Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Adam Sessler (Special Guest) - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 41

Episode Date: October 23, 2015

Adam Sessler drops by to explain why Friday The 13th The Game is gonna be awesome, Adam Sessler discusses his favorite games of all-time, we give our updated thoughts on what our 2015 game of the year is so far, and Adam Sessler talks about the games he is playing right now. (Released 10.16.15) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the first ever episode 41 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes, joined by the coolest dudes in video games, Colin Moriarty and Greg Miller. Hello. Got a fuzz on my shirt. Got it though. Fuzz happens, man. Now, a lot of people have been like telling me, hey, Tim, you can make the games cast better if you get guests. And I was like, all right, I'm going to do that.

Good motherfucking Adam Sessler here. You don't get much better than that. That's very kind. So we're going to be talking about video games for the next hour or so. And I'm very excited about that. We got a great show plan today. And for those of you that do not know, this is a show that every week, we just saw about about a video games for about an hour.

And it's great. But today we're doing it with Adam Sessler. And you want to get this show. And with Adam Sessler and your shoes match your shirt. My shoes do match my shirt. Bring it up. Bring it up. There is.

Look at that. Look at this coordination. These are old loves for those that know out there. It looks like old Pittsburgh Penguins colors from the late 80s, early 90s. I was thinking it's stealing. So yeah. Is that like the one outfit where that works, though? It is.

It's a long story. I got the shirt. Shout out to Cunninglinguist and Tonda for hooking me up with the shirt. The thugged out since Cubs Scout shirt, which I love. That's cute. So, so much. It describes me in such a beautiful way. I've had these shoes for a long time.

They're beautiful. But I don't get to wear them too often. They're pretty loud. I got slimer pizza shoes out there. I've never worn. I'm still waiting for the shirt that goes with those. And you got your Capri Sun shoes as well. Yeah, well, those are work of art.

My hashtag Pouch Up. My hashtag Poucho. I'll never forget when you got that when we read out of Jen. I'm like, what? Yeah, wait. Can we see it? No, they can't see them. They're over there.

I mean, we can see them. If you put them in the freezer, do they become a pops? Sadly, that would be bad ass. But anyways, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very thrilled about how this outfit looks. I'm very happy about it. It reminds me of an older time, like a couple of years ago back when I was younger, which is weird of how that works. But this is how I used to dress in high school all the time. So I'm happy that I can, you know, bring it back for a new generation of kids.

The teens out there. They need to look up to something. I hope that it's me. So this show, every week we talk about video games. You should go to iTunes.com slash Kind of Funny. Rate, comment, subscribe, do all that stuff. It'll help make us feel really happy about everything. So we can keep doing this.

Keep getting awesome guests like Adam Sessler to talk about stuff. The first topic of the day is horror games. What makes a good horror game? Now this is spurred by a little something special. Some project that you're working off. Tell us a little bit about this. So I have the pleasure of getting to work with, It's a small team right now.

It's a mixture of gun media, another group called Iophonic. And they were, once upon time, it was already announced working on a game called Slasher, Volume 1, Summer Camp. It was an homage to 1980s, slasher flicks. You can probably imagine it. It's asymmetric multiplayer. One person plays the killer, seven people play counselors. The point is for the killer to kill all the counselors, and for the counselors to escape or make it through the night or possibly kill the guy who's hunting them. Obviously, this game implied certain famous movie franchises like Friday the 13th without actually being Friday the 13th.

But the guy's actually gone so far as to enlist the help of Tom Savini, the very famous makeup artist who worked on both Friday 13th, Part 1 and 4. And he's very famous for the original Dawn of the Dead. The guy is just a genius. So he's coming on to help design the kills. And what's really cool is to help design the kills to make sure that they could still exist as a practical effect inside of a movie. not take advantage of what you can play with physics and video games, but to really give it that sense of being grounded. They also were working with Kane Hodder,

who played Jason in 7, 8, and 9. May not be the best movies, but his representation of Jason is the one that I think stands the test of time. Spot on. And what is in everyone's memory. He was going to be doing the mocap. So because of their participation, word got to a gentleman named Sean S. Cunningham,

who directed the first Friday the 13th and is the man who owns the license to the franchise. He heard about this, and he's like, well, I've been waiting for a game, a good game, to give the Friday of the 13th license to, and he gave it to them, Grannis. That's crazy. Yeah. So now the game they were always implying, the franchise they were implying with the game, now gets to be that game. That's why they've gone back to Kickstarter, because while they were funded sufficiently to make summer camp, the requirements, you know, now with the accuracy, recreating Crystal Lake, making Jason's, actually, and all of that, that is, going to require more money. And so we're going out asking for people to donate or at the very

least, you know, I'm here to say, hey, if you have two, five, ten bucks, that actually can make a huge, huge difference. Additionally, if you can't do that, I understand. If you want to just kind of signal boost and get the word out. Just tell people about it. But this is, like this link. Right here. Yeah. Go to it. And then in description, click over to the Kickstarter itself. But when I was told about this game, and I have, I've loved horror movies all my life, it's actually why I married my wife. We both loved an academic text called men, women, and chainsaws. which is just a, you know. Once he heard that, you're like,

well, we've got to be together. Examination of horror movies. But this because, not just because of asymmetric, because it kind of, it plays up to that dream when you're watching the movies and you're seeing what you think

are dumb decisions being made. And it's like, you get to go in there and you get to, you know, in looking at the game and talking with them, those dumb decisions may happen more frequently

where it's like, okay, we want to get the parts for the car because we want to get out of here. Let's split up. You know, the fundamental, bad idea in every single horror movie.

And I love the other aspect where it is asymmetric, but say as opposed to something like Evolve or Spies versus Merks, the goal is not for there to eventually be conflict. If you are the counselors, it might be in your best interest never to see Jason through the course of the game. Maybe you just join up with one other person and try to work together.

Maybe you don't want to join up with all seven counselors because you're all in the same place. So if he shows up, you know, it's over, game over. It's fish in a barrel. You play various archetypes. You know, the jock, there's the girl who's a little bit edgy. You know, you can imagine all that. They'll have various skills.

So there is, you know, an encouragement. You might want to work with one or two people. Obviously, some will be faster than others. So while it is kind of 1V7, it's really 1V1V1 v1, because the only thing that you want to do is you want to make it through the night. Not everyone has to make it through the night. You do. So you could work in concert with someone for a little bit.

And then Jason shows up and you can run faster. Okay, by the laws of the jungle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if you guys work on the boat, that's great, except the boat only carries two people. So what if you have three people who are all trying to work on getting it? So there's a wonderful sense of both teamwork and treachery and that wonderful sort of tension, you know,

it really kind of captures, I think, the spirit of what those movies always wanted to do, which is you feel helpless, you know, against this highly overpowered enemy. and whether or not you sort of have the wherewithal and how clever you are to make it through the evening. So is it like permadeath? If Jason gets you and kills you, you're out of that match.

In that match. And then you'll get to watch what happens to everyone else. You know, you can scream all you want and they can't hear you just like in the movie. What is the nature of, so it's, you know, taking place? Friday 13th near and dear to my heart. I actually really, really love that series. Super iconic.

I think that out of all I think of like a trilogy of iconic 80s style maybe late 70s like Halloween and then you have nightmare on Elm Street and Friday 13th and I and Jason always spoke to me. I always thought that that was the creepiest one. What I always talked about is that I always loved as a kid and still do like when I look at it. The the way that movie looks during the daytime, the juxtaposition of like the trees being green and the blue sky or whatever and how that seems so beautiful and welcoming and then how harrowing that same scenario comes when it's dark. I just think it's like very simple and very and varied. forthcoming and I like that. So since this is going to take place at Crystal Lake, what are the maps?

Is it one map or are there like many different sections of it? This is interesting. And here's one thing I had never really considered. Episode 1 through 4, that takes place over a period of three weeks. You know, Jason doesn't really stop. It's not like he rests for a year and decides to reemerge. No, he's on a killing spree. So that should give you a sense of there's a lot more geography.

We all think of the camp. That's where it starts. But there are other locations. It's a lake and people have summer homes and stuff like that there. So all of that is going to be incorporated. So in essence, there's one map. And initially when they're working on it, they had a very, very big map and it was just too big. You know, the length of time for Jason to finally encounter, it was taken too long.

Counselors are hiding in one corner forever. So that was, so now it's, it's in essence, one map, but it will be somewhat randomized. So, you know, you're going to have elements like a barn, you know, this stuff you've seen in the movies. So you won't be playing the exact same map every time, but you are playing at Crystal Lake every time. And are you playing as any of the kids from the movies or are these going to be like the? Because of licensing issues, they cannot replicate those because those are actors. Kevin Bacon was in the first one. But you are playing, I think you should expect to play familiar characters to what you know from the movies. The archetypes, right? Cool. It sounds.

And also, you're not just playing as well. You're not just playing as. one Jason. There will be multiple Jations. Based on the different movie iterations? If we look at the movies, and I've watched all of them back to back. That is a fascinating tour. That's insane. Style and Valley system. You have the bag over the head, four, two.

You obviously have someone very different in one. Then hockey mask emerges in three, but then you have coming back from the dead in six, and then I've been underwater getting really rotten from seven through nine. And so, you know, they're going to be showing variants of Jason. The only two that they've committed to right now is three, which is called Big Neck, because they had put a prosthetic here on the back of his neck to kind of give it a sense of boom there. And obviously the very famous Kane-Hotter version that is 7 through 9. I want the metal mask.

What is the major, do you guys have, I don't know if you have to figure this out in the future, like, a price point? Is this a retail game or a downloadable game? Like, what can people expect in terms of like delivery? I mean, right now, the determination is, you know, PC, Xbox One, PS4. I think it's fair to assume that retail would be the goal with this. I don't want to fully commit on that right now because you just caught me off guard. Sorry, I just, because I'm trying to imagine my head, like, is it a $20 game? Is it a $40 game?

Is it a $60 game? Like, even though those don't really mean anything, but they kind of do in a sense it gives you an idea. They do. They do. You know, that's a, I can give you a really an honest answer. We're in the middle of the Kickstarter right now, and that might be putting that cart well in front of that horse. And I think the success of the Kickstarter will determine a lot of those matters as well. Like many Kickstarter.

I mean, right now, the Kickstarter, last we looked, it just crossed 150,000. Yes, it's already right now, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, which is very, very exciting. Obviously, we're aiming for 700,000, which is a lot of money. But that really has been well thought out about what is necessary to get all of those art assets in. And also, they feel that if you go look at the Kickstarter page, I mean, they're very, very honest that they don't want to mess this up. Yeah. I mean, obviously they want to make gamers happy, but they also have, like, hardcore fans of Friday the 13th.

And there's even one kid this morning who when he saw, you know, the art for the announcement, he knew exactly that that was, you know, Friday 13th, part three. That because of the state of the hockey mask, it had to be from that movie. Yeah. They are planning to give that level of attention to detail to really serve that fan base. and that just does cost more money. And I mean, that's what's exciting, though, is the getting it right aspects about it. Just hearing you talk about, like,

knowing the differences between all the different Jasons. And there's different levels, obviously, a Friday the 13th fans where there's the people that are like, oh, man, like, I love those movies and whatever. And then there's the guys that are like, I love those movies. And this needs to kind of make both those teens kind of happen. And I think so.

I think there's some people that may not understand the level of detail, but what it is offering in terms of a gameplay experience, I think really is unique. And I think, I mean, the guys who are already playing it, and obviously it's all being prototype right now. Working first on the gameplay, and then, you know,

art will go on top of that, is it's already pretty scary that, you know, you already have that sense that there's something out there because unlike the movies, you know, because you're playing the game,

you know there's something bad out there. If you go look at the movies, you know, full awareness that there's someone killing everyone doesn't happen until about the last real. You know, that's why people are like, hey, let's take our clothes off because they don't know.

there's a killer out there and that's why they're taking the clothes off and so so that changes the dynamic a little bit where you're planning you know you want to get out of there you want to be quiet as possible you don't want to you know sort of draw the attention of jason but you know that there's that threat and that threat is is player controlled and you know it has caused enough scares i think the huge difference of having jason rather than an invented enemy is it's twofold a that hockey mask is so damn iconic. It's just we know what that is supposed to mean. Also, from just an art standpoint,

and you can see it in the movies, it's so white that you have this thing that you can see in the dark. Even from a distance, that will start to say, oh, we're in trouble. We're also using the help of Harry Manfredini. He created the music. Oh, that's awesome.

And that will be in the game. How will be incorporated? We don't know yet. And he's also going to be designing other music for the game. So you're going to have all of these fun elements that are playing upon both a sense of memory and sort of a sense of fun inside the game to just kind of get that that anxiety going. This is the one game ever my wife has said she wants to play. Wow.

I know there's something right. That's happening. Good. It sounds awesome. It sounds like you're hitting on everything you'd want from this kind of game. And definitely from a Friday the 13th, you know, fans perspective. Yeah. Seeing the trailer, like, you know, you hear the, the, the, the, the, O'O from the mom and stuff,

Do you think there will be like story elements to this? Or is it just multiplayer? The core of the game is asymmetric multiplayer. The ultimate stretch goal would be the inclusion of some single player elements. Nice. I wouldn't, you know, campaign. I'm not going to say campaign. I think it's more than be stuff that's going to sort of test you out.

To really appreciate it, though, we need to have that much money to do it. Because to program the AI for Jason, I mean, that's very unique AI. because he has to have almost like superhuman awareness, but he has to move in a particular way, and obviously he has to come across as believable. I mean, there's a lot of complexity in trying to make an enemy that you might think is kind of more rudimentary and dumb. On that note, is there, looking at other asymmetric experiences like evolve,

people had a lot of concerns by that. I know that Sony's working on kill strain now, and we have some other examples of this. Is there a concern, any sort of concern that without single player, functionality that the game will live or die based on the amount of people that play it and therefore you know like it seems like it seems like it seems like it seems like seem to have more more of a problem with multiplayer games being only multiplayer yeah no i i see what you're saying and the reason why i feel confident that this would distinguish itself from it is this isn't skill based in

the same way dying in this game should prove just as entertaining is as succeeding you know remember you know if you die you'll see one of many many creative inventions that tom savini came up with um also So it's, when you play a lot of multiplayer, even like asymmetric or otherwise, you know, depending upon what other people are doing, it can become very frustrating, you can just keep on getting stomped on. And there's that certain need, like, okay,

I'm going to have to play four or five matches in a given evening to kind of get that experience where I feel like I've had enough. The more I think about playing this game and that it violates a lot of the rules of what you're supposed to do in a multiplayer experience, you're trying to avoid people, except for one character is the only one.

You're playing hide and go seek, really. and that that allows for you could have I think the reliability of a satisfying experience you know, and if something goofy happens to me, like if one of your friends isn't that great, they will cause added new tension because, you know, they don't know how to carry the part or they can't suddenly be fixing the car.

It's like, no, come on, come on, come on. It's a very different type of experience than what you would normally associate with multiplayer. And yes, as you play the game, you're going to have skills that carry over and you're able to improve the characters that you're playing. But the real fun, I think, is just in that instance.

I think it'll be very, very fun with friends. And I think especially these people get known for playing Jason really, really well, I mean, it can become like, hey, let's see if we can get this guy and see we can scare the absolute crap out of us and we can somehow make it out from under him. On a surface level, it strikes me

is going into the direction of what I liked about Left for Dead versus Evolve, right? Left for Dead was like, oh, cool, just jump in. We all kind. There's differences to our characters and our loadouts or whatever, but they're all basically the same. So you can get down actually,

how are we getting over the problem at hand right now? Whereas Evolve was, I'm a trapper, and I'm going to put down the dome and do this and do, and do you know how to interact? And they're like, that's complicated and that's, you need a team to roll with.

Whereas this, you could jump in. Even with Lefordette, and I think you're right, is all four players needed to kind of be firing all pistons and working in concert with one another. And here, you could, you know, you could be on some part of the map

and like never see another counselor and just say, I'm just going to go it alone and see if I can go really quiet and try to get over there or maybe try to hide in one place. It's highly unadvisible to hide in one place. There are aspects because Jason will have certain

skills. I'm assuming he has some kind of vision or some kind of being ability because if you're hiding underneath the bed, well, we can't ask the person playing Jason. Are you under the bed? He knows you're under the bed and he puts it in and so through that kind of skill that he has.

as the longer you stay in one place, the easier you'll be able to sense that you are there. So it will be in your best interest to try to move around and see, you know, and not just be sitting around. We have to keep people moving through the map. Right, right, right, right. What interests me a lot about this is like being able to balance the, you know, the kind of supernatural, super badass guy that can kill anybody as soon as he sees them. But then also kind of making sure that the counselors, that the ones that other people are playing as don't feel video game overpower. You know, because like in video games, you instantly kind of have the sense of like, I can run fast and jump and do all this crazy stuff. But like, how are you guys making or how are they making sure that the characters aren't overpowered in a video game sense, but also aren't too underpower that they can't do it.

Right, right. No, and this is, you know, this is stuff that they're working on right now. I mean, because unlike even other asymmetric games where there still is some sort of sense of balance, albeit very, very different. Jason is supposed to be overpowered. yes you can kill him but it is going to be extraordinarily hard and the amount of risk you're probably going to take on because you're probably going to have to do it with a lot of other people like that is that is your bird in the hand i mean you're that you're you're going for the bush um so you you want to have more power to have that but the counselors will have skill sets you know we are going to have the girl next door we're very aware of kind of what those stereotypes are we don't they don't want to talk too much about those specifically because that is what is being worked on. Sure, sure, sure. But there are certain edges that you will have that will help guide your decision

making when you're playing that particular character. Well, what are some examples of that? Like, even not specifics, but just like what could you, earlier you mentioned being able? Let's think that there's someone who, you know, probably one of the male characters with a pair of glasses is going to be a little bit better of mechanics. So if there's a car, but you need to get the car parts. So people are going to get the car parts. If he's the one who's actually fixing the car, you're just going to be able to do that

that much more quickly. So something, you know, of that nature. A jock would probably be stronger. So he could handle. some melee attacks. So if Jason does appear, you know, he might be able to sort of push him back a little bit

so everyone has a chance to run. There's going to be a handful of stat categories. And so some characters will be, obviously, superior in some versus others. Obviously, no one wants to go into the specifics of what the stats are because that's what we're...

And I assume you've talked about, you know, fixing the car or the boat has three or two seats and all the, but you're fixing the boat and stuff. I'm assuming that if, for it to kill Jason, Is it basically a mousetrap kind of puzzle Where it's like we are like are we're doing this

So you set up this part and you do this and then we all run That is still indecision I've even chatted a little bit about I mean that That is one of the biggest decisions to make Because A it has to be believable B it has to really respect that you know This is not It doesn't really get accomplished in the movie

So it has to be something that you know It just it makes sense And it asks enough of the player I know that there's a few ideas that they're kicking around I mean these are the discussions I cannot wait to start happening Oh, yeah, I can only imagine. Once you get through this Kickstarter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds cool. I got to be, I mean, I don't play multiplayer games very much, mostly because I'm not, I don't like the, I don't like to have to stick with a game and, and progress to something. And that's, and that's, I mean, honest to God, and it's not just because you're here we're talking about. This sounds like a little more intriguing in a game. Well, because you could jump in and ignore everyone. The other thing is, I think this is going to be the kind of multiplayer game that is for adults with normal schedules. Mm.

That, you know, oh, you can play five matches in an evening. you'll probably have a great time. You can also, you know, if you can get your friends together all at one time, have one match, and it's still something you're going to want to be talking about, because there will be events and will have that kind of just sort of organic way of the fun emerging and you're trying to work together. And probably there's someone screwing up. I mean, it seems, I think one of the things I always struggled is, you know,

to tell a narrative inside of a multiplayer game that usually in Call of Duty, there's just so much going on. It's like people playing basketball, but, you know, there's one ball for every two people. So it's just chaos. Here, there really is a sense of a beginning, some type of middle, and some type of end. Or maybe multiple ends is all the counselors. Yeah. It sounds cool.

Yeah. I think it sounds really cool. Yeah. I think it sounds like until dawn, but just with multiplayer. And I feel like that this is a really cool way to take on that. And I'm in the same boat as you where it's like, I'm very intrigued to be able to play a multiplayer game just in little slices and just be like, that was a cool experience. I can either do it again or not. Yeah, because you don't have to.

to worry about progression and skill level and matchmaking in terms of a lot of 12-year-olds who are developing their skill set at this game at a rate far faster than you are because that's all they're devoting their time. Right, exactly. Yeah, like that's a huge turnoff to me for multiplayer games. So this sounds much better. I mean, that's exactly how I feel about multiplayer games. I play them very infrequently.

Also, I hate the sense of, in co-op sometimes that burden. I don't want to be like the rock for you have to carry up the hill. Yep, yep, yeah. Once again, I just think this answers for a ton of those issues and that it can have, it can guilt to both a casual and an experienced gamer because it's offering something that doesn't have a very easy corollary. Yeah.

With that said is that it will there be some sort of, I don't want to call it a progression system, but some sort of experience system that will reward you with aesthetic things or things that don't really affect the gameplay, but like a prox. You may be able to, there will be something to progress throughout it.

I will not, I don't, I'm not going to go so far as to say it may only be aesthetic. I mean, there is an attention to the sense that, you know, you should be rewarded if you want to stick with it. but once again, it's not competitive in a normal way. So if someone is more advanced than you,

it doesn't really affect. It doesn't really affect your experience. Yeah. Interesting. Sounds good. Yeah, it sounds really great. If you guys are interested, which you definitely should be. Head to the link below. You see it right here.

Kickstarter 4 Friday the 13th of the game. It looks awesome. Check out the trailer. It's at 150 now. I'm really interested to see where it's at. People tweet at me when you see this episode. Let me know where it's at when, after this is over. Cool.

Everything's looking up. He's writing down. I'm the time coach. Okay, okay. Kevin had to go get his car fix, so I'm looking over here at the clock every so often. Yeah, I like that a lot. So, guys, the second topic of the day is game of the year so far.

We've done this topic twice before on the game's cast. Pretty much once per quarter. In the first round, we talked a lot about dying light, because it was pretty early. There wasn't too much going on. Yeah, very long. And eventually there was a bit more talk about Arkham Knight and Witcher. So now we're going to open this again with Adam, our good friend.

Ah. What do you bring to the table? And I thought I had to skip this kid. We'd also like to rate everything out of five. Yeah. I mean, I think on the whole, as of now, Witcher stands out the most to me. I mean, it is interesting, to be honest.

It is kind of nice over the past year and some change that when I'm playing a game, I'm not just judging it against all the other games. I know how you guys are. You're doing it. It's like, okay, just keep the list. going that way I can write that thing up and then just go away for the holidays but I mean Witcher was that thing I was so stupid excited for and it just I just fell into it I'm

terribly surprised how much I'm liking Metal Gear Solid 5. I mean from a design perspective that game is almost wicked in how it gets this claws in you yeah because like the way the reward it's just interlock with everything else that you're doing but it's still really weird What's your history with the Witcher series And the Metal Gear series? I've played all the Witcher games Okay

I have only finished one of the other Metal Gear games and that was four Yeah I mean it was I would have loved to have gone back Was Snake Yeter was the Xbox version of three Correct? No And what was he?

They were all subsistence Subsistence, that's right So I played Snake Eater I guess on the PlayStation 2. And like that lack of compass, where am I going? And it was like, no. And by the time the Xbox version came out,

they kind of addressed some of those, there's so many other games I need to be playing to stay current. I mean, that is just one of the flaws. Oh, we know it well. Of covering it. In terms of Witcher, I played the first. Matt Kyle, who worked on Axeplay, was like, Adam, you've got to play this.

This is like your kind of like dark fantasy with bad consequences. He's like, look, it was written by Polish Jews. I'm like, all right, I'm in. So I did that and then got really excited for Witcher 2 And then I was at Witcher 3 Yeah, it's just, it just I love the combat in 3 And I put up with the combat in 1

So it's been nice to see it progress also Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice Metal Gear for me. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I had said before, right, I think I was saying the last time For a long time it was Witcher, right, that I thought it was game of the year But I kept saying, but I'm waiting on Metal Gear and fallout And now it's metal gear, but I'm waiting on Fallout

I would not be surprised if a lot of outlets give Metal Gear a game of the year. And that's something that would not surprise me. Or would I say, oh, my God, no. Video game journalism died in 2015. But what do you feel about, like, the other contenders, like some of the aliens we talked about, like, Witcher, do you think, would you be surprised if you saw the writing that up? I wouldn't be surprised. I think what's going to be interesting is Witcher in the shadow of Fallout. Assuming Fallout is as good as we have every reason to expect it's going to be.

They kind of inhabit a more similar space. In Metal Gear, as open world as it is, is Kajima. It's just that weird animal that is a Kajima game. And so it does have the benefit of kind of standing very distinct from a lot of the other stuff that's coming out this year. I mean, there's a lot of open world this year. Yep. And his version of open world is one of the most bizarre and quite satisfying versions.

Colin, where are you? I mean, since we last talked about this, I guess I'd throw in Rocket League into the conversation. I think that Rocket League is pretty immaculate. And as I said before, I wouldn't be surprised at Rocket League won a game of the year from some big outlets. That game is just pure fun. People really didn't see that game coming, which I find hilarious because we played it so many times. And as we talked about, like, that game had fucking huge written all over it. And people finally got their hands on it.

I remember as we talked about in the past, I remember when we played at PSX last year, I'm like, it's going to be huge. This game's going to be absolutely massive. And, and, lo and behold, it's massive because it's just, because it's just fun. It's sold millions of copies. Millions of copies. It's probably one of the best selling games of the year. So good on Cyanics and good for our friend Jeremy Dunham that we used to... Huge Friday of 13th fan too.

So he can't lose this year. I would throw that in there. And then I would throw Mad Max into the mix. I think Mad Max is awesome. We joke around about like my increasing love of it and how we think it's getting better and better. But I don't think it's going to be game of the year. But I still think dying lights my favorite game of the year. I still think dying lights my favorite game of the year, but I think Mad Max is just a fantastic

game. It's a good, as I've talked about, it's just a good game that just a good game that's just a good game that's the way you like to play games and that's kind of the way I like to play games sometimes. It's a fun game. Go get rid of this scarecrow tower, take over this camp, find this collectible in this fucking stunningly beautiful world with awesome car combat and some kind of Arkham Knight Light sort of hand-to-hand combat and so like that. I think Madama's a great game. How overloaded with content is it sort of in comparison? to Arkham Knight. I think, well, I think the art, it's, I think it's, it's, it's, it's

heavier than Arkham Knight. And if you don't count the Ridler trophies, which are ridiculous. The, but it's, it's more akin to like a far cry, or like a U.B game, okay. To me, I would actually compare most density to Witcher, the thing that turned me off to the Witcher 3 after 60 or 70 hours was how

fucking dense it was. It's not, like, I just felt like I was getting nowhere in that game. Like, every question mark would turn in a seven more question marks, which are turning the 15 question mark. And I was like, I can't fucking take it anymore. So I stopped, I stopped playing that game. That was too much for even me. And I'm, I'm kind of a fucking sucker for that stuff. Um, I would say it finds the nice happy meeting between Arkham Night, which I think was better in terms of its presentation and aesthetic and storytelling.

I mean, those characters are interesting. Mad Max is more of a UB game where it's like, here's a map and you're going to, and it's all red. And you're slowly going to take over every section of the map until it's white. You know, and I'm like, okay, that's fun. So I think Mad Max is an overlooked game. I just think it's fun. It will really unique car combat in the game too. That's like quite satisfying. It's cool. There's like trade convoys that you have to like take over and like there's like seven cars and you have to get behind them and like just

fucking shotgun blast the driver to get one car off and then like stick a harpoon in another car and rip its tire off as you're like speeding around and like shooting you know at the other tires and like that's just I think it's just really like frenetic and fun. And then I mean we haven't had this conversation since until dawn came out right? No, no, no. So I would throw on Tall Dawn in there. I think with the

exception of dying light and Told Dawn might be my favorite game of the year. That game just came out of nowhere. And I thought it was going to be good. We've played the game many times at preview events. But I didn't know it was going to be that good. And that's what I said before is when we've talked about with Super Massive. Like super massive and Sony didn't expect that it was going to sell this well either. Like people couldn't find the game.

So I would throw that into the mix as well. But didn't even like heavy rain? Probably not the other one beyond. Was that? But I thought heavy rain way outsold expectation. It did that. I mean, yeah. It was funny that it did seem like.

Sony was kind of like, yeah, we got that one over there. It's like, you guys have actually shown a fair amount of success with this type. Stuff that shouldn't sell well. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, they, yeah, heavy rain, heavy rain did well. I remember the, I'm sure it's well beyond this point now, but Quantic Dream gave that speech at GDC where they were like, we, we have like three million trophy pins, but only two million copies sold. It was like more of a thing of like who, you know, buy our game. But they definitely sold millions of millions of copies of Heavy Rain.

Heavy Rain is a great game. Heavy Rain is better than this old one. But what I keep saying about until long because you bring up Quantic Dream is that. They've outquantic dreamed, Quantic Dream in terms of the dynamic. Yeah, in terms of the dynamic of the story, the kind of open nature of it. It's not like locked down and kind of like chapter by chapter, but rather, it is literally like chapter by chapter in a sense, but it's an hour. It takes place every hour. But it also sounds like what was smart is they pick the right kind of story, doing the horror story and having it dynamically branch.

I think that's more controllable than as with Heavy Rain. It was a mystery. As much as I liked Heavy Rain, it's like, you probably shouldn't have done a mystery, which kind of. kind of has like an answer there's what yeah exactly it's that's a that's a big one to take on well that's that's that's david cage but uh yeah i so i'm interested to see like i think quonic dreams next game is going to be a paris games week obviously um a ps4 game and i'm interested to see what they do and i'm interested to see like what that game's like in comparison to don't because they were they were created concurrently and they're not going to be able to react

to that game but i do think supermassive did themselves very proud and they understand what they have with this game and their interviews that they've been giving where they're like we're doing more of this. And I think not necessarily until Dawn, although they said they might do it until Dawn too with different characters. I would not be surprised. They're going to.

And I still feign. It's not even feigning. I exclaim shock to this day that their mock reviews didn't come in and their marketing department didn't understand that this game was going to be big and that they had something special here. And I don't understand why they didn't hold it

and release it during October. And I also didn't know, like, and kind of narrow in on that, that vibe that we get this month or whatever. I think that's a really special game. So I would throw in Mad Max Rocket League and Until Dawn as games that I think are going to be in contention for, for, you know, game of the, I don't think any of them will necessarily win, but I think that they're all. They're going to be in that discussion, worth chattering about it. Well, because the old talk used to go, even when we were at IGN is like, we would nominate games or people would nominate games and then be like, well, I don't think this game necessarily would win.

And then the argument's like, well, why would we nominate it at all? And I'm like, I understand that argument, but I also understand we want to build a list of the best games. Exactly. And so I would put them on. Yeah. This, one of my biggest issues with Game of the Year was, you know, obviously it's a collective decision.

And sometimes the anxiety is more like, hold on, this is going to define us for the next year. It's like, well, look, somewhat. And a lot of people are going to be pissed off no matter what you do.

But I'm so much more interested in trying to give praise to games that people might not know are worthy of that. I mean, that's how I do like best movies of the year if I'm reading the New York Times or something like that. I go through them like, I haven't heard of this. I will now go look for this.

It should be about the discoverability. not about the championing and fighting. Look at my wisdom for finding greatness over there. Yeah. It's interesting you bring up Rocket League and Until Dawn because I think those are two games that really kind of were enhanced by the whole streamer culture that is happening now.

Oh, sure, yeah. Where those games are to this day super popular on Twitch and YouTube and all this stuff. And I think that it's really cool to see, quote, or quote, smaller games getting that type of exposure. And it's like those games come up on my Twitter every single day. Somehow, some different people are talking about it.

Well, no one stopped talking about Rocket League. Ever, you know, it just like, it just never stopped. And like, until done, I think it's the gift that keeps on giving where it's like, people like, oh, no, it's actually good, you should play it. And then someone's like, all right, I will eventually. And then they play it like, holy shit, this is fucking good, you should play it. And it's that thing of people will stop in to see people's streams

to see, oh, did you get caught up the same death that I got caught up on who survived for you? Who do you hate that I didn't? It's weird. Think about what could have happened with Master Factor. And when I think the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy, had we had a service like Twitch? I've always said, I think one of the biggest problems that people didn't understand that that entire game wasn't ending. Yeah, of course. You know, they did almost too good a job at, because it was impossible to tell, okay, what is, because I did it and what is it, was pretty determined by the game.

It was only after a discussion I had with people, I'm like, oh, my God, there was so much more that was dynamic in that game. And I think, yeah, that really, you know, would have helped that game quite a bit. I mean, you know, obviously for me, my answer is definitely Metal Gear. Having not played too much of those other games, just because they're not for me. Metal Gear is the one, and I've said this a million times, but I love the Metal Gear franchise, but Five scared me because of the open world stuff. And everything you guys said, it's like, it hooked me. And it's not that open world.

It really is kind of, it's a small map. It's an open world, but it delivers on something that a lot of open world games don't, which is do it how you want. And, you know, all, like getting the new. equipment, you know, I think in a lot of open world games, as much as I love Far Cry, I know I just, I would do this in Far Cry, you just start leaning on the one way that you go about doing stuff. And this, it really is like, hold on, I have something. It actually is useful.

It's fun for me to figure out how to sort of manipulate that tool or that weapon to take care of the guards and the fact that the guards are responding, that the bad guys are putting on the helmets or they're putting on the Night Vision goggles. It's forcing you to actually think in a more strategic and creative way. that is so damn impressive to me. The biggest compliment I can give the game is how it's constantly teaching me new things to do, and I want to.

And it's like when you, when you, you don't get everything at once. It slowly kind of unlocks the ability to customize your helicopter or to go on side ops or to, you know,

be able to see what level the random people are to fult in them. And it's just like, it feels so rewarding. It constantly is reward to me, even though the gameplay, is very repetitive when you boil it down. When you go on an admission, it's always the same,

one of the same or four or five things, right, of getting this guy or getting this thing, save this guy, kill this guy, get this thing, watch this, you know, whatever weird ass hologram thing, I don't know, whatever. To Collins' point, and I just agree with you 100%, you know, even in Which of Three as much as I liked it, gating is becoming such a problem in games

where it's like, stop like playing 52 pickup with the player, where it's like, oh, here's everything. I mean, look, there's one of my biggest issues with Batman, are those riddler puzzles. Not that I really plan on doing all of them, but they're there and they're mocking me and they're making me feel bad.

And he's literally mocking you. Yeah, and I don't know if I should be doing these what the benefit is. I don't know. I think the biggest issue with the riddler puzzles and Batman is there

there are so many that are there that you cannot solve. I think that's just from a design perspective, why would you want to do that to the player? Yeah, that's the one thing that bothered me about Arkonyi two

specifically, although all the games share it in the same way. I don't even understand why this exists. Like, I'm like, this game is so immaculate in so many,

ways, the presentation, the thought and put into the sequencing of the fucking side quest, the whole side quest wheel, I thought was a great thing to just like, you'll be able to pop it up and see where you are. And then like, but then you have all this garbage. Like, why? Like, that was like, I'm like, what the fuck? The game doesn't even need it. No, I know.

And if it had it, it should have just been collectibles that you could find. Or if it doled out five or ten ever so often. I mean, that's, I think Rockstar is exquisite at this where, you know, you get to a certain point in their games. then you get maybe about five missions. You can do it in one of ever order. Then you tighten back up into the main story and then you get some. You never have that moment of like, I don't know what the implications of my decisions are going to be.

I don't know what to do next. And I think that this concept that, well, we want the player to play however they want to. No, we want the player to think they can play how. Yeah, if you're making the game, you know what the better way to play this is and you should kind of nudge the player in that direction. Right. That's a great point because that's what we've had this. fucking ad nauseum about Witcher 3 where you do Witcher 3 side quests too early or too late and you get no experience Points for them and I'm like and everyone's like you're not you know people are you're not playing it right. I'm like what the fuck are you talking about? The game's letting me do it

Therefore I'm playing the game right that's called bad I hate to tell you that's called bad design and and and what bothers me is that CD Project Red when you're talking about cyberpunk now which is their next game. They're like we're like it's gonna be even bigger. I'm like it's gonna be even bigger. I'm like it's gonna be even bigger. I'm like it doesn't get any bigger. I'm like it's gonna be even bigger. I'm like it doesn't get any bigger. I But just, you know, like, if you wanted to horse space and more quest, but control. I mean, no, that was devastating where I'm like, I don't, you mean, you're asking the player to understand things far quicker than there's any reason to expect them to understand it. Yeah. And it's just give me a few quests. I'm like, oh, I like to do my, I love doing quest. Yeah, me too. But not 75 of them.

And Metal Gear, as many questss are on there, it never, as long as you're being attentive and you want to do all the side quests, it gives you three or four for every, like, you know, two things you do in the main story. Metal Gear is the perfect. The perfect example this year of slowly doling out the stuff. Because it's the same thing of like when I, when I shit, when I was trying to get Nick ready for Metal Gear and I showed him Peace Walker. I jumped into a save that was like 60 or 70 hours. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I was like, 70 hours in.

And I'm like, well, this is how you're like, this is bullshit. And I'm like, this isn't how you got dropped into the game. And so now with Phantom Payne, it is that where it's like, do this. And then, bink, all right, here's this new thing for you to learn and this thing. And slowly, but surely, now you look back 60 hours later. You're like, oh, fine. My only complaint, and I know this is just indicative for a lot of his games and games of this nature, I don't like the scoring at the end of the missions. Because it undermines the idea that you should be able to do it how you want.

Right. And I'm like, it's almost like, oh, no, but we did have a way we wanted you to play this. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's not, you know, the scores may have no consequence, but it's like, okay, now, I'm just neurotic. Yeah, sure. I feel the same way. That's why I could talk and put up that piece that was like, you know, it's metal gear so much better when you ignore it when you ignore that final screen because that's for the nerds like me that want the

metal gear and love metal gear and want to s rank it and want to sneak in and out and never be but i think there's a difference though between that and like the riddler trophy stuff with the riddler trophy stuff it's like there's that's just there you know whereas this it's like yeah it's annoying for the people like me that are literally i just want to beat the mission like i do not care about my rank at all yeah but knowing that there's a rank like i do like it i do like knowing that oh there is a better way to play this game you can play it however you want obviously i'm doing that but there is a way that i should be playing that they want me to be doing that. They designed it that way.

See, I think that, I wish we could move away from traditional difficulty settings and instead be, you know, ask the play at the beginning, how are you hoping to play it? That there should be like a completest mode where you, it will, you know, you're not going to go up by level as fast because you're planning to do every side quest. And so it'll keep the game challenging for you. I think Dragon Age is a great example. You know, you get so overpowered if you're really diligent about doing the side quest. or like say in the case of Metal Gear

like you don't want to be scored and so it's going to just remove that element of the game so you can just kind of experience it and play it however you want. Well I think the Call of Duty news that dropped this week about them being you can choose your campaign whenever you want.

You know what I'm talking about? In Black Ops 3 you can as soon as you play the game you can choose whatever campaign mission. You don't unlock the campaigns. Oh that's lame. I don't like that. I mean but I guess but I guess the player agency. Yeah but the player

but I agree with you in the point. Yeah, it is weird. But their whole thing is like that they... Are they telling a story? There is a story. It's not the... It's not like it's not linear. It is still going to be a linear thing.

And I might be getting some of this wrong. I don't think that I am because I read the article. But they were talking about how like, you know, back when you played guitar hero and stuff and you had to play the songs over and over to unlock everything, it was like, why. Okay, no, okay. I see that logic. But that's different because all those songs are equal, technically, whereas these levels are... Yeah, it's a campaign.

Yeah, it's a specific thing. But it's more for the people that just want to just be able to go to the one mission because they don't care about the committee. They do just want to do the multiplayer, but they heard that this level's cool and they don't want to have to play. I don't know. Yeah, no, I respect that. And I actually really love what Adam was saying about.

I love that idea of the game asking you questions in the beginning, 10 questions. You know, how much time do you? It doesn't have to be with every game, but a game like the Witcher or something like that where it's like, how much time do you intend on spending with this game? Yeah. Like asking you like very straightforward questions. and then it gives you like it's not player agency it's even bigger than that it's it's customer service

yeah it's and it's it's it's customization before you even have agency in the game so it's it's it's I like that it's probably complicated execute but I like exactly and it would benefit a game like you're talking about with Batman in the way that I the thing you haven't glossed over and the thing that about the real show fees that annoys me as somebody who got them all is the fact that they're mandatory you don't get the real ending of Batman Arkham knife and how many hours you put it in until you get all the things and you don't tell you that till the end and it's like

Like, well, what the hell? There's those riddle puzzles where, like, you need to get a piece of equipment that will be given to you at some point in this story. But they don't tell you that when you go. You sit there banging your head against the wall. Batman just like, I think there's something else I need. I should come back. Just some clue. I felt very similarly, and I love Dragon Age Inquisition, but to Collins' point, I agree with you.

I play a game sometimes just to make myself angry. I'm like, if it's there, then I can play it. So certain parts of that map open up, you know, early. on and one of them I went there and it's like like I'm at level six and somehow it unlocked but all the enemies are level 13 and you know you're going through a fair amount of loads to get there it's like just you know once again if a character be like I don't know I think it's pretty dangerous up ahead just something so the player is not put you back on track wasting time pointlessly yeah once again games are mainly for adults and adults have other responsibilities

yeah it reminds me of like there's very simple ways to to nip shit like that in the butt It reminds me of like Dragon Quest, like old Dragon Quest games on NES. If you walked across a bridge, you weren't supposed to walk across, you'd run into enemies that would kill you immediately. And you would learn your lesson that you've shown go across that bridge. It's like very simple design philosophy. You know, like, so I think sometimes designers might be getting in their heads a little too much in terms of like, how do we execute a world this big?

And I'm like, I don't, I think you don't have to overthink it too much. If the side quest is available, then you should expect that someone's going to do the side quest. It is not, it is like not. So like when I hear this, like you're playing the game wrong or they didn't play. It's like, what the fuck? are you talking about? The side quest is available

and the game let me play it. Therefore, I'm playing the game exactly the way it was intended. This idea that you can play the game wrong. If I can do that in the game, then that is at the game's behest or at the game's allowance. And yeah.

Especially with more open world stuff, like Super Metroid even, like there's the rooms where it's too hot and if you go in there, your life just starts draining down and you instantly know. Yeah, it's just quick cues. It's the way games used to have to do it

because they didn't have the luxury of being able to explain things to you in any other way. So it was usually visual cues or quick death cues that would be still forgiving enough to let you know, though, like, you're going back to the last stage point, and don't go there.

Yeah, so I think that that's super valuable stuff. The thing that bothers me about Arkham Knight, specifically in retrospect, is I really enjoyed the beat-to-beat story of that game. I think the game is a little overrated. I don't think the combat is inspired as everyone thinks it is. I just, I don't.

But I do think that the storytelling, and I love that wheel they had of like, you're this percentage through this and this percentage of this, you don't even know what the fuck this is yet. And when I think of the Riddler trophies, And I just think of game development and game design as a pie, like a structure in which you take different resources to make different things. I wish they took those resources of those fucking stupid riddler trophies. And we're like, we're going to do four more sets of side quests.

You know, like, wouldn't have that been more fun? And then people would have gotten the real ending by doing something they actually wanted to do because I got just a million tweets from people being like, because I was, I tweeted. I finished the game. Everyone's like, oh, did you see the real ending. I'm like, oh, do you have to get this and that. And everyone's like, just go watch the YouTube video. That's what I did. And then that's what everyone did.

Yeah. So it's just like, I hope Rocksteady looks at that and is like, we don't need this minutia in our games necessarily. Some games thrive on that kind of stuff, which is a great example. The game nut does thrive on the minutiae. But if they wanted to have collectibles, make them so you can find them and get them without having to bang your head against the wall 150 times wherever it is. It's insane. It's a funny thing is, you know, I actually, you know, I think when developers do it, they're doing it from a good place. but I think sometimes

the audience that talks to the developer is that incredible core audience the ones who will get all the Riddler trophies and you can get kind of a mistaken perception of who that much, much larger audience is which is, you know, other people who are like, I can't, I would love to see a real ending.

I mean, now that you told me there's a fake ending don't even want to get to the end of the game. That's really not, once again, a very good message to be conveying someone. Yeah, I agree. That's a great point. Yeah, I think Archonite's an interesting game because I think it can teach us and just developers quite a bit about

how to do things right and how to do things wrong. No, it's, I think, and it's one of the things I love the most when I was reviewing games is games that weren't perfect for so much more interesting because the experiment that doesn't completely work can be so much more instructive than the game that does everything perfectly.

Sure. It's, before we move on on the topic, I definitely need to stand up for Nintendo and just throw Mario Maker. I was going to, yeah, we were going to get out here without that. You know, it's interesting with Nintendo, obviously, I love it a lot, want to find the good in it but I remember back at I Jen I was always the guy one of the few guys

that was like hey don't forget about Mario 3d world or don't forget about smash pros don't forget about Donkey Kong tropical freeze don't forget about fire emblem awakening all these things that are like they're not going to win just because of you know just how the market is now yeah um but to me those were my games of the year yeah and like i had the most fun with that and then i was thinking about nintendo was like man like this year was was bad like it was really bad like 3DS or we you like there wasn't There's nothing that I could really be like, yes, except for Mario Maker. And Mario Maker definitely I would put in that league with Until Dawn and Rocket League and that it has legs because of streaming and because of all this stuff.

And people are having so much fun with it. They were when it came out. They still are. I have a feeling they're going to be playing it in half a year. The interesting thing about it is I think the legs will work against it for game of the year. That it is so expansive that maybe you never got deep enough to see the awesome stuff. Maybe you still do, but you're still seeing people get better and better at what they're making. Whereas when we sit down and go, Witcher, fallout, here's the experience.

Here's this thing that was 50 hours of my life. I did everything and I put it away and I had a great time. I've wondered because, yeah, I've noticed how thin that the offerings have been for the Wii U this year. That is, there's something about the Wii U, obviously the controller that works, and haven't played any Mario Maker, that's so essential to making Mario Maker work that this is one game that they wouldn't want to put off for whatever their next announcement is going to be. X is going to give it to you and we say X is going to give it to you and we talk about the NX and it's coming it'll save everything whatever they have planned this would not work very well through through controller or something like that

I've started to think that and I think that that's definitely true also think that they're in this weird space between where they have to get some of their games out I still I'm still starting to wonder about Zelda now I don't I don't think it's a good idea to put Zelda out no I don't think so either you need to consider the Wii you a wash yeah have a Zelda at the launch of a new thing that helps and measure When you have such a signature game at the launch of your new console. It feels like we're in a, it's going to be Twilight Princess again, right? Where it's going to be, they'll be the Wii U version or whatever. And then there's going to be the NX version that comes at the launch day. And there is. How many we use her out there? 11 million, maybe, something like that.

Yeah, I don't think so either in the sense that. I don't think that. I don't think that when they did that with Twilight Princess, then they just inverted the game and put it on Wii, which was obnoxious because links are fucking lefty. And it just changed the whole dynamic of the game. I always thought that was weird. It's a mirror image.

They put it out on GameCube and limited numbers, but I still think it hurt. It didn't hurt Wii sales because Wii was flying off the shells, but I think the NX isn't going to sell well without games. It's just not. The Wii was the Wii crash and burned, and they need to do something right on it. So I hope that if they do are moving Zeld over,

that they just move it over. Yeah. And they don't have the Wii version at all. You know, I'd be shocked if they did that. I don't say there's going to be some angry people, but I think you need to just kind of cut your losses on loyalty. Yeah.

And deal with, like, you have to, build this business back up again. Yeah, absolutely. And to be perfectly honest with you, and it's just the raw numbers of it, and this is coming from what I always say were a form Nintendo fan because I am, is they don't have that much loyalty anymore.

I mean, I just say, I hate to tell people that. If there was a lot of loyalty, you know, you're absolutely right. If there was a lot of loyalty, we would sell 50 million units. I think the loyalty will be the people that understand that this is,

that's what should happen. They will buy the new one because they're putting the Zelda. They just need to see the case made. Yeah. I mean, look, well, that's me. It's not that hard to get someone to buy something Nintendo.

It is rather impressive when you get someone to not buy something Nintendo and that is the situation that they're in. Yeah, so I do think, I do think optically it's a bad move with WiiU consumers, but Wii consumers are the hardcore Nintendo consumers that are gonna buy the new system. So you need to get, yeah, I agree with you,

the trajectory for all the numbers is just down in the gutter. And so there isn't, there's just not that much brand loyalty for Nintendo. And that's just the reality of the situation. And so I agree with you, like, just cut your losses and piss some people off, but this is the right thing to do

is put all of your games, release your 15-year-old looking Star Fox games, put the Wii to bed, and, you know, and start out fresh with a Zelda game, get a Metroid Prime game on there, like get, you know, I think retro is working on a Wii or an X game. Like, just get your first parties going and firing on all cylinders and make this a compelling machine for core gamers. I mean, that's, that's key because I think the people that have we use that enjoy them, fucking love them. And I know that because I've had multiple games on it that I'm like, I fucking love these games. And so we're going to buy it. I'm going to buy it no

matter what, because it's Nintendo and I'm supporting it and like I, no matter what happens, I'm going to get a Mario game, I'm going to get a Zelda game, I'm going to get a Metroid. These are the games I want to play. It's worth it for me. It's interesting. The Wii was worth it for me to be able to play the games that I played. I just hate that controller so much. Yes.

I feel like my hand. It's just I, I, it was playing Wind Waker, which I was all excited for. Yeah. And then I'm like, wait, but they put the buttons down here. Yeah, the buttons. The buttons are below the sticks. I can't, I can't believe, like that was when I started, when I, the first game I played on it was Mass Effect 3 when we're at IG and I had to review it, you know, the port.

And I started, I played on the line. And I'm like, what, why did they put the face buttons below the sticks? Even on, even on the, even on the pro controller. The amount, the distance for your thumb to travel from stick to the most important button, which is the one at the bottom of your, of your diamond. That changes everything if you're, if you're having to be reactive when you're playing a game. It's a truly bizarre. That's why I actually bought it with bayonetta, which maybe it worked, but I'm like, that game,

I have to be quick in my reflexes and this, that doesn't do it. It's a bizarre. And they did it on the pro controller. Yeah, the pro controller is the thing that doesn't make sense. It's absolutely, it's absolutely bizarre. I think the Wii is been so awesome. The Wii has been really bad, but I do agree that the, the, there are games on every platform, including Wii that are good.

But I will dispute you that you got a Mario game. You really, dude, 3D world was freaking awesome, man. It's fine. That's not like, we were talking about how the games get short shrift in Game of the Year, for instance. But when I remember because we read I to Jan at the time, you weren't there yet, Mario Galaxy won game of the year. My fucking.

mile. And so it's, it's, it's not like people have this, this necessarily inherent bias against Nintendo games. It's just that these games are not the Mario games we're looking for. Totally get that. Especially the one that the system launched with or that came out around launch wherever, which was basically just a facsimile of a game that people had already played. You know, it was, it was still good though. It was still fun. And like, I'm totally with you. I would never argue that I don't want the Mario Galaxy like three-esque thing or not even Mario Galaxy 3. I'll definitely want that, but like a new thing, you know? The new big Mario, this is what Mario on the Wii you is. You'll get it on an accident. I'm sure that they were making it for

Wii and I'm sure very early on there. Oh no no we can't and like fine I'm down because like whatever I did get to Mario games that and I've said this many times Mario has different pillars now where there's the 2d games there's the 3d like adventure games like Mario 64 or it's like you're getting stars and then there's the 3D obstacle course games and I fucking love that 3D land and 3D world are so awesome and people hate on them because they're not that other thing but I'm happy there's this third See, all I think Nintendo needs to do is that they have a box, this adax, and it's just a subscription service. Like, get, they are sitting on some of the most valuable IPs on the planet. Yeah.

Get them ready, and then I can just stream some of them or that, like, for a fee, I can get 20 of them. Just give me your back catalog. And then they, if they do that, then they can still be kind of slow getting new games out. Because you've given me what I really love you for, which is all these memories from the NES, from the S&ES, from the GameCube. from the N64. I mean, it's, it's,

it's sitting there way, I mean, it's just, to me, it's just crazy that they have these games that are just not earning money. No,

I agree. I mean, the IP situation is, is compelling to me as well because it's not only valuable gaming IP, that's some of the most valuable IP in entertainment. Yeah. And they,

and that's the thing that's really always been frustrating to me. And, but you set, you set a lot there kind of between the lines. I don't know if you meant it or not, which is that no one's really looking at Nintendo excited about what they're going to do. It's like all,

All that all people want is to play the things they've already done. Yeah. And that says a great deal about what people think about that company now. And Nintendo's prospects of really succeeding with the NX, and I hope they do succeed because I think a healthy Nintendo is good for the healthy industry. But it also begs the question, maybe they should just start making games for other people, you know, and put those games on other platforms and do what they do best.

I mean, I really think, yeah. I've, I've, apparently I'm an apostate for saying it. But, yeah, I do think that. AndX has got to be the last gas, Adam. I mean, that sucks because, like, to me and this is coming from a huge fucking Nintendo fan that will buy the console before any games announced for just based on what I think I might get. Yeah. But I wish that the Wii was their last console. I wish that we would just get the games because I just want the fucking

games. I don't care. I don't care about any of this. I want to play games with a normal controller. Yeah, play Mario with a Dolshok for controller or that brilliant Xbox one control, that beautiful Xbox one controller like that elite controller playing like whatever you want playing Mario card on that controller like getting trophies like I just it's just they there is the What Nintendo doesn't have, Nintendo might have a shortage of a lot of things right now. What they don't have a shortage of of is fucking incredible pride. And they're going to go down with that shit, man.

If like, and I don't think the ship's going down. They have a lot of money in valuable IP. They'll always have money. They can always sell it. Disney might buy them one day or something like that. Who knows? But it's,

it's, I'm sure they haven't even tried yet. Maybe they have. I just feel like they, Adam, Adam said a lot. Like, it's just like he wants to play NES and SNES games.

I don't want to play GameCube games. Yeah. I mean, GameCube is awesome. Toast I just won't play geist. I just won't play geist. But that says,

I think that that's in the heart of a lot of gamers today, a lot of reform Nintendo fans like me, a lot of people that weren't into Nintendo or just want to know the past. It's like, no one's really that interested in the future, but I hope they just punch me in the face.

I mean, I definitely don't think that's a true statement, that no one's interested. I think everyone's interested in what happens. Well, people are interested in what happens, people are not interested in what they're doing right now, clearly. So it's, it's, you know, I mean, the market has spoken,

loud and clear about Wii, and to your point, It's not that they don't have a shortage of games. I really think there's a shortage of interest, you know, because people feel burned by this shit. You know, look at what they really reformed 3DS, but even 3DS came out of the gate and fucking fell on its face. You know, it's like these things don't happen in Nintendo products.

So it's, they have a deep, they have to think deeply about the way that they do the NX, and I'm sure that their plans are already in place, and I'm sure we're going to see the D3 and all that kind of stuff. But I'm excited and interested in it. And as someone, like, I took, I took this, what I always says, I took this, this cycle off with Nintendo. I did.

I don't play the Wii, with the exception of a few games. If they can get me back, fucking get me back. I was telling Greg the other day was we're trophy whores, right? I'm like, if they just had their own achievement system

and it went all the way back through the virtual console, goodbye. Yeah. You know, like I'll be in the depths of the NES catalog for five fucking years

before you see me again. I mean, the other thing is, I mean, I guess I could play it on my Wii U, but it's just like, just give me Galaxy. But give it to me in high death.

You know, whatever that dolphin version of it looks like. I mean, I could play Galaxy to the cows come home. I love that game so much. And it's like you, you,

Nintendo is the only company where I actually hunger to play their older games. Yeah. Because they are so well designed. And, you know, because I'm not like, God, I need to play Azurik on the original Xbox. No one said that. Other people do look back to play games. Yeah. From Nintendo.

And I think that's why it just, like, it drives me just nuts that they don't, I mean, they can actually fill the time in between proper new games with stuff like that. Oh, sure. If they just had a console that was normal enough. And you could adapt a controller to whatever that game is. Yeah. And of course, the, the wildcard, it would be a similar wildcard when we were talking about Vita too if they ever did a new Vita. They're not going to.

But if Sony did a new Vita and they're like, how did they get third parties involved? Like third parties were burned badly on this thing. Wii U burned a lot of third parties badly to the point where they were delaying games like Rayman to get them out on other consoles. Yeah. You know, before they even release on Wii U. That's the other wild card is if they're not ready with all pistols firing with first and second party games, they are going to be fucked. because the third part, I can't imagine that they're going to Ubisoft and EA and EA is like,

yeah, let's do this again. You know, I hope they don't, man. I hope that they're like, I'm going to put my dick on the table with the hammer. Wow, that hurts. Oh, that's right. It does. They have to. They have to.

They have to, they have to, that, Nintendo's got a, it's, oh, it's going to be, it's very interesting to be a fly on the wall that place right now because they know exactly what they have to do. And they are going to have to engender a lot of third party support as well. And they're going to have to get big third party games. on that console, they have to, they have to, because they have a, they have a Nintendo machine right now. You know, they have a Nintendo game machine right now.

I think the trick is, Nintendo at the launch, they have to do it all on their own. But if they have a Zelda, if they have a Metroid and all that stuff, boom, there you have the install base, they will come back. I don't think anyone's going to take that leap of faith again. All the developers are going to stand on the side. To have a killer lineup at a launch and you can sustain it with your own software for maybe the first nine months, maybe the first year,

then you'll see a turn on EA will come back, for sure. I mean, that's the thing. It's like people, no one wanted to buy the Wii you to play freaking Arkham City. Yeah, that was a weird port. And but that's the thing. That was their third party support and stuff like that. But they also just let them, well, it's not letting. I mean, these companies are, they can do whatever they want.

They're like sentient. But it's, it's, yeah, I actually absolutely agree with you. And I think that's why things are quiet right now. They do have a stable of very good first party games and our first party studios. And to your point, like, they do make really good games. like they make good, good, good games. It's just that hardware that holds them back. And I hope that the other thing with NX,

we can save it for another time is that the NX needs to be powerful. It needs to be more powerful than you expect it's going to be. Which means it needs to be expensive. Which is one of those things that I don't know. They've always made money on their consoles at launch. And it's like maybe this time you have to lose some money. Yeah, and they have to go raise a razor blade this time. And they have a war chest.

Everyone always talks about this vaulted fucking war chest they have. Well, they're going to have to go into it and lose some money. Yes. Stop building things out of petty cash. Go to cash. Okay. Yeah, like $18, $20 billion on hand. They can afford some losses that I agree with you.

They have to get it out. They're going to sell these consoles at a loss probably, but it's got to be powerful. And I hope it's a hybrid, but we'll see what happens. Ladies and gentlemen, that topic was brought to you by Draft Kings. But your fantasy skills to the test starting Sunday at draftkings.com. America's favorite one week fantasy football site. We could kick the season off by winning $2 million.

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Heard at draftkings.com now and use promo code Kind of funny to play for a free shot At a part of $10 million dollars in Sunday's Millionaire Maker event And they're kind of funny for free entry now Only at draftkings.com That's draftkings. So Adam, the third topic today Is your favorite games of all time

What are they? So a long time ago we had a show where the entire week was each of us giving our five favorite games of all time. So for you, I asked you to kind of come with your five, but we don't need to do that. We can just do, when I asked you the questions, what are your favorite games of all time? What comes to mind?

What I was starting to do in my head is I was going through generations of consoles. Then I can start to hone in out what were my favorite at the time. So with the NES, Super Mario, I actually didn't get Super Mario 3 until much later. And my family didn't have a ton of money. So trust me, the

the things I had to go through for that one game, But, you know, I was a Super Mario Brothers, but the one that I still love is Ghost and Goblins. Oh, that's a rough one, man. That's a great game, but it's a hard as fucking nails game. I was young enough. I didn't know that. I just thought this is games. I used to go to this.

It's kind of an arcade. It was a bowling alley near my house. I probably should not have been going there at the age I was all by myself. But I found this way to save money where I would ask my friend's parents to give me ride to a barge station so I didn't have to take the bus so I could pocket the bus money at the end of the week. I had enough quarters and I would go to that arcade and I tried to play Ghost and Goblins.

And I couldn't get past the first level. And then finally, it comes out for the home version on the NES. And like, I worked at it and worked at it and worked at it and worked at it. And I finally like beat the Satan or whatever it is at the end. And it's like, ah, that's not the real one. You got to go back and play it again. And that's, I think that's when I started about my own personal philosophies about how I see the world.

as a really shitty place. That was her fucks with you all the time. That is one of the cruelest. That is one of the cruelest games of all times. So awful. But I love that game so much because that was the first time. I think it's one of the first games that had a real sense of art direction. And that I wanted to play it not for a score, not for bragging rights.

I want to see what the next level look like. What weird ass enemies that don't make any sense are, you know, are they there? And I, that's, I think, it really important my philosophy of how I like to play games. I want to see what's around the corner in terms of the sense of success. is less interesting to me than I want to get lost in somebody else's far more interesting imagination than mine. Interesting. So, okay, that's NES.

That's NES. You left off your Sega Master System. What's your Sega Master System? Oh, you're excited to have that, but my buddy Andre did. And that was like, because I was the kid, like, I actually got an NES, like right around the time it launched. I think because my parents were worried I was getting really lonely and I could get friends this way.

My buddy, Andre, he got a Sega Master System. I got more friends. You and I like that Sagan Master's just some fantasy zone Because it doesn't make any sense It's like once upon a time You got to make games like fantasy zone What's like what is it? I don't know

Just put it out We're around and shoot some things And it looks all weird And there's a lot of round edges Sure thing All right Put it up the same master system Shippin

So I mean Those two from like the early era I really like I didn't play a ton on SNES That's when I was in college and games were not going to happen. Sure. What little I had was going to beer.

That's one of the other. And but then when I started, you know, I was on GameSpot TV. I mean, one of the games that always will stand out to me is Banjo Cazooey. Because, you know, because I ended around the time of the SNES. I was aware of like street fire or stuff like that. But I missed as things started to move into 3D. So I get this job and they're like, cool, you know something about games. You need to know more.

You got to go play something. So the first big game that come out around that time was banjo And I popped it in I'm like oh my god You know just that overworld How far we've come I'm like this is really cool And my roommates hated me

Because all they heard Like on Saturday morning while everyone was hung over Is woo E Turn that shit off Yeah I guess that year also was half life I think that was the first time

I had seen like adult game I guess earlier that year Because the thing by 1998 was Half Life was so big. It was also the year of Ocarian of Time. And Metal Gear. But no, is that Metal Gear One? Metal Gear Solid, yeah. Was that Metal Gear Solid?

I think they were all in the same month. It might have been. Because, yeah, somebody deemed it in the greatest month. November. November. Over my head, I try to remember where I was sitting at work when I played it, because that's how I can start to figure out the date. But the big games that were supposed to be coming out that year was Ritual Sin

and Shogo from Monolith. And both of those. actually weren't good. Oh, and Unreal came out that year as well, because it was really, it was like, with the first engines allowed you to go from indoors to outdoors seamlessly.

I mean, it was, that was such a nutty year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, half-life, that was the first time where I'm like, oh, hold on, there's something really interesting

happening here in the industry. So, is that four? Yeah. What else? What else do I like? I really do like most games. It's a galaxy. Earlier you're talking about Galaxy.

Oh, that's right. Super Mario Galaxy. I love platformers, That to me was... It's like perfection, man, especially for three years. I remember I got it. We got a good and early from Nintendo for review because we would say, yeah, we need it for video,

so please give it to us a month early. We actually got it. So I went back to review it, and it was a Friday and I was going to go see some friends. I thought it was going to be fine. But it was a Wii game, so I didn't know how it was going to work. And I just blew through the first world.

And I'm like, what the hell? I mean, I was just, like, I cannot believe what I'm playing here. Because every single level, felt fresh and different. Yeah. I mean, well, going back to what you're talking about

with Ghost and Gobblas where you wanted to see the next level, our galaxy is full of that where you're like, what the hell? And the way that they would, it would find like a certain type of way, okay, we're going to challenge you on this kind of logic.

Okay, we're going to have small gravitational things you walk around. You'd have one of those, then maybe two levels later, you'd have, they would return to it, but they would do it in a way that didn't feel like,

okay, we're just going to test you again, but now we're going to test you more. We're just going to make it harder. Like, everything felt purposeful in its design and it should be there in the game, except for the purple stars. Right, right, right. Yeah, to forget that.

Things happen. I will say that the Galaxy's credit, because I always had the Wii reservations, too, although not at the time. I was still kind of in the Wii in 2007. The waggle felt totally normal. Everything about that, everything was. The key was when you played it.

And you're just like, oh, cool. Yeah. It worked. It did work to its credit. I mean, I know Uncharted 2 is that that's one of those moments. I'll never forget. You know, that was a rough year. That was like kind of the year,

my wife had gotten sick and you know we had moved to a new place which was great and i was like hey i maybe i'll i that's right i wasn't supposed to review it it's supposed to be somebody else and they're like hey adam i don't think we have time do you mind i'm like i'm free this weekend went home popped it in and i was like oh hi and that's what i came up with the term the underwear game and the underwear game is what happened the following morning it was saturday morning and i got up in my underwear, I stepped over my wife, I tippedote out the room, closed the door, made a cup

of coffee, because I wanted to see if I could get maybe two or three hours before she woke up where I would have fully uninterrupted playing. And I have now come up with another term called the shower game. That's what I said, I should play that game. I'm probably going to take a shower first. We've all been there.

Yeah. Is there, so, is there any... Do any of the witches fall into this? You're saying you're a big witcher fan. I am, but they don't... I'm trying to think of the ones where it was like, okay, that... Like life changing, like it has a moment in time. You understand. I mean, I would say maybe Last of Us or Bioshock Infinite.

I think a lot of people obviously disagree with me on Infinite, but that is still one of those where I'm like, I am lost in someone's nutty imagination, and I'm really, really enjoying that. How do you feel about it compared to... Because Bioshop, the original is like one of my favorite game. How do you feel about the original Bioshock compared to Infini? I love the original Bioshock.

In an odd way, I think the original Bioshock is still less individualistic from a creative standpoint. I think it's a stronger game in terms of just sort of like how some of the challenges present themselves. But just kind of the flash of color, the aesthetics, and all that stuff that's happening in Infinite. You know, Columbia is certainly a different place. Yeah. It's funny. Even though they both carry the name Bioshock and they have certain thematic consistencies, I see them as very, very different games.

Oh, yeah. No, they are different. That was one of the things that turn me off to Infinite a little bit, although I always feel like I am. I'm in the minority, so it's funny that you feel in the minority, too, when you're saying that. Probably because I praised it so heavily, and so when people decide, you know what happens, a bunch of people will praise the game. Two weeks later, there's like all those other articles, well, hold on, a reconsideration. I'm unfamiliar with that, Tim. Yeah, you're right.

So I tend, you know, if you praise the game, you tend to be very aware when those two weeks come. Oh, no, absolutely. I got that with The Last of Us and the Uncharted games and other things. So, we still get it with Uncharted three all the time. No, the other one I just forgot I think my favorite series of all time is Mass Effect. I was going to say, I was going to ask about Mass Effect. That's, that's, you know,

I still dream that one day that we'll go back redo one. Oh, I was going to ask. So you're one of the ones that's more of a two or three purists as opposed to the one, like, RPG, heavy RPG mechanics? Oh, no, is that the RPG mechanics weren't the issue. It was just the problems, like the MAKO. And, you know,

elevators? Well, that, that's just, that's just the game at the time. That's what was going to. happen. No, the, the Rack Night Queen. I mean, that boss battle has serious, serious problems. And, you know, just, just tweak that one up, maybe make it a little bit more consistent. But I think, I would say two or three go down easier, though I did miss, like, the level of depth. Yeah. I just the thing is, I never felt that one benefited from the depth. Like, once you started to

invest in some of those skills, like, well, I better just go all the way with those. I'm I never felt like you could mix and match very comfortably. Also, I think that's because of Cotor. Because I went kind of down the middle, and that game does not like you. That doesn't reward you. Notariously,

I was writing the strategy got for Cotor when I was a freelancer at IGN. And it's a notorious story. Like Hillary still brings it up, our old boss in at the time was writing guides, where I got the Vader, or whatever the last boss was Revin. Yeah. And I couldn't beat him.

I couldn't beat him. Like, no matter what, I was like, I can't beat him. And they're like, and Hillary had to write the last part of the guide for me because I'm like, I can't, I actually think I tried to be totally neutral. And you, and I fucked myself and the game does not tell you that. You know, so you're, that's like one of my dark memories of writing tragedy. How long did it take you to fight him of fighting him to discover you couldn't do it? I did it a few times because Hillary and I were writing the guy in concert.

I was doing like, I was making Paragon choices, I think, and he was making like renegade choice or whatever. So like, Sith and whatever. Yeah, yeah, but I was like keeping my skill tree. So I don't remember it was a long time ago. It was 12 years ago now, which is incredible. And I remember just getting to a point where I'm like, I just think I screwed myself and I can't go back. You know? I can't.

I'll never forget that as long as a quote horse a great game though. Cotor's an amazing. It's funny you say that about Mass Effect though because I've had this mental conundrum with that series for a while because I love that series too. Where I don't, I think they got some feedback from EA. I think they got some feedback from more casual gamers that were like this is too much of a role playing game. The first one was Microsoft. Yeah. My funny feeling is maybe they were not being monitored as heavily.

back then. That's true. That's a good point. It was a Microsoft game that somehow came to PlayStation later. That, um, they, I think they got some feedback and some, maybe some, you know, focus testing, whatever they're like, it's just you guys got to scale it back. And I've often wondered, would I trade the gains taken in two and three in certain ways to get that role playing system back?

And I think, and that statistical system back. And I think I might, you know? The story and the storytelling, more importantly, is so much better in two and three. And that's where I, okay, I'm getting really attacking. of these characters. By the time, three rolls round, it's just like,

well, I mean, just seeing how everything is finally happening and you're seeing, you know, because I had a couple of things that shocked,

because I somehow stopped the genophage and I didn't, and no one died. Oh, on the mission? Yeah, because I played such heavy renegade,

like crazy, crazy, crazy, renegate. I was always, I'm always so uncomfortable making bad choices in games.

I know. See, that one, you don't know, because you're not, it didn't, in Cotor, I panicked.

When I tried to play Renegade at the very beginning, because I think there's a woman who's been assaulted. And the way I tried to react to it was, you know, as Renegate, I can't remember, it was, you know, Dark Force. And as I did that, I panicked. I turned up my Xbox. Because, you know, I see it was, I think it was plugged into the internet. And I'm like, maybe it's reporting me and they know I'm a bad person.

I really had that deep a reaction to it. And I felt that what they really got to in Mass Effect is, you're trying to get to the same place, be you Paragon or Renegade. You're a little more dickish about how you go about. it but it's not like everyone hates you brash right right right no that was the thing for me with mass effect and then mass effect too is a mass effect I jumped into and tried to get into

and I got turned off by how deep the RPG stuff was and how just like it dense it was dense like you were saying no it was more talking to everyone and feeling like I go if I didn't talk to everyone I wasn't getting the XP so it wasn't worth my and I stopped playing it because it was just like I'm not gonna get invest and then two came around and stopped rewarding you didn't give you any rewards for talking to people now it was, are you in it for the games? How do you want to go? And then building your squad. And like, Mass Effect, too, is totally that thing of like, I'll never forget

Jacob's mission and going out there and Jack's mission and like the connection you had to those characters when I wasn't worrying about like, well, fuck, there's a guy over there. Let's talk to him. What he's in? Yeah, no, you're right there. The one thing, though, I think that I really think three is a great game. In many ways, I think it's the best game in the series in terms of storytelling. I think people were pretty hard on it. I always- You were way too hard. Because I always describe it as like, what were you exactly expecting? I always describe the story as an upside-down pyramid. At some point, you have to get back to the focus. peak of it and it has to end

you know so like I don't know what the fuck you wanted them to do you wanted to end in 15 different ways it's not possible nonetheless I think that by the time we got to three they removed all of the role playing elements you were getting like no experience for anything except for like beating missions like you had no there was no we were talking about agents before it was like a JRP at that I guess I'm trying

to like like I just felt like you were there was no way for me to like finagle a little more experience or like to just get that edge on the game yeah exactly that's what I love about a role playing game is like when you turn that corner yeah I can destroy it all you Yeah, I never felt, I felt like it was too stuck in not being a role playing anymore. I have a funny feeling they are going to address that with the new one.

I hope so. I hope so. I can't wait for And I hope. That's what I'm saying is I want them to marry those deep systems that Mass Effect was big because of the people that, and this is lost on a lot of people. And I understand that people like two and three. Mass Effect ones fans were the ones that made it possible for two. And they should, and they should at least give an homage to them to say like, you know, like, we're going to put those role playing statistics back into the game and make it more of a role playing.

in 2012 that's when it came out correct three mass effect yes because that's when 7 10 and 12 yeah yeah I remember now because I remember oh wait I know I remember no the story is because when I wrote the review it's a downer of a review it's because that was that was the four month period where I knew

you know the rumors were going around I couldn't escape them so here I like the game is just this ex my review is just this existential dread is just filling it yeah and I talked about the ending I'm like yeah I mean it has this ending where it you know Yeah, nothing matters.

It's all what you did before. Yeah, it's because you're going to die. But Skyrim had been the previous year. So I think what's interesting is up until this point, I might be wrong. There's probably a couple exceptions. You didn't see a lot of open world coming out of EA. And with Skyrim, we start to see that huge push in that direction, that that is an economically viable and recommended way to go.

So I think that also opens things up, that they're going to need to have a deeper, people more comfortable now with those mechanics. I'm not saying that I'm not saying the game is going to be open world per se. Right. But when you do open world, you have to sort of deepen a lot of those elements. Well, that's a good point that EA could learn something from Bethesda about scaling in an open world, but that in many ways, bioware had already identified an open platform in a galactic way of letting you explore planets and stuff like that, without giving you a whole planet to explore, kind of like a no-man sky kind of thing where you land and you can just go wherever you want. like that. I like to see them. The brilliance

about going to Andromeda Galaxy since everything's you know, spoiler from aspect, it's fucking over in the Milky Way is that this doesn't tie them to anything that's real anymore. And so what I'm most excited about is that we don't know anything about the Andromeda Galaxy other than it's closest to us and then it exists. So like what will you find there? Can we go to the

floaty, you know, jellyfish looking people planet? Yeah, really want to go there. Was it the Hanar? Yeah, that's right. So I'd love what I'm excited about with And drama is for them to open up a new trilogy. And what I'm really excited about for them is that they were going to wrap it back into the original trilogy. I fucking know it.

And you are going to find yourself back in the Milky Way. And trying to... My whole theory about it is that it's going to be like some sort of time thing with the reapers and like trying to undo what they did or whatever by like beating them to the punch or like using... I think that they're going to tie it back in. And I think that that's going to be really exciting. That's cool. But, you know, I'm just making that up. But that's what I've thought.

You got me excited. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I mean. Get your ass to Montreal. Get them to do this. I think that's the setup. I really do.

I think that's the setup is that they go to, you know, you're in Andromeda and they hear something about what happened in this other place. And it's totally different characters. And they go and they go back to the Milky Way and they find it that's dead. And it's like what happened and all that. I think it's going to be good. Before we're on topics, I really want to know what your thoughts are on Mario 64 because you said you came back to Baner Kizui

and you love Mario Galaxy. I think Banja is the superior game. Oh my God. There's no question. And I think it's, it's, you know, it's mainly because there's no overworld. There's no proper overworld Mario 64. And that, to me, was so clever in banjo, the way that you would travel around and you would have to figure out where the puzzle piece was to unlock the door that was somewhere else inside of that.

It made the entire game feel so cohesive so that when I went back and I tried to play Mario 64. I mean, the level design is great. But it was, okay, jump in that picture. Okay, now I can go into those pictures, but I do, I mean, it's kind of what we were talking about earlier. It didn't have that nice kind of structure and that cohesion. It just felt like more or less a series of exercises. In contrast, great exercises. Yeah.

But there was that extra special thing that came out of. Oh, man. I mean, that's the key difference. That's why I love Mario 64 because it is just like level to level. And the hub world of the castle, I love so much as its own thing. But, yeah, the open, even the open, the world thing of Van Gogel. I'm like, no, I can't do it. I was going to say, you know, the superior game to MR.

64, which is Super Mario Sunshine. I hate you so much. Has a, has a, has a crazy. Has a great little hub world. It's called Delphino Plaza. The worst. Game sucks. The worst hub world of any of the Mario games.

Delphino Plaza. And Galaxy's Hub World was not good. That was probably one of my least favorite things. But it's funny because that didn't bother me. Really? It's like, that's a dumb game. I think just, you know, I think another was camera controls. Yeah.

I can't remember what the banjo camera. They were similar to... It was similar to Mario. It was a little bit better. Yeah. Because it came out later and they understood it a little bit more. But, like, Sunshine. You just blew my mind.

I know. I don't even follow him down this whole, we'll go down. We'll hold hands and go down whenever you want. Moving down to the last topic of the day, I asked our beautiful audience over at the Kind of Funny forums, got a kind of funny.com slash forums. Fill out your topic.

We'll read it on the show. These are all geared towards Mr. Adam right here. I saw a few of these. Yes. It's good. So you can prep for it. Yes. This starts with our boy,

He wants to know what are you playing right now and what are you looking forward to this year? I'm playing Metal Year's solid now. I'm slowly making my way through it. I'm really looking forward to Fallout 4. That's a big surprise. Actually, I'm really looking forward to Halo 5. I like Halo and this looks like this is being done with a lot of care and attention. No.

I can't wait for Halo 5. Ratchet 3 wants to know. What's your most anticipated 2016 game? Mass Effect Indromeda. Yeah. I hope it hits. If it doesn't come out, I mean, that, that really is a gaping hole in my heart. I think it will.

I think that's a good, that's going to be a good fall, 2016. Yeah. Marzul, Marzell wants to say, wants to know, predict how PSVR and Oculus, the Oculus Rift, and VR in general were impact gaming in 2016 and beyond. I'm very excited about VR. You know, I've been working with this company. I know people who are working on VR games. I think there's a ridiculous amount of potential. I still don't know if games are going to be the biggest significant thing out of the gate or if it's going to be like live entertainment.

I have to be honest, I'm so excited to be able to maybe pop down $200 and get a front row seat for a prize fight. Because I will never afford that seat in real life. And this is, there's something. I think that's, there's so much potential there. I think that we're going to see some really neat games. But it's going to take a while because it is a different medium. And both from an economic point of view. unless it's Oculus or Valve making the game,

everybody else is going to need to do two skews. And I think a game for a console is not going to work as a game for VR. That it's a much different experience. You almost don't need the same level of challenge. I'm a buddy of mine who's working on Narcosis that has a VRV. Oh, yeah.

We've done that. David Chen. And one of the thoughts I had when I was in it is I wasn't looking for combat or the scary. I've never been in a submarine underwater. The sheer novelty of that is so strong that you can, you have to, I think you can rethink what's going to be happening that I don't think I need as much gaminess in my VR experience, or at least in the beginning, maybe we'll become so

jaded to it as the years go on. We need to have something that's more deeply interactive and challenging to make it happen. I think Sony's is the biggest bet because it is tied to the console, and they can pull it off all power to them. I see a little bit more risk there. Obviously, the Valve and the, and the initiative from, from Oculus, they are backed by some very, very large companies that are doing pretty well. And so the price point for Sony and the fact that their install base

will have to be people with the PlayStation 4, there's some really interesting pros and cons there. MSU Hitman says, ask him if he's had any hands on time with Fallout. If so, what do you think? If not, are you going to play it? No, I have not. Yes, I had the pleasure

of getting to work at that Bethesda Press conference. The best I got is I saw what you saw 24 hours earlier. Benefic Rock says if Adam could adapt any novel to be a video game, what would it be? Okay, I saw this one. I've been thinking about it. I think the novel I would want to play is something by Joseph Conrad. I mean, probably Lord Jim. Especially because it does get really exciting at the end because the evil Captain Brown.

He's coming with his bad people and they're going to try to take over. And here's Jim. He's finally made something good in his life. you know, after being a horrible coward earlier on. Yeah. Or maybe like a Joseph Conrad open world game where just, you know, you just travel from one bad decision to that. Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness, right?

And so SpeckOps, the line is basically Heart of Darkness. So there's another Conrad game. You're right. I think the thing is he did Hard of Darkness. He actually does other versions of Heart of Darkness better, like the Secret Sharrer and stuff like that. But Lord Jim, which is less, he did, there's two books he wrote that, which is love.

There's Lord Jim. which is less about how evil you can be but like the dangers of male pride he did another called the Secret Agent which is the most viciously funny it's about an anarchist in London and he's not very good at being an anarchist

and just these horrible chain of events that he sets in motion so cool the unsexyest comedian wants to know what was the last video game whose choice made you feel the need to take a smoke break hashtag G4 podcast I'm assuming that's a

yeah I what game oh that was heavy rain cutting off the finger I was like I don't know I can't go outside to think about this my wife's like what's like what's like I don't know if I should cut off my finger or not

I don't know if I should cut off my finger or not well it wasn't Witcher because they don't mean because some of those are timed this did happen recently what was another recent choice game anything from Teldale I haven't played Tel Teltel lately okay

what our choice being Dragon Age Yeah, I think it was Dragon Age And yeah I can't remember exactly which one But there's so many characters I loved in that game And I was like oh god Yeah, why make me do this?

Oh man, you don't know Kyle Ludin asks If Xplay would still be around today on G4 Do you think you would still be co-hosting? No They fired me before the show got canceled Joey Ferris says What was it like doing the Bethesda E3

Press show with your former Explay co-host Morgan, Rob. That was so awesome. There's one other element to it that there's no reason for anyone other than people who went to G4 to know. Not only was I doing that with Morgan, but the floor director was the floor director for Xplay. And so it was weird. All of a sudden, it felt so normal and familiar. Yeah.

You know, the one thing that was most important is Morgan and I still had to stand in the same positions because one time they tried to actually mix us up on Xplay and I couldn't read the prompter. It just like, I have to look this direction and she's there. And she had the same feeling. So, I mean, it was so wonderful and comfortable. But then, especially with the floor director, Andy, I had gone out to the back to have a smoke break, which I would do all the time on X-Play. And he came out and goes, Adam, when you're done, they need you back there. And it was exactly what had happened three years earlier and for all these years.

And it really was. It was so much fun to do. And also, it was really fun to do it for Bethesda. They're dear friends. I obviously love their games. Like, the whole thing felt right. That was worth it. That's awesome.

Bostrog asks, does he miss being in the games press? If not, is there anything he does miss about it? I don't really miss it. The part I miss the most is what I'm doing right now is I got to go into a place of work whether other people is like absurdly fascinated by the same thing. And we could just talk about it all the time because, yeah, my wife does not want to hear it. She's still the other person that's inside my home. Sorry, the Riddler Trophies are so.

annoying. Ben Parrish wants to know what your favorite sketch or character on Xplay was. God, there's so many I like. I know someone brought this up. I had nothing to do with it other than laugh at it, but was Roger the Stanley Experience.

There's a good man, Mike Leffler, who played a stand-up comic version of Stan Lee. It's a we called the Stanley Experience because we didn't want to be sued. But nothing about what he said was funny. It was just like him telling horrible stories about screwing over. Mike Dicka and I was like God all those other guys but yeah I think I think for me personally that I think it's when we did the the Vegas we went out into the

desert and we were looking for that because that was the first time we took a gamble and doing one of these crazy ass episodes where we spent a lot of money we blew stuff up and it really seemed to hit with the audience and it became a definition for the show that's great does Shane too wants to know would you ever write a book about the video game industry you seem to know a lot and are very well-spoken. Yeah, but I don't think it'd be very interesting. Like, there's no, I mean, if I was to do that much of a tell-all book, you'd be like,

man, that was all you know. All these people seem to do is work. And I could probably write one about the ass end of the cable industry, cable television. Sure. There actually is a project. I've been knocking around. I'm enjoying to some people, so I'll just leave it at that.

Yeah. I like that a lot. Matt Clements, Jr. says, how is enjoying the quiet semi-retired life? I imagine him being a gaming by fireplace with a pipe in his mouth type of guy. Yeah, no. Yeah. There's nothing semi-retired about. Yeah. Daddy needs to still be bringing home some bacon.

I just didn't want to do it from the ways I've been doing it before. It's fun. It's terrifying. Working for yourself is really, you guys kind of went out on your own. You know, you don't always know where the next project or the next opportunity is going to be coming from. And then you don't want to have too many things happening all at the same time. So you let them all sort of like spin out and you don't get them the right to. attention. I'm still struggling to find that perfect balance, but there's some things

coming up in the future that might make people happy. Final thing's not a question, just a statement. Confucius 90 says, if it's possible, just tell him from me that I love him. Oh, Confucius. We love you too. We're not friendly. Ladies and gentlemen, that has been the first and last ever, episode 41 of the Kind of 20 Games cast. Thank you so much for your time. Adam.

Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. Definitely. Make sure you go check out. the Kickstarter for Friday the 13th. Friday the game. It looks awesome. I'm really excited to hear more about it. Me too. Definitely give it some money if you got money and if not just go tell people about it because you can do that for sure. Thank you guys for being the coolest dudes and video games.

That's what we do. Yeah. See you all next week. Bye. Bye.