Almost Gamers

Episode One: Title Screen

• Matt Firek and Andrew Wilds • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

Send us a text

Join us as we start as level 1 podcasters. We discuss a lot of Baldur's Gate, tabletop D&D, Andrew's love of crippling difficulty and Matt's delve back into Night City. We also worry for Ubisoft, xbox controllers, and OCD oriented players. We also talk about sequels: one that will never come out, and one to a game you probably never heard of. That's just how on top of current trends we are.

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Man, that's delicious. Onigiri. Onigiri. Onigiri. Onigiri. It's essentially

SPEAKER_01:

just

SPEAKER_00:

rice triangles.

SPEAKER_01:

It looks like a triangle that has diapers on it. Yeah, it kind of does. This is great for a podcast right here. Anyways, hello folks. Hello. And welcome to the first episode of the podcast. So for those of you just joining us, which would be everyone, because this is our first one, welcome. My name is Matt, a.k.a. Dr. Fire K, a.k.a. Matty Flames. And sitting across from me, really ready and very excited and not nervous about this podcast at all, is Mr. Andrew Wilds, a.k.a. The Ant Man. That's true. He by far has the better name. So the whole idea behind this is every couple weeks me and him get together and usually two game to do some gaming but we always start off talking about games like we'll get some drinks get some shots of gin which we've just opened up this set with and we basically talk about what we've played what we're going to play and video game news that we've heard it's a good hobby of ours so we like to be well versed in it and one day and he's like hey let's let's record this and maybe somehow for some reason someone else would want to listen to us idiots just talk and drink and rabble about, uh, about video games. So that, that's what this podcast is. Yeah. So we'll see. Um, if we have three or four viewers, I would be surprised and it would be amazing. Yeah. Also at the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. First off, I want to say, Hey cousins, uh, my sister, Kurt, that's probably the only people who might listen to it. I don't think my cousins will honestly,

SPEAKER_01:

you know, they love me and all, but they've been to enough of our bad, uh, bad shows. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we won't get into it. It's true. We won't get into past bands. That's maybe a later

SPEAKER_00:

episode. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, yeah. All right, let's start off. It has been a very long time actually since we've been together to talk games. Yes. So we've been trying to like save topics and like not talk about

SPEAKER_00:

them. Right. We actually got some mics in front of us. Absolutely. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Start with the big one would be Baldur's Gate 3.

SPEAKER_00:

Baldur's Gate, yeah, it's funny because it's what, like a year old? Yeah, it is

SPEAKER_01:

like a year old. But both of us waited. I know I waited because I didn't have the time commitment It's not a game you just, like, play a little bit of.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Time commitment

SPEAKER_01:

was a

SPEAKER_00:

big part.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And price never changed. Like, you know, I waited, what, a year. I still think I paid 50 bucks for it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. They're holding out no, like, game pass or anything. You know what?

SPEAKER_01:

Good for them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Because small studio, you know, they're really only a double A. Yeah. If that. That's true. So good for them. It was a great product.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I mean, easily one of my top 10 games. Just... you know, sheer scope of it and the idea of, of creating a game of that magnitude.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's mind boggling.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Just trying to think about it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I, I like watch reels and I'm like, wow, there, there's that. You could do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. You can do, you can do anything. I think of you can do, and they, they counted on it. Yes. Which makes me wonder, they just have like a bunch of mad ass, insane people working there that are just like.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true.

SPEAKER_01:

It's

SPEAKER_00:

like the Mortal Kombat. It was like, what the, Fuck are you thinking? What

SPEAKER_01:

is wrong

SPEAKER_00:

with those people? It's like, let's go go to the insane asylum and find out what they want to do to you. Make a move. But yeah, I think... That's pretty impressive. It didn't get me at first. I was frustrated. And

SPEAKER_01:

it's tough because you get thrown in and you're like, okay, I can do anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So what am I doing right now? Yeah, exactly. And I always go into combat situations and you get overwhelmed. It's like there's always a sense you're overwhelmed. Starting the combat's the worst. Yeah. You're like, oh, there's this shit over there, this shit over there. Should I start over? Yeah. And the old save spam, they're... They're friends of it. You can save scum. Save scum. Save scum. There's the old term, yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I did it a ton. But I tried to play like you. As you said, I'm going to try to be honest. Yeah. When it comes

SPEAKER_01:

to major decisions. Major decisions, yes.

SPEAKER_00:

I tried to... But there's combat situations where I was just like,

SPEAKER_01:

eh. Yeah, there comes a point where like... Fuck it. It's not fun. Yeah. It's not a fun point. Yeah. You need to be like, all right, I need to start over. Right. I need to do something.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and... I had to go to the guide a few times. Luckily, now we live in an age where you can go to guides.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. My tablet is right next to me that entire time. Just for certain things. My role for walkthroughs nowadays is I'm an adult, technically, and I only have so much time. So if it starts to be not fun... I will go to the guide and look, see where I'm supposed to go. Should I do this? Should I do that? I just, I don't have time for that shit. Yeah. I just don't. I think we both did the same thing at first. We thought it was going to be, you know, our main person and Lazelle. Yes. And, um. Easily. Yeah. And then I, you know, we both found Karlak liked her better, decided to pick her. Yeah. But you confessed to me that apparently you killed Lazelle off. Very quickly, which I didn't know you could do. I kind of had an inkling because there was a fight. I wondered, like, if I don't break up this fight, they're not going to actually kill each other, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, that's a moment. Sorry, spoiler warning. Yeah, spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. No, yeah, that was a part where I wanted to talk to you about because I, you know, she was, well, she was mean. She is mean. And I didn't really like her. But she had that kind of sense of

SPEAKER_01:

duty.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I still banged her. She came.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. That's really quick then. You had to have done that pretty early.

SPEAKER_00:

Very

SPEAKER_01:

early. Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_00:

She was like, hey, I want to get a sense of you. And I said, well, there's an odds that I'm never going to enjoy. I don't even know what her speech was. Species-wise.

SPEAKER_01:

She's an odd one and kind of like, even in the world, a gethanky. Gethanky. Yeah, even in the D&D world, that's a rare species, if you will. They don't have a lot of interaction with the other

SPEAKER_00:

races. No, so I was like, let's go with this. This was before Karlak, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

Just for listening, honey. I just wanted to let you know that we haven't met yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Here's the thing. You didn't beat the goddamn game, so you don't even know the shit I went through,

SPEAKER_01:

Carvac. Yeah, I should say, I'm only like... midway through Act 2. Oh, Jesus. So... It's like...

SPEAKER_00:

You know, we came to this pivotal moment. Spoilers. And she... Lazelle, whatever her fucking name was. Because I didn't really use her, obviously. She... Well, you used her. Well, Shadowheart... I did. I didn't get my...

SPEAKER_01:

Anyways.

SPEAKER_00:

Apparently, though, that wasn't like a true love. That was just like she used sex to learn about you. Oh, right, right. And it wasn't... Apparently, there's a whole love thing. You could actually fall in love with each other, but I didn't obviously go through all that because I killed her. I didn't want to kill her. I thought we could work it all out. It was early in the game, and Shadowheart decided that... She was going to take... What was the thing that she wanted to keep safe?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, the little device.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. The MacGuffin. It looked like a die. Yeah. It looked like a 20-sided die. Either way.

SPEAKER_01:

You can tell we're well rehearsed in the verse and all the terminology before we do this podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Don't worry. If you're listening to this, you're lonely. And you don't even give a shit about life. Comment section is probably going to remain closed. Yeah. So... You know, she had that 20-sided die-looking thing that she was keeping. And I don't know. Early on, I decided, let's keep that shit safe. I don't want to give it to anybody. And she and Lizelle or whatever her name was, she wanted it. And then they came and, like, Shadowheart decided it was her or her. And I was like, oh, shit, I want to solve this like anybody. And I rolled and I lost the roll. And I was like, oh, shit. It

SPEAKER_01:

really came down to a roll? Yeah. What are those other things that made, I don't know, it just seems crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

I just remember a roll. And then I said, you know what, I have like one in the bank, but I don't want to use it here because it seems

SPEAKER_01:

like it might be, yeah. Right. There's no way a roll can have, because it was one of those things where, as I recall, you're asleep. Yeah. And you get woken up

SPEAKER_00:

during a long rest. Yes, yes, yes. And you're like, well, nothing can happen now. Yeah, exactly. Right. This might play out. Like, maybe we can work it out eventually. And I was like, all right, I'm not going to waste a roll on this shit. Inspiration. And shit. Like, it decided I had to pick. Well, she just started attacking me, I think, after that. So I was like, fuck you. And I killed her. And I thought, well, maybe she'll be down.

SPEAKER_01:

Was it an actual, like, battle?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. We went to battle mode. And camp. Yeah. Wow. And then I was like, well, she hit me. I was going to maybe not try to hit her. And then she hit me, and then she was going to kill me. So I was like, well, I got to fight back because I'm going to die. It

SPEAKER_01:

was just you and her? Everybody

SPEAKER_00:

in the camp.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

shit. It was like a full fight. And I said, well, that's the end of that. I was like, maybe she... Well, and the funny thing was the game said she was knocked out, but she wasn't officially dead. So I said, maybe she'll... But then, like, I think I, like, finished my sleep, and then she was gone. And that was the end of her.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh. Did she die-die? Did she just run away? You don't know. No. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

That was the end of that. And I never saw her again. But

SPEAKER_01:

that brings up to the point, so me and you both kind of doing the same thing. Like, I will reload battles. I'll reload some things. But a bad roll, I take it. I take it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I stuck with that. Yeah. And I kind of was... It seems like...

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's such a monumental experience. It just cheapens it if you don't take it.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I agree.

SPEAKER_01:

It's tough. It's tough. I don't know if I would

SPEAKER_00:

have. Well, I was early in the game, and I just, I didn't, like, part of me was like, maybe something's going to happen. A meter later or something. Yeah, but I just, that was the end of her. And I never saw her again. And then eventually there was a side quest with Getheki and I killed them all because they didn't like me anymore. I can't imagine why. So I had a bad, bad... Wow. And it really ate me up because I didn't really hate the Getheki. I just... She... Getheki. Getheki. Getheki. Sorry, folks.

SPEAKER_01:

Again, we apologize to all the

SPEAKER_00:

Getheki race out there. Anyway, moving on. That game... Excellent game. There's a lot of cool choices. I didn't care for the love and the sex and all that. I get it why people like that. It

SPEAKER_01:

was a nice... Because a game can be dark. Yeah. So it's a nice act break. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I felt uncomfortable. There was a point where Gale wanted to show me magic, and I didn't know if that meant magic or meant sex magic.

SPEAKER_01:

It's funny because... Oh, okay. I actually did reload there. That's right. Oh. Because I had no interest in Gale. You know, he's fine and all, but I really wanted to do Shadowheart. Yeah. It was a point where everyone kind of at the camp offered you something. Yeah. You know, me. Yeah. My mind always goes there. Me too. But for some reason, when Gale was like, show me magic, I'm like, oh, cool, I'd love a new spell.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, me too. That's what I kind of thought. I was like, oh, this is just like a way to learn a spell. And when

SPEAKER_01:

it turned out not, I'm like, oh, no, I really want Shadowheart Reload. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, did you? So it led to something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It felt like it was leading to something. Well,

SPEAKER_01:

it wasn't a whole, like, as a point where you kind of have a nice moment. Yeah. I couldn't believe him.

SPEAKER_00:

There was that moment with that. Well, you didn't get to the mind flayer. Did you get to the mind flayer yet?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, there's a lot of mind flayers. Well, like the good mind flayer? The

SPEAKER_00:

mind flayer.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I

SPEAKER_00:

have not. Anyway, there's an opportunity to fuck him, I think. I didn't explore it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, apparently you can do whatever you want in that game, which is great.

SPEAKER_00:

If you choose the Mind Flayer, because it comes down to, like, if you want to choose the Mind Flayer or the Githaki or whatever. I chose the Mind Flayer for whatever reasons. But you haven't got there, so we don't need to get

SPEAKER_01:

there. We'll spoil it for the audience, but not for me. Matt needs to finish the goddamn game.

SPEAKER_00:

But still, amazing game, and... I'd love to discuss the ending with my...

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, later podcast. Later podcast. But we got sidetracked. The rest of your party, did you settle on like a four-person and you kept them for the whole game? Oh, Jesus

SPEAKER_00:

Christ, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

This will be a four-hour

SPEAKER_00:

podcast, by the way. Yeah, well, we're fucking idiots. Yeah, my team was me, obviously the dwarf, the soldier, fighter type, and Garlak, and Shadowheart, and Asterion. Oh, you were Asterion. Okay. And then I tried out the classic because I watched somebody else, believe it or not, I watched somebody else beat Ballersgate 1. And what's her name from Ballersgate 1?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It doesn't matter. Anyway, I tried out the Elven girl, and she had some good moves, but Shadowheart, she was part of my team. For the most part, it was 99% that team. That was my team.

SPEAKER_01:

Shadowheart changed my mind in general about... healing class in all RPGs.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's nice. Well, Blessing changed my mind.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. That's why I used her because, like, she gave me that extra hit die on all my checks.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes, which, yeah, is very, very helpful. Yeah, so my party, again, I'm not as far, so I think I'm still going to meet more people to add to it, but right now it's me, Karlak, Shadowheart, and oh, man, the wizard. No, not the wizard.

SPEAKER_00:

Gale?

SPEAKER_01:

No. Will? Gale. Gale. Gale.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Gale. Gale's the

SPEAKER_01:

true laser type. Yeah. So I'm enjoying that. But my personal class for my main character. Oh, yeah. I never asked you. Yeah, yeah. I went Bard. I decided to go Bard. That's what I was going to do when it first came out. Everyone's talking about Bard. I'm like, I'm going to try it. It's... It's interesting. It is a hell of a lot of fun. Some of the fights, I was struggling with the fights. I had to do some weird shit because my team, I'm not a fighter, but I have some neat little tricks and spells. But by far, it's the dialogue options are amazing. I can talk myself out of anything. I already told you about the one where there was a... I think it was a troll that was guarding a basement. And, you know, my deception roll is out of the site. I can get like a 30 on deception. It's crazy. So I basically convinced him. He's like, what are you doing here? And I convinced him, like, what are you doing here? This is my house. And he's like, oh. Okay, and he just leaves. There's another part. I don't know if you remember when you're in the under, not the underdark, the shadow realm, where there's a toll collector who's like made of money. Yeah, yeah. Okay, which is. I got lucky. I tried that fight, by the way, first off. Oh, I never tried it. I tried it, and I got lucky because one of my things is, oh, I can't remember. It's laughter. I made him laugh where he just can't. And then someone else did another thing. So he, she, I think it was a she, didn't move for like two rounds. So I'm like, oh, good, good, good, good. Yeah. And then they got up. Oh, really? And killed my, like killed, killed Karlak. Not just like down. Oh, like killed her. Murdered. And then I finally looked and like level six, like 700 hit points. You know, I'm level four. Oh, oh, this ain't happening. So I reloaded. Yeah. And then tried the dialogue choice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's what I do.

SPEAKER_01:

I convinced her that I'm her replacement. She's supposed to go to a better job at a different

SPEAKER_00:

office.

SPEAKER_01:

And it like breaks her mind and she just dies and you can take all of her money. Like I got like two, three grand off of it, which that time is a ton of cash.

SPEAKER_00:

That's similar to what I did. I forget what I did. You

SPEAKER_01:

talked your way through

SPEAKER_00:

it too? I talked my way and I got like three grand from her. And it

SPEAKER_01:

wasn't that. But again. It's weird because you don't always get the XP if you talk your way out of shit. But just with a bard, it's just hilarious. Like the shit I get away

SPEAKER_00:

with. Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine because there's a lot of chances to deceive. And with a bard, that's their... Talk their way out of shit. That's why they're so popular.

SPEAKER_01:

It's fun. I'm enjoying it. And you were talking about the bonuses of the bless and whatnot. And that kind of segues into we both felt like... Me and you both gotten into... tabletop D&D late in life. We started, I

SPEAKER_00:

don't know how long, like six years ago? Yeah, I feel like it's six or maybe

SPEAKER_01:

eight. And we just finished our first campaign. Yeah. Did we finish? I don't even know. Technically, wow. There's still a little bit more. He's our dungeon master, by the way. Yeah, right. So we finally finished our first D&D campaign, like real tabletop.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I feel playing Baldur's Gate... Oh, comparisons, right....helped us play D&D better. Like, we understood a lot more about the class. Well, just everything. And vice versa. After starting Baldur's Gate, playing D&D Tabletop, I understood more of why things were happening the way they were in Baldur's Gate.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, you know... I think, like, what people like a lot about Baldur's Gate is choices, and I get it. But the thing you can't do, and they did a good job, but D&D just nails, like, you can improvise whatever you want. Adapt. And even, like, with our group, like, you guys are still, well...

SPEAKER_01:

Idiots.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, idiots, but you guys are still in the... You're kind of limited a little bit. Like, I think, like, there's so many strategies, and sometimes with video games especially. There

SPEAKER_01:

are limits.

SPEAKER_00:

You get, like, into this loophole of, like, I got to kill something or I got to fight something. Oh. And, like, sometimes people are, you know, when you come from video games to D&D, as a DM, like, I have never played D&D as a player. No, that's crazy. Yeah. As a DM, you realize people just resort to combat and violence, which is fun. And I like that part, so I'm not going to complain. It's interesting. And also, like I was telling Haley, we just completed that campaign. Oh. We completed that campaign, and then... There was some elements I prepared quite a bit for, and you guys just basically shit on it. Well, I

SPEAKER_01:

think the rest, not me. Me and BK definitely wanted to explore the rest of the dungeon as being RPG fans. Well, there was that. And everyone else was like, no, let's go to the end.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right. Everybody wanted to get to the end, and that's fine. And then there was also the end where you were... fighting the Black Spider.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And I won't spoil too much, but anyway, I had all these dialogue ideas.

SPEAKER_01:

I felt we were all missing something, but the whole group, and even me at the end, I just wanted to kill you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And I was... There was more to it, and I wanted to... Anyway, but the way you told me, it ended up being just more or less you killed me. And I thought it would be more exciting. And that's the things that you can't really capture in video games.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, it is interesting to see how they're intertwined and really how much D&D affected. I mean, RPGs would not be what they are without that.

SPEAKER_00:

But, you know, going later in life to D&D, we realize how...

SPEAKER_01:

Influential. Yeah. You

SPEAKER_00:

really see it.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway,

SPEAKER_00:

it's

SPEAKER_01:

cool. Well, we've rambled on for about 30 minutes now about Baldur's Gate. Yeah, really. I didn't think we would move on. What else? Let's hold on.

SPEAKER_00:

That's going to die real quick.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. We hadn't talked about it beforehand, but we're going to just flat out assume this is not going to be a PG podcast. No, I swore about 30 times. Yeah, I figured there's no chance. Sorry, Liana. Blue's Black always said, if you're ever told you're not allowed to swear, the very first thing that comes to your mind is, fuck. Yeah. All right, other games that I played. Finally. Yeah, it was Miranda something that Matt played. God of War Ragnarok. So this would be the sequel. to the, I want to say, 2018, 2016 God of War. We're up to date on that. We're very up to date. Here's the thing. I knew that one was going to be coming to Game Pass. Not Game Pass. Oh, boy. PlayStation Plus? It did. It did. Oddly enough, it wasn't the month after I bought it. It was like three months after

SPEAKER_00:

I bought it. I remember seeing that, and I laughed. I waited two years. I laughed so hard when I saw that.

SPEAKER_01:

I had almost beaten it by the time it came for free, so whatever. Anyway. Anyways, it's fine because it was totally worth it. All right. Matt paid money. I know. It was worth it. I really thought it was going to be the next month because that always happens. I buy a game and the next month it drops on for free. You got to spend money. Yeah. And I don't mind supporting them. So you did play the first one, the reboot one. Yeah, the reboot. The Norse God of War. And you loved it. Absolutely. Yeah. Fantastic. One of the best. Cory Barlog, I mean. Except that

SPEAKER_00:

fight with, what's her name? Anyway. She had every move set of all the Valkyrie. Oh, did you beat all the Valkyries? I

SPEAKER_01:

beat them all. Oh, you're a fucking masochist. Yeah, she was intense. I think I did like two of them.

SPEAKER_00:

Fuck her.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, my God, no. Anyway, good. Anyways, so the second one that you have not played. Not

SPEAKER_00:

at

SPEAKER_01:

all. So the other one... It was so good because it was so unlike anything else. It was so unexpected. Really? I didn't expect that. No, no, I mean the other one. It was kind of groundbreaking in many ways. Heartwarming moment. Heartwarming. The voice acting was absolutely top notch. Christopher Judge just was unbelievable. Yeah. And in the whole cinematic thing, I don't know if people know this, but the entire game was one shot. There was never a cut. It was like a one long, there was no camera cuts. Yeah. Yeah. And they said it drove his development team insane. He was like, well, we have to cut here. It's like, Nope, never, ever, ever. And if, yeah, if you notice it, the camera never breaks, it moves, but it always, and the second one actually does the same thing. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, Martin scores a shit. Yeah, really? Um,

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, not limited by the length of a film reel. We

SPEAKER_00:

can go into film

SPEAKER_01:

class. We're covering it all here, folks. Even if you're confused, you have no idea what we're talking about. No matter how good a sequel is, it'll never be better than that initial just, wow, this is something new. Like Horizon Zero Dawn, I think Forbidden West was the best. better game but the first one was so new and fresh you just can't do that you can't beat

SPEAKER_00:

that

SPEAKER_01:

so even counting that so I'll count them that I'll put them right there same par because it was so much better in so many ways but again the only thing down for it is just it wasn't new and exciting hmm It was amazing. So I know you know this about me. Folks at home don't know this, but I get bored. They will know this. and, like, burnt out on games pretty quickly. Like, I'll get three-fourths of the way through the game, and I'm like, I'm already leveled up. Everything's maxed out already because I just love to grind. He also looked at the menu way too much. Oh, my God. I will spend 30 hours on a menu. You know that How Long to Beat website which tells you how long to beat? Yeah. Like, their casual was like, so this is for slow people. No, I crushed that. Yeah, man. I crushed that. A 40-hour game will take me 100 hours. Easy. I played Borderlands with him. He

SPEAKER_00:

looks at every

SPEAKER_01:

fucking one of those. Oh, my God. I've gotten better at taking screenshots. But still, I will gaze out at a vista on a video game for 10 minutes easily.

SPEAKER_00:

Take a couple screenshots, post it on Facebook. Oh, yes. Yeah, I've done

SPEAKER_01:

that in a while, but yeah. Anyways, where the hell was I? God of War. God of War. Great game. There it is. Oh, oh, because I get bored easily. I take. I get bored easily. That game, and I can see how it kind of upsets some people, but it's hard to say without spoiling, but it keeps your interest. It changes up so much throughout the game that every time you're in a chance of getting like, let's get A little old saying, oh, bam, something completely unexpected. Kept my interest the entire time. I teared up a lot. There were several moments I cried. Definitely. Yeah, that game. Music was amazing. Yeah, I believe that's, is that Baron McCreary? Don't want to know. No, this is my thing. I shouldn't, I'm 90. I don't think the gin's going to tell you. I'm 90% sure it's Barry McCreary. Well, let us know in the comments if we're absolute idiots. So, God of War Ragnarok. We are. Fantastic. It is God of War Ragnarok, yes. That's the thing that has always confused me because at the same time was released Assassin's Creed Valhalla with the expansion DLC called Oh, boy. And then you have God of War Valhalla. No, God of Whore Ragnarok. God of Whore? With an expansion pack called Valhalla.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Jesus.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's... A little confusing there, folks. All right. Murky Waters. Anyways, play God of War. Vikings. Vikings. Love them. Vikings are badass. Yeah, me and you both are definitely into that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Vikings. Norse mythology. Absolutely. Except Neil Gaiman. Right? No. Wait,

SPEAKER_01:

are we?

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway, moving on. Anyways, moving on. So another game that I know, oh, just came out not too long ago for, hey, this is actually.

SPEAKER_00:

That we're moving up, guys and girls. That we're moving

SPEAKER_01:

up is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, also known as Peasant Simulator the second. Peasants. Only if you suck, get good, right? So tell me about this game as compared to the first one and just as a game

SPEAKER_00:

in general. Okay, here's the

SPEAKER_01:

thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Have you played the first one? Me? No. Hell no.

SPEAKER_01:

Really? No. I mean, I'm not accusing you. You're not a medieval guy? It just never appealed to me. Although, we'll get into some things. I'm going to come around about some things. So I might jump into two. All

SPEAKER_00:

right. So the first one was good. I wouldn't go as good as great. But here's the thing, like, my computer, I didn't know if it could, like, I bought it on PC, and I feel like my PC maybe wasn't optimal for it. Oh, and they weren't optimized. Exactly. Young, young, new

SPEAKER_01:

studio, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I ran into a lot of problems, like, we'll say, like... loading issues like screens took seconds to load peasants as matt likes to call peasants peasants simulators but anyway this one feels a lot more polished and it feels like it's what they wanted and uh it's still you know you can tell this isn't like a triple a studio necessarily but it's close enough that you wouldn't even care. I remember the first one still did have great visuals. The forest, the trees, all of them. I'll tell you what. I've been playing quite a bit, and the forestry is probably some of the best forestry. My fingers are crossed. I know everybody doesn't believe it's going to come out anytime soon, but Elder Scrolls, I feel like, you know, take notes because some of the forestry is like, I'll just walk. It's like a walking simulator. Oh, so you're

SPEAKER_01:

saying you take your time and look at the skyline. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm like Matt. I'm wasting time. But this is the one game. Actually, the first one was the first time I played a game initially without fast traveling at all. And I just rode my horse everywhere. This one is a little bigger, so it's a little harder, but I still do it. Can you fast travel? Is it very limited? Absolutely. Okay, it's not

SPEAKER_01:

limited.

SPEAKER_00:

No. Okay. The one thing that everybody hates is the saving system, and it's based on you buy this alcohol that gives you the save stat. Oh, you do? What was the name of the alcohol, Andy? Savior. Snap. People hate it. Some people like it. It's one of those things. But they did update, you can quit and save. And it's one of those things like... Like, when you quit and save again, it deletes that last save. So, you know, it's like... Wait,

SPEAKER_01:

the other one didn't have that? If you quit, you went back to a... No. Fuck

SPEAKER_00:

that. No, like, you couldn't quit. You really couldn't quit the goddamn game. The first one, you couldn't quit it until they did the update. Oh, my. And people are pissed. Yeah, I can't handle that. Because they spent like 12 hours playing this goddamn game, and they were like, oh, fuck, I got to go take care of something. Or like, you know, my baby is on fire. Exactly. Yeah, like, my house is on fucking fire. I got to leave. And they couldn't save it. They literally, if they didn't have a save your snap. Yeah, that's too

SPEAKER_01:

much.

SPEAKER_00:

People hate that. The saving system is always going to, you know. But I get it. They don't want you to, like, Baldur's Gate, scum save.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Dragon's Dogma 2 was like that, too. Oh, that was another game that I played a little bit of.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I get it. Sometimes it's just too much. That game caused me... I love that game. I had a lot of fun. It caused so much anxiety. I was always just anxious.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that's the thing. That anxiousness is fun to some extent, but it's annoying. But I'll be honest, this game...

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it seemed a lot lower key. Dragon's Dogma 2 was just like... Attack, attack, attack, dragon. Griffin.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know. Yeah. But,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. Yeah, but Game of Gun Deliverance is well worth a play. I love it already. I'm hooked. But, honestly, I'm doing mostly alchemy and blacksmithing, which isn't exciting. It's not an exciting lifestyle, and it's for me.

SPEAKER_01:

That's good. You

SPEAKER_00:

got the trade. Yeah, I love the trade. How's the story? So, well, the story so far is pretty interesting, except for the fact that I haven't progressed at all.

SPEAKER_01:

Just wandering around, banging on your weapons.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the thing is, I didn't beat the first game. Because of the technical issues. Eventually, I just got kind of like moved on. So apparently, it's a seamless transition into this. Oh, okay. Are you the same

SPEAKER_01:

person?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Henry. Yeah, you're Henry. And he's kind of like... Henry started as a local like... Peasant. Peasant-ish. Peasant-ish. Oh, I'm sorry. Peasant-ish. Judgy. Yeah. This man makes money, apparently. He's peasants. But anyway, he's a peasant, and his dad's a blacksmith, and his family gets killed. Kind of one of those things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Typical RPG trope without a

SPEAKER_00:

dragon involved. No, no dragon. Just a military that comes and invades and kills his family. And everything is great, and it's good.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But, yeah, apparently it just transitions right next, and I didn't finish it, like I said. So, like, the technical issues just got me, and also just time and energy. Like, these games are not easy games. Matt said it. They're not easy. They're 100-hour games. But this one, I think I'm ready because the technical issues are gone, so I'll devote the time. That's good. I just... need to get into it. But right now, I'm just smithing and making money. I'm trying to make money. That's

SPEAKER_01:

it. So it sounds more like a job simulator this time around.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but it's medieval

SPEAKER_01:

jobs, you know? It's like jobs that are cool. Right, right, right. Well, you yourself do have experience in smithing. A little

SPEAKER_00:

bit. That's why I love it. It's not 1,000% accurate, but it's one of the most accurate simulators, considering it's not a blacksmithing simulator. Right, right. That's coming out. There's got to

SPEAKER_01:

be one on Steam. We've got truckers. We've got truckers. We've got farmers. We've

SPEAKER_00:

got goats. Power washing. We've got power washing. Dumbest shit. I couldn't even play power washing because that's fucking dumb. I get it. People say it's soothing.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it's not soothing. It's time consuming. Well, your ADD ass would like just, yeah, there would be a little spot left like, Nope, I got a platinum this round. Pretty

SPEAKER_00:

much.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway, moving on. Let's move on. Let's move

SPEAKER_00:

on.

SPEAKER_01:

So actually, the next game I'm playing is actually a game I've already played. And this is very unusual. There's literally been... a handful of games I've ever played twice. Sounds like a Mac pick. Yeah, and it is Cyberpunk 2077. Yeah, nobody's heard of that. So, yeah, I first played Cyberpunk. Me and you were so hyped for Cyberpunk. We were both. Easily. One of the most hyped games of all time. We watched that original trailer like 30 times. I might watch it right now. You just mentioned it. It was so cool. We're both huge Witcher fans, like Witcher 3. Probably on our top five.

SPEAKER_00:

Remember that... Let's reminisce a little. Sorry, everybody, if you're not young. Not as old as us. But remember that video I played for you on Witcher 2? It was the opening sequence with the dude in the frost and all that

SPEAKER_01:

shit. So I, to this day, that trailer... Look that shit up, kids. Yeah, look up the trailer for The Witcher 2. Yeah, I was thinking it was The Witcher 2. It was probably the best... adaptation of a fantasy scene ever. I think so. Right? Am I fair to say that? Easily. Yeah. I'd watch a show based on that easily. Yes, which is why we won't get into the whole Witcher series. It's good, it's great, it's terrible, whatever, same thing. But that, that was just, that's everything we ever wanted out of a fantasy scene. Pretty much, yeah. And it was, yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

it was amazing. Delivered. Yeah. And that was all just an intro. Yeah, it was just an intro. Anyway, guys.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that game was great. We both love Witcher 3. Say what you will, Cyberpunk, they definitely turned it around. So I played it the first time when the game went next gen, which was maybe like two years ago, because it came out technically on PS4, PS5 era, but it came off. it came out during both of them. Yeah. Obviously the old hardware couldn't handle that shit. And we all know about the controversy and how terrible it ran and whatnot, but I was a proponent. I will admit this of, they should just give up, give up on it.

SPEAKER_00:

Hold the

SPEAKER_01:

plug, move on. And they didn't. And they improved it. And so when I played it on next gen on a PS five, I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun with it. I didn't do much of the side quests for once. Like I beat that game in about 40 hours. Yeah. I just headlined.

SPEAKER_00:

Was that a lot of menu

SPEAKER_01:

time? No, it was not. Well, their menus were confusing. Anyways, it was fun. I had fun. So not too long ago, they came out with the 2.0 update, which supposedly overhauled everything. And I got to thinking about it. I'm like... be kind of cool, because it was around the same time they came out with the DLC, the Liberty City DLC, starring Idris Elba, huge fan of, and I've heard it's amazing. He's a bad dude. I love him. So I thought about getting in, and I don't know. It kind of went whatever. And then not too long ago, a lot of people were saying, hey, this is amazing. What you need to do is just start over. I'm like, I don't usually do that. That's not your thing. Maybe. And then I got the idea of... Hey, I'm already currently signed up for GeForce Now, which those of you don't know, so my laptop is okay power-wise. But GeForce Now, it's basically a streaming service. You can basically pay Cyberpunk, which is one of the most demanding visually hardware video games out there. It has crazy ray tracing, path tracing, all that fun stuff. GeForce. Now you basically stream that. I don't want to get into all the complications of that, but it works very well. So I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. I already bought it on PS5. It was on sale for a little bit. I still think I paid$45 for the deluxe edition, which included the expansion. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah. Get in.

SPEAKER_00:

Fuck it up.

SPEAKER_01:

Amazing. First of all, it is visually the... I will say God of War Ragnarok, by the way. Throwback. previous to this, and my buddy James, shout out. You might actually listen to this. Who's James? Speak about James. Let's hear about James. James, you know James. He plays a musician. Yes, he's a musician. He's in the faculty, if we're still calling ourselves the faculty. Nice. Alright, James. Rock it out. But he said that God of War Ragnarok was next to Cyberpunk, was one of the most visually amazing games I've ever seen, and I agree. Again, when I went back to be a cyberpunk on the PC. Like, you know, it's stupid shit no one else cares about, but I do. Like the reflections in the puddles. Oh, yeah. You love the reflection. And they overhauled so much. It's hard for me because there was about a year and a half to two years between me playing it the first time and playing it now. But... I know one of the big things to do with the visual overhaul was they, everything was illuminated by in game shit. So there's no, like if you're in a dark room, It's dark. You can't see shit, which is kind of annoying. Yeah. But also makes it very cinematic when you're in a room that like is only lit by a neon sign and you're having like a dialogue with an NPC and you can just see like just a corner for one eye. It makes it very cinematic and it's just, it's really fucking cool. You know, I'm gonna stick like the lighting. I love lighting in games. Yeah, you're a big lighting guy. And now I'm playing, so I'm glad I did it on a PC to play, to see it and like, oh, it's great.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

it's glory that could be in. But it is basically an entirely different game. Again, I don't remember a lot of things, but there's just so much. It just feels better. Plus, I'm playing as a completely different character.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we won't get into all that since we got into all too much shit today. Yeah, we really did. But... Yeah, it was just really cool. And one of the things that decided me to go back into this, someone said, all right, so you need to– I read an article. And they were like, hey, if you want to go back into this, start over as a new character and don't fast travel. And this reminds me of you in Kingdom Come Deliverance. And I have to admit– it really changed my experience with the game. Yeah. Like, I fell in love with the city because there's a metro, which I don't know if it was there before, if I just ignored it, but I could literally take a subway and it's not like you get on the subway and then pick a stop. You literally get on the subway, sit down in

SPEAKER_00:

a

SPEAKER_01:

seat, and just look out the window as you're traveling around.

SPEAKER_00:

That's

SPEAKER_01:

cool. And I kind of made myself do that. Eventually, especially on some quests, it was a fetch quest, I will fast travel, but for the most part, I don't let myself fast Right. And it's, you kind of take in the game. That's what I mean. That's what I love. And it's like, it's like I'm just chilling out in Night City. Yeah. And

SPEAKER_00:

it's zen, man. Yeah, it's one of those few things, like, I won't do all the time, but, like, came and come. Even, like, I've replayed, and not, like, all the way through, but Skyrim, like... Because a similar thing they had, but it's not like you ride the- Oh, the horse cart thing. Yeah. I just use that. And I did a couple of playthroughs with that, but I didn't finish the game. But it changes the dynamic because it's just- Yeah. You feel like you're more immersed in the

SPEAKER_01:

world. And it also kind of makes me be like, okay, I'm going to take the Metro to- I can't remember any names. It's like Japantown. All right, so I'm already here. I'm going to do all these quests right here. I'm not going to be like schizophrenic going here, here, here, here, here, here. I'm here. I'm going to do all that before I go over to like Westbrook or like the Badlands. And in that, and because the way the game is set up, every area has a fixer, like a... guardian of the area okay and so they're all that person's no they're more of your friend oh okay so they're all of you that you finish all that person's quests and it makes it again it just builds with the uh the the the story of the game so

SPEAKER_00:

interesting

SPEAKER_01:

yeah sounds amazing yeah you were definitely to play especially now and even for people that have played it way back in the day I recommend going back, especially on PC. It is just amazingly gorgeous. If

SPEAKER_00:

nothing else, just watch that trailer.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, if nothing else. Watch the trailer for Cyberpunk 2077. 2077 that came out in like 2010, 2012. 2012, 2013. It was somewhere. Moving on, just real quick because I couldn't remember. Talking about old games have hopefully gotten better. Starfield. Oh, moving on to that. Yeah, their expansion. Did you play it? Did you play it? I was going to ask you. I didn't. Did you? No. Oh, shit.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think it's going to be fine, but I just didn't feel like I needed it right now, so I just didn't buy it. Okay. It wasn't like that. Shattered Space. Shattered Space, yeah. We're both interested. Yeah, I think it'll be fine. I think people, even though like on Steam, I just actually literally looked at it It was like mostly negative reviews. But that game is... Yeah, we will... We could spend a whole episode on that. I don't want

SPEAKER_01:

to get into it. We're both fans. We both love the game. I loved it. Absolutely. I still love it.

SPEAKER_00:

And I will defend

SPEAKER_01:

it. I actually want to do... So mark this off on your calendar. I want to do a whole episode or a whole segment on games that we think... got robbed or got the hate that they did not deserve. I feel like that's definitely one. That's going to be one of them. That's going to be one. Absolutely. For sure. Doesn't deserve. But anyway. So neither one of us paid Shira's pace. Nope. Which just shows how much of a love we're actually getting.

SPEAKER_00:

We're on top of the games if

SPEAKER_01:

you want to get fresh. That's right, folks. All right. So I got one more thing to talk. We're talking about like current what we've been doing. So both of us are mainly... PlayStation, guys. We have been for a long time.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, you basically convinced me. You're a PlayStation dude. You know, I grew up Nintendo. But you know what? It's funny because I remember going up to State College. You had the Xbox, man. Why was the Xbox your shit back then? Sorry, folks. But we got to go into

SPEAKER_01:

this. Yeah, that's interesting. I think... It's what I bought. That was it. It's what I bought. I loved Gears of War. It looked neat. And that was the game that came out. Do you remember Gamerscore? Does anyone remember Gamerscore? It was like achievements. When you got achievements, you got like an actual game. You got points. Like PlayStation, you get a gold trophy or a silver trophy. It's not the same. Xbox used to give you amount of points. So it was like a badge of honor. Like I was up there in the Pac-Man because I was early on the Xbox. So I had like 3,000 gamers score. Like, yeah. And for some reason, it just mattered. Because it's that whole like... You know, grinding. This is grinding across all your games. It's a smooth move. It's kept me going. And yeah, I... That was it. That was it. For then. For then. And because there was that era, there were not a whole lot of exclusives one side or the other that I really cared about. But you know what switched me to PlayStation? Yeah, what was the big thing? It was two big things. One... Borderlands. The first Borderlands. For y'all that don't remember, when it came out, there was only physical media. And it was a surprise hit. No one expected it to be a hit. And so back in the day, all video games came out on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Tuesday was always a video game day. Music and video games always came out on Tuesdays. And... I went to go buy it and there was all of State College was sold out on the Xbox. GameStop had one copy on the PlayStation left. And the guy's like, I'm telling you, man, there's no one else going to find it. Fuck you. I'll be able to find it somewhere. So I literally spent the next hour driving around all the gaming stores like Best Buy,

SPEAKER_00:

Atari. Back before internet

SPEAKER_01:

shit. In State College and no one had it. So I went back to the GameStop and bought the last copy of Borderlands on a PlayStation. Wow. And that was the switch. That was the move. That's how crazy it is sometimes. That and then when the next generation, the PS4s came out, there were some exclusives like Transistor from Supergiant Games. which were PlayStation exclusives. And that was the final switch. It's weird, but that's all it took. Because they were so 50-50. I had no preference. Those are the weird just things that took it to switch the balance. And that's why I'm a PlayStation guy. And now, well, Xbox has, well, seemingly shifted because most of their stuff, you don't have to have an Xbox to play.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, I think they realize they need to reach out to everybody. So I play a lot of

SPEAKER_01:

Xbox games, but I play them on Game Pass for PC.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah, well, PC too,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah. And I know, so when you game on the PC, so we both of us also game on PC. Yeah, yeah, I'm a PC guy. Do you exclusively use an Xbox controller or do you use a PlayStation controller? What do you do? Xbox controller. Okay. It works seamless. It does, but I love my PlayStation controller better. Yeah, like I

SPEAKER_00:

don't love the Xbox, but it worked. You're right. I have no issues. It

SPEAKER_01:

depends on the game. Some games it works fine. Some games it does not translate well. But, so I had an issue with, you've had issues with your Xbox controllers. Are you on your like third one?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, easily, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So I was having it. Oh, yeah. I brought out. He's got evidence. Grab yours. Grab yours. Because this is actually... I mean, as much as it's going to be great for the podcast, there's going to be some visual shit here. But I'm going to try to add some audio. Audio. We're getting hot. Yeah, we're getting real hot. So... Ours is the same thing. Yeah, we have the exact same one. It's a little fucking weird. We'll have the red ones. So most of your actions involve the right trigger is used so much. So mine would stick, meaning I would squeeze it and let go, and it would be like a half a second later, and it would pop up.

SPEAKER_00:

That's no good.

SPEAKER_01:

And for some games, it doesn't matter. They're doing it real quick. But the games where you do like a long or heavy attack, it's only to hold the right trigger and let go and kink. Right. It would drive me fucking nuts. Right. Shit. So I saw a couple of videos and some people had, this is probably what's happening. Yeah. So I spent like a half an hour, I was pretty drunk, prying this fucker apart. You're prying your control. He doesn't. Look at what was causing the issue. Ah, it looks like. Now, for those folks at home, Andy, try to describe even what those are.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they look like little black. That's all I got.

SPEAKER_01:

They are probably half an inch long by a sixteenth of an inch wide rubber things. And what they are, they're dampening pads. And they go between the trigger and the base of the controller, if you will. So they stop it from sounding like this. And with them, they sound like this. A little bit quieter. Huge difference. Yeah. I can sleep through that one. But the other one, no. But what happens is some of the models, they get sticky. Yeah. And that's what it was. Well,

SPEAKER_00:

that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. I mean, I could not believe that was the issue. Like, it is so minor. Why bother? Well, mine sounds like, shh, everybody shh.

SPEAKER_00:

You hear that little...

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you got a lot of something going on there.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01:

But it's just... I've never had a problem with PlayStation controller. Nah, fuck that shit.

SPEAKER_00:

All right.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyways, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So Matt says, fuck Xbox.

SPEAKER_01:

Well... Sometimes.

SPEAKER_00:

Every once in a while, he fucks her. Yeah, I'll enjoy going to bed with her, but I don't want to marry her. He's like that. He's like that fucking... Laziel. What's her name? Laziel? Laziel. Hey, by the way, fun fact. Her last name is Wilde. Did you know that? The actress who plays her? Oh! She's from Denmark, I believe. And her last name is Wilde. Or Wilde. But anyway, my last name is Wilde. It's fun. So you... We're related. Maybe. It's a good thing you didn't... I fucked her, but I only fucked her because it was fun. I don't know. Game of Thrones. Fuck you. Definitely moving

SPEAKER_01:

on on that note. All right. It is time for some news. All right. Here we get news. And we decided we're definitely for this one going to stick to recent events. Right. So probably... The most burning thing would be the implosion, supposedly, of Ubisoft. What? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't even know about this. Tell me about

SPEAKER_01:

it. Oh, well, as you know, they did not have a good year last year.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Makes sense. Yeah. They've had some not great releases. The Star Wars game was... Not super well-received. You're looking at me like, do you even remember that it came out? Star Wars game. Outlaws.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, really? That came out? That's

SPEAKER_01:

all shitty. Wow, yeah. That's great. Yeah, so, I mean, they apparently revamped that a whole lot. I will probably eventually play it. It sounds interesting, but... They're doing the samurai story, right, still? Oh, yeah, that's what I was going to kind of get into.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, sorry.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that didn't perform well, even regardless of what you think about it, it just didn't make a lot of money. Then there was Skull and Bones, which was essentially Assassin's Creed Black 5. I'm sorry, Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Oof. It was the pirate game. All right. Which did, that was the game where they said this is the first quad A game ever. Remember that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, quad.

SPEAKER_01:

And it ended up being worse than the 10-year-old game that it's based off of.

SPEAKER_00:

Why do they say that? I don't

SPEAKER_01:

know. They say a lot of stuff. So they've been hurting. There's been a lot of stuff going on. I'm not going to get into all of it, but investors are worried. The board is worried. There's been rooms that are trying to sell off or going to get sold off. Really?

SPEAKER_00:

That

SPEAKER_01:

bad? So because of all this, they've delayed... Assassin's Creed Shadows. That's the one finally taking place in Japan. We're not

SPEAKER_00:

going to

SPEAKER_01:

get into that. Yeah, there's a whole lot of controversy over that. But the main thing is they delayed that game once to January and now delayed it again until March. So next month, depending on when you're listening to this podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that the one you were hoping it was released on your birthday? Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

yes it is. Because they usually release in November. So I was hoping to play it for a birthday weekend thing. Yeah. Now we're into March. Now we're into March. And a lot of people were saying, like, the company's kind of, like, riding on this, if this game's good or not. It's going to depend on, you know, how well Ubisoft does in the future. And just this past week, apparently some leaked copies got out. And Ubisoft's response was weird. Yeah. For one, they're like, for the general community, we hope you all will remain in the shadows. Don't let any spoiler contents. And this is where it gets interesting. Remember that we are still working hard to polish and fix this game. And things you see may not be representative of the final product. And I'm like, so your response is, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't judge us yet. We're still going to make it better. We're still going to make it better. I'm like, it's coming out in a What the fuck are you still doing? You're fucked. I am. But you know me, dude. I am a huge AC fan. Yeah. Like,

SPEAKER_00:

I... Glad to be known. I don't have any hate

SPEAKER_01:

towards them, but that doesn't sound good. I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous, but I will play it. I will fucking play that game. You will play it. No matter what. And you will probably give up halfway through. Three-fourths. Three-fourths. Oddly enough, the only Assassin's Creed game I've played and not finished was the last one, Valhalla, because it was so fucking long. I gave up. I went through 100 hours of it. I'm like, no. There

SPEAKER_00:

are too many, too many. Blinks and got to explore that. The OCD side of me. Oh, yeah. So

SPEAKER_01:

it's just too much. If you have to finish them all, you can't. So next, it's just kind of quick tidbit. Okay. Glenn Schofield. He is the creator and artistic director of the original Dead Spaces.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Remember, he went off... Yes, he went off and created his own kind of spiritual successor, the Callisto Protocol, which was got...

SPEAKER_00:

I never played it. Did you ever play it? I... Play it for a couple seconds. It was free. I think it was a free game. Was it? Yeah, I don't even remember.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it did not do well. It wasn't well-received. But what was well-received was the remaster, if you will, or the remake, really, of Dead Space 1.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Beautiful. You did play, though?

SPEAKER_00:

I played it during, like, scary months of, like, Halloween. Yeah. And absolutely amazing. I would have probably finished it if it didn't take longer than I should have. But I played through the first one. But,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, amazing. Yeah, I always remember that was one of my top games of all time, Dead Space 1. Yeah, and the remake is worth it. Yeah, and it did well. Yeah. Very popular. Yeah. Dead Space 2 did well. Dead Space 3 did not. That was the thing that always kind of... But we loved it. Yeah, I always say, like, me and you love that. Well, we're probably going to talk about that game, Hidden Gems. But we had a lot of fun. It was a fun game. For many reasons. But it didn't do very well commercially. EA axed a series. And then years later, Skip Ahead, they remade the first one. Did really well. To me, that shows interest. Yeah. Do it again. And it... seems to have stalled again well it turns out just recently Glenn Schofield went to EA and pitched them Dead Space 4 like after on top of the success of and they said no they said basically we're not this isn't the direction we're looking to go in right now

SPEAKER_00:

fucker

SPEAKER_01:

day They're not no good games. I don't know. It's probably the best series. EA has always been. I get it. I mean, even when those games did good, you know, they're not bringing like Battlefield money. They're not bringing in a billion dollars. And that's seemingly like. Yeah, but I know it hurts. That hurts. That hurts. When I first heard a story, I'm like, I thought it was like years ago. No, it was in the past. year he pitched it to them. They're like, nope, no thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

What a dickhead. We

SPEAKER_01:

don't need to know that. I'm sorry for all of you to tell you that the game you really wanted will never happen.

SPEAKER_00:

What are

SPEAKER_01:

we doing? Now we're going to switch to games we're looking forward to. Oh, boy. And technically one that's always just came out. Ender Magnolia, which is the sequel to Ender Lilies. I believe he has Ender Lilies Quietus of the Night. So if you don't know about this game. It's good. This game, it's a side-scrolling game. Fantastic. Action, platformer, RPG-ish, light elements. It is a game that I was following for years, and the first I entered a Lily's, because to me it looked like a cross between one of my favorite games of all time, Child of Light, and Assault and Sacrifice, which is essentially a side-scrolling Dark Souls. Yeah. It was a beautiful game, beautiful music, beautiful story. It was like a watercolor. It was like a watercolor painting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, right. And I was so

SPEAKER_01:

fucking terrible at it. I could not beat the third boss. I grinded the shit out of it. I almost got to max level grinding. Still could not beat that third boss. I couldn't. It's funny because I quit. Years later, I never played a Dark Souls game, really. Played Elden Ring.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you beat Elden Ring?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I didn't. Speaking of that. I never technically beat the last part. What? That's right. In my mind, I beat it. It's fine. Good enough.

SPEAKER_00:

What was the last thing you did in Elden Ring?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I went up against the Elden Beast.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, you went up to Elden Beast. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01:

got to the Elden Beast, but I got fought a couple times. Like, eh. Multi-stage boss battles. Yeah, multi-stage boss battles. No, I didn't do it. So after that, it gave me hope. I'm like, maybe I should go back to Ender Lilies. Yeah, you

SPEAKER_00:

did say

SPEAKER_01:

that, didn't you? Got my ass kicked. Could not. Could not. Could not get past it. Basically,

SPEAKER_00:

it could not get good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it could not get good. But I told Andy about it, thinking, hey, he has no interest in this game whatsoever. Yeah, you did tell me that. But it turns

SPEAKER_00:

out... It was one of my favorite games. Easily. One of the best games.

SPEAKER_01:

I hate it. And you beat it.

SPEAKER_00:

I loved it. Yeah, I beat it. Absolutely. It was a fantastic game. Anybody who's a gamer would love that game.

SPEAKER_01:

I so badly wanted to just... Anyways, so the long-awaited, not really long-awaited, because a lot of people don't even know about that game, but a sequel has come out. Is it today?

SPEAKER_00:

It

SPEAKER_01:

came out Tuesday. I got to buy this. Let's do this. It came out February... Wait, it is Tuesday. May was last Tuesday. I think it was last Tuesday. Oh, Jesus Christ. So, February 2015, 16th, 18th. 18th. 18th. February 18th. February. Probably. 2025. Again, this might come out in 30 years from now when they find the remains.

SPEAKER_00:

Of our dead bodies.

SPEAKER_01:

But I hear it's better in a lot of ways. And for one, I... Did hear it. It does have a, you can change the difficulty. That's what it makes me excited. One of those types. You know what though? I'm always for, the games should be accessible to all types of people. Even people that are just terrible at

SPEAKER_00:

video games apparently. I have no, I always go difficult. So it doesn't matter to me. Some games I'm just

SPEAKER_01:

bad at. Some games I'm just bad at. And that should be okay.

SPEAKER_00:

It is okay. We love you. It's all right to be bad at games. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But yeah, I'm excited. I'm going to buy it. I love the first

SPEAKER_01:

one. Yeah, I figured you would be. You'd be into it. So maybe we'll check back in on that game once we

SPEAKER_00:

both play it. Yeah, maybe next podcast we'll talk about... What is it called?

SPEAKER_01:

Endermagnolia. I'm playing it. It might have a subtitle underneath that, just like the other

SPEAKER_00:

one did. Ah, subtitles are fucking waste. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And the other thing I want to talk about is... Echo Patient Nova.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, here we go. Yes. Are we going to play it tonight?

SPEAKER_01:

That's the goal. It's

SPEAKER_00:

only 8 o'clock. Yeah, it's only 8 o'clock. We probably

SPEAKER_01:

should. We probably should start it. We just downloaded it. We literally bought it before we started recording this podcast. Hopefully. Hopefully it's fun. Hopefully it doesn't suck. Andy doesn't know this yet, but I'm actually going to record the gameplay tonight. I looked into that all

SPEAKER_00:

last night. We're getting high tech.

SPEAKER_01:

So we might post that alongside of this podcast so you guys can see how awesome we are at games or not in tandem to how awesome we are at recording podcasts.

SPEAKER_00:

We're pretty good at both. So fuck you.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know, man. You got anything else left for the crew tonight?

SPEAKER_00:

It's been fun. But it was something. It's been something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's a first. It's definitely a first. Hopefully of many. I mean, we'll keep recording. I don't know if anyone's going to listen. If you're listening,

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. All right. All right, folks. I've got a lot of

SPEAKER_01:

rice to make. Yeah, I'll see you next time, folks. In the meantime, hit Control-S or Alt-F5 or whatever it requires to just save this shit. And see you next time.