Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - EA Play Live 2020 Post Show Review and Analysis - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

Greg joins Tim, Blessing, and Andy to breakdown everything from Skate 4, to Star Wars Squadrons, to Apex Legends, to Josef Fares, and more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys. Welcome to our very special EA Play Live 2020 post show. Kind of funny games cast is Stravaganza. I almost made that entire thing. I'm not the word. Stravaganza. I tried throwing it in too many syllables. I'm Tim Geddes joined by the new base of video games. Too many napkins.

At a. Oh, yeah, Jr. What's up? It's me. Hello. What's up? How's it going? We got, of course, Maximum Cortez, Andy Cortez.

Good morning, guys. Good morning, man. And joining us, fresh off of the EA place set. I ran right from the stage over here. I ran right off stage over here. How are you guys doing? Congratulations.

Good, man. The talk of the show. We're having a beer and then I was like, oh, shit, I got to go do the post show. Hold on. I think it goes skate four and then Greg's shirt. Yeah, and then squadrons. And then, Greg. Oh, yeah.

Dude, I don't know how you want to start this or where do you want to start. But I am going to be complete and utter dog shit at Star Wars squadrons. And I can't wait. I had seen all the footage and all the stuff about it, obviously, and talked to Ian about it and talked to Mitch Dyer about it and all the stuff. And it was that thing of like, I'm going to be so bad at this game. I wonder if I have to, and then you guys were all in and I'm like, we got a squad.

We got a fucking squad. Because you can play AI like they were talking about in the video, right? So it's like, cool. We'll get five of us together. Me and Kevin will be in VR like morons at home. My wife's making fun of us. And we will just go out there and freaking attack the empire. Dude, so yeah, I mean, let's just start there because I do think that squadrons is the

You think of most consequence that we're going to get anytime soon at least. I was excited for it because it's Star Wars. But and seeing that the trailer a couple days ago, I was like, cool, I'm interested in this. And it was kind of ended up being something that I'm all in for where it's like, cool, a shorter campaign. It's a $40 title. Like, all of that I'm down for. But seeing this, I was like, oh, I'm more than excited for this. Like, I can't wait for this.

And the multiplayer stuff definitely not my thing, never been my thing. But what they talked about the campaign made me a lot. more interested than just seeing the first trailer. And I think that it's the fact that you're making two custom characters, one on each side. Like that's such a, I can't think of another game that's done that before. And I think that that's going to be really cool to kind of allow you to really feel like you're equally on both sides and give equal weight to both sides. Because that was a big criticism I had with Battlefront Two's campaign is that all the

marketing was, hey, you know, you're playing as the bad guys. And that wasn't true at all. So, yeah, very stoked for that. Yeah. Oh. Don't agree more, Andy. I was just going to say I love 5E5 multiplayer stuff. Like I love the idea that they are introducing these classes.

And it's very much, like I said, during the live thing of here's your sort of tank class, the big bomber, the big heavy hitter. Yeah. It's probably going to be slow as shit, but it's going to have a lot of armor and a lot of health. And then here's the, they introduced the U-Wing class. And I forgot what the empire had, but I'm not really sure what those classes were supposed to be because I think we were just talking over it, so apologies for that. But then the smaller, faster classes or the damage classes, like the X-Wings.

I love the idea of, like, finding a meta and finding out which groups of classes works more, whether you go with two bombers, whether you go with three bombers and just two A-wings or something. Like, it's just, I love, I love multiplayer games, and I'm just, and I am even more excited that they totally, like, are like only first-person mode, no third-person bulls. shit. This is the only first person. We're sticking to our guns here. This is how the game's going to be played. And we got a squad right here, guys. We have a motley crew of Starfighters. I'm stoked. Yeah, like, Star Wars squadrons for me going into this, I was kind of trepidations about it, because seeing the $40 price tag and hearing the leaks about what kind of game it is and all that

stuff made me go like, all right, cool. It sounds cool in theory, but it seems like it might be a budget title and seeing the actual gameplay and seeing the trailer and seeing the way they're treating it and seeing seeing the spotlight they gave it in the conference like that sold me on the game and seeing the gameplay especially and in like andy said seeing them kind of break down the different classes and stuff i'm really really really excited to play this game it almost strikes me as and this is like this is a dumb way to put it but i'm still going to put it this way it strikes me a little bit like overwatch and space in a way that i'm really down for right like having the different classes having having like checking out what the meta is and saying like all right cool uh 10

him's playing a tank. All right, cool. Greg's playing in VR, which means he's probably limited to playing whatever role he's playing. All right, cool. I'll get the support class or whatever. And being able to do all that while in space, that all seems cool. The visuals of it seem really, really beautiful from what we saw in the trailer. I'm really looking forward to it. They really sold me on the game. They made it colorful. It looks like no man sky. I love that shit. Love it. Dude, being your Cloud City and like just seeing like the kind of like red sunsety colors. Yeah. No, in HDR, that's going to look so dope. I can't wait for that. Besides that, though, I think that the presentation of this entire thing was top tier. Like, I think that they did a really good job. Greg, obviously,

you did a great job. And, you know, that is fine. He was okay. I legit thought you did it a really good job. I'm a little disappointed that there was no small Wado. How hard did you try to get a small Wado? Oh, come on. You think I didn't float fucking Wada lines in there left and right? And I made a comment about Wada during that interview. They are, they were watchdogs about it. My favorite was, and like this is something I got told and I don't know if I'll get in trouble for it but who cares when we come out of skate with the skate announcement right

and I go oh man my heart's up and I'm like is this what exercise feels like I the cut I originally ad-libbed was I came out of it and I was like oh my God this is amazing my heart rates up I'm so excited is this what sex feels like and I don't know da-da-da-da and we did cut

and I was like out on to the next one and I did three more takes that went back to exercise line and they came over. They're like, can you do, can you do us three more that are just the sex line? And I was like, yeah, but there's no way you're going to use them. Like, EA's not that cool. Like you're not going to use. They're like, we got it.

Because EA people were watching on Zoom and everything else. We should do, by the way, game over Greggie next week. We should do, hey, what was it like to shoot this thing in COVID? The first thing I've done in any hosting capacity since this because it was weird. It was cool, but it was weird. And I, from what I understand it made it to like the 11th hour, like the 30, they had an edit that was like ready to go. And they were like, you have to kill the sex line.

Like, come on. Like, you know what I mean? Let's have some fun. We say fuck the Oscars twice in it. Like we just fucking do it. I like the presentation as well. The graphics, the, the transitions. Everything was really cool.

The art aesthetic or whatever. I feel like the lull came during the, the two indie titles. Well, predominantly the one that looked like a Tim Burton game. That's where we sort of saw. Who one after Joseph Thames? Yeah.

That's where we style. I was like, all right. I get the confidence. tip tart, but you do have gameplay, which is awesome. Let's get to that a little bit quicker. But also, no, I mean, Greg, where's Mass Effect, Greg?

Yeah, where is Mass Effect? What is it? What happened? I don't know. Jeff Grew. I'm saying it is still happening. It's still happening this year. Yeah. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, according to Jeffie Grub Grub. Remember his name is Jeffie Grub Grub now. I also enjoys the presentation a lot. I think this is, this has been

the best EA play in years. And it's not the highest bar because traditionally, I think coming out of EA play, people are usually like, Oh, yeah, that was kind of a drag. Oh, yeah, there's a lot of sports. Oh, yeah, they didn't really have much to show. And, like, the biggest thing of consequence were the last couple of years for EA has been, like, Anthem.

And I, even outside of Anthem, it's hard for me to even think Jedi Fall in Order. I think it was another one of those. Even then, Fall in Order wasn't during a traditional. It was EA play. It wasn't a press conference. That was more of like, we all knew. It wasn't a surprise. We knew it was coming.

It was like a deeper time. Yeah, they had announced it the year before. And when we finally did get to Jedi Fallen Order, that was like the outside EA play where Greg was interviewing everybody and all that stuff, you know, which was like a fine event, but I think overall people aren't, people don't necessarily get excited for EA play because we kind of know what to expect. And I think this, this EA play overall for me wasn't necessarily like a, like, oh, like, they did it. Like they figured it out.

They finally blew us away. But I think they've, I think for, I think this EA play was the one where they figured out what works for them. And they figured out what pace they need to go when it comes to the, the catalog that they have because it's a lot of sports. It's EA originals. It's the Star Wars titles and it's their service games, which are going to be like Apex Legends and Sims.

And I think, you know, 45 minutes is kind of a, it's not a long time, but it's a long enough time when you don't have that much stuff. And I think they did a fairly good job of balancing, hey, all right, let's talk about this in a way that the community wants to hear about. But also let's try and sell people a little bit on what Sims is. And let's try to sell people a little bit on what Apex Legends is. And all right, now we're going to go really hard on Star Wars squadrons. I think they balanced that stuff out pretty well.

I think they could have tied up in some places, like Andy said, Lost in Random was a game that for me looked cool, but I don't think they really needed to show the concept art. I think they could have gotten to the trailer quicker or maybe showed the trailer first and then explain what it was. I think you get painted into a corner there, right? Because I think when you have someone as dynamic and fun and well-known as Joseph Ferris, you want to give him that stage.

But you get into that rule of three, right? Well, it's like, cool, we have three originals to show. We can't just have Joseph Ferris introduce his. And then the next two are trailers or whatever, right? We should probably give them, you balance it out that way and stuff. Yeah. And I'm sure I don't need to say for our audience at all. I mean, obviously, take what I say with the grand assault.

I hosted it. Number two, I had no, I didn't script this or I just, you know what I mean? Like I have plenty of thoughts about how they did things. I heard they were going to show Dragon Age 4 stuff and you said no. I mean, it's just like last year. It's just like last year. Remember I said, skate four. Sorry, we ran out of time.

This year I got them in. Next year I got them in. It'll be fine. Don't worry. Yeah, I'm right with you guys because I think the original stuff is super important to focus on and I understand why they'd want to show the devs and I kind of give them personalities and all that stuff. And remember the EA original stuff and I'm pulling up the specifics out of my ass,

but like there's some truth here. They don't make money off these games, right? While you guys were reacting and I was watching you, I was watching Twitter and I forget who it was, but one of our industry peers brought up the thing that, yeah, Joseph Ferris has gone on record being like, they don't make money off this. You know what I mean? And it's similar to what Peter, Moore said back in the day in 2015 on our E3 stage, right? When he's like, yeah, we're doing

unraveled because unraveled's not going to make a dime, but FIFA makes money. So we're okay to invest that forward. And I think you look at it like we're talking about with what Hayeslight is working on, what Zoink is working on. And you go, yeah, these are weird, interesting. You know, I mean, Joseph Ferris, like I love the fact they gave him that runway to talk about, you know, what his history is if you don't know, right, of trying to get out of a terrible situation with his family and then what that means and going to Sweden, blah, blah, blah. But then making the game and showing that it's going to have those pains and it's about a divorce and it's by these parents leaving each other.

Where do you go from there? Yeah, exactly. I'm glad that EA does accept that rule that cool. Yeah, we are the, you know, giant monolith. We do make every fucking sports game. We do make all these, you know, sequels, but we can also then invest in these little companies and little games. Yeah.

Yeah. I think they're focusing as much time as they did, and especially with that the dope-ass animated intro. Like, that was cool, you know, and that costs money. Like that, like all of the elements there, they didn't need to do. but they did. And I think that it paid off, even if it meant the pacing was,

admittedly, a little, a little kind of uneven because of the breakdowns that we always complain. The rules should be for events. It's like either show a gameplay trailer, have a conversation about it,

show some concept art, or it's like you need to choose, like max of two of those things. Like the moment that you have like three things, you're like, all right, we get what this game is. Like,

let's move on to the next thing. Yeah. And it's, the other interesting one before we move on from originals, right, is Rocket Arena. I'm very interested to get this story behind that because again it's another one that lit up on

Twitter while you guys were live the fact that so many people were like oh I've played Rocket Arena and then it was that thing of like wait no we played Rocket Arena at like a Nexon event like what the who where did how did EA get this what is going on with that like I don't know the story behind that but that was a game we had seen a long time ago right and is now here which is interesting

I read a thing that said it was like a quake mod or something which was the thing that kind of stood out to me I was like wait so what is the journey with this game and how did it get here because it looks it looks interesting I think we mentioned during the watch along that it it strikes me as like a a bleeding edge type of game and I hope it comes out and I hope it makes waves more so than bleeding edge has um but it's not a quake mod but there was a quake mod back in the day called rocket a ron called rocket arena okay maybe that's what it was yeah this is one if

memory serves tim and i'm asking you to remember something i did so i understand if you can't i believe i played this at judges week i think so too yeah the hollywood reporter formerly you talked about it formerly a hollywood reporter talked about playing it having a lot of fun And I remember playing it. And the whole thing, which is interesting, is there it was first person. And now what they showed today and this re-debue is a third-person game. So it's really interesting to see what exactly is going on with this and where we're going. Yeah.

Overall, I agree with you, Bless, about the presentation of all of this being kind of like the best EA's done so far. That doesn't necessarily mean that this has had the most announcements that I loved. But I think that the APEC stuff, like that spoke to you guys. And it spoke to me in the way that by the time that they made the announcements, they moved on to the next. I didn't need to care about it, right? The A original stuff was cool. Obviously Star Wars is cool. Getting the announcement of skate, that's freaking cool.

Did this have a ton of surprises? No, but I think it was a solid showing. And it's like that, that to me is more than I could have asked for me A, because they've proven to me many, many times that they don't know how to do that. Andy, what were you about to say? I just, I think it's really cool that we, you know, you got to look at from both sides because obviously you could say, oh, there wasn't enough shown.

But then they did show this next gen Cizzle reel. that obviously shows some stuff from a mass effect game most likely, or I mean, I'm sorry, Jagged game and other titles coming up. So it's like, do they show that or do they not? Either way people will complain, right? But I do think we need to talk about the fact that they keep on talking about a lot of their games going to Steam and crossplay. And setting that standard is so important for the rest of the industry

because when a company this big, like EA can commit. to something like that and to have all their new games coming out and saying, yes, we know you don't really love origin. Yes, we know you want to play crossplay. We're opening up all these avenues for you all. And yes, this is going to have crossplay. Yes, you could play in VR and squads. I think it's so important for a big company like this.

And, you know, obviously Activision already kind of did it with called duty war, war zone having crossplay at the start. But I think it sets a standard. And I hope the rest of the industry slowly starts to follow. Yeah. I agree. And that was the thing about, you know, being part of it again and all this stuff. Like, I think, again, yeah, this was, this is another year of E, I think not having the Bam, block, but it's not a PlayStation conference, right?

It's not these giant like, what the fuck? Like, there was the moments of it, but it was the moment you, I saw you guys pop for was, you know, it's going to be crossplay for Apex, right? And then a little bit for coming to switch. Actually liking Star Wars. Once again, you know, year two in a row, I think Star Wars is the standout title, which isn't shocking, but it is awesome to see them return to form in that way, right? With this franchise

where we're like, are you going to be able to keep it? I'm still not sure if the damage has been done or not in terms of exclusivity. And then again, to get to the pop of skates back. And Timmy, you were my favorite reaction of watching you just, you're like, this is really happening. And you just sat there like stunned the entire time. I'm seriously shocked.

I can't believe it's fucking happening. When it ended, right, it was very much like, blessing me, yeah, I would have been, I wish there would have been a trailer. And it's like, of course, yeah, I agree 100% with you. It reminds me so much of, God, EA's conference. Huh? Yeah, it was Paul in order?

Was it Fall in Order the one I'm thinking of? I think so when there, when Andrea sat down with, Oh, I wasn't even thinking of that one. I was thinking of one we were in the audience for where it was the sizzle reel similar to the end of this where it was like a whole bunch of people were working on shit. And it was like Amy Hennig's game and all that stuff where we saw like really rough gray box stuff from that.

And it was like, all right, that's weird. Like this is a different one in terms of like they, I think they delivered a game. you're excited for right now with squadrons, which I can't believe I'm saying because I'm like what? This time last year, well, I guess Fallen Order.

I liked last year at this time. But you know what I mean? Like I'm not the Star Wars guy traditionally. And I'm like, fuck, I want to play this with you guys. I want to have us flying around me into a bunch of morons for a night. It's been fun time,

hopefully. Yeah. Dude, if we, back to my point where Tim was like, you know, I'm not a multiplayer guy. I get that.

You know that I'm much more. And when I play multiplayer games, I prefer them to be PVE versus PV. If it is that we just like, Andy, I know I'll be streaming it left and right and hopefully I'll get dragged along with him. It's no like Mike to go actually fight people and be terrible. But I'm totally down to have a squad that is just like, let's go fuck up, you know, the environment.

Let's go fuck up the AI and screw up that. That sounds fun. I digress. It's the fact that like they had one game there that I think everybody looks at and goes, oh my gosh, that actually is good. I was, you know, looking through the Twitter reactions everybody, everybody seemed super up on it. And so to have that and then end with, yeah, skate for this, we've heard you. Like, granted they didn't say skate four, but I think that kind of makes sense to a skate's been gone.

long why not just reboot the fucking franchisers the right call yeah exactly they shot it out the comments like dude it you all did this masterful. Masterful scary yeah giving people a lot of power yeah that's it gives me power hey bless me and you right now NBA Street let's go

dude that's and listen when they shout out of the comments I did cringe a little because I was like oh don't don't egg people on to like start commenting on everything and request but I will be that person now like requesting a Bay Street volume four like give it to me like home court Greg, Greg, you think kind of funny

will bring back party mode since Tim killed it? Oh, God. I mean, if enough people tweet at Tim Getty's, hashtag bring back party mode, what you did is an insult to the nation. And then say at Nick Scarpino, don't you agree? And then say at Nick underscore Scarpeo. Sorry, I meant you.

Don't you agree. That's true. Guys. We're fucking with you. Yeah, just tweet it, Nick, everybody. another thing I want to point out, though, talking about like skate and talking about how like, oh, yeah, they could have had a trailer and all that stuff. And talking about previous EA conferences, when they started talking about the next gen stuff and started doing like the future looking like, oh, yeah. And, you know, we have criterion and all that stuff, which kind of reminded me of when they showed off the criterion, like racing game that was teased and then disappeared.

But then got into like, oh, yeah, EA motive and all that stuff. like that stuff to me is exciting but at the same time kind of a bummer like I wish like seeing the EA mode of game got me a little bit excited because I was like oh cool what is this but then them kind of being like all right cool and then moving on from it without giving us a name or any sort of more context like I understood I understood the purpose of it because they just want to they just want to show us that they are working on next gen stuff and what the potential next gen looks like but at the same time I feel like we've been burned so many times when we see stuff that is so far out that it's like All right, why would you show me this when I, there's like 50% chance that this game is going to come out probably.

It's just like they did in 2016, right? It's just like they did in 2016 where it was like, hey, we are working on stuff. And this is that line we as an industry walk all the time where I think when people make those comparisons to movies, right? When a movie gets fucking optioned, right? When a screenplay gets written and it's sold, there's an article about it and who's attached to it. And maybe you never ever see that. Like there is this struggle of, I think EA, especially in a year where up until this point, right, right around now, I should say, we were saying, like, what is he doing this year?

Like, what are they actually putting out? And then for them to get out there and, like, I think you do need to see that you're doing other things, but what do you do and how do you do it? I don't know. I thought it was interesting to another tweet that happened while you guys were live. Mitch and I are, of course, of course, who works in motive and worked on, one of the writers on Star Wars squadrons, tweeted in all caps. Holy shit, they showed the secret motive game, loll what?

Like, I'm doing Mitch a long time. I don't take that as a, I'm going to put this cheeky PR thing out. or like not even it would be PR, but I'm going to do this kind of thing. Like that really strikes me as him, a writer at motive did not know whatever the fuck, that weird block moving game they had. It wasn't going to be shown in some way.

Yeah. Interesting. With Greg, with what you're talking about with how Hollywood works and stuff, I am a big supporter of that when it comes to the blockbusters. And I feel like if we were to have gotten a mention of Dragon Age or something that was a little bit more clear, then it'd be like,

all right, cool. Now we know that they're working on these big unicorn titles as we used to talk about them with like, you know, the last of us or death stranding or whatever it's like we know they're working on it they're way down the line but they're coming whereas with this it was kind of just like hmm like does that a yeah motive game turn into a big deal later like I doubt it that looks like a smaller title you know which

is fine but I don't know I'm with it where I'm like I'd rather have seen this stuff this time than not so I'm happy they did it but last time they did it it was star's battlefront totally and I'm not saying you're wrong at all I think it is that thing of for any press conference you know and Tim, we've had the blessing now three times or the, three times to actually make conferences, right? Like, you want that Gatling gun, keep them on their heels, here's a whole bunch of shit.

And I think that this conference is the strongest EA playing in a long time. I don't think it's a knockout home run amazing, mainly because of the host. But I think it is, you know, that the APEC stuff was huge. The stuff coming to Steam was huge. I think the, hey, we are doing crossplay for so many of our games is huge. I think Star Wars alone is huge, let alone the fact that, hey, this is crossplay, let alone

the fact this is, yeah, playing VR and play with other people on consoles who aren't in VR and do all these different things. And then to end on skate, there's all these different pieces to it that aren't the, hey, everybody, we know you've been waiting for it. We saw Jeffie Grub Grubb trying to ruin it. Mass Effect remastered. Like, you know what I mean? And then Dragon Age 4.

Like those are the kind of fucking punches in the face you want out of these kind of conferences. And last year, you know, at EA play. We talked about it afterwards on the post shows and on Gamescast, right? Of like, for what they had in the chamber, it was good enough. It was fine. Here's fallen order. Great.

That's all you need to do. But it wasn't a press conference. It wasn't an E3 press conference. Like, it didn't have that. Ah, here we are. We're fucking ready to roll. And with that, I definitely think that without question, this is the best EA press conference we've ever seen.

That's not saying it had the best moments. But I think that overall presentation-wise, what they did show what they did talk about and what they teased. I think this is the best. And if they take this format 2021, when they are more ready for the next gen stuff and they are talking about all that, I think that's going to be, that's real, real cool. That's going to be a great standard. And like I hope that that's where the industry's kind of, you know, shifting over to.

I also want to say that I feel like we say this every year though with like with a lot of these conferences where it's like, we'll see next year. Like really, not even with EA. I feel like every year we've gotten a slight improvement and we say, man, I can't wait until next year, man. Next year is going to be the one. And it's just, we're always like these. EA to me is the one that's always just like floundering where it's just like they've just never had a good presentation. All the other guys have at least had presentations.

So when they have bummer ones, you're like they're going to come back next year. Like that I give more on like a Bethesda. EA, I'm just kind of like their portfolio is so wide. This is the first time they didn't spend 30 minutes talking about mobile games. FIFA. You know what I mean? And FIFA and all that stuff. Like they had Madden, but like, I can't even fault them on that. That was like, what, two minutes? Like, I didn't even have time to pee twice. Yeah. Yeah, I thought they did a good job of keeping the sports stuff down. I thought they did a good job of taking the Sims and not being like, and now the fucking pets

have jobs instead of being like, hey, Sims is great because it unifies a bunch of people and you either even if you don't give a shit about the game, you get what we're saying right now and why this game is important. Yeah. We'll have to see, man. So much more naughty things. stuff happening. The one thing that I'm really surprised at is no Mass Effect ports or trilogy or whatever it is if that does exist. I'm so bummed about it.

Because I really thought it was happening. I really thought it was happening and I was prepared to play Mass Effect 1 through 3. And because it was even if it gets announced later this year, Blessing still won't play it on. No, I'm still not picking it. Because it had to get announced. I respect that. I respect that. I respect that.

Yeah. Skate for guys. Wow. Wow. Anyways, ladies and gentlemen, this has been our post-show analysis to the E. Play Live 2020 show. Stay tuned right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games for way more the next couple months and forever, actually. We're never going to stop making content here.

It's a great time. But until then, I love you guys. Bye.