Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Grounded 2 Review (So Far) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Have your voice heard: ⁠https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfVpF8lnzYVfuF4S8TmpSahYI3fAYMw2h_qZRNTTy4sPL5oqw/viewform⁠ Go to ⁠http://factormeals.com/kindafunny50off⁠ and use code kindafunny50off to get 50 percent off plus FREE shipping on your first box Go to ⁠https://mood.com⁠ and use code KINDAFUNNY to get 20% off your first order. Enjoy this ad-free version! Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:02:00 - Housekeeping00:06:45 -Topic of the show: Grounded 200:27:00 - Ads00:29:45 - Superchats00:49:00 - Witchfire00:52:00 - He is coming00:54:00 - Dune Awekening00:57:50 - Wildgate00:58:00 - Jump Ship01:00:00 - Clutchtime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for July 29th, 2025. I am Andy Cortez, and I'm joined by the grass grabbing Greg Miller. I don't know what the fuck that means. Because you chop the grass down. You're picking up plant fibers. You're grabbing the grass. But not just, I mean, dry chunks, maybe. This guy's never put.

This guy's never put it. You got to get the grass. That's a plank, though. Again, I'm not just grabbing grass. I don't want. People can't come into this review and think you walk into ground or two. Grab grass. And he's start playing with us.

And the Scorpion Spear and Snow Bike, Mike. I do be Spear and Scorpion. That's true. I wanted to get him the way cooler. Last night, he wanted the bone arrow, though. Yesterday he was bone arrow and I was the one out there used in my spare. I'm going to tell you all about it. I'm going to tell you about it.

I can't wait to hear all about it. We are going to be listening to Mike and Greg talk all about grounded to today. It's the review. The embargo is up. This is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest. reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with a kind of funny membership on

Patreon, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad-free, watch us record them live and get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be a part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. What's up, Greg? I love you. You know that. You've known that for a long time. I love that you're hosting more and more around here. But of course I want to, this is, now we're just having an employee meeting, right? Okay. I want to make sure you're getting what you want out of hosting.

Do you like reading it verbatim? Should I bullet point it more? Like, what do you want? Because I, I think these shows are jazz, yeah. So I don't need you to like, I don't ever want you to feel like you have to be on a script. If you like being on script, no big deal. You don't got to be on one. That was a good little flute you did there.

I didn't know you did flute. I didn't know you had flute in your back like that. Brian of a pause in the chat for Hany Hill. I don't mind a verbatim. I like a verbatim and then I'll kind of, you know, scoot off here and there and then I'll play flute like Mike was playing earlier. I like when you scoot. I like when you scoot a little bit.

Scoot a little bit. We're 11% business all about live talk shows. I said that perfectly. After this, it's kind of funny games daily. I don't know what the topic is yet because blessings building it. He's cooking it. Yeah, why are we doing it out of order? Yeah, a lot of people asking, is this pre-recorded? Is this live?

This is live, good morning here. I'm a lovely Tuesday. say we're doing this early because I am leaving for the Battlefield 6 multiplayer event this week. I'll be at the reveal. I'll be giving you all the big news you need to know about. That's exciting. It felt like just queefed over here. It was like when you're holding back the fart.

So you will see that throughout the week. I'll be keeping you updated and having some fun with the team. Probably calling in on certain things. But we are doing this event now. because I have to head out to an airplane ride. It's going to be fun. You got a skedaddle. I'm going to skeddell.

That's why you have multiple shoes. Yeah. That's, oh, okay, yeah, you didn't know. So here's the deal.

I got multiple shoes. I got multiple shoes. This makes so much more sense. It does. When he was like, well, you're going to see him on stream? Yeah.

I don't know if I want to wear the Tims or I want to wear that. Like, and I was like, okay, well, like, people don't really see your shoes. And he's like,

oh, they always see your shoes. You got two options right now. I have currently my running shoes on, my comfortable, easy tennies, right? Feels so great at the airport. They feel so good. And then I have a brand new pair of Nike Blazers, all fresh, white, clean, no creases, or my Timberlins. Now, here's the two catches here.

Timberlins, give you two inches. I look great in them, okay? Some call me the Adam Sandler of the games industry. I don't know if that's an insult or a positive. We won't worry about that right now. Flipside, they smell a little bit. Not like stanky smell, but like one of those are. like, you're like, oh shit, am I going to put this in the bag with all my clean clothes?

So now I have this conundrum of, am I getting plastic bags for my tennis shoes to wrap those up, put them in your bag? Or am I put in the clean shoes in the clean clothes bag? Okay, here's the thing. What do you deal? Big Dog, I think you look great all the time. I don't think you need the- I don't think you need the Tim's, but also, but just for your, like, just for health and me watching out for a friend. Yeah, yeah.

You don't want to be, like, those shoes are going to make you feel very uncomfortable throughout this trip. True. And that's like, comfort's got to be the number one priority. You know that. Because if I want to be clicking

heads, if I want to be ripping them to shreds, I got to be comfortable. You got to be comfortable. You got to put on your best performance. I always do.

I mean, last time I was at the Kronos event, they were clapping for me. Really? They weren't clapping for Roger. Roger was out of here eating Twinkies. Was he really?

Yeah, that's accurate. But Roger finished the demo fast and Mike did it. So then they all watched Mike, but then it was like, Mike got to the final boss. This is a great games catchment yesterday.

Got to the final boss of the demo or whatever, but had no bullets. So he had to do the rope-a-dope move. Where he runs around the room and then punches up twice before the guy can swing, he runs away. So it was like 15 minutes of Mike just cheap shot at this guy. He's running around.

Great strategy right there. If you're a kind of funny member, today's Greg Way is 15 minutes of Greg being on trial. The charge being a console contrary. They'll never get me. They'll never book me. I mean, it's not only the, It's not only the console contrarian stuff.

Here we go. Here we go. Yesterday, we pre-recorded Fantastic 4 in review. The 2005 movie with Chris Evans looking beautiful, super shredded. Oh, handsome. Jessica Alba, just doing her best out there. Michael Chickles, hot as hell.

Michael Chickles, hot as hell. But the place that this movie landed in the rankings, I just, I'm just prepping you all for whenever the episode drops tomorrow. It is an all-timer episode. It goes on Thursday, I think. An all-timer episode of InReview,

that is awesome. Start to finish. There's a section in the middle where it's just me and Tim on set. We love that quite a bit. And yeah, then it's got one of the best legitimately stunned reactions I've ever seen from a panel of people to end the show. Thank you to our Patreon producers.

Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Somm-twining. Today we're brought to you by Mood Factor and the kind of funny survey, but we'll tell you all about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show. Tots, dot, stop, stop, stop, stop. It's our grounded two review. Let me read the quick little description from Steam.

Shrunk again, but the world is much larger. In this open world single player or co-op survival adventure, craft weapons and armor, build your base, and traverse the playground on your buggy. But something else is out there, and it hasn't forgotten you. This is the sequel to the sequel to, 2022 is grounded with uh and grounded had an open critic score of 82 and a metacritic of 83 2022 crazy thing about it was that long ago yeah right that long i mean that also feels like

seven months ago yeah exactly but it was three years ago it's a very very unfortunate um let's talk about grounded too everybody i want to know a quick little overview of your all thoughts oh great and i can get into a review a bit later that uh you wanted me to read somebody's review later on. I put it in there from, that's my note. That's my note. Don't worry about it. I'll get you. I just wanted it somewhere. Let's get some quick sort of just top view thoughts from Snowbike Mike. I'm happy to be back. Like that's the Snowmike Mike review slash preview right now.

Oh, not even just here in the show. You mean back and grounded. I am happy to be back and grounded. Nice. The backyard now park is just a quaint, special place to go back to when you talk about survival crafting games. And the team over at Obsidian have clearly built off of what they built and grounded one to now. moving to Grounded 2, right? I wasn't sure the idea of going to a Grounded 2. I actually was surprised when I hosted their Paxi's panel

back in Boston. They said, oh, we're actually kind of ending support for Grounded 1. We might be moving on. And I was like, oh, that's so weird. I thought this would last forever. You'd keep going. But when you jump into Grounded 2 for the first time, you quickly understand, oh, that was the right move. They have

taken everything that they've learned from Grounded 1, and they've moved it into Grounded 2. It's the same cast of character. so you still have hoops in the squad. I love playing his hoops. I know you love Willow. Max is there, but these characters have grown with you. They've been here before.

They know the situation, and it's fun to get their dialogue and find the new story. And I know I don't want to suck up most of the time, but this has been a blast to jump into. I'm so happy that grounded is back, and I'm looking forward to talking more with Greg here. I just as a reminder before we get to Greg's thoughts, this is co-developed by Obsidian and Idos, Montreal,

all published by Xbox Game Studios. Greg Miller, what are your top level thoughts on Grounded 2? Or also, before I get to you, Mike, how much time did you put into it? I put about seven hours. Five on PC where I was really striving and thriving, and then I put in another two with Greg over on Xbox

to join him for the kind of shared world experience. Greg, before you give us your thoughts, I see this little ROG ally. Come on right there. You mean the Ally X? My best friend. The X? Yeah. How how many

hours in total. Where'd you split your time with? Unless Mike knows a secret way. I don't know. The game isn't tracking me anywhere on hours. When you go into your save, it's talking about how much time you've spent in the world in game-wise. So it's like 16 days, which I know what I mean. And then like because I think it's early access in the builder using like your Xbox overlay doesn't tell you either. So I would guesstimate based on the fact that I played at multiple afternoons at my desk for quite some time. I would say between 10

and 15. I would do that. The 15 is, I think on the high end, but one of the reviews I tossed in, because I think it sums up so much of how I feel about the game, put their time at 15, and they're at very similar places that I'm at. So somewhere into that level about it, yeah. How many on the ally, I think? And how did it run? It runs.

I mean, I dialed it down, you know what I mean? But you can take a look there because you got the eyes better than me. I mean, is it like it's running on my Series X, where the game is, of course, gorgeous and looks really great? No, but it was totally usable and fine. I did when Po and Jack went on a boat tour

I sat at a coffee shop down and played for like three hours just driving had this Brazilian coffee this little Brazilian sandwich of the egg sandwich they did down there

right by Gear de la Square I don't remember the name but I sat there and just played forever on it and again totally fine served what I needed and did what I want and I love my ally X

obviously as you all know but what do I think of grounded two grounded two for me is so much like grounded one which is I want so badly to like this game and it just doesn't click and I want so badly to love this game I like it fine I would if you guys were like let's play grounded tonight

I'd be like okay cool we're doing a stream you want to play of course yeah yeah I think there's a lot in here as you know as I mature Andy you see me of course through all my immaturity exactly I even when this one dropped it's like okay cool grounded one grounded one launched early access it as well Mike and I were there day one night one. I remember playing with you

and the second night and maybe even a third night. And I was very much like, oh, this is early, there's not enough story, there's really not enough to do, I'm going to bounce out and I never came back. Was it also one of those Xbox preview games where you have to use the preview app or whatever? I don't think when we jump into it. No, game preview

when it was fully out, it was called game preview, but yeah, no, no, not the special app that you would use. And so you jump ahead to never coming back to it because I'm not a survival guy. Back to the you've seen me mature thing and whatever. I'm trying to expand my palette. I want to make sure I'm still checking in on genres that traditionally aren't

mine. Because as you know, you and I've talked off camera, right? Like I just started a no man sky play through again. Because I usually start up a no man sky every few years, put between 10 to 20 hours in and then walk away and then when I can't want to play it again for whatever new update, I just start again. I'm not the traditional survival guy.

My problem with Grounded One was that it had this cool world, but I didn't feel like it had a cool story. When I went to the Xbox event down in LA for SGF, you know, they book you all these behind closed doors demos and they don't tell you what it is because the games aren't announced. So when everything got announced and they finally gave me my final schedule and it said grounded too, there was a, okay, I went in there with the Psytian, I got the

whole run a show of what this game is and why it's different, all these different things, sat down and played the demo and enjoyed my time enough that I was like, you know what, when review code comes, when we get the chance, I want to jump in this and give this the college try. And so being on the other side of the college try, the 10 to 15, I'm not, not going to be playing this beyond this. And again, I think it's very interesting. I prefer, I don't know how Mike's going to feel about it. It's early access. I'd like to not give a score on this and just talk about it.

Because number one, I feel like I'm outside of my genre bubble. So this isn't something that I'm well versed in. Like, I don't think I'm the survival guy. And number two, I think it's more of an interesting discussion for me than saying if it's good, bad, or the other, just to talk about how it makes me feel. And I think that's the big thing about it. Because, again, I want to like this game. But I found myself doing what's here.

there is a story this time around at launch, right? The voice acting is great. There's a very little story. When they launched last time, yeah. We were able to knock it out in a day. Like where we needed to progress and then it stopped. So yeah, that's why he got off pretty quick. And so, yeah, they put that in here and it's good.

But again, I feel like there's too few carrots at the end of the stick to really motivate me to keep going. And more importantly, I felt like every time I went off to get the carrot at the end of the stick, I was talking to Mike yesterday. I was like, it's like you're climbing a hill and halfway down. the game steps up and just kicks you in the fucking face and you tumble back down. And this many hours in, I'm, I would have hoped that I would be through the curve of, okay, I've had the moment where I'm getting my ass handed to me by everything.

But now 10 to 15 hours in, I've got the better weapon. I've got the best thing. I can hold my own. But it still is the runoff and get slaughtered for me and feel like, what was this all for? What was this all worth it? So you think you're getting to a spot progression-wise where, okay, I think I might have good enough gear to kind of feel like

I'm worth a damn in this game and then what? The enemy's just too tough or... Yeah, mosquitoes are still going to swoop in and get me and kill me. There's going to be a spider over there that's whatever, just too powerful. The wolf spiders are fucking chasing me. Yeah, the park is very dangerous. You need to be careful, everybody. You'll have your little

home set up and you'll be kind of safe in your bubble, but when you adventure out of that bubble, grounded to you is very difficult. I don't want to call it very difficult, but like it is punishing out there. You will be hunted. You will be stalked. And at every other moment, you will hear the battle music come on.

And you'll go, oh, shit. Threat detective. I'm not ready for that. Or, like, I'm just trying to harvest this clay right now. Let's chill, everybody. I'm like, there's always a threat out there. There's always something that wants to come after you. And it's going to be, I mean, you know that dance, Andy, so well coming off of Dune right now, right?

It's like, there is a dance of progressing the story and trying to see what's next. And also, hey, I really have to sit. And I need to build. And I need to craft. and I need to take a lot of extra time that might be kind of slow or boring and find that joy in going, hey, I got to go get clay. Now I got to go get thistle needle. I got to go get the weed.

I got to get dry grass. Like there's just blend there which like you kind of got to go both ways here and then sometimes really parked the bus. And Grounded 2 really, I think, makes you park the bus if you're not playing co-op. I was so surprised that Greg came out so positive on Grounded 2 from the preview, which I expected. but he was interested and exciting to play. And I was like, man, that's not really your cup of tea, Greg. This is wild. But I knew like, I think this is more for a co-op experience.

When you're out there solo, it felt like a lot of cheesing, Andy, of like, I'm getting attacked by two scorpions, two spiders. If I didn't climb up on a piece of grass that they couldn't attack and bow and arrow them to death, I would have no shot as a solo player without really putting in the extra hours to build out a load out that might have gotten me. close enough to fight by myself on the ground. Are there any accessibility settings or anything to make the experience a little less of a headache for somebody who's super isn't into survival games or somebody

who doesn't want, who wants to experience the game without the systems constantly bearing down on them? So right now, no, there's difficulty. You can go in and I think it's, it must be mild, medium, hard, I would assume, or maybe it's just medium and mild, I forget. And there is a custom game settings, but right now when you go over it. It's like not available yet. So I think again, this is early access. This game's going

to be updated and go for it. And I really do, again, I know I'm sounding negative. I want to make sure you understand that I'm not the survival guy. This was me stretching and trying something different, right? So this is just going to be my impressions as a non-survivial game player. But I would imagine when those come in, I'd be interested

to go back and kick the tires. Slide that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you'll have the, the thirst and the hunger bar rattling at you and you'll always have to be mindful. Which I didn't, which I I want to stop you a few times because I want to make sure to the audience that I know already I see people getting pissed off in me. Like I'm not mad at the survival tendencies.

I don't mind eating and drinking. I turn that shit on in Starfield in other games too, not good games. I just want to make sure the audience knows like, yeah, there are the options, right? You can be like, hey, I want this easy mode, no thirst and hunger here. Hey, let's make it more difficult. So the enemies are more tougher. But there's been a larger focus in combat in grounded two, Andy,

as opposed to grounded one, right? Like, we built off a ground. one with this great survival crafting game, this really fun narrative weaved in there. And it had combat at some of its core, but it wasn't like, hey, this is the core. It was the whole survival crafting world. Now this time around, they've really focused on that, right?

You can now be a stealth assassin. You can be the bow and arrow person. You could be a mage. And they've built that with like small loadouts that you can now click on with different passive abilities. You can make charms, which will be like, hey, your bow, when you charge it up, does 10% more.

damage, right? And so you can kind of spec yourself out to be like, hey, I want to do this and that. And I think that's what leads to more of like, you should play this with friends, because when you do fight the scorpion, there's going to be three of you running around. Hey, you take agro. Okay, I'm going to back up and heal. When it's just you,

that scorpion is on top of you all the time. And I think, again, that was an interesting thing of when they sent out codes, PR was very much, like, we're sending you four codes or we enabled four of you. Like, it works best together. Like, they drive that home and stress it. But obviously a single player perspective is still

interesting and needed, right? And so that was back to where I was with this game of like, even though it would be like you have to go here and do this thing, I would go there and like there's this, a big part of grounded that they're going to sell you on, as they should, is buggies, which of course is

bugs you can ride. This, for early access, you can ride a Red Soldier ant and you can ride an orb weaver spider. They'll add not only mobility but also combat. Exactly, yeah. They can they can fight, they can move, they can chomp things down too to collect.

So they have a nice collection ring when you do it and stuff. Riding the ant, who is the first one you get, is awesome. And I should say, I didn't get the spider, so I can only speak to the ant, is awesome. You see, you're picking up the grass planks there.

Like, this is an amazing addition. I think, especially for a map this big that you want to traverse, this is the way to go. But the problem is, like, first off, without it, you're constantly being threatened, chased, hunted, even when you're after one little thing or whatever.

To a point that I just don't think it's fun because it ends with me going, oh, fuck, I got to run. And it's not that I'm, I can't beat this enemy in combat, so I'm just going to run, which means then I'm getting tired, which I'm cutting through grass,

trying to get them to clip on the grass, so I can get away. I digress them. To get the ant, right, is this mission where you have to go into an ant hill and you have to get a red soldier ant egg. Five missions before, in the very opening,

you went to a different ant hill where eggs are just everywhere. You got an egg, great. I came back like seven eggs. And so when this happened, I was like, oh, I'm already ready to go. And then I was like, oh, this isn't the red ant soldier egg. This is a specific.

So then you have to go to this ant hill. And Andy, this was fucking Mount Everest. Like, you know what I mean? Like, even though you're going down. You go down and the ants were just fucking on you immediately. And I was like, okay. You're in their territory. Maybe this is this school.

Well, no, it's like eventually they aren't. It's just the soldier ants. The little ants don't care. Whatever. But you have to go so fucking deep in this goddamn ant hill to get the fucking egg. And then I finally, after so many deaths, I finally get the egg and I start going. And then it turns out, of course, if they hit me, I drop it.

And it's like, oh, my God, I'm like fucking throwing like a football just trying to advance. And it's like, this is so annoying. And I was like, this is, you know, me playing and being like, well, I suck. Clearly I'm, this is my usual circle with the game of like, I suck or I'm just doing this too early. But I've already made the smoothie thing and I've already made my house. And I'm, I, you want to talk about a good boost to your ego. Yesterday when Mike jumped in my world, he's like, all right, Craig. I'm impressed because I think Mike

Jump didn't expect me not to have done any of the stuff. I made, I had a house. I had the things. I had defenses. Like I'm playing the fucking game. Anyways, I'm like,

okay, it must just meet me. So then when Mike was like, yo, this antel sucks. Oh, my God. Yeah,

they do a really fun job of like, when you think of grounded, you think of a really awesome little narrative weaved inside of this survival crafting game. But this time around, they've added a lot more to that, Andy, they kind of keep you going,

that carried on the stick mentality of, oh, I got a little nibble. there's more. So now not only is there a narrative that you'll follow the main branching story, but there's also like small side objectives that will give you raw science, which is kind of your equivalent to upgrades where you can go buys things with raw science to give you more cooking power, more home decor, stuff like that, and then also upgrade your Omni tool. But you are flooded the moment you walk out into the open world of just objective, objective, objective. And there's so many that they don't even know which one to put on the screen anymore. So we'll go from your main objective to now a side one where it's like, hey, Greg, make five smoothies for me.

And they're great objectives to help you learn how to play the game and keep you kind of going. Similar to doing how when me and Andy and Nick got on it was like, hey, do all X, Y and Z. We'll give you some points for that. Now you're learning the game. They've done a really good job with that of like, hey, why don't you go make me a little spinning wheel? And you're like, oh, okay, like I want the raw science. So of course I'll do it. And then you go make it.

Now you learn what you can do with that. but they blend so much that it wants you to slow down, but at the same time, what Greg brought up with the red ant-hill, one, I love that they introduced them out so early. Two, they introduced that very early, where it's like mission four maybe, you were going off and fighting in this red ant-hill, and if you don't have a torch with you,

if you're not good at navigating, if you're not good at combat, you're going to be punished for about 20 to an hour, right? It was like a lot to go down, go and find these red, red ant soldiers that will fight you. And if the little ants see that you're fighting the big ant, they'll get involved. So now you have four on top of you. You finally find the egg.

You have to go back up. Of course, things have respawned by then. You're going out of different entrances, there's even more. And as Greg says, you're holding it like a little football so you can't do anything else. So it's, oh, here he is. I drop it. I got a bow and arrow it. Then I grab it again to come out.

And it's like, that was a task to do that. And so when you finally get them out, it feels really earned and awesome. But at the same time, playing solo, it was like, this is frustratingly hard. But then I was like, all right,

I got the mount now. Clearly I'll be able to fucking hold my own against a scorpion. No, scorpions are still fucking killing me left and right. These fucking spiders are still afoul. I'm like, god damn it. Is there any indication as to what levels you should be fighting these things at?

Do you ever see? Or does that just come with experience where you go, oh, you're five hours in? Do not bother with them. with the black scorpions, but the yellow ones are fine or whatever. I think it comes, I mean, Mike, you're the grounded guys, but like from a non-grounded perspective in somebody who has played plenty of survival games and games in general.

How much grounded one did you play? I think literally just that, those first three nights. Oh, okay. We beat the story and now we're just fucking around. He was super interested, yeah. Yeah, I was there because I wanted the honey I shrunk the kid's story. Gotcha. Not that I'm building a house or whatever, which I know.

I'm not trying to force on the game, obviously. So for me, I think in this one, there's not that. And I think that comes with time. and I think that would come with playing with your friends. And I think it's going to come, especially with guides and shit. Because there was a moment that broke me where I was like, where the fuck is item X, where I was like hitting people up.

And I was like, I joined the reviewer Discord where I'm like, what the fuck is this? Where do I find the goddamn thing? That's what desperation sets in. When you hit up the reviewer Discord. And so it was like, but I think again,

like when there's millions of guides and things to go through and do, like I, again, for me as an objective gamer, I mean, as somebody who chases objectives in the games, when the main objective is go to the thing and do the thing, I'm like, let's go do it. And when I was then eating shit doing it, and I was like, all right, cool, let's pump the brakes.

Then it would be like, I just want to explore the map. I love opening up a map, right? But I'd run around the map and find something cool and collect a bunch of cool shit, but then a mosquito would fucking see me and I'm fucking dead. And so then it's like, all right, let's go back and get that backpack, even though it was across the map and I don't have the ants. And then I'd go, but on the way there, I'd get a wolf spider who would chase me and I'd kill me. And like, all right, well, now I have, there's seven backpacks out there.

I don't even remember what had the cool thing in it anymore or whatever. Blah, blah, blah. So, like, I think there's going to be, as with all of these kind of games, a community and narrative surrounds or community and wikis and all that jazz that will really help you do it. But for me, when I, I want, okay, so like, but the point I was trying to make, sorry, I put the side objective, I'll go do something else. All right, cool.

I don't want to fucking go get killed again from my backpack. I will, I will just build my house now. I will build my house and build my water tank and do all that stuff. And then I built it, and I was like, now what? And again, this is me. not that person because the answer is, well, now decorate it, make chairs and make these things. And it's like, I don't, I don't want to do that. I made three beds for me and Mike and Nick and that's cool awakening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was like, I don't want to do that. So then it was like,

I feel like there's these big objectives for the big cool story stuff, but then there's not side objectives that I think a few side missions and smaller things like that would help me out rather than just build to build. Because I don't want to, I mean, this, you know, obviously this acorn house is man is built here. It looks awesome. But it's like, that's not what I be, I was looking for out of this experience. I wanted to keep being pulled on the story. the Omni-To. I mean, there's so much to talk about it. It is awesome in this game. I don't want to get hung up on this. I can't wait to dive deeper into the rest of the game's systems,

but we'll have to wait until a word from our sponsors. This episode's brought to you by Mood. Let me tell you about the online cannabis company that's revolutionizing how we deal with life's challenges. From sleepless nights to stress-filled days, Mood.com has created an entire line of functional gummies that target specific health concerns with 100% federally legal THC blends.

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Harmony. You have Twitch Prime. Let's get into the Super Chats. We have a birthday tack, super chat from John Van Pelt, 6806 says it's about time for me to say it's my birthday. It's a birthday tag. Happy birthday, happy birthday, John. Go play grounded. We have a, we have a non-grounded related super chat from Snake Eater who just says, I want to shout out to when he's I've been in the fest, so the king is watching a primal planet. Check them out, everyone. They're great. The king is watching as a game that I wanted to check

out on Steam Next Fest like maybe last year. Didn't get to it, but I'm happy to know that it's awesome and it's living up to people's expectations. But let's get the rest of y'all super chats in. Give us everything you've got questions-wise about grounded to, so our panel

can answer any questions you all'd like to get into. I want to get more to a bit more of the specifics. You all already talked about some of the trials and tribulations playing solo. And I think usually whenever we bring up or talk about any sort of survival game that is multiplayer base, it's always,

can I play this solo? And you sounds like maybe not the best call right now. Yeah. Until difficulty stuff is maybe, you know, added in with the accessibility stuff with... I think you just need to know what you're getting into, of course, that it will be a little more on the difficult side for you.

solo playing, I would encourage you to really slow down and be mindful. But there's some roadblocks. You're definitely going to get hit with some moments where it's difficult. And I think that might deter people unless there's some difficulty settings you can dive into and maybe slide it and adjust it on the fly is where I would prefer to be. Because I just think of that first night when you get the call, right? And it's like, hey, I'm sending an army of ants at you. Be prepared.

And next thing you know, it's pitch black outside. you're trying to fight off about four hordes and it becomes, I'm going to cheese this and I'm going to hide behind something. And again, yeah, so what Mike's talking about is there's this tower defense mechanic in the game, right? You have an antagonist this time who is sending out bugs to come attack you, right, attack your base wherever you set it up and there'll be a countdown and they'll be called. You'll know it's coming. The first time they introduced this, I'd already built my house and then it was like,

it taught me to build the, built like basically, you know, little logs of spikes on them to stop stuff. Real quick, is this a, is this something you know how? happens every third day or is this just like a randomized random you get a call right then yeah this is a narrative thread that you'll get a call and it seems like it's going to happen more often than just once okay it's happened to me a couple times yeah and so like the idea then is like you know you go to your base and you hole up and you have all these different defenses one of the trailers we were watching there you know there's like turrets this time around and all these things you can put down automated type stuff yeah oh I love that uh but like back to it of like

I think that's the you know my issue with it is like the cheesing of it of the game any success I had here I felt was hollow because I cheezed it I didn't I didn't earn it even getting the red ant egg right like when I finally got that out it wasn't oh my god I did it it was like oh my god I did it let's get this fucking thing back over here so I can do and so even this thing was like lay the tire tracks down the you know spiky tires or whatever that's not what I'm talking about the log with the sticks on the spikes on them uh and then I didn't know I was building for this once I did that that that is what I was coming to attack you like oh shit okay so like these giant bugs show up that should kill me and I'm like fuck that and I went

in my house and I closed the door and then they all just kept bumping into the thing I put out front and then the ones that would get over the spikes to my my window they couldn't come in my house so I just walked up to the wall and stabbed them through the wall and killed them and I was like well this doesn't feel good this doesn't again I survive this encounter and now I have an easy way every time it's happened I'm just like oh go in my room shut the door stab him through the wall I was like this wasn't like a chris Mike where the bear would break in through our front door yeah they didn't break in but it was like it occurs of like we have the spike fence and they just run into the spike fence and then

they die right away. So it's like, yeah, Greg learned the tool that they asked him to use, which was the spike wall, but at the same time, yeah, he's just poking an ant to the wall right there. But like, yeah, I do want to highlight some positives Andy on the combat side of things. They have a perfect block now that

is essentially like a parry for you where if you block it will be repelled back kind of stunt for a second and you can get in after it. Has a bunch of cool different weapons, which they've already had before, but like I said, you can really really kind of dial in your play style with the armor matching the weapon of how you want to be. You can get red ant little teeth claws, whatever they're called the insurers or whatever.

Yes. And then you turn those into like little dual blades, which I think you would like. And so there's some fun stuff to be had on the combat side. I just think it will be elevated with friends. When we talk about how me and Greg are really looking forward to Outer Worlds 2. Hell yeah. Because, you know, it's not necessarily that Avowed really did a whole lot from me story-wise, but gameplay wise so much fun and you figure Obsidian has a lot of systems and tools to maybe share with the whole development team

so you felt like combat was great and there was a lot of variety with weapons or like when you mentioned the different classes I wrote down you mentioned like mage type classes what the hell does that mean? Yeah kind of you're gonna have a wand and you'll be able to throw things at a character and it's kind of like casting spells.

Of course you'll have the bow and arrow and then you'll have the single sword with the shield you have a big hammer, you have the dual, you have the dual blade. So they just give you kind of more ways to play and have all of us if we were four playing unique different styles. So it's like everybody can be somewhere differently on the battlefield and still be contributing instead of just surrounding and hacking and slashing.

What was your class, Greg? I just stuck with the most basic stuff. Mike, when you turned it on yesterday, you were shocked that I didn't do the hammer, right? I was using the larva lance. So I had, you know, this giant staff within the pincor of a red ant on the tip of whatever. So I could run. I was just spear class. So I just wanted to get up close. Do a charge attack. Hit you that way. Dodge out

of the way. I had a weevil shield. So I'd be doing that. So basically spear and shield. Is that something that you're customizing when you're saying, I'm making this weapon, but I can put the ant? No. You have a whole set. When you go into your crafting, you have a whole set of like

what it can actually, I guess I have to go to the table probably for weapons. But you have to, there's a whole set. Okay. So modification doesn't go as deep as maybe a Vowd did Greg? I know about had a lot of custom things where you could say, you know, I want this to have whenever I parry, I can choose from these two abilities. None of that.

None of that. You go in here and it's just like, do you want the pebble spear, the crimson spear, the larvae, what kind of shield do you want? Are some of these legendary items that you're finding that are really rare? You're not, well, I mean, yeah, no legend you're finding. So you craft, but as you see, like you get to see, right, your damage, you're stunned, you're getting better. You're critical, right?

So you can see through and go see what would be giving you the best off. any of that stuff. Mike, one thing I love about Dune Awakening is how it didn't really feel like you had to move heaven and earth to get a lot of materials. One really nice thing about you break

one little pile of rock and it feels like you had a lot of stone. You weren't constantly doing the dance that we've had. We've done the dancing with a million times with a lot of survival games where it's like, oh, I'm just trying to find this one stupid thing but it won't drop. I've broken 12 of these things. I have no

drop so far. It was very bountiful with the amount of materials they're giving you. How do you feel that compares and grounded to? Do you feel like they were really fair? Do you feel like whenever you did have enough that maybe you had a mission that asked for those same materials? And you're like, oh, fuck, I guess I can't

use the materials for my house now or whatever. Well, the backyard or the park now is very bountiful of things around you. So you never feel like it's like, oh, I'm dying for this. But I would say that it's not like, Dune, where you walk away going, man, I just got 30 of that, right? It's more like 5, 10, 2, 7. It's very small numbers because a lot of the items that

you build are on a smaller scale than Dune. So there's never a moment where you're like, I'm desperately in need of this because the park is so bountiful and you can find it. But there are moments where you're like, oh man, now I've got to go back for Clay again. And like, now I need that clay resource to respawn. Or that means I got to go farther into the park, which means more threats just to find that. Those are the small hiccups that I found. Most of the time I could find anything I wanted. They do a really good job of having an encyclopedia of all the items that you can have. I wish they took it one step farther and said, hey, here's where you can find it, right?

There's like, and they do. This is one of the things I want to compliment so much. When you're on the map here, you can hit Y and put it into a resource finder. And then you can go through and look and it will shit like, you're okay, cool, I need to go find blueberry chunk. You go there, you hit it, bam. It'll light up the map and show you where it is. Yeah.

So when you're in the encyclopedia, and it's just writing down all the things. I wish there was like a, here's what it is. You're reading about it. Here's a photo of where you can find. Here's like what it looks like to find it, right? Because you're looking for little thistle needles to be able to make bow and arrows. And it will show you this.

You'll read about it. And you're like, okay, well, just put a picture underneath this. Because it's a giant text bubble, right, Andy? And it's only one sentence of text. So it's just this giant dead zone. It's like, just put the photo of what it is next to it. So I know where I can go find this item right there. But they do a good job of running it down through that, which I like as well.

Yeah. So this is to get into why I do like Grounded 2. You know what I mean? If I was scoring it, I wouldn't be like tanking it by any stress the imagination. I just don't think my opinion carries as much away to somebody who loves survival games. But like this was the stuff that I did really dig, Andy, where it was like my first hours of Grounded 2 were completely ignoring the story. And it was, all right, let's get resources. I'm, this is not, okay, you know, I've built my little lean to where I'll sleep.

I'm staying right outside the initial, you know, scientific research center or whatever. So I have my access to all the stuff that I can, you know, go in there to, you know, analyze the part to get the raw science to upgrade the thing, to upgrade the character, to unlock more stuff. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And then it was, all right, let's start making chests. You know, where can I store things? Okay, great. Let's make the workbench.

And that's why I have this like double row. of all the different stands on what to do and what to use because I was doing that. And again, I missed the research finder. I'm not a resource finder early on. And when I finally found it, I was like, oh my God, what a godsend of, here's what I need to do. And where is clay?

Where is this? Where do I go get that? Where can I find these creatures or whatever? So I had so much fun doing that. Again, where the criticism comes in is that I loved wandering the map. Like, this is, you know, my, like, this is the fog of war, right? You can see that I've pulled it all back. Like, I've actually gone through.

There's some there, right? But I went everywhere I could go for the most part, right? This is a red line that you can't cross. Like I've bumped into the edges of the map because I want to be that guy. It's a big ass world. Yeah, especially on foot. When the ant gets there, it gets much smaller, which is great. Okay.

Because this was a fucking journey. And again, this was the demoralizing. I get all the way over here. Wow, there's something I've never, I'm fucking dead. Fuck. Okay. But expanding all that out and finding all that was great. But then it would be the thing of I get sniped by whatever creature that was over there.

When I was like, I just wanted to see what was over this. hill and do that. I understand that's the push and pull of these games. Yeah. But the actual crafting, surviving, again, what draws me to no man sky. Again, I'm going to go in there and find that carbon deposit to go do this, to go build this, to go whatever, right? Like that's here and I like

that. It was just for me the difficulty keeps coming up, but for me it would just be the annoyance of the things coming out to get me when I'm like, well, I just fuck off for right now. I don't need to fight you right now, you stupid little things that look like ticks, but mites. You mites. I don't even fight you might. Get out of here.

You're a little mites. You're a little mites. You're a little mites. You're annoying me. Any ticks in the game? No, not yet. Not for me. The little mites are like ticks.

Okay, gotcha. But any ticks. Yeah. Nobody sleep on ticks. Another beautiful, detailed world, Andy. I mean, the park is gorgeous. Just like the backyard, you are going to get lost in it. The fun part about this is there's a bunch of hidden molars out there, the milk molars,

that will give you upgrades as well. So you're always encouraged to kind of look around that corner, see what you could find inside of a plastic cup that's been left on the ground, jumping to some sort of glass bottle that has raw science. And it is so much fun to go over the next hill, see that vista point, and see a bunch of pink raw science all over the map and go, I'm going to get up to that one day. Or I'm going to find how to climb up there.

And then sure enough, you'll play the 20 minutes of navigating to it, climbing up the side. And it's just that constant, oh, I'm going to keep exploring. I'm going to keep going. They have that all the time in this game, which I really, really enjoy. And a really fun narrative. You know, spoilers.

for grounded one, the kids are back, right? And they're small again. They got out of the backyard. Now they're back, right? And you wake up, you're small again. You go, oh my gosh, I'm back. But the kids now kind of know what's going on. They've been through this before. And you have this fun little narrative going on of, of course, the bad guys, the people who created the research development. You're like, I don't want to team up with you, but now

they're calling and you're talking. And you have these fun little dialogue moments with dialogue options here that you can choose. Nothing crazy that will like bend the game. But it's not an RPG like obsidian I would have hoped for. But there's fun moments where I can be like Well Hoops, you know what?

Tell her you don't want to talk to her no more And Hoops will be like, we're good here Or hey, let's learn some more And you can keep clicking through the little dialogue button Is Hoops a playable character? Yes, uh-huh, that's one of the four. So if Greg selects Hoops and jumps into your world,

does that mess with the narrative at all? No, you always gonna... You get blocked out. Yeah, you'll be one of the four. Okay. So it's that thing of if you jumped into my world, you don't bring in your character. Well, I also started on the Xbox, so I have no idea.

Oh, fuck, I forgot. I've restarted to play with Greg. I started to bring my steam stuff. I'll see who I can jump in. Maybe I can get a random game right now for you. Yeah, I guess one thing that kind of just throws me off is like the not having the player agency of like this is not, this isn't my creative character. You know, that's one thing I love so much about survival games, really like immersing yourself. And this is my dude in this world.

Does that change for you at all? where you're like, you have to pick a character who is already predetermined in who they are. Well, these kids are great. So I have no problem. They're a lot of fun. They all have their different quirks about them that make you smile when they give the one-liners. And it's not like they're not talking a bunch, but they'll give you the fun little voiceover where you go, oh, that's cute.

Like shout out to you. But then the player agency is, well, what am I using? What am I building? What am I wearing, right? How does my house look? How do I create that? Yeah. What is the outfits that I want?

So that's where I find, like, my player agency in this. Yeah, that's where I was going to go to next. What does character customization look like? How deep does it go? Is it mainly just, you know, costumes, or not just costumes, but armor pieces? Or are you editing your character's hair at all or anything like that? It's just armor and weapons.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Your character's a static-based character. You're just going to always be hoops with the pink t-shirt or whatever color it is, and you'll put stuff on top of it. Gotcha. do you all think you're going to continue this video game? Yeah, I have a small problem.

All of my friends love Dune. And it is a big problem because my friends are deep into Dune right now. And this game has come out where my friends are fully into Dune. And as much fun as I had on this, Dune is also really, really great. And I want to play more Dune. I want to go explore Arakis in the deep desert. And now we have another great survival crafting game that my friends could do the exact same thing on for our

on end, right? Like, everything we've just done in Dune, we could replicate that and get another 40 to 60 hours in Grounded, right? And it's just at this one moment right now where my friends are all playing Dune. I don't think I can tell them, hey, let's drop what we're doing and go play another survival crafting game. It's tough when you're on the cycle. But if my friends weren't on this, I think we'd have a much easier, I would have a much easier sell of like, hey, everybody, grounded two's out. It's got a good little narrative. They got enough for us to give about 20 to 40 hours in. Let's go get lost in it. And I think they all would say yes, because we've played ground in one. Are you scoring this one? No, I won't, not until we play

deeper. Similar to Dune, this is one of those games. You won't get enough out of 10, 15 hours. You got to get deep into it to start putting a score on it. And with the early access, this is going to evolve all the time. Of course. The next thing I know, I'll hit it and I'll say not enough story. They'll be like, guess what, Mike, three weeks and now, here's more story. We got so much story for you. how much story you've experienced? Like missions-wise? Or does it feel like you're in the middle of like the second act where maybe the bad guy's doing...

No, I'm still feel... I still feel like I'm early. I think I've gone over the hump of the beginning. And me and Greg are right with each other, where I think we have gone past the beginning. We're cresting the first part of like the intro chapter one is what I would call that. I think we're going to start moving into the chapter two. And I don't know how much farther. past that they have, but that's where I would put us now.

We've been introduced to a new character, right? So you wake up, you're like, oh, man, I'm small again. I'm in the park. The evil corporation's like, hey, we've got to work together so we can get you out of there. Maybe you can help us. And we're like, no, we want to find Bergel, the cute robot, right? We love Bergel.

We love Bergel. Burgle is a cute robot from Grounded 1. You'll remember he had the little cute multicolored mustache. Makes a return. Spoilers. Spoilers. And so Burgle's out there lost, okay? We got to save Bergo. somebody might have burgle. And so your goal is to go find

Bergel and also maybe work with the evil corporation, but maybe not, you'll never know. And so yeah, that's where we're at. So they got stuff to go. You don't know how evil they are. Like we it's like, well, they turn to people small. So we can't get me out of them. Oh, I mean, they, we got a new.

Do you remember the the bad guy's name here, the woman who's leading on the show she's so much fun. No, she's awesome. Whoever, she's, she's a really great performance. It adds a lot of really great stuff. Really fun to have every conversation with her.

I'm a big fan. I want to answer your question, which I didn't. Like for me personally like, no, I don't think I, well, if y'all wanted to play grounded tonight,

I'd be like, well, I got to play redacted and well, I'd like to go play more Pokemon. So I wouldn't. But I will be interested for, hey, we've updated and added this and done this.

And also then when it is like, oh, here's a better build and here's what's going on. Would it, will I come back seriously for it? I don't know. But again, that's just not,

I'm not a survival guy. Okay. I like that. I want to thank Let's Go TiVo for subscribing for 14 months using their prime. Appreciate you using your prime minus.

Remember, get your super chats in everybody. I think that's going to wrap up the grounded conversation. But as we're on the topic of you know, early access and things like that, last night, one of my big, exciting early access video games

got a massive update. Game called Witchfire. Oh, no shit. Talked about it before. Huge update last night. This seems to be maybe one of the final ones until the game comes out. Probably not. Maybe it's a Haiti situation where they keep on doing more and more updates.

But for anybody who's, oh, thank you for the video, Kevin. For anybody who has heard me talk about Witchfire or has any sort of, you know, interest in it at all, it's a first-person shooter, rogue light. The game keeps getting better and better. deeper with systems and they added a whole new sort of tutorial system because they oh god those enemies are the worst where they felt like they weren't teaching players how to play it well enough um i think the weapons are fantastic i think the abilities are great and progression is just so much fun and i i understand you know the oh man i don't want to play a roguide type deal or whenever i mentioned in this game it's kind of like an extraction shooter

but not in the way you think of it, not in the way you think of extraction shooters where it's a multiplayer type game and you got to try to get the loot and shoot the other team. It's more of an... Think of extraction as your way to just leave the world without trying to go after the boss. Each world will have its big boss

that you could try to explore through. And if you are in a level progressing and you're doing well, but maybe you realize you're super low on health and maybe the world is getting really, really dangerous because it's kind of like GTE, the more damage you do, the which level goes up. And then once the which level hits like five out of five,

then she sends like just a lot of bad shit towards you. If you do happen to survive that or if you are trying to escape, you can extract with what you got and say, fuck that, I'm piecing out. I'm not even going to try for the boss. I made a lot of progress. I gathered a lot of materials. I have a lot of money or whatever to then level up to buy later things in the video game.

Then you can extract at one of the portals on the map. and it kind of becomes a very scary, like, action movie type of deal where it's like, oh, my God, got to get to the goddamn portal. Which Fire just continues to get better and better. And I'm already calling this as, like, being like a 2026 contender. God damn. Yeah, because they announced it it'll likely be 2026 whenever they do hit 1.0. Yeah, this game's been in, and for the people who are worried about early access titles,

this game, I think I first played it in 2023 on the Epic Game Store, Early Access. maybe it was even 2022, I forget. But then 2024, it finally came to Steam Early Access, and it's been there for a while, kicking ass, and they've been kicking ass with development. So Witchfire rocks. It feels great. It looks great.

It's awesome. Another little early access gem for you right there. I've been getting a lot of early access gems. A lot of early access games out there. Early access games. Like almost kind of too many. I did also download a game called, let me just prep for the,

laugh. He is coming. Oh, wow. We're all mature suddenly. I mean, we all know he's coming. A lot of... Been coming. Oh, Jesus Christ. He's risen. He'll be back. A lot of mature people on the podcast. A lot of people are going to be up in arms when he comes back. Be careful. It's going to be a lot of good guys. A lot of bad guys.

You see the new South Park yet? Oh, yeah. Great stuff. Jesus is trying to sit on a lunch table. I thought this... I thought that this game was going to be very similar to death loop it's an auto battler I love death loop or not death loop sorry

Loop Hero I love Loop Hero I love Loop Hero is a mobile game it also plays on PC and switch and kind of anywhere you want to play a video game but auto battlers are just really cool turn you mind off and level up your character and hope that they can

you know just survive the night or whatever he is coming looks like it's doing something similar I tried it out it wasn't doing exactly what I want and I don't know if that's just the danger and maybe I was just a little too early into it but the I hope it keeps on progressing because I just love the art style, very, very basic kind of

almost one bit style art. There's no shading on characters. It's just here's a color, here's a color block, and we're going to show you a knight and a dragon. But essentially your character, it's not necessarily auto-battler in the way that loop hero was where loop hero, you would create your track and your character would just kind of go on the track by itself.

after night. This one you are controlling where you're going and deciding, oh, the night's about to hit, I should hit this little campfire or I could go after this little dragon boss or whatever. Really, really kind of basic looking game. It's super cute though. And of course, I don't even think it's early access, but Mike, I love last night just hopping off my wishfire stream and walking upstairs, firing up my ornithop there. He's doing it. just flying out to go do some missions, you know, maybe dropping my own

a thought of it because I don't really know how to fly it at times. Sure, sure. But, man, Mike, we got to get you a thought there. Are you going to get real and put this on your game of the year? Like, are you going to be real and put, give the respect that Dune Awakening deserves. At this point, you got to. There's too many problems with it for me to.

Because this game has shown that it's a contender in 2025. Like, it is, I mean, obviously it's taken over 100 hours of my time. Mm-hmm. but I still look at the core systems and I'm like, we need more enemy variety. There's still so much that they can improve on to make this game truly awesome.

But, you know, I don't know, we'll see. We'll see, Mike. Maybe I pull you and I put deadlock at number one, like you did that one year. You got to give respect to Dunn. It's very good. There's a couple of games and the whole other games cast.

Which games are going to get the shade this year? Monster Hunter. Monster are definitely going to get the shade. Monster hunters that held divers too. The shaft is what you. I mean. The shaft was shaded is what the young kids called the shade. You're throwing shade.

You're throwing shade. Yeah, exactly. And like your boy, Mike, just so you know, Greg, yeah. On my top 10 written in my journal, Monster Turner, double starred. Wow. Wow. Here we go.

The Lisa and the other guy is there. You got it. We got to put it on the top 10, bro. He's told me it's not going to be on the top 10. It's on the top 10 for sure. For real, for real. Last night, I jumped. For real, for real.

Last night I jump in and I'm just, man, I'm just, man, I'm just, man. Greg, I'm getting Jasmine Crystal so we can make Durilluminum. and I come back and I land my ornithopter, get out of it, and I'm about to transfer all the stuff with the ornithopter I get in, I hear it take off. I freak out. I'm like, oh my God, somebody stole one of my two ornithopters. And I was like, I got to call Andy.

And then I thought, wait a minute, maybe it is Andy. And it sure was. And it goes, I was using it for. I was like, I just got out of that thing. Could you not tell the seats were warm? And he said, oh, yeah, the seats were warm. Well, I thought the, I made that one, the color, like the darker Coast because I thought it was like mine.

I thought yours was a long. Well, I made it to match because I was like, oh, match. I thought the one of, it doesn't matter. They're all the same, but you can have that one. That's fine. I was just using that one. Yeah, but whenever I got my smell in it.

But the problem is whenever I get into my ornith after, I always have to like move the seed because you like your seat a little bit up more. It's got the little button. You press one and then it goes back to you and then press two and goes back to me. It doesn't work the way. I'll change my colors. I'll take it to service. I'll take it to service.

Remember this vibe when a game of the year. It's nowhere to be seen. Remember this. No, don't put this on me. Hundreds of hours from all of you. Remember this. No, don't do this. He's coming back.

He's coming back. Tell him. We're almost at Sandcrawler. We're almost in, we're almost in Sanctrine. I went out to the world map, which is wild, but we went out to the deep desert the other day. Mike, it's deep. It's deep. It's so deep.

Also, another thing to throw out there, I've been really, really playing a lot of the altars. And it is still so amazing of what it's doing, storytelling-wise. Dude. Ready to go. Dude. I mean, maybe not your jazz because of the

going out to go. The management. The management stuff. Because fall as shelter didn't do it for me, but everything you've talked about stories-wise sounds cool.

And it's the same thing. Remember, Citizen Sleeper wasn't my kind of game either, but like I played it for you and I was like, damn, this was cool. Dude, like the stuff

it's doing, the holy shit, but just hit like a massive moment story-wise that blew me the fuck away and all the character stuff. Like, it's fantastic.

That's definitely a contender for me. Really, really, really, really damn good game. Let's check, do one last glance at Super Chat. See if we got anything. Super Chats. Looks like we're chill. No love for Wildgate. Oh, Wildgate.

Yeah, that's a fun one. That's a fun one and it already feels like it's over. Oh, it's over. Is it over? Damn, that's great. I mean, I'm still playing it. I play it last night, but like, I don't know, man. It's either you're in on that and you're loving it or like,

you'll never play that again. Well, okay, here's why I am, I guess so much of the love for Wildgate, if y'all don't know what Wildgate is, it's a four-player, five-team competitive game, where you're in your ship, one person's a pilot,

you can have, it's, people keep on saying it's sea of thieves in space, but this is, it's not C of these necessarily in the way that you are just constantly existing and persisting. you it's a multiplayer arena every time yeah you you when the round is done you can say hey do you you want to start up another round or whatever and it's you and your squad and one person's piloting

and you'll fly up to a space station but there's other there's four other squads out there in the deep space doing their own thing and you'll fly up to a space station and michael say oh andy go grab us that gas and then we'll go into the space station we'll kill the enemies here which are little npc bosses or whatever and grab whatever materials we could take back to our ship to make it powerful and stronger to then fly to the next thing so that hopefully we don't get our ass handed to us by another team on their ship or whatever.

It's cool in that sense for those wow moments whenever that one team might crashes into our ship to prevent us from entering the wild gate. That's some amazing stuff right there. But it's one reason why I'm still looking more

forward to jump ship is because the jump ship is the same sort of concept, but it's not round base. It's just you and your homies in a ship, flying around, flying off your ship, doing, you know, entering dungeons and first person shooting, gathering stuff to go back to your ship

to keep on flying. Jump ship is more of a persistent experience, which I think I lean more towards as opposed to maybe a competitive game like this where you get your ass handed to you two times and the matches take so long, you go, I don't want to play another one. I'm good. You know, these matches take a long

ass time. That was one of my, unless you get your ass whooped really quickly, then the matches won't take super long. But yeah, a jump ship is a one to four player co-op game that is all about you all on your ship and you are jumping off to little, you know, I want to call them Rogue Light-style dungeons, but not really. You're getting out of your ship and you are first person shooting with your homies, gathering stuff to then make your ship better. It seems like a really cool loop and seems a bit more up my alley.

Here's one for Up Your Alley before we go. Clutch time. Basketball deck builder. Andy, this one is a blast. If you haven't seen this one, of course, we're all in the deck building games. We love Balacho, of course. You're kind of funny. We love Magic the Gathering.

Clutch Time, basketball deck builder is a really fun Steam game that a best friend recommended me. Currently $15 on Steam. You are playing against another, you know, you're not actually playing someone, but you're playing another team. You can see their cards laid out

and you can put on defensive cards to put out there like a block, a steal, a foul. You will have opportunities on the offensive side to, of course, shoot threes. You'll be able to pass for assists, which will make all of your shots not cost any sort of stamina. So it's clearly made by probably a small team of one person.

It's not super artsy. But when you're playing it into the four quarters, riding the momentum of having good possessions, basketball Andy is a game of what? Inches. Runs. It's a game of runs. And sometimes you're going to go on a good run.

Sometimes the other team's going to go on a better run and you just got to catch up. And yeah, this one is really, really good. I would legit say you should check this one out. This is a blast. That was good music too. Surprisingly good music. Thanks for the rec. I love that.

That's going to do it for us here on this games cast episode of us. Review and Grounded to Mike, Greg. you so much for the time you put into this game. I'm glad you all did your job. And, you know, hey, you're going to have a good review. I'll say that much. Like, whenever I review as... Oh, you're going to review us?

Yeah. Oh, you mean annual review? Annual reviews. Okay, good. Okay, I will expect to see the line that says, Mike and Greg, great job and grounded too. Great job of grounded, too. That'll definitely be there.

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