Get Played - We Play, You Play: Astro Bot

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Matt, Heather and Nick discuss the joyful mascot platformer Astro Bot! They talk about how the game celebrates the legacy of Playstation, how much joy is injected into the experience and more. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @getplayedpod. Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com. Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com. Check out our Anime watch-along podcast Get Anime'd and our complete Get Played, How Did This Get Played? and Premium DLC back catalogue only on patreon.com/getplayed. Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fmTree Rap beat prod. By KIING.DSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Oh wow! Oh my god, I think... Is that possible? I think that tree is rapping! He's like singing a song! Yeah! Alright!

Love this! Unfortunately, I do have to put a mall parking lot here. Got some bark and got some leaves? So go ahead and stay with me. All right! Love this! Unfortunately, I do have to put a mole parking lot here. So... Uh, all right. Uh, I don't know how long he's gonna keep rapping, so I guess I just gotta start this. And here we go! Let's go again! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 001 Alright, just gotta make another perpendicular cut and there we go! I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick.

I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick.

I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick.

I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sick. Well, that's his story, don't you know? I guess that tree just had to go. We rescue robot Kratos and sail through the galaxy on the back of a Dualsense as we play Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell,

along with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. That's me, fellow host Nick Weiger, along with my fellow host, Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premier video game podcast where this week we are talking about our We Play You Play for the month of September.

It's Astro Bot. I am Astro Bot. I am Astro Bot. I've had that shit stuck in my head for like fucking a month. Yeah. The music's really good. We should have pulled some music to play in this episode. I mean, we still can.

That's how we can do it. We can do it in post. We can talk about that tree song Fucking tree song. I'm a rapid tree God I love you and you help me. It's like that shit doesn't he has a part was like jump inside my mouth You make the I mean god damn it there's so much the fucking time in this game you can make You can get it you get an achievement for Blasting the tree in the face with water while he's singing and you don't hear any of the words. He's just like

Wait, that's an achievement. I didn't realize I got that achievement Like just organically Fucking I didn't we should talk about it when we get to it To talk about astrobot lot of Astro like this is oh does we play you play that we decided to do Because this game came out and I think just sort of exceeded everyone's expectations and we'll get into that. I am Astro Bot. I am Astro Bot. God bless Astro Bot. And God bless everyone who worked on this game. We're gonna talk about that in a little bit. And God bless the United States of America.

Thank you, Matt, finally. Let's get into it. Focus up with everything that's going on. Everything is so crazy. I'm sick of it You you came here for a video game podcast, but we're going hard politics this week. Yeah Yeah, these guys over on this side these other guys over on this side I was gonna say Nick the guys on the other side to are doing it too I'm here in the middle like well. What's going on with all this? Yeah, actually breaking news,

this is a centrist podcast. We're radical centrist here. I am Kamala. That's the thing, this is part of why I am Donald Trump. Breaking news, Astrobot endorses Kamala Harris. I am Kamala. I'm glad that this is a completely apolitical property

that you just get to just sort of immerse yourself in and have joy, like just experience joy for a little bit and forget about everything else that's going on. It's about fucking time. It's just about having a good time. I'm so happy that a game tried to make us happy for a change. Yeah, video game ass video game that's just pure fun.

I will say I was reading, there was a recent patch. There was a recent patch for Astrobot and I was reading there was a recent patch mm-hmm There's a recent patch for astrobot, and I was reading the the notes for what it was Astrobot has the woke mind virus. Oh boy. I mean we could also we could also talk about this Kotaku article Which is shit pisses me off Headline astrobots soulless devotion to the Sony brand is a real problem by Cole Kronman. To say a game like this has no soul is absolutely baffling to me. I haven't read the piece past the headline,

but I'll say what I think. No, I mean, that seems like a good, you know, a good like, hey, attention grabber headline. Maybe there's more to it, to that and the full piece. But I will say that I did not find this to be empty nostalgia fan service. There's a lot of soulless, you know, like patronizing nostalgia bait out there.

And this felt like it was absolutely not that. This felt like actually kind of like the pure version of it. But we'll get to that. We'll get to that. We got so much to talk about with astrobot we can't just be talking about astrobot before we get to the astrobot part yeah and we also we have all this news to talk about are we gonna talk about news we're not really a news podcast the the news oh the news generally no there was a car accident on the 405 yeah expect traffic on the 405

should we talk about what should we talk about what we should talk about is other On the 405 yeah expect traffic on the 405 Should we talk about what should we talk about what we should talk about is other video games were playing right now before you Astro bot the question I'll ask everyone is what are you playing? Okay This has to be addressed. This is, you're in bad shape. Resident Evil Virgin, that was awful. That was so bad. It was incomprehensible.

And also concerning. We were doing like four and a half minutes of bullshit up top, but then you come in here like that and add like a shit sized cherry on top of a bad sundae. I was trying to play the vibe. I was trying to play the vibe. You guys were like sitting around and I was like, oh, maybe I'll play it fast and loose. So I played it fast and loose.

You look sick. That felt, listening to that felt like watching surveillance video of Like an oil tanker driving into a 7-eleven. I was genuinely upset. Yeah I Am a little under the weather Shouldn't be here. No, I, I'm fine. I'm fine. You don't have La Plaga, do you? If you have La Plaga, stay away from me.

I don't have La Plaga. I don't have La Plaga. I will say, don't eat the fish in Echo Park Lake. I feel like this was a lesson you learned not have should not have had to relearn this is a lake in a public park that's not well maintained it's not particularly sanitary i think a lot of brightly colored ones are bad for you for some reason i would be like those are the ones i'm not eating first the bright ones i know i made it i made a like a salad bar but only fish and I made a salad bar, but only fish. And you go to the salad bar, like in a ponderosa,

and you have like five or six fish out, and you take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you make a nice plate for yourself. Yeah, kind of describing like a raw bar, like a bunch of sashimi that's left out. None of the fish in Echo Park Lake are good for you. They're all bad, bad for you. Some of them are under the weather,

and I try to play it off smooth and casual. Look, I like the idea of foraging. I like the idea of like, hey, we're gonna waste not want not if we can find something. Do you know it's legal to, you can get any fruit that overhangs on any fence in Los Angeles. I am aware of this, hey, we're gonna waste not want not if we can find something. Do you know it's legal to, you can get any fruit that overhangs on any fence in Los Angeles.

I am aware of that, yeah. And you can scavenge that and eat it. Yeah. It's like a real life video game. That's a good, that's a kind of a good, you know, the thing in terms of, again, just like not wasting, not creating excess trash, but like also just be careful out there.

I will say, having reached up and grabbed a fruit from a tree that was overhanging, every time I've done that, it's easily been the worst bite of fruit I've ever had. There's some low quality fruit that's just available. Yeah, the avocados that I've pulled from a tree in Los Angeles have bones in them. Are you sure that's just not like the pit? No, what? That's not, avocados have like a pit inside of them. That's not bone.

That's not their skeleton? No. No. I mean, I guess it's akin to it. I guess so, but I guess does the avocado, does the pit of the avocado, huh? That's not the bone. No. I would not call it the bone. No, I wouldn't.

I wouldn't call it the bone either. I mean, that means, But similar to a bone, you should not the bone. I would not call it the bone. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't call it the bone. I mean, that means... But similar to a bone, you should not eat it. You should eat around it. Yeah, there's a whole commercial about this guy, this crazy guy, this KFC guy. And he was freaking out so much. He ate all my cuttlebone.

He ate the bones from the chicken. He thought he ate the bones from the chicken. You do not want to do that. I mean, this was like 15 years ago, but yes, this was a commercial that... It doesn't matter when it was. It did happen. Not a recent campaign. I didn't see it. I didn't see it.

Yeah. Why would you have? But you know- Honestly, it might've aired before your game came out. That's not- No, that's not true. Okay. If it was 15 years ago, I was- Well, I'm guesstimating 15 years. I don't know when the I ate the bone spot- Not me, Google it. I ate the bones. Let's see.

when I ate the bone spots. Not me Googling it, I ate the bones. Let's see. Don't ask at the grocery store if they have boneless avocado because I'm now aware of why they were upset at me. Okay, 2013, I wasn't off by much, but it was a little bit more recent than I thought. Yeah, I still haven't seen that.

I'm looking forward to the notes app apology, Nick. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

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Okay, thank you so much Resident Evil 4 Merchant. Look, previous weeks I've been playing Astro Bot, right? Yep. I've been playing that. I had to stop a game that I've jumped back into. Oh fuck, oh I'm so excited I think. Star Wars Outlaws, baby. Yes!

That's what I'm doing tonight. Hell yeah Yeah, let me just tell you something about this game I mean let me hear it. I talked in the past. We've talked in the past. Yep about how the game is good Yeah, it's a good game and folks. I'm here to tell you I still really really like it. It's great I'm really enjoying it I've the thing about games like this and games of this like size and scope is that there's you can be pulled in a bunch of different directions Yeah, pretty immediately. Yeah, like I have in my journal in your journal it logs like your main quest and like all the other different types of side quests, but it like it jumps or it

sorts the types of side quests, you know it might be a syndicate quest or like an emergent quest that you can find like out in the world or whatever or some sort of Other like type of side quest it puts them all together I feel like I have like 13 of those just like in my journal and I'm overwhelmed by that by the amount of things I really had to do and I Haven't left the first planet.

Yeah. I'm on the first planet still. I just met- How many hours have you spent on the first planet? I mean, I could look in my PlayStation app right now. I think that that's the pleasure of a Ubisoft game. I know that people complain about it, but I love just you drop in, you do like a little bit, a little quest, a little side quest,

and then you pop back out of the game and, oh, read a book. This is actually pretty bad. I've played this game for 22 hours. Holy shit! That feels like you should, I have not played this game, that feels like you should have left the first planet. I really feels like I should as well,

but there's just so much going on. And you know, some of the sequences, I will say, and maybe we talk about this in a future episode, there's some stealth sequences that are instant fail. Yes. I never loved that. Yeah, yeah, not a fan of that. Where if you get seen into like something, you have to really figure out and like finesse how you're gonna get through a certain area

It's not but that's that's the sort that's like an annoyance, but not like a deal-breaker for you. Absolutely correct Yeah, it does have a funny thing though that appears on screen right Matt Yeah, it just like it's what I can't remember what the language of it is, but I think it says like caught yeah In like big letters it takes up not just some of the screen not like the grant of thought a wasted It's the whole screen yeah, come on. You're immediately you're like I fucked up so bad and your ass is like all right all right You're an outlaw. That's the worst case scenario. Yeah, you do not want to be caught I just wish there was here's what I. I wish that in a stealth base, cause you know I hate stealth.

I wish that there was a nearly impossible threshold that you could cross if you did get seen that you had the opportunity to just try and blast your way out of that room and reset conflict or that you could, against all odds, try and take on the entire base. Yeah, that would be really, really cool and just like an interesting,

then that could also add to your, like how these syndicates think of you, these different crime bosses that you're either working for or against or double crossing. I have been allegiance to the Crimson Dawn at this point. Yeah, the best outfits. Yeah, the best outfits. But I've also, I recently just double crossed them

in a move that I'm not sure how it will play out yet. But something that I've also, I just met this cool new character that's like a story character, that is like a, he's like a droid. Oh, I just met this cool new character that's like a story character that is like a, he's like a droid. Oh, I haven't gotten there. I have not put in 22 hours in this game yet. Well, I'm about to leave the first planet.

Okay. And there's this droid character who's on the cover of the game. Oh, okay. And I was excited to meet him because he looks fucking awesome. A droid with a, a droid with a fucking holster for a gun nice

He could presumably could shoot out of his out of his self if you wanted to yeah This guy's got a gun is a gun he could be a gun, but he has a holder for a gun I love it. I love it really really cool I'm really enjoying it still I think You know we've talked about this already and I think that this is like people have come to this conclusion. Rushing through this game is probably a nightmare, but experiencing it is a completely just different, like, I don't know. Taking your time and inhabiting the world. Yeah, it adds so much to the flavor flavor of the game because I could maybe see like trying to play the main story and being like

All right, whatever Yes, really yeah, but driving around on your speeder and then encountering stormtroopers trying to Take back stolen goods And then you get to side with the people who are trying to get the goods and then get the goods for yourself or whatever, rocks.

It's fantastic, I really, really love it. Well, back to what you were saying about the way that encounters, there's a fail state on these stealth encounters. Yeah. What I liked about Valhalla, the Viking Assassin's Creed game, was that it encouraged stealth.

But because you were a Viking, if you fucked up, you could just try and take on an entire fort by yourself. Yeah, Ghost of Tsushima, similar approach. And I like that, I like when you can like, maybe sneak up on like five guys. But then once you've snuck up on these five guys and downed them, if you set off an alarm that you have like, I like trying to create the possibility of success.

Because often even in Ghost of Tsushima, there were a couple times where I'd try and take on an entire fort and I'd die, but it was so much fun. Yeah, I guess the difference there is somebody like Jin in Ghost of Tsushima or the character from Assassin's Creed Valhalla, they are sort of like super powerful,

like they are strong characters and they have a skillset where fighting is their main thing, but Kay Vest is just like a lady. Like they're both human beings of course, but she's just like a, I kind of just steal stuff. But I feel like Han Solo's also a human. Yeah. I think that, look, this is where it comes down to,

like, is this a, how much of the player characters experience is the player's experience? How much do I get to just play the game the way I want it versus the way that on this track, the developers have set up for me? I suspect, just from what I've heard about Star Wars Outlaws, I've not played at all, but from what I heard about just how over scoped this game has got, a game became, I kind of feel like that that was a compromise

they decided internally. Like they would have liked to have had a look at the middle, your solid games have this, the Last of Us games have this, all sorts of games that are stealth-based that have big action set pieces. These things coexist and you can fail your stealth but continue even against impossible odds to just face off against everybody. My guess is, based off of no actual knowledge,

that they wanted to have something more fully realized like that but then it was just outside of their limitations. You know, I feel like games in AAA game development have become so bug adverse. And I feel like there was a time when, if you were entering in a combat zone and enemies were getting stuck on corners and shit, that it was okay.

And now that has become so unacceptable, so unpalatable that a player can't, like, I wonder if this fail state in the stealth sequences was because they couldn't dedicate all the resources to having all of these storm troopers have independent AI or whatever the fuck it was, right? And that it might be that the player runs into an area and like the storm troopers are just kind of running around back and forth and like don't know what they're doing.

But I think that storm troopers, that's forgivable because they're dumb idiots in the world. They can't ever even shoot anybody good. It can also, but I mean, like, again, they should not comment too extensively on this because they have not played it. But I Yeah, it can also, but I mean, like, again, I know they should not comment too extensively on this because they have not played it, but I, like, it also could be a thing of, based on how the missions are designed, that perhaps you can sequence break if you just, like, you know, if you go out of stealth and you're able to do things outside of the way things

are ordered quest-wise or you can, like, you might get into some place that you're not supposed to get into. Like, there's all sorts of Possibilities for a way that ways things could complicate If they have a pretty narrow design in terms of yeah scenario is supposed to play out So I think there are there are reasons they could have landed on this besides like, you know They're worried about things because also this is not like a bug free game from everything. I've heard right? No, it's crashed four times Since I've heard, right? This is fairly funny. No, it's crashed four times since I've been playing it.

And in, I will say, very frustrating scenarios, too, where I've had to start a mission completely over and stuff like that. Rough. But all that to say is I love Star Wars and I love this, and that's what I'm playing. That feels like, it does feel like your experience, a lot of that comes from,

and I think this is the thing you talked about before, just like having like a Star Wars fandom and wanting to live in the Star Wars world. It feels like that seems to be working on that level for some people. Heather, what do you plan? Well, I don't know where the strike is, but I wanna talk about an experience I had in Fortnum.

I mean, one thing I can mention is, just got a notification before we started recording that they are striking League of Legends specifically because the production company behind League of Legends, behind the voiceover attempted to circumvent, you can read some of this copy here. The decision to strike League of Legends comes on the heels of the union filing an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against Formosa Interactive, signatory for League of Legends. The complaint comes after Formosa tried to cancel one of its struck video games shortly

after the start of SAG-AFTRA's video game strike. They secretly transferred the game to a shell company and set out casting notices for non-union talent only." So it's just a really shitty way to try to circumvent the strike by saying, like, oh, this is actually, this game doesn't exist anymore. Actually, the shell company is producing a different project that we're gonna cast non-union actors for. But that's the one consequential update I've seen.

Oh, well, I didn't... I guess then I won't talk about Fortnite still in solidarity with the strike. But when the strike ends, I did have a funny thing happen to me in Fortnite. Um... I, uh, I've been inching forward on Chrono Trigger. Wow, I love this.

I had- Are we play you play for last month? Yeah, yeah. I brought my analog pocket with me to a set of appointments where I had a lot of downtime in between those appointments and I couldn't travel all the way back across town, so I had that sort of ghost few hours, and sat in my car and played a little bit more Chrono Trigger,

and that was extremely satisfying, very beautiful game. I'm happy to be continuing forward, and maybe this time I will beat it. I have been hungry to play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance again. Heather. It could happen. Why not?

I, I'm sort of like your friend that's like, don't go back to that bad partner. Like, don't do that. Like that's insane. I kind of want you to just put that to bed. It just never gonna happen. And I'm your friend who's saying, go for it, girl. You're being such a Miranda.

I can't be an 80 year old lady someday and look back on my life and be like, I never beat Tactics Advance. But anyway, the problem is it's sitting in the back of my analog pocket. Chrono Trigger is in the emulator, but the game that snapped in is Tactics Advanced. It's right there.

So it does call to me, like a siren on the rocks. You're gonna take that son of a bitch out of there, right? Nope. Okay. No, you can't take it out. I'm not allowed to put another game in until I finish it. That's what I've decided. Wow.

But that also means I'm just gonna bootload everything. Yeah, like my way around this is that I'll just add everything to the SD card in there, yeah. So it's a minor update. I'm just pushing forward a little bit on Chrono Trigger. Nick, what are you playing? I got maybe a more, less than minor update. Some would say a major update. Okay.

Oh boy, I said that really bad. Hey, Ranch, can I take that again? Hey, I can do better than a minor update because I have a major update. Okay. Oh boy. I said that really bad. Hey ranch gonna take that again Hey, I can do better than a minor update cuz I have a major update. Yeah, let's use that one ranch The second one I think was better. So you think the second one was better It was still I'll say a confusing I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. of the urge to do something very consequential I just did in my gameplay experience.

I will say the sword lance, a weapon, it was doing a lot of work for me. It does piercing damage. Did you mess around with that sword lance? Oh, is that the, what? It's like your fucking poker, it pokes the shit out of you. Oh, fuck yeah, dog. Hell yeah, that's good shit.

Yeah, it's great. So yeah, I put frost on that for a bit, and then I put bleed on that later. It's, you know, I'm playing a strength strength build so I like having like a big old two handed thing to wield but it was nice because a lot of enemies, especially as the game progresses, have vulnerabilities to piercing. Specifically Bale the Dread, which is the huge dragon that you fight and I thought this was such a fun fight.

It was super satisfying to beat There's a there's a dragon that you actually fight before this is an appetizer where? Because you're like in this whole fucking dragon biome. You're just going through there just dragons everywhere Yeah, there's a lot of dragon. There's so many dragons, but you fight this one dragon He's like the precursor, but he's like boss hard And but he's just like the mini boss that sets you up for bail the dread He's like boss hard and but he's just like the mini boss that sets you up for bail the dread That guy was like and I'm so dumb

That it took me like multiple losses to figure out because you're there's like a pool of water and he's deals electricity Damage that if you stand in the pool of water you take a lot more electricity damage because it's like Just the electricity is pulsing through the water the body of water and I'm like, oh, this area of effect is really big on this attack. Like once I started standing outside of the puddle, I suddenly was much more successful. But that was fun. The Bail the Dragon is actually good. He has a stump leg and he's also vulnerable to piercing, but his stump leg, like he's just like so massive.

He's like the biggest, oldest dragon and he's built up so much and then the fight kind of lives up to it. But I do like that if you target his legs specifically, like his little stump, you can do more damage to him. So Egon, spelled I-gon, I-G-O-N, but he says his name is Egon, the NPC, is the guy who is telling you about Baal the whole time. And he took me a little while to discover, actually took a circuitous route and I found him later in progression than I think most people do once I found him. I loved him

He's my guy and his battle specific dialogue for the bail fight is so good I transcribed some of it, but like, you know, naturally sorry starts off with a curse you bail But it heightens to a point and he's yelling all this He's yelling all this top intensity as you're running around, like dodging all these huge attacks from this gigantic dragon in this contained arena. He's just yelling, "'Solid of scale you might be, foul dragon, "'but I will riddle with holes your rotten hide

"'with a hail of harpoons, "'with every last drop of my being.'" Just like fucking screaming. And just like, whoa dude, I'm just a fucking dragon. It's so rad, it's so intense. And then, you know, if Kooten naturally beat the dragon and then he dies and it's all, but he dies with closure. It's great.

Matt, you told me to seek out Metter Mother of Fingers material, which has a really cool quest design. Because you're sent all over the place. You have these maps, these really cryptic maps that send you to different areas where you're like, oh shit, there's this whole huge fingers area that I didn't find previously. And you go through these really disturbing,

unsettling environments. And then it's one of those things, and I go through these really like, just disturbing, unsettling environments, and then it's one of those things, and I love this trope, it leads you right back to where you started. And like the final map is like exactly where you are, and just right below the starting point is where you go down and you fight this nasty looking motherfucker.

This is one of the ugliest souls bosses I've ever seen. Just a fucking true freak all fingers. I was gonna say oops all thumbs It's worse than that. It is all thumbs It's it's really nasty Abomination really like seems some sort of a gaping womb to that opens up this big orifice with the but it's like fucking Disgusting it's awful, and you get to kill it with fire because it's vulnerable to fire which is very fitting Yeah, it was a really that quest is really really great really sad that fight is super super fun that fight is fun I didn't love that a couple of complaints. I do you know it overall it absolutely adored this experience

But the abyssal woods I don't know if you went to that section Matt Yeah, this is like this you have some we're talking about for stealth earlier This is some for stealth 101 with effectively auto fails because these enemies will just like kill you if you catch them. And I just found this section like a little bit bland. I wasn't as into that. And then the final boss fight is just kind of an annoying fight. And you know, I'm reminded of the cliche, it's easy to make a hard AI, it's hard to

make a fun AI. This is one of those ones where like, I don the cliche, it's easy to make a hard AI, it's hard to make a fun AI. This is one of those ones where like I don't mind that it's hard. I'm even okay with it being unfair. In fact, a lot of really fun boss fights are unfair. You're up against the odds. You have to overcome a cheater. But he has just such an unrelenting string of attacks and you don't have any windows to punish.

You know what I mean and and so it's just like he'll go on He'll have like a five or six hit combo and then you can maybe get one Light attack in and all of a sudden he'd like basically effectively teleports the other side of the map and is lobbing projectiles at you and it's just like oh man, I wish I had a little bit I just Just wish there was a little bit more of give-and-take here You know what? I mean, it almost felt like they just heightened to this point where it stops even being all that satisfying to play. I did end up killing him again.

You know, the sword lance did a lot of work there. I did have to use my mimic tear for this fight. But all that said, first off, FromSoft needs to give you a longer window with God killed on screen, because I didn't have time for a screenshot. It is, it disappears so fast. I killed a god, let me take a fucking pic.

Send it to my group chat. It should be, it should stay there until you like press like X or something. Yeah, because whatever your reward is, is just up on screen and that's fixed until a button press. So it should be the same sort of thing with God killed. Did you, did Nick, before we move past the Radon fight, Yeah.

Did you watch, did I, before we move past the Radon fight, did you watch, did I share the clip with you or just with Matt of the person who figured out how to kill Radon with poison? I don't think you said that to me. So there is a technique that somebody discovered where you enter the arena as disguised as like a pot because you can like cast a spell on yourself

to disguise yourself as a pot. You can sneak all the way around to the back of the arena, hit Radon with like a poison arrow and just wait as a pot. And he'll like walk around dying of poison, not able to find you, which is awesome. Because it's like, they could have made it that he just immediately can see through that disguise but instead

Like all of the idiots in the in the in the realm of Elden Ring in the lands between He is unable to tell that there is a strange pot in his arena And he is dying of poison and I love watching that clip was so Charming to me. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's fun that those sort of like, you know, the cheesier strats are still allowed and that's one way to solve it.

Yeah, I will say that just kind of battling more or less straight up was not the most satisfying. And then you have this. He gives you fewer runes than Meta, which is insane, the mother fingers. And then the ending is so slight. It's like four sentences of VO. And it's one of those things, if you think of the overall experience of that final area, and there's some stuff that happens with the NPCs, there's a huge like, you know, a thing,

kind of showdown slash, there's some closure on some NPC quest lines, accidentally killed one of them, but one of them saw their way through all the way to the end game, and they were part of the final fight, which was really fun. Like all that stuff is satisfying, if you think of that all as part of the ending, but the actual ending cinematic as a reward

for beating one of the toughest of all Souls bosses by all accounts is so, it's just laughable. It's like really funny. And it's just kind of like,'s like really fun. It's over Yeah, and then I watch I looked it up on YouTube because it's like is that really it and then I looked at the comments And like someone was like I came here to make sure that was the actual ending exact same thing I did all told

Main game plus DLC is one of my favorite games ever. I'm so glad I played through all of it I'm so glad played through the DLC my feeling is I want to replay it immediately I probably won't I mean I but I want to I mean maybe I could replay this I could Kind of still want to replay Baldur's Gate 3 with a new patch 7 I thought about going back to Demon's Souls remake which I got a PS 5 launch never really dug into I don't know what to do with myself, but I'm so glad I had this experience. And I will say, the same discussion I had with friends of the pod, like Jordan Morris,

we talked about the end game and had the same sort of thing of just like, as much as you complain about it, it is such a minor negative for an overall just like spectacular unparalleled experience. You know what I mean? I think that the saturation point was hit by FromSoft games, and I feel like Souls games are now so in the zeitgeist.

Like there was like a slow build, you know, from Demon's Souls through Dark Souls, through Bloodborne, through Sekiro, like, all of these games are pushing forward until Elden Ring finally pops for everyone. I think the hype cycle on their next Souls game is going to be among the most intense hype cycles

of all time. I think everybody who has a game system is going to be day one on whatever the fucking next Elden Ring is. Yeah, I mean, cause to your point, I mean like look that among enthusiasts, Dark Souls games obviously very well regarded, Dark Souls Dark Souls 3 these were games weren't a game of the year Sakura I believe one game of the year from some publications

But they did not have the mainstream sort of success of Elden Ring Elden Ring is the is the breakthrough So yeah, what whatever come is coming next is be GTA level hype. And I love it. It's great. I love that a fucking weirdo like Hideaki Miyazaki is able to make his vision and then have it reach a critical mass where everyone loves it. That's so great. RISA GOLUBOFF Demon's Souls was one of the final games I reviewed as a games journalist for the PS3.

And I was like, this is fucking amazing, guys. It felt like I was shouting into an auditorium where everybody was facing in the other direction. And there were like a couple of people like Jordan Morris who turned around and were like, oh, really, it's a good game? Okay, I'll try it.

But generally speaking, it felt like there was an intense and very small fandom for that original game. And it is so gratifying to see that, like, when you're on Twitter, when Elden Ring came out, and everybody is talking about Elden Ring, it was just so fucking awesome. Yeah, it was great. And I love it.

And it's deserved. It's an awesome game. It's not just type for hype's sake. It's really an incredible experience. It's just, it's, talking about games is art, but this is like, it feels like a work of art. It's just an incredible, incredible bit of craftsmanship. My dream is that before the next Elden Ring game comes out,

that Elon Musk is forced to sell Twitter slash X at an enormous loss. It is taken over by a different, and probably equally problematic CEO, but just a little bit less public about it. People start coming back to the platform, and then there is a centralized space for everybody to talk about how excited they are for that FromSoft game.

Don't people come back to Twitter? Yeah. It's your dream? Yeah, what's wrong with that? This was a sewer. Fuck you! I'm glad I'm off Twitter. I loved Twitter. I do miss it But I also

Mmm. I was gonna say I feel less bad than I used to and that's not true Man Twitter was the best at the height Twitter was the best is the best I loved. I loved seeing a banger tweet from Nick Weiger pop up on my feed. God bless you. Those were the days. Sorely missed, sir. Sorely missed. My message for Twitter is rest in peace, idiot.

Sorry, I said rest in peace, I meant rest in piss. Idiot's really good. I called somebody a moron today. It's fun. Moron is such a good word that I feel like has fallen out of the insult zeitgeist, but I think it's because it sounds very mean. Moron sounds meaner than idiot, I think.

Yeah, I think they'll bring back the old insults. Yeah. Or some of them. No. Not all of them of course. Moron. Rube. Rube's fun.

Rube is fun. I like cockroach. Cockroach is good. You fucking cockroach. Cause it's like you're kind of nasty. Yeah, nasty. I also, I personally in my life call people a corn cob. Yeah, I like the corn cob.

Like I'll be like that person is such a fucking corn cob. That's really, really good. That's kind of a Twitter thing as well. Corn cob? Yeah, corn cob, yeah. It's a drill tweet. Oh, that's, yes. You are right, it is a drill tweet,

but this was something that my high school, I've talked about this on the show, haven't I? My high school history teacher. Your high school no longer exists. Your high school no longer exists. My high school no longer exists, fuck my, it's gone. But my high school history teacher used to replace swear words with cob or corn cob. So he could still swear in class

and be like, what the cob? But it was very addictive and became like part of my vocabulary is called people corn cob this cob was slobbing on my corn cob my god I do you know my wife's father is English and he calls people knobs all the time I like it's pretty good but it's like kind of gross Anything like an ob sound sounds like you're describing somebody who's dumb Oh my mom called somebody a slob the other day, and I laughed forever. It's not really good It's so funny slob knob corn cob. Yeah all works. Oh, yeah Yeah, you gobb fuck man

Let's talk about astro bot. It's our WePlay, YouPlay for this new Sony platformer. I may have already said it. My two word review of this game is pure joy. It's just so fun. Do I say this now? Say it. This is, by my measure, as somebody who loves this type of shit, cute mascot platformers,

I think this is one of the best of these of all time, and is possibly one of the greatest video games I've ever played in my life. Wow, I love that for you. I think it is, and I've been thinking about this for a bit this last month, I think it's the best've been thinking about this for a bit this this last month Yeah, I think it's the best non Mario platform. Yeah, I think that's where well I would I would get another contends, you know

Condition to that which is I think it's the best non Mario 3d platform. Yes, I think 2d platformers There's a lot of great indie ones. There's yeah, there's a lot of there's great platformers, yeah, there's there's a lot but but I think I was thinking yeah, there's a lot of, there's great Sega platformers. Yeah. There's a lot, but I think I was thinking through it as like, what is the list? Where does this rank? How many Marios are better than it? You know, it might be a top five 3D platformer ever.

It's a really, really incredible, fully realized experience. Yeah. Like I would put, I know we all differ on Mario 64. Yeah, I put Mario 64 I would for sure I put a galaxy galaxy to Odyssey and 3d world in front of it and then Astro Bot Yeah, I think that's a completely fair ranking and it's not even like that's like that's like incredible company Yeah, those are five of the greatest plot Those are the five greatest platformers of all time and astrobots first game is

Easily number six. Yeah, I haven't messed around with Galaxy too much, and I had never played Galaxy 2 I think I probably like 64 less than the two of you although and I do like it 3d world is in my top 10 games great game period This yeah, I don't know I've only played through Odyssey once and I wasn't really compelled to do like the dark side of the moon stuff Like really I kind of but once I rolled credits on it. I was like I think I'm done. I'm done with this but with this I had a I rolled credits on it, I was like, I think I'm done with this. But with this, I became obsessed with it.

Team Asobi is the developer of Astro Bot. Team Asobi previously does a Japan-based studio, and they are about a 60-person development team, a 65, I see on one list. Previously in the Astro Bot series, they did AstroBot Rescue Mission, which is a PlayStation VR game, then Astro's Playroom, which is the pack-in for PlayStation 5, which everyone was like, oh, this is just a short little thing, but this is an absolute delight. And this is a proper, you know, mainline, main platform, astrobot game, just a straight up mascot platformer. And the director, Nicolas Doucet, or Doucet, is apparently, you know, like a French national

who lives in Japan and heads up this Japan-based studio that has a mix of Japanese and, you know, expat team members. It is a really, really cool and focused experience. Like, it's just like, it's the levels are all pretty linear. They are all kind of using the Goomba shoe approach to level design to go back to another Mario game, Super Mario Bros. 3, where there's like one gimmick that is kind of based around each level, and then it's explored to its limits and then dispensed.

Sometimes it's brought back for a boss fight or it's brought back for another level that's kind of like a second beat of that, but it is just very much like based around like, hey, here's one central mechanic that you're going to get and we're just going to play around with it in a bunch of different ways. It's also, as that Kotaku article hinted at,

it is steeped in nostalgia. Yes. But it is not, I would argue that it is not, like, slovenly, like, you know, like deifying these old properties. It is a game where you collect old PlayStation and Sony mascots and return them to a home planet. So you only need to collect a certain number of them

in order to finish the game. But the more that you like run into these guys, and it's a deep roster, like one of the bots that you like run into these guys and it's a deep roster. Like one of the bots that you rescue is Jumping Flash. Which was a PlayStation one platformer that barely anybody fucking played. And it was so pleasant to see Jumping Flash. Yeah, I was like, you see like Mr. Domino,

like there are some deep cuts, but then that was also a thing of just like, I did not realize how much I loved Spyro. Because when I when I got Spyro, I said a lot of Spyro like 40 year old man like fucking excited about a cartoon dragon. But yeah, so so you're like a little robot, you're collecting a bunch of you're rescuing a bunch of robot clones of yourself. And some of those are dressed up as as characters from other Sony properties or third-party properties that were second-party and third-party properties

that are most known for their association with Sony. Because in the story of this game, you are flying through the universe on a PlayStation 5 which crashes on a planet after being attacked by an alien. Yeah, just a classic alien, too. I just love a classic being attacked by an alien. Yeah, just a classic alien too. I just love a classic green multi-eyed alien. I do love that for how creative everything else is.

They're like, oh, fucking who cares? Get a fucking clip art alien. You can throw them in there. Like if you asked a kid to draw an alien, it's like, yeah, it kind of looks like this, I guess. The PlayStation crashes. It loses all its parts. The alien has taken these parts

and thrown them into different sort of galaxies. And as Astro Bot, you have to collect all of your friends who were traveling in the PlayStation with you, and you travel to these sort of nebulae, nebulae, on the back of your PlayStation controller, the PS5 controller, which transforms into a ship and brings you to these planets where you have your little adventures.

The original Astrobots playroom, not playroom. Yeah, it was called Astro's Playroom, I'm pretty sure. No, no, the one that was the pack-in. Oh, Astrobots, no, that was it. That was, right? Oh, it was Playroom? I don't remember. Well, Astrobot, this is the actually confuses about rescue mission was the Was the VR one yeah, I believe it was Astros playroom was the name Astros playroom

But Astro appears in in the thing that is just called I believe playroom Which is was like a ps4 like hub area type of thing. And then his first appearance in an actual game is Rescue Mission and yeah, and then Astro's Playroom. Was that the one where people were just filming themselves like jacking off? I think so. So Astro's Playroom.

Yeah, fucking, you didn't even around that. Astro's Playroom is there to sort of demonstrate the strengths of the DualSense controller. And this game also really, really, really showcases how incredible the controller is. And if anything condemns other games for not taking full advantage of what the controller can do. I will say as a, typically I play in headphones

when I play PlayStation games. So much sound and joy is coming out of the controller that I felt like I was missing a lot of pleasure when I would play in headphones and would have to take the headphones off because there's an interplay between the controller and your speakers where like when you're shuffling through debris, you'll hear Astrobots' feet in the debris

coming from the controller. But if you're wearing the headphones, that sound is cut off, and you don't get to experience that. Yeah. I think from a force feedback slash tactility sort of sense, it's like the best use of the DualSense and maybe the best kind of use of these sorts of,

you know, like that kind of user feedback that I've gotten it from a controller period. The things that I don't love are, and this goes back to the PlayStation 3, 6 axis, is like there's still this commitment to using motion control for certain things. I mean, like in terms of tilting the controller. And like there's some of that that's used for aiming like there's some of that that's used for aiming.

There's some of that that's used for, you know, like- Flying? Yeah, like flying or climbing. And I just like, I like, man, I wish I could toggle this off. Maybe you can, I just played the game as it was, but I was like, I wish you could toggle this off and map this onto analog sticks. And the same thing with, this thing Mario games too,

is like, I don't want wanna ever blow in my fucking microphone. Like don't make me blow to blow like a dandelion. Like I just don't wanna be dealing with this shit. These are- Interesting that that's where you draw the line. But I- These are minor quibbles. These are minor quibbles, but like that's the stuff

I don't like, but everything else about the controller I absolutely love. I would, but I feel like you're saying, I feel like you're saying it though, like as if that happens a ton of times in the game. You only blow on the controller four times. Yeah, it doesn't happen a ton, but I'm just saying, that to me is of a piece with the tilt control,

it feels like gimmickry, as opposed to the interactivity, again, that tactile feeling I get from everything else that's more thumb-based. I forgot that you even do that. It's a relatively-minded thing. But you can turn off the motion control thing, and as soon as I found that out, did it immediately. Yeah.

I don't like looking like I'm playing a video game in a movie, where people are like doing all that crazy stuff. It's also just really imprecise. Yeah, it doesn't feel good. But with the analog sticks, that's what it replaces it with. You just didn't have control over that part with your analog sticks and it's just better

and it just feels more natural, like to be doing that, I really loved it. So I'm gonna do shit, I should look at the menus. Go on. I loved the menus. But then if you turn off the motion controls, you also lose the sort of joyous feedback you get when controlling the robot arms that are motion controlled.

Well, okay, but that's like the mini games that you get when you get a part, right? And then you get to use the robot arms to assemble it. Yeah, that part's kind of fun. I don't mind that. I do like that. I did- If that was the only use of it,

then I'd have no complaints. Yeah, I turned it off about halfway through the game because there are some, some of the levels start, all the levels start where you're flying on the DualSense controller to land at the starting area of the level, but the game starts as you're flying if that makes sense and like there will be like

Collectible things that you need to get on your path like sometimes So I love that it will be like a puzzle piece before the level starts And I'll see it and I'll have to be like fuck. I gotta go back I missed it and then just controlling it with the to be like, oh fuck, I gotta go back, I missed it. And then just controlling it with the motion control just never felt that good to me, so I just had to turn it off if I was gonna get everything that I wanted in this game. Can I say a thing that I love about Astrobot

that's really personally important to me? So one of my favorite things to do in a video game is to try and get to places I'm clearly not supposed to be. And often like getting up on a ledge that I'm just like, is there anything up there? Like I've been trained since I was a child that if you can see it, you should be able to interact with it

and there might be something hidden there. There were times where I would do something where I was certain, certain that you were not supposed to be where I was. And when I would arrive at the thing, like being perched atop a tower where I have been like shimmying across like eight pixel deep ledges

to try and get on top of something to see what I can see up there, almost always a little coin would appear. And it was just a tiny reward to say, hey, there's nothing up here, but you did get here. And it's not bad. Like, congratulations, here's a single fucking coin. Yeah, it seems to reward that.

And it's also like the way that it's structured is, you know, you have a certain number of bots that are that you can rescue throughout and then three puzzle pieces and then some of them have hidden galaxies and a lot of those a lot of these some of the bots themselves but but you know the puzzle pieces in the galaxies in particular like require like some digging because you have to go off of the main path to find where everything is and I feel all that that is really handled. Sometimes it's like, oftentimes it's based around whatever the gimmick of the level is,

or there's just like a fork in the road. And you're just like, oh, if I go this way instead, there's a whole other area. There's also, in some of the levels where you are, say climbing up the interior of a pyramid or something, and you have the visible level accessible to you from no matter how high up in the level you get, if you choose to jump all the way back to the beginning of the level,

like fall and land on something like, if you're like, fuck, I didn't find this fucking puzzle piece or whatever, one, it doesn't kill you, which is extremely rewarding. Yeah, I don't think there's any fall damage. And two, often, if you choose to backtrack that much, the game rewards you by creating birds with ropes on them that will fly you back to any other part of the level

you've already accessed. That's such a nice quality of life system. It is, the other thing that I really love about Astrobot is the music doesn't stop if you die. Right, no, it just kind of keeps going. So you don't get, you get this sense of like propulsive continuity of like, fuck, I failed that jump, but it's not like you have to wait this like,

like emotionally silent beat to start the moment again. You hear the music keep going, you see Astrobots face on the screen and then you're back in that encounter and that's great. And there's effectively no load times and all this into these quick restarts and like there's a number of precision platformers that do this sort of thing,

that kind of just like have the rhythm of the music going and that they have these quick restarts, these quick resets, and you're expected to die a bunch. I don't know, this is not a particularly hard game, but it is a one-hit death game. To not die in this game is a no-hit run. Like if you take any sort of damage or mistime a jump or whatever, it's just insta-death. There's a few boss fights where you get a little bit of leeway with it,

you get a couple of extra health points, but for the most part, it's one hit, you're dead, you have to restart from the checkpoint, which are very, very generous as well, but it all seems to be based off of just like, not punishing the player, but just letting you just get back into the flow of things as quickly as possible, and yet keeping that energy going the game. Yeah, like you said is

It's easy game like it's it a lot of it is easy But it's not without challenge either like there's like some levels that are Special that are outside of the main worlds that are that you can find that are like not just like the special secret levels or whatever but like There are planets that are themed, each area has like a, it's themed like one of the face buttons. Yeah, you'll find like a square triangle series of levels and those will have their own specific challenges

and those will be like, you know, it's whatever, wonder head levels like this, just like super hard optional levels that you can do and they're like kind of gauntlets. I found those very, very fun. I love those challenging ones. I love that they're off the main path. I think that's the way platformers have figured out

how to make these family-friendly games have some stuff for mom or dad or childless adults. And I liked that that content exists. I was also gonna say that along those lines, there's the retro-rampage levels, which are just like sort of like fight sequences, but those are really interesting because it's like a retro aesthetic.

These are also like hidden levels, but it's like an invented retro aesthetic. It doesn't actually look like PlayStation 1 games. It looks more like a Minecraft or something. It's more like a Voxel treatment. I think it's a reference. I think it is a reference to Dot Heroes, which was a PlayStation 3 game.

Oh, interesting. At least that's what I read it as. While you guys are looking up 3D Dot Heroes. Heather is spot on with this, I believe. Yeah, I think that's what it's a reference to, is a different PlayStation game. While you guys are talking about that. Yeah, this looks like, again,

it kind of has a Minecraft look to it. This could very well be the reference. I loved the sound of breaking those little bricks. Yeah. I loved it. It's good sound design. I wanna know what was the most frustrating part of the game for you guys.

I have a complaint, which is that there's something about the falsified telephoto lens that is your natural camera that makes depth a little misleading for me in this game. Like I've never fallen short of jumps in Mario games because I always know where Mario is going to land, if that makes sense, because the camera has been so consistently at a specific focal depth or like,

you know how like if you take a photo with a telephoto lens, the background is crushed all the way up against the back of the subject? I do know that, yeah. And then if you have like a wide angle lens, it's farther away. There's something about the balance of this fake camera of the subject. I do know that, yeah. And then if you have a wide angle lens, it's farther away. There's something about the balance of this fake camera

that made me short jump often. Yeah. And I would have to tilt the virtual camera all the way up so that I could then see the shadow underneath AstroBot so that I could time my jumps onto, and these weren't like platforms that were dangerous. These were just like platforms. I was shadow watching a lot, I will say.

I feel like that was just, and there were some jumps that I thought I'd made that I missed. Yeah, I don't know if I linked it specifically to, you know, the field of view or the focal depth of the lens or anything, but yeah, It could have been a factor like that. I guess if I don't have a I don't know if I have a complaint but some of the stuff that like some of the abilities that you get or like the the items that give you a certain ability for the level and I guess my complaint there is that I wish there was more of that like

throughout like There's plenty of it I guess but I guess some of the ones that I'm thinking of that I liked the best I didn't get to do that much like I like being tiny. I like yeah, I think that it was fine I don't I don't think there's a tiny because there's some like the stopwatch you get the stopwatch is slow time Which I think is one of the best mechanics. It's so fun. It's so awesome. Yeah, there's stuff That's that's moving super duper fast. There's a casino level There's a haunted house level that both explore these to its fullest extent.

So it'll be like, you know, they're throwing a shitload of knives at you and you have to slow time to be able to traverse these knives. Or like poker chips or cards are kind of being thrown, flung at an impossibly fast speed. But if you slow time, you can use those as platforms to jump over. And the aesthetic of that is that he pulls down

a PlayStation VR helmet. Yeah. And that's how he slows down time and then he pops it up when he wants time to go normal. It's really cool. It feels fantastic. It's super satisfying. You feel smart when you discover things

that the game is trying to get you to discover, which is like, you know, an incredible, the give and take instruction, you know, experience of game design, it's really satisfying when that works. The tiny level, I don't think you revisit, I think you just get it at the one level, right? Am I wrong?

You just get it at the one time, but I- Really fun. It's really good. I love shrinking down. It's funny shrinking down. I was like, how have I never seen this in a game before? And then there's like the chicken backpack, when we got that again, I was like,

I feel like it kind of already did, like that was one where I was like, hmm, I don't know if we need a redux of the chicken backpack when we got that again I was like I feel like it kind of already did that like that was one where I was like I don't know if we need to redux of the chicken back. Yeah that you get the chicken backpack a lot and you get the You don't get the hint. There was one that I didn't get The frog this no I got this one there was one at the end of like I mean I Don't really want to get it too far into ending stuff I'll say there they present you with one at some point that I was like when the fuck did this happen? I didn't even get this one. Oh, no, so I know you're talking about cuz so in the credit though It's playable credits. Yes, and the playable credits does have I assume these are things that were included at certain point got cut

And they just included them as Easter eggs within the credit sequence. That's that's that's what I'm guessing has happened There's a level where one of the ones where you do get it is it's in there. Okay. I was shocked. I was shocked. I can't wait. I can't wait.

It's really, really good. Yeah, I guess we could say that I, that you know, Heather and I both have about the same number of bots. I have like 210 bots out of the 300 possible. Matt, you platinum this game. I platinum this game. I finished the game.

I beat the final boss. I rolled credits, but I do not have all of the bots. So I'm gonna go back and gold flag some of the remaining levels. I have gold flagged everything up to where I am. So I'm, and I believe the second to last area, several planets in, with more than 200 bots now.

But I can't leave a level if the flag is blue, so I've gold flagged everything behind me. That's the thing I've had to get over with these games. And I'm just like, you know what, I'm just gonna progress and if I like it enough at the end of the experience, I'll go back and get all that stuff. Not that your approach is invalid,

I'm talking about how I play. I was doing that with, I've done that with Mario games because sometimes the secret stuff that they want you to find in a Mario game does feel impossible to me. Yeah, Mario games are different. The challenge threshold in a Mario game is so much higher than Astro Bot

that I would get discouraged if I was trying to 100% a level in Mario. Whereas this, I'm like, ah, it just must be a corner I didn't look around. These gotta be somewhere. It's usually that. It's like, oh, I missed it. Well, cause it's usually something you just didn't find.

And you also can like, if you listen really carefully, you can kind of hear the little bots like calling for help. And then, and then Astro Bot will also shout at them. Yeah, like it's pretty great. And there's also a thing that if you play through a level and this is optional, but if you play through a level and you revisit it, there will be a bird you can purchase at the start

who will kind of follow you like a familiar and will just sort of gently direct you like kind of call out slash pursue in the area that the direction of secrets that you've maybe missed so that's another thing you can Best around with but I would say I think is also well implemented I in in other games like in like a Mario game or something like that. We're like say for example In in Super Mario world or something They have those like Yoshi coins the other three Yoshi coins you get per level or whatever is that what that is like

Yeah, big the dragon coins. Yeah, Mario world. I think it's five of them per level So you you get to one and then you know it's like it fills in like the third space or whatever You're like what the fuck I missed two of these on the way here that sucks I hate that with this when I would find like the second puzzle piece. I wouldn't be upset or discouraged. I'd be like huh With this, when I would find the second puzzle piece, I wouldn't be upset or discouraged. I'd be like, huh, guess I missed one. And then I'd be like, oh no, I have to start this level again and then find it.

And it was just on a tree that I didn't hit or something. There was one level where I, because generally speaking, because the bots are not that hard to find, Yeah. You will get the bots sort of in order of progression through the level and they appear in your menu screen or in the like status screen is like, oh, first bot found, second bot found, third bot found.

There was a level where I missed a bot and I was like, how the fuck did I miss it? Where could it possibly be in this level? And I went all the way back and went back again and back again and I was like, I can't find this fucking bot that I missed. And I went forward just a little bit and I had just gone the wrong direction originally

and immediately found that other bot, like right, which was, you were just supposed to hop a certain way first and I had gone the opposite way. I did crash this game by going too fast through a level and it felt really satisfying to do it. You know who else crashed this game? Crash, he's in it.

He's in it. He's in dancing. Crash is in it. Yeah, in terms of the bots, it's like ones that you find, like I really like finding like, oh, but this level's all Castlevania characters. Yeah. And then the way that they have like a really cute, like the oh, but this level's all Castlevania characters. That's fun. And then the way that they have like a really cute, like the copy is very cute in terms of,

it doesn't say specifically like this is Alucard. It'll be like Dracula's son, you know, or something like that. And it'll have a little bit, little caption that talks about like, you know, hints at who they are pretty clearly. There's a Sam Porter bridges that you can find, which is great. And then there's a there's a Sam Porter bridges that you can find which is great and then there's a gotcha mechanic So the hub world where all your bots live after you rescue them and also where you open up the additional galaxies Through the various, you know, like like like using those bots to open up things Pikmin style turned into little swarms and then some platforming challenges

There's also like, you can customize things and there's a gotcha, which was present in Astro's playroom. But the gotcha mechanic here is great because it doesn't give you duplicates. There's some garbage that you will get, but it's not like a thing of like, oh, I'm getting another one of these.

But then you also will get little bits of things that will add to the tableau of the bots. So like, there's, you know, I got Sam Porter bridges and then I'm back there and he's in his little bridges costume. And then I got like just like a huge stack of boxes that he can carry around on his back. So it's like, that's really fun.

That's really good. I like that Pyramid Head is a bot. Yes, yeah. And his unlockable is his sword that he drags around. It's great. And so once you unlock it, there's just like, in a world of joy, still the most horrifying possible design is a little triangle headed bot

dragging his sword through the sand. I also like that all of the dark, like the evil themed bots are all congregated in the shadow of the PlayStation 5. I noticed that as well and I love that. That's fantastic. It's like that and then like the things that you were talking about with the birds

that are set up to ease navigation if you're backtracking in a level. That's just stuff that comes from focus and iteration and lots of play testing and attention to detail. And that's afforded it because it's like, this game is doing one thing extremely well. Like it's just focused and it's not trying to be every game to all people.

It's trying to be like just an awesome 3D platformer. It also comes at a time when there was a monumental Sony flop within the last, within the release window of Astro Bot. Like there is a, the budget was revealed to be $400 million for Concord. And it was pulled from shelves like two weeks after it was launched and killed. And then simultaneous to that,

you have this tiny focused experience with a charming mascot character from a smaller team and it's doing gangbusters. And I think that that might be something that the industry should like lean into a little bit more. It's like, I don't know, like- Like- I may fucking wish, but we'll see.

Well, platforming these sort of smaller projects, like video games used to have to be, like let fucking Grand Theft Auto come out once every 15 years and give us like games that are a little bit more focused. Yeah, I mean, like I love what you're saying. I totally agree with you. I'd love to get more A games, more double A games.

We don't need like everything has to be, you know, this this gigantic 60 to 100 hour experience with these amazing production values that are incredibly labor intensive to and expensive to make. I would love to have more games like this. I fear that what's happened with all media is that everything's become just like let's make the biggest most You know elaborate most you know a thing that has the biggest reach with the biggest budget and Everyone's trying to hit home runs and I don't know a game like this is just It'd be great if the if that the publishers created board games like this I'm just repeating what you're saying. The other thing I was gonna say is, so you're progressing through this. One thing I really like about this game structurally is that each of the galaxies has a boss level.

Each of the nebula has a boss level, but that's not the final level. That's the penultimate level that leads into a reward level that's just pure like fan service power fantasy. So talk about the first one. The first one is, which I was so delighted to discover because I played Ape Escape on PlayStation. I loved this. I loved the game Ape Escape and I was just, you know, it's a game that they tried to keep going for a little bit and it's kind of

a dormant franchise, but you just get to be, like you just get a specific piece of gear, like from that property, and in this case it's a net, and then you just get to go around, and you also get the like the little radar that you have from that game, and then you just get to go around catching monkeys, and that's how, those are the bots that you catch

for this level are all the monkeys. You also get, it's, there are a couple, there are a few levels that are basically like Astrobots version of the mechanics of that game. There's a God of War level. Well, that's what this level is, the Ape Escape is. Yeah, there's a God of War level where you get the axe

and you kind of get to be Kratos in a Ragnarok level. There is a Nathan Drake level where you get guns and you're firing all of these like whiffle balls at enemies and you get kind of a these like, wiffle balls at enemies, and you get kind of a little puzzle, a little adventure style gameplay. I guess we'll maybe say we're like a little bit into spoiler country, because part of the joy,

no, I think this is fine, the game's been out for long enough. We're a little bit into spoiler country just because part of the joy of this is like discovering it as you go through, and again, I'm just smiling when this is happening, when the Uncharted thing has, I was like, I can't believe we're doing this. And then the one that I was just like completely blindsided by and was not expecting is Loco Roco,

game I have not thought about since it came out. I haven't gotten a Loco Roco yet. You didn't, I don't feel spoiled by it. I'm excited that Loco Roco is there. It's really cool. It's a great implementation of it. It feels so good to play it I can't wait. I can't wait I like also it's nice that this game is I think

Reminding people of Sony's triumphs in the past because it has a degree it hasn't been a company that has always rewarded fandom and things like Parappa the Rapper coming back and- And Um Jommer Lammy, they're in the same level. And getting to like tip their hat in this game. I wonder if there's the possibility that that will encourage like either re-releases

of those older games, like remaster, like it would not, I don't think it would be hard to remaster Parappa the Rapper. Like just, you know, like just re-release that game. There is some. Well, yeah, is that out on anything? Can you get that on? I don't know if that's out, but like,

I mean, as of today, there was a, as of today's recording anyway, there was a state of play where they announced a Remaster of two legacy of Kane games, and then the original legacy of Kane is now on PlayStation Plus classic or whatever They just recently added mr. Mosquito to that service and mr. Mosquito was in after about also Yeah, so I do think that they are Looking at that and and looking at that type of stuff and maybe trying to bring it back

either through this streaming backwards compatibility or however they can get it on consoles. Nintendo. There was a Parappa the Rapper remaster that came out for PlayStation 4 that I think you can play on PlayStation 5. Oh, shit, okay. Well, then I'm not the fan that I thought I was.

No, I think it's one of those things where it's hard to track some of these, because there's so many of these games and sometimes they'll come out with a remaster that's almost like, does not get a little pump in circumstance, it just sort of like dropped. Maybe there is something to the way Nintendo does this,

because like the fact that you can't play Chrono Trigger on the Switch, maybe is a way to protect Chrono Trigger from being re-released and lost. Like that it would just be swallowed by all of these other games. I mean, I don't wanna give Nintendo that much credit. Yeah, I agree. But I feel like they're just trying to monetize

their back catalog as aggressively as possible. It's... Which I actually don't even know what rights they have to Chrono Trigger, exactly. We don't do bottom lines on this podcast, but I would like to say that the bottom line on this game is that it is fun, it is good, it is charming, and I don't understand why people

are mad about its existence. First off, I think we should start doing bottom lines. That was great, let's do doing bottom lines. That was great. Let's do some bottom lines. I wanted to do this. This game is good and that's the bottom line. See, that was good. Because Stone Cold said so.

It's not a good impression, but it's fun to say. Yeah, it's always fun to say that sort of thing. The other thing I was gonna say, how many people are mad about that? Is it just that one article? No, there's like a, not a sizable, but there is a vocal component on Twitter slash X that of people that I think are genuinely bummed out

by the game. Because of the fan service? Because of the fan service and also because of it being, like I've seen a lot of stop playing baby games. Well, that's a thing that always exists among people. There's a lot of the more edgelord sector of gaming fandom that just looks down upon it like E for Everyone games, generally.

I don't know if that's specific to this game. If this is a baby game, this is one of the best baby games ever. If it is. I say goo goo Gaga. Dipe me up. Yeah Yeah, I want my ba-ba Cuz I like no I I fully addressed Look what Jesus Christ? Call it a corn cob The the I Look, I like to play games.

I like to play games for grownups, but I like to play games for kids. And I dress like a toddler and sometimes I game like one. It's okay. Like it's an okay thing to do as an adult. Well, you're also, you're this, in the same weekend, you beat Shadow of the Erd Tree and Astrobot. That is true.

And I don't, I feel like people are gatekeeping themselves from experiences by being upset about the way, the aesthetic, they're all games, they're all video games. It's not like any of them are truly adult. You're still holding what is essentially like an electronic dildo in your hand to like control a cartoon on a fucking screen No, it's it's big-time dork shit

It's just like we should go back to it when we were kids and gamers were bullied like that's almost like where we need to Where we need to go to as a return to as a culture because like yeah You're doing the dumbest fucking lamest thing and it's so weird to be gatekeeping or or have any sort of like Machismo about it, but I was gonna say, I agree with you, the main thing you're saying, which is you're robbing yourself of this experience. It's like people who are like, I don't watch animation, I don't watch cartoons.

There are people like that. There are adults who only watch live action. And I'm like, but you're robbing yourself of so many rich, amazing experiences. There's so much stuff you could enjoy if you opened your mind a little bit. I can only imagine that that is an echo of somebody's parents who said, or bully at school

who said, oh, you're still watching this? You're a fucking baby. Right. Stop watching these fucking cartoons, whether that was a peer or a parent. It's a shame that people are damaged by the society we live in. I want to play the tree song on the podcast. Yeah, let's play it. Ranch is gonna play the tree song from this game

for people who haven't played this game. This is a level where you very early on, there's a giant seed, right? There's some sort of like a little sapling and then you get access to a water hose and then you just blast the shit out of it and it grows into a massive tree and then the tree has a face on it

and the tree starts singing. And you play, the level then becomes the inside of the tree. You jump into the tree and then you're playing the interior of the tree. That's how it expands. And then the song is going throughout and it is kind of commenting on the action as we go. Rachelle, I assume you've not heard this song.

I have not. Okay, so let us know your reactions after we play a little of this. I'm a pappa tree, you said my pappa tree I'm a frying greenery, I'm a pappa tree I'm the pappa tree, and I thank y'all for feeding me Now jump up into my mouth Jump up into my mouth There he is It's your bad mouth Oh oh oh Oh oh oh

Oh oh oh Yeah, extremely good I just like, the idea of like a tree rapping at you, jump into my mouth, and I'm playing this thing at home and I'm like, I'm having the time of my life. Yeah, there was not a second of this where I was not having fun at all. I was having so much fun. It was just so great. I was smiling the whole time, laughing, excited to see little versions of characters that I recognize and even the ones that I didn't recognize I was excited to see.

Yeah. There's just so much, like, just joy pumped into this thing. It's hard to imagine being cynical about it at all. Like I just like can't really fathom it if I'm being honest. Ranch, you had not heard that song before. You have any reactions? The song alone makes me want to play the game. The score, that song and the score in general

is by Kenneth CM Young, who was the, and Matt, I know you like the little big planet games. He's the composer for the little big planets as well But based in Scotland, I think speaking to sort of the international pedigree of this team so interesting you bring this up because playing this game astrobot Imagine people really look game where they were talking about Playing astrobot

made me remember my time playing sackackboy's Big Adventure, which is the little big planet platformer that was on PS5, that launched with PS5 I believe, or came out close to launch. And I remember singing that game's praises and being like, this game does this mascot platforming very well And it is you know he's sack boy, but interesting that astrobot comes and eats his fucking lunch Sack boy is big adventure is still an incredible game, and I think people should play it. It's it's fantastic I never finished it.

But it is, it's amazing. This game is, it's so good. The game, the thing that this game has over it that can't not be said about Sackboy is Astrobot doesn't play uptown funk, the actual song, for several levels. I wonder if Astrobot is going to be, is going to continue on to the PlayStation 6, because his aesthetic, the aesthetic of his world, is so tethered to the modern PlayStation aesthetic.

Like he looks like the PlayStation and the PSVR. It's true. And I mean, at some point that will also become nostalgic on its own. Like if he was gray skinned, like the original PlayStation, then you'd be like, oh, he looks like the original PlayStation. And if he had come out at that time,

you'd be like playing as him now, you'd have like that feeling of nostalgia tied to his very character design. I wonder, I really hope, I hope that this is the beginning of a long set of Astro Bot games. I feel like Astro Bot is going to become like the new central mascot.

Look, there's a bunch of mascots from past mascot platformers that are in this we mentioned Crash Bandicoot mentioned Spyro of Sly Cooper is in this one. I've seen Sly Cooper I got the platinum dressed as Sly Cooper you can get costumes in the in the gacha machine to Not every costume which would be really cool. I think you should get everybody I wish you could play as pyramid head you should be able to get everybody. I wish you could play as Pyramid Head. You should be able to walk around as Pyramid Head, but I did, as soon as I got the Sly Cooper costume,

I had no choice. My favorite, one of the things we haven't touched on is that once you get these little tableaus for the little bots, so you basically get their accessory. You get Sam Porterbridge's stack of boxes. You get a little library vignette for one of the Resident Evil guys. When you then go up to those bots and you tap them

or punch them or whatever it is that Astro's doing, you get a mini scene of what they do with their accessory. You see them use their power or whatever. When you tap Pyramid Head, he drops his giant knife and can't find it because he can't see. And then very carefully pulls up his triangle head so that he can peer out from underneath it

so that he can find his knife and then drag it around. That's adorable. Like, like that was the highlight of my To finish my thought from earlier, there's all these other mascots from past mascot platformers, I was expecting like a to see a tomba or a, you know, like a, a clinoa in there or something. But but you know, like, I think Astrobot has just become the face of, of PlayStation platforming, right?

Like that's just like, he's just like the new mascot for them. Can we talk about how insane it is that there's no Final Fantasy characters in this? That has to be a Square Enix decision. Yes, for sure, but it's also like, Cloud was representative of the PlayStation. It is wild to me that there isn't a Final Fantasy section of Astro Bot Island

Yeah, cuz cloud is in Smash Brothers Yeah, I wonder what the just maybe just a licensing issue there You will be happy to know that there is a clinoa and in in the game Did I not get clinoa and get clinoa fuck I gotta go back you sound like you need a hundred more bots There are there were some shocking ones there. There is no tomba as far as I remember I wish there would have been like There were some shocking ones. There is no Tomba as far as I remember. I wish there would have been like a... Is there a Tony Hawk? Did they miss a Tony Hawk?

There's like a skateboard character, but I think it's just like a generic like playstation character. Yeah, cause they have some generic sports characters in that. It would have been nice if there was a Tony Hawk. I also said out loud to my television, wow, when Aibo appeared, Aibo is the Sony dog that I've wanted my whole life.

It is a robot dog that can barely do anything. It came out in the 1990s and then was updated again in the 2000s. And both versions of the Aibo are in this game. And I was like, first off, as soon as Aibo is in the game, I was like, is there a chance I'm going to see, I wanna see a UMD disc, I wanna see like the actual disc, I wanna see a fucking mini disc player.

I'd like, suddenly it became a Sony game instead of just a PlayStation game. But unfortunately there was not, like it didn't go that far beyond Aibo. And it made me be like, and then I was like, did the Aibo interact with the PlayStation? No, the Aibo was just a fucking robot dog that they released.

Do you know that they're still selling them? Like Sony is selling them directly? Oh no, I know. And when I went to Tokyo, I went to the fucking shop and played with an eyeball because they have at the Sony headquarters shop in Tokyo they have an area where the eyeball are walking around and every time I see when I'm like this sucks I don't want this for real, but I really really really want it for yeah It's they cost almost three thousand dollars for real, but I really, really, really want it for fake. They cost almost $3,000. Yeah, they're so expensive.

It is also one of the few actual pieces of autonomous robotics that you can get for your house. Well, yeah, the main splash on the Ibo website it says powered by AI, which is horrific. There is a documentary, a short form documentary that I think was released by Vice of all places about how the first generation IBOs are running out of the ability to be fixed.

And that the fandom for them was so intense that when your Ibo starts to fail, like you source the parts from other people whose Ibo's have like maybe stopped working or you get like a second hand manufacturer to be able to get the gears so that the legs can work. But at some point your Ibo can't work anymore. And people were giving them funerals and burying them.

Wow. Because the Ibo fandom is so intense and that seems like my shit. It seems so much like my jam. That's like a scene in Pluto. Like there's like the robot dog you can't fix. It's like, oh, I'm gonna get this thing at grave. It's very grim.

Going back to what you're saying, let's say that PlayStation 6 has a completely divergent aesthetic from the PlayStation 5 and Astro Bot is still You know kind of the they want to still build a huge mascot platform around him I think that the design of the character allows them to just fit whatever the aesthetic of the console is if they want to match That I think they could do that. You mean like you could power up I think they could say like yeah, you know what this this console is for whatever reason Sony gave this a chrome look We're gonna give him reason Sony gave this a chrome look

We're gonna give him we're gonna have a chrome Astro bot for this game. I think they could do that I think also he also is an established look that people will just like separate from the hardware at a certain point and be Fine with I hope in the next astro bot game, whatever it is. There's a whole Like level like a whole section of levels that is just tiny mode. I want to go I want a little more tiny I want the tiny mode I want that to be in a Mario game because like there's just there's stuff in this game We should say there's stuff in this game that like is I feel like directly curbed from Mario's home

There's a look there's an awesome level that I love that is just like this is a level I've played before but this is a Really awesome version of it where there's it's it's called like Luna something yeah and and it's it's there's a day world and there's a night world the scoring there is awesome it's this jazzy track that changes when you flick a switch but yeah when it goes from day world a night girl night world the the geometry of the level changes and you can maneuver different places and you use those switches back and forth like that's like it's something I've played before but it's so well

Implemented I was just having a blast and the aesthetics are so marvelous the but like I would like yeah Just more tiny area and I did love the the stop time mechanic But just as a Prince of Persia fan like just being able to do stuff like that is so fun They could have this is the thing is like you could build a whole game around that mechanic. But here it's just like a thing that is used in two levels. Just speaking again about the focus of this, we haven't touched on this,

but I do wanna talk about the control from one other standpoint, which is that this game uses both analog sticks and I believe four buttons, two face buttons and two shoulder buttons, right? That's it? I mean, like it's not like you like, and games have gotten to the point where now I've like, oh, I've got, we talked about Ghost of Tsushima earlier.

It's like, I've got like, I'm like holding triangle and like, bringing up a wheel and then using two shoulder buttons at once because there's just so many mechanics. There's so many control possibilities for an individual character. Sometimes that's unavoidable given the nature of the game but I love that this is just so simple simple that it's just like you know what yeah you

can attack you can jump and then you can do special abilities with the shoulder buttons and that's all you need I love the sound of a lot of this stuff too like the wonderful sound design the those like punching hands yeah or like the ones that you use to grab on to Yeah. They go like they like they have like a monkey fist. You're grabbing bananas. Really, really good. Right. And just like the stuff, the unique like traversal of like using the monkey hands to like, yeah, climb and like you sort of have like a monkey climb for that is super, super fun.

Mario, put the tiny put Tiny in the game. Please Mario, please. There was a Super Mario Brothers 3 level that was like there's the, it's both, you get Tiny for parts of it, right? What the hell is that level? Yeah, that's World 5. Being Tiny on command is like kind of

the big astro bot thing I think. Like to be able to turn it on and off is really, really good. I love getting tiny. I think it's really fun. The transition between the being regular sized and being tiny also was fantastic. Yes. Because like there's suddenly an enormous amount of detail

in the tiny world, but there's no transition. There's no like visible shift in fidelity of what you're looking at. It just seems like now that you're tiny, you can see that stuff. Yeah, now I can climb this bookshelf that's like right in front of me. Yeah, it's such a delightful game.

There's so much to talk about in terms of like how great it is. I'm kind of just like rambling here and I'm not doing a great job, but it's like hard to like, it becomes hard to articulate when you just like every aspect of something for the most part. It's just like, it's hard to touch on everything.

It's a really marvelous experience. The game, for a lack of a better word, is good. I hope in the next one, I hope in the next one that the Ibo, as I was saying, I wanted to see a UMD, I wanted to see a mini disc player. I really hope that there is a level, doesn't have to be the whole game,

that is just a glorious, like, romp through hallmark Sony electronics. Like, I wanna be able to be Astro Bot tiny inside of the first Walkman. I wanna, you know, like, there are things that Sony has pioneered that as long as we are, like, singing the praises of a multinational conglomerate company, like at least let us have like,

oh wow, Astrobot's head became a Sony PVM for a little bit. Like why not? Give it to me. Oh wow, it's my super hot Vio laptop. I always makes me think of the onion headline of a Sony releases new piece, new stupid piece of shit that doesn't work That's so good. I mean yeah, I think I'm right there with you Nick like I don't have anything New or interesting to say about it, but I just I loved this game so so much I'm so glad I'm so glad we did an episode about it. What an absolute hoot

Yeah, any other thoughts on this all games should be fun. Yeah, just full stop. They should all just be fun. They don't have to be like this fun, but they should all have like, I don't know, maybe Alan Wake 2 doesn't have to have like joy in it or something like that, but like I think at the base level a game should be fun and like that's it. Take what you're saying and put it another way, it's okay for a game to just be fun. Because there's no like driving narrative throughout this, there's no like cut scenes.

Hang on, the alien did stop this PlayStation 5 from flying through space Nick. All right, fair point taken. But like it's not like there's like a bunch of like cinematics in this, there's just enough. It's it's it's skeletal It's just enough to string every string all these pieces together, and that's all it needs Why hey that brings us to the whee play of our we play you play it's your review crew the Ryu crew All right, these are all source from our discord Discord, discord.gg slash get played.

Get on in there and be cool. Chop it up. Chop it up, but be cool. Yeah. Yeah, be cool but chop it up. Chop it up. Maybe some issues in the world we don't need to get into. And then some issues from the world in the past we don't have to litigate either.

Totally fine. Well yeah, talk about Astrobot. A lot of fun. Yeah, talk about Astrobot and just be cool. This first one, I feel like we gotta shout this one out. This one's from one of our mods, Dropking. What's up Dropking? Hi Dropking. Dropking writes, a gorgeous game that looks great and feels amazing to play.

Wish more games really utilize the DualSense controller like this does. I absolutely agree. I second it. I second it. I second it. I do think one of the other best implementations of the DualSense that I've ever played was after having played Hitman 1 and 2 on my PS4. When Hitman 5 came out,

or if Hitman 3 came out on the PS5, and the first time I used one of the trigger buttons to shoot a gun, and it pulled in like a real gun trigger I it scared me Didn't like it, but yeah, it felt like it felt good. I you know like there. It's not that like there's like a huge number of High-profile Sony first party exclusives, but I wish at least those use the dual sense as well. Like it would be nice if like, hey, I really enjoyed the God of War games.

But I feel like, man, it would be nice if those had the same sense of, again, tactility that you get in this. I only played the first Horizon, so I can't speak to what Forbidden West did. But the thing I want wanna talk about just graphically that we haven't touched on, incredible frame rate. And this is another thing that like, you know, like there's so much on like, hey, we wanna make sure everything has like

the highest level of detail. But like to me, frame rate is king. And this having such a silky smooth, like 60 FPS consistent frame rate is part of what makes it play like an absolute dream. I love that they prioritize that. I also wanna just shout out Sony for cloud saves being so flawless.

Yeah. Because I have two PS5s, and sometimes I can play on one, and sometimes I have to play on the other. And just being able to drop in on Astro Bot and know every time that my saves have transferred over, really nice. That's incredible.

Is the other PS5, Mary's PS5? I mean, yeah, essentially. It's cool that she lets you play on her PS5. Mary's so nice. Yeah, Mary rocks. Okay. This next one's from JProof81. Wonder what you think of the tree song. Oh yeah, play the tree song for Mary.

Okay. Why are you guys both rocking back and forth at the same pace? We were having fun. I think Mary would probably think the song is good. This next one's from J Proof81. I J Proof. This is what Balan Wonderworld wished it could be. Oh God, man, yeah. A good comparison because this-

The yin and yang, the complete opposite. For how good Astrobot is, Balan Wonderworld is that bad. It's dark Astrobot, yeah. For as good as Astrobot is, Balan Wonderland, Wonderworld? Wonderworld, I think. Wonder, Balan put a man in jail. Yeah, he is in jail for that, not for his embezzling crimes. It's like when they took down Al Capone for tax evasion.

Like, we can lock up Yuji Naka on a technicality. Or OJ for stealing his own stuff. Like we can lock up Yuji Naka on a technicality. Or OJ for stealing his own stuff. Yeah, yeah. This next one's from, this next one's from Boop. Boop? Boop writes, I actually cried a little as I played through the closing credit sequence. Pure platformer joy from start to finish.

I love that. Yeah, that's wonderful. And this next one's from Homack. Homack writes, Hi, Homack. Astrobot is the best 3D platformer we've played since Mario Galaxy. I'm excited it's a good game, but even more than that, I'm excited by the healthy competition

it's going to give the best Mario game, 10 out of 10 masterpiece. I mean, I love going this hard for it. I'm trying to think, like, hmm. Do I, I think I like Odyssey more. And I do feel like Cappy accomplishes a lot of what you're getting from the, you know, the gimmicks that you get,

the power-ups that you get in this game. I feel like it's the same sort of thing, but I don't know. Maybe I haven't replayed Odyssey since playing this. I wonder how it rolled up. I wouldn't mind revisiting Odyssey, honestly. I have such affection for three, I'm sorry, sorry to honestly. I have such affection for 3D, I'm sorry, sorry, Demi Gagov, I have such affection for 3D World as a thing. I don't think this would displace 3D World.

That's the thing, I love 3D World. I like it way more than I like Odyssey, and I loved Odyssey. But I do, I forgot that I love Cappy. Cappy is wonderful. As a guy that wears hats, Cappy's really cool. Can you imagine if my hat was making me do all that crazy stuff?

Explain some things That came in one time he was a fucking dinosaur I think the sound of Mario's feet in sand is Almost on its own better than Astro Like like my I'm comfortable being like I don't have to elevate this game above Mario 3D platformers, but fuck, it was their first try. Yeah, it's also like a, I also don't think it being, me not liking as much as say 3D world means

it's not a 10 out of 10. It's not a 10 out of 10 experience, it's incredible. It's really, really great. And you know what? Mario and Astro Bot, just based on how I think about them and what they, and how, you know, what I think their values are, they wouldn't be comparing themselves to each other.

Yeah, they'd be friends. They'd be friends. They'd shake hands. Yeah, probably even kiss. What? I'd probably make them kiss. Why would you make them? Do you have a basement? No, not yet. kiss what I'd probably make them kiss basement not yet this next one's from see you see Mony and see Mony right see

Mony see Mony incredibly creative colorful and fun game that utilizes every part of the ps5 controller I cannot recommend this game enough it oh this next one you might guys you might think this one's interesting they're all been interesting so far, but this one is actually pretty something all right Ziggs writes Astrobot more like ass tro butt 10 out of 10, and I can't disagree with that wait What was it supposed to ask? Like ass a SS no way, but you set that up like you but You set that up like there was something to think about yeah I'm getting the wordplay, but I guess I'm not quite understanding that as a logical leap to the 10 out of 10

Makes you think yeah of what I mean I like the comment. I endorse the comment I don't know what it's supposed to make me think of I don't know what you're I'm lost Kind of makes you think is all this This next one is from Killabyte. I kill a bite. Killabyte writes, "'Pro best PS5 game to use every part of the controller since Astro's playroom. Con not free like goat Astro bots playroom."

I mean, that's totally fair. It was just like an incredible pack-in experience. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this is... It's funny to think of a game as free when you have to buy a system to play it. The game actually costs $599. I wonder if Astro Bot will come to PC, because they've been porting a lot of PS5 games to PC, most of the PS5 games, but there are some that have not made their way over.

Demon's Souls remake is one of them. And Astrobot I could see them being maybe a little precious with, I don't know, maybe because it's so tied to the franchise and its history, or maybe because it's so tied to the DualSense. They, I mean, he keeps coming up, and I just said that I wouldn't compare them. Sony has never really had a mascot to rival Mario, I mean, you know, he keeps coming up and I just said that I wouldn't compare them Sony

Has never really had like a mascot to rival Mario at this level Sure, right like, you know, they crashes like his own guy like they're always love ratcheting claim. We love ratchet We love Sly Cooper. We love Jack and Dax. Yeah, sure. We love those guys, but they're not in the same level They're not the same thing at all With with astrobot they effectively have their mario. They might have a guy. They have, this is, they- You're calling it, you're saying they have a guy. They have a guy.

And it's been a long time- They've got a guy. Since anybody's had a guy. Like the last system to get a guy was Halo. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Like Master Chief was suddenly Xbox's guy yeah they had a guy but like I mean PlayStation has you know it has Nathan Drake it has it has

Kratos it has 300 fucking bots yeah but like those aren't the guy the guy there's not the guy astrobot is astrobots their fucking guy he might be the guy he might be the guy he's the guy like like, cause like, I don't know, I don't know, you, like, I'll tell you what, if I see Asherbot somewhere else, I'm gonna be so fucking happy to see him. I love him. I think he's my best friend.

He's great, and I think he's, the fact that they finally have a character that is as good as Mario. Yeah. Like, previously Mario's rival was Sonic and that Being true because he can't keep up never as fast as he can't keep up it never was true after after the Genesis But now it's stony has a guy that's very exciting, but it is funny to think of Nintendo

And Nintendo headquarters being like okay We really got to put a lot in Odyssey because Sonic is gaining on us He's gonna get us in this net this finally this last one is from TMAC and TMAC right TMAC I love the nostalgic feeling this gave me while feeling so fresh. You can tell how much love the creators poured into it

and how much respect they had for the IPs of the series represented. It was great seeing how unique and specific each bot's interactions were at base while keeping it simple too, masterful. I think it's really well said. Yeah. Absolutely. That's the delight of the full experience

What a what a fucking video game? Yeah, incredible video game really really really fantastic. Yeah, definitely definitely one of my favorites of the year I mean, I don't see how it doesn't end up in my top five top ten list at the end of the year I just it's and it's been a it's been a pretty decent year for video games I have a hard time thinking of something that's gonna Top it for game of the year for me. I love that. I think it's like a, it's a straight shot to the top. Jesus, really, more than Final Fantasy? I forgot about that.

Is Chrono Trigger in contention for game of the year? I think Astro Vox fucked. Fantastic game, that's this week's Get Played. Our producer is Rachelle Chen. Ranch. Ranch. Yard underscore, underscore, start. Ranch.

Ranch, you gonna play this game? Yeah. Okay, great. Here we go. All right, let it report back. We'll have you chime in in the future. What are you playing? Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com.

Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, check out our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire pre head gum back catalog plus ad free main feed Episodes and you know as what else is over at our patreon our patreon exclusive show get animated Matt What are we watching this week? Well folks you voted and we listened we're we stopped watching Violet Evergarden stuff for now And we're on week two of Terminator Zero, okay? And guess what?

The show's fucking good. I am enjoying Terminator Zero. Yeah, me too, man. Lot of fun. Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha. I liked Violet Evergarden too. There's only a couple movies left, so we could go back to them.

I can't believe we gotta watch those movies. Patreon.com slash get played for all of that. Nick, you got played. Wow. Just like that. Just like that? Fucking hat is talking for you. Oh yeah, Cappy, stop.

Cappy off your head. That was a hate gum podcast.