Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Control Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 235

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

Get 15% off today—with free shipping and free returns—by going to http://mvmt.com/KINDA. Get a trial month of Hims for just $5 today right now by going to http://forhims.com/KINDA. Greg reviews Control and Mobile Game of Bullshit returns. Time Stamps - 00:00:06 - 00:45:07 - Astral Chain (Sword, Arrow Legion) 00:50:37 - Blair Witch 01:00:05 - Westworld Awakening VR 01:08:57 - GearsPOP 01:15:41 - Rad 01:25:07 - Remnant: From the Ashes 01:36:15 - Mobile Game or Bullshit? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 235 of the kind of funny games cast as always. I'm Tim Geddes joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. Greg Miller, as they call him. They call me what now? Sir Greg sis Miller. I feel like you said 235, 236, what it was it? I see 35. 235, right? Keep in the numbers. I still feel like more often than not, you introduce me and I start talking over you somehow. And I don't know how that's possible. I feel like it happens a lot. I don't think that's true. Well, I'm just saying we don't have a vibe. I don't know how this business is last. As well, you know him from FranFriads. As well, you know him from Fran Friday is over on Twitch. com3 underscore, baby.

Thank you for the score, everybody. Yeah, wow. Epic game store. John Barbados or Varvados? Varvados. Barbados is like a country. There's a lot of stuff. So we're recording this episode out of time order, out of chronological order today.

Andrew will be here later. Because the embargo is now. for control. Greg's going to give his review, his proper review. I saw you had notes. You had real notes. I did. Yeah, well, I want to make sure I'm delivering. A review of control today. People talked about it before. So, Patreon listeners that are now coming to the public for the first time, welcome.

Welcome. Thanks for watching over our Patreon.com slash company. But Barrett is here because he's played a little bit of control, so you'd be part of this conversation. And then Andrew is going to join us later. You know how we love to do this? We love to play with timelines. Here's what I'd like to throw out right now. He's too big. That would make sense for about 45. to 50 minutes if you're listening live.

I got an email back. Blair Witch is an original story inspired by the Blair Witch Cinematic Universe. It's not like in there. It's inspired by it. So there you go. When we get there and they ask me,

is it in the movie universe? I'm like, I think it's not, but it might be out of mind. There you go. There we go. But yeah, this is the Gamescast. You know, every week we get together to talk about video games.

All the things that we love about them. You can go to Patreon.com slash Kind of funny games to get the show early, to get the show, ad free, to watch live, to get the pre-show, to get the post show so much content. To support us. Wow. Exactly.

Just support us. All that stuff. You can also support us for free. But go to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or roostergeat.com to watch the videos. And this is also a podcast. Wow. Wow. Those ear holes.

Wherever you want to get it. You can get it. Just search for Kind of Funny Games cast on your favorite podcast service. We are sponsored today by Movement and for Hibbs. But we'll talk to you about that later because I want to tell you about our Patreon producers, Tom Bach and James Hastings. I love them both. Thank you.

Tom Bach out in a Bachelor in Paradise Land. He's where they shoot Bachelor of Paradise. They're not shooting it right now. He's out of Mexico. I thought you're saying he was a bachelor. No, no, no, no. He's out there with his kids. Yeah, he's a very happy family man.

Yeah, very happy family man. But no, we're going to talk about control. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, I've beaten control. You're out of control, girl. I'm out of control. Of course, ladies and gentlemen, I assume you understand control. I've been talking about it for a while.

of my most anticipated games of this year fall as we get started. It's the newest game from Remedy. You remember them, I'm sure, from Alan Wake, of course, the original Max Payne, of course Quantum Break, which was the one where people weren't with them. That's where people were like, I don't know if I can follow you on that one. The game that came to Xbox, had Iceman in it, and it had a whole bunch of, you're watching TV, but you're also playing a game, right? Remember, that was the big hook to it. Definitely a game inspired by what Xbox one was going to be, not what it became. So anyways,

controls their new one. Third person action game, action adventure. It's sci-fi. It is X-Files meets Twin Peaks. It is a lot of quantum breaks still, too, I think, in terms of what I liked about quantum break. I enjoyed quantum break.

It's a game that is very interesting. It is a game that I am still not lost on, but I really like it. I don't think I love it, but I really like it. And when I say that, very excited to go home tonight and play more of control.

So there's a good chance, I guess I do love it, but there's a bunch of things that hold it back in interesting ways. Let me cut you off real quick. Please do. So you're saying you really like it, not sure if you love it,

but maybe you do. Like, you're using these terms that you would say favorite, right? Is it good? Is it really good? It's a good game, yes. Okay.

Is it a great game? That's where I think we get caught up in the minutia of what we're doing. How compressed was your playtime? Uh, great question. Yeah, weeks or days. Oh, no, no, it was days. This happens a lot.

So I think that's a notable caveat because I've been where you're at, maybe, which is like you just played so much, so fast. It's the pre-review, it's not out. You're still digesting some of that. Yeah, 100%. I like it a lot, though, and I'm excited to talk it out with you guys because I think there's a lot of pros, there's a lot of cons. There's a lot of different stuff happening on here.

To start at and set the tone for it, right? And I will get into this, I think, more as we go. What strikes me about controlling a lot of interesting ways is it feels like a game a modern it's a modern take of a PlayStation two or PlayStation three game you know what I mean if that makes sense right and oh it's beautiful I think you know what I mean they did a whole bunch of great mocap here they've you know you play as Jesse Faden you're the new director of the federal bureau of control she's played by Courtney Hope who you might know it turns out from soap operas she's like I think on

bold and beautiful like yeah exactly there you go she does a great job for sharing this character there's a whole bunch of different people you talk to where obviously their facial animations have been driven home to really make you immersed in this. It does a similar thing where it does. You walk into different parts of the Federal Bureau of Control. You're in the oldest house, which is like their morphing crazy office building. That's huge. And like the whole deal here, right, of course, if you haven't paid attention, is

the Federal Bureau of Control is set up by the government to pay attention to supernatural phenomenon and investigate, basically. They're aware that there is another universe. There's a parallel dimension. And they're doing that. you know, come on now. Ghostbusters is a little more blue collar, right? This is a government gig.

And it is a secret one. Jesse's been searching for them her whole life, finally finds them, and then through happenstance, immediately becomes the director of it, right? Which gives her a number of different things. Most importantly, I think it's the, when you're the director,

you get the gun. They call it the service weapon. One of the big things about this game, right, is it's third person, action, like I said. What they did in a very interesting, cool way, I think, is that the service weapon is your one gun. You only have the service weapon

and you only have your abilities. The thing about the service weapon is that it's a gun, like everything else that's all supernatural and crazy, that can morph into different things. So you start with it just having it as a pistol, but then through the RPG mechanics of the game and how you want to invest the resources you're finding,

you can unlock a secondary mode of shotgun. And then it's going to be secondary, I guess. You can get the sniper, you can get the shotgun. You can do all these different things that you have two weapon slots that you put in there, then they each have their own weapon mods. Weapon mods themselves have different levels.

So as you're going, you're finding them. You can only hold so many weapon mods. You're going in there. You're deconstructing the ones you're not using or the ones you're not using for a certain gun. On top of the gun stuff, you are getting abilities, right? Again, you are the director,

and I know that doesn't make any sense to anybody right now. No. But to be the director, you are basically a special kind of person, right? People are, as you go through this, you'll find that they've been trying to, The director's job is to identify other people who could be directors. Like it's a, it's a, not a gig as much as it is like you're born for this job. And so Jesse has the ability then to run into these objects of power,

which she can then basically exercise, if you will, then take on some of their abilities. So this is where she gets the special abilities. She gets the ability to hover, but it's more like flight because you can jump off and get a lot of distance and then you slowly come down over time. It's like Peter Pan flying a little bit. Exactly, 100%.

When I saw it, I was like, it's a little Peter Pan. Yeah, 100%. So you have that, you have a telekinesis blast, they call a melee. You can evade, like do like, you know, like little shoots around like that. You can seize, take over people, like to, you know, use enemies you've worn down over time to fight for your side. But most importantly, I think, is launch where it is. You telekinetically grab the fan and you hold the fan and then you fire the, you launch the fan at enemies and use it as an attack. You'll also use it in a lot of the puzzle solving stuff.

So gun, you have to choose the two you want on your load out right. You can change your load at any time. You can go into your menu and switch the gun. If what I would find later on in the game is like, man, I'm really getting my ass handed to me here. I'm going to go in and change the personal mods I have, which are, you know,

more health or less launch cost to my energy or more energy so I can do more of the telekinesis stuff. Change that out for this fight or change which weapon I'm using for this fight. So there's a lot of customization in there. There's a lot of strategy when you go into a fight. Yeah, exactly. It is never, I feel overwhelming, which is great about it.

And that's the thing about control is, I think the gameplay is awesome. It is satisfying. It is addictive. It is like I'm telling you right now. Like I beat the game. I think it ends a bit flatly in terms of the main story. But I want to go do all the side missions.

How long? It's always hard right. I don't do the stopwatch anymore like I used to at IGN. I'm saying probably on the underside of 10 hours, I think, to get through the main campaign. Oh, wow. Because it's not bad. And again, control is so weird and so great. And so, but it's the thing about it is it.

limits itself and tests you in interesting ways that when I talk, when I ran into them, I immediately wanted to use them as negatives. But the more I think about it, right? And stew on it, the more I think they might be positives to the game remedy gave you. So stick with me, all right?

The game is fucking weird, right? You've already set up. There's another universe. What happened is when you get there, the bureau's on lockdown. You're the last person in, and everything's locked down because the hiss have invaded,

who are these, like, they're like, they've possessed people, They're red-eyed monsters that are trying to kill you. They're still using guns. There's different versions that eventually show up that are like they're flying. There's ones that'll run at you and explode. There'll be giant ones. There's this weird ball that'll just chase you and sucky it out dry. All sorts of weird monsters are in the fucking game. You're running around. You're fighting them. When you go into these different worlds and different rooms of the oldest house, it morphs and every different like different sector has a different vibe to it. Right. And sometimes like you'll go in and like there's a reoccurrence. thing of, again, the old director who's dead, who you got there and you found dead and you picked up his weapon, right? Like, he's still communicating with you from the other side. And there's this weird red

bat phone, right? That, like, people from the other side are using to talk to you. And there's this weird language only you can understand when you go to the astral plane and, like, all this crazy, cool shit. And they use the, like, ability to go into the astral plane where you get the new ability and you try it out and you fight the other things, right?

A lot. And one of the things they set up is this weird motel interstitial, where you'll pull a light switch three times, very specifically to get, where you see where you need to go, but you can't get there, you pull this light switch in very predetermined spaces. You go to the hotel and you're in this hotel, and sometimes people will be trying to get in the outside, like, oh, they're closed, honey, and you. And then you have to do things inside the hotel to get the key, to open the door to go to where you need to be, right? And it's like, wow, that's really cool. And then they do it over and over again, and I, and I talked

about it being like Twin Peaks, right? Or being like X-Files. I wanted them to be, push this stuff so much further. I wanted more Arkham Asylum Scarecrow. You know what I mean? Yeah, where they get weird and unexpected. It's super weird when you go and stuff. And they do little drops of that. The first one would tell you like, what the fuck's happening, right? And there's these little tastes

of it, right? But then it's like the last fourth of the game all of a sudden. Like there's literally a moment, no spoilers at all. But like where Jesse goes, all right, let's do this. And it launch, I was telling you about it. It launches into this thing and it does this fucking, as soon as the thing,

ended, I video screencapped it. I meant to bring it in today to show you, I didn't. I screen, I saved the video on my PlayStation because I was like, that could have gone cringe and it didn't. It went, this is fucking awesome. And they do a few more moments of that where I was like, I remember it ending and being like, that was so cool. Why wasn't there more of that in the game? But then I had this conversation myself of like, did I need it? Because that moment was awesome. And the it was the buildup to it. And it wasn't like I played 40 hours of this game to get there. I had this steady crawl of, again, weird shit happening. Weird monsters and weird rooms and mold and all sorts of crazy creatures to fight.

Like, it just, it was, I feel like your expectations are set for what you do in the beginning. And then you get to this thing and it was like, this is such a great payoff to all this. And so at first I was like, I wanted more of that throughout the game. And then the more I reflect on it, more I'm like, no, that was perfect. That's the way that should have been, right? Because they do, like, there's this weird janitor and, you know, there's more to him and one of his quests and everything. It's like, this is fucking rad in terms of how we're doing this, right? And then in the same way, it speaks to the combat of control, I think, too.

Where, and this is where I think it stems to like, I was talking about it. It feels like a game out of time in some ways or a modern take on an older game, right? A PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 game. That's what I was wondering is still reflecting. I have a whole list of journey to get you there, right? But it is this idea of I'm playing and I'm playing and I'm playing and I'm doing the third person shooting. It feels a lot like, you know, infamous in a way, right? Where it's like I'm holding my hand up the entire timer out and I'm thing and I'm firing things at people and then I'm shooting them.

The more they start adding in the abilities and I start upgrading the more I'm using them in different ways, right? Where I'm now levitating and fighting in the air. I'm avoiding enemies. I've powered up the levitation now so I can ground pound with it and use that to really fuck people up. And in a great way, it's not even a straight downground pound. You can aim it now. So when I'm flying, there's like this white circle. You'll see like a shadow.

And you can totally be like, oh, there. And you just come in and. crush the dudes. It's like, oh, that's awesome. Anyways, though, having a great time playing. And then it would be out of the blue, just fucking bam, like, holy shit, this guy, this end of this mission is kicking my ass. I'm getting owned.

It happened to me twice, where I was just like, all right, cool, I guess I've run out of this, I'm at the end of this mission line or whatever, but I'm just getting owned by these two people. So I guess I'm going to go do some, and it's not, it's, yes, I'm going to go do side missions, right? I'm going to go do side missions. But there's no leveling system. You don't see like a

are filling in for her for the most part. What happens is when you complete missions, any side missions or other missions, you get ability points that you then put into your ability tree, right, to upgrade the, all the telekinetic abilities you're using. I had not been ignoring side missions, but we'll get to that in the con section of how they hand them out. They hand them out in a weird way. So I just was doing the mission.

Then I was like, okay, cool. I'm going to go do that. Went and did that for like an hour and a half, maybe two hours, right? Then came back and just beat the shit out of these things that have been owning me. Huh. And it wasn't my normal reaction of like, oh man, the leveling system is broken. or this, it was just like,

that felt awesome. Like that felt awesome. Because now I was like in there with these enemies that were more powerful than me before, but now I had more power in my skills to actually fight them in a better way.

And it was that challenge I wanted that I didn't know I wanted. They gave me that without me having to sit there and go like, that's what I need out of this game. Because I was never bored with the combat. Even the way they do it

for the most part is it's a numbers game of a lot of guys are coming at you. And so you're strafing, you're moving, killing that guy, you're running through them to get the points off them. They'll also give you the upgrades you need or for your mods or whatever. And then they'll give you a heavy in there. You know, they'll mix it in with, well, these guys have shields. So you have to TK blast them with

something to then shoot them. These guys are flying. So you have to wait for the right moment to TK blast them, take their shield down and then get up there and do it. It sounds a lot like to bring a bathearm night when they get very complicated with the different enemy types of stuff. And weirdly enough when you're talking. And also the weirdly enough like, kind of the end game of Ratchet and Clank, like the last couple hours of the remake, where you're doing a lot of like abilities at once and like trying to figure it all out. Yeah. Sounds fucking dope.

So it's all of that's great, right? And so then to move into why I'm still like in this weird spot about it, right, is I think driving back towards what I'm talking about with this mashup, where I had performance issues on my PlayStation 4 Pro. So you're playing on PS4 Pro. Right. Was this the first game you played on your fancy new TV? Right. But I got the brand new 4K HDR TV, right?

Games beautiful. You were playing in 4K? Yeah. Oh, yeah, because the game runs. It doesn't run at 60. You know, I was going to say, thank you. I'm not this guy, so actually, it is, it is 4K, does not run at 60, but it is at least 30.

But in another way, it runs it 4K though? Yes. Yeah, but meaning if you were playing 4K, if you're going to talk about performance, I mean, that could be very different. Well, here's my thing, right? Because, and it's, I think it's something that'll get, it dinged in the real reviews, like where people are scoring and looking to actually come down to a numbered

score with it. the performance dips I was seeing on the PlayStation 4 Pro because I played it on a regular PlayStation as well because that's what I packed to take to Toronto obviously on the regular PlayStation like having a lot of time with hard time with textures

whereas I can't read signs they're not popping up the way they should be kind of thing whereas I'm pro division did that actually just wasn't loading them in pro I didn't have that problem it was fine however on either system pro especially though I can force it

to stutter and run like shit whenever I want to because when you pause the game when you come out of pause and you start moving, that's one's like, because it's like the game's like, spinning its wheels to catch up to you, which is really bizarre that it's like that. However, once you get through that

and you get going, it doesn't happen. Like, it's only when I would pause and come out of the pause that it would be like a pain of the ass. Yeah, super bizarre. It's almost like a bug. It's a memory bug. And I am playing with the day one patch,

as I was told. This is, I have the day one patch. I've installed the day one patch. All right, this is still the issue. Again, this is the issue I'm seeing coming out of a pause menu, so it doesn't really matter that much. This is,

I'm not even talking about the menu you to go in and change out your skills. Yeah, I was why are you changing it? This is straight up, pausing the game and coming out of the pause, right? Because I'm texting or, you know, answering an email or whatever coming out. That's where I was seeing it. Story-wise, I think it misses the mark. And that's weird because it is this game of mystery and what's going to happen.

And where is this? And I don't want to get into it because I was going to want to spoil it. But I was waiting for that moment of kicking it up a notch of like, oh, we're going, and it never really happened. It's like, the story that they're telling you is the story. Then there's one moment of like, who can you trust? kind of thing and then it just goes and then it's over and then it's like there's more to play and i'm still doing stuff i'm still finding side missions they've hidden all that stuff in there and

maybe there's more to it that way but in terms of what get to the credits to roll right that i wasn't like when it actually rolled i was like oh that was kind of an interesting flat way to end it and here's where we get into what i'm talking about of it feeling like a game out of time all right number one it's got really bad signposting it's and it's not even this game doesn't hold your hand. It's like, this game doesn't hold your hand and it's not because I think it's trying to be especially challenging or something like that effect. It's, and it'll frustrate you. Like the map, the oldest house, this, you know, beautiful building you're going that's like, you know, stone and concrete and like planters here and there is multiple levels. But the map you see when

you hit the D pad, right, is strictly an overhead map. So like when you're looking at it and you're like, oh man, I need, as you go, you unlock control points, right? Which are then fast travel points to shoot you all around the map, which are super nice. But it's also where you go to, oh, I got, I just finished this mission. I got four new ability points. Let's go there. Let's put them in my system that way, right? You, the amount of times I was like, oh, man, I got new points.

Let's go. And I would open the map and go, all right, it's over there. And I'd run and be like, oh, this is a fucking dead end. Okay, I guess it's a down. Okay, so I'm going to double back and then go downstairs and try to find it. And it was like, this is annoying. This isn't, this isn't fun. And then it was also the thing of there's no mini map.

There's no air. on your screen. Again, I think they want it to be, you know, beautiful and not have you, like, indivated with a HUD. They want to have you, like, be immersed. But it's the problem of, okay, cool. So I, you can open, with the D-pad, you open the map and it takes over your whole screen. You can still move around. But then it's also the thing of like,

all right, cool, wait. So I'm, I'm here and I've opened it. And I, okay, so I'm the red triangle and I'm pointing forward. So when I come out of here, I got to go right and I got to go. And I come out. And the amount of times I would immediately go the wrong way. And I got, read that wrong. Fuck. Open it again. Turn it around. shit go that way, do this. I've only experienced that twice and I've already like had that frustration

that you're talking about or yeah, you see like the weird kind of like different levels and layering of how each room is designed. Like maybe if you're on the same level but this floor is like a little higher than this. And yeah, it's not a great way to to show off like what the exact routes are.

And it's yeah, even after like just like opening the map like two or three times I was like, oh, this is gonna suck. Yeah. And it's, again, it doesn't break the experience or anything, but it's a frustration point.

that we're so far beyond I feel in most games, right? I can't remember last time. I was like, I am having trouble reading this map and figuring out where to go. So does that go back to the, this feels very PS2, PS3? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And in the same way of then, like, I'm looking at the map and I've taken a side mission. It's do all these multiple things, you know, go take down these like possessed objects, right? And I'm down to the last one and I see it on the map with the little gold diamond for where it is. But it's the thing of, I can't get there. And it becomes that question. Can I not get there because I'm too stupid right now to figure it out?

Can I not get there? Because another mission's going to open it up eventually. You know, it's got question marks for where it is. So I haven't been in there, but the place next to it's gray. So doesn't that mean, well,

that's black. Like, it's just such a weird thing of like, shit, am I fucking this up or not? And I kept trying. I'd try for a little bit and go away. Try for a little bit and go away.

Then I, you know, I ran to a different side mission the other day and came down and like, oh, now, not that one at all. But the other thing, across the way that had question marks on it, that door's open.

So it's just that thing of like, am I just going to run into a side mission that opens that section? But that's weird because this side mission is telling me to go there already. Am I fucking it up or am I not fucking up? And that's one of their things, you know, for most games, not most games, a lot of games we review. You get a reviewer's guide, right? That is notes from the development team, tips on how to play the game, right?

Blah, blah, blah. And one of the things they've put in there that I don't think is necessarily the right choice is the fact that like side missions are hard to find. in here. You're going to have to search around and do it and look around. And I'm like, I get why you'd want to do that. You'd want it to be rewarding that you've stumbled into this cool thing or whatever. But like literally I DM'd one of the developers and then in the reviewers guide, it was the same thing where I deemed a question about like, I keep seeing this stuff. Am I wrong? And like, no, no, do this. And then you got to go down. And then even the

reviewers guide was like you got blah blah, you're going to have to go. And it's like, if you're having to sign post us that much as reviewers, that's not a great way to do it for the fans, let alone, like, I was playing. And even before I got to the point where, all right, cool, I'm mashed up and I need to grind outside missions. A few would pop here and there. They do a cool thing in there. Similar, like, I would say, like, division events or whatever,

or like any MMO or game is a disservice of, like, you're playing and all of a sudden it's like Bureau Alert. Like, you have 20 minutes to go here and fight these number of creatures or go here and do that thing. And it's like, they're, I don't know if they're random, random, but like, I'm not queuing them. I'm playing, and then I get the alert. And I'm like, oh, that's a cool reason to keep me.

coming back and then also keep you something else to do, right? When you're playing the game, you're on your mission and then get distracted by the shiny object and go do it. These ones I did find as I was playing the game initially so difficult that like I just stopped taking them. I'm like, I'll come back when I'm powered up because every time I go, I'm losing and I'm not losing the normal fights. I'm just losing these things.

End game content. I digress. It's running through trying to do all the stuff and then I went back to the janitor's office, right, hours after meeting him for the first time and doing whatever his first quest was, not understanding. I walked through the door and then there was like five different side missions

on his bulletin board and I was like oh I didn't even know I'm supposed to come back here right and then it's the same thing one of the reviewers guide is like make sure you check back at the central office too and I went back there and there's like

oh there's a red triangle above this person's head to give me a mission it's like the game isn't signposting me well enough I feel to be like hey heads up everybody like you want to double back and do this you there's going to be so much more for you to find if you go and explore and do this if you're looking specifically for this

now granted I'm reviewing this game in a time where I guess I could go on there's a Facebook Reviewers page that's private but like I can't Google I can't look it up I can't find like the IGN the 10 things we wish we would have known about playing

control beforehand I'm sure shouldn't have to though anyway sure but there's always that argument too of especially a game that's a game that feels like it's from a different time period of you we want you to talk we want you sharing information on Twitter and look at this cool thing I found how did you get that outfit yeah but this sounds less secretive I hear you know as much as

hey you should head back to the main office I would agree with like how they roll those out to you if it didn't feel so integral to help you get through the main story. Yeah. Like you were saying, like you were having difficulty fighting this boss, and then you actually had to go through and go out and find side missions to help you pick certain, like, abilities and whatnot that helps you eventually. So, yeah, the fact that I like the idea of like these, like things that you actually have to go out and search for, but the fact that they're more integral

to actually being able to beat the game is I can see being frustrating. Yeah. Can you clear this up for me? Because after all that, and it was very well described by the way. But I've seen so much trailers and gameplay. I got the impression it was like room to room

that you go in rooms and you beat a room and you go to the next room and like, I don't know a lot about, you know, control. And if it's open world or not. So is it, do you actually go through, you know, an open world or are you loading into these rooms? You're in the oldest house the entire time. So it's not, but the oldest house is, it's huge.

And there's multiple sections. You go through hallways. Yes. So you're constantly in control. You're not being, it is like, where do you want to go? It is very much like, cool. Your mission is now, you're in the central hall, but you need to go to the research hall. And the first time you do it, you go through an elevator and you get there.

But from there and now, once you clear the checkpoints, you can fast travel between them all and get all over the place. And when you get into combat, though, in other words, does it happen, so to speak, in the hallways? or is it in like these rooms? And maybe I'm talking about something different, but I just feel like I've only seen these rooms and they're all different themes. And I feel like you had to beat a room. In other words, is it more linear.

You keep moving forward and beating things. Well, what it inevitably is, right, is like, it's not an open world, but it's an open world building where you can go where you want to go. But it is the thing of, there's doors that are going to be locked and there's security clearance cards you need.

So if you're only a level four, you can't open that level six door. You'll have to double back when you have it. But their enemies just float in a room. around in the house? You'll walk in and they'll pop in usually. But it's not necessarily a stage room. You sometimes just... Sometimes it's... Sometimes it's one of those things. Like, definitely for story quest, you're going to walk into places and it is going to be like, oh, all right, cool. This is a, this is an arena that I got to take everybody out to get the door open over there to go

through and do the next thing. Earlier, you're saying there was a hotel? Yeah, so it was the hotel in the building? Yeah, it's more, again, you know, this is a thing of mind, right? You know, you're You're clearing out of the dimensions and doing the different things and the director is leading you around. And it's not in the building. It's in the astral plane because it's that way to connect you over to the thing and to get your powers or whatever other thing it needs to be. I had another question. They talked a lot about at Remedy. They kept sort of talking about how this was a very agile development, a very short, quick development for them.

I got the impression instead of it taking five years, it took a few or something. Did you get that sort of impression at all? Did they talk about that? likewise is it a full price game do you know I know that it was provided to you but it is a $60 game but I got the impression it was like it's a robust I've heard

somebody was talking to me recently I forget who maybe might have been Andrea we were having a conversation about how she's seen I heard that they were trying to pitch it as more of an indie game you know I mean it's 505 publishing it which isn't the normal thing right like remedy that's never worked with them before but it is this idea of like it's a smaller experience

right again I think 10 hours underside or oversight maybe a more oversight for sure if you want to do everything which I do like it's a contained experience right you're going to get the story you're going to get through you're going to do it like it's an easy platinum like I need to go through I mean it's going to be very easy to platinum mobile what you're describing though to me sounds like this would be a great $40 game like what do you think makes it worth that extra 20 I mean I think it's production value I mean what do you want to do with your money obviously but it's production value it's the the

gameplay I think moment to moment is a lot of fun it's frustrating with you know the maps or whatever. I think it does a lot of cool stuff. It looks really pretty. It does have those bells and whistles. It does. I mean, it nails its tone, right? It nails its setting.

Like, I think the oldest house does have a vibe to it. There's tons of collectibles in there. There's tons of audio logs. There's tons of paperwork. There's tons of videos, like I'm saying, like you do walk in and there's like one scientist who's like kind of giving you like the tour. Then obviously it goes on. He's getting more and more detailed into what the hell's going on and why stuff's happening.

Like there's a lot of. love into this game. There's a lot of TLC in this game. And yeah, maybe sticking on that word agile for a bit. I got the impression that you could beat these moments in different ways and the builds maybe. So did you get that feeling of like I could have approached this differently? 100%. Quite a few different ways? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That's what I'm sort of saying most about. That's what I like. Another thing they do in terms of, you know, replaying it or continuing to play it is the idea that some of the, you, when you go back to the control points, they have, I think they're called whatever. There's a bunch of like mini missions they assign there that you can use to get different mods. And so it is like, cool,

kill this many people with your shield blast, which I haven't even unlocked yet. Because I was like, the way I'm gonna play this is the launching ability I want jacked up to all hell. I want to fucking crush people with that. And then just the regular gun, the regular like pistol gun,

I want doing as much damage. I want doing as much things. So I was breaking down my mods to make better mods in that vein. And I was, pouring all my points into making launch awesome. And then when I was done with that, I put it all into levitation.

And so now I'm playing through more. And it's like, as you go down the tree, you unlock the side abilities where it is like, okay, yeah, you know, you're, you can, it'll be faster to take people over and have them flat on your side. But then you start getting the side abilities of like, okay, you can do more people.

You can take over multiple people now instead of just the one person. And so there's that ability of like, yeah, I do think, I don't think it's like night and day, but it is definitely going to be that you're going to talk to your friends, like a group of five, and they're all going to have a different way they approached it. And like, I'm just such a basic bitch when it comes to weapons, usually,

right? Like, I didn't, I did not fuck around really with any of the other guns. Now I am because there's, you know, a trophy tied to going through and doing the mini missions, which are like, you know, go to this area, kill this many enemies with the shatter or the specific thing or kill these specific kind of enemies with it. Yeah. Yeah. And I was also, real, the last thing on that was, I was left with the impression that I could go back and put one of these, I don't know if it's this mission or event on hard or harder, mode. Is that something? In other words, I was left with some impression. Maybe there's an end game that I can go in, change my builds, try to figure out how am I going to beat this?

Because this is so hard. But maybe I misunderstood. Well, the stuff you're doing in the end game and some of those side missions is so hard. Like having beaten the game, having gone back and cloned out those things, last night, we're like, yeah, I'm the fucking man. Let's go do this side. And I went in there and I was like, I am not strong enough to fight this thing. I do not have the right idea how to fight it. I need to think it up. And I think it is that, you know, I need to, which I didn't at all, like you have the shield ability where you put out the TK and suck in all the stuff and you can hold up a shield. Like I didn't upgrade that past the first one.

So now it's like, I think I need to get that more jacked up and then get unlocked the ability to shoot the shit back out like when it finally overheats or whatever. And to level up you do just more side missions. Yeah. When you do, when you do, when you do, when you complete the missions, yeah, you're unlocking the ability points to put into those trees. And the random events they give you. Random events are the ones that are giving you like materials to make better mods or the mod themselves. Yeah. Interesting. Oh, sorry. It's just interesting of only playing like the first hour and how much you've talked about

how very like RPG like this game is of like the presentation that they have of upgrading abilities and weapons and all that stuff. And how they kind of rarely present that in like the first like bit that I've played. So I'm interested to see sign posting man. Again, I think it's that thing of like it is this one I think is easier because we've all done this. Right. Their weird map and how to unlock side missions is their own. ball of wax, but we've all had weapons or in games where we're upgrading. We've all had abilities where we're

upgrading. And I think as you start you know, exercising those objects of power and you get those new abilities, that's when you have multiple things like, oh, I see how this works. You start really, what do I like and how do I want to invest in it? And you said it didn't feel like daunting at all like when they started like adding on to

like, but again it's that thing too of those, you unlock them through side missions. And I, you understand that I think early enough on, but again, then I would prefer it to be, I think maybe a couple more of them should have been mainlined of like you have to go do this

to get over there and do it because I don't, I think what I'm talking about, the difficulty spikes, there'd probably be no way to ever get there and not do it. But I don't, I feel like, again,

the game just doesn't tell you enough in the annoying ways. The game is a mystery, right? And you are unraveling it and who can you trust and who can't you trust? And what's Jesse gonna find and what's her backstory.

That's story stuff, like gameplay stuff. Exactly. I know, I know, I know. Gameplay stuff, I do want to call out

a couple more things, again that I think goes back to my point. Checkpoints annoying. When you die, it doesn't start you from where you died. It starts you from the last control point you were at, which sounds fine, but it'll be that you fight multiple waves of enemies

die on the third wave and then you go back to that, you start there. The stuff you collect it or the moves you've made have been saved, but not your progress against the enemies. And so what sucked a lot... I always saved the materials and stuff, though. Sure. That's nice. Yeah, but I don't want to fight these fuckers again. Because again, now back to my point of this feels like a modern take on an older game is,

how does this game finish it off right? It's like, let's go through three sections and just fucking throw enemies. Here are all the enemies you faced before and they are back. Now granted, and I'm not going to spoil what's happening. But like, it's not the exact same, but it is just like, here's a million dudes to the point that I was like, all right, first time through, whatever, I got it, blah, blah, blah. And then I floated away and I fucked up the float and fell and died. And I was like, oh, you fuck it.

And I was like, all right. Let's go back and do it again. And I fucking did it. And I think I dashed to the side. You scared all of us. And fell off the fucking side of the world. And I was like, I muted the game's music and I opened Spotify and I put on like Taylor Swift music. And I was like, that's just fucking get this done.

Yeah. That's when you put on like podcasts. Yeah. I had a similar thing with a Skyward sword near the end as well. Right. And so it's like I got through it in the same section again as a callback. to what I'm talking about, right? It's just wave,

all these dudes, wave after wave, and it got to this one point that I cheezed it in a way that I really don't think I cheezed a game since I don't even know. Infamous on PS3 or something before, but where I was like, I was working, exactly. I was working my way. They were on this up,

there was a ledge going up. I was on the flat plateau. There's the ledge that are up there. And I did it the first time and got really far, and then they brought in one of the big heavies, and then a couple little guys and they got around me and killed me. And I was like,

all right, let's try it this way. And so killed everybody on the flat one and then just ran up to the ledge and would stand there and let them fire the shit into the ledge. They couldn't hit me because they're from behind the ledge that's firing into the ground.

Then I'd jog back, shoot them with the stuff, shoot them, run to the ledge, have them shit. And it's like, wow, this isn't fun. Like this is reminding me that this is a video game. And I think especially for

a game where the combat I did enjoy so much, I do enjoy so much. I still want to go play, right? And that does things so fluidly, right? Like when I turned it on when you were at lunch

I think and Nick walked by he's like, oh you're playing control? I'm like yeah and like as he was doing it I you know I like ran to a ledge jumped off started falling to where I needed to be hovered

glided around and it was like that moment like wow that was so natural and so beautiful just the way it played and so silky smooth the way it went that's like that's a great moment as compared to this weird

final whatever you want to call it boss waves of bat you know it's just like well this sucks why would I end on this like and it's that thing when's last time I talk about it all time

of like the class classic video game thing of like, man, the last impression we want to leave you with from our combat is something that is not our combat. And that's kind of how this feels, right? Where it's like, this isn't this game. Uncharted 4 can't bite your tongue. Uncharted 1. That sword fight at the end definitely not. Great point. Actually, that's a great point. Yeah, I guess I did say it there. So great point. But it is a thing that I feel Uncharted 4 is enough of a modern game that you don't feel like that. Yeah, the rest of the game at least. Whereas this was a game that I enjoy. I do enjoy. I like it. I I like it a lot,

but like it is that thing of, it strikes me a lot of how I, I think in a year, I'm gonna, if you talk to me about this game, it's gonna feel a lot to me like quantum break. Where I'm like, yeah,

I really enjoyed quantum break. Don't remember a lot of, you know, I remember I was time traveling and the guy from Game of Thrones was there and I was Iceman and we were shooting shit and like power. I guess I'm gonna remember more specifics

in terms of the powers because I think they're unique and cool and great to use. But like, story wise, like we leave in a place where I was just like, okay,

like that's gonna answer a lot of my questions, I guess. on what's happening and why we're doing this. That's really disappointing because the big thing that I took away from it for playing the first hour was the weird story that they're setting up of why she's there, what she's investigating, and then how she kind of falls into the director role and all this stuff. And just like something I think, like Tim,

you'll appreciate is definitely the, like the video editing almost that goes into like the weird cutscenes that transition into gameplay and the audio design that comes with it. It's like such a cool presentation. So it kind of sucks to hear that it ends on a flat note, but I'm still like... And that's the weird thing of it ends, but then it doesn't end. And I know that it's a cop out. The credits rolled, right?

But then it was like you get the scene of her talking like, all right, cool, this is what's happening now. And I'm, you know, I got to do all this other stuff. And so it's like, I pick up the controller. And even now, the dialogue feels like it's reflecting that. And I know these are side missions I don't. And I grant that they could be general enough that it doesn't feel. But like, I'm getting the impression of like, okay, cool. Like, I want to keep playing.

There's more to good. and I do want to see how the quest line I'm starting. I started today ends and all this is different stuff. Any chance of platinum yet? Oh yeah, totally. It's more now the timing issue we were talking about before all the games we have where it's like the platinum's not a hard asses. It's a time commitment.

And so it's the, yeah, I'm stuck on the thing of to this back to the line of, am I just too dumb to get in this fucking room or is there, you know what I mean? Like, I'm going to run through the side missions tonight. And does that open it up? And if so, great. If not, I'm going to have to wait for somebody to put up a thing and tell me how to get over there and so on and so forth. So control overall.

You give it the recommend? I give it a, I like control. I like it a lot. I can't give it a Blaken Remit recommendation. It strikes me as something we've talked about before. Like, where did all the AA games go?

Right? This is a double A game. This is one of those games that's right there in the thick of it, right? That I think you could, a lot of people will look past. I think if you come in with the expectations of, I'm going to play a weird ass 10-hour story, maybe more.

And it might be for me. It might not be in terms of what they're doing or like the old school things or the, map, shit like that, you're going to have a good time with it. I've had a great time with control. I've enjoyed the gameplay. I'm excited to play more of it. I'm excited to unlock more costumes and screw around with it. But it's not a

Blake it, holy shit, you have to play this game. And I guess that's what sucks the most, is that I don't think this is a holy shit, you have to play this. This isn't a raging thumbs up, right? When you were like, is it good or is it great? That's the question. And I have to say, probably it's good. It's not great.

But then it's that thing of like, trying to figure out in my head, why do I not think it's great? I don't have great answer. I want to play more of that. I want to do this different stuff. And again, we've said it before. Swimming in sevens. There's no problem with that. There's a bunch of different stuff happening in this game that's really, really cool, but it's not going to speak to everybody. But as somebody who loves, like, when people are always

like, what do you like to play the most? I'm like third person action games, right? Like, this game checks those boxes and has a good time. It has a good story and is really pretty and does a lot of stuff right. It just doesn't knock it out of the park, which sucks. So we're recording this the Thursday before the embargo list on Monday.

Yeah. Where do you think it like... Fascinating question, Barry. Yeah. Yeah, that's always the terror... I've talked to nobody about it who's been playing it for a review, right? I don't know.

I really don't know. I can see this game getting eights very easily. I can see getting sixes very easily. I think it's going to be a game that is going to speak to people in different ways. And I don't know what that nets out on. Interesting. Yeah, I'm still super excited to play it.

Duly, you know, I feel the caution, but I'm still, I'm very excited to play it. The caution isn't even when I want people to take away from this, right? Like, I don't think this is a game you're going to hate. It's just like, it's a game that's clunky in certain ways. And then on the other side, though, it's clunky in very specific ways. And then it's beautiful and seamless in other ways. And so, like, that balancing act of, like, what will annoy you or push you away from it?

I don't know. For me, I love it when I'm running and I look up and I'm like, wait a second. And I hover up to this secret area and I, break out the glass. That was the other thing too of like, it's not obviously every time, but there's those moments. I had one of those moments that I love in gaming where it's like I walked to the door and it went

like, you know, I was like two levels below the door. I was like fuck. And I stepped back and I was like, wait, this isn't security glass. And I just went, the melee attack and busted the glass and walked in and got the collectible. I was like, that's awesome. That's awesome. You know what I mean? And like there's those moments. And again,

the way it ramps up, I really want to and you won't get as much out of it. I'm pointing to Tim because I know he won't play He doesn't plan on playing it Like the thing where she's like let's let's do this Like it's it's something like and again Does that pay off? Do those moments at the end Because again I enjoyed the whole ride up until there

It's just like okay cool whatever But that moment where I was grinning it ear to ear I'm like this is fucking ridiculous and awesome Okay it seems like they nail the feeling of power And what I was going to say before was I feel like I'm gonna walk away With a slightly different take on it What are you expecting from what I've said? You're gonna not like it?

I think, no, I think I'm going to like, because I'm so into the idea of upgrading powers and playing in different ways and having some variation there, which is why I asked the question I did before. And I love a game that gives you the feeling of power. I definitely don't like being frustrated by checkpoints or wasting my time, though, and that'll be where the balance is at. Yeah, and that's what it is. You nailed it. I've been rambling for however many minutes. But, like, that's the thing is. But see, now I know. You just, you did a good job. Thank you. Thank you very much. It is, it's just the points where I felt like it was wasting my time that I think sour the experience.

Right. But they don't sour in a bad way because the more I've talked about, the more excited I've gotten to go ahead and play. You know what I mean? Like, that's a great place to be in. Mainly, though, shout out to the janitor. Ahti. So good.

So fucking bizarre. So good. Yeah, I've only had one experience with him so far. I'm like, I'm really into this character. Yeah, like, you're selling me more on the gameplay because the, the little bit that I played, it is very, like, third person action gunplay where it's like, it feels fine. it doesn't feel like anything to write home about. It doesn't feel bad.

But like the more you talk about like the weird astroplane abilities that you're able to upgrade and getting into that gameplay I'm really excited to get into it. And that's the thing. You know, I was talking about where Nick watched and I was like, oh yeah, boom, when I flew into it. And it's just like, I hate using it because it sounds so corny. But like you literally go on a journey with her, right? Of her coming in and not even having a gun to begin with. Then getting it and going and then to jump ahead 10 hours or 12 hours or whatever it is and be like,

oh fuck I'm a badass now and I can do all this cool shit she feels it and there she has a moment in that game where she talks about it yeah they pull it off really well early on it's like but like her and you playing as her it's like all right we're going on this journey and let's see like how we uh roll with it yeah the the first and even the design of how the house changes is really really cool of just in the first five minutes like you walk in you kind of like loop around to find someone to talk to you because yeah the building's on lockdown so there's no one really in sight. And then you run into the janitor

and then you talk to him and then you round the corner and you're like, wait, I was here, but that's not where I came from. And like the constant like twists and turns that like it all makes, helps with the vibe of like how weird

and creepy and very... There's a much little visual stuff that changes as you go out and no spoiler town. Yeah, and that's the stuff that I'm like really digging but I also played that at like one in the morning the other night and I was like, this is too spoopy for me right now.

I'm gonna wait till Saturday when I can play this during the day in the safe hours. The safe hours. There's a lot to like a buck and chill. Great. Well, Barrett, thank you very much for joining us for this segment. Turn in to Andrea.

So I've been continuing to play Astral Chain, ladies and gentlemen. Oh. Damn solid game. Many more hours into it now. Unlocked multiple legions. Got the ability to use my sword legion and the Arrow Legion.

They play as you'd expect them to. The legions are the pets or whatever? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I call them pets. Damn fun game. Really cool. Loving all the skills, loving all the advancements we're making.

It's starting to open up a bit more in terms of being able to choose your missions and choose the files that you go. Once you go into each chapter, it's called a file. And then there's the main critical path that you can kind of go down. But then there's also a ton of the side things to do the investigations and all that. And they're getting me every once in a while. The earlier ones I was saying last week, I didn't really like the investigation stuff. It's starting to get a little bit more complex and a little bit less just, oh, stand over the thing. and then you see a vision of what happened.

It's like a bit more involved of having to collect a couple things to piece things together of memories and all that stuff. But yeah, it's a good game. Can't wait for more blue play. What's up, Greg Miller? Thank you. Greg Milo.

Funny.com, I have a question for you too. I'm surprised you, and stick with me. I'm surprised you're playing more of this. You've been extremely busy lately, right? You talked about it a little bit on kind of funny. You've been going through a bunch of stuff or kind of funny podcast. Is this game, like Fire Emblem?

You liked off and haven't played a lot more. I love Fire Embleum. I love Fire and Long, but it's one of those things I just don't have the time to commit my brain to it. And I want to fall in love with those characters. And that's my question then. I will get to Fireland. Is Astral just like so top level? This is fun and I get it that it's brain, not brainless.

It's not brain dead. It's more like it's easier to, I don't really care about the story. It's linear. That's the thing. It's linear, but it's actually opening up a bit. Like that the cool thing about it is that it, I'm starting to see the near automata influence in a lot of it. But you don't have to worry about what choices you're making. No.

I mean, there's some, there's RPG elements and there are some things that, but it's definitely not like, there is a story and I'm sure people are going to like it. I just think it's dumb fun. Cool. And I enjoy it for what it is and just being flashy colors and stuff. I just got the whiff, the W. Hotel whiff. I don't know. Fran, you smell great. It's not an insult, but it does smell like the W.

It's strange, because I'm not aware of it. Bring in the dubs, dude. You got to love it. We're talking about our vision. Yeah. Harry, yes. Love it. Hours wise, I was curious, like, how far in, how long do you think it will last?

I think I'm on file four and I'm like maybe six, seven hours in. And it seems like I'm just getting started. Like knowing that how many other legions, which are the little animal things, are in the game, like, I got to expect that there's, I'm like not even halfway done. Oh, okay. So there's a lot there. But it is kind of just, you just keep going and it's fun. I like the pace at which it's advancing and like the different skills that you have.

And I'm starting to feel like there's a lot more going on because earlier it was a little, weird to me that there was only one action button and then you would switch the weapons and it was just two different weapons you can switch between whether it was a gun or a baton but now you're getting more so being able to switch between more than just two things even though there's only one actual

action button for the shooting and stuff it allows you to kind of you're constantly moving it's starting to feel a lot more like an old school platinum game old school being Bayonetta sure yeah so yeah I'm enjoying it a lot and it's like it's not perfect like they're

There are just a lot of like weird things about it that I'm just like, all right, well, didn't like how slow everything got right now. Like, let's get back to the fast-paced action stuff. But when you pull off cool combos and like it's, it has a very similar system to Bayonetta with the which time where when you dodge, it kind of like slows everything down so you can come in a combo. This requires a bit more precision than that. The Bayneta, which time you kind of have a really big window to just kind of like mash the

dodge button and you can kind of just keep going slow. this you need to perfectly evade at the right time and you dodge and then it allows you to use your Legion to wrap the people up in the the astral chain to stagger them then you can go in and it's like really cool stunning cinematic happen of you just fucking these people up

and it feels very rewarding when you can pull that stuff off so yeah but I think it is just kind of like it's it's just such a solid game from a gameplay perspective that like I want to just keep going and keep getting in and it's like I do not care at all about what they're talking about and where the story's going, but the characters are fun.

It's like what it's all building to, I have no idea, and it seems weird, but it's like everything they're saying is so over the top and so just cheesy and fun that I'm having a really great time. But then I'm interested to see when it's out in like eight days now, and I'm interested to see when it's out in the hands of everybody of where it kind of falls. But I think people are going to dig it. Like I think that the people that know they're going to like this game are really going to enjoy it. I still want to try it.

The more you talk about it, the more I still want to try it. It's cool. I just don't know if it's for you, right? Okay. But I think it's for a lot of people out there. Yeah. Yeah. I want to play it.

Just a matter of time. Like so many games. Yeah. I had one final question on that was like when you say you want to play more. Is it just like it's fun to play or there's an example of the next thing you're trying to get that's on your mind? And that's the thing that's kind of weird. It is like it is fun to play. But it's definitely not.

I can't wait for what's next. But whenever I'm playing it, constantly there's like, I swear like every 15 minutes something bogger. happens. That's like, that was cool. Like, I want to see what the next one is, but it's not like, I don't have a desire right now to find out what's happening next, but it's like, I do want to play because it's fun. Eventful. That's cool. Very eventful.

Okay. Speaking of eventful, things that happening for us and stuff. Blair Witch, Greg. Wow, that was the transition you wanted there. Yeah, I went and played the Blair Witch game. I was very excited. I can't wait to play that. Yeah? You see like a good horror game.

I haven't played other than Resident Evil 2 in a while, but I've been looking for one. I saw that trailer. 33 and I was like, ooh, this looks great. Sure. I'm very curious to hear about it. So I was talking about this earlier on Games Daily, right? One of the weirdest demos of my career, I think, where

before they, when they brought us in, you know, they had the little tent there and a little scary stuff. A little scary stuff. And then the producers started talking about what the game, you know, what the setup of the game is, which of course, like, you're Ellis, you're looking for a scared nine-year-old boy.

This is happening in 1996. You're in the Black Hill Forest. You have a dog named Bullet, German Shepherd, very cool. Yes, you can pet the dog. It's a big deal. We'll get the bullet because he's a main gameplay mechanic a little bit. But they were like, you're going to play this demo right here

and you're going to get like five chapters of the game. And I was like, oh man, that's a meaty demo, right? And they're like, well, not exactly. Like, you know how when you play a game at E3 or when they come and show us something desk side? A lot of times it's that vertical slice. Here's everything that's happening. Here's like the section of the game we feel encapsulates

what we're doing or what we're talking about right here. This being so close to launch, right August 30th, right around the corner. They brought, rather than a vertical slice, putting it all together, they brought like a sampler platter. So it was that I got, you know, the opening, you know, not montage, the opening cinematic ride of like driving through the truck in my truck, pulling up to where this kid's lost, listening to the radio about it, getting to the woods, the cop cars are all there. Me, a bullet get out of the car. First person, if you haven't seen it. Again, 96, so no technology. Went to a police car, grabbed a radio.

96, no technology. You know what I mean? There was stones. There's like more's phone existing back then. They're hitting stones together and make it, ooh,

but then we walked into the, we explode around there and it's like, okay, cool, this is a normal demo. I'm going to get going. And then we walked into the woods and then it faded to black. And then it came out of black

and put me in a different scenario. And I played a little bit there and then it went to black and came out of black. And then it was like, oh, this is a sampler platter. Since there's no easy, digestible,

here's what the game would look like if you played it for 45 minutes to let's show you everything. We're going to toss you around. which which which is fine for hey okay cool this is some of the mechanics you're going to do in the game when environments look like and all that jazz

but then doesn't give me at all of a feel of vibe of what it is how it's like setting the tone and the scariness and all this stuff I left the demo stoked I liked what I saw I'm in the mood for a horror game right I'm already rocking the Halloween cup I'm ready for some Halloween stuff to get going here and get scared obviously I'm excited for man of madame and a day and right and all that as. Yeah, next week, man.

I know, right, right on the corner. So, I'm the target market for this, and from what I saw, I was interested. So, again, let's get now into the actual demo part of it, right? Because they do some cool stuff here. Hold on. What is the game? You said it's first person. Yeah. It's first person, flashlight combat.

They were very clear. Who did you imagine? They're like, listen, we know Alan Wake had a flashlight, and, you weaken the enemies with it, and then you shoot them. They're like, that's not what this game is. It's worth pointing out, right? This is Blubert team. The people who made layers of fear, observer. They know psychological horror. They know how to make a scary game. I like layers of fear number one a lot. Never got around

to playing two yet. It's the idea that you start off with most Blairwood stuff of entering the woods. Your goal is to find this missing kid, but of course, suddenly you're lost and all hell starts breaking loose, right? Yeah. And so it's you and it's the dog bullet. And the idea here is that bullet is way less susceptible to the witch's shenanigans and the curses, right? So like the first part, like I said, we're wandering around, exploring opening up stuff. Like, I'm just here to help out. The cops are already in the woods, I think.

So I'm like, great. Grab the walkie-talkie, going to the woods. The next thing was, way later, we had already been walking in the woods, and then all hell starts breaking loose, and it's running, and there's, like, crazy shit happening, and things are, like, falling over and attacking and it's scaring you. Then it was, here's the taste of what combat is in this game, right? Because, again, they don't want you to feel empowered.

You're not Alan Wake. You're not going to weaken these things and shoot them. You're just trying to survive and get away. And so it's actually a really nifty combat system of, I'm there, and I, all hell's breaking loose, and like it was really, I'm on the wooded path here and then it's all like the stick trees, you know, from Blair Witch.

And then in the trees are these like stick creatures that like I'm not getting a good look at and they'll run out and they'll hit me and the screen will start going red and if I get hit and if I die. But Bullet the dog, less susceptible, right? He can actually see them as they move

because I get lost when they're out of the peripheral or whatever. On purpose the character does. And so then he turns and he barks and when he starts locking in and barking something, I just swing and turn my flashlight there as the thing rushes, you know, have the light on them long enough thing goes, She turns the smoke or runs away or dashes away or stuff like that.

So it's that idea in this one gameplay mechanic of combat on how to survive, how to get away from it. And then the next one was jumping me further ahead. It was another one we've come way deeper. And now, for a while there it was an environment being, you know, where the cop cars are parked. Then it was a strictly running mission. Then it was this fight on the wooded trail. This one was opening up to a far larger, like, it looked like a logging facility kind of thing. Where there was like, you know, a derelict logging thing over there.

There was like some machinery over here. split in the path, which way do I want to go? And it was like going along the creek bed, I think. And then I actually like my shitty phone, I think it was. Like I actually did ring and I was able to talk to my I guess wife or girlfriend, I don't know, with the relationship and try to talk to her a little bit about and like

talk about what I was seeing and all this crap. And like, they were setting the stage of like, you've seen a lot of shit. You don't know what's real and fake anymore or that kind of thing. Move on into it. Really creepy, black, not black and white, but like gray environments. It's like it's when you're in the woods like coming up on like, Falls already happened.

You know what I mean? And now it's like that thing where it's like you're getting into winter where the pretty colors aren't there. It's just the skeleton like trees and like creepy stuff like that.

And then the next part was and I might be skipping one but the next part was being in the witch's house right, being in the actual house. And so the other mechanic of the game is the camcorder. And again they're like

we know Outlast has a camcorder. It's not the, we're not doing the exact same thing as them. Like the idea with the camcorder is interesting. Number one, it's... Well, that was a huge, part of the Blair Witch movies.

Right. Exactly. They wouldn't be stealing that from the last. I know. You know how it is. You know how it is that they're just setting up the, they're like not lying. They're like,

we listen, we know other horror games fool around with this. In a world where people think Harry Potter stole something from the Lord of the Rings, I believe anything is possible on the Internet. Sharon,

why me Lord of Rings? Bad movies. We all know that. So you had the Cam Corps. The first section was when we were around the logging facility, right? And it would be like the door is locked like in this one place.

But I feel like I need to get in there. I knew I need to. You explore. around you find a video cassette and when you put put the video cassette in there right it's like you know this guy's being chased this stuff's happening and what you find evidence no well not even what you do with the tapes augments the reality in the world so like stick with me i'm watching the tape right and it was the guy running into the building i needed to go and slam me the door and locking it right so if you rewind it and pause it when the door's open you put down the camcorn the doors open oh cool and so you can go in

that way and then like the same thing when i got in there there was another door i had to rewind or whatever it was to do it and then so you're in control of the of the of rewind, pause, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then you get to traverse the environment that way and get things you need out of that, which I think is a cool mechanic. Again, saw it in this one very specific instance. And the bit that you did, like, how obvious was the solution? Was it as easy as like, oh, the doors open, doors closed?

Or like, do you think that there's going to be more uses of this that are more like puzzle elements? I mean, that's what they're pushing right, is that it is a puzzly kind of game. It is more about, it's not about combat, right? It's about avoiding this and trying to survive this thing. I think there's going to be more of them, but I don't know how. This one was like, oh, oh, Oh, right, the camcorder, and like, I went around and found a tape did it.

But again, it's the first example they've shown me, so I don't know how much deeper it would be or how much crazier it would be. Then it was going to the witch's house, right? And it's that thing similar to the most recent Blair, which ones are right, where you can't look at her. If you look at her, she'll attack you or whatever. So it was the same thing of, like, I was using the camcorder for night vision, but staring at the ground. And I think that it's been a while now since I did the demo. But I think there was like a blood trail or some kind of weird thing on there that I could only see through the camcorder. But it was very much like I had to look down and not like look at it.

her look around the house in case she did see me. And this is where they had more of the jump scares of like coming through and something smashes through the window at you or like there's, you know, door slamming behind you. And cool. The vibe I got out of it totally is like, is there going to be a 10 out of 10? Probably not. I don't know. But it's also like, this is definitely a game I'm stoked for it to sit down and play

with all the lights off, right? After you put, you know, Jen goes to bed and now you just sit there with Portie and play on the couch. Do they say anything about it being in the world of the movies? Yeah, they did. I mean, they're very clear that this isn't based on the movies in terms of like their story. They're not doing that kind of stuff. But I do believe it is in the same universe as the movies that have happened before. But even that, I'm so rusty now and where we're at with the Blair.

In the newest Blair Witch, the original Blair Witch movies happened, right? Yeah, I think it's the same deal. Then it's like, yeah, this is the world. But you'd think it being in 96, you said it would be. I mean, I think Blair Witch was like, what, 99?000. But it seems like it might be set around then if it was why else the 90s, you know. Yeah. Rock technology we had. Exactly. That's how I was. That's the thing of why, you know, growing up I loved fucking hearing about these Bigfoot stories, Block Nest stories.

Now he's got a camera in their pocket. Guess what? We don't have these stories anymore. Because they were never real. You know what I mean? Oh, Nessie. Poor Nessie. But yeah, I'm stoked for it. August 30th, PC and Xbox. It's on Xbox GamePass. So soon. Yeah, real soon. And no VR support for this, right? No. Speaking of VR, though.

Westworld VR. I went and saw Westworld Awakening as well, which is out now. I did not know this was a thing. Yeah, well, nobody did. It was the thing that I got the embargoed, hey, do you want to come see a Westworld game? It's VR. I'm like, yeah, of course. It's Servios.

Yeah, Servios, that's how I pronounce it. Okay. Went downtown, went into the office there and did it. And it was like, not only did I get to play it for like, what, 30, 45 minutes or whatever, it was then I went and got to talk to one of the producers from HBO and then one of the guys working on the game. And it was the thing of like, cool, yeah. And I'm like, when's it out? They're like, oh, it's out like next week or whatever.

It was like shadow dropping it at gamescom or whatever, where it was just going to be, boom, done out. VR, Steam, Oculus and Viveport. Not Oculus Quest, sadly, but hopefully eventually online. Why would they do that, though? I just got buried in the tidal wave of news coming out of GamesCon. Right, yeah. And they're, well, they're doing something interesting too, where it's like, it has like 400 VR arcades or something

or using it as well. I was reading the press release today. Yeah, something like that. Sorry, 400 VR arcades? So around the world, there exist places where you can go and play VR experiences and VR games. If you don't own a VR system, you can go in there. there and do specific ones.

We were... We walked by a Star Wars one recently. It might have been in the Glendale, in the Americana. Okay. You're talking about real world arcade. I thought you were saying that in the West World VR game, you can go

to arcades. And I was like, there's 400 games in the game. No, no, no. Got it. Okay. Like, you're out in the real world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a VR... Stonsown has some bullshit. Yeah, it's that kind of thing. I mean, they're doing something different with that, I think, in terms of how they're getting out, let alone, I agree that, like, I, even having seen the demo of this, right, and was ready for it, I didn't see any announcement of it during gamescom. I didn't see if we're talking about it during gamescom.

I must not be on their list or whatever. I've got nothing about this, and I love Westworld. I would have been all over this. Nope. Heard nothing about it. Yeah, it's out right now. 30 bucks. And it's on which platforms?

It's on Steam, Oculus, and then Viveport. Is it on Quest? No. That was my ask too. You can't play it outside, Andrew. Nice try. You wish you could play it outside. I'm opening up the press release here for you, Timmy Tam.

So I'm going to read about these 400. So much fun playing Beat Savor outside. You get the wind in your face. Oh, yeah, it feels real. Get a sweet, like, VR tan line. Yeah. That's going to be the new thing. Yeah.

Yeah, it'll be live in more than 400 VR arcades worldwide. It's download right now for 30 bucks. Robo. I'm a robot. Is that what you said? No, I said worldwide. Mr. Worldwide. Mr. Worldwide.

You hadn't heard anything about it. Let me give you the actual boilerplate description that they gave. Please do. Set during the events of Westworld Season 2, West World Awakening is a narrative-driven, single-player, stealth exploration experience played from the perspective of Kate, a host within the Mesa facility,

who has suddenly attained self-awareness and must undergo a journey of self-discovery to understand exactly what that means. To survive a dangerous underworld, where no one and nothing is what it seems, you must take matters to your own hands, and using a QA, quality assurance tablet, manipulate the world around you.

Okay. So, I get the stealth part now. She's trying to sneak out effectively. Because West World Season 2 was just like all about the body count. It was just like bodies, bodies, bodies. Everybody was dying every episode. It was gratuitous. You shouldn't watch it.

I know you're not. I'm going to. Season 3 is not until later. I'm savoring it. Okay. Well, I'm not going to tell you what happened. It's not surprising that there's like, like. I'm just messing.

It's so much violence that it was like, to me, it ruined a lot of the actual storytelling. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. I would really wonder if what you'll think about this game then. Yeah.

Because, so I, again, I went in, they didn't tell me anything other than a Westworld VR game, so I wasn't sure what I was getting into. So to get the headset on and get going, it was interesting to be in Kate's shoes of being a host. I thought you'd be somebody in Westworld,

right? I thought we'd be doing something on that effect, but you're not. And so it opens with me as Kate going to this creepy house. It kind of gives like a gone home vibe of like there's like a storm rolling in you're on the front porch

and you need to figure out the puzzle. of how to get in and where's the key. You get in, you're there to sign some documents from a lawyer or whatever, but as you go in and you explore the house, which is creepy enough, you find the lawyer dead and you're like, oh, God, there's somebody else in the house. And that's when this stealth starts popping up, right? Of like, okay, I'm crouching down, I'm hiding. I have to peek over corners.

I have to look around for the, you know, murderer, like, who's walking around with a big knife. Sure enough, though, he catches you. He kills you. You then wake up in, you know, the deilus facility, right? You're sitting there. The people are there right in your face talking to you, like, or talking to each other while they manipulate you and talk about how the quest line isn't working

and what they need to change and all the stuff you'd expect from the movies. Again, not knowing what I was going in for. It's always that thing. It's a Westworld, like, it's a licensed VR thing. Is it going to be good? I was really impressed with facial animation. It's something they talked a lot about that, like,

we know what Westworld is, right? We know how to, we need to drive this home. And so they were like, we went through and did all the mocap you'd expect and the performance are really good. And it was, you know, this woman talking, staring at me and trying to fix me up and then talking to the guy over there.

Like, it was the things you'd expect of her rolling her eyes, right? And a lot of nonverbal stuff to totally give off the fact that, like, they're on it, they're in a tense, weird place anyway, right? That she doesn't really respect him. And it was that, again, the power of what I think VR does so well of, it's on my face. So I can't look at my phone. I can't check Twitter while this cutscenes happening.

I can't get distracted by anything else. So I'm there in the moment, like, staring in her eyes, making eye contact seeing how she plays out. Anyways, you're then put back into the scene. This time it's a little bit different. You know, the house is set up a little bit different. You find the body in a different spot. You need to hide a little bit longer.

Eventually, though, the killer has a bigger knife. That was a joke they said when they were setting you up. And as he goes to kill you, two guests come in. They kill that guy, right? And then the guests start bitching about how like, this quest sucks. Like, why did you make me come on this? Yada, yada, yada.

We can have something. The guest now kills the host, you Kate. And so dead again. I'm assuming that you'd probably do this a couple different iterations or whatever, but then my demo jumped to me waking up backstage. You know what I mean? Back in the dayless facility. it is right from the game, or the moot show, where as soon as I open my eyes, it looked like,

oh, I already looked like backstage, I knew that, right? But this time it does look like, obviously as a fan, oh, it's happened. The uprising has begun. Like the lights are swinging. There's bodies all over the floor. It's like going on, you're trying to piece together what's happening. There's hazards of electrical cords going. You've got to get around them and not get shocked.

But eventually, yeah, you get on the phone, or, you know, the comms device with that woman who's fixing you up. She knows you. Kate's confused by that. But more impressive, and I know I just read it, I didn't expect it. You pick up that QA tablet from Westworld. And again, it's running just like you expect it to what it looks like in a show. And so it was really cool to be playing VR and like throw it open and use it to unlock doors.

And eventually I'm messing with hosts and changing their personalities and you having them do on stuff. Yeah, you're maze. Yeah, exactly, right? And so I had a great time with it. I was surprised. I had really low expectations going in, I think. You know what I mean? Like I didn't know what I was getting into.

That's helpful on these kind of things. Because a lot of the licensed VR stuff has been mediocre at best. Right. And so this was cool. It seems like a cool Westworld story. You know, it's, it is more like puzzling in terms of what they're doing. And they said stealth puzzling. Again, early goings of it, the puzzles were all not like, not challenging, not brain dead. But it was very much like the tablet's doing all the work, right? Of like, oh, this electrical box doesn't work. But with it, you can hit this and scan the floor and follow it back to the junction box and where's that thing that I need to put into the box and all this stuff. But I was still engaged enough that I left the demo being like, is it on Quest? Like, no, I'm like, fuck. Because I would want to play this. I do want to play this and I hope they get it there eventually. Sorry, four to six hours they're saying five chapters. Yeah. Performance is critical. No shooting. That was my question. So eventually

do I pick up the gun? Do I go full mave and everything? Like, no, no, you don't pick it. There's no shooting. It's puzzles and movement and stuff like that. That was one of the weird choices I had in terms of, again, I still want to play it. I still think they did a great job from what I played. The movement, it's not teleportation and it's not like, obviously, you know,

I was playing on what? I guess I was playing on Quest. The touch controllers? Yeah, exactly. There's no like sticks or anything. So it was that I had to move my arms to move. It's like super hot or not super hot. Oh, more like Sprint vector. Sprint vector, remember that.

But even Sprint vector, I didn't like it there. And this one, I didn't like it either because he just broke my brain. And I wasn't doing it correctly. So a lot of times I was moonwalking. It's like, God damn it. No, hold on. Restart. And then go, okay, fuck.

And it was like when I was running from the guy or trying to be stealthy, it was kind of annoying to start moonwalking away from like, oh, fuck. This is what I want to know. Don't do it like this at all. It's a criminal. But yeah, I thought it was cool. And it's out right now, 30 bucks. You know what I mean?

But I was impressed with the demo. And I mean, I do want to see more. I hope they get it to Quest eventually or bring it to PlayStation VR. Nifty. Yeah. Or maybe I run into one of these 400 VR arcades around the world. Yes. Maybe.

Probably right at Stonestone. They're popping off. Speaking of pop, Andrea. Yeah. Gears Pop. God, he's on fire. Yeah. So, Gears Pop was announced at E3 last year when they unveiled Gears 5.

Thunder's applause. I was super excited. I think it was split reaction. Some people were like, this is really cool. And then a lot of people were like, this looks stupid. And so it was announced

to release today. I saw Rod Ferguson tweeting about it. And so I was like, oh, I want to go download this. This looks like super cute. And so I've been playing. It's definitely a strategy game. What I like about it,

first and foremost, of course, is the art style. It's a collaboration with Funko Pop. So all of the characters are in that style of that Funko Pop, little doll with the gigantic head style. And you see, you recognize some of the characters.

Yeah, they all have dead eyes. You get to customize your little Funko Pop, though, which is cool. So you get to see like the little locus. You got to have your little Dom, your little Kate, and all the little characters. I haven't spent as much time with it

as I'd like. And that's probably going to color. So it's, no, it's strategy. So the way that the versus mode works is it's you and an opponent and you there's little cover across the field so it looks like those little concrete barriers and when you deploy a character they'll run up and take cover just like in gears which is kind of cute and then part of the strategy of playing the game is taking cover at specific times and then there's certain characters that are more tanky that don't need cover

you can deploy little swarms that will like break out into tiny little enemies that will attack You have turrets at your base, not unlike in Horde mode. There is a co-op Horde mode in the game as well. I haven't gotten to it yet. There is a solo battle mode where you are given a challenge, capture 50 pieces of cover in the mode or whatever the objective is for that specific wave. And there's definitely a lot to unpack here. My biggest gripe from the like hour or so that I've played at the game so far

because it literally just launched today is that the microtransactions are just right there in your face at the very front. And that's disappointing because obviously a free to play game is going to have in-game transactions. I'm not surprised by that. I play a lot of mobile games. I'm okay with that. What I don't like is that I barely got my toes in the water before they're like, here's

all the stuff that you can buy. And like, ease me into it, you know? Is it stuff you need to buy or is it cosmetic? Or is it? Phone co-pops. You don't need to, but you're going to end up to. It's hard to tell right now, like how the monetization works. I just haven't spent enough time with it.

And that might be something to do with the onboarding process as well. But if you go to the store, they've got like at the Welcome bundle. So there's, you know, specific characters you can unlock. So there's coins and then there's crystals. And then there's a variety of packs of crystals you can buy. And then there's a variety of packs of coins that you can buy. So you buy the crystals with real world money. And then the crystals buy you coin stacks.

You can earn both in-game just by playing. I don't know what the drop rates are. for earning if it's like super slow, which I would guess. The thing that I found frustrating is you earn these packs, like most games. When you win, you earn like a chest. Like a little, yeah, a treasure chest of stuff. But I don't get to open it. It says it's going to take four hours and 19 minutes for me to open it.

And it says, or I can pay crystals to open it now. Now, I don't inherently have like a bias against these. I'm like, I feel like all of them have them. I've just accepted it. I know there's a lot of people out there like, don't accept it, Andrea, rail against it. And I'm just like, I can't be bothered to be mad about it. But like at the very start of the game,

yeah, I feel like an hour is fine, 20 minutes is ideal. When you're just getting started, like you want to hook people on this game to get them to come back and want to spend, which is why I keep praising what Nimblebit did with Lego Tower because they gave me so much stuff free up front. They got me hooked on the gameplay. I loved it, and I had absolutely no problem.

contributing and buying the things that I wanted to buy in that game because they gave me so much for free up front that I wanted to keep playing. Here, it just like is right in your face at the get-go and it's like it's off-putting right away and it will be to a lot of players. And it's just like such a stumble on a game that could be potentially really fun. And clearly they put a lot of care into the art style with Funko and taking all of these really iconic images from the Gears universe, these characters, these enemies. Like General Rom was one of the first people I faced off against. it's just like, oh, why you got to like block me with all these micro transactions right from the get-go? It's kind of a bummer. Either make the game like $499, $999, whatever you want to

charge and open stuff up and then add deeper level cosmetics further in or make this a little bit more user-friendly for the first like two to five-hour experience, you know? It's just kind of like a want-wam moment for me. And just for Total Clarity, since it is a free game, it sounded like you said ethically, you're like, well, whatever, it doesn't bother. Is that accurate? Yeah. You said on the ethical side, that's not what bothers you. Correct. The design of it.

Correct. Right? I've never. Like the pace? You're like... People who watch the show and watch any kind of funny games content know that I don't inherently have a problem with microtransactions. It's just how they're implemented in specific games can be up and down the like egregious scale, right?

Like I talked about how I was very disappointed with how Dr. Mario implemented their micro transactions. And then Kevin's like, just get good. You don't have to pay for anything. Sounds like Kevin. But, and I am of the mindset that like it's okay. to pay for stuff. I look like a game like Kingdom Rush, right? There's micro transactions in Kingdom Rush Vengeance, but you could have a super fun time playing that game, paying your $499 to unlock the game and play the whole game and never buy anything and have a great time.

Probably 10 hours into that game and not a single cent besides the... Yeah, the entry price. And I think that's a really great way to do it to say, hey, we're going to add extra stuff on top of the base experience for the person that wants it to get like an extra hero or an extra cosmetic or to boost whatever. That's cool as long as it doesn't interfere with the base gameplay and so far this feels like I got hit

with the timers right away. Even Candy Crush doesn't hit you with the timer's that fast. Does it still hit you with ads it used to right? Candy Crush? Yeah, didn't have ads in it? Anyway. Maybe. I'm pretty sure I'm sure there are games that exist that way that you can pay to make the ads go away.

I haven't seen a game like that in a while because... That model died. Yeah, because a lot of players were just like, I don't want this. Yeah, you'd rather spend real money on game content than you would sit through some advertisement, I mean. Right. Ads? Ads. Ads.

Ratt. Ratt. Ratt. Ratt. Rats. Getting them all, man. We're going to stop with RAD. So, Rad is a game that... You got to be stopped. I talked a lot about it after Judges Week and E3. So this is a game from Double Fine, a great team over there.

They hooked me up with a code for this game. I've been playing it on PS4. It launched this week, I believe, on 20th. PS4, Xbox One, and Steam. Yes. And it's a 3D action rogue-like set in the post-apocalyptic world where humanity has faced Armageddon, not once, but twice. What's cool about this game is it's got this really neat, like, cartoon 80s aesthetic,

both in art style and in thematic. So the music is very 80s, the narration. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Loading. It's like an art. A's arcade game.

Also what? Synthwave type. Yeah. There's also rock and stuff. You're collecting cassettes. You're collecting big old floppy discs. Very neon and colorful. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. So the whole idea is that you're part of this young generation in this post-apocalyptic world. You have to go into the radiation filled area and you have to try to clean out the radiation to bring life back. And as you walk around in the world, you have like your bat. And then you collect radiation. as you clear enemies and clear areas. And as you walk, you like leave this trail of like grass and flowers behind you.

And it serves dual purpose. One, it shows you that you're like cleansing that area. But then you can, if you get lost in the level, you can see like where you've been before because you've left this grass trail wherever you go. And then when you mutate by picking up X amount of rads, the mutations are all randomly generated, as are the levels and where the enemies are placed. And I thought that was really neat because it makes each play through because it's a rogue light. you're going to die a lot, different because you'll mutate differently every time.

And then once you have, I think there's three base mutations. And then once you have your base mutations, they will like have like up to two or three additional mutations on top of that. So for example, there's this little guy you can mutate onto your back that will shoot enemies behind you. And then when you mutated a second time, it splits into two little guys. And then you can drop them as turrets. And that's just like an example of one type of mutation.

but there's like hundreds of mutations in the game. One couple of my play there's a hair. I got the giant snake head so I can from a distance like just go out, no not jump out and bite like a cobra strike. Oh. Like I could come and then come back. And then I also had the same one had a fireball hands or whatever where I could then strafe and shoot fireballs.

Yeah. The flower trail that you have when you die and come back is are the flowers still there? No, gone. Because it's completely different setup. The only thing you keep is if you've unlocked upgrades, you keep those unlocks. But if you've picked up floppy disks and tapes along the way and you die in the middle and you haven't gone back to the base to bank them, all gone.

Rogue-like, right? You die, everything's gone. You start over. And that's been the frustrating part because I'm not a roguelike person. You don't keep anything? No. If you bank your stuff. There's like an ATM thing you can bank if you get to the back.

Because I was like that's usually the progression. And once you get to a specific level, you can bank in the middle of certain levels, but you have to get, you have to upgrade to, it's like a platinum member. And I haven't quite figured out like how to increase. my membership, but essentially it's like once you have progressed to a certain point, you unlock privileges to bank your money that you pick up. But until then, it's like, you know, you know, live, die, repeat. Yeah, that's my thing with it. I've done, I think, I played for like an hour 45 when we first got codes and I want to say that was three runs that I did. And I felt like I really like the moment to moment gameplay. I like the mutations. I like the baseball bat gameplay

right because you're just, you know, running around. It starts off super simple right with like jump and attack and then you start adding in the shoulder buttons for your mutations and then you'll get like buffs and bonuses on top of that. I liked all that but then dying and coming back and then coming back in and not feeling like I made any progress like like Rogue Legacy I was talk about how much I love Rogue Legacy which is also why I love Moonlighter right of like you go in there and you come out with your stuff where you sent like Rogue Legacy you get money you know you come out you can spend it and upgrades come in stronger Moonlighter granted in a similar way you can't die in there but you come out with the stuff when you ever you want to coming out and making

myself stronger when I go back in is what I love is what I love in a rogue light. Yeah. Right? And so when it's like a rogue like, yeah. It's like then it's like all right, cool, I get it, but I just don't feel like I'm making the progression in this that right. I don't feel like I'm wasting time. Right. I want to see changes. I want to see progress. And it's cool and the gameplay is great, but it wasn't enough for that I was like,

I need to play this again. Now granted, we're drowning in games right now. You weren't seeing enough progression. Just to be clear. Yes. Oh, okay. And they do have accessibility options for people that, you know, like me are like, hey, I don't want to keep dying all the time. So you can make the gameplay a little bit easier for yourself. If you want that, again, it's completely optional. If you want to play the game as designed, you absolutely can. But even with those in place, I still felt like the game was pretty punishing. And because so much of it is random, where you don't know which mutations you're going to get. And if you're more of a melee player and you

get a ranged mutation, or if you're more of a range player and you get a melee mutation, it can really affect that particular playthrough. And, you know, there's really no saving in the middle. You know, so it's kind of frustrating. So, interesting, yeah. If you guys remember, maybe you don't, I actually produced their launch stream for them. So I didn't get to play it,

but I observed it from behind the cameras. And I got to talk to the developers. One, what I thought was interesting was on the setting side. I don't know, did you get to see it, the actual individual settings. Yeah, yeah, I did. I can try to pull up the menu here. But the light note on it is it's really interesting

is they actually let you set quite a bit of things. It's not just easy and normal. They let you see underneath the hood a little bit and say, well, how strong your bat is and other things like that. I believe you can tune, which is kind of cool that you can tune it to your style. The second thing that I don't think has been, maybe it probably showed up in some interviews,

but I just happened to ask this question. And I was sort of like, what's the difficulty? How's it compared to things like Hades? Because I like Hades. Hades is another great example, right? Of when you come back and die. It's a lot of progression. Exactly.

You feel like you're getting stronger. Yeah. What I thought was really interesting about Rad and supposedly some of the different approach in the game and maybe this makes it, I don't know if it's casual is the right word, but they actually said in this it was designed that if you're good enough and maybe the settings can help you with this, you can actually play it all the way through without dying. It's not designed. Like some of these games, what they said is they noticed that, you know, with Rogue Likes,

is designed to die. They said, actually in here, well, sure, you can do that. But actually, you can just keep playing if you're good enough. I thought that was interesting. Did you feel that? I did. I mean, you and I had a private conversation, or not even private, off camera, which I consider private, I guess.

Where you're like, oh, yeah, I've been having our time with it. And I had the exact opposite where I was playing so long, but it was that weekend where I had food poisoning, where I was just sitting on the couch playing. And I was like, well, now I want to play something else, but I can't save mid-level. And so I want, I'm going to close the thing. And like, what do I do? Like, I'm still having a, I'm having a great run, but I want to bounce. You didn't feel the progression as much.

Well, no, I felt the progression in that level. You know what I mean? I have all these cool mutations. I have all these cool abilities. I have a health thing ready to go. Like, you know, you find the like banks of rads that you then eat. And like, you know, I was doing great. But it was just like, I want to go do something else, but I can't leave.

But I'm doing really well. Yeah, yeah. So I play a little longer and I kept doing well. I was like, just kill me. Because I wanted to go back and see even what I got to keep. And I got to keep nothing because I never banked anything. So what's the recommendation on this? You guys sound like, I'm not sure.

This is very much a, if you are into this style of gameplay, you are a rogue-like fan and you're like, I love the challenge, I want something to give me a difficulty that I can feel. I think you're really going to like this. I think of that style of the 80s and like this neon cartoon vibe

and you love double finds whimsical humor because it's sprinkled all throughout this game. It's a really, it's a game with a ton of personality. It's a good point. I think that you'll really enjoy it. However, if you're, you know, a little put off by rogue likes and that style of gameplay is like,

hey, that doesn't sound fun to me. I would say if you're still interested, check out the accessibility options. I'll try to take a screenshot when I'm home next and I can see them all in front of it to see if that's something you could do. But I mean, that's the trouble with rogolikes, right? Like they're designed to be punishing. But yeah, that was, I mean, when they did the launch stream, they spent, you know, a good 10 minutes. Just talking about the importance of accessibility.

So I know there's a lot in there. Yeah, there is. Listen, Fran, we understand they paid you for this launch room. Stop trying to come in here and sour our reviews. I didn't play the game. I'm not necessarily recommending it. I was just saying. I didn't know you did that at all.

Did you host it or did you just like behind the camera? No, I just produced it for Bandai Namco. So yeah. Yeah, I've done a few things for them. You hate how I say Bandai Namco, but I'm sorry,

I'm never going to not say it correctly. It's fine, no, that's fine. I've never heard you say it. That's why I've heard of Tim, and I know, Tim loves nothing better than a good friend. Yo, like Bandanamco? Because they got a cool new game called Rad. Like, I got to say Bandai.

Is that what you want me to say? Bandai. All right. Say it again? Bandai? Bandai Namco. Bondi Namco. It's the more Japanese way of saying it.

Bundai. I'm not saying that. I'm saying Bondi anyway. If you were trying to give you a transition. To order a banana nut muffin. Like how would you do that? Soon it was it. Banana nut do muffin.

God, it's not the whole thing. It never gets old. I forget what I would like is. Remnant from the Ashes, Fran. I don't even have a transition. Now, this is an interesting one because this one's caught fire. I'm very, I didn't know you'd played this yet.

Gunfire games. Thank you. A little fist bump. happening. So Gunfire Games, who you may or may not know, was born out of the ashes of some old digital games and THQ, the original THQ. We talk about THQ so much on the show and games daily. Because nobody knows what they're doing. They're doing. They're doing everything. T.HQ. Norton. Literally everything. So actually, they developed. The history goes back to, of course, original Darksiders, but Darksiders

three, they did develop. I think it's worth noting. It's not like Darksiders, but you can see some of that influence. They also did Kronos. I don't know. Anybody play Kronos VR? I think it's Ocust. Yeah, no, I really liked Kronos. Because it was one of those games that had a fixed camera point, and you could like hot swap between where the camera was. So, yeah, I didn't play that. RPG, yeah.

Point of interest, this is part of that world. Remnant from the ashes. And so if you played it apparently, and I didn't, my brother did, and he like got to an area. He's like, oh, this is from Kronos. So it's built around that world. In fact, there's these roots and some of that's in Kronos. So anyway, what is Remnant from the Ashes?

I looked at it and immediately, you sort of start thinking, this is Dark Souls with guns. So you're not jumping around doing a bunch of stuff you got. You start with like a sword or a melee weapon and then you very quickly get like a pistol and a shotgun. There's a sniper. But you dodge. You know, you constantly are, you know, dodging side to side. Third person. Third person, yes. Action RPG. It's a third person action RPG. Not with a focus on being a looter shooter. So it's not about getting a drop of a gun and is this one better than the next one. It is about getting your gun, sliding it with mod. getting a better gun, finding guns in the world or weapons and upgrading your weapons by earning really, you get all the scrap in the world, which is effectively coins. You also get materials like iron. So what's really interesting for me, I actually recently have been in Adaltless. I think it's very much like a, it's like Dark Souls light, lighter. It can be punishing mixed with a Dauntless vibe because Dauntless was very much about get this armor

and it's got different armor set. If you got a full armor set, you get full perks. I mean, it's Monster Hunter. as well in that respect. But that's how I would best describe it. You spend a lot of time dodging enemies and really strategizing what your load out is. And there's three different archetypes.

I forget what the three exacts are, but there's like a hunter and more of a melee-focused one, which is what I chose and the one that's like right in the middle. So I really like the game. I'll say that much. The big thing, though, to note that I think is still a question. Is it predominantly meant to be played co-op? or how does it feel single player?

When I played it single player, I was like, I like this, but I felt lonely. I felt, you know, general loneliness. It's just how I feel. The general malaise of being alone. But I just felt like, I don't know, there's a lot of enemies coming at me. This is kind of getting difficult.

I'm constantly spinning around, and I'm on mouse and keyboard too. I think if you're not on mouse and keyboard, you're going to find spinning around in this game pretty demanding if you're playing solo. Then I went in, I did some quick matchmaking, took a little bit on PC, but they're out there.

But then I got a crew together that actually came out of my chat on Twitch and I had a blast playing three player and it was just everything felt tuned right to me and I really just fell into the world and was like let's get some more scrap and when you get to the big bosses so if you saw there

they have this huge damage bar above them it's a big difference versus these like small enemies and that's when it turns Dark Souls on it. It's very suddenly it's punishing you'll see the U.R. dead screen a lot. You definitely can have buffs. There's a lot of things that start to happen. You might get poison. So you better

have your potion so you can get, you know, the poison off of you. You might start bleeding. You actually have to use bandages to stop you're bleeding. It's like profuse bleeding when you start bleeding. It also has the reset mechanic from Dark Souls when you go to the campfire, you know, and everything resets the world

around you. And so you get, they're called Dragon Hearts. If you look on screen, that LB in the bottom right, well, it was the Dragonheart. So you start earning charges effectively of how often can you refill your health in full. So anyway, I think if you're a fan of those types of game, it's a lot of fun,

and I mentioned that they developed Darkstar writers 3 because you can feel the pallish. I think it's on real. It runs well. I am on PC, so I can't speak to console. Yeah, IGN gave it an 8, noticing as we watched the footage,

so it seems like it's well-liked by a lot of people. Yeah, it seems like all of a sudden everyone's tweeting about it. I saw a whole bunch of people today be like, this is on my game of the year list now. Wow. It looks a lot better than, when you were first telling you about it.

Exactly. I think the name and just the one of these that, you know, you're like, wait, what is this? Like, I'm not sure. It's got one of those names. You're like, I don't know. And I think in your mind, you're like, it's another one of those PC games that has a dark gothic look that you slash and shoot stuff up.

And it's like, you know, it runs okay. But no, it's actually pretty polished. And again, from a team that has some notoriety. The other cool part about the game is that, as I understand it, because I read about this on their site. So hopefully I get this right. When you're playing each world, one mechanic you can do is you can always re-roll your world. Rewrolling the world apparently changes, I think, some of the bosses and things that are appearing for you, but you're in these stages.

So you can re-roll that at any time you keep all your stuff like New Game Plus. But also, I think as you're within these worlds, you just might get a random boss that someone else doesn't. So the experience is different as you play through it between different instances and stuff. So it's got a lot of that replay value in that sense. What's the narrative like? Is there like a central story happening? There is. There's actually a ton of lore in the game.

Now, some of that is through character dialogue at the home base. But you basically have this walking dead kind of vibe where you show up at a camp. I think, yeah, they rescued you as you were helping rescue someone else. And you get back to the camp and you're the new person. You can create your own character so you can choose whatever gender or type of person that you want. But anyways, you get back to camp. start talking to people and unraveling like what is going on here and uh actually one of the guys sounds like dave finoy if you can google is dave finoy his name's uh reggie this this one of the

npc characters sounds like but they actually have some pretty good voices you talk to different characters and they start telling you stories of like i lost my wife and i haven't seen her and in fact some things happen like oh you know she had this ring and you'll find the ring in the world you bring it back and that progresses actually that conversation he'll actually in that case you get something for it. Oh, I didn't even mention you have traits on top of all this. So you have weapon mods and weapons that you're upgrading with points, but actually you have this system and this is your main leveling up system. You start with a few traits, like my health, my, how fast my stamina recharge is, basic stuff. But then you start getting other interesting ones,

how fast your mods might recharge or you might get more experience and you're putting points as you earn your level ups into all these different traits. And so anyway, back to the lore. There's a lot. There's computer terminals that have full, just page after page of emails and system logs. There's also diaries laying around. There's a lot of story in there. I was quite surprised.

I'm not much of a lore guy, so I didn't read a ton of it. But the short of it is these roots, and I don't know, the source of it, these magical root creatures are pretty much overtaken the world. It's an apocalypse. And you're in this Walking Dead S camp. And some people have pretty much given up hope. But now that you've arrived and there's someone else, there that also kind of was a badass basically.

And now there's two, right? And then there were three and it sort of is that type of thing. And you're going to hopefully defeat these roots. So it seems like there's a lot of hours in this game. I probably played for five or six and I feel like I haven't scratched the surface. Dave, that's Dave.

That's Dave. That's Dave. Dave is right. I mean, I knew right about, I was like, that's Fanoi. But so Fanoi's in it. There's some other probably notable voices. Nobody more notable than him.

Nobody more notable than Finoi him. So I have something fun planned, but first, I want to tell you about our sponsors. What's up, guys? This episode of Kind of Funny Gamescast is brought to you by Movement. Let me ask you something. How much time do you spend in front of your digital screens? For me, I know I spend hours at a time looking at screens, whether it's the TV in front of me, the TV below this desk, or this screen right here.

Between all of that stuff, you're going to need some help with your eyes. Andy has started using these Movement Ever Scrollsroll, Blue Light, Light, filtering glasses. You probably have seen him. He looks damn good. He's looking adorable. They're built to protect your eyes from blue light that's known to cause eye strain, discomfort and poor sleeping patterns. Maybe I need to get in on this. So here's the deal. We can, you can get some sounder sleep. You can get elevated mood. That's going to be a good thing. You can lower your stress hormones, improve focus and mental clarity and sharpens vision. All good things, right Kev?

Yeah! Fantastic. They don't look like other computer glasses you see out there. They take Movements best selling glasses frames and add blue light filtering lenses to them so you don't have to sacrifice style for functionality. You get in fashion, you get in function all in one glasses. Average people spend almost seven hours a day in front of a screen and now you can look good doing it while taking care of your eyes. Movement's blue light glasses help us to change our habits so we can keep up with a changing technological world. Ever scroll blue light filtering glasses start at just $65, whether you're at the office scrolling through your phone or

unwinding from a long day. Ever scroll glasses have you covered. You can get 15% off today with free shipping and free returns by going to MVMT.com slash kinda. Shop movement ever scroll, blue light, filtering glasses, protect your eyes and look like

Andy, look great, doing it. Go to movement.com slash kinda. MVMT.com slash kinda. Join the movement. Speaking of Andy, Shout out to Hymns. Summertime's here and while you may be breaking out that baseball cap for a day at the beach or the ballpark if you're wearing it to hide thinning hair, you may not have to anymore.

66% of men lose their hair by age 35. ForHimms.com is a one-stop shop for hair loss, skin care, sexual wellness for men. It's everything you need in one place. These are well-known generic equivalents to name brand prescriptions to help you keep your hair, no snake oil pills or gas station counter supplements. Prescription solutions backed by Kevin's first. favorite thing, science. There's no waiting room, no awkward in-person. Dr. Visits, you can save hours by going to For Hymns.com. Products are shipped directly to your door. It's very discreet.

You don't need to worry about it at all. You guys can get a trial month of Hems for just $5 today right now while supplies last. You can see website for full details and safety information. This would cost hundreds if you went to the doctor or a pharmacy. Go to forhems.com slash kinda. That's f-r-h-I-M-S dot com slash kinda. Forums.com slash Now here's the fun thing. You can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games to write in your questions, comments, concerns, or game ideas for the

Kind of Funny Games cast. Just like Mick Olmsted did, we're bringing back an oldie, but a goodie for this. Kev, can you please? It's no game. So here's the deal. Mick Olmsted writes in. It says long time. listener, recent Patreon subscriber.

First of all, thanks for all of the hours of great content. One of my favorite segments was when Jared Petty, R-IP, would do mobile game or bullshit. In celebration of Greg, being a Pokemon master, I thought I'd put together two games of mobile game or Pokemon. Don't know who will want to be

the host or whatever. I'm going to host it. I won't be playing. They'll be playing, and we'll do this. So, we're going to have fun. There's two different games. We're going to do one of them today. You're ready for this? Fantastic. Jake Miller. Yeah. Okay. Wait. So now it's going to be, is this a Pokemon or is this a mobile game?

So here's the deal. I'm going to name 11 different things. Okay. 11 different words. Is there a daily double? No. Okay. You need to decide is the thing that I name a Pokemon or a mobile game.

Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. I did just want to mention that Greene came out for mobile, by the way. If you never played Gre, Gree, check it out on mobile. Okay. I figured to slide that in there.

Slide it on a good game. It is very good. game. Oh, Greene came off for mobile. Gris. Gris. I got it. All right. Greas, sorry. Yeah. It means gray, I think. Number one. Scatterbug.

Is Scatterbug a Pokemon or a mobile game? I'm going mobile game. Andrea says mobile game. Frame? Mobile game. I am saying Pokemon. Number two.

Tora cat. Tora cat. Pokemon. Andrea says Pokemon. Fran? I was also going to say Pokemon. I'm saying mobile game.

I like this. Snake bird. Snake bird? Mobile game. Andrews says mobile game. Fran? Likewise, mobile game. I am saying mobile game as well.

Number four. Angora. Angora. Pokemon. Fran? Pokemon. I've definitely heard this. I'm saying Pokemon as well.

Number five. Talion. Pokemon. I'm saying Pokemon. Yep, also saying Pokemon. Cheater. Number six. Anything that sounds like a Pokemon, I'm going to say that.

Zassian. Can I get it spelled? Z-A. Z-A-C-I-A-N. Zassian. Mobile game. Pokemon. Yeah, crazy.

Exactly. Pokemon. Number seven. Polystar. That's a mobile game. That's the first one that I'm like, maybe this one's a trick. Polystar.

Polystar. I'm saying Pokemon. Ooh. I haven't run into a Polestar. I'll say you right now. I haven't run any Polystar out there, but I don't know. I am gonna go to the mobile game on this one. Andrea and I have the same read on these.

It's just coincidence. Cheater. All right. Number eight. Vrexion. Spell it. V-I-R-E-X-I-A-N. Vrexion.

Can you use it in a sentence? No, don't. It'll give it away. This Pokemon's not. same for X-Eon. I'm gonna go mobile game. I was also going mobile game. Yeah, I'm gonna do mobile game too.

That's a tough one. You don't believe me, you can have me go first and see if she chooses the same point. Number nine. You go first this time. Wulu. Wulu. W-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-W-L-O-O-W-Loo.

Mobile game. That definitely sounds like some Pokemon bullshit. All right. We flip the script. We broke the... The curse has been broken. Nah, Wulu's like,

A mobile game where you throw like balls at things and there's water. There's water. Number 10, lunatone. What is it? Lunatone. Lunatone. I'll start this time and I'm going to say it's a mobile game. I'm also going mobile game.

Lunatone. It's very somber. I am going with a Pokemon. Did you catch them all? Catch a lunatone. Number 11, the final one. Zig-zagoon. Zig-zag.

Is that all one word, Tim? Yes. G-O-O-O-N? Z-I-G-Z-A-G-O-N. Zig-Zagoon. You said Pokemon. Zag-Zeg-Zeg-Zeg-G. Hey guys, I caught a zig-z-z-goon.

Can you believe it? Did you guys try Zig-Zegoon? It's on the store now. Oh, is it on Andrew? I'm working with this now. Did you try Zig-Zegoon? Yeah, that's a... Did you try a zig-z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z?

I'm gonna go with Pokemon. That's a tough one. That is a raccoon-looking motherfucker. There's a brand new Pokemon. I've seen that motherfucker. I didn't have to wait for that one. Ziggs-Zeg-Zeggoons old school. I've caught some Zig-Zag-A-Goons in my day. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... Yeah, we got it.

All right. Now, let's give the answers. Thank you for this, Mick, by the great. Number one... Scatterbug. Is a Pokemon. God damn right. Yes. Goddabug is a Pokemon. Fuck. Okay. Number two. Torracat.

Is a Pokemon. Yes. Number three. Sorry, right now, I got Scatterbug right. They got it wrong. Torakat, I got wrong. They got right. Number three.

Uh-huh. Can you read it? Snakebird? Mobile game. We all got that right. Everybody has two right now. Number four. Ancora.

Mobile game. Damn. We all got that. We all got a pressure. We all bought a Pokemon on that. Number five. Talion. Mobile game.

Really? Oh, damn. Man, I thought, we all got, I thought. Are you sure there's not a tallyon, Pokemon? Number six. Zakian. Zasian? Pokemon.

Shit. Yeah. All right, I got it right, I got it wrong, so it's now three, two. Number seven. Is that the new life again? I don't know. Number seven. Polystar?

Polystar. Polystar. Mobile game. Fuck, they got it again. Polly Wag and Polly Wharle. Two, four. Our Pokemon. Right now, I have two Fran and Andrea tied with four because Fran cheats.

Number eight. Dude, Talian is a Pokemon. In your face. We have a technicality, everybody. This is why we can't trust people who do... That means we have to take Talia. You know what? It doesn't matter, though.

No, we all said it. Yeah. It doesn't matter. It's neutral since we all said it. So the good news is... Mike, you're fucking me here. We could add a point on if we want. Kevin, you better start watching the chat.

People are going to be freaking out that. What other Pokemon has Mike gotten wrong? This is the problem with why we can't crowdsource mobile game or bullshit. This is a big problem here. This is a big problem here. Let me try to go to the Pocodex just to be sure. Yeah. Are we sure?

Thank you for checking because, yeah. T-L-I-O-N. Yeah. Okay, yeah. Just at a point, right? To everything. 355. So number six then, we already did that.

So it must be a nickname from a specific region. It's not showing up the official polo-dose. Oh! All right. We're saying it, we're just thinking with this. Keep going. It's wrong. We all have the same answer anyway.

So it won't matter. So it's a mood point. But the audience wants the man's to know. They do. And then what number are we on, Greg? Right now I'm on number eight, Vixian. Vixir. It's a mobile game. We all said mobile game.

Hooha! Here's where I. Number nine. Number nine. Five five is where it is right now. This is the one. Number nine. The next two.

Lulu. Yeah. It's a Pokemon. Yes. Dang it. I knew that was some Pokemon bullshit. The Uriot charges ahead now, 6 to France 5 to buy 3. We chose different, so I could tire again on this one.

Number 10. Yeah. What is it? Lunatone. Lunatone. Pokemon. You got it. Oh, we're tied.

We're tied. We need a tiebreaker. So, yeah, that brings it to six for each of them, but then we all got this right. So final scores then are 4-7-7. Wait, wait, what was Zig Zago? Zygund is a Pokemon. Oh, okay. He's a raccoon-looking motherfucker.

Oh, he already revealed it. Well, I got climbed out and then the return to mobile games. or bullshit and I don't like that. But now we need a tie breaker. It's four seven. Between Fray and Andrea. He's, hmm.

Do you have a tiebreaker ready? I mean, look up weird-ax Pokemon names. That's what I'm. I guess that's too easy. Yeah, it is. Well, no, because then it's just, here's the thing. I can do one more. I can do one more.

Don't look at the fucking computer, Fran. I see you trying to cheat. I don't cheat. I'm not a cheater. All right. Lanota. Spell it, please. L-A-N-O-T-O-T-E.

Lanoda Linota Linota Yo guys I just caught Linota Can you believe it Hey you guys should really try a Linota out

It's pretty cool It sounds like a game Try Linota I lost the bad least in a list of I'm going with Pokemon Okay I want to go with Pokemon too though Don't yeah don't don't

I mean you don't regret it though I don't want to hear any will I just chose different because I wanted to make it You want Pokemon Well that's your heart Yeah It sounds like a Pokemon

It's a mobile game. So we'll do another one then. All right. You answer first this time. We're going to go back and forth here. Until we get it. Crowdsourcing from Bear Courtney. Okay, okay.

Nexomon. Nexomon? That's a mobile game. N-E-X. O-M-O-M-O-N. One word? Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say mobile game too.

It's unfortunate. Great minds think alike. That would have got Nick Scarfino so hard. Here's what happens. Next-O-M-R-M-E-S-U-R-M-E-S. It's unprecedented. It's unprecedented. I know.

into his second one. That's what I've been doing. Oh. Yeah. Well, how do he ever... Well, he just had a good one with Nexomond. But yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Okay, I'm going to do one more from here. We're going to have to play rock paper scissors at this rate, because Andrew and I are probably going to agree on a lot based on the way this way. Well, he would stop cheating, you know? Okay, okay, okay. Here we go. Here we go. Zom Biddle.

Ooh, Zumb Biddle. Z-O-M-B-I-D-L-E. Zom-Biddle? That's a mobile game. That's definitely a Pokemon. There we go. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Crimeer Bell is the winner. I'll tell you why. It sounded like a Pokemon.

I'm like, there's no zombie Pokemon. Yes, there are. Yes, there definitely are. It's good that I thought that. So there we go. So this Italian Pokemon thing, I'm really confused.

Yeah, why does it show up in some places? It's got a picture and everything. It did, but I can't find it on the Pocodex. So hold on. I think that this is somebody's original creation. Okay. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

Okay. I'll put a Pokemon go. It'll have the answer. Yeah, if it's not in the polka decks, then it's not canon, right? Yeah, if you Google Talley on Pokemon, there's only one image of him. That's some drawn bullshit. By the way, is it the end of our content gaming discussion stuff on the show? Yes.

Yeah, thought so. I was just going to say, I played more Rebel Galaxy. I want to throw it again. I really am still digging it. Check it out. A lot of fun. A lot of grind in that game. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw.

Not a Pokemon. Not a Pokemon. Really fun. It's going to be a great. I think Switch game. either. Switch game for it runs well, like you said. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that has been the Kind of Funny Gamescast this week. Thank you very much, make, for the return of mobile game or bullshit.

We'll be back again, probably. If you guys have good ideas, please go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Give us more mobile game or bullshit answers. God, there's a lot of weird day mobile games. They're just out there. Over 300,000, Tim. Yeah, man, more to see. We've got to get the old Apple crew to come in and play this game.

Boza and Matt Casper Sipcina or Craig or Charles. That would be a fun one. Because they're supposed to be the experts. Yeah, in mobile games. In bullshit. Actually, Craig Harris would be the best because he knows both worlds. Yeah. That would be an amazing guest is Craig Harris.

We're going to do the post show for Patreon people. If you are a Patreon person, just remember to go back and watch this episode, the public version on Monday, because there's going to be a much longer thing that's in the beginning that we can't. A review. A review.

Big content. Bargo in review. One game. Love you. Post show time. Death Stranding.