Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - 2016 Game Delays and Overlooked Games - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 54

Episode Date: January 29, 2016

Can you know how you feel about a game without even playing it, we explain why we don't love playing games online, what are the most overlooked games, and which games do we think will be delayed out of 2016? (Released on Patreon 01.22.16) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the first ever episode 54 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by the coolest dudes in video games, Colin Moriarty, and Greg Miller. For some reason, it feels like it's been a long time since we've done this. The last one had Steve Gainer on it, and we filmed that. That's why. Yeah. Was that we filmed, no, we filmed it after the, the live stream has screwed up the entire month. Yeah.

It feels like we've done two months. It feels like it's already February. We're in a time warp. We are in a time warp. It is really weird. though. I don't know if we'll ever get back to normal. I think this is normal for the rest of our lives. This is the new normal? This is how it's going to feel all the time.

I was saying this to you earlier, but I really liked it. I came in this room today and I was like Kevin, it's one of those days. And he goes, I think it's been one of those weeks. You know, come to think of it. It's been one of those months. Actually, it's been one of those years. And it's like, wow, it's quite accurate. We push ourselves too hard because we love doing everything we do. We do. For all you big, beautiful kids out there.

Yeah, cool, dudes. They're doing stuff. I'm back. We're doing stuff. Talk about my video games. That is what the kind of funny. Gamescast is. If you want to get it early, you can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games.

Throw dollars over there and things will happen to you. You get the show early. You can get, if there's a goal, you get Kevin and Mike, you already hit that. Yeah.

You've probably put a new milestone up by then. I don't know what it will be. We need to think about that. It'll be fun. $30,000. If $30,000 a month, we stop. We just stop doing everything. No, no, no, no.

Let's look at all the haters to give us money. And then we can just, retire. Oh man. A steady stream of income to not make content. The internet's better without you. Pay us to not put up videos on YouTube.

You can also go to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games to just get the show for free as it's broken out topic by topic the week after you can get it for your money over at picture of dot com slash kind of funny games. Today I'm wearing glasses. You may have noticed that. I did notice. It's because my contacts, something's wrong with them. What's wrong with them?

They disappear? Not clear. No, one of them just messed up and my eye felt like it was burning and had an STD. Whoa. I was like, shit. Are you putting lotion or the, the, yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the lotion. Don't put lotion on the lenses. I've never used context. You put them in luberderm, right?

And then put them in your eyes. You put them in something, yeah, but not that. Saline. It's not quite water. It's saline. It's saline. It's saline. It's like saline.

Really expensive. Anyway, so, today, we're getting back to normal games cast. It's also been a way. while because okay we had we had guests and before that we did the whole looking back at 2015 thing and so it's like we've been doing a lot of topics that were just like you know lists and stuff like that this is the normal show getting right into it topic one is do you need to play a game to have an opinion on it now this is based on a lot of the reactions I saw to the list content that we made over the last couple episodes of the kind of funny games cast

where we're talking about best games of 2015 and what we're looking for in 2016 and all this stuff. And I'm not going to say everybody, but there was a fair amount of comments that were saying like, oh, well, if you haven't played this, you can't have an opinion on that game, or if you haven't beaten the game, whatever.

Very similar to the conversation we had before about reviewing games, right? Sure. Everyone has their own way to do it, whatever. But I kind of want to get your guys' thoughts on if you're allowed to have an opinion on games. I think so. I mean,

I don't think it should be set in stone. You know you hate a game or something to that extent. But I can look at a game that I haven't put, or that I've put no time into and know if it's for me or not for me, right? Based on like maybe just the genre it is, right? Like, this is a little bit dodgy, I guess, because I guess I've, wait, okay, so either, no,

so probably league, I guess, I've never played. I've only seen played and talk to people and seen stuff and other. I think Dota, Brian Albert, let me play with him once to try to teach me. But I know based on my experience with Dota, that league isn't for me, right? Like I have an opinion on that game

In terms of my opinion being that Everything I've read about it You know I can tell you that About its fan base about its impact About how important it is right now and stuff I can tell you personally it isn't for me Based on not having played it I'm not gonna sit down and play league

I don't think it's suddenly be like Oh I was totally wrong this is totally I just don't like Moba's that much You know what I mean that's not for me Yeah I think this goes back to I think there's degrees of it right So if someone comes up to me It says there's a game called X

And you're like okay You don't know anything about it. You know, the title. So Zena Blade Chronicles. Exactly. Yeah, let's say, well, let's not say X but let's say it's just, the game's just got a name.

And all you do is, you know the game's name is X and that's it. Well, you can't really have an opinion at all about it because you just know the game exists, right? But then they're like, oh, X is a side-scroller. And you're like, okay. And they're like, X is a 2D side-scroller with pixel art.

What's so funny? I'm sorry. Kevin looks like a gorilla over there with this book. He's slowly paging through it, but he's not reading it. And he's like turning it out inside and stuff. You're like Coco the monkey over there. There's no words.

I love that Colin's like, I wouldn't say slowly, quickly broke there. Where he's like saying something. He sees Greg's doing something. I broke. I broke this what, Greg? I'm sorry. It wasn't on purpose. Oh, I know.

It never is. This is what we do need to get him a curtain. He needs to be curtained off. $25,000 goal on Patreon. There you go. Yeah. Are you done? I didn't mean to do it, Colin.

Don't be mad. So you know the game's called X. and then you know that the game's a side scroll and you know that's 2D. So now you're like getting down and dirty. And so some people are like, okay, so you can have an opinion on the game at that point in terms of, is it something you're interested?

Is it something you're going to be interested in? Is it something that a mobile player that only plays mob players or someone who really only plays Minecraft or mobile games? Are they going to enjoy this game? Probably not. So their opinion will be like, well, I'm not interested in it.

It doesn't mean you have to have an opinion on the game itself because then you didn't see it. But someone who's interested in the side scroller might go forward and say, well, X sounds interesting, like for me. You know, X is clearly going to give it to me. and so I want to see more about it, so I watch a video about it.

And then I see that it's really inspired by something I like Ninja Guide on the NES. And so I'm like, okay, like my opinion of this game is actually quite high. And then I, so my opinion's a little bit like more niche now. Now it's like, now it's getting like kind of nittier and grittier

and maybe a little more valuable to someone else that likes side scrollers but won't truly be useful to someone until I've sat down and played the game. And then once I feel the game out for a stage and I'm like, oh, I still really like it. Well, then that's more valuable than me just looking at it or me just knowing

that it's a side-strelia. scroll or me just knowing that the game exists. And then maybe I play it longer and then maybe I beat it. Well, then my opinion is pretty much paramount at that point. Consistent with everyone else is who's beaten the game because they've seen the entire game. So I guess what I'm saying is you don't have to have this situation where it's all or nothing. Right. Like you can have, it's like what we go back to with objectivity versus subjectivity in terms of reviews.

There's no such thing as an objective review. That's fucking completely. That's complete nonsense. But there are objective facts about games. And you could have objective opinions about objective. facts about games. I mean, that's kind of the way I see it. So when someone tells me that, oh, this game is like

civilization, well, my opinion about the game not knowing anything else about it except for that civilization, maybe seeing a video, whatever, is going to be somewhat high or somewhat optimistic, as opposed to someone saying like, well, this game's more like XCOM, which is a game of strategy. I love it term based strategy, but like, I didn't really like that game, the one, like, I didn't

play the old one, but the one that came on PS3 some years ago. And so that might make me a little more pessimistic about the game. And I think that those are all valid, it's a matter of being honest and open about gauging where your opinion is and like how you're how you're garnering that opinion to make it useful or not useful to someone else. But you shouldn't

like hide your own opinions based on you know, some sort of made up criteria. I do think that the apex of an opinion is having seen the whole thing just like the effect of an opinion is listening to a whole record or watching a whole movie. I totally agree with that but I don't think that because when you look at it like I play a game sometimes for an

hour and I'm like nah. And that happens often. I hope that happens to everyone because otherwise why are you even playing games? You're just playing everything as opposed to playing things that you really love. And I think that's a valid opinion for me to pick up a game and be like, nah, I don't want to play this anymore. Final Fantasy 13 is always a great example of it. I think you can have a valid opinion on that game after 20 hours,

even though you don't really see when the game gets good, in quotes, until 40 hours or 35 hours. But that's a valid opinion because you have to spend so much time playing it at that point. I talked about how I reviewed Tales of Exilia 2 after 45 hours, having not beaten it because I've seen enough. And I think that that's a valid opinion, but I've also spent more time than that before I was comfortable reviewing a game. And so I think you just need to know where you sit. It was the same thing with Fallout 4 where I played it for 25 hours.

And I'm like, there's nothing this game can show me that I haven't seen already, except for a story. That's it. Like, there's nothing this game has for me anymore. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying my opinion on this game is pretty set. I like it. I think it's great.

I think I'm a little disappointed in some parts of it. And I think that might be valuable to someone out there, but that might not be valuable to someone who wants an opinion from someone who has seen the whole gamut. So, I don't know. So that's my opinion. I know it's a little. No, it makes sense. No, I like, I like the idea of strata opinion. You know what I mean? And I think what you're talking about makes sense of being open to it. You know what I mean? You're talking about like, you know, in our game of the year, best of the year, whatever. And we're talking about like, we haven't seen this or that of the other, right? But we're informed enough consumers on most things that we've, you know,

read or watched a video or whatever from our friends at IGN or GameSpot or whoever, right? And you start pulling together while Alexis said this, but then I know Jim Sterling said this and like, you can cobble together an opinion based on the opinions you trust, right? And again, I would present all that if you were asking me about a game that I haven't played, I'd be like, well, I know this person, that person liked it, but this guy didn't, but I usually side with these kind of people, so that's where I go. But obviously, somebody who's played more of it knows more. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a dumb question to begin with, because the opinion thing, right? Like, of course, you're allowed to have an opinion. Of course you can have an opinion. But I'm really more

talking about, like, what qualifies this thing of opinion since we are on this side of the camera. I think that there's a different level of standard, right? And what you just said is absolutely correct. Where does that gamut end then? Like, where do you feel it ends in terms of, all right, if you play the game, you play it enough that you understand where it's going, whatever. Do you need to play other games that are similar to be able to compare the two and all of that? Like, where does, where does that line end? No, because I think this goes to where, like, you can have opinion about anything about anything you want for any reason. I mean, I don't care. You know, like, the, the thing is, is that you can have an opinion on a book. You never.

read. You know, like, fine. Like, that doesn't matter to me. What matters is if people know that your opinion is based on you having not read the book, right? Like, that's, that's the biggest difference. A lot like, like, I like Iran Rand, for instance, which is a, she's a super controversial writer. She's dead now, which she's, she's a super controversial libertarian writer, right? Atlas shrugged and whatever. And people come at me a lot because they know I like her and are like, you know, Iron Rand sucks or blah, blah, blah, because she's like, you know, very unsavory to a lot of people. But I know that most of people would never read her. You know?

Like, I know for a, I can go up to them and be like, name the two protagonists of what the book's about and they'd have no fucking idea. John and Galt. John Galt's one of the characters, but he's really not going to Oz. Right. They're not going to Oz, no. It's, they're going somewhere. Oh, this is the one where John Gault's trapped on Mars. Right.

He's trapped on Mars. But I just use as an example of, like, I could always launch the salvo at these people of like, well, I'm almost positive you never read the book. It's a long, it's like a 1500 page book and I'm positive you never read it. But that's fine. What do I care? You know? And so it's, you can just know you like Iron Rand because you don't like her for whatever reason. And that's totally fine. And I'm just using that as an example of, you know, portraying an opinion based on what the value of the opinion is to someone else. That's why I always try to tell people, even though people get mad and really, you don't play an hour or two of games. I'm like, well, I'm just trying to tell you like, if you should take me seriously or not in terms of what you're looking for in someone's opinion. So I used to do that my reviews a lot too. I used to really try to tell people like, I played for this long or this. this, I spent this much time with it because I think that that's a valuable opinion. If you, or I just beat, you know, I tried to only beat games once.

And when I, I play games typically on the hardest difficulty level because I like to, if time, time allows. But when I'd review games at IGN, I would play them on normal difficulty because I was trying to play them in a state of as least frustration as possible because I know when I play Call of Duty on Veteran, I'm doing it for trophies, and it's actually really fucking annoying, you know? So what is call, I never reviewed Call Duty, but just as an example, what is Call of Duty and what is the difference between running through in eight hours and running through

it in 20? And so I think that people just need to be, the opinions need to be framed in such a way that people have all the information necessary to know if you should take the opinion seriously. So it's not so much, and there's no right answer to that either. Someone might look at me and be like, Colin, I know the 2D side scores really well. I think I know them extremely well.

And I can look at a game or just play a game for a little while and tell you if they're mechanically sound or not. But maybe I didn't beat the game or not. But someone out there who knows that might be like, well, that's good enough for me. But someone else out there might be, well, that's not enough. But I have to give them the information to know that or not. And they can see that with my trophies or they can see that with what we talk about. Yeah, I think the transparency is the most important part.

You know, it's like in any relationship, it's communication. You got to be open and honest with what you're doing. And I feel like the more transparent you are with that. So the more you're like, all right, this is my opinion based on X, Y, Z components. Like I think that that all of a sudden, not that the opinion wasn't valid in the first place, but that's more of, it's a fact at that point. You know what I mean? Like, this is how I feel based on this.

And like that is a statement that is a fact. And I feel like it's interesting when people, look at that and they're like, oh, like, that's wrong. It can't be wrong. It's an opinion, you know? Or it's a fact and it's like, no, it is right because I did, this is how I feel based on this, you know? And looking at a lot of the comments recently, it's like, it's crazy to me that people think that we can't have opinions on game X because we haven't played game Y or we haven't beat game X or whatever. And it's like what you were saying earlier about the reading about it and watching videos and like doing all that stuff.

I don't need to do much of that to know what games aren't for me. Sure. And I don't. And I don't need much in the other way. They'll look and be like, that game's for me. I'm gonna fucking like that. I mean,

it's what all comes back to what we're doing with kind of funny. You know what I mean? Where Colin always puts it eloquently that he doesn't want to be up at game's ass anymore. It's the fact that we're not trying to be very eloquent. Very eloquently. I do. We're not trying to play everything to say everything. We're playing the games we want to play that we would then talk about.

So yeah, when we talk about like, I think we talked about it in the best of thing, right? where I'm like, yeah, these are our games, none of us have played Undertail. Everyone keeps talking about that, I haven't played it yet, would love to play it eventually, not be drawn to it right now.

You know what I mean? Same to be like Xenobledcronicle X, right? Not the exact same thing because I don't want to play Zeno Blade Chronicles. I understand it's awesome. Grimecraft loves it. I read about it stuff. But see, here's the thing about Zenobled for instance. I know you hate that game. I don't hate it. No, but you would hate it because it's not for you. Like, I know

your gaming taste. And so I could literally look at that game and be like, no. Yeah. No. And that's why I said it's not the same as Undertale. Undertale is something I would like to play. Whereas Zena Blay, I look at it. I'm like, not my kind of game. Yeah, exactly. And I think Life is Strange is another good example of that. You know, like, going into it, you, it was at a weird point where now you play it and love it. But at that point, you hadn't totally played it and finished and everything. And it's just like, but you knew. You just knew that you would like that.

And you were right because you know yourself. And people come to you because you know you. I've explored it. And I mean, this is funny. Like going back to the relationship shit, like talking about communication honesty. Like the other most important about a relationship is knowing who you are and knowing what you're putting out there. So it's like as long as you're genuine to that, it's going to be kind of easy to figure out what you're going to like and what you're going to not. And then the opinion comes on a more, you know, point by point basis of how much do I like it? Why and like all the mechanics and all this stuff and what don't I like about it and how what could be better and all that?

And that stuff only gets to the point when you are someone that's really hardcore. Like you could talk about Ninja getting forever and like break down all the things you liked and all things you didn't like. like whereas maybe you couldn't do that about a call of duty that you played through and enjoyed very much but you didn't like you don't know what the fuck the character's names are but it doesn't matter because that's not why you like those guys yeah and I mean and that's the way of breaking it down and compartmentalizing things too I know shooters so like I like first person shooters a lot and it's a weird it's some it's a thing that

surprised a lot of people that might be like one of my fair genres is the first person like the single player first person shooters I fucking love shooters and and so on a mechanical level I can tell you all about it but yeah on a story based level even no Call of Duty story should intrigue me because they're very Tom Clancy-esque in future history and all that kind of stuff. It's not what I play those games for necessarily. I play them for the mechanics. So I could talk about the mechanics. So it's about compartmentalizing things too. The bigger thing to me is at the end of the day, and I don't want to say this in eloquently because people obviously care about others' opinions. I read columnists I like about sports

through politics. I read, you know, there are some certain game writers like Alexa or, uh, Jason over at Kataku, Alexa being a game spot that I really like. I like reading their stuff, especially, you know, with Alexa really kind of carrying the torch that I, you know, try to light at IGN with like long form content and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, I never waste time being like your opinion is wrong. Your opinion sucks. Like at the end of the day, I don't care that much if someone else has another opinion.

That's, that's different from mine. I actually really don't care at all. And that's like the, that's the bigger thing is like, we should have a marketplace of ideas and exchange them and talk about them. But at the end of the day, no one's right or wrong. And I often wonder why people get so hung up on someone else's opinion that they're distraught about it. They have to leave a rude YouTube comment or rude tweet or whatever. It's like, it's really not like the earth's still spinning on its axis and everything's totally fine. If someone doesn't agree with something you say or doesn't have all the information or you're bothered by.

a person maybe not having all the information that you think is the prerequisite that they need. Similar to the tweets I get about Iron Rans sometimes. That's why I brought it up because I'm like, I don't care. You know, like, I just don't care. Like, I still like it. And I hope everyone has the fortitude to still like things, even if someone disagrees with their opinion. I think everyone agreeing with each other having the same opinions is super fucking sterile and boring in Orwellian. And I wouldn't want a situation like that ever to arise.

In fact, I want like, you know, I think that my opinion on Bloodborn, having played it for 20 hours, a valuable opinion to people that might not like Dark Souls or Demon Souls like I didn't or might not have the time to play the game all the way through or might want an opinion of someone who kind of came around on the type of game as opposed to an opinion from someone who is a Dark Souls or Demon Souls veteran who played Blood Born through several times or whatever. They're not really even speaking to the same people I'm speaking to in a way. So I think that there's a in the marketplace of ideas. I think there's like room for different verticals of opinion. It's really just important about framing them properly. I would never

come on here and I never have and I never will come on here and be like, Darciss is awesome and I played it for 40 hours. That's a lie. I never played. I played Darcis very briefly and I gave you my very brief opinion on it. But when I, if and when I play Darcis for 40 hours, maybe I'll have a different opinion and I'll let you know based on the new framing of the opinion. So it's just like kind of a confusing thing to me because I like, it's like watching a football

game and or just looking at the box score of the football game. You can still have an opinion on the football game knowing only the statistics of what happened. You know that the quarterback played well as quarterback ratings of 110. You threw only one pick and he had four touchdowns. And this guy lost a couple fumbles when he was rushing, so he probably had a pretty down day. And I don't know. You can frame your own opinions without having ever even seen it. And I don't think that that's invaluable.

I guess is all I'm saying. But you may want to let someone know that you didn't actually watch it. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. No. I mean, that's great. It's a very good summary. Do you have anything else to add?

No. Good. Good. Good. Topic two comes from Patreon. Hey. Michael Wayne says, Colin, Greg, and Tim have stated many times

that they're not really fans of online gaming. That's us. Why is this? Do you just hate dealing with lag issues? Is it a consistent gameplay experience problem? Trust me. I know how frustrating online gaming is and I can understand the allure

of dodging the headache altogether. In recent times, I too have thought to myself, you know what? I'm about done with online gaming. Even though I'm not entirely sure that's a reasonable thing to say given where the industry is and where it's going.

All my favorite games are from the 90s and more and more I feel like the magic that was that was online gaming a decade or so ago has all but entirely lost its luster I'm still thoroughly enjoying online co-op stuff, but the player-vers player stuff even though I'm good at it is always full of inconsistent and migraine-inducing experiences So it has become a huge turn off for me You'd think you'd be all over with the internet connections you guys get out there We just got 15 down one up here in Maine just a couple years ago. It's terrible know how long it takes to upload a 250 megabyte YouTube video about 50 minutes Jesus So sorry for you. So sorry.

This is no way to live. Get out of Maine. What part of Maine? Yeah, but what part of Maine? I don't believe that that's all of Maine. Lobster Roll Island. You must live in like Preskeyle or something like that. Anyway.

Anyways, I think the online gaming discussion would be a great topic for an episode. You guys mention it often enough, but haven't really gone into detail about your thoughts on it yet. Mm-hmm. I thought this was interesting as well. It is a good topic. I think that we all don't do it for different reasons. Sure. I'd like to start with you, Colin.

Well, I think he's totally missed the point of why I'm not in a. online gaming. No, lag. You hate the lag. And I think that we're all kind of, maybe not all consistent. I think, I think you guys play online more, especially Greg, more than, way more than I do. I just don't want to. It's not, it's what I said before, I don't play games for these reasons. Now, there are

some games that I've definitely enjoyed online. I've often brought up the example of Rainbow 6-3, which I played for hundreds of hours online when I was in college on Xbox, the original Xbox. I fucking love that game. It scratched a specific it. When the last of us came out more recently in 2013, I played it for about 40 or 50 hours online. I was doing it for the

trophies because the trophies are fucking obnoxious online. But then I realized that I actually really enjoyed playing it. But there comes a point where when you play a video game against an AI, the difficulty is not necessarily consistent, but it's predictable. So when the difficulty ramps up, you know that it's kind of always going to be the same. And when you want to play a game online in some sort of competitive way, and I'm not saying professionally, but what you want to have fun by being decent at it, at least having an even kill death ratio or whatever, you have to stay.

consistent with it or you're just not going to be very good at it. And we saw this over and over again at IGM when we'd have to review the online portions of the games. We would do that and test what they would call test environments because the game wasn't out yet. And I'd be pretty good at some of these games. And then I'd go back a week later and play them online again. I'd be getting my ass kicked. And that's my own fault. I'm not saying that that's something wrong with the game. It's not. It's to say that if I wanted to play Battlefront, for instance, and actually enjoy myself, I'd have to only play Battlefront for a long period of time because the the scaling difficulty is based on the entire community having played the game extensively.

So there's just a lack of balance there in terms of the way, what I'm looking for in games. I want to go into a gaming experience and just play at my own pace. I think I'm a pretty good gamer in specific genres, and I like playing those games and challenging myself with those games and also challenging myself with things that I'm not very good at. But I don't want to like base it based on the way other people play or having to find other people to play with her. You know, you can deal with technical issues or, you know, the lack of a server population and all those kinds of things. I just play games to be by myself, to have fun by myself, to unwind by myself. I don't want to talk to anyone when I'm playing a game. I don't want to know anyone's with me when I'm playing game.

It's the same thing when I was playing Borderlands 2 some time ago. I forgot to shut my matchmaking thing off. So people kept joining my games. I just kept kicking them out. And I felt bad because I'm just like, and then I shut it off. But I was like, I, this is not this. Some people, Borderlands is running around with three friends. To me, Borderlands is not running around with fucking anyone.

And that's the way I want to play. it. And I think the big litmus test for me is going to be the division because there's so much ebb and flow in terms of the way they talk about the game and they promise on Twitter over and I got like I literally got like scores

of people telling me like oh they just said that you can play it by yourself and all that kinds of but then they say you will die alone in the trailer and I'm wondering as if if you play alone you'll die alone or you're going to die alone like is it like some sort of philosophical thing? Like I don't you know I don't like I don't you know I don't yeah we're all die alone that's true So, thank you division.

So you know, like, so like there's certain litmus tests that I'll have to kind of overcome because the division looks so good to me that I might bend on having played a game online. And I don't think there's a game that I played online to any extent without, except for getting trophies for like the reason of getting trophies. I think that was the last game I've spent any more than two hours online. You know, I played FARC-R-3 online with some some IGN fans at the time just to get the trophies, you know, and dabbled with some other online games. But I've never been interested in playing online because that's just not. what I'm looking for when I play games. Even when I was a kid and we only had local co-op or local cooperative or competitive co-op,

I wasn't interested in even playing it like that either. Like, I wanted to just be alone. You know, that's, so that's my stance. Greg. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's definitely the way I was raised with video games, right? The video games, to me, are a single player experience. And I feel even when online was coming on strong.

You know what I mean? Like, I would go back to the fact of, like, you know, when I write a review, when I talk to you the best friends, when I do all this stuff, and where even the best friends come from, right? The terminology is the fact that when I'm talking about a game, I'm talking about games the way I used to talk to Po about games in the basement

of my house with all my friends, where in my group of friends, I was the gamer. They enjoyed games. They maybe one or two of them had a system. They probably wasn't current, you know what I mean? But they didn't love games like I did. So I was that guy. So I grew up isolated in that way, where it was, you go to GameStop

and you, there are E. You know, Funkeland. and be blown away to talk to people there or the attendant there, the clerk there, to talk about games and, like, express what you read in EGM and try to have these conversations, right? And so even when Poe finally bought a PS2 and brought it home, we bought that SOCOM adapter, right?

And we wanted to play SOCOM, and it wasn't, it didn't work out. Obviously, the connection sucked and the other, and it wasn't a fun game for us, for us. And, you know, we went back to just playing, you know, we each have our football game and then come over and do these things or whatever, hang out. you figure I go to college right at PlayStation 2 you know I go to college with my PlayStation 2 in 2001 and stuff

and I missed the train with Xbox the original Xbox didn't have any money to get one at first so Halo's becoming this thing over there and it's not I have a couple friends in there but even in college I was like I was the gamer guy you know my my best friend in college Hayes had you know bought a game cube right away and we went and played local stuff but at no point was online becoming a thing where that was. And even when you jump to when 360 and then PlayStation 3 come out and PlayStation 3 comes out a couple months before I get hired at IGN, you know,

I didn't go out of my way to buy either of those because I didn't have Ethernet. I don't think I had, I might not even had at my first department after college internet period, but I didn't have Ethernet for sure and I didn't have an HDTV. And so these things were happening, so by the time I got to IGN, I have all this stuff, I'm ready to go

online multipliers the thing, I already feel like I've missed the boat. So many people have, you know, Vegas story, like, Rainbow Six Vegas stories and all this other stuff and da-da-da-da-da. And like, they had done this, that, and the other. And I'm not playing on Xbox 360, right? Because I didn't own Xbox 360. I couldn't afford it. And then nobody's playing on PS3. So when I bring home a PS3, nothing to really play online, let alone it's not something that's normal to me or, you know, it makes sense to me. And so then as time goes on and it becomes more and more, it's just not something that's there for me. It's not what, you know what I mean? Like, there are the rare exceptions, right?

like, Borderlands is a co-op game for me. You know what I mean? And like that is something. But even then, right? What Borderlands co-op is is either when Mike lived here, me and Mike in the living room on two TVs, or when for Borland's, the pre-sequel, Christine and I either yelling down the hall to each other while we're playing on the internet or me on the second screen in the bedroom playing there. You know, I was having a conversation while we play.

Like that local co-op became more important. And so there's, again, the most notable exception, of course, is DC Universe Online where, you know, I sink whatever, 550 hours, 600 hours into that game or whatever. And a lot of that is with other people. But even then, for me, it calls out all the problems that I don't, I don't like about online multiplayer of, all right, well, we need these people to raid. I'm looking for DPS. You're out there screaming for, not even DPS.

DPS. You're looking for a tank. You're shouting, shouting, shouting. Because you have a group of friends, but then you need one other person to get in there, right? And then you get in there and somebody disconnects and it's all fucked and you wait around for something to happen. Or I'm the rando and I join a random.

group and they get mad at how I'm DPSing and I'm not playing. Why am I using this load out? And why I want to? Because that's how I want to play. Like, you know what I'm playing a single player game? No one's there. Well, why are you doing this and why don't you do this? And you don't know. And I'm like, no, I just want to play this fucking game at my pace like you're talking about. I want to experience the way I want to do it. And so then it becomes there's this other wrinkle to it that Colin already calls out. It was just like, even when there is something I like online. And like, you know, like, Killzone 2 is the shooter that I put the most time in online, right? But it was because I went home every night and played online with retail service, went, went, went, went.

And then there was, you take that week break and you come back and you're garbage and everyone's beating the living fuck out of you and it's not fun. You know what I mean? And that was like, all right. And destiny was a similar thing of like, I was enjoying destiny when it first came out. And then I went away for a weekend or whatever. Everybody was raiding when I got back. I was way behind. People are like, I'll pull you through and all the.

It's like, that's not fun. That's not what I. I don't want that. You know what I mean? Like that's not the experience I want. And so I don't, I, what excites me about the division is the idea of there being this single player content that I'm doing. And then if I want, I can go do it. And I know you can do that with destiny, but destiny, I mean, shooters are rare for me to connect with.

I like destiny, but it's a big commitment to get back into. And then it's always how much time do you have? You know what I mean? Like, when I do jump onto destiny, I start getting requests from people to play with. It's like, I'm only going to be here for 15 minutes. It's not worth jumping into this, trying to figure out that. I just want to go through and run these missions. You know, I want to go do this one thing.

Because I've done it where you jump in and it's like all this stuff and I just end up quitting. You know, real quick. I don't want to do it. Whereas with single player, you know how you never know how long it's going to go. Yeah. For me, it's a mix of all that stuff. I think the time sync is the biggest thing. Just the fact that I like, I like games to be tight experiences where it's like, all right, I know this is 13 hours.

I know this is 8 hours. I know this is 25 hours, whatever it is. Or, you know, a Final Fantasy, more like 40 hours or whatever. Like, I like knowing that. And with these, that time never ends. Yeah. And to a lot of people, that's awesome. And I will say that I think that the pinnacle of in the enjoyment of a video game is if you have that squad of people and you're all playing that game together and whatever is your game.

It doesn't even need to be one, whether you play Halo and Call of Duty or Battlefront or whatever it is, destiny and all this stuff, or League or any of these movers and stuff. Having a team of people that you can rely on. Yeah. Because I've seen Alfredo do it so many times with all of the first person shooters throughout the years from Counterstrike all the way through all the halos and all that. like seeing him play and seeing it work and him doing callouts and stuff and everyone knowing exactly and everyone just being on that same same wavelength and doesn't even need to be MLG pro gaming like just competitively playing and like whenever you're playing as people that are competitive and it's all good it's like man that's there's nothing cooler than that there's nothing better than that I've never been at that level yeah I'm not good at video games never would claim to be good at video games um there's certain things I am good and I think that those are things I've spent the most time online gaming with Tony Hocke's Pro Skater, music games, like amplitude and stuff like that back in the day. DDR on the Xbox had an online mode. That was all just like leaderboard stuff or there would just be other skaters around.

And at the end of the day, it was just a leaderboard. Just there happened to be someone else in the thing. Or doing like graffiti in Tony Hawk and stuff like that. Like, but that, it's simple. I think that's what it comes down to is you can get good at that, sure, but you don't need other people involved. And you're never going to be that good at it. And if you are, that's weird. You know what I mean?

It's like nobody's like really practicing to be the god of Tony Hocs Pro Skater graffiti. And so that kept it fun for me. But I'm not going to go back to that that much. And I think that's where my online gaming ends is I don't need something that I'm going back to forever because I don't have that. Right. I don't have forever to give. It's not even so much that I don't have it. I don't wish to spend my time that way.

No, that's similar with me, right? Like games for me are like books or TV shows or whatever where there's a beginning, middle, and an end. You know what I mean? And so like, I like getting to the credits. Oh, that was fun. Maybe go back and pick something up. But then I'm like moving on. And I move on so much that that is the thing of like, cool, I'm seven games removed from

where I was when I played Destiny. So even doubling back, people are talking, it's another language. You know what I mean? And that's the same thing with DC Universe Online. I'm always talking about like, I was said if we weren't working at IGN back in the day and we weren't in this industry and I was just playing that game, that would be the only game I play. But since it isn't, when I double back and I jump in and I'm like, let's check out this new

goal. Holy shit. Where did they move? move everything. What is this? Where do I need as a CR right now? Okay, where do I get? You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's a lot like for me to TV seasons where it's like I want to know or anime is actually an example. Like if I know that there is 50 episodes and there's an end, I'm so much more likely to get into it than oh, it's on even like season three, which isn't that bad. But there's no end in sight. It's just going to end whatever ends. It's like I don't like that. I like knowing that there is thought put into where it's going and all of that. And with online gaming, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's not. And with online gaming, it's, it's like, it's like, it's kind of like, what is that? Like, what is the goal? And when there is goals, and this brings me back to, like, Halo 2, like with the level up system, like level 50, that was a goal.

All my friends were trying to get. I knew I could never get that. But seeing them try to get it made me want to play with them because I was good at capture the flag. I can't shoot for shit, but I can capture that goddamn flag. So it's like I would play with them and do that. And all of a sudden, then it was fun because there was something that I was competent at and we were playing with a bunch of people at the same level.

And it was fun and Halo 1 was the same way. I remember trying to make Halo 1 online like when I I connected it to my computer and did this whole crazy land shit Playing Xbox Halo 1 online and I had so much fun with that because the people that were doing that We're going through just as much shit as I was trying to get a halo to work through all this fucking technical bullshit and I think that there's a certain level of Like excitement and just achievement that comes with that of just like where we want to do this and smash pros is the same way like getting smash Bros to actually work online with brawl or even like before using a bunch of emulators and shit like if you were doing that you were in it to have fun and that was great now it's smash bros i love online not nearly as much as playing with someone next to me you know and like that will always be true to me because what you were saying like i grew up playing how you're raised and that's how it is and also i like

nintendo games i like multiplayer nintendo games those are the multiplayer games that i like i'm decent at them they're fun and if i lose i don't care because it was fun yeah you know and uh we've been talk about Battlefront a lot like I have fun with that but at the same time I'm not good at it yeah not nearly good at it um and for someone that's been out of it so long it is just foreign language completely like even getting into online gaming like you need to know a lot and that's coming from somebody that knows games but like if you don't play that stuff you just don't know that's like talking to someone that doesn't know jrpg's talking to them about manna like they don't know what the fuck that is you know it comes from heaven exactly yes that was good um

but yeah it's that's why I don't play online games too much then I'll jump in here and there, but it'll never be my thing. And I just, I don't get enjoyment from it. It's still to the, I mean, the one point I guess I left out is that I still feel like I don't have, my friends aren't doing it. You know what I mean? Like when I made Alfredo teach me to be a first person shooter, aficionado for Titanfall, right? Like him and I would play, but like we're not like super bros. You know what I mean?

And like, Scott Lowe would dip in and dip out. You know what I mean? It's like, but none of you guys are and none of the close circle is. And it's like, well, why would I, you know. I guess that's what I was trying to say with the, like, when you get a, it all to work. There's that level of achievement. It's like, it's the squad. If you have a squad and like there was a goal and it's, we're playing this every Tuesday or every night or every whatever, it makes it better. You know? And when you know that you're playing with other, like, we would get

a squad together. Like we're playing Halo 1, Captual Flag, Blood Gulch, and we're going online to these servers where other people are doing the same thing. That meant that they had a group that they were doing this with. So then it's like, all right, cool. And that's what nowadays, like there's things that I don't know if game battles still exists. I think it does. But that's why I think things like a league and Dota and all that shit are so successful. It does that for you. You know what I mean? It sets the shit up for you.

The stakes are all there. And once you start playing committing, I can't, I understand why people only play those games because that's what they want to do. They want to build that community and go from there. This is one of those reasons I think everything we're talking about describing is why Left for Dead works so well with me and why I loved Left for Dead. He's because Left for Dead levels had a beginning of middle and it ended.

And you didn't have to be the expert. You could totally sit down. And if you've played 300 times, if you've played one time, whatever, pick up the U-Zee and let's kill everything. And we got to get over there. And I hear which, oh, my God, what's at which? It didn't matter. You know what I mean? Like, every time you jumped into that game, no matter who your group was, usually it was friends,

because that was one that my friends who aren't even into shooters or online games would play, right? Because it was cool. You're playing a horror movie or whatever. That one worked. And that's why, like, when we talk about that Friday the 13th game, right, that Sessler's involved in. It's like, hmm, that sounds like that because it's not, oh, my God. It's not evolve. I need an experienced fucking trapper right now to go out

No, no, no, no, no. Just get in there and be a dumb counselor. And I'm going back to what I'm saying. Evolve would be amazing if you had a group that wanted to do that. And I just don't have the want to make that happen. So until something grabs me that way, that's why I don't play online video games. You're getting weird.

Has me coming for your wiener. I know. Okay. Yeah. Topic three. Also from Patreon. This one comes from Christopher Nutson. After subscribing back in July, I decided to go back and watch some of the exclusive content, specifically the JRPG episode.

On that episode, Colin states that Nino Cooney was the best JRPG from the PS3 and 360 generation. This made me consider what JRP's I thought may be better, and I landed on Lost Odyssey. I believe that this was the best JRP of that gen, Jen, and was overlooked by most gamers, even JRP players. This leads to my question. What are games that you personally believe to be great, but were heavily overlooked both at the time they came out and now? Love the show. Keep up the good work. First thing that comes to my mind is Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.

That was the Wii one? That is the Wii one. Okay. The Wii one, I don't think, was overlooked. Okay. I think people liked it a lot, and I think that it got, you know, nice reviews, and people overall saw that as a nice return to foreign for Donkey Kong and all this stuff, because we got a couple weird ones in between with Donkey Kong 64 and all that shit.

So getting a nice 2D platformer is great. Even if people wanted retro to be doing other things, whatever. I enjoy that game a lot. tropical freeze comes out and it's out of time when no one cared about the Wii you already like it hit that point and it's like all right cool more Donkey Kong country like you need to kind of want that to want that you know I wanted it I like donkey on country I think it's a great 2D platforming series and this one it was one that I'm like all right I'll play it when I play it and I played it like months after it came

out and I was like oh fuck this is good this is really good way better than returns and I liked returns a lot. And it made me feel like I felt playing the original Donkey Kong Country games. And I think that's because so much thought was put into the feel of the game, the look of the game, and the aesthetics of it. And the soundtrack made by David Wise, the same guy that did Dunkin Country 1 and 2. And it's what made those games a thing. It's what made them like, you know, it was the glue that held them all together.

And I think even Donkey Country 3 kind of missed out on that a bit. But I think that because this game was on Wii And because it came out at the time that it did It was by far the most overshadowed Donkey Kong game in a long time And even more than that I think that Donkey Kong isn't necessarily One of Nintendo's like heavy hitters

So it's not Mario, it's not Zelda It's not Metroid So even for Nintendo users I think it's overlooked I think that's why I want to give that a shout out Because I can talk about a whole bunch of other things But when a game is a Nintendo game That Nintendo people are overlooking

I think that's a problem sure I actually played that Donk Young game and this is a great example goes back to the first the first topic I only played it for an hour or so at IGN and I'm for my opinion that too heavy too much weight didn't like it yeah lost Odyssey definitely was overlooked I mean there was a lot of early Xbox 360 games JRPs when when Microsoft was making their kind of Japanese gambit with uh infinite undiscovery and blue dragon and a bunch of games that they shouldn't have stranded on Xbox 360 but that That's their fault for making that deal with Microsoft. Games that are overlooked. I still think Vanquish is probably one of the massive major games that's overlooked. This is a platinum third person shooter. A lot of people ask me like, what's a third person shooter that plays better than Metal Gear Solid 5?

Vanquish. Vanquish plays better than most games. And I think is a fantastic, fantastic fucking game. And it's often been said between me and a friend of mine that it should have been a GI Joe game. That would have been awesome. It would have been an awesome. I fucking love Bank, which is such a great game. I think that there are a lot of overlooked kind of digital products, too.

But, you know, I even think a lot of how smart games are overlooked, like, in terms of who's playing. I mean, they have a great reputation in the PlayStation community and hardcore PlayStation community. But their games are like uniformly, awesome. They don't make bad games. They don't even make good games. They make really great games. And so I think that any one of their games that isn't. being played by millions of people, I think is being criminally underplayed and underrated.

But I mean, you talk about the stuff that's overlooked anything early PSN. You know what I mean? Like I stand by how awesome calling all cars was. Calling all cars was so much fun as a local experience and then even playing online. You know what I mean? But that was like wave one of B like right after a super rubba dub and championship sprint came calling all cars. You know what I mean? And so like nobody had the system because it was so ridiculously expensive.

But it was such, so much fun. It's so much. that is one of those games that if that comes out right now PlayStation 4 is a new product it's gonna not don't even wrong this isn't to insult Rocket League or anything like that but it would blow up not that big but it would get it would get big there would be a thing

there would be DLC there would be support people would be behind it whereas this one it came out and just languish you know what I mean but even I mean even when the PlayStation Network has its wheels and is going like not enough people play Shatter you know what I mean come on Shatter that's awesome you know what I mean it's one of those games every time we talk about it people are still like oh right whatever that was cool you know what I mean

I like I like the last guy a lot. It was a quirky, weird ass game, but it was cool and it was fun and why not give it a shot. You know what I mean? And I feel like that was the whole thing with the PSN is like people thought it was such a redheaded stepchild. And PSN was thrown together, not in the best shape back then, but still it had great games. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think, I mean, I like to look at this, you know, look at this question more through the lens of like really, not really old, but just old games. I, because I think that it's always strange to me when when people don't, you know, we talk about a lot of the NESRS, NS classics, for instance, and you know, bring up the

Nintendo first party stuff. But even in that family of first party games there, games that are overlooked, like Star Tropic, for instance. Or you look at early SNES games that were overlooked. I think Act Razor is still one of the most brilliant games ever made. And a lot of people don't, you know, it's a city builder and a side-scrolling action game. It's fucking brilliant. It's a brilliant idea.

And there's nothing like it before or since. And they ruined it with Act Razor, too. But it was such a great. That was an early Enix game. Quintet, I think, made it too, defunct Japanese developer. You know, so there are, our games like that, or, you know, talking about Japanese role-playing games, I think they're, especially in the PS1 era,

which I think is really the golden era of Japanese role-playing games. There's a lot of quirky, weird games, like Thousand Arms that people didn't play. Even Wild Arms, too. Wild Arms is a really beloved JRP, as everyone knows I love it, but, and a lot of people do, but what, that sequel is really good as well. So there's all these, um, these little gems hidden in there, but as we know, like, as, as games come out, like, some things just get cast aside and we just don't get to play them.

and then the longer time goes on, the more of these games just get buried and you kind of have to rely on the opinions and the kind of the recommendations of others to go back or not go back and play some of these games. But, I mean, I can write you a list of games. I mean, the most recent, I think, criminally, super criminally overlooked game was probably...

Taco Master. It was probably Speck Ops the line, which I think is an amazing third-person shooter, both mechanically, and in terms of its story, it's very geopolitical. It's very psychological and fucked up. As I've said before,

there are a few games we look at when we play shooters, we're killing other people, right? And it doesn't necessarily mean like not Americans, or we're just killing like in, although like when you play Wolfenstein, for instance, you're killing the Nazis or,

you know, you're killing in called due to the terrorists or whatever. But in call or in Speckops the line, like there are times when you're killing American like CIA agents and soldiers and stuff like, like you're fighting them. And they're talking, speaking the same vernacular as you are,

to each other. It's just there's haunting. It's a totally haunting game. I absolutely adore that game. And so I think that that's like one of the most criminally overlooked games for for its character and setting and story alone, nonetheless it's gameplay. But I think that, you know, this is a very subjective kind of question because I think that like what do you base it on is

you know, sales or buzz? Visibility or buzz or whatever. I think that, I mean, I think that it's just as easy to talk about games. You know, there are games I definitely think too many people play it. It's yeah, so I think the question obviously goes both ways, but those are the ones that kind of come up. Yeah, the question's hard too, because like, what's the difference between overlooked or underrated and all that stuff? And it kind of comes into it because like a couple that come into my mind weren't necessarily overlooked, but I think there were aspects of them that were Final Fantasy 10 too. I think the battle system and that's great.

And a lot of that was a response to Final Fantasy 10 being so radically different from the Final Fantasy before it, where it was not an active time battle. It was more just like turn-based, like really, really turn-based. And I enjoyed that a lot. But Fawn Fancy 102 really nailed back to time battle. And the whole battle system had going was probably one of my favorite Fawn Fancy, if not my favorite Fawn Fantasy battle systems ever. It was in a game that had, you know, a story that wasn't exactly any of the other Final Fantasy's or whatever.

And it had a lot of other things. But the gameplay of it and the actual battle system was super awesome. Crash Team Racing is the best cart racer. It just really is. It's better than Mario Kart and it's better than Diddy Kong. and Little Big Planet and whatever the hell else there is. Mod Nation Racers you're saying?

You're saying it's better than my nation. I am. I'm definitely saying that. I bet the load times were better. But it's great. I mean, that game was super awesome. And to say it's overlooked, I'm not exactly as a true statement because people really liked and sold well and reviewed well and all that stuff. But I think it's overlooked when people look back on that generation and think car racing everyone jumps to Mario 64 and the memories they had with that. And I have memories of that too for sure.

But Crash, even then, I was like, this is better. Now I'm a crash fan boy, but of course the game is good the game's really good and the power system is good and the power the power slide system and all that stuff is good really good and yeah Sleeping dogs is overlooked sleeping dogs is a great one and not enough people talk about and Amelor. Oh my God. I didn't even think about that. You're right. Yeah, Kingdoms of Amelor reckoning to Colin reviewed games two if only you would have him higher scores. So pretty much Colin. And he and go on IG and look at the games call God. Amelor was so good. Jesus Christ. Now you got me thinking of that. I was also going to say in line with your crash one, one that will be dismissed just because I'm Greg Miller, but Ghostbusters, the video game,

had no business being as good as it was. That's actually a really good point. Development Hal had all the voices, had a fun story, you know, walk some very similar territory. But it was fun and like they actually made being a Ghostbuster for like eight hours or whatever interesting. We had to switch a pack and fight things differently. I mean, that was a very interesting time

just in terms of licensed games where they, for a year or two around there, they stopped doing just cash in garbage and garbage, right? And, you know, we got Spider-Man too and we got a couple like good ones early on but like there was Batman, the Arkham games, there was the Transformer Cybertron games

and then there was Ghostbusters and that was like, holy shit, this is like a turning point. And now Batman obviously is what it is now but I think the Transformers games are overlooked too because those were, I never thought I'd get a Transformer's game that good. That was good, yeah. And it was awesome. It was really awesome,

really faithful and especially after the movies. I expected it to be movie bullshit. It wasn't. It was great. And I remember playing that Ghostbusters game and being thoroughly impressed by it. The Zelda Oracle games. I also want to give a shout at two. And again, not necessarily overlooked.

Yeah, those games sold very well. But they're not games. No, they weren't developed by Nintendo. And they, people don't talk about them when they talk about, you know, Winks Awakening comes up a lot, which I actually is like one of my least favorite Zelda games. As like the pinnacle of handheld

Zelda and then obviously you know to a lesser extent minish cap or then you know the ones on DS which I also didn't like it all But I do agree that those games are fucking cool man because those games really captured the essence of old Zelda At a time when Zelda was kind of changing on console. So yeah, I totally agree that you know I'm surprised that people don't bring up Oracle of ages oracle seasons Those are those are fantastic yeah they're old now they're old they had a sense of just adventure and fun that I think that Zelda I remember originally having and then now it's kind of you know what you're getting you know what the the races look like and whatever but the oracle games like had the characters were just like quirky and weird and new and i enjoy them and i also like the linking system and all that stuff i mean game boy was great with all that for sure do you have any more great no okay that topic brought to you by patreon.com slash kind of funny

games thank you all for supporting us and making this beautiful show happen it is really Really appreciate it. I don't know how long this thing goes on for. It goes on a while, but he could start in early to end it. So we just have to fill up 30 seconds while that goes? We might be longer.

Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. You should have it. Yeah, you should have it. All right. Well, I'm just going to transition on into the fourth topic. Oh, for the third topic, downhill domination on PS2. It was really good.

Moving on the fourth topic. Oni. Oni on PS2. Onimusha 3. I don't know. Cahoole-Hawin. I hate Annamucia theory. I hate it. Oh, it's so good. I hated it. I hated it. I was so much. I hate it so did you prefer one or two then? Oh, two was better than one. But I think, but I think that one and two and four. And four and four. You're gonna motherfucking say four is better than three. Yeah, oh yeah, four is way better than three. I can't believe that. I still can't believe that series is dead. I like still

man, honey musha. That was really the first awesome game on PS2. Everyone forgets that. That was the first really fucking awesome PS2 game. There were some good PS2 games before that, but I really like the bouncer and stuff like that, but Ani Musha was fucking awesome. And I can't, oh. And they fixed the controls in three, which makes three awesome.

Three was just, three was bad because of the setting. Three was awesome because of the setting. And Gene Reno. Yeah, Gene Rino was in it. I was like, oh my gosh, this is awful. Oh, man. Just awful. Pros and cons, Colin. All right. This topic is also brought to you by Patreon and the kind of funny forums.

Go to kind of funny.com slash gamescast topic to submit your topic for this beautiful show. Just like Zizo did, Zizo says, what games currently announced for the 2016 do you think have no chance of making its release date and will be pushed to next year? Kingdom March. Oh, King of March. I mean, no chance. So definitive, not a shot in hell. Yeah. Shit.

And then if we can't go there and then. I mean, I still see that Horizon could tumble out of this year. I don't I don't I don't I'm not prepared to say I think it will I just that's one that's a possibility that I think a lot of no way I think people you think is this year they have to they have they wouldn't they said this year they can't fuck around anymore yeah we'll see I definitely I think it will be but I don't think that's for sure I think they're gonna announce the date like not soon but I think they'll announce the date and it will come out quickly too like I don't think they're fucking around anymore I think the game's probably

done not like in gone goal but I think the game's probably like being polished I mean, we haven't seen anything from it since E3, right? I think they just have to shit or get out the pot. I think they know that. No, nothing. I mean, I don't know. Not that that's necessarily a bad sign. That game is not going to get delayed. That game gets delayed.

They are jokers over there with that shit because they can't do that. They wouldn't even announce the date if they, no, no, no, no. Shit, I don't really know. I mean, I don't think Horizon's going to get delayed. A lot of the releases that we're really cognizant of right now are, or that are soon, are games that have been locked into the state or have been pushed already, so they're going to come out. So you're thinking like games like day, S-X.

Mass Effect, maybe, but I still think Mass Effect will come out this fall. I think they're just not saying anything. They don't have to say anything about it. Mass Effect could be a good March game, though. You know, like, that could... It could be. It could slip in a way, and I don't think that'd be such a bad thing for them. Yeah, I think that it's a possibility.

I just don't... I just don't... I think that that... Like, this past fall was really crowded for a role-playing game and Fallout came out, with a lot of resonance and they just announced a D3 and released it as we talked about and the game was like

the third bestselling game in the United States last year so I think that having only been on the market for two and a half months so I think that MassFek can have a similar success and a similar trajectory

in terms of announcing it and doing all this and then releasing it in the fall I think it'll come out this fall but that was the only game that came to mind where I'm like maybe I could see Grand Tourismo getting out of here

not being this year just based on previous track record yeah no pun intended I'm going through the list it's just like a definitive what you think wouldn't happen. I don't even heard of

Elder Scroll Legends. I'll say that. I was going to say that Final Fantasy 15, but I actually do think it's going to come out now. Yeah. 15 has to, man. It's time. It is time.

If 15 got delayed until 2017, I would. It would be awesome. No. It would be so awesome. It really wouldn't. That's just insulting. It really would be.

But who knows? Never say never with that. I'm gonna let you keep looking I'm gonna move on I just move on I mean there's plenty of games in here but it's like like hot shots golf is on here

and I was like yeah I hope it comes out but that seems like that's the kind of fucking game that they just like all of a sudden like in April be like oh it's not in two weeks you're like oh great

you know what Recore recor is on this list for 2016 I don't think recor is gonna make it Zelda I mean I wouldn't be surprised they have to

they have to put it out this year that doesn't mean they will yeah you know X's gonna give it to you Yeah, all right KL 3549 I wonder if he wanted that username Or she wanted that username or she wanted that username

Or if they're just like fuck it Somebody's already got kale Yeah Playing through Final Fantasy 7 PC port on the PS4 Has got me thinking What scenes slash towns etc are you looking forward to seeing the most And how they're handled in the upcoming remake I for one I'm really interested in see the temple of the ancients

And the city of the ancients Eventually will be portrayed Kyle from Regina I mean it's it's it's contrived but Midgar is the one they really have to nail. And I think, you know, I mean, maybe Costa del Sol or something like that or the gold saucer. But like I, but Midgar is the ominous capital city. You know, and I think that they really have to have to nail that.

I mean, that's what I'm most interested. And we've seen a little bit of it. But I want to, you know, I remember still a very seminal moment in my gaming life was spending so much time in Midgar. And that, and when you don't really know what the fuck's going on in 2007, we didn't, you know, I had the internet in 1997. But I wasn't like reading much about it and stuff like that. the game takes so long you get out of Midgard

that you think you're never gonna fucking leave and I remember that moment of leaving and being on the world map for the first time this has to be like what 10 or 15 hours into the game

or something like that in mind I don't know if that's true or not but and I remember leaving and leaving this kind of big circular city behind and I'm interested to see like what that looks like hmm

I don't know it's it's it's uh I'm interested to see what the whole game looks like I'm also interested to see when it's actually going to come out probably never

well we'll see that's true I'm really interested in Cosmo Canyon because that was one of the moments in the game that I was really like impressed by the the look of it and the just kind of scope of it and like the big telescope and all that stuff and the music and all of it it felt different than the rest of the game

and I'm really excited to see what they do with you know the PS4 and all that shit and also just the town of Nebelheim is that you're saying? I don't know I'm not necessarily Is that where you meet Sid? Right?

Schumann? No, isn't that the town? There's Nibbleheim, the one that gets burned. Yeah, okay. The one that's also in, um, isn't it in, uh, price score? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So I'm interested in that.

Not so much like the burning scene and all that stuff because we've seen what that would look like in Evan Trillen and like bits and pieces of CG stuff. But I want to see like the town because that town had a real distinct. look to it in terms of everything was really kind of old looking and like there was a lot of buildings you can go into and kind of piece together story elements and like read you know notes left on people's tables and like looking drawers and shit

and that would be interesting to me of what that looks like in a modern landscape yeah there are there are characters I want to see too like um and encounters that I want to see like Ufi or Yuffi I always call her Yuffy I think it is pronounced Ufi when you usually Yuffy when we didn't know how anything was pronounced

too funny I never even heard anyone say that but seeing her, meeting her randomly in the woods, I want to just see how these encounters go down and Vincent in the old mansion as well. I think they're going to be part of the story now. That would be fucking lame as hell.

I think it's going to. They were supposed to be part of the story. They were thrown in, I think, like they didn't, you know, the game got too ambitious when they were developing. I was just reading about that recently. I actually didn't know much about the development of the game until recently.

I want to see that, but I also want to see like what the Turks look like and specific because I loved Rufus and the Turks like a lot when I was a kid I almost... They're cool?

Yeah, I remember that they were made to be cool. I remember in eighth grade in like 98 I bit on a poster like a Japanese poster that I'm on eBay and I didn't win and I was right disappointed and

like just not even I mean some of the core characters like Kate Sith and and Sid A boy read 13 Yeah, red 13 and I want to see what like what they all rendered

and what they look like because it seems like they're doing, cloud looks a little weird to me, but I like the way Barrett looks, and Tifa, you see her a little bit, I think, right? No,

you haven't seen. Eris, you see, right? You see Aris, right, with the flowers, okay, not TEPA. Yeah. So I think that two out of three is not bad.

But remember, the game's the most ambitious video game of all time, apparently, so, you know, they're going to need to make it into 17 parts and it's going to take five years

to release them all, but I'm being facetious, by the way, a single completely lame excuse. Yeah, but I'm excited to, I'm excited to see I'm excited to see all of it

I did play it for a little while on PS4 I thought I was gonna get more drawn into it than I did or it was but it did bring back a lot of feels for me having not played it in a long time yeah there's something very nostalgic about that game there's something very special and important about Final Fantasy 7

they better not fuck this up also the motorcycle chase the idea of playing that I think would be really fucking awesome Walt B says I'm currently really enjoying Fallout 4 My question to you guys is, do you think the Fallout 4 season pass will be any good and worth buying? Love you guys. Keep up the great work. Greetings from the Netherlands.

Oy! I do. I think it'll be worth it. I enjoyed, I'm with them. I've planned and Fallout 4. I had a great time with Fallout 4. I'd love more Fallout 4. I'm anxious for more content to jump into and go and have more things to go, level up and go and do.

So, yeah, but based on track record with Fallout 3. I like the Fall 3 D.L.C. Even the ones that weren't the highest of the highs I enjoyed. Yeah. What I'm most interested, and I said this pre-release when we were just kind of hypothetically talking about, well, talking about hypothetical DLC was point lookout was so good. It's probably like my favorite piece of TLC ever. And it's because they just made a new map. And it was in Maryland in the swamps.

It was fucking weird. And I want to see like what if they make a little map or maybe a couple of new maps of areas surrounding Boston because there's, it would be cool to go to New Hampshire or Maine or even Canada. Like I've said that in the past. Like, you know, they're in Boston. that's, you know, quite far from Canada, but not that far from Ontario and Quebec and it would be cool to see, or upstate New York, like what's going on in all these places,

I think it would be a lot of fun to see that. Or, God forbid, New York City. But I think you'd leave that for a full game. Yeah. Fly Eagles Fly 815 says, what are some underappreciated features of gaming? For example, Star Wars Battlefront has some of the best sound I've ever heard in a game.

The effects of the music really make you feel like you're in a real Star Wars battle. However, sounds one of those things that I never hear a game getting praised for. Are there any other parts or features of games that you feel get similar treatment. Score. I mean, well, that's sound,

I guess, the audio part of it does get a bad rap, not a bad rap, but it's ignored. Especially when you go and talk to developers. I'll never forget when we went up to see, I got a tour of sucker punch

when they, and they showed a second son stuff for the first time. And it was, they went in like, here's how the audio works. It's not canned. It's all, you know,

in game natural. So they were in the woods, like, we went and recorded it hitting leaves, and they went over and like, here it is hitting a canvas umbrella because there's a canvas, you know what I didn't mean?

and they did all that stuff, but nobody ever sat there and was like, the ambient noise of Second Sun is amazing. Yeah. And that's something never get called out, but I do think that it, when they nail it like that, it does add to the overall experience. And like,

I'm someone that knows is that. Like, those are the things that I look for. But again, I wouldn't pick them out bit by bit. It's more of like the, when you talk about an experience and everything else, right? And when they're not there,

it's noticeable. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the big takeaways we took away from the animated series pilot on KindofFoney.com, right? Is the fact that people are like, there should have been music throughout.

You know what I mean? And this thing, you're like, oh, that's a good point. For us, we didn't think that. I wasn't even part of the conversation.

It was less music. It was more like sound effects and stuff. Right, right, right. And it was a little empty. Yeah. Your music can be a little distracting at times. But, I didn't mean like,

well, should have been gone. Like the blaring the whole time. I think, and this is less like an overall thing, but whenever I see games do something that I've ever seen before, I'm really impressed by it.

And this doesn't really answer that question, but like Metroid Prime, when you see the, Oh yeah reflection that's a hot. It's those moments and like when a game does that for the first time makes you go whoa. Yeah. Like that's really cool. And other things like that are when I first played Uncharted back in the day, seeing him get in the water and get out and then his pants were wet and what like he left wet footprints.

It was like, oh my God. Right. That's crazy. That's possible. That's in this video game. And Final Fantasy 13 had a moment like that for me where their walk animations looked so good where I was like, wow. They really nailed like the sway of a butt, you know? And I remember just walking my character back and forth and being like, holy shit.

And I'm moving the camera around. It's like any time a game breaks me from the experience because I want to enjoy a technical aspect for it, I think that's really cool. Two things. One, one weird and not thought too often, one that's somewhat obvious. One is interface and menu. Like I feel like there are some games that just understand that volume is a great example. So there can be times when you want to go to Vot, like, like reset a level or go back to a checkpoint.

And it's just, it should just be like muscle memory. Like start down, down X. Start up X. You know, little things like that. Don't make me go into these deep menus. But even if you just need to navigate a menu cleanly, I invert my controls. Sometimes that's in game.

Sometimes that's in control. Oh, yeah. So I'm like, like, why is it so hard to like make it coherent for people? I know there's only 10% of us or whatever. So little, I appreciate little things like that, like easy to navigate menus. And that could go. that you could parlay that all the way to to

role playing games with deep systems and stuff like that. I think, you know, actually I found Fallout 4 as many to be super like, cumbersome, like unnecessarily cumbersome. Because I think the, the pit boy is like this accessory that's part of the game, that's important to the store and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, can you just fucking make it eat like a little cleaner, you know? Real quick sidebar, I'm sorry. Was volume good or bad in the interface? Oh, good. Okay, cool. Just making sure. So that's one, that's one of the things I think about just random things that we might

overlook similar to maybe ambient sound and score. That's really good. Less obvious thing is load times. There are games that load so quickly, and I have no idea how the fuck they did it. And then there are games with load times where I'm like, what are you even loading? And, you know, I have very little patience for long load times. Bloodborn was one of those games where I'm like, this is insane. And I know that they, I know that they passion is fixed now, but when it came out, it was

insane. You could go like literally make a sandwich. Like I know people say that, but you could like literally just leave, walk and take everything out, get the mayonnaise. the bread on the plate, break up the lettuce, put on the meat, you know, like, and walk back, and it would still not be loaded. And in a game where you die over and over and over again, I'm like, this is fucking nuts. But it wasn't a very clever, although probably unintentional way for you to make, you know,

to not be, you know, to be a little more cautious. So I like games that treat players a little more respect by having better, you know, streaming capabilities. And by that, I don't mean you're streaming the game. I mean the game's streaming loading, you know, streaming things in the future that you need. or you know clever loading things that hide loading like not so clever was like the mass effect elevators

but more clever might be a fallout four's ability to kind of examine enemy models and weapon models and read things whatever it's not like the best thing in the world but at least it masks the loading time I was like uncharted and god of war when you like go through like the cracks and now everybody does it got the Tomb Raider I mean everyone does it

but I remember when that first started you were like oh what a smart way not to throw up a loading screen or remind me that I'm playing a video game right another one in it's going to sound weird but stick with me i think controls don't get enough credit sometimes it bad controls get called out all the time like oh and why do they put the button why they assign this button to do that and da-da-da but i don't feel i think it's rare that you're like when it's natural and it just works and it works exactly the way you expect it it's natural and you expect it so you don't think about it yeah it was like damn they nailed how this should

feel and how this you know jump in and do this definitely last question last question comes from innocence hey guys my topic is simple I've noticed that the games I'm playing are beginning to have multiple endings depending on the player's choices. A few examples are Fallout 4, Bloodborn, The Witcher 3, GTA 5, so on. My question is, are multiple endings in games a good thing? Are they worth replaying the entire game numerous times? Thanks, and keep up the great work. Yes, they're a good thing, and I don't think they're necessarily worth going back and replaying a different way.

You know what I mean? Like, I think, like, for fallout's a great example, right? Like, Fallout, you just make a save. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, you're about to make a choice. It pops up. It's like, once you make this, you can't go back. Okay, cool.

No. Jump out, save and go back and do that. You know what I mean? Like, that's the way to... I think that's the key thing is I feel like the game needs to tell me. Like, I need to know that there's multiple endings and that there's choices that change that. Back in the day with strategy guides, that kind of like answer that for you. You would at least look ahead and be like, all right, what do I need to know?

Like you were talking about with Platinum's. You like to look at your trophy list and be like, all right, how am I going about this? It's called the roadmap and trophy hunting. And that's good. You know, I think that roadmaps should be. be more of a thing that the game tells us instead of us having to look for them. But I think that even just goes to just let us know there are multiple endings and that your choices do get you different things. Because even a couple of gens ago, like it sucked to like get through a game.

Like, oh, wait, now I'm on the path for this ending. And yeah, it is what it is. But if it's just simple things with YouTube, I think that nowadays it's like you could just watch different endings. For sure. It's a perfect example. Like you can play through that game one way and you want to know, what if I made this choice differently? you don't need to play it again. You can just go watch it, you know.

But some of those are good, too, that you know you can go back and play from a certain point. Exactly. And I think that it depends on the game. And if you want to play, and New Game Plus is a great way to do that. Like, I think the games that intelligently add New Game Plus modes that entice you to play again in a different way and you get different experience. To me, it's when it's just the ending that changes, that that's the problem. Like, if they change enough of the game throughout that it really matters and it's not, I'm a good guy or I'm a bad guy, but I'm really doing the exact same thing.

That's when I really think the endings matter. But I also, I always want to know what the canon ending is. I hate it when games are just like, here's all the endings. Like, I want to know what the canon ending is and what all just the different fun versions are. What if there is no canon? There always is a canon. Always.

You have any more common? No, I think that if it ever resonates with the people making the game and they think it's important, then that's good. I don't like it for replay value's sake. I think it's stupid. But if there's a reason, if they're trying to say something or tell a story in a way that is meaningful

and give people some closure in ways that make them feel like their choices mattered, then I think that that's pretty cool. Or just to throw people off and just make them think a little bit about what they're doing in the game. And SpecOps, which we talked about in the last topic, I think, is a great example of that.

Fallout New Vegas was another great example of making choices in games where you didn't even know what the fuck you were really doing. And I love the gray moral ambiguity of that game. But to just, say for it to be a check mark on the back of a box to say like, well, we have multiple ending, that's fucking stupid.

Games with conclusive endings are also great where you tell me your story. Yeah. There's no shame in that either. Even if you have them make choices and it still funnels back into the same thing. That's fine with me. Yeah. This episode's brought to you by Luke Crate. Would you classify yourself as a geek, gamer, a pop culture nerd, then this is the

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Oh, Kevin, don't worry about it. No, we're happy to give you this job. Stop taking off your clothes. Don't do that. We'll see you guys next week, and I love you.