Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve Review (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: September 25, 2026

Shape of Dreams is an action roguelite that blends hack-and-slash combat, MOBA-inspired team play, and strategic decision-making.========Shape of Dreams website: https://ppl.cm/FewDenjl?utm_source=geminiOne thing to pack, five ways to power! Get 10% Off @Ridge with code KINDAFUNNY at https://www.Ridge.com/KINDAFUNNY  #RidgepodHead to factormeals.com/kindafunny50off and use code kindafunny50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:05:26 - Helldivers in 202600:07:31 - Fat Bear Week00:09:21 - Gary Talks Soccer00:13:44 - BIG Games00:20:34 - They Finally Talk Ace Combat00:35:24 - Ads00:38:21 - Is It Gary? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shape of Dreams is now available on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam. Journey into the Rapids to celebrate the first anniversary with new content and more fast-paced action. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. What's up, everybody, and welcome in to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Friday, September 25th, 2006. I'm one of your show host, Snowmike Mike, and of course, I am joined by the one, the only, the Rogue One, Mr. Gary Whittah. Good morning. Gary, good morning.

You're wearing your Twitch purple sweater. I mean, this is just, you know, just through stuff. I was late out the door, so I just threw whatever was on top of the laundry bath. It makes me smile, though, because you know that Twitch merch back in the day, as you know, Gary. Very exclusive stuff, hard to get. Yeah, well, I think this is probably from TwitchCon. Yeah. In the VIP area that they only let the true, the true OGs into, yeah.

Yeah. Gary, you've returned to Twitch just a little bit. Tiny bit. Talk to me about it. It hasn't really taken. What's up? A couple of things here and there. Yeah.

I keep thinking about, like, getting back into it in a, in a more, you know, organized way. But I don't really have the time. I'm happy to, I like playing games. I like playing games on stream. But I'd rather be a guest on someone else's stream than have to worry about my own. Okay. You know? I like that, Gary.

I like that. I don't want to have to keep an eye on the thing. And there's a whole other level to it when you're streaming, you know, in terms of, like, keeping the chat entertained and paying attention to the chat. And, like, you know, thanks for the subs. I can't do it. I just want to play games. Okay.

Well, let's talk about being the perfect co-host to a stream then. What are some of the things you do besides just bringing the comic relief in the fun? Are you reading other people's chats? Oh, someone's got my stream out of playing some hell. Yeah, because I was playing some hell. Things I still play so much helldivers. I mean, 3,400 hours and counting now. I'm level 212.

I think only twice since they raised the level cap of I encountered a player higher level than me. Stop it. Yeah. I found a 294 the other day. that guy's got problems. He's gaming. Yeah, it's a lot of hours to get to this level. But no, I say, I think, you know, I play this game so much.

You know, it's often, the Hell Divers still delivers, like, amazing, like, action movie. Oh, my God, I've got to clip that type moments. So I might as well play on stream. And so I was playing on stream, but I just kind of feel like I wasn't getting a lot. Okay. Out of it. That's fine. Out of playing.

I could build up and all. I don't really have a Twitch audience. I'd let me, like, 50, 60 people are what to play. You have a Twitch audience. I could build. I could, again, if I wanted to get back into. to do it on a regular basis. I'm going to dedicate myself to, like, rebuilding it.

I could do it. I just can't be bothered. What about a Gerald? I was thought about bringing back Geraldt. You talked about it. Yeah, yeah. I found my, my, uh, my Witcher wig, uh, the other day. I love, and because, which is pretty remastered is coming.

I literally, I was installing it on my, my PS5 this morning. Okay. So I'm thinking, which is back in the, in the conversation. Back in the conversation. I did enjoy doing the Witcher videos, but nobody watched them. Again, that's the problem. What's the point if nobody cares? This whole audience right now.

There he is. Look at that. They should be watching this. My beef stew. I'm flickering firelight. You got your Witcher cookbook. You want me to get you the Gwent game? I got Gwent's,

the board game if you want. No, just to add to the set. More crap in your mouth. This was all because somebody sent me a copy of the Witcher cookbook, and I thought, I'll do something with that. But I was thinking about bringing back as like a political commentator.

Ah, yeah. Maybe I'll get into the political sphere. Perfect time. You know, everybody's. Take on it. Hassan, Aspen Gold, and Geraldt could be the holy trinity of political pages. You open up your Twitter page and this is it right here. Can you imagine?

Spanned with these gibronies. I'm going to get that week. What I need to do is the group, setting that up was a big hassle. It was a green screen and, you know, I don't really have a dedicated space. I had to like, you know, reorganize my office to make that little stream. But the virtual green stream stuff's getting better now. And so I could probably, I could probably throw together something that good now. that would require much less effort in terms of like a physical green screen.

Slap on the wig, you know. Okay. And it was fun to do. And I was thinking, I was either going to do like a weekly gaming news roundup with Gereltz, the Witcher. You know, you could do that right here with me if you wanted to.

I mean, maybe that would be the easier way to me to do it. You could just come to the set. I'll even put on a wig if you want. I did. I did come in one time as Geralt and I did it with the witch. Okay. With the Witcher vibes.

I don't know if I could even do the voice. anymore. It was, I enjoyed doing it. Yeah. Greetings traveler. Let's say, get down in there, get it for me. I did like, I had the salty load merchandise. Yes, you know. Yeah, yeah. You had, you had the vision, Gary. You said, you just got to keep doing it. Yeah. I think that's so called because that tavern was built on the site where the salt merchants would bring their loads of salt in the dogs. Yeah. Yeah, to be sold at market, the salty load. I think we should probably bring this back here. Yeah. I can get. There was some good material in there. Roger, whip up the back wall for us.

We'll make this happen. So much of the stuff that I try to do for my audience, Pearls before swine. Wow. They don't appreciate what I do for them. So why bother? You know what? I think me and this audience appreciate you so, so much.

I do appreciate it. Let's talk a little hell divers. Let's circle back to Hell divers. How's it going here in 2026? What's hell divers like for a Hell divers player? I'm trying to play less of it, not because I want to play less of it, because I really want to make time for other games.

Okay. I'm so big. My backlog is like everyone goes, oh, my backlog. Mine is really outrageous. And I am desperately trying to catch up. And there's a bunch of, I feel like 2026 low key is shaping up to be like a really good year for games. It's like every week, there's another banger coming out. Gary, another great year of games is right.

We've had a lot of good one. I'm playing a couple of things right now that I don't think I'm allowed to talk about because they're still embargoed. But like there's a couple of games out there right now that I'm really, really enjoying. I like, give me a couple nods. Like, they're good? Like, nod, just nod. I'm what am I nodding at? Well, I'm picking up the games that you're putting down, you know what I mean?

I'm trying to think of the games that you play. I will say this without getting into trouble. There is one game that I'm currently playing that is set in a far away fantasy world. Okay. That has a regional accent in it. Yeah. From my homeland. Wow.

I've never seen before in any kind of game, let alone a game set in this particular universe. And it took me out of it. I can't get past it. It's driving me every time. he's right with his carrots. I'm like, just get through it. Can't do it.

When the embargo lifts, we'll get into it more details. He'll take a look. Well, let's talk about some games that happen. I just got, I have to say hello to my four-year-old. Oh, say hello. My goblin, who's watching right now. She loves it when I'm on TV. I love it.

I said, it's not real TV. Yeah, but it is. It's just Twitch. No, but if it's at her age, and even for me, when you're on the TV, Gary, you're on the TV. No, we're on YouTube. Look, we're on the same outlet as Trump TV. Hell yeah.

We're on the same outlet as state national regime TV. How much more official can it get than that? Have you shown your four-year-old Fat Bear Week, of course, Fat Bear Week? I saw that on your street. I don't know too much. What is Fat Bear Week? Fair Bear Week, of course, has been going on for 12 plus years, thanks to the park services.

Is this a gay thing? No, this is up in Alaska. If you were on the gay scene, you would be a bear. No, I would. Gary, you know, Folsom Street Fair this weekend. You better catch me out there walking the street. Minimal to no clothing on. You better watch out. No, Fat Bear Week, of course, celebrates those fat bears that are getting nice and round before hibernating up in Alaska right now.

Oh, but the catmine? This always makes me think, making me think about... National Park. Don't you wish it human hibernation were a real thing? Don't you wish you could just like go to bed or go in a little cave? Yeah. And sleep for like six fucking months and wake up feeling like fully restored, like the best sleep of your life. That would be fantastic.

I would love that. I would love to hibernate. But then you'd have to eat a year's worth of food in the next six months. You okay with that? Easily. Give me a couple of edibles. I'll eat six months with the potato chips and Cheetos. You took me to Papa Max burgers.

Good burger. Now, there's another burger place near it that I recommended on our San Francisco recommendation for KF Top 100 happening in October, a whole week of fun. Oh, I just did my video for that. Nice. Okay. Well, Gary. That top 100 list got a lot of problems.

Okay. That's a tease. That's a tease for you. Who knows? Have you been down to mallards or maillards, which the do? duck, which is right below Papa Max. They're doing a killer smash burger right now. I do like a good smash burger.

Gary, this is a stop. Go down there and get... Mallards? Mallard. All right, I'll look it up. Two pitchers, brewery or bar is where it is. They let the burger shop kind of put a pop up there, and it's happening. Line out the door at all times.

You'll catch it. It goes in waves, of course. We are fast. Killer burgers. I just found there's a hot dog stand outside a place in my local neighborhood in Westpaw that just popped up. It's a guy who makes these Thai hot dogs with like chili and lemon grass in the

hot dog. And it comes in like a crunchy bun. I got what's called the 49er. It comes with like pickled spicy onions and like this sauce, this kind of ties oh my God, it's the best hot dog I've ever had. Let's get the gaming. Yeah, let's get into it.

You said you got to one other thing just real quick. Some people in the chat. I appreciate this. Most of won't. I work up in a very, very chipper mood. this morning. Shipper moves. I got some very exciting news from another of my spheres of interest, the board of association football. I know if you've heard the latest news out of the Premier League.

I have not. Is it about our spurs? I'm really like, yeah, I guess tangentially. Manchester City, Mike, a club nobody likes. Nobody likes the city. Some years ago was charged with 115 infractions of what we call the financial fair play rules. You know how you have like a salary campaign? Of course,

to make sure that people can't like just cheat their way to winning things by spending crazy amounts of money? Looking at you, Steve Balmer and the Los Angeles Clippers right now. Well, we have that too. It's called financial fair play. Fair play. And Manchester City has just been found guilty of, this isn't a typo,

114 out of 115 charges that will level against them. And now there's a very real prospect that the biggest team in English football is going to be relegated into a lower league. Stop it. Yes, because the crimes were that severe. Basically, cooking their books, hiding money, filing fraudulent accounts, lying about how much they were really paying their players.

Yeah, all the fun stuff. And they won a bunch of titles in Champions League's off the back of this. That's how you win. And now all that has to have an asterisk against it. You know, there's like to tell you, the clubs that came second could now retroactively be given those titles because you actually won it. Whoa. And, you know, all the World Cup fans that fell in love with Erling Harland.

I was going to say, well now I've got to go support Manchester City timing couldn't be worse because now Harlan's going to fuck off to realm all these top players and they're going to fucking play in the fucking Halifax Conference League Oh he won't

What are you kidding me? No, no, no He's too talented. Good times to everyone who's not a Manchester City fan today Let me tell you, we're loving it We are fucking loving it Okay, put the Hey, we got to learn about that story.

I like that. I'm loving it. Okay, Gary? Funst, I just wanted to get that because it just happened this morning. It's like a, I'm trying to think Imagine if like Sony were found to have cheated at

publishing video games or whatever and we're now being stripped of their rights to publish video games. It's that big. It's huge. It's huge. Will this have an effect on my EAFC? EAFC is going to have to reflect it.

Stop it. Well, of course, because anytime there's a managerial change in the real world, EAFC, that's one of the things that's actually I've started playing EASC. Yo. Let me tell you something about those fucking games.

Tell me about it, Gary. I haven't played one of those games in a while. I haven't actually really engaged with an EA footy game. Since it became, since the FIFA license went away. It's only been a couple years, though. I mean, they got rid of that at the right time as well, didn't they?

Because FIFA is not exactly a glittering reputation in the days either. They're interesting because there's so much to it. I come from the days of like sensible soccer and kickoff where you just like, you know, start the game and you're kicking a ball around. Now it's like, I've spent more time, Mike, opening fucking. packets of cards and wondering what the fuck they mean, then I have picking a ball. But it's fun and excited sometimes. I spent like an hour like trying to get so.

How do I just kick a ball around? Try this, do this, open this. Oh, this will improve this and that. It's like, there's a game around the actual game. Yeah. That has grown to like such a massive degree. You know what I think. It's overwhelming.

I actually don't know what I'm doing with all these fucking cards. I'm not just opening cards all day. I think of it as pop-up windows when I go to the websites. And it's like, why am I indicted with so many pop-up windows to get to the game? and that's what EA and these sports games have become. And I mean, that meta game may very well be interesting. I'm going to try to get into it a little bit. I want to do the full managerial role.

I want to do the manager career. Okay. Oh, okay, okay. conferences and signing players behind the scenes. Because I think I'd be a good Premier League football manager. Hey, if you want to make it a series, we can do it once a week here. You can come down here. You and I shoot a little 30-minute video.

We make it happen. We see how good your team can do. Follow my managerial career. Gary, I would love to. Let's do that. Okay, I'm going to hold you to do it. No, if that's the case, I was actually going to start it this weekend, but I'll hold off until I can come in and I'll start a manager. I will manage my beloved Tottenham Hospital Club.

Oh, my God. We do a season better than the last bunch of fucking jokers who have all been a waste of space. We're going to do it, Gary. I'm going to hold you to it. Really quick, I just want to thank, of course, our Patreon producers. Thank you to Omega Buster, Delaney the Somme Twining and Michael Pezzavento for allowing this show to happen. Of course, this is the kind of funny games cast. We're talking all things games.

Moving off of FIFA, Gary. Yeah. What about Control Resident, Silent Hill Townfall? There's some big recent releases. Are you jumping on those? Well, so this speaks to my backlog a little bit. I'm actually replaying control right now. So two games,

it's embarrassing for me to have to admit this on stream. But so my backlog is bad, and it goes back years. And there are some bangers from the last few years that I either never played at all or never finished. So just because I felt like I needed to because there are new games coming out where I want to be able to play them but you feel like you have to have played

the first one first. I mean, I'm jumping around a bunch of different games right now trying to get caught up. But I'm replaying control, which I never finished. Hey, that's a great game to replay. Fantastic game. What a game.

It's just so much fun to play. And I'm replaying because I never finished this either, Expedition 33, which of course, it's funny. I remember, I talk about this all the time, I remember sitting in this. this very chair, the very first time that they showed a preview for that.

Before anyone knew what expedition, it was like a trailer that was in like a showcase of other things. And I remember, maybe you, maybe it sometimes, but I think it was me and like, whoever else was here was looking at this going, the fuck it, this looks like it could be something special. This looks like a banger. Yeah. And but we had no idea, right? Because it has now legitimately become, become a banger.

One of the, perhaps one of the best games of all time. And it is fucking, it's so much fun. That little French team, they did the impossible. It's one of the few games with the storytelling, the cinematics, the acting, hats off to Charlie Cox, and everyone is in that game. It really is top tier. Like, it's like, man, I could be watching a movie right now. It's just so well performed, so well done.

It's so emotional. It's such an original world. Yeah. I like it so much, Mike. I don't even mind that it's French. That's how much I like this game. That's a big company. And that one particular, you know, wrinkle they brought to the combat where it's turn-based,

but you have that, you know, when it's kind of defend, you know, the block and the and the pairing and stuff. Yeah. When you pull off. like three, because you've got to learn the patterns. But when you've learned them and pull off like three successive parries and do a counter, feel good, doesn't it? That hit that you get from a game.

Oh, it felt good. Like that game delivers it over and over and over again. Who's your squad right now? It's such a fucking good game. Who you rocking? Who's your big three? I like Lune. Luna.

Luna? Lune. I don't you pronounce. Yeah, I was going to say, thank you, Bair. It's been a long time. Sorry, what's the correct pronunciation? Lunet. Lunay.

Yeah, so I like Lunay. Yeah, she is right there. Oh, yeah, yeah. Lounais. Gustav, of course, because he's just a cool, he's just a cool dude. Hell yeah.

And Maya, I like Myel. She's cool. Yeah, she's great. The one that you pick up like a quarter of the way through the game, who has the weird way of fighting with, like the sun and the moon cards. I don't quite understand her fighting system.

The scyth. I'm still kind of learning that. What is her name? Yeah, I'm blanking on it. But like, CL or something like that? CL sounds right. CL, Lunae and Myel.

Yeah, I believe that. C.L. Yeah. Once you figure out her system. though it is fucking fun. It's such a different system to what you're used to to that point. You feel you have to learn something new all over again. But what a fantastic game.

For anyone out there that's still sleeping on Expedition 33, like pick it up today and stop playing. I love that you're dabbling in that. You're going to see that one through? Because that's kind of a larger game. Because one of the reasons why I'm going to get back to it is everyone tells me that, you know, it really pays off at the end. So I've got to get all the way. I do have to play it.

So I'm working my way through that, working my way through control. One of the things I'm learning, I'm not very good at juggling games. Okay. You know, when you go from one game to another, and it's like, oh, you got to remember like, oh, shit, the RB doesn't do that in this game. Like, you have to remember the different control systems. I'm better off when I'm focusing on one game at a time, but I'm trying to play catch-up on several games at once. It's not just like these older games, like Control and Exhibition 33. Control, obviously, I want to play because Resonance out.

I want to finish the first one first because it is very much a, you know, a sequel to the first one. Yeah, you're definitely going to want to know. Yeah. Yeah. But then also trying to play all the new stuff that's out there. Let's have been playing some FC-27. playing Onimusha? What a bang of that is.

Oh, my God. I feel like I'm going to fall in love. What a game. What a game. I think that's a mic game right there. I want to try that. I love it. The Tashira Mufuni vibes are so good.

It's such a different energy from a hero character that you don't usually see. My wife just finished playing Ghost of Yote, which again is an incredible game, fantastic game. But very serious in its, you know, in its storytelling. You know, the main character, she's like, I'm going to must avenge my family. And it's like very long, there are moments of levity. but it's a serious story, right, about serious shit. When you play on Emucia, and the guy is very much, like, based on two days,

he's like drunk half the time. Like, why have I got to do all this fucking bullshit? Just get this thing off my fucking army. The ultimate kind of reluctant hero, just like he's constantly irritated by the fact that he has to do anything. It's really, really funny. But again, once you get into the combat, and it feels like every single game these days, because I've been playing some blood of Dawn Walker. Oh.

I've been all over the map, Mike. Chad was asking, hey, you better play Dawn Walker. A lot of different games. Mortal Shell, too. I played a little bit of that. Crimson Moon. I've been bouncing all over the place. And one of the things that I've noticed,

especially with these like kind of souls-like or souls-like adjacent games, is that they're all very much of a muchness now. It's always like, okay, you can block, you can dodge, you can parry, which is a shorter window, but bigger bonus if you hit it. Like, you know, Dawn Walker does that directional thing that kind of gives you a little bit of spice.

But, you know, they all seem like very, and then like, oh, okay, time to stop. Where do you want to put your points into your skill tree? Like, again, these are all very established mechanics, but there's just a bunch of games coming out right now that all seem like they're just variations on a very, like, we've all settled into this one mechanic of skill trees and bonuses and leveling up your armor and weapons and then block Dodge Parry, which is fine. It's a very successful formula and I enjoy playing it. Like when the combat is on in Onomusha, you're just like slicing through enemies. It just feels really fucking good, you know? Like every single kill, you know how like in Yotel, whatever, every now and again, you'll get, you'll get, you'll get.

like your cinematic finisher type kill. In Odomusha, he kills everyone that way. Every single kill is like a flourish. And it's so well done and it's endlessly satisfying. It's a beautiful looking game. Just really, really enjoying that. And I'm not even, again, there's, and the other ones I'm playing right now that I can't even,

I told to you, like, when I said the thing that I can't talk about right now. Can I even say, I can't even say what it is. But it's a game that people know about it isn't out yet. But I'm really, I'm, let me say that game. Yeah. That might actually be my game of the year. I'm not even kidding.

Yeah, you're dabbling in all sorts of games. I'm all over the place. You're like, I got a bad backlog, but you're playing a bunch of games. And in the middle of all this, I even had some time to play Ace Combat. The game I was actually supposed to be playing.

Exactly. For this review. You and I were supposed to play Ace Combat. I tell you what, I was playing that. Yeah. Greg's been very generous with codes lately. And he doesn't pay me anything to show up here.

But you know, if you add up the value of all the games that would otherwise have to buy. It works out pretty. It works out pretty good. Greg's always good with codes. So when he asked me to do something, I feel like I've got to, you know, at least do the bare minimum. You know, that's me. I missed a bare minimum.

But he said, do you want to come in and review it? I said, fine. Okay, yeah, sure, why not? Again, I don't want the codes to dry up. Yeah. Greg is my code daddy. I take care of my code daddy. As long as code daddy's happy, you're in.

That's right. And so I said, okay, fine. So I'm playing. I wanted to play anyway, otherwise I wouldn't have asked for a code. I mean, come on. You don't want to take to the skies, Gary? You know, Top Gun Maverick, you know, that whole vibe. You want to be the guy in the seat, right?

And I've messed around with these games. I've always liked the idea of like a fighter combat gang, going all the way back to like FAA18 Interceptor on the Amiga. And, you know, for a lot of people, it was like Top Gun on the NES. Yeah, okay. You always work. And the technology is now, their games are good enough now that you can really get that feel.

You feel like you're in the seat. I need to do this. I want to go into Battlefield 6 and play some of the Top Gun Maverick official content they have in there. Yes, of course. Did you see the cinematic trailer for that? So good. Fucking incredible. It looks like it could be better than this.

I mean, only in battlefield moments. Yeah. And like you get those, right? And the cool part about Battlefield is you can get out of the plane and get crazy with it too. Of course,

here in Ace Combat, you're locked inside the plane. They're not letting it out. I've got to jump in and do, Battlefield 6th up like barely touch you. It looks like there's a lot of good stuff in there if I want to jump in. So,

but in particular, the Top Gun Maverick stuff. Yeah. Looks really amazing. So are you a big aerial combat guy? Yeah, you know, I love it. I love it. Talka Mavit was my favorite film of that year.

Oh, I absolutely loved it. We saw it in 40X as well with the chairs kind of like spinning you around and splashing water in your face and stuff. It was hilarious. And I've always wanted a game like that. So like the last couple of eight combat games I messed around with and I couldn't quite get into them.

I thought, okay, I'll give it a real go on this one, especially since I said I'd review it. I've really got to try to play it. I'm, I guess we're going to finally now get into like reviewing it a little bit. I'm struggling with it. to be honest with my for a couple of reasons. First of all, the storytelling is atrocious. Wow.

And I don't like it. As someone who works in this fear, I don't like criticizing storytelling in other games and movies because somebody worked on that. You could easily have been me. But I'm going to tell myself that it's something to do with it being translated from Japanese or something. Okay.

Because it's really bad. Now, when you say, it's shock. And maybe it's because I'm like putting down Expedition 33 that has top shelf acting and storytelling. Yeah, yeah. And coming to this, that feels more like, I know, like the asylum version of Top Gun or whatever.

Okay. I mean, you've played it, right? Yeah, right from the very beginning. I want to dive into it with you. The world is very strange. And I understand this is the World of Ace Combat, but like it's not set in our real world. Of course, of course. And again, I understand why it's very politically these days.

It's a very feebrile environment, right? Top Gun did this as well. You know, they never said, like, who they were bombing. They were never shooting. They took all of that out of it. Well, the enemy targets. Bad guys. Yes.

They didn't want to get into the politics of life. Well, why are we bombing these guys and not those? course. So it was set in the real world. They just never specific about who they were bombing. Really quick. Was it the Russians? Was the Iranians? Your topic of the show, welcome in to an Ace Combat 8. Review so far by myself and Gary Witta. We have played the game. We're going to talk about it. Keep going, Gary. So it's set in this alternate world and it's like, you know, Jablovia versus Valverde or whatever like made up countries they've come up with. Yeah, yeah. And they've got their own, you know, story behind it.

And they've got their own world. but I don't know that kind of takes me out of a little bit I would rather be bombing China or Iraq I don't know at least because it feels like it feels real as opposed to this

but like you can see the planes clearly are like modern planes from our real world yes of course it looks like the real world until they say oh well the Jablovian Air Force and you go what the fucking Jablovians yeah who the fuck are they you know it takes me out of it a little bit and then just beyond that the character work

it's like every character you meet is like oh hi I've just met you anyway when my brother died eight years ago in a in a great trading accident in France I've been struggling with PTSD it's like wait why you I just fucking met you dude like why are you telling me all this stuff like isn't that the camaraderie though Gary we're making we're making a crew we got to tell everybody our secret and this whole idea like I just don't buy the central premise

that there is this one like legendary pilot yeah right who essentially is a construction of like the media propaganda operation. Correct. There is this slick media guy who's on the aircraft carrier going like, oh yeah, we're feeding the, I understand the point they're trying to make politically,

right, about how a lot of this is just like what you can make the public believe, you know, manufacturing consent, essentially, you know, is a well-known political concept. You know,

basically they, for those I'm familiar, there's like a legendary pilot. Yeah. In our, again, I don't even know what the name of the country is that I'm fighting for. Debroni.

Okay. So I'm fighting for the, fighting for the, for the, for the nation of Gibroni, for Gibronian independence. And there is this legendary pilot who, he's like, he's like a five times ace. He shot down all these enemy pilots. And, you know, it's something that back home, like people open their, read their newspapers. And they go, oh, yeah, I see. He's the hero of the skies.

I see that the Gibronian hero has done it again or whatever. And like, it's keeping people like, you know, feeling optimistic about the war, which is, in fact, going much worse than, you know, we want the public to think about. And the idea is that this is not a real person. It's just an identity. Like this guy's actually been shot down many times before. And they just give the identity to the next guy. And they pretend that he never died.

Yeah. Which again, like, if you actually think about it for more than two seconds, it doesn't really work. It doesn't really hold up. But then there's this weird thing of like, first of all, the main guy, this guy who's like the Gibronian Zorro or whoever this guy is. Yeah. The maverick of Gibroni is basically, first of all, he talks like, he talks like, no.

No one in a real movie would ever talk. The only people in video games talk this way. Yeah. Because if he did it in a movie, you'd get laughing. Well, you have to have a cool vibe. You got to have a real cool vibe. But I'm moody. But I don't know how to really act.

So I'm just going to do this voice and sound like my wife was murdered. You know, it's all super fucking cheesy. And so this guy who is the, like the hero, he dies very early on. No, it's just so early on. It's not really a spoiler. Chad, I'm getting the setup right now. It's like the beginning of the game. 100%.

the setup of the game. So Gary is giving you the rundown of the entry of the video game. So he dies very early on. But then he lives on essentially as like a ghost in your head, right? Ghost in the shell. Ghost in the shell. Ghost in the brain. So like the Gibronian Maverick, even though he's dead, and I'm now

the guy that's replaced him as like the squadron leader. And I'm the new Maverick. I've now assumed his identity and I'm carrying him as though nothing happened. The old guy, the guy that's dead, is now in my head all the time. And he, and it's And it's like, it's like, it's like Max Payne is in your head. Because he sounds like, he sounds like Max Payne, but he's a pilot. Yes.

Yeah. And you didn't like that. Of course, people really will hearken back to, of course, eight, um, the people back home and Gibrony. Don't know how badly the war is really going. What's the from soft game, uh, Barrett, please? Armored Corps. People point back to Armored Core, really liking that voice inside their head, of course.

It's all a lie. Having your own co-pilot while you're up in the sky. kind of telling you about the war that's going on, telling you about their history. You have now accepted the mantle of being the ace pilot up there. You are a hero to everyone down on the ground. And yeah, that is the start of it. So you don't like the vibe of that.

And they're trying to be profound. They're trying to make statements about the futility of war and so forth. And I think that's a noble aim. And I think that's all very cool. It's just performed and executed in such a sophomoric way. It's like, war. War never changes, Mike. Okay.

The Gibronians, they want freedom. But at what cost is that freedom coming? Yeah. The cost is truth, Mike. Truth is the first casualty of the battlefield. And I'm going to keep talking to you in your fucking helmet until you're sick of my fucking voice. You're trying to shoot down planes,

but you've got to listen to this bullshit. Now he's saying that, Gary, but then the CSI Miami theme song kicks off. Yeah. If they did that, it would be great. You punch in with that fighter jet into the next mission and you take to the sky. I used to fucking, I used to fucking love that CSI shit.

Does that shit not get you eyes or what? Looks like someone just went to the bottom of the ocean. Yeah! Oh my God, so good. You're pushing the throttle forward. You and Joker's squadron are up in the skies flying around, calling out different enemy pilots, going out there and attacking them, land, air, it doesn't matter, you're doing it.

Again, I cannot get past, you know, any video games, even these days when the standard is hot. You don't always expect the highest quality of dialogue and storytelling. But this is genuinely very bad. And it's not like that, oh, it's so bad, it's good. It's just, it takes me out of it. It, like, it's, it's, there was a thing just, I was playing with, like, in, like, in the mess hall. And this guy that I've never met comes sitting down next to me and just starts delivering

all this, like, naked exposition about what's going on in the game. And like, in context, you, in the, in the, you be like, you're the fuck you, why are you telling me all this? But it's happening. because they need the audience to know it, and they can't, they weren't able to kind of the more elegant way to what's going on. So they just like just, they just say everything that's on their minds. Yeah. And it's, there's, there's, maybe it develops later, but there's no, there's no, there's no,

there's no, there's no, they just arrive, like, fully formed. Nothing, nothing, nothing in the relationship between you and your squadron mates feel Tasha, professional. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to like these characters, like, you know, a little kawai girl who's like, yeah, Tasha, uh-huh. The little teenage girl who's like a super, like, a super,

Jock fighter pilot. Yes, her father was a big aerial pilot. Now she's taking up the mantras. Right. So she's cool. I think the Joker guy is, and again, it's all, they're all based on these like top gun archetypes. Oh, that guy's meant to be hangman. That guy's ice man, whatever, you know, whatever it may be. And so there's that. Okay. And then there's the, and I would forgive all of that if the combat was working for me. Okay. Maybe, maybe someone in the chat, I need to play it on stream or something. Because one of the things I like about playing, games on stream sometimes, that people all like set you straight and say,

oh no, like you're doing it wrong or whatever. Or that collectible you need's over there. Well, talk to me about it. It's not having a live, you know, help channel when you're playing a game when people that know the game are playing. And this,

and somebody just made the point, yeah, I mean, it is like anime, but even anime can be good. I get that anime's known for cheesy dialogue as well. Yeah, yeah. But some of the anime's that I watch, I think generally cheesy though they are. Yeah.

At least there is a standard. And I think this kind of falls below what you consider like the anime. Now, to jump in there with you, Gary, of course, I have played this as well with you. I've put about eight hours in, ten missions in. And I will say at first, I did find the dialogue pretty rigid to cheesy to not all that. Interesting at all. I think they're setting up the world.

I think the characters are pretty stiff. It reminds me of like, I don't know. I don't want to call it Star Fox, but it's like everybody chimes in like it's the Star Fox game. I know, but it's like they're not fun. Bunny Rabbit, by flying a spaceship, then you, you know, you know, make allowances for that, but this is meant to be more grounded. And at the beginning of it, it's like, it's not fun, it's not really engaging. It's very basic military talk, so I totally agree with you.

Yeah, it's very like, they fed this into chat, GPT and said, like, make this feel like we're in Top Gun, Mavre. But then as the game progressed, I started to really enjoy the character talk back and forth. I found it as, like, at first I wanted it to be armored core with this, like, intense, wild story of, hey, the former wing of thief is talking to me in my head. He's telling me about his ass. Oh, that's right.

The wing of thief. That's what they call him. These guys around me are my new crew and like, yeah, we're kind of buttoned up, but we're sharing our spots. And then later on, it's like we kind of drop the beginning dialogue and we get a little bit further, but you're never going to have super anime. It might just be some element of personal. Again, like the kind of one step removed from reality is just not like a cup of tis.

There's no thing that I'd just not be right rocking with me. Other people might enjoy that. But the point I was going to make was I can set all that aside if I'm enjoying the moment-to-moment combat. Maybe I'm playing it wrong. But you tell me, Mike, it feels like when I'm playing this game, and I'm in combat with some enemy planes, some dog fighting. It just feels like all I'm ever doing is just constantly turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, trying to get the enemy, like, actually on my screen. Yeah.

Because, you know, they appear as all the arrows going, he's over here, he's over here. Turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, turning, trying to get the enemy just, like, lined up in my sights and then taking a shot at them. And it just, I'm spending 90% of them time, just trying to get the enemy in front of me. so I can even fucking see them and get a shot at them. And like the idea of like ducking and weaving and feeling like, oh, he's going behind me, I've got a cat. Like that that feeling that you want to have is not present for me in this game. I just feel like I'm constantly just like just trying to acquire a fucking target. Yes, it's very slow turns, sweeping slow turns to try to get back behind them.

Forget about trying to hit anything with your machine guns. That's all you, the, you're going to use a lot of your special weapons. The best thing I've been able. And again, maybe I'm just playing it badly. So maybe if you just hit the L1 button or whatever, that gets much better. Maybe I'm missing something. But like, all I can do is, like, get an enemy on my screen, get it close enough for a missile lock, and then fire a bunch of missiles and maybe one of them all hit.

Yeah. But I never really feel like that kind of like, yeah, splash one. I got that motherfucker. You never get that feeling. When you kicked on the game, we gave you two options. He gave you basic controls and then the secondary controls, which is the advanced controls. Did you stick in basic? Did you try to take off the training wheels and let it kind of like, you really in full control of the pitch to yaw?

I've tried, yeah, I try and like, I try to pitch roll, y'all, all the different things. things. Like sometimes, you know, when I play a flying game, I'm often playing it like I play a racing game where I'm just like right in the fucking accelerator the whole time. So like come off the throttle, obviously, if you come off the throttle, you can turn on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a narrower turn. I've, I've been messing with it quite big. There's got to be, I'm convinced it's me. Like, the game is not meant to be this way. You just constantly just trying to at least get a target like in front of you. So maybe I'm just playing it wrong. And maybe as I continue with it, someone will click it or figure out what I'm doing. So then someone in the chat saying, you should need to play on like a, a. a stick and a throttle, maybe, but most people aren't going to be... I think it's very good on controller still.

Gary, we're going to find out if you're playing it wrong. I might be. Are people in the chat saying I'm playing it wrong? Let us know if he's playing it wrong, because we're going to dive into Gary, and if he's playing it wrong, right after a quick word from our ads. We'll be right back. This episode's brought to you by Shape of Dreams. Shape of Dreams is a fast-paced action rogulight that combines hack and slash combat with Mova-inspired teamwork and endless build possibilities. Take on the Dream World solo or jump into four-player co-op with crossplay,

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That's code kind of funny 50 off at factory meals.com. Kind of funny 50 off at factory meals.com. See the website for more details. Gary, here we are in the topic of the show, of course. It is Ace Combat 8. Our review so far, you're talking about just not really viving with the control. Yeah, because you have annoyed questions. quite a few tryhards in the in the chat.

It was saying like, you know, get good and whatever. And they may well be right. Yeah. It's scrolled off the screen now. But shout out to that one guy who said, oh, this bald guy is very pretentious and then misspelled pretentious. I fucking love it when they do that. Got your ass is right.

No, I mean, look, and people are giving some good tips. Like both triggers at once, like you perform like a really hard turn. Yeah, I did cotton on to that. I've been using that. It's like, I'm fully willing to believe that there is a point where once you figure out, like the, like, the, like, how to control the game properly. Yeah. It'll click.

And I'll get those top gun type moment. moments that I'm looking for. Of course. But also, I say I'm not great. I'm not great at games. I'm mid at games at best. I'm good at some games. I'm mid.

I'm never really that good. But I'm good enough and I'm familiar enough with the language of playing video games that this can't be just me. Yeah. I've got to believe there are many other people out. I can't if the game's even out yet, but many other people like me who either are or will be doing the same thing. Why am I just turning to, why can't I keep a target like even in front of me?

Yeah. And again, maybe I'll figure it out. But I'm like 10 hours. I feel like within 10 hours, I should have figured it out. Of course, Gary. There's things I figured out on my own, like, you know, one thumbstick is to steer and the other thumbstick is to look around. Yeah. And I've discovered that if you just leave the right thumbstick alone and just don't look around and just look at whatever is in front of you as you turn.

Okay. You get less discombobulated. Yeah. The hard trigger turn. There are ways to do it, but I just want something that's a bit more for, you know what me? I know this is going to sound shitty, but like almost like more on rails. That would be my preference. Like put me like afterburner, like put me on rails and just let me shoot at stuff.

Yeah. Right? Because I just want those vibes. I just want that feel. I just want that top gun movie feeling. And this is a bit more, it's not really simy. It's still a very arcadey game.

It's just, it's not, one of these things, but I feel like I'm not, it's not really fair for me to criticize the game because I think it probably is very, aside,

the storytelling aside, which is just bad. The combat itself, I think for people that understand it and know how to play it, probably is very satisfying. The vibe with that.

But the way that it's dialed in is just not my, it's not my play preference for this kind of game. Okay. Let's talk about something in the vibes, though. Like the mission structure, some of the different missions, some of the different, you know, enemy combatants that you will be engaging with. What did you think about that?

Because there's some cool stuff in this game. Yeah. I mean, again, all the trappings of it, you know, I really like kind of the after mission report where you get to see like every single tracks all your movements and you can see exactly what everything, everyone was doing. Two very cool after mission reports. One, they replay your entire mission on screen for you as if like you could edit it down and share it to the public and rewatch it. And then two, they tell you the story while showing you the very cool. Yes. On the black and white grid with like the bright green arrows and the red arrows.

And it shows you everywhere you've gone, every combatant you shoot down. The whole entire mission will play out if you want to watch. And I don't know if that's necessarily instructive. If you can look at that as like a debrief and go, oh, I see what I did wrong there. But it's just cool to see. Just a vibe. Yeah. It's tracking all of your movements in real time.

I mean, what was your experience with the controls? And just the moment to moment combat. When I went out of basic and went to the more advanced controls, I felt like I had more control and more maneuverability. I feel like the basic, it does feel like I'm slowly turning and moving at like a snail's pace. Maybe that's what I did feel much better afterwards. It sounds counterintuitive, but maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe I need to take, if I've got like training wheels on, maybe I can take them off.

I think you're ready for that, Gary, especially with the time that you spent, I think you now know and understand what's going on. Because it is that kind of, it is a gorgeous looking game, right? It looks like the kind of, it looks like, you know, top gun on screen as a video game that you can play. and so I feel like if I can just get, I'm gonna, I am gonna persist with it. I feel like they're,

there are often those moments in games where you're frustrated with it until it clicks. And you go, oh, I get it now. And then you can start having, when this game clicks, I think you're gonna have a,

I feel like I'm constantly on the edge of that moment. Yeah. So I'm gonna, I am gonna persist with it. And I think it probably is a better game than I'm giving it credit for right now. I wanted to enjoy it more than I am. It's just again,

sometimes a player and a game aren't quite speaking the same languages each other when they first start you know, bribing, and it takes a minute. I think with the aerial dog fighting, the jet fighter plane games are tough as well, right? Because we are talking about a huge 3D space

up in the sky, and you always will start off the missions of, you're flying one direction, the enemy is flying directly at you, and they're going to swoop past you. And now it's about, yeah, how do I turn what is my next objective? For me, I found, yeah, those sharp, those sharp quick turns are hard to make,

or they just feel slow, and it's like a drag to do it. Can I go find secondary objective. Can I go out and maybe go drop a couple of bombs on the land and then turn and fight up in the sky? I never wanted to quick turn and just like stay on one target. I try to use the whole battlefield a lot of the time so I can still feel that speed and maneuverability that I wanted to. I think I think it genuinely is a skill issue. I think it's a me issue. This is these are the kind of guy. It's one of these kind of frustrating kind of games where like I want to, I love aerial combat. I love top gun. I want to have that feeling of being in the fighter jet and

shitting down the bad guys and pitching and rolling, all that kind of stuff. Maybe I'm just not cut out for that. I think you're going to get there, Gary. This game's got it. This game's got that, and you're going to get there. You just got to... I'm going to persist with it. Change those controls to the advanced one.

Let the training wheels come off. Yeah, yeah. That might be the key. Man, those missions are fun, though, right, Gary? No, they are... There's an early mission where you're protecting the carrier that is really fun. Really cool, yeah. I haven't, you know, there's like the bombing missions, you know, where you're doing,

like, there's a static target on the... ground, you know, you've just got to go in and bomb it. There are, it's not all dogfighting. And again, it's, it's really, it's a beautiful looking game. It's really well presented. It's, it's, it's glorious to look at. The clouds. The clouds. When you punch through the clouds.

When you punch through the clouds and like the, and the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, cockpit starts getting kind of misted up and that actually can affect, get, right? Or when you're in the clouds, you're like, get out of the cloud. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. But there's, there's a lot to consider, you know, it's not a space camera.

There is a ground, right? So you've got, constantly got to watch your out. I often find myself I'm way lower altitude than I think. Oh, shit, I need to pull up. Yeah. Otherwise, unless you have a certain amount of altitude under you, you can't do a lot of maneuvers. Otherwise, you're going to, like, rolling, like, fresh straight into the ocean or whatever.

Large skill tree, a large unlock tree, I should say, of course. You'll start off with your basic two jet fighter planes. And then you'll be able to go along a gigantic unlock tree and unlock new planes, new missiles. And I noticed that really helped out as well. Because, like, your generic missiles are really going to draw you, like, very close. but when you start unlocking more and more, you can stay higher up in the sky so you can keep that elevation

instead of dropping straight down. I do like the ones, the, um, there's a regular kind of guided missile, but there's a one where you can like shoot six at once at modern targets. Yeah, that's cool. That's really,

and you can do it like from beyond visual range and that kind of stuff is cool. And I appreciate it. Like if you're just a newbie into the genre or maybe you don't really want to go in depth on all the super military sims side of things to upgrade your jet or make it ready to go before every mission,

they tell you, hey, this is a really like air-to-air combat or this is going to be air-to-land. Like, you should make sure you're prepared for that. And right before you go, you have the opportunity to, you can fully customize it yourself. They can auto-customize it, and they'll tell you the line before you leave the jet way

of like, hey, good build. Or this build's missing something, meaning, hey, why don't you press B, reset, and then you can do that. And I appreciate that. I know a lot of players don't, like, we've seen this play out in the discourse. A lot of players don't like handholding. Yeah.

I like to at least have the option for handholding. especially in games where I have a terrible sense of direction. I often get turned around in games. And unless there's like a reliable map, I can't figure out where I've been and where I'm going. So, you know, having like a little guide path, you know, like Oni Musha has that little, has the little glyph that you follow around so you don't get lost.

I appreciate things like that. They always have the target on the, on the key enemies that you need to go, there's always like a little red target emblem next to them of like, these are the guys you're supposed to be looking at. Because there's a, there's some missions where there's just hundreds of things. that you could go after. But then there's like five key mission objectives of like,

just stay focused on this. And then, of course, the team callouts, pretty basic. But they're on the, they're on the wheel. Yes. You can go up, down left, right? You can give them their basic instructions. That's helpful for sure if you need help. There's a lot of things going on.

So I definitely found in the later missions, using my squad to the fullest really helped me in situations where you've got to be two places at once. And I love that feeling. Yeah. Of that jet going a thousand miles an hour, you're handling one objective and you've got to go to the other side. It's doing a lot of things right.

And the bottom line is I would hesitate to call at least my part of it here a review. This is just like my impressions are so far because I'm fairly convinced that it's not the game's problem. It's my problem either because I'm not cut out for this kind of game or I just haven't figured out the particular control. Again, the controls haven't clicked with me yet. And it's entirely possible I'll be back here next week. And if you was going, oh, I figured it out. It's really fun now. Yeah.

I'm just not there yet. I don't want to come across as long unduly harsh on the game for reasons, which very well may not be its fault. Yeah, well, let me tell you really quick from Shinobi 602 put on Twitter today. Of course, Ace Combat, eight reviews. We have a bunch of reviews coming in from Metacritic by currently sitting at a Metacritic right now of 87. That's very good. Open critic of 89. Those scores are moving as reviews coming throughout the day.

But you saw people like Dual Shockers give it a 9.5. Shack News, give it a nine, games radar with a nine, gaming bolt with a nine. Over here you have press start with an eight, push square with an eight. You saw people like SkillUp, review the game positively. So there's a lot of excitement towards this game. So like what you're not seeing is a bunch of people like me going, like, all I'm ever doing is turning, right? This is very clearly just me.

Yeah, but I want to be honest. You could speak on the story and the dialogue as well, Gary, because that's a big part of this game. That I feel very confident about like that stuff is just bad. Yeah. And that is part of the problem is that for me, I'm a very story-driven guy. The story in a game matters to me. I'm never the guy that clicks through the cutscenes.

This is the first game I ever clicked through the cutscenes. Wow. Really? This garbage, yeah. Expedition 33 or control or a game when it goes into like a cinematic moment, it's like, oh, I'm excited to see what happens next. And that is sometimes what drives you through a game, right? You genuinely want to know where the story is going. This, I just don't care.

Because the characters are so two-dimensional, and they just don't talk like real people. people and none of it feels real to me. Yeah. It just, I feel like, I mean, like at a bad, like, Westworld type theme park where everyone's designed to just like talk to me and it's a curated experience. It doesn't feel, and nothing about it feels real to me. Yeah. But that I feel confident in my, in that criticism of it.

And the, and the voice in your head, it's so cheesy and it's so overblown. Um, the, but I think the core combat is probably way better than I've been able to access so far. And the cool, the cool enemy types are so awesome, right? Like, there's one mission. where you're going to be out there protecting a boat, but there's these giant zeppelins up in the skies that are shooting these massive laser cannons at them,

and you have to punch through the clouds to find them, and there's this thrill of like, you chase this laser for like 15 to 20 seconds, and they're counting you down, like, they're going to shoot the bomb, please get there, and you're punching it, and then you go through the cloud, and you come out,

and it's just this giant zeppelin plane that you've got to break down. They have multiple moments of that with different cool enemy types, and you're like, wow, this is awesome to kid. I think part of the reason, why the alternate reality world actually might, one positive for it is you get to play with you.

Like, if I was playing like a, on the US Air Force and I'm fighting like the Iranians or whatever, I'm not going to have crazy zeppelins and stuff like that. But like by putting it in this somewhat adjacent to the real world, but not quite our world, you can add things to it that just make it fun and don't have to be in any way. They get to be a little wacky.

Yeah. Someone in the chat just suggested playing it in Japanese, which might actually be the way to talk. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about switching Hell Divers I've read to Japanese because it just sounds cooler. Okay. And I've played the game so, so much that I know exactly what everyone is saying without having to understand the context of it.

And I don't know if you've ever watched the Hell Divers to intro cinematic in Japanese. I have not. It goes 10 times harder. It's just cooler. What do you think about the music in this? I'm not. It didn't leave enough of an impression on me that I'm remembering it. It's no Kenny Loggins.

everybody who set there. Of course, set your expectations. There's no Kenny Loggins, but there is some good moments where it matches the music with the moments of the gameplay, where it's like, there's like anime moments

where it feels very anime-esque. There's definitely the patriotic orchestral music where it hits just at the right time and you're feeling extra patriotic. There's a bunch of people now saying definitely switch to Japanese. I think that's a great answer for you.

I think I might switch it in Japanese and turn subtotlers off. Because I honestly would rather not know what they're saying, because what they're saying is so shitty. There you go. As long as you understand the Japanese and imagine that what they're saying

is super badass. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do. Airplanes look great. The world looks great. Again, it all looks. Yeah. No, so that was like,

so I'm looking at these planes and again, I'm not much of, I'm not enough of like an aviation enthusiast to know. Yeah. Are they actual like F-14s, F-35s or whatever? Are they, or they, because they look like real air, like, real airplanes.

Or are they like suddenly, because in the world's not quite the same. No, because there's like the F-14 Tomcat in this game and other. others. So, like, they're definitely real playing. Yeah, I mean, the last day's Combat 7 did actually have Top Gun Maverick DLC, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Well, it's confusing to me. It is one of those games where I feel like if I just,

sometimes you just want to put a game down and say, like, it's not for me. Yeah, of course. This isn't that yet. Like, I feel like it's one of those things where I know, I've been playing games for long enough to know because I've done this has happened many times before. If you just keep pushing, it will eventually reward you. You're just waiting for that moment when the penny drops. I mean, I think that's the perfect way for this, uh, impressions to kind of close out. It's like, yeah, Gary, you're still left wanting to give it a still a solid try. And that's a big positive right there.

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm going to, I am going to, even with, like, as much stuff as there, much other games as there are, like, cool. Like, you can easily say, why persist with the game that is currently frustrated? I mean it hasn't clicked yet. Yeah. When there are other games I can pick up right now, and I know I'll enjoy playing them, like control, like Expedition 33, like some of the games are not allowed to talk about yet. But I guess I know that the reward, because, again, I really do want to like this kind of

the game. I want to have a really good fighter combat game in my portfolio, right? If I just, I know the reward is there if I just can get to that point where it clicks for me. So I'm going to keep pushing with it. I think there's some really cool missions in this too. That will want your experience and you'll want to keep going because there

will give you the tease of like, what else will they do? Maybe the Japanese, maybe the guy in my head sounds better in Japanese. Maybe that's, maybe that is the key. That's so funny, Gary. I love, I love that. But I can't deal with the American voice acting. It's not, it's not good. It's not great. You know, Gary, I'm, I'm excited. I'm

to play more of it. I said, I'm 10 missions in about eight hours. I've been having a really good time with it. I had at the beginning, I definitely banged my head against the wall with the dialogue and the storytelling. I do think it is very rigid, generic military-esque. It reminded me of like battlefield stories. We're like, wow, like we don't, this is all right. But the gameplay, the music, the presentation is really, really fun to the point where I'm all right, right. It's no, it's no price and soap. Yeah, it's, that's who we want. It's no armored core. And like I know our audience really rides for those from soft games and really likes

armored core. It's not that right. Because like I'm up in the sky. Gary set up a great story of like how this goes. But of course, you and your crew have been kicked off the land and you're like living off a jet carrier boat, right? Like that's the last of humanity for you. I mean, I do kind of like that element of it is like, you know, you've essentially kind

of lost the war. You've lost the war. You're trying to try to take back your homeland. And so you'll go to areas and like the other. crew, other jet fighters that you might know have turncoded and switched sides, right? And like, there we are up in the sky. You would think we're going to have a

dope, dope dialogue right here. And it's very much of like, is that you, Gary? Yeah, that's me. Are you fighting for the other team? Yeah, man, I guess that's how it goes. You know, Jack, Jack just hit first grade. We couldn't leave here, so we got to fight for this team now. And it's like, all right, well, that's good enough,

you know, but when I'm up there and I'm flying through the skies and I'm picking a new target, I'm helping my wingman, I'm calling them to help me on fighting these just outrageous ideas of a land battleship monster. It's like, I'm in on that. In a way, in a way, it's kind of my least favorite kind of game experience to have because like a bad game you're just not enjoying because it's bad or it's just not for you, whatever is one thing.

You can set that aside, move on to the next game. Yeah. But something like this for a game where the promise, I know the promise is there, but it's not delivering for me yet, but you want to keep pushing. And maybe it doesn't come together. Maybe, you know what, 10, 15 hours, if it ain't happening. Yeah. But I'm not, again, I'm not there yet.

want to believe that there is some there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so i'll keep trying with it for our pilots out there that are chasing the the to jump into the danger zone you're going to be rewarded i would like anyone out there that like god knows why would like in any way listen to my opinion about like as a recommendation like should i pick this game up or not don't let my experience with the combat in any way because you i think you will probably have a very different experience to me i just it just may be that i'm not cut out for this kind of game which is frustrating because i want to be i want to it's like i love i'm fascinated by chess yeah i'm shit at it and so it always feels like chess is a game that like

I'm fascinated by it. I read a lot about it. I find it really interesting, but I'm never going to be any good at it. So it always feels like a little bit tantalizing beyond my reach. You and I play chess together? You want to play chess?

That would be a fun scream. Somebody asked, is there a multiplayer component? Yes, there is. During our review period, me and Gary jumped on pretty late to that. We missed the review multiplayer window. So multiplayer was shut off until official launch for us.

But there is multiplayer in this. If you're looking to get into dog fights with you, your crew, or just against some randos out there. I bet you that will be fun and thrilling if you're good at the game. Gary, great review so far. Our impressions of Ace Combat 8, of course,

and a whole lot more. Gary's still playing Hell Divers 2, playing Expedition 33 now. Playing control. Running back to... FC 27, only Mocha. Yep. I started playing this gacha game

called Neverness to Everness. Oh, okay. Which I don't know how I got sucked into that. Yeah, how do you find this? I got sucked into this other thing called once human. There's one human. We talked about that.

There's this whole world of these games out there that are free to play but eventually they'll try and get you to like buy something and it's there's a lot of some of them

because they're very booby they're very jiggle physics-y you know my kid walks and it goes what's this and like uh you know it's a whole other world

and again I've got to right now I feel like I'm trying too hard to catch up on everything there's a certain amount of FOMO that's happening this time of year it's like

people are having fun with all these games I see people streaming various games, having a lot of fun with them. And I'm like, why I should be playing these games? Why am I just always always always always, I know how old divers are going to deliver playing the games that you like. It's my comfort games. Sometimes you just want to play a game that you know you're good at and not have to worry about learning anything.

Like you've got that game dialed in. But I've got to broaden my horizons. I need to be playing like a broader variety of games. And I'm trying really hard. It sounds like you did a good job on that, Gary. I will say today's update, you played a broad a lot of games. I'm not even mentioning like half of the games that I have been playing, because I've been playing a bunch of stuff on Steam as well.

Okay. A bunch of little, yeah, just a little tower defense games. Here's what I want you to do. From now on, write them down on a notepad, save them. So when you come back and you and I catch up and talk, then we'll talk about all of them. We'll go through the whole laundry list, yeah. I like that.

This has been today's kind of funny games cast for a lovely Friday, September 25th, 2006. You heard the tots. You heard Gary. It's great to have him back in the office and more. And guess what? the fun doesn't stop. We have more live streaming content coming your way.

If you're feeling FOMO about... Wow, forever. We didn't even touch on that. 40 days. Are we starting to kill? We're going, Gary. We're going to do a guild. For the Alliance.

I can't believe I'm going to get you to play Alliance. Because you are the most hoard-wired player I've ever met in my life. 40 days for now, Mike and Gary will tell you stories from Azaroth. We will be playing while forever. You are invited. We're going to make a guild. We're going to have some fun. Let's get every Gibroni that wants to play this with us.

be a packed November. Is there going to be like a kind of funny guild where people can play with us? Yeah, we'll make it kind of funny guild. Yeah, of course. All right. Good. Just so they feel like they got a community. We got a community if we need some extra help.

Love it. Going into dead minds, Gary, for the first time again. Oh, God. Fucking Van Cleve. Remember Van Cleef? Are you ready? I don't know. I resisted playing classic because they didn't want to go back and just do all the same

stuff again. Yeah. But it does seem like they've remixed this enough that it's going to feel familiar but new at the same time. I think so, Gary. I've jumped in just a little bit. And it is a nice reminder of nostalgia, but also some new fresh stuff.

We're like, okay, like, I'm excited to see what else we got. Are we still doing a Nixir? Are we still doing modern call? Are we doing these classic raids? I don't know how much they've changed. You'll find out. I'm excited to find out. We'll find out in 40 days now, of course.

Thank you for watching. Listening after this, it is a control resident stream with Bless and Greg. Don't go anywhere if you're watching live on Twitch and on YouTube. And of course, if you're listening later or watching later, go down to the comments down below. Let me know, are you jumping into Ace Combat 8. I want to hear about all the games you're playing this weekend. So I can get some good. recommendations. Until then, have a wonderful one gamers. Goodbye.