Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Grading the PlayStation State of Play May 2024 - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

We breakdown everything we saw in the latest PlayStation State of Play. Run of Show- - Start - Grading the State of Play - Concord - Ragarok on PC - Dynasty Warrios - Infinity Nikki - Ballad of Antara - PSVR2 - Ads - Marvel Rivals - Where Winds Meet - Until Dawn - Silent Hill 2 - Monster Hunter Wilds - Astro Bot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, May 30th, 2024. Of course, I am your host, Tim Getty's. I'm joined by Blessing at Ae Oyea, Jr. Good day, Tim. Snowbike, Mike. Hello, Tim, thanks for having me. Greg Miller. Astrobot!

And once again, a very special guest, Naomi, Kyle. Hello, everyone. We all just watched the PlayStation State of Play for May 2024, and we decided we're going to break it down for you. We're going to review the whole thing. We're going to talk about what we liked, what we didn't like, what we thought was maybe just okay and everything in between. Thank all of you for your support watching us either live on Twitch or YouTube,

later on podcast services, or specifically the Kind of Funny members, members either on YouTube or Patreon, you get all these shows ad-free, you get to watch us live as we record it, and you get a daily exclusive show called Gregway. Today's Gregway, what's it about, Greg?

I say something nice about each and every person at Kind of Funny. How much bullshit is there? How much... You're just legit nice. A kid asks with so much negativity in the world. I want you to say something positive about each person for how they've grown since they started the company. So I did it for each and every one of you because I'm very proud of you all on what you've built there. Well, I don't believe him.

And I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that don't believe him either. So you're going to have to prove everything I said about this guy. One of us right or one of us wrong by becoming a kind of funny member and checking it out. See, I'm a salesman, Greg. I'm just out here pitching. Pitching. Always be selling. I just want to beat your ass so badly.

Only one of us is coming back from SGF play days. We're going to get into all the fun in just a second. and that second is now. Bless. Let's start with you. What did you think of this? Of course, this is the first showcase, whatever, game showcase,

that we've had since we've introduced the new kind of funny scale. So this is the first time we're going to be reviewing this on the 1 to 10 scale of kind of funny. Okay. So when I go about reviewing a showcase, usually I try to think about what was the purpose, what was the aim of the showcase,

what was their vision, and do I feel like they achieved their vision? I think they did a good job of achieving their vision here, right? I would give the showcase a 7 out of 10. I don't think there's anything that was super surprising. I got some things that I wanted. I think maybe the leaks of an Astrobot already existing, right? Like there's so much about the showcase going in that I feel like we either knew about or very much expected that kind of took the wind out of it.

Astrobat being the big thing. But I think Astrobat still looks awesome getting the September date. I think is very exciting. And I think the big thing that holds this one up for me is how they treated Concord here, which a year ago, I'll say within the last year, right? Talking about Concord has always had this tone of, oh, yeah, there's fair games, there's Marathon, there's Concord, and it always felt like that stuff

was lumped together because they did not do a good job of showing those games last year. Concord being the next one up now after Hell Divers, I think there's a lot of weight to be like, all right, you had a win with Hell Divers too, can you continue that flow with your live service stuff? And I think what they had to show today in terms

of both the cinematic stuff and then also the gameplay stuff, I think both of that, both of those things did well, at least for me. I really enjoyed the cinematic. I know probably the big critique I could throw out it is that it seems almost to Guardians of the Galaxy, but like it's space and it has personality and humor. I think when you're leaning into that space of things, no pun intended, it's hard not to get that comparison. But I think even with that, having it be this kind of world, these kind of characters, but then also having the gameplay be something that is more akin to just a competitive PVP shooter,

maybe a mix of like Overwatch or I think Mike said ex defiant I think it seems fun it looks like a good time the different classes seem fun the characters seem fun there's personality here that I really like and enjoy and I think those two things Concord and Astrobot stood out in between that

I think they had pretty good announcements God of War Rackner Rock for PC is cool Marvel rivals with some exclusive details here seems cool like I think there was a good showcase so yeah I'll give it a 7 out of 10 Greg I want to jump to you Hi what would you give this on the kind of funny scale You know, I think what's fun about the kind of funny scales, we can all explore it on our own merits and do whatever with it.

And I think oftentimes when we get into these, we get into our heads and overanalyzing. I think this is a six. I think this is okay, you know, pacing, whatever, blah, for me, it's just it met the expectation I set, right? Whereas we talked about in the pre-show, like my hope was getting Astroboth, and that wasn't just a rumor. We'd actually get it. We did. It was a great look and answered a lot of our questions that we'd already had, right? I appreciate how many dates they put on stuff out here.

But overall, especially for me, a state of play that will get lost in the ether of my mind, just because there's not a lot of Greg standouts here, right? I think it's interesting that we crushed it with this PSVR2 guessing game, right? I said three. They said two. We'll give you two games for PlayStation VR2. It's a whole bunch of things in here. And, you know, it's always that weird one, especially coming off of what we did last year with the PlayStation Showcase

and it being all of the games as a service. We're going this way. live service, yeah, and there was these, wow, man, like,

as a PlayStation fan who's been around a long time, like, is it still a brand for me and yada, yada, yada, blah,

and you look at this and there's a lot of man, like, oof, a lot of time spent on Concord and yeah, that cinematic was great. And then they got to the gameplay

and I was like, deuses, I wish you well and hope you do, and you go through it and it's like some of the, like Marvel rivals, console announcement, I can appreciate coming here.

It's just like, again, not a game. I have any interest in jumping in doing and granted that that's me, I understand. But again, Astrobots to stand down, Silent Hill, too. Something's not right about it. I don't know what it is.

I think it just looks bad. It looks, yeah. But it's like, then it'll be an action and it kind of looks pretty, but then you look at the guy's hair and you're like, that looks like dog shit, and I can't put it all together on where really my problems are with and stuff. But, you know, overall on OK Showcase, I don't think they fumbled it.

I think they met the expectations. They've kicked off SGF and given us stuff to be looking forward to. Beelby. What about you? I'm on your same wavelength. I think it's a seven out of ten. Or can I give a decimal? Oh, yeah.

You should give a .5s. Because also it's just special being here with you guys for this event. You know, I didn't think coming out here that we would have a state of play. So it was great to be able to talk about that and watch it with you guys. So, yeah, I think for me, same as you guys have been saying, it's like I like Marvel rivals. I like Overwatch. So like anything that's kind of scratching that it's for me, I'm excited for. And yeah, Concord looked.

It was my first look at it. and I really liked what I saw. I'm a huge Guardians of Galaxy fan. But yeah, I agree with like everything in the middle was like, oh, maybe I'll check this out, but I'm not 100% excited about it. And then I think, yeah, just rounding it out with Astrobot.

That's definitely going to be something that I think people are just more hyped for, and that's giving it a lot of a boost there. 7.5 is wild? Why is it wild? What are you guys saying? I do have opinions on audience reaction, but we can get to that. We're going to ask the audience for a change.

Oh, love it. Yeah. I just think there were some things, like I even put here, like, Rogue Incursion, Ballad of Ventera, like, maybe I'll play those, but they're not huge, they're not, I don't know, maybe I need to see more to really sell it for me. But, yeah, I think those top three things, like Marvel Rivals, just to see it again, and I think I'll play that. But a lot of it was, like, unfortunately, leaked or, you know, came out earlier,

and so killed the hype for a lot of those things. And, yeah, there was a couple things on my list that, you know, I was really hoping for, none of it showed up. So I think they're just kind of saving it for Summer Games Fest and we'll. see what happens there. Yeah, that's my 7.5. Big Mike, what are you thinking? It was a great afternoon spent with everybody at the table.

You know that. Yeah, that's always fun. We get to see games. I love that. Plus we are. I am a 5 to 6 area. I'm mediocre too okay. This is middle of the road.

This was good. I will land on a 6. Okay. I think there is some announcements in there to have a conversation about, right? PC fans rejoice, God of War, Ragnarock is coming away. But you got to sign in. What are you going to do, PC fans?

We continue to get to see PC fans now, get to play these Sony first party titles, which is a big deal. More players playing these awesome games that we all know and love. I always love seeing, right? I mean, Marvel rivals coming out and announcing it's coming to console and also showing Venom and Adam Warlock, two new characters we haven't seen from the beta. This is a game that I believe will have some juice. When we talk about the first person, just shooter genre, right?

It's tough to get in there and make some waves. I think Marvel rivals will do that. So keep an eye out on that one. I mean, Monster Hunter Wilds, no matter where you showed it, it's going to be hype, right? There's a fan base for this kind of game. It is awesome. And getting lost in this desert setting is going to be so cool. A lot of dope monsters to look at.

I can't wait to get lost with Greg and grind for just one scale to make a chess piece. On top of that, I mean, Dynasty Warriors. I know I made the joke, but like, I'm excited for that. It's not like over the moon excitement, but I love Dynasty Warriors games. This is something I haven't played in years. So the idea of jumping back into a Dynasty Warriors franchise is pretty cool to me. I will speak on Concord because that's up my alley. Unfortunately, this did not show well to me.

I think the trailer was too long. It did a great job of setting the tone and getting you familiarized with the world. I think that was very cool and it looked great in the cinematic. But when we went to gameplay, that just did not stand out to me, right? Marvel rival stands out because you can quickly identify what it is. It's Overwatch with Marvel characters. Boom, I'm in. This right here looked like Destiny PV.

mixed with ex-defiant generic arena shooter. Nobody stood out on this screen to me saying, oh man, their powers, their abilities, their movements look like something that could capture me for multiple nights to months to years, right? And the issue as well is showing it like you did, you didn't really tell me or bless Naomi, Greg, or Tim, or the audience,

what these game modes are? What is this? If we're going to spend 11 minutes on this game, let's go a little bit deeper on the gameplay itself, not just show a small arena where we're shooting and pretty much doing the same stuff over and over again. I think this could have been easier of like, hey, we have pushed the payload, we have control the point,

show a little bit of that just so we know what we're seeing on screen. So Concord, you know, we talk about these games and service fair games to me I was excited for. I know Marathon with Bungee's going to have the pedigree in the title there. Concord was one where it's like, I don't know. And it turns out I still don't know

if this one's going to be for me. We'll see once this game. comes out. But when I look at the list, right, there's some cool games, Ballad of, and Tara. And Tara looks dope, right? Like that's Kane of Bridge of Spirits. Like, look to me meets Eldon Ring and Dark Souls. That's lit. I'm all about that. That's something Andy won't stop talking about until Dawn looks good. I've played it a million times, but Tim, come on. I love supermassive games and I love the idea of bringing it back. So, Tim, for me, I'm going to give it a six out of ten. Okay. How about you? I'm a little higher than you. I'm going

6.5 out of 10. I could make an argument for a 7. I see where Bless is coming from and I think that it this is almost good for me and I feel like at the end of the day, Astro delivered everything I could have wanted for it. Some of the locations that we see I wish there was a little bit more PlayStation theme

but again that's dream stuff. Like what we got on my, wow, this looks like an amazing adventure. The Mario level of quality, the Bless I have been talking about I saw so much of it there. That's a game that I have my eye on that I'm like, oh my God we're going to play it not too far from now. and I'm expecting it to be a classic.

I expect a lot from that, so I'm stoked on it. And another thing I agree with what Bless was saying is that we've been lumping these games together and to actually understand what Concord is, what sets it apart, having its identity, I think is important. And grading this showcase, I feel, is important to go from what's the intent of PlayStation. What did they set out to do with the state of play? And I think that they were trying to let people know, this is what Concord is. This is the game. This is what you should expect.

It having a release date. I didn't expect that. I expected maybe we'd see a little bit, didn't expect to see cinematic and gameplay and release date. Having said all that, I don't think it looked particularly good or interesting. I think that it also, my interest personally is very low,

but that's just because that's not my type of game. But my understanding of like, oh, this game could be a hit with people, went down throughout the show because once Marvel rivals came out, I'm like, well, Marvel rivals just looks like the Overwatch with characters people actually like. You know what I mean?

So I feel like that kind of, putting those two in the showcase, I feel it made Concord look worse, which is not a good place to be for one of your flagship titles. But I think that we have a very solid look at what 2024 looks at, looks like throughout the summer, maybe a little into fall, depending on who you're talking to with August and September there. But we don't know the rest of 2024, which I'm a little surprised at how many 2025 dates we're seeing here for how they presented this being checkout games for the rest of the year. And so because of that, I'm like, I don't know, man. I feel like you could have went a little harder on the this year stuff. But there was in the kind of in between the Concord and Astrobot. I think there was some stuff there that, you know, some of it kind of just starts looking the same.

It's like, oh, I think we've seen this game before to showcase. I'm not so sure where, whatever. But the one that stood out to me was where wins meet. I don't remember seeing it before. That looked awesome. That did look really cool. I liked the one-on-one boss fight type style there. Like it just something about that I was like oh I want to keep my eyes on this.

I agree with you guys Silent Hill too. It just looks off, which is very unfortunate. And then until dawn. Something I thought was interesting here is they it's not until dawn remastered or until dawn remake or it. Just until dawn, you know? So then presenting it kind of just like as if it's a new game is I think actually a smart thing for this game and this franchise and for the developers in general with

the pedigree that they've had. But there is something about it. I look at it and I would need to look at a comparison to what the old one looks like. But there's something about it doesn't look great to me either. I'm like, this doesn't scream. This is a new game coming out. This kind of just like, oh, yeah, this kind of looks like. I think when you go and you look at old footage, you'll see what they're doing with it and what they've done to it.

Exactly. It is quite different. Yeah, but different, I don't know if it means good though. This doesn't look like if you're going to present this as if it's a new game, not a remaster, not a remake. and it's just it's until dawn. I don't know if this has the stuff visually, but Where Winsmeat is an interesting one because they're calling this the announced trailer. But I'm looking through it, there is also, there was a trailer at Gamescom 2020.

And I vaguely remember, yeah, like seeing a game that looks like this. And yeah, it being called Where Winsmeet, I assume it's the same thing. But yeah, this one, they're calling the announced trailer, which I wonder if that's just a PlayStation announced trailer or what the context is there. But yeah, that's the context for that. Is there any place people want to start? Should we just go from the top here? Take it from the top.

Take it from the top, Tim. Concord, everybody. We got a very, very, very long cinematic trailer that I understand why they did it. They wanted to set the tone of the world. They really wanted to get the vibe across of these characters. But then when you see what the actual game is,

and it's like, oh man, this really feels like it's tearing at its own self. And I heard Greg and Mike talking about, like, Mike's going to just skip all the cinematics. They're talking about doing weekly cinematics. this, which I think is great to actually make you care about the characters. We've seen that with Overwatch before and how well it works. But there's something about this.

I'm like, I don't know if it's quite going to work. What do you think, Greg? I don't know. And I will be fascinated to see. If I was a betting man because of how hard these kind of games are to find an audience, et cetera, and so on, I would say it won't work. But I also am talking a little bit out of my ass as someone who is just not drawn to a 5V5 FPS, right?

In the same way, I wasn't drawn to Overwatch. but where I'd like to start going on on a limb and getting the panel of experts is that Overwatch was always lauded for its cinematics and its storybuilding and here's May and here's this but that was stuff they put like on the internet It was on YouTube.

Yeah, it wasn't in the game. I feel as the story horror, the person who watches that and goes, man, I'd love to play this game of them doing a heist and then I see this and I go, there's not a chance I'm touching this. I assume Mike, you're legitimately going to skip these cutscenes

and not care. Oh, yeah. After probably the second or third one, you'll skip this. That's usually what happens in Call of Duty nowadays. They have these story campaign new seasons that they want to show you, and I just immediately hit start. And we weren't obviously super chats from those watching on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games.

I want to know if you're going to be playing it, if you're going to be watching this. Blessing, are you, you fall in with me all the time of a narrative and a story, but you also do shooters like this. Would you find yourself, you think, actually watching this? No, I'm the same with Mike where, for me it's Apex, where every new season, when you,

Fortnite, you think does this too. Every new season, when you click in, there's always like some kind of cool cinematic. And for me, as somebody who's usually

like a returning player to Apex, I'm like just jumping in for a match or two. It's always, I'm pressing skip. So, like the challenge here is going to be,

I think, early on getting people actually invested in what's going on in the world in the story. And it seems like they're really trying here. Like,

I think they're choosing this aesthetic for a reason. They're choosing to go the gardens of the galaxy route for a reason. They want people to like the characters. They want people to have that be a factor that gets them in just like

Overwatch does. I think it's a tall order and I think that's one of the reasons why, yeah, for Overwatch, they put that stuff out on YouTube because the animations are super duper quality and people love those. Like, I still remember some of my favorite Overwatch Cinematics, right? Cavalries here. Yeah. Oh my God. Like fucking

Hanzo, the Hanzo's one and then I think there's also one with May. But like, yeah, I think that is a going to be a tall order. I don't know how long they're going to be able to sustain that for as well. Like, did they say weekly? Like, was that the whole thing? I don't know how long you can do that for that. That's what's interesting,

because like the cinematic looked amazing, fidelity-wise. And imagining doing that week after week, I'm like, how long could that possibly last? But also, there was something, and the longer we watched it,

the more I noticed it, the lip sync seemed very off. And I wonder if that is some type of like, not procedurally generated, but like some AI-assisted thing to like allow them to be able to make these things faster. Yeah.

Which not, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it did kind of like feel a little bit off to me. I noticed that in a couple of the trailers, actually. So I don't know if that's just maybe the show. Yeah, Monster Hunter Lipsink was bad too. Something in the edit.

Maybe this is too earlier. It's just not funny. But that's also, isn't that usually the style of the Monster Hunter games? I don't feel like that bad. I don't know. Because I feel like if I remember correctly, Monster Hunter games are lip synced to the Japanese dub, not to the English one. Oh, that makes more sense.

Let me bring you to this Concord thing about the descriptions. I'm reading from the PlayStation blog. Alongside getting to another crew of the North Star through gameplay, you'll also have an opportunity to see their stories unfold through cinematic vignettes that will premiere in game starting week. weekly from launch. Weekly. Weekly.

Yeah, weekly. These brief cinematic vignettes will feature ongoing narrative arcs that grow the character's stories, relationships, and unpack the broader Concord Galaxy as life as a free gunner. Here's the thing.

Go for now. Well, I was going to say, like, when I play Overwatch, it's like I fall in love with the character that I really like and I play it on regular and then it's like more, the more I play the characters, the more I'm invested in their story

and their backstory. So it'll all come down to that for me. I think, yeah. But I think weekly, that's a little, I think they should maybe tone it down a bit, like, do it once a month or like every now and then. This is one of the things that we won't know until we get our hands on the controllers,

but it is how much banter is there between characters at the start of a match? Is there a unique banter between the match? Within the match. Yeah, within the match, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think the more that you can involve that stuff in the game, the more you start to build that relationship between the characters and then also the relationship with the player in the characters

and get people invested with, yeah, what's going on in the field in those relationships. I think the cinematics, I think is a cool idea, but it just doesn't sound feasible. Yeah, my thing there you get to, how long can that last? Yeah, you know what I mean? So here's why I'm interested in this is that it is such a great idea. And I think we all agree with that. We're all just like so rushing to it's not going to work.

And I don't think it's going to work. But just reflecting on hell divers and what it has done and it working the last couple months so well, I feel like there might be something with PlayStation, if they position this as a big PlayStation Studios title of maybe they can get enough people that are tuning in week after week for, let's say season one, which might just be six weeks or something like that, and then it turns into a monthly thing

or even a quarterly thing or something like that. That would make more sense. It could be interesting. I think it is a very tall task for them, and I don't think that they're going to be able to pull it off, but I'm rooting for them too. Of course. Like that could be great to see something like that work.

It's just, man, that's going to be tough. It just seems like we've seen shit like this so often. And, you know, you could go to Avengers, right, which has its own set of problems, but, you know, hey, we're doing the big things and there are these big drops and it's Hawkeye and there's a cutscene. And then, all right, now it's animatics. All right, now it's a comic book cut scene that has voiceovers. You know what I mean?

Like, all right, now it's fucking Spider-Man DLC and it's just, you know, episode two is a bulletin board where he talks over. It's like, I feel like that's what you would see on the return because I don't think. And again, I hope I'm wrong. Yeah. I think the audience that would be coming back to this day after day, week after week, month after month, is just going to want to play. Yeah. And so I think they're going to get in there. now you're seeing that you're seeing people are skipping all the cutscenes so you stop putting

as much time into it you start doing this thing. Maybe you're just doing the quarterly dumps, but even then, are you maintaining a player base and an interest in that level of character building that you need to go do that? Now, here's an interesting thing. Day and date, PS5 and PC. I think that's going to be big for this, right? And if they're kind of treating it with a narrative lore and stuff that we expect from a PlayStation Studios game, but it's in a multiplayer shooter, it's, I just feel like there is more juice there than, than, normal. I want to bring in a couple. Okay, I want to mention to that. I think

the gameplay versus story aspect of it, I think is interesting because I almost wish that for this presentation, they would focus way more on the gameplay stuff, right? Like Mike, the talking earlier about how, yeah, they didn't really talk about modes, they didn't really give any, like, deep dive stuff. They just showed us the gameplay and kind of went on to the next thing.

I wish they took some of the story stuff and focused way more on that. Because what I'm thinking, what I'm realizing as we're talking about this is, for the competitive shooters that do have that, like, you know, fan investment into their characters and their stories. Usually, at least for me, that stuff has kind of happened by accident. Because you want to be there, bless.

Yeah, it was like, I'm there every single day and every week and I want to be there. Like Naomi said, I fell in love with these characters. I fell in love with Overwatch characters because I just happened to be playing Overwatch week after week or day after day and I was like, man, I like this. Apex is another one where Apex had zero marketing the weeks leading up to it. That game surprised dropped. I started playing it. I was like, man, I like this gameplay.

And then a week later, I was like, you know, I was quoting lifeline, voice lines from that game and falling in love with the characters. I think it's an interesting move to go, hey, for this 5V5 competitive shooter, we're going to lead off with the story. We're going to lead off talking about how we're going to have these weekly cinematics. I don't think that that is the right move.

I think I can understand that they want that to be the drawl, and I think it should be a drawl, but I think with that, it should be more show-don't-tell on that side. You know, who tried to tell a story through multiplayer, Tim, Halo Infinite. And that story got lost real quick. And here's the issue with this is, every single week if we are supposed to come back

and hopefully get a story drop, the moment you get a 30 second story, and you go, well, that wasn't worth my time. And then the next week, Naomi misses it. I go, man, it was a two-minute story about your favorite character was crazy, and she's like, I missed that. Like, that sucks. Like, you just start losing the threat of the plot here. They have to live somewhere else.

Yeah, and it's about gameplay always. And you brought it up to him. PC and PS5, that's great. But you better have three letters with that. Free to play. Like, you chatter is very interesting. Because I'm telling you, it's not going to work. And it doesn't seem like it's going to be. We have Street Shadow writing in here saying, not sure

if it was noticed by you all, but it looks like the Concord pre-order gives four beta keys to play with your friends. Pretty smart play with them. That is smart. But also, like, so yeah, it is, Greg, can you kind of try to see if there's info on pricing? I've been looking. I have no pricing that I can find. Tell me, ladies gentlemen, if I'm wrong, it's come or else.

But the blog does not talk about pricing. It has to be a PS Plus drop. Like, if it's not free to play, which it should be free to play, I agree with Mike there. If it's not, it's got to be a PS Plus extra. Just looking through a couple more super chats about Concord here. Kabob saying I'd play it if it was linear and single player. I mean, me too, but even then, I don't know.

It has a cool vibe. What it should have done is that market is oversaturated and you're not going up against the big dogs, which is Call of Duty. It's tough to make some elbow room. You got to take that idea of these cool cast of characters, these outlaws, these bandits, and make it fun, make it different.

That's why I brought up Deceive Inc. You have multiple teams of three that are doing a social deduble. first person shooter trying to blend in and do stuff, right? Have a heist mode like that, steal that idea of like, hey, there's four teams of three. Let's make this unique. Let's make it different in this cool Assassin's Creed, hide-and-seek type vibe with these awesome sci-fi characters.

You would have had that. But doing it as a team arena, no, I already got 12 of those. You're not making waves. We got a couple more here. ESForge says, I really need someone kind of funny to play Destiny. so they actually understand the formula Concord's going for. I like playing Destiny free to play.

Or not free to play, Destiny PvP. I don't understand the context that they're talking about in terms of... Yeah, because isn't Concord an arena shooter? PVP? Yeah, 5 and 5. Yeah. Like, Destiny has a mode that is like an arena and PVP style thing.

But Destiny is also just so much more that I don't know if that's an app comparison that they're making. And then we'll get to some... Oh, no, no. Sam Cinell says, I'm a huge Overwatch fan and we'll check it out, but not being free to play means all.

have no friends to play with. It might be dead on arrival. A lot of interesting things here. So we'll have to see how this plays out. But let's talk about release date on that. Are you guys surprised at all? Beta July, release date, August?

No. Right. Betas are glorified demos at this point. No one's actually, very rarely are people abating to stress test, this, that thing, blah, blah, blah. And again, a lot of things would have to go extremely right for Concord,

I think, to have to worry about like stress testing the servers and this, that, the other. This price point's got to be perfect. It's got to be PlayStation. Plus, what does that mean for PC? Like, there's technical hurdles and everything else, but I do think PlayStation's had enough tastes with hell divers. And obviously the success that saw that I don't think this will have in the exact same way,

let alone then having Destiny and Bungy on board. And Herman was talking yesterday, right, and his financial briefing your piece interview about how Bungy has given them so much stuff. It's nice to see them deliver on this, right? This was the conversation we had this week where we went back and watched, oh, yeah, this is supposed to be a 2024 game. And here it is. It actually looks like it's delivering on time on schedule.

And that's where my surprise comes in, August. Like it went from me yesterday being like, I don't know. If it's even going to be 2024. And I was like, oh, shit, it is months away. Like I'm pretty surprised. What about you, bless? Yeah. No, I mean, this was my expectation, right?

Like, it gets lost because, again, they've done not a great job of identifying these games and making them seem distinct. But it was the thing where I remember reading reports on KHG about, I think it was Marathon that was getting pushed to 2025. And so I think like, we all. thought that like oh yeah none of this shit's coming on 2024 but concord as of two weeks ago they kept like doubling down on 2024 and so I expected this I think it is not like super interesting but I do like I do want to point out that it's August 24th and Astrobot comes out like a week

and a half later or like about maybe almost two weeks later sometime or six and so you're getting two PlayStation first party things coming out that close to each other I think those are the PlayStation first party things coming out this fall along with until dawn but yeah interesting of those is coming out that close to each other but it's the right right time. You avoid the big holiday first person releases, Call of Duty, of course, we talk about. You hit in the summer months where it's still a little dry and you're looking for that

new game to play before you go to school or something to pick up that summer. But, you know, if I was a businessman, I might be that Marvel rivals guy that's like, hey, our beta now extends through late July and August, and I would eat that crowd up, you know. So that's something I would be doing. Yeah. I agree.

It also means just to see what Concord gets, if anything, at SGF. So, pre-orders open on the sixth, according to the trailer. That's the Thursday before SGF's 7th. So is that their final thing? I'm just like, hey, pre-orders open, which I guess would technically reveal the price.

And tomorrow we're selling you on it. SGF has something to do it. Are they, could it be a PlayStation announcement at SGF that is, hey, pre-orders open, but it is PlayStation Plus, I thought you want to do that, though. That would fuck it up. I'm fascinated. Again, as just an outside observer,

as somebody who watches the industry and reports on it and talks about it all the time. I'm very sure to see what price do you put on this? What do you do with PlayStation Plus? How do you make people care about this thing? Yeah. Moving on. Next up, we got God of War Ragnarok coming to PC.

Not a surprise, but I love to see it. I feel like this is continuing the trend of them making good decisions of putting these amazing games on places more people can play them, adding all the right tech stuff that you would want, the Super Ultra Wide, all that stuff. I hope it works. I hope it runs.

We'll see all that stuff. It won't. Just a heads up. Okay. I'm great. I hope it does. But anyways, one of the best games ever. So having more people get to play. You know, again, the only thing I have to say outside of the character, even, it will be interesting what the numbers this puts up.

With this being, you have to use your PSN. This is a single player game. This is not something you are playing multiplayer with, but they have said in the blog post, you need to sign in with your PlayStation Network account to do this. So even in our super chats right now, collecting dust. says, none of these games are going to make me forgive Sony for hell divers, and I will not be making an account for any of this. Then to their credit, Super Chats again to say,

still hot for PC PlayStation VR2 though. Which they didn't talk about. No, of course. They just straight up didn't talk about. We'll get to the VR stuff later, but whowsers, everybody. Moving on to Dynasty Warriors origins coming 2025. Mike, what? Did I see it?

You know what I mean? I felt it. I was like, man, Dynasty Warriors. What a great game. I really can't believe this. This is wild. You know, there's blessing said, Mike, there's like a thousand of these games as someone who fell off them back in the PS2 cycle back in the day.

I'm excited. This is cool. I've been playing One Piece Pirate Warriors. And so it is one piece, but Dynasty Warriors. And I love being in that universe. How will I feel jumping back into actual Dynasty Warriors? Yeah, I'm pretty jazzed up about this.

This is cool. My takeaway from this is I like the colors a lot. There's a lot of white grass, which is cool. I love green here. We've got the big yellow. Look at that. That looks dope as shit. But yeah, mindless fun.

You know what I mean? I feel like these Warriors games are a dime a dozen. Like, they're so many of them. Yeah, they don't make it enough. Don't worry audience. I'm going to review this for you when it comes out because I can't wait to play it. I was on TikTok the other day. And like I get a lot of TikTok lives of people just playing like older games.

And I saw somebody playing PS2 Dynasty Warriors. I think that might have been. I'm sure I've seen PS3 Dynasty Warriors gameplay. whatever, but having that PS2 one being the freshest one in my mind and seeing this one, I'm like, we've come a long way. We've come a long way. We've come a long way. No, very, very cool stuff.

Moving on from that, we got Infinity Nico. Nicky. Nikki. I put, I misspelled this so wrong. I wrote Infinity Nolo and I just had to guess what I got wrong. The O's rise and the case is where those cases. It's going to be one of the Getsian impacts. The headline on the PlayStation blog I love, Infinity,

Nicky. Nikki. An open world dress-up adventure is coming to PlayStation 5. Yeah. So Infinity Nikki is, I believe, in Chad, you can correct me because I'm going to butcher this. I believe this is, yeah, based off it of like a mobile franchise that is like a dress-up sort of game that blew up and has millions and millions people playing free play. Hence the emphasis on the outfits.

The poses. Exactly. And so they're basically making this AAA open world super in-depth video game that is going to be, I'm sure, way more than just dressing up as we can see from the thing. But yeah, when I say it's going to be one of them, Genshin-Impacts. I mean, it's going to be like, basically when Sega talks about a super game, it's going to be one of the ones where everybody's playing it. You're going to see the advertisements on the side of buses and shit.

And you're going to be like, what the fuck is this Infinity Nikki thing? But everybody's going to be playing it. Have you heard of Nicky? Developed by InFold Games, the Nicki series is a collection of dress-up games that's evolved over the course of 12 years. Nikki has grown alongside our fans. And with East Generation, we aim to elevate our technology and expand our scope. We constantly push ourselves to enhance the series quality. In this fifth installment, Infinity Nikki,

We merge dress up gameplay with the open world genre, allowing Nikki to explore by using the special abilities of different outfits in a warm, delightful world. This can enrich players' gaming experience and spice up their life. This game's going to bang somewhere. I will be there, day one. People are going to be all about this.

I can't wait to see it. Yeah, those outfits are beautiful. It's so cute. It's so cute. And it just seems light and silly fun. When you have some free time for the rest of this week, just look up some Infinity Nikki gameplay. It would just be really.

fucking blown away because this shit looks insane the dresses are just so pretty we had a hard hard left turn after that to Ballet of Antara yeah definitely one of those like oh here's this like colorful cutesy thing and all of a sudden it's just like yo here's this like dark ass hell

motherfucking thing uh does do anything for anyone I'm so remembering what this is really pretty um it's one that's like soul's like right uh I really liked the gameplay I thought it was cool I don't know if I'll check it out um there's so many like this. I don't know. What do you feel?

I think this little creature looks cool. Yeah. The environments are cool. Not for me. I mean, I think it looks cool as hell, but I also just want to get my hands on the sticks and see how it feels to play because it seems so cinematic. Yeah. And almost the way where I'm like, how much of this is gameplay and how much of this is like Asura's Raff style? I'm tapping square to get the thing to happen. Yeah. Yeah, I can't wait for this. I'm excited about this. We've seen many souls like wannabes either hit or not hit. And so it has to look for me. I think this is something that if we showed Andy

Cortez, he'd be at the edge of his seat jazzed up about it. So for me, I can't wait to try it. For sure. You can say that. I think it is. Portland Kevin Super Chatsin says the bell ringing made me go Bloodborn 2. So I'm sorry. You got that. You got God on that one. After this, we got Skydances behemoth. This is one of the only PlayStation VR2 games that we saw. One of two. The shoutouts I want to give for this one, less show. Shout out some more just things I want to call out about this game. The quote, the poison in my veins begs me to kill. And the other quote,

the power of our God is immeasurable. This is coming up, fall 2024. To say one nice thing about it, the grapple hook pulling down the drawbridge, that looked kind of cool. I like the colossi-type creatures. They got big monsters. Well, not a silly little mouth, though.

You know what I mean? At one point he spun the blade or the sword, I forget. That was cool. Well, then you get stepped on by a giant. I think that was cool. Andy chopped that guy's head and half like a melon. That was cool. This is something, Tim, you know, I know we've been kind of down on the PSVR 2, but I want to try this.

I'm interested. If this could be PSVR 2's, Asgard's wrath, then that's a big deal, right? That gets people talking about your platform, your headset. This could be exciting. This one, and, I mean, the next game you're going to talk about with aliens. Come on, what a franchise to have on PSVR 2. You want to like, alien? Mike.

I love you. I do. I'm trying to open up. You're going to have out of this. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No, I do love Alien. I think it's a fun franchise.

Just a pro tip, when they show four seconds of game play, usually a, we'll hold on a second. Here's the deal. When we see it, we can talk about it, but the idea of having a PSVR 2 aliens should get you excited. Should, should, for you,

if you have a PSVR 2, you should go, thank God they have an IP and a cool title that could be coming my way. You should be excited about that, yes. Now, when we see the gameplay, a month later, then you can be the judge that. But can you also bear roll it back and remove our picture and picture? Because it doesn't even say, like, what does it say about the gameplay here? Is this not real gameplay?

Is this work in progress? This doesn't look good already. And this doesn't represent the final gameplay. Holiday 2024. Oh, yeah. I mean, so they have time. Not a good time. They have time.

They have time. I forget this. I don't know. Is this exclusive? I can't remember this exclusive or is this on Quest and everything else too? Oh, I don't know. I'll look into it. I wonder.

Alien rogue. I thought it looked cool. Yeah, I'm like, I love VR is in like in a scary environment is what sells me on VR. Everything else I'm kind of not interested in. Again, PlayStation VR2, MetaQuest 3 and Steam. So don't worry. No reason to pick up a PlayStation VR2.

Your headset's dead. You know, I don't know. It just looked dark. It looked like an, like I loved alien isolation. I don't know. I think it could be interesting. It would be something that I would want to check out because it's alien and I like the movies. And yeah, I just, I didn't hate it.

I didn't think it looked at all. Like, I preferred that over the other one. To be fair, everything you're saying is 100% justified. It's not, and I don't hate it. I'm just like, ooh, the antenna go up is all I'm saying in terms of like, I'm not like, oh, yeah, must be. But then you'll be in there. You'll get a jump scare. Then you'll get it.

This is just not what PSVR 2 needs right now. Like, it needs a little something more than this. More juicy? Now, let's talk about this. this two PSVR 2 games. They promoted this thing as they're talking about PS5 games and PSVR2 games. Y'all PSVR 2 is

cooked. It is done. Like, we are so over this. Like, they didn't even talk about the sale, Greg. No. At the end? I know. They showed it. They showed PlayStation VR for a second there.

Oh, man. I am honestly pretty surprised at what we saw from PSVR2 at this. I was expecting a lot more. This was. So much less than I even expected. Even if what I expected was just giving me shovelware, just a lot more stuff. Like, I can't believe that it was this.

I will say this, I think this is a better showing than last time, right? Because like, I keep forgetting the name of the game that I dunked on. But like, I think to the shovelware thing, I do think that between aliens and then what's the other? Skydance is behemoth. I do think that those are two games that they either believe in or to Mike's point, like there's IP power there. Yeah. And so it doesn't feel like it is. just put fucking kayak VR on, no offense

of kayak VR, even though Kayak VR made me throw up. But it may be dizzy. But like, let's not just shovel fucking, you know, fucking whatever on there. I think Behemoth seems like it could actually be a special VR game. It's from the Saints and Sinners people. If I remember correctly. So like, automatically that puts it

in a place of, oh, okay, that's probably going to be pretty good. And then, yeah, it's alien. Mike likes alien. It's a franchise. We all like it. We all like it. Let's not start. These are not alien. Like you said, either the console's dead or we got to look. at and be like they're trying.

They got to bring these big names on here. But I mean, are those two titles going, man, I got to have a PSVR headset this holiday season? No. But I don't think there's anything that could do that. But they're trying. Yeah. What, what, nothing? Like, no other PlayStation IPs.

Like, I mean, if they were, I think, Astrobot, I don't know. That's the thing. Again, if PlayStation wanted to sell PlayStation VR2, which they do not, they would be saying, all right, we are making a God of War game. We are making an uncharted game. We are making a last of us game.

We are committed and we are putting our biggest franchises on it, not going, hey, there's an alien thing. It's coming everywhere else too. Dead. Yeah. Yeah. And the Skydance thing, you know, Skydance is like, oh, that could mean something. The Saints and Sinners and all that stuff.

There could be something cool here. And I think Skydance, I think narrative. I think, oh, there's going to be something. And the writing is those lines that I read. Yeah. I don't know, man. I think we're giving that a little too much credit. Or maybe it was the voice acting.

That was it a lot. Potentially. Because you could deliver it a different way. What was the poison line again? The poison in my vein. Baines begs me to kill. It just doesn't. Yeah.

It was ridiculous. There's never giving that one, to be honest. And again, the same thing to be clear, this is not exclusive. This is a PlayStation VR, a MetaQuest and Steam VR.

Oh, that one's a behemoth? Yeah. Oh, that's the thing. That's where we're at. And I mean, this is where we are at with VR. And I know I'm just going to make people more angry that love the PlayStation VR2 and come at me a blessing. It's just like PlayStation VR2 has the worst,

the worst pitch for buying it. Like, there's just, why? Why would you do this when the MetaQuest 3 does everything else and does more and is wireless? Like, what are you talking about? And so when it is that PlayStation, the people who make the fucking unit are not making exclusive experiences with their biggest IP proving that they're behind it. Why would you ever believe in this? Again, that's why I think they're doing the PC adapter. But that's the thing. It's like everything you just said, Greg, is so true. But like what are they doing then to sell these things? They're adding the PC stuff. didn't even talk about that.

What are we talking about here? I mean, not ready again, right? Like, what we had was what the South Korean rating or approval of that thing? Like, it's coming, but it's not there yet. And again, like, whatever. I don't, you know, it's just them doing another way, I think, to get the hardware out and be done with it. Now you start going, cool, do we ever hear about PlayStation VR2 at a state of play again? I mean, I was surprised you're going to hear about it at this one.

And everyone's just like, oh, Tim's crazy. Why would they not talk about it? I'm like, well, they barely fucking talked about it. also we'll have to do you think we'll see it again? At a state of play? Mm-hmm. I mean, I give him one more. I give him one more.

Yeah, and it'll be like this. It won't be anything special. Yeah. Naomi? I'm same boat, I think. Yeah, I think you're right. I'll go out and say no, you don't. I think 2024 is the last year.

We hear PlayStation uttered the words PSVR 2. That's fair. I'll give them. I think by the end of the year, they're going to be like, right, cool, we've done our thing. Maybe a new iteration. A PSVR. Javan attacks.

I mean, PSVR 2 is a great piece of hardware, but media never wants to give it the time of day. I want PlayStation to give it the time of day. This is not my fucking fault. When we read through the exclusive lineup of games for PlayStation VR2, and there was what? I would say it was maybe seven, but it was less than 10 by a long shot.

Like, PlayStation doesn't care about this thing. It's not me. It's not me sitting here saying, yo, support this thing, get behind it. And I know you want to be mad at me. I know there are great games on PlayStation VR2. But my argument is that those great games are on the MetaQuest 3, which is a better system for playing these things wirelessly for a cheaper price point.

Like we're talking about its competitors here and what PlayStation is doing with it. And they are doing nothing with it, which is fine. If they want to be done with it, be done with it. I don't care. But it's this thing where it's a media. We're not supporting it. No, we're trying. I'm just pointing out the facts that they are doing a dog shit job of making you want to buy it.

They're doing a dog shit job of supporting it and making it be an actual thing. Anybody should be investing their money in. Collecting Dust Rites in and says PCPSVR is cheap compared to the other wide field of view. OLED eye tracking PC headsets on the market. And all of them are years old now. If you're into PCVR, this $600 headset should at least be on your radar. Bless, what do you have to say? Well, I was going to say too.

Greg mentioned metaQuest being the better system. And specifically, I just want to call it. It being wireless and it being cheaper. Not necessarily being hardware. Quality, of course, I'd track you for PlayStation. We love the hardware of PlayStation VR2. We've talked about that.

We think it's very, very cool. I just don't have anything to play on it. And back to the point of what you're talking about, right? Like, with all due respect, I don't think most VR games are making the best use of their graphics and fidelity where I would be like, well, I'm going to put $600 into it. MediQuest 3, I think, is the one I would tell you to get if you really wanted it, because it does everything good enough.

And then it excels. certain aspects of VR. Amen, everybody. We're going to keep talking about the latter half of this presentation, the final seven games right after a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you

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Marvel Rivals is the next game shown off. We got a Scarlet Spider costume exclusive for PS5. We got a closed beta announcement. And then also we got Venom being shown off as a character as well. Mike, you're my Marvel Rival brother in arms.

Naomi, have you played Marvel Rivals? I haven't played it yet. Oh my goodness. So jealous you guys got to play. Well, you like Overwatch. I know. I need to get on it. You're going to like this.

And Adam Warlock. We haven't seen him, right? Venom and Adam Warlock. for the cool things to announce here shown. Venom looks cool. Look at that. Mike, just too much for you? Yes.

Yes, this is very exciting. For console fans out there that now have the answer, it's coming your way, which is very exciting to me. I hope this has full crossplay capabilities, of course, to give it a good longevity and a big player base. But for you and I, we had a ton of fun with this game, Bless. And I really, really liked what I saw. Someone who loved Overwatch back in 2015 has been on the ride for that life cycle in and out.

And, you know, I want to say probably falling out of love with it a lot more than I did love it. This gave me something where it's like, oh, I would jump right back into an Overwatch-like game in a heartbeat. And I think it was just because of the Marvel characters. And this casting crew, they all play very well. We had the joke of like, it's Overwatch, ladies and gentlemen. Like, trust me, when you play these characters, you're going to say, oh, that's Tracer. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

That's whatever. They play just like that. They share a lot of abilities. The maps look the same. move the payload. All these game modes were the same. It is identical to Overwatch, which is very interesting. Naomi, do you concur? Are you excited for Marvel Rebels?

Yes. Yeah, I'm going to be... That's definitely like one of the ones I'm going to be trying out. I like playing those types of games on console and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's really up my alley. It's really colorful. It's Marvel. I mean, I love all those characters. So, yeah, I'm just... Give me more Overwatch-style stuff.

And hopefully some of my friends jump on, too, so I'm not alone playing it. Yeah. I really like this showing. I wasn't expecting Venom to be the first thing that popped up. And so as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, shit, I do not remember Venom being playable. So I think that's super cool. And yeah, hearing that is coming to console, it excites me because I'm somebody who I prefer console. For those types of games.

Yeah. When I'm on PC, I'm just getting dunked on because I do not have the mouse and keyboard flexibility. Same as that for me. Yeah, I really like the showing for this one. Yeah, me too. I think it's a big win. I think having Marvel rivals here presented this way, I feel rivals is one of those weird games that yes, absolutely, it just looks like a clone rip off of Overwatch.

There are many worse games to rip off than Overwatch. So it's like I get that. You add the Marvel property. It seems like it's really giving a lot of care to that stuff, the different team-up abilities, them giving new information, which is always something I'm looking for with games you already know about, at showcases, the venom stuff, all that's cool. It come in a console, big deal. Not the biggest surprise, but also not a guarantee.

So I feel like it's kind of cool that this game is being presented this way because I forget who's making this one. Net ease, right? And it's like you, that to me, and this is definitely my bias showing, but I hear that, I'm like, ah, this game's not a big one. It's just another game coming out. But being presented in the state of play,

this way I'm like, hey, this actually gives them, I think, a little bit more panache. And I'm proud of this one. My big hope is that it does spark competition. Like, I hope it's good enough at launch to where Overwatch is like, ah, shit, all right, we got to lock in

because somebody's trying to come through and eat into our fan base. I know people would talk about that with Power Rolls in Pokemon and every time I read that I was like, ah, it's two different things. I don't think that's a big thing. Here I'm like, yeah, dude, playing Marvel Rivals brought me back. Like, I felt like I was playing his tracer when I was playing a Star Lord. I felt like I was playing his divo when I was playing as Hulk, right? Like, they, they are making that thing. And you do not see many other people making Overwatch, at least at that level, with that level

of quality, with that level of IP. And Marvel Rival seems like it has the best chance to actually like do something in that space. So I hope that, I hope this really does shake things up. I agree. Question is somebody who hasn't played it and again probably won't, like just looking at it's not my jam and not what I'd like to do. In the beta, the test, have they done story cutscenes? Like, you know, we're talking about Concord at the top of the show,

right, and how, oh, this is a weird mix and yada, yada, yada. Is there a story to rivals? How are they infusing that? Or is it no, just go out and be Magneto? I didn't see any cutscene when I jumped in. No, we jumped right in. I don't think there was. Yeah, I don't think they had any of that stuff present. I don't know if they're going to have much of that stuff.

Like, it is a multiverse type scenario and the missions have been oh you're going to transport i keep forgetting the name of the spider character but there's like a multiversal spider character they're going to try to transport peter parker no it's not peter parker um peter b parker somebody in chat will say it's like spider echo or something shit like that uh but you're transporting this character to the end of the level and then everything explodes and so it's like all right cool like this doesn't feel madam web somebody's saying madam webb might have been there you can't remember madam webb the number one film on net oh god my bad um but yeah i don't get the vibe

that you're going to get overwatch levels of cinematics and unique story stuff. And I don't think you need it, right? Because it's just heroes and action figure slamming into each other. And we know those characters through and through and you know their narratives.

They would have to add new story and new voice actors. Well, actually, how is the environmental stuff in that game? Well, so it's cool about the environmental stuff. I don't know if you know this, Greg. It's all incursion based. So the levels are like mixes of two things together.

Cool. Like, so it's Asgard and. Something else. It was a lot like PlayStation. It was a good game. Patapon and Hades. Never forget. Yeah, it was a good time, good stuff.

Okay, interesting. Yeah, the voice actor stood out, even that short thing. I heard Nolan doing Rocket Raccoon. Like, you know, you're seeing the people in the voices. I think we heard, or has already announced that Yuri Spider-Man in there? Oh.

That was definitely Yuri. Like, there's no way that wasn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you get the banter, the back and forth, you think it works? Yeah. It's similar or as good? I really like Overwatch because it's, like, very wholesome.

I don't know. You just love the characters. I didn't play enough to get a lot of the back and forth, but I noticed some of it there. And I, like, Iron Man sounded like Iron Man. You know, there was a level of, oh, this is almost Robert Downey Jr. That's talking right now. Yeah.

Oh, that's cool. Okay. And yeah, there's the environmental destruction stuff. I know Mike said he wasn't as big of a fan of it. I like the environmental destruction stuff. I wish it stayed a little bit longer. It seems to kind of respawn itself and be back into place a little too quick for my liking where I was, I was knocked off of a building's ledge and I fell down.

And then I felt like I was shooting and it brought me right back up and kind of freaked out of like where I should be because it was trying to rebuild. So I'd like to see a little more of like the evolution of battlefield where if you drop the bridge, it does stay down for an extended period of time. If it needs to come back, that's fine. But a little bit longer. I hope they go hard with that because that is one of the things that separates it from. Yeah, it was cool. That is the thing that to me is like, okay, I want to try just to try to see if I like that kind of gameplay element. And then the team up abilities as well, right?

Like there's some synergy to all this of like before you pick a hero. Of course, you can change in the middle of the game of like, if you choose Rackard Raccoon and I choose the Punisher, Rocket will give the Punisher unlimited ammo so he can just keep going. Or Brute and Rocket will team up. So you have different team ups you can do. A lot of team comp stuff. That's cool. Worth pointing out just for clarity,

it is confirmed in a press release in my inbox. And of course, this is coming to PC. PlayStation as was announced and Xbox Series X and S. No switch. Crossplay. Is that a thing? Could be interesting. Could be good for a game like this.

Could be good, everybody. Next up we have Where Wins Meet coming to PS5. Oh yeah. Dope as hell. That looks pretty. That was really pretty. This is another one. I want to feel it.

I want to know what we're dealing with here. Bless, just from the limited bit that you know of this or whatever, what do you think this is? Do you think that it is just like a pure one-on-one type boss fight situation? Or do you think that it is more of either a Soulslike type game where there is like more traversal and stuff in between? I mean, I do not have a good read on it, right? like even the first trailer, whatever show we saw,

whatever gamescom that was, I barely remember it. I just remember it being like an action thing. Yeah, all the stuff we're seeing in this trailer is all boss stuff, right? Like there wasn't any exploration or any like... Open world. God, people are saying it's open world. No! God damn it.

That kills my hype for this entirely. I mean, listen, it works for me. I think the feeling I think I remember having is like, oh man, yeah, this looks like another ghost of Tsushima style game. That's what I was going to say. Doesn't it add to that a little bit? Yeah. the fact that, you know, we're waiting for the next one. So maybe this will be a little something to, I don't know, play something else of that nature.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm into it because I really like the genre of dude with sword. Yeah, yeah. You know, fighting in an open world. And we've been getting that a lot lately. And I'm down for another one of those. And if the story's good. Yeah, this one for me just kind of gets lost in the mix of all of these games that start

to blend and look the same, right? I think the Ballad of Antara did stand out with its art style. This one, it's like, oh, man, we've had a lot of these Souls-like games. the Ninja Samarize where it's like it just kind of all blends. And if you don't really stand out, this one didn't jump out to me on this announcement trailer. I think it looked more,

it stood out to me more than some of the other obscure games that we saw. We got next up then, until dawn, fall 2024, PS5 and PC. Like I said earlier, no remastered in the title. I'm surprised there's no actual release date for this one. If they're talking about fall here, with what this is, I would have expected that. but I already talked about this.

Anyone else have anything to say? I'm excited to get back into the world. Yeah, I loved the game the first time around. I'm not championed the bit to play again. I think I probably will. I'm sure I'll turn it on at some point to check it out, but I doubt I'm going to jump back in for another full play-through. They're not only just saying open world.

They're saying sandbox. They're saying all the non-tip words here. Cool. Cool. Very much. That's not what that trailer looked like at all. They're just throwing off combat. And let me tell you, that combat looks fun.

I'm into it. We got Silent Hill 2 coming October 8th, 2024. There's also a Silent Hill 2, like deep dive direct thing happening, I think right now, if people wanted to check that out as well. That would not be me, though. This didn't look that great. Yeah. I mean, I agree.

Yeah, it's like as somebody who I played Silent Hill 2 and don't, and have fond enough survival horror memories of it. it and my memory being I barely remember playing it. It's another one as a horror fan I want to turn on and I want to jump into. Again, getting into a horror game, I think is far different than watching a cutscene. I'm like, what's wrong those fucking dudes? You know what I mean? Like, I'm going to get in there.

It's going to be creepy and it's going to be visceral as I stomp on heads and run from the faceless nurse or whatever. I'll be fine. But yeah, something still looks weird. Silent Hill 2 is the one. So, yeah. I just feel like it's tough to be coming out in a horror remake world and look like that when Resident Evil 2

looked the way it did. 100%. 100%. Then we got Monster Hunter Wilds. 2025 is the penultimate game here. Love that a big game like this is shown. I am just a little let down that there wasn't really something new here for it

because it kind of just feels like placement for placement. And you mean new in terms of like a giant new feature because I know Monster Hunter fans like, oh, that's a new monster. This is a new thing. The way your mount comes in and gets you, like the animation, the hair. Like there's a lot here for the Monster Hunter faithful, I think, to pick apart and be like, yeah, yeah, but not a giant

headline worthy. I just come from the camp that showcases should have, if you're going to show a game that you've already shown before, I want some new piece of information that usually would be like a new release window or a new release date or something that is, there's a beta now or something like that. Whereas like this, to me, would just fit more of like, yeah, just do a monster hunter thing yourself Capcom, you know? Sure.

I totally get it. I'm sure they will a few times. Oh, this means I'll see you at Jeff Keely to me. Oh, that too. When I saw this, it's like, okay, we're going to get the deep dive of Jeff Keeley's thing. We'll get more information there because this game is so big that, yeah, they're going to showcase this all summer long for sure. But look at that tongue. That's a big tongue.

Hold on. People are saying this is the first gameplay. Yeah, I take back everything that I'm saying. Okay. We've only had the teaser trailer before. I take it all back. This is a gameplay trailer. That's great.

Yeah. As a monster under fan and not a hard, hardcore monster under fan, I was like, oh, this is all I needed and stuff. And then you jump to the PlayStation blog. on what they're talking about, right, of like the changing environments being different in new, right? The believable ecosystem of monsters and how they're doing. They're talking about the mounts. There's a whole bunch of stuff that even though this isn't, I think, the most in your face, this is crazy, this is nuts.

If you're a fan and you wanted to see what's different about it, you'd find it. I'm just very impressed by it visually. Like, this is the first, I know Monster Hunter Rise came out, but that was like a switch thing first and then poured it to other platforms. So, like, the way I see this is as the first, like, current-gen Monster Hunter. title that's like actually utilizing the hardware and I can kind of tell like immediately looking at this from what

I've seen a Monster Hunter Worlds versus looking at this I'm like this looks gorgeous I like the way the fur moves I like seeing the weapons I like seeing the environments it all looks really cool to me any other Monster Hunter Wildest thoughts well here we go here we go everybody it's Astrobot time Bless take it away I'm so fucking excited

and they got the little fox guy I forget what we called this little guy but it's a robot Are you gonna buy one of those I'm sure they're produce some kind of toy some kind of physical figurine. I can't support the design of this guy and his stupid little friends, okay?

I hate you. I hate you. Tim doesn't like Astrobots like physical design. I just don't like the way it looks. It's the most generic like that this is the most nothing robot you've ever seen. I'm not alone. There are dozens of us. He's a madman. It's just one of those things that yeah, the dozen of Mario fanboys. You see

somebody finally doing something interesting in the space. You know what I mean? Coming for the crown from some stupid plumber. And Tim's got to find something to be mad about. He hates the color blue now, everybody. He hates blue and white. They made up me not like a blue robot. It's kind of fucking wild. But yeah, I think this looks fantastic. I mean, it looks exactly

what I'll say we expected. It is Astrobi rescue mission, but on an actual PS5 is a full thing. I think that lends itself to some of the exploration that we got out of Astros' playroom. It's fun seeing the abilities. That was one of the things that we've talked about to him as far as, what are you going to do to make areas feel unique?

What is going to, what is going to be like the gimmicks that keeps this thing like, you know, going forward in terms of what the pacing is and all that shit. It seems like, yeah, they're going to go hard with the abilities and finding new ways for Astrobot to interact. This is our marquee title. The one I think we're all universally in on. Can I read for a long time from the PlayStation's blog?

Because I have a lot of facts here. Before you do that, though, I want to bring in a super chat from a super chat. Jeff Grubbs game mess who just says Astro, Astro, Astro, Astro, Astro, and I'm right there with you. No, you're not. Take it away. You just said you hate him, okay? I just hate the design.

I love the game. We listened to your comments, and now Astro was back in a super size space adventure. his biggest to date. And in this brand new game, you will explore six galaxies and over 80 levels in search of Astro's scattered crew. Hold on tight to your dual speeder

and dive down to each unique planet from lush forests, sandy beaches, hot volcanoes, to more surprising location, such as a gigantic hourglass or the canopy of a singing tree. To get help on this mission,

Astro can use over 15 new abilities offering unique play styles. As you would expect from an Astro game, these take full advantage of the dual sense controller is haptic feedback and adaptive triggers so you can feel every little step along the journey. Among the many new powers you will find Barkster, the

Bulldog booster that lets you air dash and smash through enemies metal and glass. The twin frog gloves that offer long range punching and the ability to swing from the giant sponge that lets you suck up water from the environment to grow huge and cause massive parentheses and slightly moist destruction.

Combined with improved astro controls these new powers take the Astro platform experience to new heights while remaining accessible for all. We can't wait for you to do blah blah. We also cranked up the number of baddies, too, with over 70 new types, including massive bosses at the end of each galaxy. Special mention to the deadly Cobra Queen Lady Venomara, who appears in the trailer waiting for you in the Golden Thin.

Defeating each boss will uncover a wonderful secret, but we don't want to spoil that so our lips are sealed. And for you brave ones, craving even more challenge, the game comes packed with a die and retry levels to test your reflexes. But that's not all. During this epic adventure, Astro will reunite with many friends from the PlayStation universe. This trailer shows only

a few, but we double down on the cast and hope to delight every PlayStation fan out there. And who knows, maybe this time these characters will play an even bigger part in saving the day. Oh, that's fun. Wink. Sky cried 26 says it'll be better than Mario Wonder. I'm

putting it down the table right now. This game will be better than Mario Wonder. Thank you. But you hated Mario Wonder. I didn't Let's be honest. I hate it. Where is it on your Mario ranking? I don't know, but it's not number one. Exactly. It's cuter though.

Mario. I did not hate it. It was like, it was, it's up. It's high mid. He doesn't want to say that he hated it. Back to it. Two things of note, I think here at the end to get into, right. June 7th pre-orders open up for this one.

So, Jeff Keeley-Day. So maybe Astro shows up there and does something at SGF for the press conference. Let's talk about that. What would it be? If they're going to do that, there's going to be some big reveal. I think maybe they show one of these, like, I think you get into one of these. of these actual things where you're playing with a

Kratos or a drink or whoever, you know, what does that mean? Yeah. Or a bloodborn level. Then the other, it will not be a maybe slightly interesting, maybe not, just depending in who you are, they then show the boxed copy box art. So this isn't just a digital thing. This is a game that will be in stores. See, I was surprised

that they didn't have the price listed or like a pre-order page, but yeah, that being the case, we're going to learn the price soon. Is it possible that this is $70 because I'd be down if they wanted to double down and go, no, 80 levels, six worlds, they said, or six galaxies, We're confident in like the how jam packed of a package this is. We're selling it for 70 bucks.

I'd be like, yo, let's fucking go. Let's do it. Them calling it Astrobot gives me so much more faith in this as a product and their belief in Astrobot as an IP and caring about this stuff, all the PlayStation stuff. I hope this is $70. I hope that it is a $70 title that they are putting the content into and are going to back up the price for.

That would make me so happy. As a huge 3D platformer fan and we do not get enough amazing 3D platformers, Astro has the potential to be that for PlayStation. which is amazing. It can look this good, play with the tech that only PlayStation has. This looks like a better Star Fox game than we've gotten in 20 years.

Some would say ever. Can you go back to where they had the Shadow Colossus character? That was the one that was holding up the sword and the light shining off of it. I want to see if that seemed like just an emote kind of thing or if that light seemed like a mechanic. Because if so, I think that's really neat

if they're going to lean into, if you're using a Leviathan axe to do a thing or solid puzzle or if you're using like the light. to then, from the sword and shadow Colossus to then guide you to some objective or some collectible. If they do that, that's fucking dope.

I mean, all of this is crazy. The scene of them flying through all the PlayStation peripherals and consoles, like, God, this is so cool. And to your point, Tim, about like 3D platformers, this is game clouds and chat that says a $70 platformer not called Mario in 2024 seems crazy. And that's the thing that we're talking about. That's exactly it. Where it's like, yo, if you're going to step up

and have the confidence and go, wait, no, we believe in Team So we believe in Astrobat as a product. I hope this comes out and is able to compete with Mario. I hope he will play this game and go, you know what? Not only is it better

than Mario Wonder, it's fucking better than Mario Odyssey. I hope we're having that fucking conversation. Because I want more 3D platformers to be that good. And the music sounded so good.

That was really cool. Yeah, thank you for bringing this. Oh, they have that fucking, wait a lot. They have the horse in the background and they have the fucking girl that's fucking dead

from the game. It's everything I want. Let's fucking go. Oh, man. God. Mike, what do you think about this? Fantastic. You know me, Tim.

I can't wait. It's going to be a whole lot of fun. Colorful jumping around, just smiling the whole time. Can't wait. Yeah. Same. Yeah, this game's going to be a blast. And I'm glad you understand it'll be better than wonder.

Tim. You're a fan boy. Cating on Astros look. He looks great. He's got a cape. He just really doesn't. I don't need to keep talking about it. But, you know, this is one of those things.

The other dimensions stuff you're talking about? I cannot believe anybody could look at that guy and be like, that's a good design. for a flagship mascot robot. What are we talking about? Really? He's so Sony. He looks just like Sony to me. I think a Sony PlayStation, that's the mascot. I don't have that guy on like that.

That is embarrassing for Sony. He reminds me of the what's the like that robot dog that you would have in the 2000s? I literally said that. I'd literally talk about that yesterday. You're right. It looks like some cheap ass Walgreens toy. That thing was cute as shit. Who cares if it looked cheap? It was

cute. I should have made it Furby. Fuck you, Tim. Make it Furby, everybody. Naomi, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? You guys can find me on the internet. Just look up Naomi Kyle. But yeah, I have a radio show slash podcast that you can listen to. So be sure to, you know, look it up.

It's called This Week in Gaming. It's all the stuff you guys do, but just 20 minutes a week. A lot of people need that, so don't worry. It's like 10 minutes of news. And then we take a deeper dive with a guest every week. And yeah, it's audio only right now, but we're looking into a video format. It's available on my YouTube channel so you can sub there or just anywhere you get your podcasts. But yeah, that's the main thing I'm doing until other stuff comes along.

Stay tuned for other stuff as well. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah. Let's know in the comments below what you thought about all of this, what your favorite thing was, what your least favorite thing was, what you think about PlayStation VR too. I'm sure everybody has very civil, well-thought-out thoughts about that. But until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.