30

getting killed and I'm going to avoid the monsters but because

6:32

I was on a fact finding mission I just

6:34

kind of yeah ran it down,

6:38

tried to get as close as possible to the

6:40

most horrifying creatures and

6:43

yeah that required some bravery on my

6:45

part but I did it. Do

6:49

you feel that, is that an achievement you're

6:51

proud of? It is yeah, it is. It

6:53

is a

6:55

mental strain. It

6:58

looks like parts of it look like Among Us, like

7:01

you know the actual characters and it's

7:03

quite different in terms of like what you face

7:05

versus what you are. Yeah

7:08

I think they actually had inspiration

7:10

from Among Us as well. There was a

7:13

recent update that added kind

7:15

of an imposter type element

7:17

so you have, there's a mask that you

7:19

can loot and if you pick

7:22

it up and hold it for too long it

7:24

might transform you into like a monster but

7:27

on the radar and everything you just look like a regular player

7:29

so it's yeah.

7:32

Gotcha. Pretty spooky. Well

7:34

there we have it, that's our first award. Well

7:37

done Lethal Company. Matt,

7:40

what's your first award? So

7:42

my first award is the best

7:45

resurrection of a phenomenal design everyone

7:47

ignored and this

7:49

is for Amnesia the Bunker which is

7:52

basically a new

7:54

sort of alien isolation style game and

7:57

we've been waiting for an alien isolation since 2014.

8:00

because no one made another one. And

8:02

understandable that I don't think it was

8:04

a huge seller when it originally came

8:06

out. So I understand why

8:08

there wasn't alien isolation 2 immediately, but

8:10

I'm surprised that nobody picked

8:13

up on that style of game. And

8:15

yet this year we got obviously Amnesia

8:17

is a horror series that's been going for a

8:19

while, but this one's

8:21

kind of different from the

8:24

original ones. You're

8:26

in a World War 1 French

8:28

bunker, so obviously lots of

8:30

kind of like buried tunnels and kind

8:32

of like little hideaway areas, lots of

8:34

kind of spooky rooms. And

8:37

there's a monster that's in there and

8:39

you're the only trooper left alive in

8:41

there. And basically your whole deal is

8:43

you've been trapped in there, the entrance

8:45

to it is all caved in, and

8:48

you need to find somewhere in the bunker

8:50

is a sticker dynamite and a detonator, and

8:52

you need to find both of them, plug

8:54

them together and blow your way out. So

8:56

it's a really, really simple premise. But

9:00

because this bunker has been abandoned, like

9:02

all the electricity has gone out, it's

9:04

in pitch but darkness, and

9:06

there's a generator in there. And

9:09

so you have to find kind of buckets

9:11

of fuel and take them back to the

9:13

generator, fill the generator up, turn

9:16

it on, and then you get like a

9:18

stopwatch. And that tells you how much electricity

9:20

you've got left. And then it's

9:22

kind of like creeping your way around the area trying

9:24

to find, work out what's in

9:26

this area, you find kind of like dog tags

9:28

that lead you to lockers that

9:31

open up new parts of the story, give you

9:33

new keys that allow you to enter new areas,

9:36

all in hope of finding this stick of dynamite

9:38

basically in the detonator to get yourself out. But

9:41

at all times, there's a monster in there and it's in

9:43

the walls. And as you're

9:45

going around, you can hear it like scrabbling in

9:47

the walls. But it's not as

9:49

intelligent as alien, but the fundamental

9:52

basics of it is the same.

9:54

It is hunting you and it

9:56

knows how, it learns how

9:58

to hunt you basically. And when

10:00

the lights are out, it knows that it's safe and it

10:03

can come out and prowl around. It doesn't like it when

10:05

the lights are on. And

10:07

all sorts of kind of little creepy elements like

10:09

that, you have nothing that you can do to

10:12

defend yourself against it. You've got

10:14

a pistol, but the pistol is very

10:16

much like it doesn't like the noise of the pistol. It's

10:19

not that you can actually kill it. And so

10:21

you've got to survive this entire sort of

10:24

ordeal by basically hiding

10:26

away under beds and in cupboards and

10:28

all sorts of stuff like that. And

10:31

it's got a lot of the kind of

10:33

like tension of Alien. But whereas

10:35

Alien has a little bit more of a structured

10:37

story to it, this is very much like, okay,

10:40

like the story starts, you have like your introduction

10:42

rekind of like cut scene. And

10:44

then when you'll let free, it's like, okay,

10:46

there's this entire bunker, it's all locked down,

10:49

figure it out yourself. And so

10:51

there's a huge amount of like really well

10:54

put together tension, where you're

10:56

trying to work your way around an

10:58

area where quite often you don't want

11:00

the lights running. Because

11:02

even though that will protect you

11:04

from the creature, that's constantly using

11:06

gasoline, basically, it's constantly eating your

11:08

supplies. And so there's a lot of,

11:12

okay, I found this new area of the bunker

11:14

and it's got kind of like maybe like two

11:16

buckets of petrol in there. Am I going to

11:19

now run back with those through

11:21

through the area to fill the

11:24

machine up and give myself a little bit

11:26

more time? Am I going to spend more

11:28

time here knowing the fuels running out to

11:30

look further around, knowing that those lights

11:33

could go out any second and then not only have you

11:35

got to find your way back in basically

11:37

pitch darkness, but this thing

11:39

that is a huge, it like

11:42

fills the corridor when it comes out, but that could turn

11:44

up at any point. And it's got

11:46

all of the kind of like, smart

11:48

little bits that Alien had. Yes, the

11:50

alien, this creature isn't as physically smart

11:53

as that alien was, but

11:55

it carries a lot of that kind of vibe over

11:58

in a world that feels a little bit more kind of

12:00

like, it's not your playground as

12:02

such because it's not you're not really

12:04

having fun in there by any means.

12:07

But it's kind of that freedom to kind of

12:09

like work your way through it like, am I

12:11

going to investigate the prison area first? Am I

12:13

going to investigate kind of like the, like

12:16

the, where like the communications

12:18

area, the where the barracks are,

12:20

it's got a lot of that kind of like,

12:22

find your own way around it. It's only like

12:24

about six hours long. But it's

12:26

genuinely one of the kind of like most

12:28

effective sort of horrors that I've

12:30

played this year. And

12:33

by the sounds of it, it's quite

12:35

open to how you want to play

12:37

it versus forcing you down a particular

12:39

route. Yeah, so the game has a

12:41

certain element of randomization in that kind

12:43

of like, a lot of how

12:45

you get around is by essentially

12:47

finding the keys that were on previous soldiers,

12:50

or at least when I say keys, they've

12:52

got all of them were dog tags, and

12:54

they've got the locker code on them, but

12:57

all of that's randomized. So if if the

12:59

way that you did it on one play through,

13:01

if you went and did it another, you'd be

13:04

finding different locker keys, which would

13:06

therefore give you different equipment in different

13:08

orders. So there's not one specific way

13:10

that you explore it. It's not like

13:12

you go from section A to section

13:14

B to section C, there's a

13:16

bit more kind of like nuance there to it.

13:18

And also, it's kind of like, are you the

13:20

person that by the time

13:22

I got to the end of it, I kind of

13:25

mapped the area route reasonably well in my head, which

13:27

meant I could navigate it in pitch blackness, because you

13:29

know, it's like, okay, five steps here will get me

13:31

to this corner. And then there's just enough light coming

13:33

through that I understand that I can now see four

13:36

doors ahead of me. And that I know will get

13:38

me into the main corridor, which will get me back

13:40

to my safe room. Because it's got it's

13:42

got a safe room very much like Resident Evil, where once

13:45

you're in there, it can't get to you, you can slam

13:47

the door shut and put the locks on. So

13:50

it's like, do I do that, which means

13:52

that suddenly you can use the the

13:54

gasoline that you'd use to fill the

13:56

generator up with that can

13:58

then be used for other elements like you

14:00

can make torches out of it or you can make

14:02

kind of like Molotov cocktails all

14:05

that that kind of sort of stuff so it's

14:07

like where do I want to use all of

14:09

my bits and pieces because everything kind of has

14:11

a I guess everything comes from

14:13

maybe two or three raw materials it's like

14:15

if you find cloth

14:18

are you gonna use that as a bandage so

14:20

if you know that you tend to get in

14:22

scrapes a little bit more which is either being

14:24

hit by the monster or like the place is

14:26

full of rats like absolutely full of rats so

14:29

if you find that you get in trouble with

14:31

those enough what you want to make sure is

14:34

you've got loads of cloth to bandage yourself up

14:36

with but that cloth is also used to make

14:38

Molotov cocktails so it's like you

14:40

know that little economy drive and it's all

14:42

very very simple but it's

14:44

I think is all the more effective because it's simple

14:48

in terms of the monster like

14:50

if it comes out in pitch

14:52

black how presumably can

14:55

you see it yeah oh yeah

14:57

it's horrendous as well but it's

14:59

one of those where it

15:01

shrieks and it like like it moans

15:03

and it's got a lot of that

15:05

kind of like classic horror monster design

15:08

and you can hear it scrabbling through the walls

15:10

and you can see as you're going round like

15:13

where it's tunneled through so you know the entrances

15:15

that it might come through so there's

15:18

a lot of that oh it can push things over

15:20

in the world as well and you can't because you're

15:22

not as big and heavy as it so what

15:24

you think is a safe route might not

15:26

be it might just like charge through a

15:29

load of kind of like racking or whatever so

15:32

kind of like because it's unpredictable as well

15:34

it's there's no like scripted areas

15:37

that it will definitely turn up all

15:39

of that means that kind of like each playthrough

15:41

you do if it could be reasonably different how

15:45

do you not just get completely lost I

15:47

feel like you need a good sense of direction for that kind

15:50

Of yeah yeah and it's kind of like I guess

15:52

kind of a lot of that Resident Evil 2 element

15:54

comes into it and where kind of like you really

15:56

could you spend so much time in red to is

15:58

like just setting the police. They him right and

16:01

you very quickly start to learn like okay

16:03

I figured out what everywhere on floor one

16:05

is Now I'm going to work my way

16:07

on to floor to and all learn gradually

16:09

what for to his and then if I

16:11

get spooked album back down for one because

16:14

I know my way around there I know

16:16

where to hide His got a certain amount

16:18

of that, kind of like the first time

16:20

you go into an area so say the

16:22

first time you going to the barracks area

16:24

it feels completely alien and completely. Terrifying

16:27

because you like I have no idea

16:29

why he these doors do. You do

16:31

have a flashlight but because it's like

16:33

a nineteen twelve flashlights his own like

16:35

a a pull strings and obviously when

16:37

you pulled a string to spin the

16:40

dynamo of than it is like while

16:42

every time I pulled this it's noise

16:44

and that means that the monster could.

16:46

Could. Listen out for it. So it's always

16:48

thought okay am I gonna sit here making

16:50

loads of noise to get myself a little

16:52

bit, dim lights to cast my way through

16:55

and then half the doors of got like

16:57

booby traps on them. see you're terrified about

16:59

am I gonna do that? A lot of

17:01

them a locked but you can get through

17:03

them if you throw bricks at the door

17:05

but then it's like okay for and bricks

17:07

at the door is making noise. there's a

17:09

huge amount with that risk reward so of

17:11

alamo which I think is really vital to

17:13

the best horror games and so all of

17:15

this kind of spins. Together it feels very

17:17

like of your story because you never

17:20

been told to do with specific thing

17:22

is just like I just know I

17:24

need to get out. That's all I

17:26

know is I need to get out

17:28

and so every decision you make feel

17:30

very much one of your own meetings

17:32

and it clinic spin this sort story

17:34

if you descend into increasing madness as

17:37

you suddenly become like. Did

17:39

I actually see a shadow? was something over

17:41

there or of I just current you know

17:43

convincing myself that something genuinely is after me.

17:46

I don't think of the nexus is this

17:48

is has horrendous that game a patient so

17:50

gave us a guy got been. I've

17:53

been training for it and and I think

17:55

these companies. And exactly wraps that.

17:57

Yeah, and and lethal Company as well. certain

18:00

monsters don't want to make sound, it

18:02

attracts them. But you also have it

18:04

has your microphone input. Okay, so

18:06

if you yell, you're in trouble.

18:08

Yeah, thankfully, no, no microphone

18:12

in this. But yeah, there's so much

18:14

stuff makes noise as well. It's like

18:17

there's bits where you have to go

18:19

into, like wading through

18:21

water, which obviously slows you down. But

18:24

every time you're sloshing forward,

18:26

you're just like, is this the

18:28

is this the slosh that's going

18:31

to trigger the monster? Maybe

18:33

that's what she called this podcast. That

18:35

was like amnesia,

18:41

the bomb. There you

18:43

go. And it's on game pass. Check it out. Two

18:46

of my awards are grumpy.

18:49

So I'm going to go with one

18:51

of those. And it's a joint

18:53

first place for most boring intro to

18:56

a game. Okay, and the first goes

18:59

to Assassin's Creed Mirage. Oh, yeah,

19:02

that's a duffer. It's

19:05

I'm very happy playing a seven out

19:07

of 10 game. Christ,

19:10

don't make me work for it just to sort

19:12

of like just to get to the I know

19:14

how Assassin Creed works. I know how it plays.

19:16

I don't have to sit through one of the

19:19

most tedious two hour sections to get

19:21

to the open city and

19:23

doing really boring

19:25

stuff. And it

19:27

amazes me that after how many Assassin's Creed

19:30

games are there lots? 1314. Falling at that

19:32

hurdles like come on

19:36

like, I appreciate they wanted

19:38

to take it back to basics. But

19:40

in doing so it feels like they've lost a lot

19:42

of the learnings that they had from

19:45

all the other games they made. And

19:47

they've, you know, perhaps stripped it back in my

19:49

opinion, too far. I know that kind

19:51

of like the storyline obviously, if that is that it's

19:54

bass in starting from scratch, right,

19:56

like absolute scratch. But we

19:58

do have a player base that hasn't started from

20:00

scratch. We've got most people have played at

20:03

least a couple of Assassin's Creed's at this

20:05

point. And yeah, it's

20:07

a very slow burn tutorial, which

20:09

is a shame really, because, you know,

20:11

I'm not the biggest fan of Mirage, but I think it

20:13

does. I think it does its job when you get actually

20:15

into the city and it's a nice city, you know, it's

20:17

well put together. I sort of

20:20

surprised that it doesn't just start you

20:22

when the game actually starts rather than

20:24

the narrative starts, I guess

20:26

is the point. Yeah.

20:30

I don't know, it just feels weird. And

20:32

I think it's feels especially weird because the

20:35

other joint winner is Avatar. Oh,

20:37

Ubisoft's doing well this year then. By

20:39

Christ, Ubisoft really need to work on

20:42

their intros to games. Like, again,

20:44

I love Far Cry. I'm like,

20:47

Far Cry with giant blue cats. I'm well up

20:49

for that. And I'm

20:52

sure it's good. But again, two hours

20:54

in, I'm just like, Oh, please stop

20:56

getting me to do all this boring

20:58

stuff. Even the

21:00

tension it tries to create at the beginning

21:02

with, you know, your Na'vi and the human

21:04

oppressors and stuff like that. None

21:07

of it lands, in my opinion. And that's partly

21:09

down to really predictable dialogue.

21:12

I think it's really bad voice acting. But

21:16

it just feels like the Ubisoft

21:18

formula is really starting to

21:20

feel old. And you

21:22

contrast that with something like

21:24

Spider-Man 2 and

21:27

the opening of the Sandman bit, which is like, Holy

21:29

fuck, that is, you know, that is an intro

21:31

to a game. Even if

21:34

you don't like the rest of that game, you're going to sit

21:36

there and go that showcases what the PlayStation is capable of. And

21:39

I don't think either of those games

21:42

showcase what they should do,

21:44

which I think is a shit. I've not actually

21:46

just I've done a lot of work on Avatar

21:48

this year, but I've not actually played the game

21:50

yet. But from

21:53

what they from the impression I got, does

21:55

it have a bit of a far sorry,

21:57

a Fallout style opening?

22:00

you're like inside and then it

22:02

wants to have its big like Navi.

22:04

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Sort

22:06

of like basically you've been contained within

22:08

the RDA I can't remember the call

22:10

it. Yeah the RDA they do that

22:12

yeah. Yeah you as the Navi you've

22:14

grown up inside this facility but

22:17

then there's the rebellion and then you come out

22:19

and you experience the planet of Pandora and all

22:21

its beauty and it just

22:23

doesn't quite land. It sounds like like

22:25

I get the the wish to have

22:27

like that really cool sort of stunning

22:29

the door opens and all of this

22:32

awaits you. Yeah and that's the thing

22:34

that it's not just kind of like a Bethesda

22:36

trick is it like a lot of developers use

22:38

that. I do feel that kind of like

22:40

when it seems from everything I understand

22:42

of Avatar that Pandora is the

22:44

star of the show I think

22:46

you'd want that to get people into that

22:48

as quickly as possible. And

22:51

also I think the other it obviously

22:53

I've seen a very small amount of the planet

22:55

so far and

22:58

I think once I hit my stride I

23:00

think the way you get around because obviously

23:02

you're giant you can do massive leaps but

23:05

I'm not quite there there is zero fluidity

23:07

in my movement right now so I'm just

23:09

running up and then falling off giant mushrooms.

23:11

Or the teenagers. Exactly

23:14

right I'm gonna be magnificent in a

23:16

few hours but right now and

23:18

there's there was this one bit where it was like oh

23:20

you've got to get to the top of this cliff I'm

23:23

like how the hell do I do that and you know

23:25

just running around the bottom of this cliff to try and

23:27

figure out how to do it and I worked it

23:29

out but I'm pretty sure it was just by jumping and

23:31

on little ledges that I wasn't supposed to that's not the

23:33

way to do it. The way you

23:35

get with mountains in Skyrim isn't it

23:38

it's just like little gradual hops in

23:40

the hope that you're going like diagonally

23:42

and just and you know clean your

23:44

own by your toenails. Yeah it's not

23:46

very um it's not very um uh

23:49

Avatar in that respect and I did wonder like

23:52

obviously well you know this better than anyone

23:54

because you spent time talking to developers it's

23:56

it's very precious about the world that James

23:58

Cameron has built. So

24:01

much so that, you know, whatever you might see in the game, you

24:03

might see in the movies further down the line. But

24:06

it almost feels a little bit

24:08

too like, well, the game comes

24:10

secondary because we've got this hallowed

24:12

stuff. But we've got to kind

24:14

of put front and centre. And apparently, so when you get

24:16

the little winged dragon thing, I can't

24:18

remember. Yeah, apparently it's a lot better when you

24:20

get that because you don't have all the troubles

24:22

that I've got. I don't have that

24:25

right now. Anyway,

24:27

I cloned all the way to the top of this mountain and

24:29

just attached my hair braid to

24:31

a plumb. And I'm like, it

24:33

doesn't feel very Far Cry to

24:35

me in that respect. Yeah, obviously,

24:38

there's a lot of Far Cry DNA

24:40

in as far as that it's a first

24:42

person open-world game made by Ubisoft, where you

24:44

do encampments. But aside from

24:47

that, does it feel particularly Far Cry-ish?

24:51

Even the encampment stuff doesn't feel like

24:53

it. The thing I loved about Far

24:55

Cry was the way you could switch

24:58

between stealth and shooting pretty

25:00

quickly, but without it being punished

25:02

for it. Whereas this,

25:04

and again, I'm sure it's going to

25:06

change. I'm going up against these giant

25:08

mechs with a bow. And

25:11

it's like, well, you've got to, it's

25:13

the same thing. You couldn't have shooting the

25:15

alarms and doing this and doing that. But

25:17

it's not as clear as it was in

25:19

Far Cry. I got so used to how

25:21

that worked that I could scope it out

25:24

from the top of a thing and go, right,

25:26

bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And I'd do it

25:28

here. I'm just like, well, there's about six people

25:30

between me and that thing that I've got to

25:32

get. And I've got a bow. And as soon

25:34

as you fire it, whether you hit or miss,

25:36

everyone turns around, sees you, and you get absolutely

25:38

battered. That's weirdly not the experience I have when

25:40

I was playing it at preview, where I could shoot people and

25:43

no one else had a clue what was happening. I

25:46

was dropping them like sacks of potatoes and

25:48

nobody noticed. So at least they fixed

25:50

the AI. Well,

25:53

yeah, but they're too smart. It's

25:55

a bit like the Call of Duty, and Call of

25:57

Duty isn't one of my grumps for the easelords. actually

26:00

really the AI in that like you

26:02

would shoot someone and there wouldn't be

26:04

anybody in 50 meters and

26:06

suddenly they don't know exactly where you are

26:08

and like oh come on that's just not

26:10

fair well this award is bled out of

26:12

the intro in as deep into the first

26:14

third of the game by the sounds of

26:16

it so well I've played about two

26:18

hours of both of them I am going to play more of

26:20

avatar I don't think I'm going to go back to Assassin's Creed

26:23

I don't think it's actually any means lies

26:25

too short but anyway so so

26:27

well done avatar for being the most boring

26:30

intro to a game and next year

26:32

Ubisoft come on step it up Jen

26:36

what's your second award yes okay

26:38

so I guess this could come across

26:40

maybe as like a grumpy

26:42

one but I've chosen to phrase

26:45

it in a positive way so

26:47

you know I'm all about that positivity so we

26:50

have the most useful console awards

26:53

hey which goes to

26:56

starfield and basically

26:59

yeah for the game that doesn't

27:01

really play right unless you fiddle

27:03

with it manually so

27:07

yeah my experience with starfield I

27:10

mean like the the

27:12

companions themselves I

27:15

didn't really find particularly interesting

27:17

but I was trying to you

27:20

know explore every aspect of the game

27:22

so I wanted to start up a romance and

27:25

so I spent all my time with this Sam

27:28

co-guy hanging around with him he's a cowboy

27:30

man yeah yeah with the daughter which like

27:32

why why on a spaceship in combat anyway

27:34

never mind there's no console command

27:42

for that unfortunately but yeah so

27:45

I was trying to you know make

27:47

friends with him have

27:49

a nice time together thinking right I know there's

27:51

like a romance past in this game so let's

27:53

see what we've got going on hey you

27:55

know so I need to give an answer to this no

27:57

it was broken I spent

28:00

like, and I

28:02

35 hours playing, thinking, when is he gonna

28:04

play with me? When is he gonna pick up my legs?

28:06

Literally every single

28:09

press, we're just like, you know, two

28:12

of us together. I was like, I'm sure

28:14

eventually something will happen. I

28:16

even took him to like a beach

28:19

on a planet I found had like a nice sunset and I did

28:21

a little photo shoot and I was like this will be a

28:24

relationship photo. But when it happened,

28:28

but after, you know, I was actually

28:30

approaching the end of the game and

28:32

I was surely, surely by now, we

28:34

should have something should have happened

28:36

between us. And

28:39

that's when I decided to do a research and find

28:41

out that yes, it should have. It should

28:44

have a long time ago. But

28:47

the flag to activate the

28:50

the romance quest was broken.

28:52

And so I spent that's

28:55

one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Honestly,

28:59

devastating. I

29:01

spent a long time figuring out exactly what those flags

29:03

were and where I went wrong, you know, so I

29:05

say the wrong thing, the method of

29:08

opportunity. No, but I

29:11

then managed to manually set the

29:13

flag and start the romance. All

29:16

of a sudden, you know, everything transforms. Next

29:19

time I spoke to him, I actually kept too far ahead

29:21

in the room. I should go back to reload.

29:23

Then he was like, Oh, my move. My

29:26

darling, you're already married. I need to start

29:28

again. Yeah, I finally did

29:35

it. I mean, it does feel a

29:37

little bit contrived

29:39

now. Like I forced him into

29:41

this. called

29:44

Ruby Sparks in which Paul dano writes a

29:46

romance into a book and it makes it

29:48

come true. It does sound a little bit

29:50

like you've written your ideal

29:53

love story through a line of

29:55

code. Yeah, I mean, if

29:57

I did, that would not be it. and

30:00

Starfield romance. I mean the wedding that

30:02

we eventually did get to was

30:04

just me, his

30:07

daughter and his ex-wife and his

30:09

dad in his house. And then

30:12

like just like the mayor is

30:14

there and he's like, yeah, wow,

30:16

good job you guys, you're in love, you're married now.

30:18

And then you just get one line of dialogue from

30:21

each character and you go and speak to them.

30:24

That's it. You're just standing around in a

30:26

house like it's the most underwhelming wedding

30:29

I've ever been to. It

30:31

doesn't sound like a fairy tale wedding. It absolutely

30:34

was not, but yeah. But then

30:36

I mean, once I discovered that,

30:38

hey, you know, if this has

30:41

games, there's lots of flags, lots

30:43

of things that people understand

30:45

how to do to the games

30:48

that are very similar to, you

30:51

know, changing the ground in Skyrim,

30:53

for example. There

30:55

are ways to basically easily

30:58

give yourself every power,

31:00

give yourself just, you know, all

31:02

the materials that you need, give yourself

31:05

all of the perks that you don't have to go through and unlock.

31:07

So it's almost like it pushed me,

31:10

the romance thing pushed me to the point of like, right,

31:13

no, I'm not playing at your way, I'm playing in my

31:15

way. I'm going to have to get in and

31:17

manually change these things so

31:19

I can have the relationship

31:22

I deserve. But then,

31:24

you know, yeah, it was broken. So

31:26

the deal was broken. And I started

31:29

giving myself all the resources I

31:31

needed to do what I was trying to do and,

31:34

you know, change

31:36

my skills and have to go and unlock

31:38

everything manually. And then all of these systems

31:41

in the game that were just so hard

31:43

to dig

31:45

into, like Outpost, where

31:47

you need to be able to build

31:49

like cooler furniture, like you

31:52

have like a basic bed, if you want

31:54

a nice bed, because you just got

31:56

married, then you have to unlock

31:59

this. like, gale, which

32:01

just takes such a long time to do and such a lot

32:04

of reason to do. So yeah, I just went crazy. I

32:06

was like, yeah, I've got it all. Run

32:08

around the universe with everything I could ever want. And

32:10

it was a lot more fun. This,

32:13

this, this story started out a little bit. So

32:15

in Baldur's Gate, none of the romance is triggered

32:17

for me. So I spent the entire game trying

32:19

to get Carlak to fall in love with me.

32:21

And it just didn't happen. Like the only person

32:23

that ever came onto me the entire game was

32:25

Gale, where he did his whole thing, where it's

32:27

like, do you want to come and do some

32:29

magic? Kind of like, no, Gale, you can keep

32:31

your magic to yourself. And then literally not a

32:33

single person came onto me the entire game. This

32:35

is the game that everyone knows is the horny

32:37

game. Not a single romance for me.

32:40

But it started off as that story. But now

32:43

it's turned into the fact that like, you're

32:45

the all powerful Empress of everything because

32:47

of a line of code. Yeah, exactly.

32:49

It's like you don't give me what I

32:51

want. I'm asking for one small thing,

32:53

one like little, you know, relationship.

32:56

You don't give that to me. I

32:58

will make it happen. And I will

33:00

give it everything. Maybe not quite in those terms. But

33:02

yeah. What

33:06

was the thing that the

33:08

original trigger that never happened? Like

33:12

way back early in the game? What should have happened

33:14

but didn't? So as you spend time

33:16

with these characters, there's this invisible number

33:18

that goes up and up and up

33:20

as you influence with them. And then

33:23

at a certain point, it's

33:25

supposed to trigger a quest, which

33:27

is to do with his ex wife. I mean, it's

33:29

not very romantic. But yeah,

33:33

he starts like opening up to you and talking to

33:35

my family issues and that kind of thing. But that

33:38

dialogue never actually triggered. So I don't think there

33:40

was anything that I actually missed. It was just

33:42

like three uproaches. I got certain

33:45

thresholds. And yeah,

33:47

it was meant to happen. It didn't happen. I

33:49

quite liked the fact that, you know,

33:51

no matter what you were doing, he

33:53

was just there stony face, not interested.

33:55

Oh my God. Come on, man. There

33:57

was no way. And

34:01

then Matt, did you replay Baldur's Gate

34:03

and get the romance options? I've

34:06

not. I mean it's at least 100 hours

34:08

long Alex, so I've not started, but I

34:10

do have, I'm hoping that

34:12

basically an unusual release

34:14

schedule isn't next year. Basically we don't know

34:16

anything that's coming out and it seems like

34:19

there might be another drier year next year.

34:21

I think definitely I can turn

34:23

a dry summer into a not so dry

34:26

summer if I can just get a romance

34:28

going in Baldur's Gate. Well

34:31

if it's tight then it might

34:33

be dry. Oh yeah, she's

34:36

full of heat and can't really touch

34:38

anyone, but it's about the emotional

34:41

connection. Well

34:46

there you go, that was a wonderful story Jo,

34:48

thank you very much. Matt, what

34:50

is your second

34:54

award? My second award is the best game that

34:56

will be really good when it gets a sequel,

34:59

which is a little game called On

35:01

Guard. I'm trying to with these awards

35:04

give them out to things that like

35:06

haven't had a lot of spotlight. On

35:08

Guard is, it was

35:10

originally a student game that was

35:12

made I guess as part of a game

35:14

development university course in Spain I think,

35:17

but it's now a full game.

35:20

It's basically a really

35:22

fun sword fighting game

35:24

set in Spain against

35:26

this evil Spanish dictator,

35:29

but it's all fencing,

35:31

it's proper sort of

35:33

needle style swords. It's

35:36

a little bit Sekiro-like in that you

35:38

have to basically parry everything that comes

35:40

at you or dodge out of the

35:43

way. There's no kind of like, you

35:45

can take maybe like four or

35:48

five hits and then you're down, which is surprising considering

35:50

the style of it is incredibly like,

35:52

it looks like a fiesta sort of like

35:54

splashed all over your screen. It's really humorous,

35:56

it's got like a real good sense of

35:58

humor, but it is. reasonably

36:01

tough but

36:03

it's got a fantastically chaotic array

36:05

to its combat so basically most

36:07

of the so a level

36:10

will take you through a series of almost doom

36:12

like you know how doom like you go down a little

36:14

corridor and then it opens up and you've got to kill

36:17

loads of things in there and then it will funnel you

36:19

into another bit so it's got loads of those arenas which

36:22

you have to survive without dying in but

36:25

yes you're sword fighting against 20 other guys

36:27

but the amount of

36:29

mad shit that you can do in this

36:31

is brilliant you can kick barrels at them

36:33

you can pick up turkeys and throw them

36:36

like like cookie turkey so they land on

36:38

their head mr. bean style and then they

36:40

kind of like pour around you can kick

36:42

people into like walls you can knock over

36:44

jars of wine so they slip in it

36:46

and then you can stab them while they're

36:49

on the floor it's full of all sorts

36:51

of mental stuff like this you know the

36:54

the grenadiers that run around that don't

36:56

have swords but you can never catch them because they're

36:58

all they're so much faster than you but you can

37:00

just pick up like gas like

37:02

like gas lamp and hold them at them and

37:04

it makes them explode and then everybody around them

37:07

falls over you can do your

37:09

characters like constantly like insulting everyone all

37:11

the time so they're all like oh

37:13

no how dare you and so

37:16

there's all of this absolute mad

37:18

cat you can kick people downstairs

37:20

and then they fall into people

37:22

and they bowl around like like

37:24

pins in bowling balls it's

37:26

such good fun but it's one

37:28

of those games that like it really

37:31

needs just that added level of kind of

37:33

like experience and polish to really bring it

37:35

where it needs to be you're in these

37:37

arenas that have so much in them there

37:39

are so many like tables that you can

37:41

kick into people there's all of these piles

37:43

of barrels there's kind of like

37:45

like real long banqueting tables that are covered

37:48

in bottles to throw at people turkeys or

37:50

whatever you know all of this kind of

37:52

stuff and you constantly

37:54

find yourself getting stuck on all of

37:56

this these items and so

37:59

you're very frequently ended up in combat

38:01

engagements that you just can't escape from

38:03

because a big part of

38:05

it is making sure that you're only ever fighting

38:07

one person at a time and you're using all

38:10

of your kicks and your throws and all

38:12

of that to make sure everybody else stays out

38:14

your way so you can fight one guy, kill

38:16

him and then move on. Almost a little bit,

38:18

like I guess how you know how the Arkham

38:21

games are very much about you trying to

38:23

make sure that you're only fighting one person at

38:25

a time or you're trying to, when

38:27

you're hidden up on the gargoyles you're waiting for that

38:29

one guy to move apart from the crowd so

38:32

that you can chain him up. It's

38:34

got a little bit of almost that management to

38:36

it but because the same as Spiderman actually is.

38:38

Yeah, very much so. But because

38:40

there's so much in these areas you're constantly getting,

38:42

it's a little bit sticky as well which I

38:45

know is supposed to help you, it's supposed to

38:47

be like if there's a mug on the end

38:49

of this table that you want to hurl at

38:51

someone's face to knock them out for a couple

38:53

of seconds, it'll make you sticky to

38:55

it so you can do it easily but

38:57

it's like the entire world's made of Velcro

39:00

so you're constantly

39:03

sticking to everything and the things that

39:05

should be good about it are

39:07

suddenly being slightly undone by it and the entire

39:10

puzzle starts to unravel and become a little bit

39:12

more frustrating rather than enjoyable but

39:15

when it works it's one of the most enjoyable

39:17

games I've played of the year. When

39:19

the whole chorus comes together and you've

39:21

got people slipping up in the wine pool

39:24

that you set out and then

39:26

you manage to get people to run under a

39:28

chandelier as they're chasing after you and then you

39:30

cut the rope on the chandelier and it drops.

39:32

It's got so much of the stuff that I

39:34

like that actually Arcane does. It feels

39:36

a lot like

39:38

Dark Messiah and Might and Magic which was

39:41

their Immersive Sin fighter in which you could

39:43

just have all sorts of chaos go and

39:45

you'd be able to cast an

39:47

ice spell on the ground and they'd slip in

39:49

the ice and you'd make sure that they fell

39:51

face first into like a bear trap or something

39:53

like that and it's got a lot of that

39:55

energy to it. It's just you

39:57

know I'm assuming these people are quite young if... like

40:00

it was originally a student project a couple

40:02

of years ago and I really hope that

40:04

they get the opportunity to do a sequel

40:07

or do kind of like a new

40:09

game with those ideas because

40:11

it's one of those that like a sequel

40:13

is definitely going to make that like

40:15

a really cool like proper good

40:17

sort of eight nine out of ten whereas at the moment

40:20

it's kind of more of a seven. So what's it on?

40:22

Is it on PC? Yeah. Okay.

40:25

And have they mentioned a

40:27

sequel? No, like it's a really tiny

40:29

company. I think it's basically it's their

40:32

first game. But

40:34

I hope that I know they definitely got a bit

40:36

of buzz around kind of like the places you'd expect

40:38

to have a bit of buzz for these sort of

40:40

games. And so

40:42

I hope that that was enough to

40:45

give them enough sales to be able

40:47

to build on those ambitions and make

40:50

something that controls, you know, sort of

40:52

smoother. It's only it's literally it's four

40:54

missions long, like you can you can play it in about

40:56

three or four hours. But

40:59

the idea of that with a little bit more money

41:01

behind a little bit more time a little bit more

41:03

experience. And I think that that could be like a

41:05

really special indie. Yeah,

41:08

unfortunately, I don't have a PC but it does sound

41:10

fun. I was just watching some of the video footage

41:12

of it and it does look like

41:14

really pretty. It's pretty and it's super daft and

41:17

it's got like a really cheesy sense of humor

41:19

that's kind of just on

41:21

the right side of cheesy that it's endearing

41:23

rather than cringe worthy. Yeah.

41:25

It's got a lot going for it. I

41:28

also like the idea that, you know, you can

41:30

be as creatively flexible as you want to be

41:32

to sort of, you know, make the

41:34

most of that situation rather than just going in. It

41:37

is a sore fighter, but it's as much a puzzle game.

41:39

You know, a lot of it was kind of like because

41:41

you have to do each combat encounter without dying. Every

41:44

time you die, it's like, okay, what did I learn

41:46

from there? It was like, oh, actually, when I was

41:49

doing that, I learned if I swing off this monkey

41:52

I was able to create enough

41:54

space that there was a hazard

41:57

that I could then set up on the other side of the room. so

42:00

that when all of those people would run up the stairs, I

42:02

could make sure that they all went flying. It's got a lot

42:04

of that kind of puzzle to it, and that's the sort of

42:06

thing that I really... I mean, you know,

42:09

to go back to Baldur's Gate, that's what Baldur's

42:11

Gate had this year, was every combat encounter, it

42:13

was like, what is actually in

42:15

the area that's not just the enemies that

42:17

I can use in this encounter? Like, is there

42:20

a barrel of gunpowder over there that I could

42:22

get a character to roll into the arena, and

42:24

then I can push it into them and set

42:26

it on fire and have it explode? There's a

42:28

lot of that to it, but it's obviously

42:30

in real time rather than sort of

42:32

like, turn-based. So it requires

42:35

a lot of fast thinking and a

42:37

lot of iteration on your last failure

42:39

to kind of put the perfect kind of run

42:42

of that combat arena together. Okay.

42:45

That sounds fun. It's always more fun when it feels like

42:47

you've completed a combat

42:49

encounter because it's like from your own idea.

42:52

It's much more rewarding. Yeah,

42:54

it's just really cool, actually. Also, like,

42:56

yeah, that sense of humor is definitely

42:59

always welcome, especially when something's hard.

43:02

Yeah, yeah. If something's difficult, it's like... Yeah,

43:05

it quite frequently goes on sale. Like, I picked

43:07

it up for about a tenner, I think, in

43:09

the summer sale. You know, it's a reason... it

43:12

is reasonably priced for what it is,

43:14

basically. And yes, it's not perfect, but

43:16

I think for a tenner, it's worth

43:18

supporting those sort of developers and encouraging

43:20

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43:23

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45:06

Anytime fitness is for real people with real

45:08

fitness goals. I mean, let's be honest. Most

45:10

of us aren't training for marathons or half

45:13

marathons or even half, half marathons. Only time

45:15

most of us are running at all is

45:17

if we're trying to make a connecting flight.

45:19

Wouldn't have been late if we didn't stop

45:21

to buy a headphone dongle. Point

45:24

is you gotta be ready. You do

45:26

not wanna deal with rebooking. Anytime

45:29

fitness where real people help you

45:31

make real progress. Join today and

45:33

get a plan for training, nutrition,

45:35

and recovery. Next

45:39

time. Well, for my next award, I

45:42

would recommend not supporting your developer. Because

45:46

it is the worst licensed game. Now

45:50

I've got quite a high tolerance for shitty

45:52

games, especially when I'm playing them with

45:55

my children. But bluey. Oh,

45:58

please don't. I've just bought this. I

46:00

know you've bought it! I know! I say

46:03

just, I bought- I didn't know this game existed

46:05

and then suddenly when we were all talking about

46:07

it in a meeting and we were just like,

46:09

exist. And I was like, oh my nephew loves

46:11

Bluey and I immediately bought it for him for

46:13

Christmas and now apparently it's bad. Oh

46:16

dear, what have you done? It's not bad, it's dog shit. Will

46:19

a five year old know it's dog shit? It's-

46:25

fundamentally it's broken in places. Oh great. And

46:28

so you've got to go and do

46:30

some really basic me and Neil tasks

46:33

and then you're there and you've got to pick up-

46:35

I can't remember, a Wellington boot or something. And it's

46:37

like, it won't let it pick me up. And I

46:39

was playing it with Ed, who's eight, and

46:41

we were there both trying to pick up the same boot and

46:43

it's just like, oh my god. And

46:46

for him to hang up the controller

46:48

after probably no more than 15-20 minutes,

46:50

I'm like, one of my previous awards

46:53

on this podcast was for Paw Patrol

46:55

because that is still the only platinum

46:57

I have ever gotten. But

47:01

it was- it's funny enough, it's published

47:03

by the same publisher as

47:05

Bluey so they've obviously got a history of, you

47:08

know, buying these licenses. But

47:10

at least Paw Patrol, you could play

47:12

it. It was a super basic platformer

47:15

where you had to collect bones and

47:17

whatnot. But like I

47:19

say, in this, it just feels a little bit

47:21

like they've got this fantastic license because I love

47:23

the TV show. But

47:26

they've just- they've done the

47:29

simplest path forward and

47:31

that's to sort of maintain the visual

47:33

presentation of the cartoon. But

47:37

none of it's charm. And

47:40

there's like, honestly, we've

47:43

got the entire game as a video on our

47:45

YouTube channel. You're better off watching that

47:47

and just stripping out the playing bit of it because

47:49

there's not much fun to be had from playing it.

47:53

Merry Christmas, my nephew. Well,

47:57

I wouldn't be interested to see, you know... If

48:00

there is if he enjoys it

48:02

but like Ed certainly

48:05

didn't it's also got this weird thing because

48:07

I I don't know whether it was

48:09

how they produced it but it looks Like the cartoon

48:12

apart from their mouth where it's their mouth

48:14

is pixelated Like

48:17

you know where you get like a cardboard thing you

48:19

do that it's a bit it's a bit like that

48:21

in places But

48:24

it's got all the proper voice cast

48:26

so it feels super authentic What's

48:29

the writing like then is the writing anything like

48:31

the TV show that this What's

48:34

weird is that I think the first episode

48:36

is called holiday You

48:40

don't do anything to do with a holiday. Maybe you

48:42

get further in and but it's

48:44

none of that stuff It's super basic you

48:46

go to the park and that's where you

48:48

meet some of the other characters and but

48:50

there's not much of an interaction It's it

48:52

just feels you know The old licensed

48:54

games we used to get in the kind of 90s that

48:57

were just shocking It's it's that

49:00

and the thing that I hate more than anything

49:02

is when people go well, but it's kids game

49:09

You know it doesn't have to be shit

49:12

kids game look

49:14

at Nintendo yeah, yeah, well Hopefully

49:16

it's not canon to the blue universe Well,

49:20

I don't know about that maybe you should do an

49:22

inside story and see where it fits within that But

49:26

yeah, I'm Hopefully on Christmas morning

49:28

when your nephew opens up his brand new

49:30

copy of the game and pops it

49:32

in He gets a little more joy out of

49:35

it than we did Good luck for

49:37

me. It's the worst licensed game of

49:39

2023 marvelous

49:43

And that's after avatar as well Anyway,

49:47

Jen, what's your third and final award right?

49:49

Yeah, my third and final award is

49:51

great game I'm glad I don't play

49:53

it and That

49:56

goes to counter-strike too. So I mean

50:00

does it even count as

50:02

a new game? That's debatable.

50:04

It was released this year

50:06

but yeah just basically an

50:09

overhauled version of CSGO.

50:12

It's the same

50:14

formula, it's the same game. You've got

50:16

your two teams, one defend, one

50:18

defend, swap off way through, plant a

50:21

bomb, defuse the bomb, yell at

50:23

each other in a voice chat. It's

50:26

the same thing, only Counter-Strike 2,

50:30

it looks prettier, the smokes are

50:32

more dynamic, the UI has changed, it's

50:35

changed some things like behind the scenes in

50:37

terms of the sub-tick

50:40

system and how this

50:43

service works and some stuff to do with

50:46

movement which I think high-level

50:49

players are not very happy with and

50:52

there's not that much, there's some

50:55

new maps but then they took away

50:57

a bunch of maps so generally the

50:59

reception has been like, oh

51:03

is this better? I don't know but I

51:06

played it when it came out and I never

51:08

really played CSGO, I might have played it a

51:10

couple of times but going

51:13

to CS2 I had a good time

51:15

like fundamentally a fun

51:19

game like the same

51:22

formula that turned into

51:24

the environment where it took

51:26

it and it's like it's

51:30

fun, it's competitive, it's like

51:33

it's challenging but you

51:37

know you can... it's not

51:39

too challenging unless you're

51:41

playing with people who played like 300,000 hours but

51:46

I think I had a better time playing it than I would

51:49

have done if I had played

51:52

CSGO I think if I had played CSGO

51:54

I probably would have been like, oh

51:57

dear, this isn't like... I

52:00

was hoping for but

52:02

I had a good time. But when I

52:04

was looking into like what changed, I

52:07

found this video that I

52:09

think will stick with me forever which

52:12

was this kid who clearly

52:14

had been playing a lot of CSGO and they

52:16

were very like very much into it

52:18

and they found a way to access

52:20

the old CSGO client from

52:23

the demon source issue because that's

52:25

the thing is where they took it away.

52:27

They took CSGO away to all the

52:29

players with CSGO even like yeah, Mac

52:31

users can't be able to get it

52:33

to go on. The matchmaking has

52:36

been removed. There's no more support. But

52:38

you can actually still get into CSGO

52:40

through downloading like a beta branch in

52:44

the Steam thing. And so he

52:46

made this video explaining how to do that,

52:48

how to get in, how to get back in

52:50

and it's just so sad

52:53

because he's talking about the

52:55

video is called CSGO will be a

52:57

frozen masterpiece forever. It's really sad music

52:59

and he's like explaining how to get

53:01

back in and he's logged on and

53:04

he's like looking at the server list and it's like, oh,

53:06

there's no one on here. Is it down? And then like

53:09

joins it and there's no one there and

53:11

it's just completely empty.

53:13

Everything's empty. It's abandoned.

53:15

It's tragic. It's tragic. And so he's like

53:17

playing this map. It's like a

53:19

surf map, like an obstacle course thing. He's just playing through it.

53:22

Nobody else there. He's like literally alone and

53:25

the sad music and he's just talking about how this

53:28

game will be frozen in time

53:30

forever as the perfect, as

53:32

a perfect game. And

53:34

so, you know, the game

53:36

is still here. We didn't lose it. He's

53:38

saying, he's saying like, we'll be able to

53:40

play this game forever. It's preserved perfectly in

53:43

time. And it's a sort of a new era

53:45

because there's no more matchmaking. There's

53:47

no more like development

53:49

changes going to happen to the balance or

53:51

anything like that. So it's kind of

53:54

like, yeah, just like a snapshot frozen

53:56

in time and it won't change and it's there forever

53:58

and it belongs to like. the

54:00

community and it's he

54:02

says you'll always be able to play

54:04

this perfect game and oh

54:07

man I don't even play that game you

54:09

know I don't even but it was so

54:11

emotional I just got like super emotional like

54:15

oh my god there's something

54:17

particularly tragic about being in

54:19

that map all by yourself

54:22

yeah and so is it possible

54:24

like even if you joined

54:26

in the way that he outlines in that video

54:28

there's no way that you're going to be thrown

54:30

into the same map as someone else because the

54:33

matchmaking has been ditched yeah so the

54:35

matchmaking has been ditched and there's no official

54:37

servers up anymore so the official matchmaking but

54:39

there are community servers which are hosted independently

54:41

and those are still up and running at

54:43

least they were when he made the video

54:46

that was a few months ago okay

54:48

now maybe they shut down I don't I hope not

54:50

so big he's

54:52

just still there in this

54:55

map waiting for a

54:57

friend to turn up there's something that I really

54:59

like the idea of just this kind of like

55:01

haunted version of CSGO I can remember watching I

55:03

can't remember if it was an article I read

55:06

or a video I watched which was about can

55:08

you remember Second Life the game where it was

55:10

kind of like yeah yeah and there was a

55:12

weird era which was when

55:14

I was at university where universities

55:16

were building their campuses in Second Life

55:18

and you could attend and there was

55:20

genuinely I could take a course at

55:22

my university and you attended it in

55:25

Second Life and you went to Coventry

55:27

University's campus in this video game but

55:29

that whole initiative got ditched like

55:31

probably while I was still at

55:33

university but then years later I

55:36

think it was an article I read

55:38

and it was that it was people

55:41

revisiting these abandoned like Second Life servers

55:43

but it was like when you know when you watch those

55:46

documentaries about people that go to like abandoned theme parks

55:48

and stuff like that it felt

55:50

like that I sort of like

55:52

the idea that just I wish there was some

55:54

sort of like element of decay that you could

55:56

add to CSGO that means that when you revisit

55:58

it in like six seven years, you've

56:01

just got this slightly like musty

56:03

version of dust and

56:05

then sort of this complex that you could just

56:08

go around and it's like, oh, it's getting a

56:10

little bit get getting a bit musty and a

56:12

little bit murky. Moldy,

56:15

muddy. Yeah,

56:18

it is weird going

56:20

back to games, like especially like online

56:22

games, multiplayer games, that you have memories of

56:24

situations with it being full of life and

56:26

full of people you know and just hanging

56:29

out with your friends. I mean, I used to

56:31

play a bunch of City of Heroes when

56:33

I was like 12,

56:35

11, 13, that kind

56:37

of age and they

56:40

recently brought

56:43

back like an unofficial way

56:45

to get back in like host to host a

56:47

server, like a family project, host

56:50

a server, you can go in and play

56:53

through the game like just go around and

56:56

it's just it was so weird going back

56:58

and playing because they shut that game down

57:00

like a long time ago but

57:04

yeah, I played that as a kid and I

57:06

come back in and I like remade my old

57:08

character and the same like skills and same like

57:10

costume I had before and went

57:13

you know running around. I mean,

57:16

there were still people there but

57:18

it was like oh, it was

57:21

weird. It was just like so

57:23

many years later it felt like. I

57:26

think it's because these online games are, they're

57:29

actually more like places aren't they rather

57:31

than games and a case of

57:33

like when you know if I revisit a single player

57:35

game that I played in kind of like 2011 or

57:37

something like that, it's largely the same right because

57:39

the game is coded

57:42

to be identical and the

57:44

way that people are interacting in it because they're NPCs is

57:46

all going to be the same but

57:49

you know it's a weird game preservation

57:51

element isn't it, is that like an

57:53

MMO is actually a place more than

57:55

it is a video game and so

57:57

my experience of wow like when I

58:00

was kind of like, you know, sort of like 14, 15.

58:02

It is completely, I

58:05

can't ever have that again. And it's a

58:07

bit like, you know, when I visited somewhere

58:09

as a kid, there's probably been bulldozed over

58:12

and turned into some sort of luxury condo

58:14

at this point. Like

58:16

you can't revisit it, you've only got that weird

58:18

memory. And if you were to go back there

58:20

again as an adult and someone had rebuilt it

58:22

as kind of like a fake version,

58:24

it's almost like I guess like

58:26

revisiting somewhere in virtual reality, it's kind

58:29

of like, yes, it looks identical, but

58:31

there's like, the spirit

58:33

of it isn't there because it's not

58:35

what it was. It's this different like

58:37

clone version of it. Yeah,

58:39

I mean, that's what they did right with World of Warcraft was

58:42

WoW Classic, where it's like, go back

58:44

and experience, you know, music

58:46

spanking that you play. I

58:49

don't know. I've never been pretty successful. With WoW

58:51

Classic, can you still play

58:53

like, I know when

58:56

they bought WoW Classic back, it was like going back

58:58

to when it was out in like 1.0 and nothing

59:00

was there, but it still progresses, doesn't

59:02

it? So can you go back to

59:04

or have we now lost 1.0 in

59:07

WoW Classic as well? Once

59:09

again, yeah. Oh my goodness, that's a good

59:11

question. I don't know. It's like

59:13

kind of like, MMOs and, you know,

59:15

multiplayer shooters and all of this, I

59:17

saw that they're shutting down Battlefield Bad

59:20

Company too. That was,

59:22

I played hundreds and hundreds of hours of that.

59:24

I've got such good memories. And like,

59:26

remember absolutely like, decimating people

59:28

on Arica and being like a really, there

59:30

was a really good medics point on one

59:33

of the maps that was really, really good

59:35

at holding up. But all of

59:37

that's going to go soon. Like, it's just going to be

59:39

dead. And again, it's this games preservation

59:41

thing of like, yeah, we can do everything we can

59:43

to preserve our single player games and stuff like that.

59:46

But multiplayer games are built in such a

59:48

way that their experiences and online places more

59:50

than they are actual quote

59:52

unquote games. It's like, I wonder

59:55

what the actual answer to that is, which hopefully someone at

59:57

kind of like the games history museum has actually got an

59:59

answer to that. that but it is

1:00:01

a weird thing to think about. Even

1:00:03

like when we used to play Rainbow Six

1:00:05

and Overwatch a lot and then going back

1:00:08

into those games and the map rework, I'd

1:00:10

be like, I may as well be in

1:00:12

a completely different part of it. I mean,

1:00:14

House literally is a different house now. Yeah,

1:00:17

it's interesting because with Fortnite as well,

1:00:19

they recently went back and did Fortnite

1:00:21

OG, which is like the map from

1:00:24

a long time ago. And it's funny

1:00:26

to me to think that that like

1:00:28

elicited nostalgia in people like kids.

1:00:30

They're like, I played this when I was

1:00:32

like 10 and now I'm 15. Like,

1:00:35

wow. And we've taken

1:00:37

into the archive, you know. But I mean,

1:00:40

it makes sense from then

1:00:43

short life. That's a huge nostalgia

1:00:45

thing. And

1:00:49

it's interesting that, yeah, they

1:00:52

recognize that and deliberately have even gone

1:00:54

back and did that and just

1:00:58

playing Fortnite now, they're like, I'm back

1:01:00

on that. It's more sound.

1:01:02

I'm happy to revisit it.

1:01:04

Yeah. Interesting. I wonder if

1:01:06

we'll see more of that. It's

1:01:09

a rewinding. Well,

1:01:11

I guess this, to bring it full circle,

1:01:13

we just have to hope for this little

1:01:15

kid's sake that one day Valve is like,

1:01:17

oh, we're bringing back Counter Strike. I was

1:01:19

about to say, I can't remember. Counter Strike

1:01:21

condition zero, which gives away my age. Counter

1:01:25

Strike Global Offensive, like OG and then that little

1:01:27

kid when he's like 27 or whatever

1:01:29

is going to be elated. He's still

1:01:31

there. He's still on that map. He's been there for five years.

1:01:33

He'll be like the light's turning on. Suddenly the door's open and

1:01:35

everyone comes running back in. It's like, ahh.

1:01:38

Oh, that was really nice. Too

1:01:41

bad. Merry Christmas.

1:01:43

Matt, what's your third

1:01:46

and final award? My

1:01:51

third and final award is most

1:01:53

satisfying sound effect. I've

1:01:56

got to runner up for this, a special

1:01:58

mention, which is Dredge. In dredge,

1:02:00

if you're not aware of what dredge is, dredge is like

1:02:02

a kind of like you go around in a little fishing

1:02:04

boat and there's little, and

1:02:07

various different quests that you're doing around this kind

1:02:09

of like archipelago of sort of islands.

1:02:12

But the main thing is that the

1:02:15

water is basically infested by like Lovecraftian

1:02:17

creatures. So most of the time when

1:02:19

you fish, you're getting up normal fish. But

1:02:21

occasionally your fish up, you know,

1:02:23

like the radioactive fish from

1:02:26

the Simpsons with a third eye.

1:02:28

Like imagine that, but it's gone

1:02:30

through like Cthulhu's gullet, basically, and

1:02:32

it'll come up and there's like

1:02:34

this really unsettling

1:02:36

kind of musical chord that plays

1:02:39

as it flops onto like your

1:02:41

deck. And

1:02:43

that is, it really, because you

1:02:45

can go quite a long stretch in dredge

1:02:47

when nothing weird happens. It's just you going around

1:02:50

like running your fishing business basically. And

1:02:52

then this horrible like

1:02:55

tentacled black scaled thing

1:02:57

where all of its spines are sticking

1:02:59

out of its back will drop on

1:03:01

deck and you get this really long

1:03:04

droning musical chord that kind of like

1:03:06

sounds like it's been played on like

1:03:08

a xylophone that someone fished out of

1:03:10

a cabinet from Stranger Things. And

1:03:13

that is so like, it's a real good reminder of

1:03:15

like, oh no, I am playing something that's actually quite

1:03:17

messed up. It's not just nice all the time. That's

1:03:20

my runner up. My actual

1:03:23

one though is the backstab from

1:03:25

Liza P. So

1:03:27

Liza P has, as

1:03:29

many Souls games have kind of like, you can get

1:03:32

a lot more damage if you creep up behind someone

1:03:34

and stab them in the back. But

1:03:37

Liza P's whole aesthetic

1:03:40

right is this kind of like fucked

1:03:42

up puppetry sort of approach. And

1:03:44

they're all kind of automatons and stuff. And

1:03:47

when you stab someone in the back,

1:03:49

first your sword goes in and a huge

1:03:51

spurt of oil comes out the back of

1:03:53

them. But then you can hear

1:03:56

like all of the gears. And I don't know if

1:03:58

it's the gears like in your arm. you bury

1:04:00

it in or if it's the gears in

1:04:02

them as they erupt but you can hear

1:04:04

them all like grinding together and spinning faster

1:04:07

and faster until basically they erupt into a

1:04:09

huge amount of oil goo and collapse on

1:04:11

the floor. And it is

1:04:13

the most satisfying backstab. Like this is

1:04:15

a game that has loads of like

1:04:17

really good satisfying systems but

1:04:19

my favourite bit of Lies of P

1:04:22

was being able to sneak up on

1:04:24

some poor unsuspecting ventriloquist dummy and

1:04:26

absolutely murking it from behind with

1:04:29

the most satisfying backstab animation and

1:04:31

sound I've ever heard. Wow,

1:04:33

who just thought that you were such a backstabber

1:04:36

man? Jesus. Yeah. I've got to watch that out.

1:04:38

Exactly. So is it something

1:04:40

that you repeatedly do throughout the game and

1:04:42

then never get boring? Yeah, yeah. So obviously

1:04:44

in a Souls game a huge part of

1:04:46

it is enemy placement and so obviously it's

1:04:48

learning about that. It's

1:04:51

not as stealthy as like for

1:04:53

example kind of like Elden Ring has a little bit more

1:04:55

of a like you literally click the stick in and you

1:04:57

can crouch so there's a bit more of a stealth element

1:05:00

there but if you walk by only touching the stick rather

1:05:02

than pushing it all the way forward in

1:05:04

Lies of P you can kind of like creep

1:05:06

around a little bit and it's

1:05:08

one of those where it helps you obviously again like

1:05:12

what we were talking about before with kind of like

1:05:14

on guard and Batman and Spider-Man like this you

1:05:16

don't want too many people to attack you in

1:05:18

a Souls game because it's very

1:05:20

very difficult and the moment you've got three

1:05:22

people on you you're pretty much screwed and

1:05:25

so it's that okay there's four people in this room

1:05:27

two of them have got their back to me two

1:05:30

of them are too far outside of my vision cone

1:05:32

that they won't see me I'm going to make sure

1:05:34

I backstab these two and then I can take on

1:05:36

the next two kind of like face to face combat

1:05:40

but obviously a backstab does tremendously more damage

1:05:42

than a normal attack would be and so

1:05:44

most of the time you can kill someone

1:05:46

in one stab with that. Right. And so

1:05:49

it's just you know it's a very very

1:05:51

simple pleasure and you know there's a lot

1:05:53

more complex pleasures in Lies of P with

1:05:55

all of its build craft and it's you

1:05:57

know really interesting kind of parry system and

1:06:00

you've got like the Legion Arms which are

1:06:02

because you literally play Pinocchio you can cut your arm

1:06:04

off basically and put a new arm on and one

1:06:06

can have a flamethrower in it or one can have

1:06:08

like an electrocution gauntlet on

1:06:10

it, one's got a missile launcher in it,

1:06:12

there's loads of sort of bananas build craft

1:06:14

stuff. But I'll

1:06:17

always come back to the idea of kind of

1:06:19

like there's a really good backstab

1:06:21

element to it and that changes

1:06:23

depending on what weapon you've got and how

1:06:25

you've built the weapon you can break the

1:06:27

weapons into components in this game. And

1:06:30

depending on what blade you have attached depends

1:06:33

on what sort of attack you get for

1:06:35

a backstab. I

1:06:37

have like a simple pleasure in like I really

1:06:39

like the ones that are just like very very

1:06:41

slender swords you just stick right between their shoulder

1:06:43

blades not that they've really got shoulder blades because

1:06:45

they are puppets but I'm

1:06:47

just having that explosion of oil everywhere

1:06:50

but then you get ones which are

1:06:52

massive swords that you'll do

1:06:54

like a six like cleave attack on

1:06:56

them and the final one causes the

1:06:58

big sort of eruption of oil. Yeah

1:07:02

again as I say very simple but

1:07:05

it's the most satisfying backstab but

1:07:07

it's more satisfying than Sekiro's backstab

1:07:09

for me and that is obviously

1:07:11

built by the masters themselves. Yeah

1:07:13

yeah yeah well that's

1:07:16

so obviously Lies of P won our

1:07:18

best Soulslike award in the official IGN

1:07:20

awards. Yeah well deserved. And

1:07:23

so you know those

1:07:25

games far too hard for me but

1:07:28

like if it's doing something better than the

1:07:30

people who kind of kick started that entire

1:07:32

genre. It's maybe the only thing it does

1:07:34

better than them but like

1:07:38

I haven't really spoken a lot about Lies of P in

1:07:40

terms of kind of like since I've played it all the

1:07:42

way through but yes

1:07:44

it's definitely a FromSoft clone like a lot

1:07:46

of it is riffing on what they did

1:07:49

but it's one of those

1:07:52

that if you close your eyes you would believe

1:07:54

that FromSoft made it. It's so

1:07:56

close and in many ways it's kind of like

1:07:58

imitation is the highest form of it. of compliments

1:08:00

isn't it? It's kind of got a bit of that going on.

1:08:03

But to be able to play it and go like no, by

1:08:05

and large this feels as good as

1:08:08

some of their stronger stuff. You know, ultimately

1:08:11

Sekiro for me is their best game in

1:08:13

terms of combat play and there's

1:08:15

very few things that are ever going to match that.

1:08:18

But to be able to have a

1:08:20

backstab that I enjoy almost more than

1:08:22

I do Sekiro, it's kind of like

1:08:24

okay, there's something here. It's

1:08:27

very much a piece of art that

1:08:29

is people that have

1:08:31

studied FromSoft to the point that the

1:08:35

people that made that game probably know FromSoft

1:08:37

better than almost anybody at this point. And

1:08:40

yes, what they've ultimately made is very much a, it's

1:08:42

not just a hat tip, it's a completely take the

1:08:44

hat off and throw it at the foot of me

1:08:46

as a key. But that's

1:08:50

still a compliment in many ways. It's not easy

1:08:52

to make those. Plenty of people have tried to

1:08:54

make these games and they never feel right. Like

1:08:57

as an example, kind of like Lord of the Fallen this

1:08:59

year, it's like, it's interesting, but

1:09:01

it really does feel like you're, it's

1:09:04

not the Mars bar, it's the kind of like

1:09:06

the knockoff Mars bar that you bought from B&M.

1:09:11

And it's like, you know, they're both good, but you

1:09:13

ideally want the real thing. Like you can tell that

1:09:15

there's a little bit more when you, if

1:09:17

you can afford to have the full real

1:09:19

Mars bar, right? Are

1:09:22

they called Titan bars from Aldi? Something like that, isn't it?

1:09:24

And then, you know, and it's a bit like kind of

1:09:26

like, you know, when you pick up other things that are

1:09:28

in purple wrappers that aren't really dairy milk, they've not got

1:09:30

a glass and a half of milk in it, have they?

1:09:34

And you know, Lord of the Fallen is a bit

1:09:36

like that. There's definitely something to enjoy about it, but

1:09:38

it just doesn't feel like precise and calibrated in the

1:09:41

way. And Liza P

1:09:43

does. And I think

1:09:45

that backstab is almost like emblematic

1:09:47

of the wider kind of array of things

1:09:49

that it gets right. And yeah, it's kind

1:09:51

of like all the FromSoft

1:09:54

games build on what came before it. And

1:09:56

I would hesitate to say this build it's

1:09:58

more of a like you not the... Lego

1:10:00

tower down and you rebuilt the Lego tower using

1:10:02

the same bricks in a slightly different order but

1:10:05

that's still pretty cool but it'll be

1:10:08

from soft will obviously that whatever their

1:10:10

next game is like how Elden Ring

1:10:12

was astonishing compared to what came before

1:10:14

it you we've not got

1:10:17

that but yeah it's it feels really

1:10:19

honed and calibrated there you go well

1:10:21

done lies of pee me for

1:10:24

my last award the

1:10:27

award is for the game I played for

1:10:29

longer than my actual summer holiday so

1:10:32

I went camping to

1:10:34

France for nine days it's very nice

1:10:36

it wasn't actually it rained for the

1:10:38

entire time it's miserable but

1:10:43

I didn't realize until you get the end-of-year

1:10:45

wrap stuff that comes in how

1:10:47

much time I'd put into Tears of

1:10:49

the Kingdom and it turns out 235 hours

1:10:51

I played that game and

1:10:55

that was just a single playthrough that wasn't

1:10:57

you know going back and doing anything more

1:11:00

but man it was a game that took

1:11:02

me quite a long time to fully

1:11:05

appreciate you didn't love it off the bat did

1:11:07

you I still

1:11:09

love the simplicity and the charm of Breath of

1:11:11

the Wild and this is very

1:11:13

different from that but at

1:11:16

the same time you the scale of

1:11:18

everything it does and the way it

1:11:20

explodes what it what they achieved in

1:11:22

Breath of the Wild and does it

1:11:24

tenfold it's still mind-boggling and like

1:11:28

I'm not normally someone who goes

1:11:30

around and does all the side quests and

1:11:32

looks for all these little bits like I

1:11:34

always mock Dale when he's going off to

1:11:36

get his Platinum's and doing crazy shit to

1:11:38

do that but I did

1:11:40

every single shrine every single light route

1:11:43

I got all of the armor which you

1:11:46

had to farm Kingly Ox

1:11:49

which and I nine of them yeah and

1:11:51

you could only get you got one for

1:11:53

killing each Kingly and there I don't know

1:11:55

if you ever I give one of them

1:11:57

yeah but there's yeah there's one in the

1:11:59

depth And then there's three

1:12:01

in really hard to find places

1:12:03

in the Sky Islands And

1:12:06

so even getting them was like a pain in the

1:12:08

arm But then to fight as well, aren't they? Yeah,

1:12:11

but like so I got so

1:12:13

good at fighting them and then silver

1:12:15

linels Which again, I you know breath the wild I

1:12:17

was like if I see one of them. I'm gonna

1:12:20

stay away from it I don't need you, but

1:12:22

I had to get the the ancient

1:12:25

armor that you get at

1:12:28

the end of doing all the shrines, but I wanted to

1:12:30

upgrade it and yeah to do

1:12:32

that was I

1:12:34

would say it was rewarding. It was

1:12:36

probably a low point of my year. Why

1:12:38

am I doing this? And the armor

1:12:41

is good And

1:12:43

interestingly like with You

1:12:46

finished it and have you both finished it

1:12:48

or tears the kingdom? I have so many

1:12:50

of Jen I have Well,

1:12:56

I didn't think I had but no I gave it

1:12:58

I think actually I finished it on our 100 is

1:13:00

where I Obviously

1:13:03

I've still got I probably only

1:13:05

explored maybe about a third of the

1:13:07

depths It was one of those

1:13:09

where I figured like I've probably got about I mean Absolutely

1:13:12

have got another 100 hours at least in it.

1:13:14

I was like one day I get another another

1:13:17

round of tears of the kingdom so I'm gonna

1:13:19

leave it for a little while and then I'll

1:13:21

go back and Basically clear out

1:13:23

the depths and start doing those kind of like

1:13:25

yeah But

1:13:28

with whereas with breath the world I

1:13:31

didn't do the the Ganon fight in that

1:13:33

until I've done all the shrines But I

1:13:35

was so massively overpowered that it was just

1:13:38

ridiculously easy Whereas in

1:13:40

tears even with everything I had it was

1:13:43

still a tricky fight. It was by no

1:13:45

means as simple And

1:13:47

I think that's also Like we spoke

1:13:50

about format about the way that I think it's the

1:13:52

second part of the fight where you're trying to do

1:13:54

parries And it's like everything you've learned up till that

1:13:56

point gets thrown out the window and I feel like

1:13:58

why that is It's a shame really

1:14:00

because like it is for

1:14:03

the most part kind of like do

1:14:05

I use the word perfect game? But you understand why I

1:14:07

mean I use getting into that sort of realms But

1:14:10

to have a boss that is unlike any other

1:14:12

boss that you've had in the entire game And

1:14:14

it's a game that trains you to think about

1:14:17

kind of combat encounters in such weird ways And

1:14:20

it entirely asks you to break down your logic

1:14:22

of everything and build it up in such a

1:14:24

creative manner And Ganon

1:14:26

as a boss fight when you fight like Ganon

1:14:28

in his kind of like big man form with

1:14:30

a sword basically wants you to fight

1:14:32

him like he's a Dark Souls boss, it's like you've

1:14:34

got to use a shield and a sword and kind

1:14:36

of like There's not

1:14:39

a huge amount of space in that

1:14:41

fight to go crazy or like

1:14:43

build a mad contraption that you can kill

1:14:45

him with Absolutely love what

1:14:47

comes after that like everything from there is a

1:14:49

wonderful kind of finale to it But yeah, he

1:14:51

is a very strange kind of final boss But

1:14:55

even like I perfected flurry

1:14:57

rushes and all of the counters

1:15:00

But it's just different and I'm just like that makes

1:15:02

no sense to me But anyway

1:15:05

long story short Like the

1:15:07

only downside to playing a game for that long

1:15:09

is when I actually came to the finale It

1:15:12

was a really long time since I did the

1:15:14

last part the story mission I was like I

1:15:16

can't actually remember what I'm supposed to be doing

1:15:19

here And I know you can rewatch the memories

1:15:21

But I think next time I play it rather

1:15:23

than doing a full playthrough I'll probably try

1:15:26

and you know almost do a speed run just

1:15:28

so the story is more coherent Because

1:15:30

I knew that I was getting close and it

1:15:32

was like well You've basically got to go and

1:15:34

find him now and I'm like well I'm halfway

1:15:36

through the shrines and so I

1:15:38

probably yes sunk another hundred hours in by which point

1:15:40

you know Zelda's like where the

1:15:42

hell is it for Christ sakes? I'm

1:15:44

over here getting some guts

1:15:47

for my armor I think I

1:15:49

did that essentially the complete opposite way because the

1:15:51

moment I get got let off the leash It

1:15:53

was like I'm good. I'll embrace the breath of

1:15:55

the wild element to it I just didn't follow

1:15:57

the story towards it kept pottering around and just

1:15:59

finding things and when I

1:16:01

found myself in the places that got the

1:16:03

actual temples, I did the temples, but when

1:16:05

I wasn't there, I was just doing other

1:16:08

stuff, quite frequently helping that man with a

1:16:10

sign who can't seem to understand what bracing

1:16:12

is. I

1:16:14

did a lot of those in the early days and I was just like,

1:16:17

get lost. I did loads of the, you know

1:16:19

when there was the era

1:16:21

of viral videos of people burning

1:16:23

korok creatures, and they were putting

1:16:25

them up on crucifixes and stuff

1:16:28

like that. I originally thought

1:16:30

that was really mean because I was enjoying

1:16:32

solving all those little puzzles of like, how

1:16:34

do you get a korok seed from A

1:16:36

to B to meet their friend? You

1:16:39

do about 70 hours in start to not have a

1:16:41

lot of sympathy for those little fucks. No,

1:16:47

but yeah, like I

1:16:49

always thought, you know, Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the

1:16:51

Wild sequel was going to be special. I didn't think that they'd

1:16:53

blow out the water the way they did. So

1:16:56

it is my sincerest award

1:17:00

of today. And

1:17:02

if you've not played it, Jen, man, you

1:17:04

should really play it because it is exceptional.

1:17:07

Yeah, I put it on my two

1:17:09

playlists. You don't have to do

1:17:11

240 hours. I know, I mean,

1:17:13

that's the intimidating thing, isn't it? Because I

1:17:15

do also get very much like, in

1:17:18

most and in those kinds of games, just want

1:17:20

to do as much as possible. There's so much

1:17:23

to do. It's kind of daunting. What

1:17:25

did you think that the most amount because I imagine kind

1:17:27

of like because obviously your job has a lot of elements

1:17:30

that have you looking into like big life service

1:17:32

games and stuff like that. So do you tend

1:17:34

to find that those overtake or

1:17:36

do you always like Baldur's Gate, for instance, you almost

1:17:38

play a game this year? Probably

1:17:40

is. But the weird thing about

1:17:43

I guess how I play games for guys

1:17:45

purposes is I can have a really, really

1:17:47

high number in terms of hours played and

1:17:49

the progression is really low because I'm

1:17:51

just going, I'm like digging really deep

1:17:53

into like systems or going back and

1:17:55

trying things again and again. So yeah,

1:17:58

like Starfield, I've sort of... a

1:18:00

lot, a lot of hours at least, at

1:18:03

least 100 hours in Starfield. A lot

1:18:05

of that was guides

1:18:07

and editing. Chasing that

1:18:09

man. I'm chasing the man, chasing

1:18:12

the stamper and yeah, giving myself

1:18:14

resources so I could build the

1:18:17

fancy bed. But

1:18:20

I think probably Baldur's Gate 3 is

1:18:23

my most, other than DOTA, but DOTA

1:18:25

is just like, you know, a different thing in my

1:18:27

life. I've done that. That's

1:18:29

like eating. 4,000 hours. We

1:18:32

don't even talk about it yet.

1:18:35

Baldur's Gate 3, I think

1:18:37

I have like 140 hours

1:18:39

in it, but I'm still, well, I

1:18:41

know I finished Act 1, but I'm not into

1:18:43

Act 2 yet. Well, with 140 hours. Yeah.

1:18:48

Is that on the same playthrough or have

1:18:50

you tried multiple characters? No, it's on multiple

1:18:52

places. Yeah. That's also

1:18:54

my problem. I have bad restarting game

1:18:57

syndrome. But yeah, I didn't

1:18:59

even cover that for guides and I still played it like a

1:19:02

crazy person. Wow. That's

1:19:05

just how I do things, I guess. But no,

1:19:07

that's my

1:19:09

list to complete over Christmas.

1:19:12

What was your most played game, Matt?

1:19:14

This year was Baldur's Gate. Yeah. Although

1:19:17

very much on PC, but I did

1:19:20

the wrapped for the

1:19:22

PlayStation as well, because that came out this way. And

1:19:24

I did 95 hours in The

1:19:26

Witcher 3 this year. I replayed The Witcher 3

1:19:29

in January and did almost

1:19:32

everything in that game. Like I did all of the

1:19:35

main stuff, all of the two DLCs, and

1:19:37

then quite a lot of the side content.

1:19:39

There's only kind of like bits

1:19:42

to clean up, which is like, I'll go and find

1:19:44

this sword that's somewhere down this well. I haven't done

1:19:46

a lot of that kind of stuff, but anything that

1:19:49

gave me a bit of narrative, I've basically finished. And that took

1:19:51

me about 96, 97 hours, something

1:19:54

like that. But

1:19:56

yeah, Baldur's Gate, I think is it? I think is it 155 hours?

1:20:00

hours on my Steam at the moment,

1:20:02

but that also includes probably about 25 hours

1:20:04

in early access when it first came out.

1:20:06

And then I started as, I

1:20:09

did my one character which I think ended up, that

1:20:11

was about 112 hours I think

1:20:13

to complete, but I also then

1:20:15

have another character that I started up to

1:20:17

tinker around with as well. Well there you

1:20:19

have it. Those are our Alternative Game Awards

1:20:21

of 2023. Thank you Matt and thank you

1:20:26

Jen for joining me. It's been

1:20:28

very fun. I particularly like your stories

1:20:30

Jen and I cannot wait to hear

1:20:32

more next year. If you want to

1:20:34

let us know your favourite games there

1:20:37

you can do at ignunscourukfeedbackatign.com. Until

1:20:39

then have a good one and I will see

1:20:42

you soon. Bye.

1:21:09

There's something weird going on with influencers right

1:21:11

now. I'm a little freaked out.

1:21:14

They just get everything they want. Everything's

1:21:16

a little too perfect. Their smiles are

1:21:18

a little too straight. They're using filters

1:21:20

I can't find anywhere. I

1:21:22

know what I'm about to say might sound a little

1:21:24

unhinged but I think it might be witchcraft. At

1:21:26

least dance with Jenna Clayton thought. They're before

1:21:28

she went missing. We're excited

1:21:31

to introduce a new show from Rome. If

1:21:33

I go missing, The Witches did it.

1:21:36

Starring Oscar nominated actress Gabarae Sidibe. When

1:21:38

a black writer goes missing, a white podcast

1:21:41

host with a savior complex takes up the

1:21:43

cause of finding her and collides

1:21:45

with a coven of influencers she suspects

1:21:47

are responsible. This show is a

1:21:49

little bit of the craft meets mean girls

1:21:51

meets gay. Learn more

1:21:53

about If I Go Missing, The Witches did

1:21:56

it at realm.fm and be sure to

1:21:58

listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. podcast.