Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Homefront and Doom Impressions - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 71

Episode Date: May 27, 2016

We give our thoughts on Homefront and Doom, discuss Nintendo's movie plans, hypothesize what Rocksteady is up to, and get into EA's Battefront statement. (Released to Patreon Supporters on 05.20.16) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We know a ton of you are huge Overwatch fans, and we are grateful for their support of Kind of Funny Live. Thanks again to the Overwatch teams at Blizzard and Activision. Are you excited for Overwatch? If you haven't bought it yet, check out Amazon.com slash overwatch to learn more about the game. What's up, guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 71 of the Kind of Funny Games cast.

We're now two away. Okay, just give up. How long do you think I could roll with it? You shouldn't have set it on episode 70. Episode 69 was that, that was that. And it's on to the next. thing. But that's my thing. I'm so nostalgic, Greg. You are nostalgic.

If you want to open and topic one of episode 71 was the four best moments from episode 69, that would make sense. See, that's a Tim Getty's ass move. You know, we're getting numbers in the headline. We're talking about bullshit. Yeah. It's definitely a Tim Getty's move. Classic Tim Geddy's. If you didn't know, I'm Tim Getty. joined by the coolest dudes in

video games, Colin Moriarty, and Greg Miller. Hello. It's good to be here with you today. This is the kind of funny games guys. Every week we get together. Talk about video games. A whole bunch of other shit. You can get it on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games where we break it out topic by topic Monday through Thursday. The full thing on Friday,

you don't get that on iTunes or SoundCloud or any of those podcast networks. If you want it early, and if you want those goodies, and if you want the authority of a pen in your hand, you can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Throw some dollars out way. You get all those things. If you want the pen,

you need to probably go to a Walgreens, though. Is it a forward slash or a backslash? It's a slash. It's a slash. It's a slash. It's a Nick Scarpina thing. No one uses Backslash. It's a Nick Scarpina.

It's a Nick's stopped saying forward slash. No one uses the backslash button. I mean, it's a thing. I know where it is on the keyboard and it's for programming, I think. But like you don't, you don't. No one's getting confused on that. You don't use that button. It's like the TILDA.

Nick insists on saying forward slash. Yeah. As if anyone is confused. Well, Nick is also the type of person talking about AOL keywords. So the internet was invented or the World Wide Web was invented 23 years ago. And we've been using slashes to type in URLs ever. since no one's confused about which slash you should use.

No one's like, a tilda is the... I know what it is, but what is it? I think in math it's to approximate numbers. So like you would put like... But they felt the need to put that on the keyboard? Yeah, I guess so.

What's about, yeah. Yeah, like one million. You put a little tilda in front of it and then it's approximately one million. I think that's kind of how it's used. Yeah. You need that kind of stuff. Yeah.

How many people are coming to kind of funny live? Tilda 1000. Yeah. I guess you're right. You are right. You're always right. Just like Colin. Do you tell the Swinson?

Swinson was named after the little Tilda? No, probably not. Maybe. I'd like to hope. I don't know who that is, but I hope that someone was like, you know what? It made the keyboard.

It can make my daughter. And that's going to be a good old time for everybody. I want to talk about Homefront and Doom. Two first person shooters. Yes, that I have not played. But you guys, to some extent,

I've played them. Yeah, it's important. I mean, I can't speak of Greg. It's important to note that I've played each of those games for a few hours. Yeah. So here's the thing.

It's very preliminary. review, but we're like, no, this is, this is, we didn't do enough to do a review. First impression. This is just going to be, what do you think? I've just been busy with those guys. So, what I was thinking about this one, you brought up this topic, the interesting thing about these particular games is that they're both games that had very tortured developments. And what I think, so Doom was announced all the way back in 2008. People forget about that. Doom 4 was it was originally called was announced in 2008 and they scrapped it and they made it again. And that's how we got Doom. And Homefront, I mean, Homefront 2 was so old.

that THQ still existed and announced this game. And people forget Montreal, THQ Montreal was developing it. Then it was kicked over to European studios like Crytech, then Crytec owned it, then Crytec went under, their studio went under, then Crytec UK became damn busters, and then the game was sold to Coke Media,

and Coke Media owns Deep Silver, and then it became an open world game, and like, so I thought it was interesting that these games coming out the same week, or really a few days apart, they didn't come out technically the same week, dude came out first, but that they both come from this tortured lineage, and one turned out pretty well and the other didn't turn out very well

and the one that turned out well I think is Doom and that's not a huge surprise and the one that didn't turn out well was Homefront and that's not a huge surprise but I think I had more expectations for it so um so my my do you think that's on a personal level or in industry yeah it's a personal level I think because I just think

the original homefront um chaos studios chaos studios was a very rare New York City based studio and they were the ones that made the original homefront were shuttered even though the original homefront sold like three and a half million copies so I was like that's kind of bullshit. And there's actually great exposés about what happened at chaos with the game and after the game came out on Polygon.

I think they wrote like a huge long form article about it. If you guys want to look it up, it's really interesting. But the original home front was short, but I think good. I think I gave it a good like seven and a half or something like that on ID. It was solid. I enjoy the original home front. I'm not even a shooter fan.

Yeah, I like, I love shooters and and I love obviously these Red Dawn type games and that are kind of rare and few and far between. And I enjoyed it. wanted more of it, which is usually a compliment for a game. I thought it was very short. And then they had a multiplayer that, you know, when you talk about it with people, they were quite into it. I enjoyed the multiplayer.

One of the rare shows I have is from the home from multiplayer, actually. And, uh, which is entering a match with a full team of 12 or something like that, which I was inviting people for IGN. Exactly. Anyway, uh, so this game is, you know, I was always intrigued by this new game. And what I'm realizing from it is that it seems to be preliminarily very half-baked. This is a game that, clearly was tortured. Clearly, maybe should have come out a while ago.

Doesn't look very good. Certainly on PlayStation 4. It doesn't run very well. PC, apparently, it's a disaster, according to Jim Sterling, who we trust very much. You watch that video yet? No, I haven't watched it yet. It's awesome. He has this video up,

and he put it up at the one the home front embargo lifted, and I was like, scrolling through, because I had started it on PlayStation 4, and I don't even think I got out of the introduction. I was running poorly. It wasn't that I didn't want to play it anymore. It was that I was trying to get through the introduction. I'm learning about where to crawl

and how to do all this stuff, and it's all framing and shitty. and then my PlayStation just made the choice for me and spit the disc out. I was like, oh. You don't want to play this anymore? I put it back in and just like, all right, well, we'll play it. It's like serendipity.

We'll start rash and clank. But Jim put up a review. His tweet was just everything you need to know about Homefront. And you went, that's what he called the video. And it's just like two and a half, three minutes of characters running in slow motion for no reason, like in the game, running into walls and just continuing to run in the walls. There's this female character on the ground and her necks all distended like a worm.

And he walks over it. and then his leg starts to disstanding it off. It's like, Jesus. Yeah, the game seems to be not very well made. And actually, one of my major problems with it is that its story is just kind of nonsense. And I know that that's easy to say, but why isn't that to complain with the original homefront? The original homefront story is similar in that North Korea somehow consolidates power after the Korean War kind of becomes more powerful than South Korea.

Because a lot of people forget that in real history, North Korea, was actually more prosperous than South Korea until the 70s. So North Korea was actually doing better. with the help of the Soviet Union and all that kind of stuff. When that kind of stuff started to collapse, North Korea obviously became the kind of bullshit place that it is right now. So the original story suggests that North Korea has consolidated power and there's like an oil crisis and all these kinds of things.

And I remember when I worked at IGN, as I've said in the past, I wrote this piece talking to XCI agents about like how could this happen? This is ridiculous. How can this happen? And they walked me through like very specific things have to happen. But this is how this might occur. That like North Korea, which can't even feed its own people. instead became this military powerhouse that actually invades the United States.

And I'm like, okay. And I liked kind of the story. It was unorthodox, but interesting. And this new one, the new one pretends that the original home front never happened, which to me doesn't make any sense because the original homefront sparks a revolution. And it could have been the spark. And it could have been the point in which this game began. So A, that doesn't make any sense.

B, they rewrite the story so that there's a North Korean corporation called Apex that basically starts to dominate. they become like the Silicon, North Korea basically become Silicon Valley in the 70s. They create the personal computer. They create the microchip. They create smart phones tablets. And so it creates this whole thing and weapons.

And we start buying everything from them. But mysteriously, in the decades that we've been buying everything from them, they've introduced back doors and all the technology and they shut everything off. And so first of all, I'm like, that's fucking absurd. How can no one know that that happened? Like no one knew. It's like the Sylons getting into the fucking mainframe computers at the beginning of Battlesar Galactica.

they had to at least be clever about it. This wasn't even like, you know, a clever thing. They shut everything off and now everything doesn't work. And then the North Koreans basically invaded. And that's basically the foundation of the story. And there's like an economic collapse and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like, all right, so that's absurd. But isn't it just absurd in a different way?

Because I mean, it's one of those like, it's the home front original storyline is a little absurd like you pointed out. Like you talked to these, I guess very specific things to happen. Very specific things. Yeah. But this is like, this is like, this is actually movie dumb. Don't get me wrong. But I think, and this is stick with me because you're going to want to cut me off and yell me.

I loved the, the intro. of setting it up. It was action movie dumb. Don't get me wrong. Of course, I loved Homefront period. The original Homefront's intro was even better, I thought, because it was, here's the geopolitical forces of how this would go and where it would go, whereas this was just a gruff voice giving you a rundown of late. They made the smartphone and then they turned everything off. You're like, this is just dark angel, motherfucker. So my, my assumption is that in the story at some point, China must have been the bad guy. And if not, and I feel that way about the original homefront too. And there's like some... I guess one that was true, though. Or maybe I'm thinking

to Red Dawn. Yeah, Red Dawn is definitely. definitely had to change that. But so, because MGM was in trouble with their business and bestors wherever, I don't know. But the story would have made way more sense if it was just China.

Then you wouldn't have to have these, these complex geopolitical what ifs, like it just makes sense. You don't have to send up at all. This is one of those things that you get hung up on and I don't think 90% of the players, 99, maybe 95% of the players go and just,

okay, that's the story. And you're hung up like, wait, why would, how could they do this? I don't know that it's that small of a number. I think that if you're going to play home front of the revolution,

especially because it's not getting great reviews. You must be invested in the war of the what-ifs of a conquered United States. And I think that doesn't really make any sense. But that aside, then you play the game. And what I realized about the game was, and I don't know if Greg agrees or Greg, Greg didn't get far enough to really know, is that it's a really half-baked kind of poor man's Ubisoft game. And I didn't really realize that's what it's going to be. I knew that it was open world.

The game takes place in Philadelphia, which I think is very cool. I think the city's well realized. there is a darkness and a direness to it to the revolution and all these kinds of things. I think that that's great, but everything about it is just kind of like not very good from what I can tell. And that's disappointing.

Like the gameplay is not super satisfying. You're basically just taking over parts of maps just like you wouldn't do Ubisoft's game, but it's just not as fun. The stealth isn't as good. The gunplay's not as good. And then there's these characters and the characters just suck.

And that was like the one thing is like, there's memorable characters from your home from I still remember that one dude with the don't try on me flat. shirt or whatever. It was like a nut job. And I remember that one sitting in the original home front that I thought brought real residence when you're in the house, the resistance house or whatever, and like you're walking through their gardens, like in their makeshift farms and like how they had like generate electricity. And it's like really kind of cool like insight into like there's a lot

east right there. There's a map about like where everything is and stuff like a lot of little environmental storytelling. I have not found that yet in this. No, because this one is this is the opposite of that with original homefront. Okay, North Koreans came in and take over and I expected to be ramshackle and da. This one, they come in and take over and it's very time squarey. There are digital signs still moving. They're clearly they've come in and given them power and it's just like, well how did you get in and set this up

to look pretty nice? Not great, but you know what I mean? Where it is, there's like digital barricades and shit like that and like really nice armored guys. It's like what the hell happened here? It just doesn't work and I'm gonna keep playing because I'm hope that there's more to it than that but I think that the reviews which are subpart

of bad with rare exception are probably pretty spot on. so I've just been underwhelmed by it I thought that this was a game I was going to voraciously consume because I've been looking forward to it for so long

and I'm almost glad that when I went to play it a few weeks ago the PC I was supposed to play it on didn't work and I just ended up playing because it kind of would have jaded me I think even from that point because I and it makes sense why the embargo was when it was

it makes sense that the games weren't really given out very early it makes sense that no one really knew anything about the game this game just I think that they I don't think it's Dan Buster Studios fault I don't think it's really anyone's fault per se. I just think this game

passed through way too many hands and way too many creative teams and it looks old and it doesn't run right and it's just fucking muddled. So that's my impression very early in the game. Doom I think is awesome in a lot of respects

and it's fast it's fucking crazy. It's Doom and that's what we love about Doom. Doom's nonsense. I think what Doom does right that a lot of games we talk about all time is Doom delivers on what you remember the original Doom being. It's that nostalgia.

You know, so many games you go back to you're like, I love this game and you play like, oh, this isn't exactly what I wanted. Or they rebooting it, like this doesn't feel like it. Doom from the fucking heavy metal score to these brutal kills, to running, like, I was playing it and I'm way shorter than Con. I'm two, three levels in because I don't get to that. I mean, I'm only a couple levels in too. I just play

very much, I'm like, well, we'll get to that in a second because that is great. But for Doom, it was like, I, you know, the first big area you get into where it's kind of like, all right, cool, there's a million guys here. How are you going to do it? I started playing, like, you know, like pop around corners and doing, and I died. It's like, fuck, and I came back in the next one,

and it was like, oh, no, run through this. Shotgun everyone, stun someone, just break their neck, run over to that, because you're getting the health bonuses. You're getting the ammo off these guys, and it's meant, and like, I can't believe how well it runs. It's, you know, the antithesis of home run of. Oh, this is a game back. So fast and so smooth.

This is so good looking. Yeah, yeah, and you're running around, just breaking necks doing this, throwing these bodies. It's like, oh, shit. Now, for me, it was two or three levels of it. And I was like, oh, cool. That's what this is. And that's not where I am right now.

It was over the weekend. I'm like, that's not what I want to play right now. I ended up finally starting Ratchet and having a great time because I wanted a story and investigate these worlds and do all this different stuff. But I was played Doom and I'm like, I totally get why everybody's in love with this. And, you know, looking at, you know, Jeff Gersman and a bunch of other game writers and stuff over the weekend as they played and got deeper and deeper, deeper into it. It was awesome to see them say, I can't believe that this gets better as it goes.

It gets more enjoyable as it goes, the combat loop of how you do this and how you upgrading where you go. But yeah, trying to find everything. As soon as I found the first little blue marine or whatever, I was like, fuck, I'll have to run around every one of these levels trying to find everything. The thing about Doom is that it's a game from a bygone era of shooters

because shooters take themselves way more seriously now. It's not that Doom doesn't take itself seriously because I don't really feel like the original Doom was supposed to be sarcastic, like Wolfenstein was supposed to be sarcastic. We have to remember that the same studio made these games. Wolfenstein was definitely over the top and silly, but Wolfenstein

as important DNA because it's really the first first person shooter. And Doom was the one that really took it to a bigger scale, but I don't necessarily think it was supposed to be facetious. It was just silly. Yeah. With a metal soundtrack and something like that, but you're fighting demons. There was just no context for what a shooter could be yet. So I think that that is like the early 90s, we kind of understand that that that's the early

90s shooter personified, right? And then they went to quake and all these kinds of things. The game's fidelity is really fine. Now, a lot of the guys that really made the original games are obviously gone. I mean, pretty much all of them at Id. But it's all about fidelity. And I think that, you know, they kind of lost the plot with rage. For a lot of people.

Like, rage was all about, um, I liked rage, but, but rage was, they were like, look how good it runs and look how like, all these things.

And they're like, but yeah, but like, it's just not fun. And I think that with doom, it's like, well, look how good it runs.

And it's doom. It's the classic doom that you understand and that you love, full of demons and monsters and, the one thing that I think people are wrong about with doom and what, and reading some of the criticism is like, it's stupid. It has no story and stuff like that.

I'm like, you're fucking wrong. Like I, like, I don't really get where you, while you're saying that, there's no story if you just run through the game

into these, into the, from compound to compound across the red soil of Mars and all these kinds of things. But if you take the time to investigate and read the codices and read about the weapons

and all this kind of stuff, I was actually shocked by like how much shit is in the, like how much lore and writing is in the game. I'm not saying the story is good. I'm not saying, but I'm not saying the story's bad either. I just,

people, when people say like, well, it's not really a story-driven game. And I'm like, maybe it's not story-driven, but there's a plot there. There is a story to be found.

it's not just silly shooting but at the end of the day it's so fast and so fluid and I love I mean and I've said this before this is why I love resistance is that I love shooters

with limited health with armor like no regenerating health and I actually started as I usually do I usually start games on hard and I started to do mine hard and I'm like fuck this

like I'm like this is way way too hard for me right now I'm just not in this mode I haven't played a dead game in a long time so I went back and I'm playing it on normal but I do think that there's just like nice loop there, as Greg said, with

just destroying enemies, meleeing enemies, finding these collectibles. The maps are open, too. And that was the cool thing that people forgot about, the heritage about Doom is the open maps. Like, people forget, like, Doom's a really important shooter, one of the most important shooters ever made, but Doom was huge

for its time even. And actually, for maybe a decade afterwards, Doom was still a huge game with lots of secrets. And that's, and that was found in Wolfenstein, too, but Wolfenstein's secrets were absurd. Like, you'd have to, like, go according to like walls, but that all look the same and just keep tapping the fucking space bar and hoping something opens.

And this, like, the map, they have, like, really cool, realized, rendered 3D maps where you can go in and, like, see, like, where everything, like, and spin it and, like, rotate it and something like that and see, like, what you're missing. I'm, like, pretty impressed with Doom. And it's actually the game that I've been thinking about, like, that I want to go back to because I've been kind of conflicted with Homefront and Doom where I want to play them both, and I want to see Homefront through the completion if I can, because I just want to see the story.

But Doom is very satisfying. I definitely think that Doom, and I, I don't. want to render a final verdict on either of the games I just haven't played enough of them, but I do think Doom is delivering in a way that home front clear isn't delivering. Yeah. Again, not being a shooter fan, but having jumped into both these, like, Doom is the one I could see myself going black and playing when I'm in that mood. You know what I do want to run around and blast stuff.

I mean, I was like, that was such an awesome moment when you rip yourself off the table and you go over there and you see the suit and you put on the suit. That's fucking cool. And like, I don't even have like a real soft spot for Doom. I love Doom 2. I played a lot of Doom 2 back in the day, but it's the one that, yeah, I think I'm like, that's not one that's never going to get played again by me. I will get back to that one.

I'm like, you know what? Fuck around. I just want to fuck around for a few hours and kill stuff. Yeah. I really wish that I wasn't so, you know, head down in kind of funny live because like Doom looks like the perfect game for me right now. After Ratchet and then Uncharted, this is what I want. It's just a fun shooter.

So hopefully, you know, a couple weeks I'll get back to it because it doesn't seem like it's that long. No, it's supposed to be seven or eight hours. For me, it's probably like 10 because I like to be fucking annoying and look in every corner. You could just left it there. Yeah, I just like to be annoying. but I do want to say that this just reminds me

because a lot of people ask about books and all this kind of stuff just reminds me that Masters of Doom is a must read video game book. Also the Bible. Also the Bible. You should read the Bible. The Masters of Doom is a game

or a book you should absolutely look up about the creation of Commander Keenan and Wolfenstein and Doom. And just reminds me of even though it's not the same id anymore, Bethes' Ed is kind of a different id. Carmack's gone, obviously. And it's just,

and Romero's been gone forever. It's just a great, book. These guys are fucking crazy. Like that's the thing I always taken away. And even though that stamp doesn't mean the same. It's the same thing with Naughty Dog. Like Naughty Dog is a different company without its leadership there. The people that are there now

are not the ones that were there in the beginning with rare exception after the merger with Sony. But there's a spirit in that studio that never leaves. And I feel the same way with Id. So people should go read that book. I think it's a fantastic, fantastic read. Topic two. We're talking about EA.

We're talking about Star Wars Battlefront. We're talking about it not having a campaign. Over on GameSpot, Eddie. Eddie. Speaking during EA's Investor Day event, EA Studios boss Patrick Soderland, talked about how Star Wars Battlefront, while generally well received, was

criticized for its lack of a single player campaign. He also teased that a future installment might include a campaign. He started off by explaining it was a purposeful decision to leave out a campaign for Battlefront, in part so that the team at Dice would get it out in time for the release of Star Wars The Force Awakens. The game is based on the original Star Wars trilogy, but it did

have content based on Jacou, a setting from the new movie. Additionally, it makes sense that EA would want to get the game out in time for the film. While Battlefront was overall a success shipping over 14 million copies, Sutherland said he's not pleased with the 75 score it has on Metacritic. Quote, the one thing that we get criticized on was the lack of a single player campaign. It was a constant decision we made due to time and being able to launch the game side by side with the movie that came out to get the strongest possible impact. I think the team created a really good game based on the premise that we had.

I'd say the game was done very well for us and reached a very different demographic than a traditional EA game. So from that perspective, it's a success. Are we happy with the 75 rating? No. Is that something we're going to cure going forward? Absolutely. So yeah, then the game had missions.

It didn't have an actual campaign. And then also he said another thing was the depth and breath is something that's proving to be more and more important, he said. In a world where we want $60 up front and we expect people to stay with us over the course of a long time, the depth of what we offer is important. We have to go back and course correct that for another version if we were ever to build one. The future battle from game would need to offer more depth than. and breath. We had designed it to be much more accessible product

to a wide age group. So an eight-year-old could play with his father on the couch as well as a teenager or a 20-year-old could play the game and enjoy it. So for the hardcore, it may not have the depth that they wanted in the game. So, all right, what do you guys take from this? This is, I remember when

Battlefront came out and we talked about it. I remember talking about watching Greg play the game. And my original thought, as I said, was this is a fucking waste. That, like, they built this, you know, the, I guess, Frostbite or whatever. this game's running on a beautiful dice engine. It looks awesome.

The gunplay is great. The worlds are beautifully realized, and you have to play it online. And I was like, that sucks. That just sucks. But you know what? Like 14 million copies of a game makes it one of the best selling games of the year easily last year or really of the last six months, let's say, not even calendar year, but calendar six months.

And EA can't be too disappointed. I don't think EA gives a fuck about that Metacritic score. I think that that's them saying, like, we can improve, critically because of optics. And they've been doing a really nice job of the last few years of making them not the worst company. The consumer is kind of worst company in the world thing anymore. But I think if they said like, could we bump the

75 to an 80 and get 10 million copies sold? I think they'd be like, you know, like, fuck you guys. Like we're good. I think it's an easy way to say they heard. They heard this because this is the one thing everyone lobbed at this game when it came out. Like when I played it and that's the fun thing. You know, months removed now, right?

What? We got to be six, seven months removed from it. I still think of Battlefront, man, I was like, that was a great game. I had a lot of fun with that game. That's my reflection on it. Would I have played it longer or more if there was a single player? I don't know, maybe, but I would have played that campaign, man. Sure, but I'm saying for me personally, I don't know if the campaign would have then cut into my multiplayer time or what I've ever been touchable on the player, would I have cared.

Like, being a multiplayer-only game, for me is not a dirty word anymore. I think it definitely limits my interest in a lot of games, but playing Battlefront, it nailed what it needed to nail for that time. What he's talking about in the quote, I should point that, about, you know, a dad and son can play it or a 20-year-old can sit down and play it and they can all have a great time. That's it. Kevin and I were, you know, talking about in Collin'Regov today. Like, I'm like, have you still playing it? He's like, no, but I'd like to get back to it one day. And that's how I feel. It is one of those games where if all of a sudden, they drop, if all of a sudden in Star, same day, same Tuesday on the PlayStation 4, some awesome expansion came out on the, it came out of the division. I would have such a better chance of playing Star Wars. Some awesome expansion came out for Star Wars. That's just, you know, Wars because I know I can just jump in and go. I'm going to jump in and be right there with every. Some people have better guns than me, but it won't be the end of the world. Whereas division like, whoa, what's your gear score? What's your level here? What's this?

I'm like, no, did you do this? Pre-Direct mission before? I was like, no, you don't know if that's what it is. Battlefront, I think, was his success. I think most people look back at it and say, oh, that was a fun game if they played it. If they didn't play it, I think it is that they're hung up on the single player because that's what they wanted out of it, which is totally fair and fine. But I don't think it's not in the Titanfall sense of this multiplayer-re-only game,

where history is forgotten it. And I think of Titanfall and I'm like, yeah, I did enjoy Titanfall for that month, but man, I never played any other stuff and they kind of screwed up this and that, da, da, da, da, da, I have like a laundry list of things that didn't go right for why Titanfall isn't looked back and I'm not like, man,

I fucking remember what a great time I had with the game, which I did and I can't wait for Titanfall too, but Battlefront, it's like, I still think of Battlefront positively and I still think about jumping back into Battlefront. Yeah, I mean, I'm right there with you. I think that what you said about the multiplier games, it's not that you're not into them. It's just that it really needs to grab.

I mean, for me, I'm totally not into it. I totally want just a single player campaign. A single player Star Wars and that style, that is really all that I need. I would have never touched the multiplayer at all. Having said that, the fact that it was multiplayer only, I did play it for a bit. And that's saying a lot. Like, Star Wars is probably the only thing that can grab me in that way to make me do that. And I had a lot of fun with it.

I liked that it was accessible, but I also understand that it had a kind of a limit to its depth, which holds you back from really getting into it in that way. I think that you're right. It's them acknowledging the faults, and it's not only the campaign, but it's also the depth. And I think that this is all good signs for the sequel. Sure, that they heard you, that they know this is what's coming. They've seen that. I mean, like, you know, a great example of it is Po.

Like, my best friend back in Chicago doesn't own a PlayStation 4. But when I went out to Vegas to visit with him, I brought a PlayStation 4 to show him some cool shit that was on it. And I was like, I have all these cool multiplayer games lined up. And he's like, oh, that's Star Wars game. I'm like, yeah, we're not connected to the internet. And we just played the mission, the training stuff over and over again, like flying the X-Wings or whatever and running through and shooting and doing all. It's like, that's all he wanted out of that experience, which is what a lot of people, I'm sure, you want on that experience. Yeah.

So we're supposed to be getting another one this year, right? Is that what they were saying at the E3, that they're talking about doing a announcing that there will be at least. There'll probably be an expansion, but Battlefront 2 will be 2017. Yeah, I thought they had said something about 2017. Sorry, I mean, this year we're getting an announcement for the next one. Yeah, you're going to get more content. Yeah. I assume that that that's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, and that's awesome. I think like this, it's all good news. I mean, it sucks last year because, yeah, like, there was so much issue. And people were really enraged with the fact that the game was so bare at first $60 purchase.

And plus there was so much DLC and like day one, this and that, whatever. But it's like, my 14 million, like that money's going somewhere. And if that 14 million gets this, this next one to be exactly what we do want, like, that sucks for the people that had to invest to make that happen. But I mean, that's kind of just how this all works. But that's the, that's the weird thing, right? Is I wonder, this is always the thing, is that in video games, which is very, which is

very interesting, is that everyone has an opinion about every game. And I always feel like, it's always like when somebody wants to talk shit about DC Universe Online, but didn't play DC Universe Online. They've just seen it from the outside. How many of the 14 million units sold are like me? Where I look back and I'm like, I had a lot of fun and how many are the rest of the industry who didn't buy it. We're like, oh, no single player, no sale.

That's stupid. I don't know if there's people, and I'm sure, of course there are. I don't know how large the percentage of people who bought that game. like, oh, this sucks. And I mean, I saw the tweets and I know this happened. I know John Boyega tweeted about wanting single player and all this different stuff. Like, I get it. And I know you're out there.

But I mean, I think there's enough informed consumers that bought it. And we're like, I'm getting, I got what I thought I was going to get. Also, there's a difference, too, between wanting single player and being upset about what you got. You know what I mean? I think that like, I was going to your point where you're like, well, it sucks for them. And I'm like, well, for the people that that suck for, are they the ones who bought it? No, for sure. That is a totally valid point.

I mean, the thing is that EA is not disappointed in this game. and for context, and this is only because they renounced numbers recently, so these numbers are fresh in my mind. Battlefront sold more than Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 combined, right? These are games that are like critical darlings and that like hardcore gamers love and stuff yet, and are not for everyone. Obviously, I'm not throwing shade in any respect to Dark Souls.

It's just those numbers are in my mind, where Battlefront, having been out six months against a series that is beloved by core gamers, outsold it, even though people had all of these complaints about it. And it's a Star Wars game and it has commercials. I'm not saying that all of things are created, All I'm saying is that context is really important. 14 million copies is a fucking lot.

And even if half of those people liked the game a lot, they're in great shape for the sequel. But I do think it's, you know, there's some confusion with what EA is going to do with Star Wars. That's why I think it's somewhat of a strategic error that they didn't have some sort of B-tier or single A-tier Star Wars game attached to the movie that should have come out at the same time. And that's what I predicted for a long time they were going to do. And it makes you wonder if that was the intent at some point because they obviously admit that they could have done a single-player campaign but didn't to make it out come out with. at the same time with Force Awakens. So it makes you wonder like what kind of pieces

were being moved behind the scenes. But with Dice is kind of mixed heritage of multiplayer and then actually they have a single player heritage. It's interesting to see like what they can do with that particular franchise moving forward. But this fills a vacuum in between

like what respawn's going to do with Star Wars, which my assumption is going to be very Titanfall. Probably not Titanfall literally but probably a third person online shooter with some sort of campaign component. And then Vistral's heritage of like narrative driven games and I doubt that that Vistral's game will have online component at all. So, um,

they have like these voids filled with the Star Wars licenses pretty well. And it's the one cool thing and one thing I credit EA for is that they're at least putting quality first. Like Battlefront was in no way shape or form anything but a good game. It's just not, um, my kind of game. And I do think that it was a waste. Like having seen how beautiful that battle of Hoth was, for instance, how chaotic it was. Like, man, this is, I know we've done this so many times, but I could do this again. I can do this every few years, really, with these iconic battles. So, um, you know, I'm interested to see what the campaign is. I'm totally going to play the campaign in battlefront too and um i hope it's awesome i hope it's 15 hours long

it'll be awesome oh my god that sounds so so damn it's wish i'll think because that's the presentation of this game is it's so immaculate that i mean even even a nine hour experience with this i'd be like over the top excited about just because like you're right like we're getting these other games as well so it's like when you look at it as a whole man it's good ass time to be a star wars game fan so yeah things are things are move i mean it's we haven't when we really think about it we have the great Star Wars PC games, the X, X-Wing, Thai Fighter, Dark Forces. I mean, people love those kinds of games, and those are great games.

Those are some of the few PC games I've actually really played and enjoyed when I was a kid, because I was such a Star Wars dork. But then you had, like, the JBC, like, Star Wars games, which I think were actually, like, really great games, too, on Super Nintendo. But after that, like, we really didn't get anything worth a damn with a rare exception. Like, Cotor was an exception.

But you got, like, Mass Terris Cossi, or you got, like, yeah. Power Battles? Yeah, like you have a lot of like nonsense that didn't really respect the IP. And the ones that didn't respect the IP really didn't respect it or went in their own direction with their own war like what Obsidian did and so like that. So it's cool to just see like studios that seem to understand it. Take it a little more seriously. Ground the game ground the games a little bit more into genres that we understand.

Part of that Disney push we were talking about. The one thing that I would love is and the one thing I hope is really in the works. Although it's not an EA. So this is the complication is that EA is basically publishing. all the Star Wars games now, and this is not something that EA would be known to do because EA doesn't make role-playing games, typically with the exception of, you know,

they have their BioWare studios making Dragon Age and Mass Effect, but not. They're kind of doing their own thing in BioWare might be muddling around with Star Wars, whatever, but I would love to see them do another Cotor. And that would be complicated because who owns the IP to that, like Knights of the All Republic, I don't know where that falls in with Lucas and all that kind of stuff, but it'll be cool

for them to commit, I guess what I'm saying is it would be cool for them to commission a studio outside of their own RPG realm, which really is specialized in BioWare, and go to Obsidian or something and be like, we are going to invest a lot of money in many years into you guys making a proper single player, Star Wars role-playing game. I think would be really cool in time for maybe the third film even, you know, really have a long kind of game and play the long game with it. I think it would be really fun. And then let BioWare kind of messed around with their own IP because I think that's

kind of their strength. I just don't want, in other words, I don't want, like, EA to become taking all of their studios and being like, everyone's working on Star Wars. Yeah. It's like that's fucking boring. I'd really be bummed if bioware was just pivoting away from that kind of doing their own kind of thing. So they have to start looking at some maybe second party kind of type relationships to get something like that. And I think that a deep role playing game would be a good way to go. I agree completely. This topic brought to you by Squarespace. Whether you need a landing page, a beautiful gallery, a professional blog, or an online store. It's all included with your Squarespace website. Let's go through a bit of the features. Let's do it. Why don't we? Do they have the dot com? Is that a feature? You can get a dot com.

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Beautiful. You definitely should. Jack. I need to make a note for Kevin here. there we go. Say hi. Just say hi, Kevin. Yeah. It's time for topic. Faderda. Number three. Unsurprisingly, I want to talk about Nintendo.

Nintendo movie plans. Oh, God. Things are happening. Things are a brew over in Nintendo land. Over at IGN, Alex Osborne writes, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimushima confirmed the company has plans to produce future films and is exploring a production system in which we can do as much as we can ourselves. Kimishima did not give a specific. time frame as to when the company plans to release

its first movie, only saying, quote, the first title won't be ready this year, but it also won't take five years. Oh! He also noted that Nintendo isn't interested in producing live action movies, with Kimmishima citing the 1993 Super Mario Brothers film as the main reason why the company is leaning towards anime type

content when Nintendo should produce as much by itself as possible. Instead, with regard to which Nintendo franchise may be adopted, he refused to specify. This isn't the first time Nintendo's expressed interest in the movie business. Last year, Miyamoto said the company's open to movie adaptations based on its stable beloved characters. In fact, legendary game designer released a batch of Pikmin short films in 2014, the same year

during all those Sony leaks. A hack revealed that Spider-Man producer Avi Arad was in negotiations with Nintendo to produce an animated Super Mario Bros movie, which would have been through Sony Pictures and that would have been interesting. And then last year, there was those Netflix rumors about the Zelda series that are not panning out. What do you think? Good luck. I don't know.

It's, are they, my concern is, are they all going to be like directed DVD movies? Are they going to be real movies? Like, come to a theater,

or are they going to be Netflix projects, which would be cool too. There's a bunch of cool ways to do it, but there's so many different ways for it to go wrong. You figure the Mari,

they're going to do a Mario one. They have to be looking at Mario. Yeah. Right. But one, I think when you talk to us and you talk to other people who are probably watching this,

core gamers, you're jumping to, man, a Zelda movie would be awesome. Maybe a Metroid movie would be awesome. Like, taking these worlds that are cool, and giving them and giving them characters, letting him go.

Like, they talk about, you know, anime style, right? Like, Legend of Zelda anime would be awesome. If done right. But then just a CG movie of Legend of Zelda in the theaters would be fucking rad too and it would set the world on fire. If you gave it the real promotional push and the right writers and the right director. And, you know, it's similar what we're talking about with Disney

and how they're partnering with the best people for the best IPs. If Nintendo was like, all right, cool, let's go. And they wanted to do some of it in-house, which is like, eh, it'd be cool. Like, what if you went to? Pixar and we're like let's fucking make a Nintendo movie which property you want to do or do you have some kind of goofy idea to bring them all together?

I mean I think the in-house thing is a good thing. I think that what they're talking about I was not necessarily doing the movie stuff but it's more about the writing and the characters and the story and all of that stuff. Like recently they did the in the launch for Star Fox Zero. One of the few good things about that game was the anime that came with it. It was fucking awesome. I was like, how did you

nail this so well? How did you get the characters? And that was written in house or done everything in house? I don't know the exact things, but I mean I know that Nintendo made They commissioned other people to work, but I mean, it was a Nintendo project. They had it planned out. I mean, I imagine that this is what they're talking about. Hey, we make video games.

Now we're making movies. I think it's more like, you know, they would be producing the project, commissioning out other people that have the skills and resources to do it. I know the anime, the Star Fox one was made by like real anime houses that work on like bleach and all that stuff. Naruto? And I really loved that. I thought it was amazing.

I'm like, man, if I was really, little. I mean, I loved it now, but like if I was little, that's the type of shit that like, I remember Nintendo Power would come with like comics every once in a while, like a Metroid comic or Star Fox comic. And I was like, fuck, this is, this is awesome. And this, the anime is like really one of those things. I'm like, man, I never

thought that I'd see this type of thing. And I think that now we're finally at a place where media is so, making videos isn't a big deal, you know? We're almost at a point that making movies isn't a big deal. Like, people can just do it. Like, we could make a movie right now. If we wanted to with a camera, would be good.

It'll be good. But whatever. You know, a couple years ago, we couldn't do that. Colin does Daleks. Oh, yeah. I'd like to see that shit. So I think that there's also been a lot of other rumors about Nintendo time about making actual anime series and we'll let go on Netflix or this or that, whatever. The distribution, it gets weird.

So when you say the real movie or direct to DVD, direct to DVD at this point is even more of an insult than it used to be. Yeah, it is. And that's why I just don't want Aladdin for Jafar needs glasses. I want like a real goddamn movie. Okay. First off, do not talk shit about Return of the Jafar or King of The East. both fucking awesome movies there was no Aladdin 4

if there was I'm sure it would be horrible but two and three were dope as fuck but I think that when Nintendo it's like yeah if they did direct to DVD that would be an issue but it's like if they made a Netflix movie I think that could be really cool really good even and I think that we're in a place right now

in 2016 when you look at CG movies like it kind of sucks the Rouching Clank is seemingly not what it could have been and it seems that it's awesome but it missed the mark of the game of what made the game special is it didn't firm for I didn't see it but from reading the reviews it seems like it didn't kind of use any of the inventive

weapons or kind of really hit on that level of the that's a big part of the game what is rationing yeah what is ratchet and clank and they they missed the the mark on that I think that it's a little bit easier to to nail that with Mario and stuff because I feel like Mario is a little simpler than Ratchet and Clank in that regard it is him trying to rescue the princess that's the narrative there's not element that you can miss. You know what I mean? I worry about fleshing it out enough to make it a full-blown movie.

That's the thing. It's like right now Princess Peach and Mario aren't in-depth characters. There's not a lot of, you know, depth to them when you play these games, right? It is like, hey, Mario, I'm making you a cake. Come over. And then she gets kidnapped and then we go through all these worlds, right? But there's potential there. But I worry if Nintendo's there holding on too tight, do we ever get that potential?

Where we're getting into who Mario is and all this stuff. They're like, well, no, we don't need to know that. Just get them out there. Bowser's made this fucking thing Floating Castle But I think that's where it's at though I mean I think that we'd be Crazy to think that we're gonna get a fleshed out

Mario movie that like I just want to know his motivation I want to know what his drinking problem I think the Mario game it needs to be simple It needs to be a kid movie you know It's like in that movie That needs to make a lot of money so that they can then make the The Zelda's or the Metroids or whatever

I honestly I think that the best foot forward would to be to make the Nintendo movie Yeah that I totally agree with you make the Lego movie of Some kind of crossover that's gonna end Nintendo it's Sonic. Sonic is there. Don't call it Smash Bros. But it's Smash Bros.

It's all the character. If they just did the plot of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the single player campaign and made that into a thing. There's some bad guy who it doesn't matter who the fuck it is. All the bad guys are getting together and fighting. And then all the good guys come. They're all introduced.

At first they're kind of fighting, but then they join up to beat the bad guy. Sol. Just don't ruin the trailer because everybody lacked like that. It was going to be a big reveal that the good guys were going to get together at the end. I think that, I mean, I'm a little more bullish about this thing, Greg.

I think this is like an hollip. obvious win for them. It's shocking that they really, I mean, I know that they really got burned with the Mario game movie like, you know, a long time ago and, and that they've been like really quite siloed away from kind of the realities of entertainment and they've been very prideful and they've been very insular with

their IP. But I think that, you know, this can go in multiple ways and I think all of the ways are pretty positive for them. They could do, they could invest in a Pixar style Mario movie and what would even be more interesting is if they really got in a bed with Pixar or they really got in a bed with Dreamworks or one of

big studios and it's like you guys do it and we'll license it and we'll we'll green light it but a studio that has talent that's gonna it's be published by disney or something like that and you have a whole marketing arm a whole marketing empire kind of behind it i think that that that movie can't lose even if it's bad i don't think that that that like a maria movie like that can lose i don't think they'll do that is my thing i think nintendo is too stubborn for this to let that much i think maybe things are changing though i mean i think that there's and that's the thing is i think I would agree with you except for the last year or so. We're the last 18 months.

They just are a little different now. Or they're changing. I don't know if it's fast enough. I don't know if it's too late, but I really think that they're changing. The smartphone games is a really great sign that, while they're not for me and I'm going to a flying fuck about these games like Mitomo, but a lot of people do,

and this is probably the direction you need to go in, especially for the native market in Japan. And I think that when you really think about what would be, I think, the smartest and boldest move for them and what I think would be a really exciting second or, so like secondary or maybe even tertiary move once a Mario movie comes out or a Pokemon movie or whatever it might be would be,

and I know that they've done Pokemon movies, but you understand what I'm saying. Pokemon really was the last big marketing fucking shotgun blast, right? When you really think about it, like card game, cartoon, movie, all these kind of things. Like they really were all on board with that kind of shit.

So there is that. But is I think Metroid's obviously the one that's rippest for the picking in terms of real storytelling, a real movie with real people in it, not a cartoon. And this is one of those things where you can make a, you can almost reverse engineer Metroid to be something that everyone's like, what the fuck is Metroid?

When they're in a movie theater and they realize like, wow, this is a game series from the mid-80s. This is awesome. Stars a female kind of heroin. You know, she's sexy, but she's badass and she's fucking killing all these monsters. Charlotte Johansson. Yeah, it could be someone like that, hopefully not.

But, but so to me it's like, I would love to see them do something bold like that because I think everyone kind of defaults to like, well, Mario and Pokemon. And I'm like, well, all right, those make sense. You can even do something with Donkey Kong. You do something to Kirby. It doesn't matter. Like, those are cartoons.

Then you have something like Zelda, which I think is dangerous because what we really are losing sight of with Zelda. And I say this is a huge Zelda fan is Zelda has no fucking story. So I don't think you really want to go in that direction and like shoehorn things into a silent protagonist and all these kinds of things. It's just not going to, I think, people are going to look at it and be like, this isn't. But I mean, that's what I'm Zelda. The same thing with Zelda is the same thing I think with Metroid. I think Zelda has a better shot of it, of being the, of being the,

one you put out there that is different link talks in this it i think the story makes sense in the terms of you have to unite all these artifacts that are spread out throughout these dungeons or whatever and that's why you get all these different cool areas to go into fight and meet new characters raise up this army or whatever but that's the one like we always talk about in the way of like i think the echo chamber core audience whatever you want to call it gives zeldda so much credit that it's a big deal to us so it should be a big deal that it must sell millions and millions copies and it does it doesn't it doesn't sell is fine does well we're all excited about it we love zelda but i think that could be the one where it could be the, you get that

in front of people and like the people who had no idea what Lord of the Rings were before Lord of the Rings came out, you could see people going like, that trailer looks awesome and he's fighting out one-eyed spider and this is happening, he's fucking knocking lightning bolts or whatever back at this red-headed dude. Yeah, I could go see that movie. Zelda doesn't have the residence, but Zelda has,

and I don't want to say Metroid doesn't have the respect, because I'm a Metroid fan, but Zelda has like a like a Geneseecois out of where people, it's a little sacred to people, I think, and like, I think it is what it is. And I think the exciting thing about Metroid, what I really wanted to see them do with Metroid, and that's why I'm confident Metroid is in an X launch title as well,

is that they kind of probably realize that, I mean, you want to say, talk about Zelda not selling great. I mean, a good example is like, Skyward Sword was outsold by Uncharted 3, which to me was like unbelievable, considering the install base, considering the residents of Zelda, considering that we hadn't, you know, people were not too happy with Twilight Princess,

but it seemed like Skyward Sword just like didn't really do it for people sold 4 million copies, I think. But with Metroid, sells way worse. Right. And that's why I think it's exciting because now they can have this thing where it's like Nintendo fans are excited about, the dorks and the nerds about Nintendo are excited about like a, but then like they show it in the theater

and it's got fine production value and it's a hundred million dollar movie and it's all these kinds of things. And it's Metroid for a whole new generation or just a whole group of people that have no idea what the hell Metroid is, but it's a movie they can enjoy without any context for the games. And I think this is a great backdoor into like revitalizing that series. And then figure out what you can do with these IP that make a lot of sense. So I really feel like what I'd be most excited about is yeah, Mario movie would be interesting. I think they can,

I think that'd be easy. I don't think there is a plot problem there. I don't think you have to have a plot. That's like really very deep. I think you can do something like I said, cute with Animal Crossing or whatever you want to do. But I think Metroid's the one where they can make a serious good movie and they can really reap benefits from it that will reach back into their catalog and allow people to play those games again and realize that those games are great

and let them kind of let retro or another studio kind of run with the series and tell us and give us a different look at Nintendo. Something that's dark and serious. I mean, they've had the series since the very beginning of, at the NES, so it's not like this is a new thing for them. See, that's like wave four, or wave three or four, though. Well, it's all I was saying. It's a secondary or tertiary.

Yeah, well, I mean, it'd be Mario and then it would be Zelda because Zelda starts to deal with that where it gets darker, but it's so bright and so light and you can't enjoy it and it's not all scary times. And then, yeah, but I don't think we'll ever get to that. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, this whole thing is crazy because, so, I mean, they're talking about not doing any live action. So, like, it would all have to be cartoon. Yeah, that's what, that's what I saw.

And that's what I'm saying is like my, my hope is that they realize that that's probably a mistake. I just don't know if it is, but I agree with you that a live action Metroid would be awesome. I don't necessarily

think a live action Zelda would work that well. I think that a CG one could. But I just think that it's too hard to do that right is my problem. It's like Lord of the Rings. Yeah, if it's Lord of the Rings,

fuck yeah. But it's not gonna be. And I think if it was a Netflix show, like we said a long time ago, I'm totally cool with that because there's a different level of quality associated with that. And you have more time

to explain things and the budget is just different. if a Zelda live action movie was in theaters I can't imagine it looking right or feeling right and everyone's instantly going to turn off by that CG and I think that I mean that okay that's what I'm doing with the Zelda movie I'm not jumping out into live action

I'm staying away from that in general with my pitches or whatever but the problem is that I just and I think it would have a better shot just in the fact of like when a kid's movie comes out I just don't give a rat's ass and so like when Mario comes out I know it's going to be a kid's movie unless they're getting into his drinking problem and then you but so like when that comes out it's just like that's not doing anything to push it for I think a Zelda movie can go both ways.

It does expand out. You've seen the one, IG put up the fake trailer for the Zelda movie, like the way everyone freak the fuck out. Yeah. I would still be there. Yeah, but I think,

and I totally agree with you. I think a CG Zelda is the right move. But a perfect example, what I'm saying is that Zelda trailer. If you look at it now, I mean, it's shit. It's really, like, it looks.

It's, as excited as you were back then, it was more of the idea. Right. Somebody's doing this. And back then it was novel and fresh, and that was crazy. But now it's like,

oh, God, this is really rough. You're saying Pokemon. I don't even know why. Like, I didn't even, that didn't come to mind. Like the Pokemon movies, it's different because Pokemon is a cartoon, you know, already. And like those movies were, I don't look at them as video game movies. They're, they're cartoon movies. You know what I mean?

Sure. But that was just my example of the, really the only time since Captain N, where they, which was like what I grew up with, where they were like, let's just fucking do it. You know, like everything. Like, you know, you were young or maybe not even born, but like there was a Nintendo at one time that. was like all about merch and all about licensing. I had fucking Legend of Zelda cereal. I had Super Mario Brothers cereal. I had a fucking Zelda lunchbox. I had all these things

that just were unheard of really, unless you go to like the Nintendo Store or something, like where these were cut quite ubiquitous when I was a kid. And Pokemon to me and like from like 98, 99 until like the early 2000s. That was an example to me. I remember I had my team rocket action figures just on my computer monitor and I was

like this is, I would never be able to even get my hands on something like this unless I went to Japan unless I went to like specialty shops or got my Funko Pop, whatever, like, whatever it is. In other words, these were just more ubiquitous. I had my Zelda figures. I had like all of these kinds of things and I think you're like about that. Like if you go to a toy store or even a target, Nintendo takes up

a surprising amount of like the action figure. I only see Amibo when I go to these. No, besides Amiob electronics. Yeah, non-video game stuff. Like there's there's like, it's surprising me that there's so much Diddy Kong action figures and Samis and that's what I need. Link and yeah, I know right. But I mean, it's pretty, it's way more sucks. Can we just say it? Way more expensive. I thought like there's Star Fox and stuff.

Like that's pretty cool. Yeah, I didn't know that. What I'm saying is like they really were all about like pushing an IP with Pokemon and that made sense and they made a lot of money. And I just think it's see, Nintendo needs to change and I think that they're starting to realize that they need to, they have to leverage their IP and their licensing. They are just not going to be the Nintendo that they were ever again. And anyone who thinks that that's going to happen is wrong.

They're done in that respect. like they're not going to be this powerhouse of 50 million, 70 million, 80 million, 100 million selling consoles. It's not going to happen anymore. So you need to figure out ways to leverage those things. And since they refuse to go third party, which would be obviously the salvation to that company, obviously, I think that they have to start like getting really comfortable with just heavy licensing. The fact that there's not like a Nintendo like theme park in the United States or like that they haven't buddied with someone in an intimate way, whether it was Universal, whether it was Disney, whoever. they're working on it. Oh, they are.

Okay. So, oh, yeah, that's right. So, like, the fact that, like, why didn't that happen in 1990? Yeah. Like, this is what I'm saying. Like, why didn't, like, why isn't there a Nintendo channel? Like, really, like, on television, like, why didn't they, like, become this ubiquitous thing? Like, they just let it go.

And I don't, and it's just kind of, it's kind of crazy how this company really, like, the, like, the Q score kind of aspect of this company has changed so much, I think, in a way, Mario. And, and they just kind of, like, threw it away. And, uh, they just kind of, like, threw it away. And the thing is that they have this IP, and they're always going to have it. And so they should leverage it in as many ways as possible.

And I think that's going to be smart for them to do. I think that a Mario movie made by Pixar would make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. And I think that allowing them to do secondary and tertiary moves, like making a Metroid movie and taking risks. Because I'll tell you right now, all these people that have talk about how much money they have, they can't take too many risks. If they start dumping money into these projects and they fail, they're going to have no money. So I don't know

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out for them I'm rooting for them but I and the crazy thing we're talking about with Distribution Platforms is like what if the NX is the distribution platform Mm-hmm I hope not I think that is that's a that's a bad move I mean they need you're saying is right that they need to use their IP to get out to Different people to have them come back for the games I think the CG route's amazing I wish that Pixar would be involved They're not going to and Disney's not going to be involved they have too much shit going on

They have to make their own movies dream works absolutely I think this is something that would be right up there their alley there's a whole bunch of other smaller And Jack Black is Mario I mean absolutely I mean that's I can totally see that type of shit happening And again like it's not like I'm looking forward to the Mario movie Like that is going to be the kids thing

But I think that the smartest call for them would be to do a Nintendo Lego movie style thing Pokemon even if they did a Pokemon movie that wasn't Related to that the cartoon I think that could Obviously kill I think that is the easiest win for them Besides just Nintendo straight up Mario's gonna perform super well I think Zelda is the next choice after that

But I love the idea of a Nintendo Cinematic Universe that I actually think would work with D.C.'s planning. But in a way, the D.C. I don't think is kind of working out where if they started with the everyone's here and then kind of splinter out. But splinter out in a way that they're not splitting out to then reteam up again. It's more just like, now you go off in your own universes. Exactly. It's just like, here's introducing, like, everybody knows these Nintendo characters. You might not know that eight Fire and Mum characters. you might not know Captain Falcon or whatever, but here they are,

and then if they ever get their own thing, whether it's a movie or a 10-minute anime short on YouTube, or a Netflix series, or a one-off special, whatever it is. Like, I think that they have so many IP that work together in a way that we've seen with Smash Bros. Like, we can see these things that should clash, somehow not clash, because of their Nintendo.

That's something unique to Nintendo and Disney. I can't think of many more other people like that. So I'm, excited by this, but it's the same type of thing where I'm like, I remember when we heard about crazy taxi movies. That never happened. We've been hearing about Metroid movies for 20 years, you know, and like that should never happen. So we'll see how this goes down. We got that show about one. The short film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we've gotten so many fan films. I think that's actually like a bigger issue with this. And that's what I'm saying about the live action stuff is that I think

CG gives the shit a chance because live fan, fan films have already let us see what these things could be in real life. Right. So it's like unless they are super high budget and even then, then we're getting transformers. You know, it's like I think the CG is the right route because it's the only way that these things can really work and actually impress us. Otherwise, we're going to get let down 100%. We're just going to get a Splatoon movie.

That is true. Yeah. If they made a Splatoon like cartoon that went like maybe not a movie, but a cartoon and if that led into a movie, I think that they can turn that into a fucking franchise. Yeah. Not for me, but for Pear. Some motherfuckers out there. Pear.

Pair and his kids will be there. Pair does love split-in. Absolutely. All right. As always, final topic of the day brought to you over. Other Kind of Funny forms. Go to Kind of Funny.com slash

Gamescast topic. Hold on again. I need to make a note. Make a note to Kevin again. Yeah. Dear Kevin. It's been 18 minutes since I last talk to you.

Ryan Moroski says, what do you think Rock study is up to now? Do you think they'll make a new IP? Good question. Oh, that's a great question. Yeah, I bet they're still. I bet they're doing, they'll do another license game. I don't, I think that they saw what worked with Batman.

They saw the critical acclaim. They saw the millions of fans. And I think they want to keep going with that. I'm sure WB is still trying to beat down their door to get them to pick up something. And I'm sure, because that's the thing when you're like for the to let them finish their Batman trilogy, ignoring origins that wasn't theirs. To let them finish that. I'm sure WB is like, what's next? What do you want to do?

Do you want to take on this character? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do a, do you want to do Batman Beyond? which was like my dream would be my dream come true of course. But there's so many different things. But I would still say they're going to be doing a comic book game, a licensed comic book game. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, the thing, though, is that they have a lot of license to do whatever they want now.

So I'm sure that there are people there that are creative that want to do their own game. But I just don't know that that's a smart move for them. They can build a war chest in like a lot of, as long as they keep doing well, they can build up a lot of acclaim, which I think that. And I think they frankly, they lost a little bit of their claim with the last Batman game. Really? Yeah. Yeah. with Arkham Knight? Yeah, I think that a lot of people

weren't crazy about that game. And I think that I think they have crazy, sorry, go on. I was just saying, I think that's why I think they do stay within common books is because I think they feel like they have something to prove and it's not like they're not bad. I mean, the game wasn't bad. It was good. It was just not nearly as good as Arkham. See, that's what I was going to say is I think

that they have a bit of an uncharted syndrome of just like, all right, cool, Arkham City was awesome. The Arkham Knight's kind of the same. There's this tank shit I hate. You know what I mean? It's still like a great game. Yeah, it's just, but unlike Asylum, and especially city, I think. Like, that game, like, no one even talked about that game after like two months.

Like it was so the same. Yeah, it was. And but I think that like it just wasn't in game of the year. Discussion wasn't anything. I think that they have something to prove. I think that they overthought that game. I think that it's clear that they felt like they had to change too much and they didn't have to change much at all to make, you know, because their production value is so high. The writing is so on point.

It's just like they need to go back to the drawing board. And I think tweak some things, remove some things, tweak that gameplay, which I think is getting a little tired and a little stale. But I think my guess is. is that it would be like Justice League related. Yeah, I think, I think that they obviously stay with Warner Brothers. Um, they stay with DC. Um, but they could do whatever they want. I could seem to do another Batman game. Just a different Batman. You know what I mean? There's so many different versions of Batman and alternate universes. I could, I wouldn't want that. I would much rather see them make a Superman game. See them make a daredevil game. See them make in Ninja Turtles game. Like there's a million other grounded heroes that fight in an open world that I'd like to see. But I could also see them be like, well, Batman's still fucking the biggest thing going. How do we? somehow capitalizing that. Maybe it is just we, what if we make one in the DC Cinematic Universe? What if we do a bad flick game?

It would be cool to see Batman again. I just, I think it's selfish for me to want that because I think, you know, don't get me wrong. I'm right there with you. Be cool to see them do Superman too. I think.

I agree 100%. John Horrigan wants to know what video game characters would you like to see in a crossover game, not smash pros type, but story mode centric. A couple years ago, there was a big rumor going into E3

as there ought to be, where a game called Nintendo Fusion was being talked about and it was going to be Metroid and Star Fox story based stuff and I was like that is fucking awesome at this point I don't want that at all but a couple years ago yeah I wanted that real that's the problem is I feel like it's hard to do that and not have it be super cheeseball or not work where fucking Sammas is talking to this fox man what the hell like I don't remember on another's crazy ass aliens and shit Metroid but still like you know this cartoon fox and I'm this badass bounty hunter like what a while are we making

this work yeah I don't really want that stuff I don't really like that. I like things to kind of exist on their own. That's why I was so, well, I don't want to spoil anything. I love crossovers. I love them a lot.

I feel like there's a very special place for him. And you said not smash type, but like Marvel versus Capcom to me is always such a special game just because you get all the characters together. And it's like I liked the even taking it out of the gameplay of that. And it, because it is just people together. The stupid story elements they had,

not canon doesn't matter, but just the interactions between all these different characters. I always love that shit. And I think, I think that, it's it is hard to not be cheesy but it's like if they just kind of own the cheese but that's the thing is yeah embracing that kind of shit makes sense but i'm sorry for like uh yeah for a fighting game for sure that's why persona is able to get away with it that's why person is able to get away with it that's why i'm in it that way with it's like i'm in it that way i'm in it that i love it but it the the thing is i love it at a point like i would love that now because I've gotten the untarted I've gotten the tumourates.

I know what those are. I have enough experiences alone where it's like, oh, cool, this is something that could be different. It is how do they mesh those things? And I always think that it's interesting when there is two lines of canon

and you have to kind of cross them over and try to make it make sense together. I don't like it when it's bullshit and they're just like, they come up, oh, it's an alternate universe or whatever. It's like when there is a grounded reason or grounded within the canon

of why it all works. That's why the comics right now of Batman and Jettles. It's good. It's a great comment. I think that's a perfect way to do that type of stuff where it's like you read it and it doesn't feel too out of line to be a Ninja Turtle story or to be a Batman story. It does simultaneously feel like both. And I think that the games it's a little harder with because the gameplay needs to also do that as well as the story.

But I think that if you take two franchises, like I think Uncharted and Tomb Raider actually is like the perfect example of that totally just works. But I think that you can take two franchises as stories. give it a totally new type of gameplay so that people aren't like you know comparing it to one side or the other but it's a new type of game with the story elements of the other two I think that could really work and there's a whole bunch of shit that I'd like to see

Maximum Cortez never heard of him Andy from Roosterteeth he says what games resulted in the most broken controllers crash team racing back in a the PlayStation days when there was a that was the game that I got a multi-tap for

nice so we're talking four fucking controllers and it was an accident. I know you're asking about rage. I have never broken control out of rage. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm only done it. Oh, I have once.

I've probably broken more at I chin, I guess. But like the one that always stands out to me is, freshman year of college, I'm across the hall on my friend John's room, playing WWF Smackdown 2 on PlayStation 1, which was right now because it was Smackdown, Smackdown 2, and then just bring it on PS2, I believe. But Smackdown 2.

Because like the story with that is like, I moved to Mizzu. I didn't know anybody. And one day I shut my door to go to class and I turned the corner and I heard the smackdown music, like the menu music. And I went down the hall looking in every room until I found John. I was like, we're going to be friends. And so we go over there and play. And he always played his creative character, uh, Johnny charisma, who's this high flying little shit.

That fucking would get up every time. And he would land these moves in like his, you know, momentum meter would spike. But I was good enough usually to beat it. But there's this one time where I was sitting on the floor playing him with my PlayStation one controller. And he just keeps doing this flip off there and getting up fast enough. He's like, he's storing. finishers and stuff.

And like, I couldn't do anything. And I remember just going, fucking slamming it down on the floor, but it was a concrete floor. So I just shattered the base of the controller. But then I went out to beat him because I scared him so badly. And in the fact that I was worth it. Raging in his arm. It was totally worth it.

Yeah, that's funny. For me, so like I said, I never broke it out of rage. But my fucking, uh, friend put the multi-tapped on a window and the window was open, didn't know. We like, I forgot exactly how it happened. But we just finished a race. And we put the controllers down. The multi-tap falls out the window, pulls out the controllers with.

it and all four controllers fall like five stories oh wow yeah i mean it was bad i forgot yeah you're growing up in san francisco i'm thinking like a second story oh yeah no no no and then four controllers god broke that's four and one that seems like one of the that would have been the perfect time for one of them to act like a grappling hook and like i know cash the windowsill there was so it was one of those situations where there was so many ways that that could have not happened yeah yeah that i was i gotta say i'm kind of impressed that it did because like you would think that the multitap wouldn't have enough like wait wait to pull things that four fucking controllers, but

I guess it did. They were, they were just the original PlayStation controllers. Sure, no, no, no dual stick.

So they didn't have the dual stick. Dual stick. Yeah. But, you know, do you ever break a controller, Colin? Yeah,

definitely. I mean, um, organically would break them playing games like, uh, Dreamcast controller is really flimsy. So I have to talk about how crazy taxi we broke controllers. But, uh,

the last game I broke a controller out of rage for was, I think, heavenly sword. Um, and, uh, that was one of the six axis controllers had no girth. And,

and they, you just, I just smashed it on my desk and I just broke it. But I always remember throwing controllers when I was a kid, which was like a funny thing. And it was funny on the NAS and S&S because they were attached to the system. So, like, you would just throw your controller in that game would like reset. I remember just like walking away from games that were just like blinking like gray. And you just like, fuck this game. Just to keep it like that for hours or whatever.

Yeah, I was like, that's your punishment game. Yeah, exactly. That's what you get for me to dick. Michael Barbosa says, what are some of your favorite old games that you'd want to play in a let's play? My God. That list for me is so long. I literally, I have documents of like games that I hope to one day let's play.

It's just, let's plays are just so not a focus for us and it gets hard to kind of prioritize that stuff. Let alone to bring in something old and try to figure out how to make it work and get all this stuff working. Yeah, and that's the other problem. It was like, early on we did a bunch of old ones and then our little converter thing stopped working. And it was like fuck.

But I definitely like the old first Ninja Turtles on NES was the game that broke the camels back when it came to us doing the things because we couldn't get to fucking work. Yeah. I love that. There's so many PlayStation games that I want to do. I need Crash 2. I need to beat Crash 2 and 3. I want to do full plays of those.

And then it's just hard to figure out a good way to cover old games. Like what is the best let's play of an old game? Because most people want the whole game, but that's hard to make the content worth doing for the amount of views that that gets. So it's kind of like figuring out the right equation to making it fun, making it entertaining but also making it worth doing. Because yeah, if it was obviously worth doing, that's all

I would do. It's just play old games. Yeah. Oh yeah. Let's see. How long we've been going. I like you a lot. We'll do a couple more questions. Ryan Varel says, why can a company like Disney succeed in the video game industry? They're just not specialized enough, I don't think. I think you

have to be all in. I mean, when you think about the company is the publishers that do succeed, they're publishers of video games. They don't do other things. Activision doesn't do anything else. EA doesn't do anything else. Obviously, these companies diversify in some ways, but video game industry is a unique beast, and you have to have specialty in doing that.

Disney has a lot of money. So it's just not for everyone. And I don't think that, you know, I think that there are some mid-sized publishers that are still probably not long for this world. So I don't think it's a safe space for a lot of companies to be in. That's my opinion.

No, I mean, we did a whole topic about it, right? I think it's also just Disney being smart and coming to that realization that we could be doing other things. And we are really good at other things. and we should do those things and partnering with people who do these video games really well.

Yeah, very smart. Zachary Hood says, how can I find friends through gaming? I mean, I think the easiest answer and I think a very, very, very effective answer is forums. Kind of like thatcom slash forums. There you go. But it's like there is such a community,

those people are there to be friends, to have conversations about games. I think it's easier to find friends through gaming when it's not actually through the gaming. Having said that, Alfredo is very, very obviously into multiplayer games and the amount of real life friendships that he's formed over the last 15 years that I've known him through playing games with people it's crazy like the the crews that he runs

with and the teams that he runs with like those are his people you know and I think it's really cool and awesome that like I'll be down at and all over the fucking country for events we're doing like we're in Texas for SGC last year or when we're at E3 or whatever people will come up to me like Tim hey like I'm afraid of his friend I'm on his team whatever and it's like that's just they're line get away from they're local to that place. You know, and I think that it's cool that because of the internet, you can kind of have friends anywhere you want. Let's see. George Barrett says, how many generations of consoles do you see HD remasters continue to?

Oh, God, that's a great question. Forever. Yeah, forever. I mean, there won't be called HD remasters. Now they'll be called collections because these games are already in HD. Do you think it'll be, though, like, I guess it'll be that on PlayStation 5, right, we'll get all of the Batman's. That's how they'll go around to doing it. We'll get Arkham City, Arkham.

Arkham Asylum. Maybe. I think that we might advance so far in the next five to ten years that some of these games just might not be long, you know, might not belong on these consoles because they might just not look good anymore. It's the way we almost feel about like why isn't there a crash bandicoot collection? It's like those games look

like garbage, you know? And they play like garbage too. And it's not it's an N64 and PS1 era polygonal games just don't look right anymore. So those games aren't good to re-release. I mean, with rare exception, we saw Final Fantasy 7 for instance come to PS4 and it looks like shit. but like it is what it is

so I wonder if we'll have the similar land look at the old games in a similar lens but I don't think so because a lot of these games have a lot of artistic direction style yeah as opposed to just putting like you know polygons together I hope it's if it's gonna keep going it's just one generation back of hey there's this new console and you're buying it

did you know you miss these games on PlayStation 4 Xbox 1 so on the next one you get those because that seems like the majority of them are nowadays with the exception of a PS2 classic yeah there's things every now and then but I think that it's it's less about that they won't be HD remasters obviously because of what Colin said,

but I think that it's less going to be about the graphics or whatever, but it's going to be more about what do the new consoles offer that these don't. And like that's when you look back, that's all that reiterations of games are, when you look at now the,

it's not even HD remasters when we're, we're talking about the PS3 to PS4 job. It's just, yeah, here's a collection. Yeah, game, but not even a collection, last of us. You know what I mean?

Right. Things like that, I think it's just, that's just going to be the norm. And like, I, it's, I think it's a good, good thing overall. It sucks that

you know, like if you have to buy it twice, but you don't have to buy it twice. I feel like the, they've taken their foot off the gas a bit. For a while there it was like, what the fuck are you doing? And now it is like, okay, I guess that makes sense. Sure, why not? Like, as development cycles get longer and longer, companies and publishers need to worry about making money

and keeping everybody and going in a business. So it makes sense for WB who doesn't have an Arkham night this year to say, all right, cool. Let's put out the other two Arkham games because people like those, wanted those, want to play them again. Here you go. Yeah, I think it's like a easy way to kind of fill the void that like things like Fallout New Vegas and stuff

like that did before where it's just like let's keep the brand in people's conversations and all that stuff. Final question of the day comes from Taylor now and back at IGN when you get early slash review copies are they retail do they have their own special box or they come in a bland secret box?

Depends. Nowadays it's codes. The industry's changed mostly to where you just get codes for games and that's on retail. It's running on retail. Part of it, I don't know if it was this shift of this generation as much as it was our shift as well, but it seems like it's always retail. It's

rare nowadays, correct me if I'm wrong, for us to really be getting debug PS4 builds. If you're getting that, it's like, hey, this game debug version of a game the entire time we've been doing. This game is six months out, so here's a build to go play like three levels of or whatever. I think that with, no, that wasn't even when we did the ratchet and Clank, let's play

before it came out three months ago. That was a code on retail that they uploaded, they uploaded that stuff to retail so it would work. Because at IGN back in the day when we, when I started, and it was working PlayStation 2 stuff and the PlayStation reviews, you got burned CDs and DVDs all the time, or DVDs all the time.

And then PlayStation 3 was the same thing. And those just arrived, yeah, a plain old gem case and a burned disc in there with something written and Sharpie on what it was. And then now it just feels like discs are pressed so early. These are, or games are, if you want it to get reviewed are uploaded so early

that you're just getting the retail experience. Yeah, I think the, for the retail games that we do get, usually for me, it's been Nintendo games. It is hit or miss where it does sometimes just come in a blend. box. Like it's, it'll be the retail

disc, but it's not actually in the box. It'll be more like some weird white box that's really nondescription or whatever. But yeah, they're usually retail games completely. This topic brought to you by Total War Warhammer. What is Total Warhammer? It's a fantasy strategy game of legendary

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