Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Horizon and Marvel Games - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 109

Episode Date: March 1, 2017

We discuss Horizon, photo mode in games, diversity, and the huge Marvel game news. (Released to Patreon Supporters 02.24.17) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Cooking with Greggy, man. He's good. He makes good stuff. What's up, guys. Welcome to the first ever, episode 109 of the kind of. If funny games cast as always, I'm Tim Geddy's joined by the Nintendo Switch. Hey, there it is. We can't open it yet, but.

We can't open on camera. I mean, we did open it. The switch exists. We can't show you to stop inside the box. You have the box. Such a pretty box. You like the box call? I don't actually see the box.

I like it. Yeah, it's nice. Boxing's up, right? It's a good box. By the time this post, I don't know. It is. Wednesday morning is the embargo. So yes, this is the been up.

Go to YouTube. But everything leaked already. So whatever. Those were stolen, Colin. I heard they got returned it. No, Nintendo came and straight up, like, took it back from, like, FBI style, kicked down their door. Reggie himself.

Reggie has a battering around with Mario's head on the front. It's weird because you think you would want one of the hundred of them that are going to be sold. To stay in the wild. Yeah. But no. I got my pre-ordered. Hell you. You got my Zelda.

Got my Zelda. Games called Moriardi. Greg Miller. Hi. Greg. Decid to stick with it. Why not? You got to.

Betty Ann told you to. Hell of this for the first time today. I mean, it's, yeah. Well, more to say about it. Yeah. I know right I have lots to say about it but what are your

switch launch packages looking like what do you go what do you get in day one Zelda Zelda but I don't play another game are you buying any other controller you're buying any

I pre-order the pro control going into your Nintendo Switch launch 360 I would say right plus tax because it's the system plus the game yeah and that plus I bought the pro controller

because you lied you said that when you take the joycons you put them on the joycon grip it feels pretty good it don't feel It does feel pretty good. It feels like I'm holding a postage stamp over here.

I need a meaty man, which you know what I mean? Yeah, so that's my plan. That's for years with the Vita. Hey, don't talk that way about Vita. You know we've had it up to here with that shit. It's, yeah, so I'll get Zelda and then we'll, we'll put it in the stasis until Mario comes out and then, and God knows what happens is that way. I'm gonna be playing you and me at how come through the walls.

I'm not playing Mario card. He'll ask himself fun twice a year, Max. Dry bones is back though. Dry bones is back. Battle modes back. God, they got to get a golf on there. The port of an amazing myrocar game.

Me and Tim Gates play. I got my Nintendo Switch coming. I got my Zelda coming. Sure. I'm going to wait and see what other games I end up just picking up. Snipper clips. Oh, that's not launch.

We still don't know the release day. March is still what they're sticking to. Once you switch, I want to make sure that at least the office has a copy. Of course. Whoever, I don't care if it's me or you or whatever. We don't need more than one. Well, the thing about it is like we had this conversation.

So all three of us have pre-order our switches. Today we got the switch from Nintendo. So depending on if you or I take this home and play with it, that'll become our switch. And then the switch we get, that becomes the office. And the switches can have different profiles on them. So it's like we load it up, we'll be fine. You know what I mean? We'll have all three profiles there.

Kevin, I'm sure he'll make one. Play one game a year on this one. I got my name. I made my name a long time ago, actually. And then I got an email with someone like that looks like someone was trying to get, like was trying to get that name or asked for like a lost password thing. that. Did you read the email? Because it might have been a fan trying to help you. Because I got an email of a fan trying to help me. And he helped me. It said, it really helped.

Oh yeah. Yesterday I thought you were all offended that he didn't help. Well, I was worried, but then I, I managed to get them to connect. What was the email? The email said, you know, blah, blah, click this link and then it said, if you don't know why you got this email, you can delete it. Okay. That's what it's now. So here's the question, though, because this is. And I also don't surely care of my name. This has been confusing is because I have, when they started Nintendo accounts, I went and made a Nintendo account. Right. And then when I start a started Super Mario run. It was like logging and it was like, I did that. And it was like, hey, do you

want to make your account name or whatever? And I was like, okay, so I made Game Over Dragi. And then this week it broke as people are starting to get ready for this. That yeah, Mario 64. Yeah. Helping the people out there. Okay. So this almost happened to you. You had your Nintendo ID. So there is, you know, the old there's the Nintendo network ID, right? Which is used for the WiiU and 3DS stuff. And that was the cluster fuck when they didn't have

things figured out. Oh yeah. Then they had now that all their new stuff's coming out with the mobile games they're trying to actually create an ecosystem. That's the way of this thing, but you can have nicknames. So you had your Nintendo nickname, but those are things you can just change any time. Okay. Now they have to. You can't change the name anytime, buddy.

I know, I saw that. I retweeted Casarize. Yeah, that's funny. So now there's the Nintendo account, which is going forward what we're doing now. Also, there's the my Nintendo account, which is the old thing, like back in the Wien DS days, that has been going up till now. Now, that's the one I used to get hats for. I claim my points on it.

You get all platinum points and all that. Audrey Drake getting goofy ass shit all the time from them. You're still getting platinum. points and stuff now with these new accounts. She had no points to get a job there. Yeah, yeah, no, she won. Anyways, so it's really confusing, but I finally have Tim Geddes to cross. So some kid hit you up, though, and said, I got Tim Geddes to try to save you. Yes, he's like, because I know there's going to be some asshole out there trying to fuck you over. Yeah. So, like, what happened with Pokemon Go? Because it before Nintendo had the shit all figured

out. And so what happened is you were able to switch it over and bring it in a phone. Yeah, he was a really nice dude. He emailed me and I just used like, here's the 10 password. You can change it. And like, here's your name. But what worried me is that I had my own account already. I just didn't have a username. I just had the nickname and the Nintendo Network ID. Okay. So then I had this other account.

I had to figure out a way to link them. Did you do it? Yeah, I did. Nice. I lost a couple of my points, but I don't really care because the points are garbage at this.

Sure. Yeah. Points are, anyway. What do we care about? It's like, it's points where it's like, you opened up Firebloom Heroes for the first time. You opened a Pokemon Go for the first time.

I'm like, all right, cool. I can do that again if I had to. Sure. You know what I mean? So anyway, I bought my Nintendo Switch. I got my, I got a JoyCon grip. Joycons.

Yeah. Because that's what I wanted. I wanted the blue on blue. It's the kind of funny blue. It's this blue. Well, first off, we just did a game over Gregi show. Even this show, though, we are excellently color coordinated here in a kind of funny blue spectrum.

Even Nick had a blue shirt on or whatever. But yeah, that I mocked you, I think initially when you did it. And then the more I thought about it, the more I think that's going to look really hot. Yeah. The kind of funny blue on these, this guy. It's going to look good. And now here's the thing. Granted, when I'm outside in the public eye at this point as a grown ass 27-year-old man,

I want just to grant. I'm not. trying to get attention on myself. I'm not trying to look like I'm playing with some toy or whatever. I don't want to deal with that. But when you give Tim Geddes the option to have obnoxious blue, I'm in. I'm fucking in. Even if they make it complicated.

Oh, we're going to sell this thing with one red and one blue. You'll fucking catch me dead with red on this thing. Whoa. I don't roll like that. Better blue than dead. Mm-hmm. That's the only way to go. So I bought the additional blue.

Also, though, because I'm like, the switch to me, just like the Wii is going to be very much a friends are over. We're playing games together. Sure. local multiplayer type of system. So I need to have at least four controllers at all times. Because God forbid Colonel invests some money on this. Colonel,

what's going to happen with him, I bet you is he's not going to get one now. He's going to wait a while. Eventually his girlfriend, fiancee, at that point, probably wife, will be like,

Tim, what should I get Curran for his birthday? And I'll be like, get him the Nintendo Switch. I mean, right, just like I did with the Wii and the Wii.

Why don't you get it to for his wedding? Get him for his wedding. Wedding gift. Buy him one on Nintendo Switch? I don't know. We'll see. He's only going to do. married maybe three or four times of his life.

If I'm like the best man. Yeah. Really? It needs to be special. Yeah. No. Get him in. Get it engraved.

Me, my presence is his gift. Tim loves you forever, Colonel. I'll bring my Nintendo Switch with my four controls. Anyway, I got a pro controller. I'm excited about that. So I'm three controllers in.

I'm missing one at this point. But I'm awake because I don't need a third. Sure. Well, I think the most multiplayer we're going to be doing is us horseing around together. Yeah. I can't wait to get on that snipper clips though. Yeah. I've been prepping Gia.

I showed her a let's play of it. I'm like, this is happening. Was her first, you're stoked about it? Was the first question? Are there trophies? That was not a first question.

She's like, why would I play this game? Second or third question. Okay. She did ask is this on the Vita. And I was like, baby, no.

That's my girl. That's my girl. This is our Vita. Yeah. We're all this is our system destined. We're excited to me to destroy this. And I was like, yeah.

Yeah, we're excited about this. So anyway, I'm excited about it. And that's what I'm getting for my launch day. No, I'm not getting a micro SD card yet because I'm going to wait out for that.

There's no need. Yeah, you talk me down off that ledge. I was getting ready to do it. And you're like, well, you don't need it right away and they're going to go down to press. Yeah. All these people hooting and holler about the switch isn't even out yet. And there's already a game out that can't even fit on in this. It's like, who the fuck cares?

These things are practically given away. It's not proprietary. If this is really an issue, you shouldn't be playing these games. Fact. Hard to believe launches next week. Yeah. Because the GDC, you got packs right on top of it. I got dice this week.

It's like it's all so muddled that I don't feel the excitement that'll integrate that we have one now, I guess. Oh, I feel the excitement. I'm ready for it. I want it here. But even that day, it's not like that day's blocked out to just play Switch.

I think there's, I mean, I've been reading a lot of, you know, I'm looking forward to playing Zelda. I think it looks fantastic. But I mean, I'm reading a lot of, a lot of chatter. I mean, I'm sure there's excitement in certain spheres and Nintendo spheres,

but there's certainly not a lot of excitement for Switch compared to, compared to we or certainly we or even Wii. See, I think there's more than Wii. Colons wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, each and every week, there is it here. We know people didn't like or want.

the show that's not true. Yeah, it is. No, it isn't. That's not true. No, it's not. People thought the Wii was going to be like the fucking hottest shit ever. Now, there are people out there that thought that it wasn't going to be. Yeah, us.

But there was a super hyperbolic bullshit going on about the Wii U. I don't even see that about the Switch. That's what I'm saying is like, it seems very tepid. People understand what they're getting. They're getting the Zelda machine that they're going to have to wait six months to play another game on. And that sets expectations down, which I think is fine. I think it's going to outsell Wii you. I don't think that's a huge problem,

but I don't think it's going to, you know, light the world on fire, clearly. So if you were excited for Wii U when it was coming out at launch, you were stupid. I agree. But there were, I remember the excitement. I remember that Friday,

it came out, right? It was this. It was Sunday. It was Sunday. I remember, because I remember being off, like that night reading. And that's why I stick by the fact that it wasn't,

maybe I'm just talking in our own echo chamber, but I remember when Charles, like, tweeted he was begrudgingly going to go get it. And he was like, fourth in line because nobody cared about this stupid thing. See, that was, that's not, Like, that's crazy.

He doubt, there was so many lines. I got, you know, Charles on Yitz said. And if you're saying Charles on Y is a liar, we have a problem. Like, like five game spots. Like, there was so many people in all of the lines for that. There was a dumb kids. You were a dumb kid. You didn't know.

We'll see how it all. We'll see how it all shakes out. If they don't have a strong E3, that the switch is, the thing is with all of the systems, whether it's the Vita, the switch or the, not even so much the switch, but the Wii U. It's like, those are things where it's just like, no one was excited about it. And then when people were, when it came to launch day, all of a sudden it was just like, well, now I kind of want one because like the people that have them have a new shiny toy.

Yeah, well, yeah, that's the thing. Unboxing and the new console. The Wii U is the same shit with that. I was like, oh, look, this is a moment. Anyway, this is a kind of funny games cast each and every week. We get together to talk about video names. All the things we love about them and all that. You can get the show early at patreon.com slash kind of funny games.

Or you can get it late at patreon.com. Nope. You just got a YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. I got distracted because all of a sudden the TV changed. Every time we did a test, I opened it. It didn't click over automatically. But here we are. Anyways, this episode is brought to you by the one.

one and only Patreon producer, Salem, Ghanem, all Ghanem. Yep, that's right. Can I get a fact check on it? Yeah, that's right. Salem Gondam, Algonum. Were you just doing a Tuscan Rader?

Yeah. Oh, you like that? That's for you. That was nice. I like that. So the first topic of the day is not the Nintendo Switch. Correct.

It is Horizon Zero Dawn. You guys have already given your review on it. Right. In particular, we're going to be talking about the photo mode. Sure. Of that game. Or we're talking about Horizon in general, right? Yeah.

Because I think it's a special game. You haven't weighed in on it. People are getting ready to play it at this time. Our reviews up. By the time this post on YouTube, our let's play will be up. You can go watch that. The kind of funny games cast exclusive where we play an extra hour of it is up. I want to know, what do you think of Horizon Zero Dawn?

Horizon Zero Dawn for me has been the roller coaster of a century. So I experienced it via your let's plays and sitting in watching it all. And I was super sold on the game just because it's gorgeous and it looks very fun. It looks like my type of game from an aesthetic point of view. It looks like the opposite. type of game that I'd like to play from a gameplay point of view. Open world. Here's a bunch of shit to do.

Here's way too many side quests and all that type of stuff. We even call things errands. Like, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, not my type of game. I like the, it's not even, it doesn't even get the linear narrative based on. It doesn't get the honor of being called the side quest. It's an errand. An errand. So I'm like, all right.

Milk. That's cool. But I'm still like, all right, cool. I want to give this a shot because it's the, the AAA level that it's at. I'm like, this deserves my time. Also, it looks amazing, right? The soundtrack sounds amazing. The visuals of it are great.

The voice acting. All the things that I care about from a AAA experience as an exclusive game. I'm like, all right, cool. I'm sold on this. Started playing it, and I was like, I don't like the beginning of the game. The beginning of the game soured me so much. I was like, this is so tropey, slow cliche. And I'm like, it just put a bad taste in my mouth.

Then I kept playing it immediately is way too big for me. Super open. And I'm just like, this isn't, I don't like this, you know. And then we, then that's when we did the let's play and I kind of watched you play and stuff. And like the things you were doing. I'm like, well, this looks super cool. Like I want to get to that point. And you seemed way more invested in the story than I was at the point when I was playing.

And then we did the games cast exclusive and we recorded all this stuff really out of order because of embargo. So it gets complicated. But I was really down on it. I was like, you know, I don't think I like this game. Like I like a lot of things about it, but it just it does not speak to me. in the way that I like to play games and the amount of time I want to put into something and what I get out of it.

Then I was like, you know what? Fuck this. Everything Greg's saying in this Let's Play is convincing me that there is the story, there is the gameplay there that I do enjoy. I just need to not focus on all the stuff I don't like. So then I just started playing it like Uncharted. And I was like, I'm just going to do the main missions.

And then everything changed. And I fucking love this game. Because it can play like a AAA linear experience if you want it to. And that's not even to say I don't enjoy the side quest when I do them. I just feel like they take away from what I'm trying to get from this game. And I can imagine they're a great world building for the people that are looking for that.

But it immediately changed. So I'm like, holy shit, this game's great. The story elements, the pacing. The pacing of just playing the main quest is fantastic. Right. So I'm like, kudos to them for keeping that level of quality and polish. I think if there's one thing I can say about this game is it's polished. 100%.

Like it is very, very, very technically impressive. And just it's fun. It's fun to play. That's that's huge. I didn't think there'd be as much of a focus on melee if you wanted there to be, which I do. I like playing that way And it's especially since I'm not Super leveled up because I don't grind at all Facing some of the the more boss fighty like monsters is

Challenging in a way that I'm like this is what I like I like this. It reminds me more of we talked how I wanted the more Zelda style experience from an open world game and I started getting that I'm just like man, like the fact that I could play this game so differently than, than you guys played it and still have such a great time is a testament to its quality. And I haven't beat it yet. That's why I wasn't on the review. But I want to say I'm probably over halfway at this point. And I'm just going to keep going through.

And then Zelda comes. So that's going to be a whole thing. But like, I'm having such a great time. I'm definitely going to beat this game. And it's, it's going to be up there for me for game of the year. Oh, yeah. I think, I mean, granted, we're in February. But I think you can easily see.

I mean, like, I think we're going to have some. stellar games this year. And I think there's going to be stiff competition by the time we get to December. But I mean, right now, far and away, I think this game does so much, so much so well. It's so special. Yeah. And so yeah, to the topic we're jumping into here is like if you've been following me on social media or anything like that, I've fallen in love with photo mode in this game. And photo mode not new to video games, but not something I've ever really fucked around with. I mean, I've seen it, you know, in the naughty dog games. I'm like, oh, that's cool. And I think, you know, in Uncharted Four, I took a few snaps of like Elena and some.

perspectives that I thought were cool and I was like oh cool yeah you shut up not like that you pervert and I enjoyed that and I remember when a Batman added it for Arkham night or whatever and I was doing DLC stuff I was taking Batmobile beauty shots but it's always been like I don't get the point of this and I don't know if it's the you know meeting here the intersection of my own you know like not love of photography it's not like I have a great camera or something like that but I like Instagram and I like making social media in framing things for specific things and trying to tell a visual story and the things and the things and the fact that the game has so much going on in that the photo mode so easy and so great that when we

jumped in when I went down to LA and played that preview event like in the preview I talk about the fact that I was playing the game on the back of you know just one of the striders going through a thing and I stopped it you know went through put this white border on it because I'm like I'm going to have a style which is not something I ever say when I'm taking photos I'm like I'm going have a style for this game for this photo mode that I think I'm going to get invested where I put a white border on everything and fuck around with it and so I brought some of the shots I've done or whatever here. I'm putting up like 30 some. I think I hit 50 hours last night. I'm I quote unquote have platinumed it. Uh, there's one corrupted area I need to clear and once that's

done, the platinum is mine. But since I've played on so many systems, I don't want, and the trophies aren't live yet. I don't want to do it and pop the last trophy and then hope that when I sink everything, the game's smart enough to be like, oh, you, you earned a platinum. I'm leaving one trophy to pop to get the platinum. Uh, 50 hours in. I have something like 39 now, 40 photos. I cut some of them out of here because they were spoilery stuff that I'll show later and stuff. But I don't know how we want to talk about it or whatever. I mean, photo modes in general. I mean, we've been sitting on this one here of this black and white aloy. This is in the middle of a battle. I hit pause, jumped into photo mode, was able to swing around, put a depth of field on it. So she's in

focus, nothing else is in terms of it. Well, I think it's cool is you've been posting them on Instagram. Like, I don't know what your schedule is, but. Just when I want to. I've seen a whole bunch of them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm putting up on Instagram than I do on a normal thing. Yeah. I usually put up like maybe one. It's cool, though, because I'm seeing a lot of engagement with didn't. Like, you're getting like over a thousand likes on each of these, which I think is surprising. Because like, you'd imagine if you put the same thing over and over it. Sure. Degrades. But no, people seem really into this. Because this game, again, every single way you look, every area you're in, it's like, this is stunning. Yeah. And like, the pictures do

a really good job of being like, holy shit, this is a video game. Yeah. You can play this. You know, this is you playing it. Exactly. And I want to make sure we're, you know, keeping this going for audio listeners. The first one we were showing is this black and white one, depth of field, the ALO with a fire arrows drawn back. This is this next one is her coming down this slide or getting out of an area wearing one of the costumes that I think are ridiculous and stupid looking in this game. I wish I could make her look cooler and not have this diaper on her head because I don't want her taking damage. The diaper, the Tommy Pickles look. What was interesting though is like I've, you know, Colin and I talked about this in the

review and the fact that we've been for the most part blackout on this game. Cool. We've seen at E3. We've given a game of the show two E3s in a row. We're in. Looks great. I don't want it ruined for me. And the number of people who on this specific photo of Aloy sliding down this rail here pointed out the fact that Gorilla took feedback, I guess, from previous demos and added in that little thing she's holding. Because I guess in previous things, it was just her grabbing the pole with her

hands, and people complained enough about that or enough people were like, that looks weird that that gorilla for the final game went and changed that and put something in there to show, like, what you're talking about, like the TLC they're putting into this game. Another one here, this is me playing with light. Like, what's cool about it, and I'm not, again, a photo mode expert on other games by any mean.

I think it's cool to be able to jump into the game when you use photo mode and then this battle is happening where I'm fighting all these different dudes here I think these are what the ones who spit the rocks I forget their names they're tearing it up spitting out the rocks

I'm fighting them at like noon but when you jump in corruptors Thank you wait what corruptors? No no corruptors are corrupting other guys This is what they pick up the rocks and throw them too Okay fine whatever

This is happening at noon I went through you can change time of day So I made it night and I put stars in the back The moon moves the sun moves you see the world swing around so you can get the lighting just how you wanted or whatever shaded her. One of the perspectives here, which is one of the landscapes of how beautiful this game is. This is another one too where in reality, A. Louis standing at the very front there,

but you can turn her off to hide her to get to right to what you're doing in the game. A dead body. It's to show we all return to dust at one point, Tim. Everyone's going to die at some point. Another perspective. It's one of those, like I think for me, it's lazy, but a lot of them are panoramics like this or landscape shots with her. But it's just like, for me, I like this style of photo,

especially when she's silhouetted by the sun or whatever. Lens flare there, like all these different things showing up the scale of it too. I mean, it's just like that's the thing is like getting those E3 shots. Like they, the camera work in this game is great. Like just holding the right stick and just holding it left or right. The way the camera swoops is like, man, it's so cinematic. Like even in just standing here, this feels like an epic adventure. Yeah, 100%.

And then this is me in a town. Like, you know, there's a part in this story where these people were giving a present or like giving a little, not jokes, but they were performing of something or other. And I stopped and took the photo and it for me struck a chord from when I used to be at the newspaper and I'd go out on these dumb assignments or whatever with a photographer and they would sit there and try to capture like candids of what's actually happening in the event. So what's happening in this town. I thought that was interesting that there's that much life in the world that she's running around

doing that. This is one of my favorite ones. I just took it last night. Black and white filter on obviously. What's happening here is this was her idol animation. I had left it while I was screwing something and I paused. I saw it was happening and paused it. You, it looks weird right here.

I've brought the camera up and she's looking up at a snowflake falling. It's actually the white dot that looks to be part of her headband. She's looking at that snowflake. I'm able to tilt it up, look down at her. I might have used up to film again. It's the third album cover. It's like when she started getting really experimental with her music. Sure.

She stopped the genre that everyone loves it for. And that's one of the goofy things about why I like this so much in posting them is that you start like, like this is just a beautiful shot. Again, that I think, you know, I think for a lot of games, you would look at these and think they were concept art or doctored in some way. where this is just me pausing the game mid-fight when I drew back the arrow. And to be fair, it is doctored in the sense of fucking with the depth of feel and filters and all that stuff. Sure.

This one, honestly, for this one, I think all I have is a vibrant filter on. Like, you know what I mean? Just an Instagram filter for the image and stuff. But what you're talking about is like when I start doing these, I start making the story around them, which was interesting. For somebody who doesn't use photo modes, who doesn't do that kind of thing, I never would have thought that I'd sit there and be like, oh, like, I'm documenting what's happening in this world on this journey in this town as I go in there. another perspective here. Fibir and C.

Nothing. Colin, have you ever used a photo mode? No. Not my thing. Yeah. I'm surprised it struck a chord with me on this one. Yeah,

I don't judge it. I mean, I think it's great. But the, but the, yeah, I like looking at pictures. I have no,

I have no passion for photography in the real world, so I'm certainly not going to have passion for photography. And see, that's the weird thing about it. Like, I mean, I do here and there when we're doing stuff

for goofy social media or whatever, but I would never think to go out and I'm like, I'm going to go take photos of this beautiful landscape or whatever. And now, granted, maybe it's the technology holding you back. You know what I mean? Like iPhone camera can only do so much to make it look great.

And Grants is pretty awesome now. Not taking away from it, Timmy. I'm just saying this is one of my early works. I don't like this. This is from my early period. I like that her tongues hanging out. Like she's really focused on tightrope walking this. But I don't like it anymore, Tim.

I want you to know that one of those that fallen off. This is an earlier perspective shot. You know what I was doing? You saw her sliding down the other thing. This is a different way of sliding down. I didn't spin the camera enough. This one really shows what she's feeling. It's like there's so much empty space.

in her at this point. Oh, wow. See, there you go. This is right after you got a collectible. Yeah, exactly. We got one of my figurines. There was a lot of cool stuff here in one of the cauldrons that I took us off.

Don't worry, it's not a spoiler. You should know caledrons are there. A lot of reviews are talking about them already. But going in and seeing that mashup, this is another one where I took her out of it. I just thought it was a cool perspective, all these pipes and stuff. This is her fourth album when she goes back to the genre

that people loved her for. Hold on there. I like that would be the cover for the fourth album. That's the mixtape that accompanied the first album. Oh, wow. This is like the street tape that get people excited. Oh, wow. I don't know a lot about releasing albums, I guess.

I didn't know about mixed types for the album you're putting out and stuff like there. So it goes on like this. These are just the prospective shots and stuff like that. I just wanted to share with you guys and talk about it. Like it's, you know, the games cast we always talk about is jumping in and talking about what we love in games and stuff. And it's, I think I was telling guerrilla, actually, I was talking to some of their folks on DM of whatever about the fact that it's, I love the game. The game's awesome. But what's, I feel rare when I find is finding something brand.

brand new I love in a game where photo mode's been in games before and I've tinkered with it and I've fucked with it but it's never spoken to me like it spoke to me in this game where this is a game where I was like I want to document my journey through this. I want to take all these different photos and like I want to just do this of a landscape right of like because like the game's so cool of our world deteriorated and then however many years have passed you know seeing what's happened there. Rangent last of us did that too but for me didn't speak to me in the way of like it's something about being an open world RPG where I'm out there and exploring a discovering. I feel like, you know, that came up so many times in our review, right? The fact that

for me, what works with Horizon is the discovery aspect in making that world's your own. So to come in and, you know, this is abandoned, I killed it as chair. And like, after I cleared everything out and the settlement went back to that, he was still dead there. So I came back and took this shot. And it's like, it's not to celebrate my kill. It's just this weird thing of like this battle that happened where this man's collapsed or whatever and shot in the chair and stuff like that. Another dead person that I fucked up. Don't fuck with me. You know what I mean? But that's the thing of like, it's this weird thing of people talk about chronicling their journeys in games all the time. And like, I remember when No Man's Sky came out, right? Like people, there was a guy who was doing it and keeping a written

journal of it. And I was like, that's a really cool idea. I'm not inspired to play the game that way, but this is like my visual log of like this 50 hours I spent in this amazing place with this amazing character with this amazing story. And like, I don't know. It's this weird thing. I can't put it into words precisely. But it's this weird picture book of memory thing. They are all so beautiful. And some, you know, a lot of people on the Instagram photos are popping up saying like, you should get these printed. You should get them framed. And they're There's like certain ones where I'm like, I actually would do that and do that and get it put up and put it somewhere and like have it on the wall because there's so much cool shit that happens in this game that you want to see that you want to be a part of. Yeah.

The only photo mode I ever did was in Smash Bros. Melee when I would jump with Peach and then turn the camera right. I mean, I did that though. That was a thing. And then that was a photo mode. They added a brawl for just that reason. I swear to God. I believe you. We all had that.

There's the snapshot mode. If you try to tell me that you are between the ages right now, 20 and 30 and that you didn't have that on your game cube memory card you're a fucking liar and that those photos took up way more space than they should have with yeah we had to reorganize that shit back in our day yeah you know you lived a hard life you get to live you can have unlimited horizon pictures now that now it's pretty great god those game cube memory cards calling yeah those are some tiny little fucks they were I remember them very well remember game cube very fondly yeah so this has been my journey thank you for let me talk I like it oh this looks cool yeah Another artsy one. Yeah, I know, right? Lots of death and devastation in there. And of course, like, in this world, it's Aloy, like, crouching on a bed or whatever,

so I can get the thing and then I get rid of her, but in this real world, she's crouched behind this poor woman with her dead family. Oh, my God. All right, that's a perfect segue into topic, too. It's not. It's just, you know. It's just fun.

Yeah, it was just fun to say. I want to talk about Horizon, Zero Dawn, a bit more. Specifically, Aloy being the main character. Aloy being a woman. this game featuring a female protagonist and kind of the the repercussions that that has had on on people's thoughts about the game

and all of that column. Do you have anything? Yeah, I think Greg and I got on PSI Love You, an interesting letter from a guy, I'm kind of just paraphrasing it, but just that he has a problem with playing his females in games and there's too much almost, I guess it's fair to say, it was almost making the claim

it's too much diversity and he can't relate to character. This whole thing was, yeah, as a man, He can't relate to these games that are putting women into the title character. And you've been seeing this a lot because there is a current of social justice in games coverage, which I agree with, and I think that it's kind of silly. I think most gamers agree with that. But it is important to have different touchstone representations, not for diversity. I don't believe in diversity for diversity's sake.

I've never believed that I've used that term a lot. I think that creators have to create the story they want. So if their story contains all white people, well, that's the story. I mean, I don't think it's a racist thing. Or if it's just takes place with just men and there are not many women or any women. I don't think it's necessarily a sexist thing. But I understand that some people look at things like gender inclusion and race inclusion and all that kind of something games and see it as a positive step.

And I certainly don't see it as a negative step. I think it's great. But this particular gentleman kind of struck a nerve with me because it goes back to this idea. And I'm curious what you guys think about this about like relating to character. or relating to the games you're playing. And I find it so strange, like from a very deep place in me that anyone's playing a video game in order to relate to the character. I don't want to relate to the characters because I'm, like I have something similar

with Aoy. It's Aloy's story. So I'm an observer of her story. And I don't want to even be involved in the telling of the story at all, like in the games like this. Now there are games like, uh, they give you a lot of agency like Mass Effect where you can make your own characters where I'm like, well, yeah, I'll play as a man. And I play his typical male Shepherd with his bald head because that's the way I like to because I'm a little bit more of me in Shepherd because I'm making all the decisions.

I'm playing it in a way that that that resonates with me. But when I see things like that letter, we read things like that letter and it's like you can't roll you can't row. What are you trying to relate to? And also why is it a negative that there's a female character in it? And through that and through that social justice vein that we were kind of talking about, there are some people that think like Horizons getting better scores because it features a woman character. and so I just think it's all kind of silly. So I don't know how Greg feels about the issue.

I mean, we talked about it a little bit on PSI Love You, but. I mean, it's a multifaceted issue and you presented a whole much to sit off there. I, I, you talk about like relating to a character I don't think is a foreign concept, but I also don't think it is. And it's different for every person, I assume, too. But I relate to Eloy. And even though I don't think you think you do, or that's like a touchstone to it, you do as well.

Like, right? She has this father figure. in Ross. And so, like, they're playing on your emotions of what you feel about your family or your dad or your father figure or how you would feel to have a character like that. And that's a part of it. And so there's those touchstones that I jump to where I feel like you can relate to characters in so many different ways where with like dead space, Isaac Clark is just a, he's an engineer dude. He's not bro for us. I'm here to kill everybody, man. And so when he gets sucked into this whole adventure, I feel for him of like, whoa, this isn't what he signed up for kind of thing.

And to an extent Nathan Drake as well, right, who is a fucking world famous pirate killer dude, but is affable and enjoyable and has friends and family and would like to hang out them, but he has this, he wants to go do something and solve this mystery. And it just happens that he has to kill a million people and one drinks blue slap. That doesn't make any sense. But then on the other hand, right, where it's like, you're picking and choosing. For me with Mass Effect, the original trilogy, I enjoyed it and I had a great time with it, but no, I played as Fem-Shepp, and that's not where I'm going with the Relating thing.

I never related with Shepard, period, because they were so militant. I talked about this in last week's games cast talking about Andromeda and the fact that this time the Pathfinder's like, oh, you guys are straight up normal people having jokes, having this levity, da-da-da, whereas like Commander Shepard always, even when I'm playing as Fem-Shep and making choices and trying to fuck Garris, like, you are very much still talking in like, well, you know, regulations this and blah, blah, and I'm like, that's a turnoff to me. And that's my main turn off with like um call of duty games usually of the whole thing like i don't like i don't like playing war that seriously where we're saluting and talking about admirals and this that and the

other and so that's me and those are my personal biases and that's the kind of thing where i just don't care about jarhead talking why i don't see most military movies that are like in the shit like that and so i understand needing to relate on some level to the character i just don't think i've ever had it so boiled down so base level where i'm like oh it's a chick don't care about her experience, clearly there's nothing I can relate to her, right? Like, that's not the point. That's not the disconnect for me. Yeah. No, that's interesting. I mean, you, you bring this up, it reminds me of me watching movies. And I think that the difference between movies and video games, specifically games like this that are very cinematic and narrative driven,

there's a lot of similarities to movies. The difference being movies are something that you just experience, video games or something that you interact with. So you are Aloi, because you are controlling her agency and what she's doing at that time. I'm literally the choice of what she's saying. But when it comes to movies, it's like, I think about how I relate to the characters. It's kind of what you're saying. It's never like, I relate with this character 100%,

and I'm all in on this. There's a movie Sing Street that Miss Movies was talking to us about, and it's like the story of this dude that tries to impress some girl by scheming and forming a band even though he doesn't play music. And I'm like, at that character, I think I can relate to more than any character of all time. Right.

But I can't look at any other movie You can be like, oh man, I pretty much fully relate with this character and their struggles and this is my story. Yeah. So when you take that to video games, I'm like, it's, it is more about do you relate to the situations they're in? Do you relate to the decisions that they have to make and the obstacles that they have to face? And with, with Aloy in Pacific, it's like, all right, Aloy and Nathan Drake, their sex doesn't matter to me. And again, that is being said as somebody that has. has grown up playing as a white dude in video games forever.

Shout to my boy Mario. What up Mario? You know, so it's like, but I can imagine that it is empowering for the sake of diversity and whatever, that even if it doesn't add to the game that she's a woman, it does to women who haven't played as too many female characters, except for Laura Croft or Samis or,

of course there is a whole bunch of them. But like, it's like even though to us, we don't relate extra because it is, there are people that do relate more because of it. And I think that's an interesting way to, to look at it because I relate to this Sing Street character in a way that I don't think, I mean, you guys wouldn't.

It's all lenses and I get that. And that's something we've talked about before. Usually when we're talking about like LGBT stuff where it's like, well, the reason I think this should exist and these characters should exist is because I want people, you know, the minority groups among us to feel like, oh, they are being represented and they're not being ignored and they can not look to it and say, I relate, but look to it as a normalization thing. And that's what I think Horizon does so well is the fact that really,

Aaloy faces a lot of prejudice in the game because of where she's from. It's, there's like a once, I think there's one, with the whole hunting quest and getting the hunting lodge, people are like, I can't believe a woman's in, you know, in the running to be in charge of the hunting lodge. That's like the only time it's really said. But even that is a secondary problem to the fact of her background and what's happening. I mean, I think that also, though, that that, it being a minor thing still and not just being totally written out is normalizing that this is still an issue.

And no matter what, anybody, everyone's not the biggest issue. Exactly. Everyone's going to face some type of judgment in whatever way it is, no matter what you are, whatever, race, religion, you know, sexual. And it's the same thing, right? In the horizon, there's, I think, at least one side quest where you're like talking to a dude. And he's like, yeah, my lover is, you know, missing and I need you to. And it's like, cool, not like, oh, you're gay or hey, I'm gay. Like, it's not that.

Just like, hey, the person I love the most is missing, maybe dead. Can you check it out? Yeah, I can do that. Do the same thing I do. Check their trail. Find them come back. I think it's all about how you define, relate. And that's why.

That's why I've always been a little confused by this because, no, I can't relate to Alo, and I can't relate to anything that happened in her eyes. And it's about a woman in the future on an earth that is destroyed. And it's roamed by mechanical animals. There is nothing there for me to relate to. And that's why it's, that's why it's fun. You know, like, because I live a more mundane life in the real world. Like, I guess what I'm saying is like, I see things like this and I'm like, I get excited

by a diversity of characters and a diversity of stories and perspectives. not through any lens of like, let's all, let's get everyone represented because I, like, I think the artists have to represent them, their art the way they are. Aoi is a, as a white woman. I'm sure that that bothers people because she's not a black woman or something like that. I'm like, who cares? Like, if Aloy was a man, it wouldn't really make any difference to me. But I like seeing those things because they provide perspective, not really, not, like,

you can't relate to someone else's perspective unless that is your perspective, you know? So, like, I, I play these games. The same way, like, we talked on PSI Love You where I was like, it's, it's like reading a book. Like, I'm not reading a Tom Clancy novel being like, man, I can relate to the general here. It's like, no, I'm, I'm, this is someone else's story. I have no control over this. Like, this is, you know, even when you have agency or controlling games, you really don't. I mean, we know that.

Like, there's no truly, there's no true game in which like any permutation. You're not going to find a permutation that wasn't planned in some way. And so I see things like this and I'm like, oh, are. first of all, I think it's great that people are playing games for different reasons, and I'm glad that even though this gentleman that wrote in seems super misguided, that people have standards in which they want to play and what they want to see. I think that's fine, but I guess it showed me a little bit of a disconnect in the way I play games with the way I consume fiction where

we all have seen those movies like where it's, you know, it's Seinfeld, like, oh, you're Jerry and I'm George and all. It's like, but like you can't relate to them. You have no idea. Like, there's nothing about me. I love George. I love Larry David. That's a really great example.

Like I wish I was Larry David because I think he's so fine. fucking funny. He's just going to be flying fuck about anything and just lives his life. But I'm not like Larry David really in any way. You know, like, if I was, I would, I would be happy about that. I'm like maybe 20% Larry David. I can't relate to Larry David's experiences. I can't relate to Larry David's doing.

That's not why I watch Kirby or enthusiasm. I watch it because it makes me laugh. And so I see things like that. And I'm like, why do people need fiction to relate to fiction? It's just strange. Like, I absorb fiction because I don't want myself, like, for it to be about me. I don't want it to be about anything that has to do with me. That's why it's fun.

I don't watch Band of Brothers and I'm like man I'm just like you know winters here I'm like no this is not I've not Collins not involved in this I hear you and I and that's the thing but I think it's games are different than reading or watching and that's the thing where it is like Tim can go play the game and you and I are super stealthy and he's using melee which I only used for you know critical strikes after I taking something down by their weakness and stuff so there is that choice of I'm playing the game the way I play the game I'm using the weapons I use you use that machine gun thing I never even bought right but that's but that goes back to like that's That's us playing a video game.

Tim brought up like Mario. It's like, if you can relate to certain characters and certain things, just like you can relate to a protagonist or an antagonist in a book, then certainly you should be able to at a base level relate to anything going on

in a video game. But you can't relate to Mario. Who the fuck relates to Mario? You know, Brian Anano. Who relates to Tetris? Russians. I did always choose Princess Toadstool

in Mario too. Oh, really? I chose Toad. I was the G. I was always, but the, Toad was the G. pick things up quickly. Now, the...

Excuse me, Toadstool. Fuck this peach. Yeah. So, I don't know. It's like, it just, I guess it's kind of a multiple points because, A, I think it's great that there's diversity in games because I think that that, that is empowering and important to people out there. It's not important to me, but I am a white male.

And I accept that. And while I don't agree with diversity for diversity sake, I do agree with diversity of perspectives and diversity of stories that can be told, I'd certainly find it quite boring if a white man was telling every single story that I consumed. But I never looked at Horizon. I was like, this would be much more relatable if the mechanical dinosaur hunter in the apocalyptic future was a man. Like, I guess that's what I'm saying. Like, there's nothing relatable in that story.

And when you look at video games, there's almost nothing relatable in any story. If you define relate and relatable as the definition of the word, you know? And that's why I think that, you know, I get a little disturbed with this like this ranker about about women, about inclusion being inclusionary and I'm like of course we should have those things but why can't this gen I'm hung up on this guy because I'm like why can't you relate to someone who's

not a white man it's just weird you know and is every video game you ever played you trying to relate to something? Because I guess I just never looked at it through that prism that lens where I look at my favorite books Yossarian and Catch 22 one of my favorite protagonists in anything ever

it's like nothing relatable in it like I don't know what the fuck that was like it was terrible It's a great story. I enjoyed that. I love that character. When I watch John Adams, and I revered these men that they're portraying, and I'm like, I can't relate to their experience.

That's what's fun about it. I can't relate. I live in fucking 2017. I own a business. I live in an apartment with my friend. Kevin's kind of your slave, though, so you can relate on that. That's not funny, Greg.

You can't joke about slavery. There's an interesting, like, kind of side tangent to this where I was on Game Fax reading about something else. And, uh, yeah, someone, uh, posted a, there was an article on the Guardian and it was Horizon Zero Dawn, the feminist action game we've been waiting for. Didn't read the article. Yeah, but you can kind of like, you know, that, that's kind of like, you know,

that, that's going to get some negativity attached to it, right? And his response to it was he posted it. And, um, the subject line was, is this game all about sexism? And then in it, which said, this article has just put me right off the game. Is it going to be all political and a little social? Justice Warrior Circle Jerk about how powerful women are like this article suggests or is it it's going to be something that normal people can just play and enjoy and it's just like there's so much it's a very problematic situation all across the board right but I think that it's weird that this guy

can see that thing and just be like no fuck this just based off someone else's article's like look at the game make your own kind of decisions from it and that's thing it's like I think that there's nothing wrong with with people taking some type of political understanding from playing the game like that's a good thing when there's layers and it's deep and it means different things to different people right like I would be shocked if there was a triple a PlayStation 4 exclusive game and a level of horizon where it's like you play it through and the only thing you can take from it is this is a feminist game if you play through the game and play through the story it's like oh I can see some feminist you know the tones to it or whatever

That's one thing. But like, this guy's acting like, oh, man, this is, this is a, like, what's that even mean? You know? Yeah, I agree in the sense that, you know, I agree with you, but I also, to his, not to his point, but the contrary or a different point of view is that when you see, and this is why like, like, just the fucking endless, you know, my, my, the Rubin report, a show I really love, Dave Rubin, a buddy of mine, runs it.

He made up this term called the Oppression Olympics, which is like my favorite, my favorite term that I've heard in a long time where he's like, everyone. is trying to be more oppressed than the next person. And everyone's judged and based, uh, judge based on like, how oppressed are you? Well, if you're a, a poor, uh, black man, your oppression level is this. Way more oppressed than the middle class white man who's less

oppressed than the transgender person. And you see these kinds of things happening where like, you know, uh, with Bayonetta is a great example where I looked at the game like Bayonetta from platinum and I was like, well, this is a strong, sexually confident female character that's destroying people and she's fucking kicking ass and what an empowering character that must be for women. But that's not the case for the people that look for everything to complain about, you know,

because she's too scaly clad and sexualized. So Bayonetta is not good enough. You know what I mean? And then you see Aloy and that's too much. You know, and I'm like, why can't we just first of all, I mean, I don't think it's very spoilers, but like Horizon's society is very female dominated in the game. So it doesn't just stop with Aloy. But it has nothing to do with anything.

No one ever says a goddamn word about it. That's just the way it is. And there's male leaders and there's female leaders. And that's the whole point is they're just leaders. They're the in charge of whatever they're in charge of. And nobody's like, but like, why is everyone, because I guess why I bring up the oppression Olympics,

which again is an amazing term, is on one end you have it the way Rubin defines it, which is interesting. But you have it on the other end too with like everyone trying to be oppressed by the inclusion of diversity, by the inclusion of all these things. And I just look at it from a very basic,

level where I'm like, why can't we just look at it as just different stories from different perspectives that we cannot relate to, that we should not relate to, that no one relates to, no one can relate to fucking Commander Shepard flying through mass relays because it's fucking fake. Well, I've been on an airplane. And so, and so, like, but that's what's so fucking fun about it. If I found a character that I could absolutely relate to, then I'm playing my life, and that's boring.

I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. So people should, people should embrace this kind of stuff, not for my, a, you know, if it pleases feminist, that's great. I don't care. Like, if it pleases, you know, all these things, all these quotas that must be met, that's fantastic. But from a storytelling perspective, we should embrace this kind of thing. We should embrace an aloy. We should embrace, you know, more female characters and more minority characters because it just gives us different perspectives by which, yeah, we can't relate to them per se, but we can enjoy them all the same. And then it gives everything a little bit more of a special feel, you know, a more of a,

not to use the nomenclature I've been using, but a diverse feel, just based on fiction. Because you read some of this shit and it's like you can't, you know, like this guy, you can't read the Scarletter letter because you can't, because Hester Prynne is a fucking woman. Doesn't make any sense. She's, she committed adultery. I mean, I can, I can relate to her because I too got fucked by my priest and became

pregnant. Whoa! But, you know, you understand what I'm saying? It's just strange to me. So I like seeing things like this. I hope people keep driving forward. There's some people upset that Ellie is going to be the main character in the last was too and I'm like, isn't that the obvious evolution?

Yeah. Isn't that the obvious evolution of the series? He feels like he's being pushed out of video games, which is just weird. Oh, sir, I think you're pushing yourself out of video games. And the, I don't know, I just, I wish people would just enjoy this diversity. Yeah. Just because fiction becomes more richer and deeper when we get those kinds of things. If the next great game I like is a white male,

I'm sure I'll play as a white male in Mass Effect. But that's because I'm a full-blown racist, so it's a hard thing to kind of tap into. Tim, how do you relate to Sonic the Hedgehog? Well, he goes fast. I dream of that. I can't do it, though. This is actually a great segue.

Are we talking about Sonic the Hedgehog? We're talking about diversity in games and potentially the lack of diversity in games. Here's a question from Jelly Belly 100. He says, what's up, guys? Can't relate. So after seeing... I don't like jelly peas.

I can't relate to you. After seeing Marvel's game deal with Square that was announced recently, I got to thinking. Sony has a deal for the exclusive Spider-Man game being developed by Insomniac. Do you think that Microsoft will do a deal with Marvel or Square for either an exclusive game or at least a timed exclusive like we saw with Rise of the Tomb Raider? The Microsoft game's lineup seems pretty weak compared to the strong lineup that Sony seems to have for the next two to three years. So an exclusive from this partnership would be a huge deal and help fill a seeming, lacking lineup of games. I love to hear your guys thoughts on this. Thanks for a killer show. Now, this is an interesting question because for weeks, I've been waiting until the dream team right here gets together to talk about Marvel games and what they mean for video games. This is huge. We've seen what Marvel and Disney and Star Wars have done to movies and blockbusters in terms of they're just being like put out at a high quality rate. We haven't had duds yet. I mean, like real duds. At the very least, these movies are good. Right? Like, even,

dark world. It's just not. It's enjoyable. Yeah. But it's like, okay, cool. At least like Captain America still the war. Whatever. I fucking hate you. I fucking hate you so much. But in the last couple months, there's been a lot of news. Square, Annex partnering with Marvel for an Avengers game.

Yep. Being made by what team? Isdha, Montreal. Idis Montreal. Who made... Wait, no. That's wrong. Sorry. It's... Crystal dynamics is making that. IOS Montreal is being pulled off of DeiSX. Yes.

So IAS Montreal being pulled off DeiSX as a franchise. We don't know the future of that at all. And they are going to be helping Crystal with Avengers. But then there's also rumors that they are making a Guardians of the Galaxy game. That's the thing that is not confirmed, but there's been a lot of rumors in the same way that we've seen rumors of Shadow Tomb Raider, which is all but confirmed. When you start putting these things together, it starts to look pretty obvious at what we're looking at here. They put out that trailer for the Avengers and it was very much just a CG teaser like get hyped moment.

You know, please be excited type thing. But it really was a message of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney approach to things is going to make its way into video games. And with franchises like DeSX seemingly being shelved to make room for this, that is kind of the level of game where it's like, DeiSX is like the low tier of AAA. you know? Sure. Where it's like it's up there. But it's like not selling them. It's a niche game.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what you, as a huge company like Squarionics, you cannot sit there and make niche games. Yep. At least not with that development cycle. At least not with that investment. Mobile, sure. Something different.

Why not? So I just want to hear you guys' thoughts on this. And I thought his question was a nice lead in too. Because there is the idea of, okay, now, well, there's Avengers and potentially guardians on this side, but then insomniacs making Spider-Man. Where does Spider-Man fit in this universe? Is it all? one thing. Like, is it a Marvel video game universe or is there the square Marvel universe and

then the Sony Marvel universe? Sure. I mean, from, let's go broader than that before we get in the weeds on where we think the universe is netting out. And I think Colin and I've talked about this a lot. And I think when we initially talked about it, I think we're on different sides of it. I think this is a great move. I love this move. I love what they're doing. I always go back to that story of you and I go and I going to see Avengers Age Voltron. And they're like, do you want to I'm in early Adventure screening. We're like, yeah. Like, oh, Marvel games is going to have a presentation.

We're like, all right, whatever. And we got there, and that's when Bill got up. That's when Mike got up. And they were like, hey, like, we have done games wrong before. And we're not going to do them wrong anymore. We're here. The first announcement is that we've partnered with Telltale. We didn't know at the time.

That would have gone to be a Guardians of the Galaxy thing. We've partnered with Tel Tail. We're doing that. And you're going to see from here on out, us taking this seriously. And we had seen when Disney got the Marvel license, those Activision contracts go away, those shit, you know, Spider-Man games getting put out every nine months or whatever, go away. And we didn't know what they were going to do with that.

And when they came out and they were like Guardians, or when they came on, they said, Tell-Tale, I was like, brilliant, tell-tale's good at comic, and this is before Batman. They're good at comic-booky things. This is a great fit. This solves superhero action problems. That's why I'm always saying they should make a Superman game.

That's awesome, and let's see what goes on from there. Then it was Spider-Man with Insomniac. Now it's Avengers here. And then what you assume to be is Guardians with Idos, Montreal. all. And I think the argument calling I had initially, and I forget if it was, it might have been telltale, it might have been, it's probably going to come up more with insom is using someone else's IP versus making an original IP. And I think what's interesting with this, people we're talking about now, Insom, Crystal, and then IDOS, IDOS, is the fact that you're talking about three people there who

have had original IPs that are awesome, that should be huge, come out and not do the numbers they should do, right. I mean, Sunset Overdrive, we can talk about within some. You can toss in fuse or whatever the hell. Is that what it ended up being called? Yeah, it was Overwatch and that was fuse. Or overstrike. I'm sorry. Oversight. Yeah. Then, you know, Tomb Raider, which I don't have an answer for why the new Tomb Raider isn't the biggest, isn't a bigger deal. The argument always is they did they made these bad deals with Microsoft. So you get it out there. It comes out. It's kneecapped there. By the time it comes to PlayStation, how do you get behind promoting a game that is old? Old game is old. And then, of course, DeusX, up in, and, and, you know, and, you know,

Montreal with IDOS. And it's the fact that I don't think original IP should go away, but I do think there's something to be said that we have these talented teams. And rather than how, all right, cool, go take another shot with Deosex. See if you can make it matter this time and not make it matter. Square looks at that studio and closes that studio down.

They lay people off. They do these different things. I think there's something to be said for saying, people want this. People want these kind of games. And not only do they want them, they want great ones. I'm flabbergasted that we are sitting here in 2017.

And not every superhero. major superhero has been given the Batman Arkham treatment. Like when that, when I'll never forget leaving that demo with Anthony Gaios for Batman Arkham Asylum. And he was like, that was awesome, right? And I'm like,

I can't tell. I don't know. I've been burned so many times. And we were doing secret stuff. And then you jump in ahead. And then we're doing like just fucking button matching fighting. I don't know. And when we got that game and you were like,

oh my God, this is a love letter to Batman. This is a love letter to an IP that people are desperate for something awesome with. It was like, why hasn't it happened with Spider-Man? Why isn't that happened with Superman? Why is, I mean, every superhero author. And the fact that we are here now and it still hasn't happened, the fact that Marvel's

grabbing this and doing this, it's like, well, here we go. They are going to take over the way they took over movies. And my hope is that for an insom to do this, for a Dei-Sahs to do this, for Crystal to do this, who Crystal, again, phenomenal with these two-mater games, the hope is an influx of money, your team can still be big, and then you get to go do what you want to do. You know what I mean? the fact that Gorilla just did Horizon and original IP and all the stuff, it isn't lost that they've done Killzone forever before that.

And that that was a thing that, okay, this is doing well. Could we do better. It's still going to find. It's a launch thing. We believe in you. Different story, of course. They're at first party. So Sony's not going to cut them and blah, blah.

But when you're a huge company like Square Enix, like you can't sit there and be like, all right, well, keep fucking taking shots. Tomb Raider is always going to be a thing for them. But how they do it and how that works is different. I think this is just a brilliant move and I'm excited for it. Yeah. I mean, it's as a fan. of comic books, comic book movies, comic book characters, and also comic book games.

I'm very excited to see these very talented teams work on games and what we can get from that because it's like Love Laura Croft, Tumray is great, but the idea of it being Iron Man, I'm like, oh, I am more excited about that. I think that's cool, and I'd love to see what they do on that level. But in addition to this stuff, there's Marl v. Capcom, which no one ever saw that coming back for a fourth installment. Like, MBC 1 and 2, huge deals. It was E3, it came back and surprised a lot of people, but people didn't love it. The fighting game community wasn't on it as much as they were with one and specifically two. But the fact that we're getting another one, like, that's a game that was caught in licensing hell.

So this is Marvel being like, we're fixing this shit, getting the licenses where they need to be. And like, all right, Capcom hasn't fucked this up. So we're going to give them another shot. And I really think that that's a smart move. And the fact that we're getting Marvel's Capcom infinite so soon is telling that they want to get this. ball rolling. Marlvers Capcom two specifically introduced me to so many Marvel characters that I didn't even know. And it reminds me of Smash Brothers in the way where it's like there, there is all these classic characters and you were very familiar with a couple of them like Wolverine and

Spider-Man. I don't know who Thanos is. I learned Thanos because of Marvel's Capcom too. And getting that out, introducing video game players, gamers to this roster of characters. And then obviously they're already familiar because of the movies and all this shit. It's like these kids know who Black Panther is. Yeah. You know, like they wouldn't have before. Now Black Panther will probably be in the Avengers game, at least to some extent, right? Sure.

I'm most interested that they're coming out of the gates seemingly with Guardians and Avengers. That's a lot of characters. That's a lot of gameplay styles. And I wonder, and I guess Spider-Man's the one kind of outlier, which is smart, right? Like, what other Marvel character is a Batman-level character that can, A solo guy who needs to go on and do this. Like I feel like an argument could be made for Wolverine. Yeah.

Maybe Iron Man at this point. Sure. Cap. I mean, you could do it. But I mean, like those guys are Avengers. You assume that. And like this could easily,

I mean, like it's to your one of your first points of like, is this all in the same universe and stuff? It's like that sounds crazy, but it isn't in that sense. Because that's how movies used to sound. That sounds crazy. They're going to be all in the same thing.

If you have whichever game hits first, who, And no, is an Easter egg where Spider-Man swings in at the end or whatever. That's fucking rad. I mean, I don't think you'll see that. I think they will be separate universes because I think they need to do that with different developers, different publishers. Like there's so much happening. Granted, they're all Marvel properties, but I still think that's a lot to be like, all right, Crystal, somehow kick it to insomniac and like they talk to each other and make that not be weird. Colin, I'm really interested in what you think about what this is going to do to franchises like

Deiasex and all that. Well, I mean, I think, you know, DeiSX is fine. DeiSX will come back and and Square Inix owns that IP, so they can get someone else to work on it, even outside in the second party perspective. But to me, as I've marinated on this kind of deal, it's a smart deal. It's also the deal of least resistance for everyone involved. If Marvel was actually truly, truly smart, they'd use their money and their power to make their own studios that would make these games. So I think that the, so I think that using like putting, this will cost them less money. They will therefore make more money. and can contract all sorts of different unique and interesting things.

I think the Spider-Man deal with them. Like the guy asked about Xbox exclusivity, I doubt it. I think that the reason that Mar-I think it's pretty obvious why PlayStation scored a Spider-Man exclusive. And I wouldn't be super surprised if in the family of Sony, that's like part of the quid pro quo that's going to get Spider-Man out of that universe, like out of their hands. You know, so I think that there's way more to that deal than anyone

than a lot of people are talking about. And I just don't think we know the details of it. that's too strange to me to be anything, to be a coincidence. I don't think it's a coincidence. I think that's part of the exit strategy for Spider-Man getting that, you know, for my Marvel being like, we're going to take him back now. You've had your chance, Sony. And I don't think, you know, Sony's, Sony pictures obviously have a pretty tumultuous kind

of few years. So I don't think that, you know, they might be able to get a lump sum of money, whatever it might be. I am personally, you know, there's two things. I feel bad for DC. The DC doesn't DC has a terrible I mean Compared to Marvel is a terrible stable of characters

They have a few characters that are really really important Like Batman right like in a couple of hours But like Aquaman Gives a fuck flying fuck about any of these characters But in games it was in 2009 When when You know Arkham Asylum came out And really shook the idea of a superhero game up

And really gave us I mean not that I know it too deeply But really the first truly AAA superhero game I would say And yeah I agree with that And I do one quick aside. I do want to give a shot to God a man too. Oh, well, no, Jesus, my balloon.

I was going to say injustice. I know not the same, but I haven't mentioned it at all. We haven't mentioned all. I just want to say. But they, and it reminds me of Batman begins and kind of the trend of, of DC making great movies and then dropping the ball. And then they made great games and they dropped the ball. And it's like, you know, they don't have the stable to, to proliferate the way Marvel does.

So Marvel was very smart to identify these things in movies. and identify these things with games. I don't necessarily agree with the way they're going about it. I think this will pay greater dividends if you can bring it all internal. And I do think it's a huge mistake that they didn't create a couple of studios to do these games. Like the, they have plenty of money. They can attract all sorts of talent.

They can approach people from all over the place and really controlled it. But isn't that like Epic Mickey, right? That's my, yeah, my counter argument to it all is that Disney did this. Like, you know what I mean? This is Marvel, but it's still Disney. Well, old Disney, like Disney pre-Marvel did this. Like this is not, I mean, I pick Mickey's nine years old. Sure.

But, but, but, eight years old. I'm not saying that's the quality and they had, they had the Pirus game everybody thought looked good and da-da-da-da. I think this goes back to what we were just talking about the game over Gregi's show or whatever, but I mean about playing to your passions and whatever. I don't think there's anything wrong with Disney slash Marvel being like, we want awesome games and we want awesome games now and we don't want to incubate a studio and build out a team and worry about if they're going to do it.

And then see them get their sea legs and figure all these different around, blah, blah, blah, blah. I love the idea. idea that they've gone through and been like, Tomb Raider was a great game and Deiasex was a great game and Sunset Overdrive was a great game. And these are teams that are amazing. They're just trying to work with things that aren't necessarily resonating with people. We resonate with people. Let's get the best people in here to work on it. Right. But this sti, like the counter argument to that is that this gives, again, this is the path of least resistance that will give us the, give them the best possible product. This stymies their ability to grow the brand.

Square Inix is not going to make only marble games. At some point, like, you know, is Marvel just going to treat Square Enix's studios as a, like, a first part and a first part relationship? Is Insomniac now just going to make Marvel games? In other words, like, this seems to be one-off things that might, you know, that probably involve lump sum payments to the studios to keep them alive, maybe points on the back end for how well the games do or how well the games score, I'm sure. But they don't, Marvel doesn't own, you know, the studios that make these things and has

only a limited amount of control over them. And the inverse is actually more important that. you know, the studios have other things to worry about, and they're going to start making other games, whatever. So these are going to be one-off kind of shots in the dark. And I, like, I would be surprised if insomniac makes more than one Spider-Man game. Like, I would be surprised if, because, like, this is, Insomniac specifically, like, they were fucking obsessed with their own IP,

and now they're not anymore. Like, I'm sorry. Like, that's, that's still their directive there. And, like, this seems to be a thing to keep the lights on so that they can do those kinds of other things. I think, I think you're thinking, I think the contracts out there have to state how many games there are, where the options are to get in and out of a clause, what that's going to be. I don't think it's, I don't think it's, I don't think they, Marvel whatever, and into these conversations and say, we're going to do one-off things. I think it's the fact

of, yeah, their money gets in there and there is the Spider-Man team, and then there are teams working on other stuff, and it's like swing shift, like when somebody does burn out and they don't want to do Spider-Man 2 or whatever. They get to move off, but there's still Spider-Man 2 happening. I guess I look at, I look at, you know, the situation like Crystal Dynamics just going to make three Marvel games in the next 10 years. Like, I don't think so. Like, like, I, Idaus Montreal is just going to make three, three or two or three marble. That's why you see Crystal and IDos doing this weird thing for Shadow the

The partnership, whatever it is. I mean, like there's something going on there to keep everybody going. But I think it is, think about it this way too. These are studios that are underappreciated, under respected,

I think on the mainstream culture. And I think you're talking about that. I think when the accolades and sales and money and awards start pouring in for if they nail Spider-Man and Avengers and all that different. and stuff. I'm like, yeah, they're going to make two more of those. They're going to be fucking all over there. Maybe. I mean, I look at that again, Marvel gets the accolades. The studios, yeah, they made the games,

but they don't own the games. They don't own the IP. They don't have any control over anything that's happening with them. And that's what I'm saying. Like, the first half of it makes great sense. Let's get these studios. Let's pay them money. They'll make great games. I have no doubt that all these games will be great. But it's the latter half, the year six through 10, where it's like,

you could have just invested in studios that could do these games and actually control the entire scenario in perpetuity. It would have just taken a couple more years of preparation. That's it. If Marvel is so confident if it's slate of movies and what it's doing, then it shouldn't matter. You know, that it's going to take a couple years.

But it would have taken a couple more years for an unproven product. That's the thing. But it wouldn't be unproven because they would be able to get, like, just because the studios being made, it reminds me of like, oh God, what's a good example? I don't know. They're not just some fly-by-night operation. They could have gone and gotten anyone they wanted. They could have literally just gotten anybody that they wanted.

and it would have been harder in the, I guess what I'm saying is it's easier, this deal is easier in the front and it's going to be harder in the back end. I would have put the difficulty in the beginning and been like, no, like we're a new Marvel, we're new Disney, we have this great shit going on.

Because it wouldn't, I mean, not that I know, I don't know a goddamn thing about movie production, but my assumption is that Marvel Studios and Disney and all these guys are the ones that produce all the games, right there are the movies, right? It's like, it's the same silo. They have different producers and directors,

but it's the same silo of production you would have to assume. It's not like they're going to Paramount and being like, you guys make these two movies. We're working with different production companies. Right. That's what I just said. It's silo, but you're working with now different in gaming. You're working with different publishers.

You're working with different. It's very convoluting and complicated. It's going to make it much harder in the back end. I believe that. But I don't think the products are going to suffer. What I'm wondering is if the longevity of the products will be there because now they're going to, like, say insomniac, you know, my assumption is that,

Insomniac got paid a lump sum for Spider-Man. I can't imagine that they're going to make much more money than maybe some incremental things based on sales. But this is clearly a lump sum front payment. We get more money on deliverables and stuff like that. But what happens when Insomonauts? Well, we see a window for our own IP and you might want Spider-Man. No one's going to make this game as the sequel as well as us, but we're not making it.

That's when the problems are going to erupt. And it's not a huge problem because do we need another Spider-Man game? Probably not. But it's just something to think about. I think that they made a smart and shrewd move. I just think that they could have been smarter and could have been shrewder. Because I certainly would want control. Because now they have to employ a bunch of producers that go to and deploy to all these studios,

and you could have just cut that whole level out. I think that's their level, though. I think that that's their investment is in those producers and the visionaries that are like, all right, we're going to make sure that we got the fighting game over with Capcom. We got the story-based stuff with Telltale. We got the more third-person action covered in multiple veins over here, here and here. It's kind of like saturating the market from all angles in a way that if it was their own studio, they'd only be able to focus on so many things at once.

And they could have done that and a couple of the other things, but I think that's when it's like, you need to either focus on making the games or focus on managing the other people making the games. It's interesting, though, to look at this because it is kind of the anti-argument to their movie strategy, where they sold off all the rights to their characters to Fox and who's the other one? Sony. Yeah, Fox and Sony to make the movies and stuff.

And then it fucked him in the long run because they should have just done it themselves. But they couldn't have done it themselves without doing it with the other people first. I think that's what we're seeing with the video games now is that they are not able to just come out the gate and make great games. They come out of the gate and make pretty good games, which fucks the entire roadmap. I guess it seems, it seems, I mean, this is the strategy that Disney is using with Star Wars too. So it's not a huge surprise. They blew up games that were almost done in order to get to get their vision out there. like they want to have a sort of like agnostic kind of relationship with with publishers and studios and and I mean that's a and hardware by I just think too with Star Wars added so now all of a sudden it's EA crystal idos Montreal insomnia act like all these different teams working on Marvel and Star Wars property right but the but the Star Wars thing to me is way more comprehensible simply because it's one publisher you know so now and the publishers they the students are making the Star Wars games are all

owned by that publisher. So now, so it's way, I mean, to me, that's way simpler. And they, I mean,

not that it would have made most sense, but you could have, uh, you know, since they're working so intimately with Square Annex, you could have just been like Square Inx is going to do them all. And that would have actually even made more sense because I, I am super curious like how else this will evolve.

Only, um, three publishers are involved in this right now, but it could, so it's Capcom, Sony and Square Annex, but it could grow and scope and size. But when you talk about the,

and telltale, so four. When you talk about this, the core star, Wars games, there's one publisher. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I don't know, I think you'll, I mean, I'm pretty confident you're going to see that play out, but it's, but it's not going to be anytime soon. I mean, this is going to be long after those games. So, you know, we can, we can, we can certainly cover it at that time. I think in this climate, there's no way they entered into contracts for one-offs. There has to be clauses in there that this is a trilogy of Spider-Man games, or if it sells this well, you do this. We will. We will. Final topic. of the day, as always. Brought to you by you. You can go to kindof-money.com slash gamescast topic,

just like GZ he did. After the switch announcement, I noticed Bomberman is going to be a launch title. I love this series and haven't played one in over 15 years. However, Konami's attached to the game. What do you normally do in these types of situations where your love for the game is conflicting with your decision to support a company

that appears to have done unethical stuff? I mean, put your money where your mouth is, if you want. I mean, Bomberman R is not going to be this, this is not going to light the world on fire anyway, so I'm not sure you're going to have much of an effect on it. But this is what I've told. I've said over and over again,

and this is a good time for you to take your stand. The Metal Gear zombie game is going to be the real interesting barometer of that. I haven't heard about that game forever. I wonder why. It's almost like they didn't have anything. They was trying to change this conversation. Weird.

But this is a great time to put your money where your mouth is. And I don't think there's any shame. I mean, I mean, Bobberman, Arnsme, Fulmin, it's not going to be like this game changing kind of situation. I promise. There's no such thing as a Bomberman game in which it's going to be like this mind-altering kind of situation, no offense. I had a great time with Bomberman are playing it, and it's weird because as I was playing, I looked up in a cell of a Konami thing.

And it did give me a moment of like, you know? But like, that's not going to stop me from supporting this game because it is such a convoluted structure of where that team goes all the way up to. This game has nothing to do with the people I don't like. I don't even know who the people I don't like are. I just know that I like certain people. this club and then there yeah chinko machines yeah fuck that shit right but it's like this is a totally different thing where it's like I do support bomber man I if I'm gonna bitch about bomber man not being in Super Smash Bros which I'm one of those guys like I need to support this type of

shit you know I like getting more mascot charactery driven games like that and I love the nostalgic retro 90s characters so I'm like I got to put my money where my mouth is in supporting what I like despite the fact that it's going to a company that I don't necessarily agree with what they do. Sure. But I do feel like you just need to kind of speak with your, your wallet, but think about all the ways that that's affecting the situation. I'll see what Kajima says and decide on that.

Yeah. If he gives me the thumbs up, tweet him about Bob Ramay. I think he's a little burned on the switch right now. He'll be like, yeah, because he's not as good as me. Barman falls in this giant hole. That gift is so amazing. That Miyamoto gift. It's just like one of the greatest things of all time.

He's the best. It's fantastic. Remember when we got an I agenda? Didn't we, I don't know if it was a joke or we wrote the, we wrote like a joke. Yeah, so we didn't have it like pre-written, right?

Like a newspaper would with like Miamoto's, The Death of Miamoto. I think that was a joke. We were arguing about what we do journalism and all the stuff. And I think we were like, we don't have Miamoto's obituary ready to go. It's not like how they have it for all these famous people. Like at any time you could pull it out.

My first E3, so it must have been 2009. I won the contest, whatever, got to go there. As I'm there, I saw Miyamoto. And Miyamoto, one of the few people that would be walking around with any type of security. Keep in mind, not security. He's just walking around with dudes, right?

And I'm like, it was the year that they were really going hard on the Connect. And I was like, I want to try this thing. So I remember standing in line. And then Miyamoto walks up and like cuts us because it was like, it's fucking Miamoto, right? And most people aren't noticing that it's him, but obviously I'm like,

I look over our friend. I'm like, that's fucking Miyamoto. Now Afraid was like, who? And I'm like, I'm going to touch him. And I was like, I see that he has security, but fuck this. This is my story. I'm doing it for the story, right? Do it for the gram before Instagram existed.

And yeah, I just went to slid my hand through, touched him, moved it off. Did he turn? That's my story. Yeah, you just kind of turned and that was it. I was kind of like nodded at him. That was it. So that's why I didn't have a battle plan after that. I just wanted to touch him.

Why don't you just say hi? You could introduce you said hi. Well, I mean, he didn't even a hand job or something. No, yeah, exactly. It was a hole. Like I didn't just like touch him and just like weirdly back off. As I touched him and I was just like, you know, I don't know what I did. But I acknowledged it.

He acknowledged me. Okay. And like, I walked away. I mean, it was super awkward. I mean, even now awkward when I'm dealing with different cultures and shit. I didn't know if I was if bowing is a good or bad thing at that point. I'm like, I'm just going to. Well, that's the thing.

You know, we talked about Kijima last week or whatever. And one of the stories I didn't say from RTX City is when we were walking over to the convention center for rehearsal day. We were walking this big group of, it was me, him, his translator, his people. people, a couple RTX, Sydney people. And they were trying to do like a loose perimeter kind of thing, but Kajima just kept over and taking photos and stuff and coming back. And so we were all just walking and talking and hanging out. And as we were walking, this kid, I mean, our age or whatever,

probably a little bit younger, one of one best friend age, was just like, oh my God, hey. And he said it with such confidence. And then ran over, like came at him from like your angle, touched Kajima on this show and I was like, hey man, how you? Like blah, blah. And I was like, does he fucking? know him and like,

Kajima pulled away and finally people were like, wait, do you know? And like they kind of did the wall and I was like, that's weird. Damn, like that's a ballsy bull fucking move. Don't put your arm around people. Yeah, don't go that. Don't touch wrestlers at Comic-Con.

And don't put your arm in between in between security to touch a, touch a man that doesn't know you. Or do. But yeah, no, that was my Mia Motor moment. Say Me 3. We went over.

It was when they unveiled the 3DS. So I was playing with that motherfucker. And they had the Star Fox 64 demo and I was super stoked about it. And then I look up and I'm like, that's fucking Sakurai. That's the director of Smash Bros. I owe this man my fucking life.

He's just over there playing whatever 3DS game. It wasn't even his game. It was just some other shit. I'm like, I need a picture with him. And then I asked off where I was like, I gave him my phone. I'm like, dude, I need a picture.

And I like, try talking to him. Does not speak English. Not used to people asking for pictures with him. It was, it was a deal. But I got my picture. Damn right, you did? It was a great picture. Now, were this the E3DS is tethered a beautiful woman?

It was. I remember that. It was. Nintendo's booth was just filled with like 60 beautiful women with just 3D asses, 3Ds attached to them like umbilical cords. And you could, they just walk up to you. Like, yeah, this is hell awkward. I wish this was.

That was like, I mean, there's a lot of horribly awkward E3 moments, but I'll never forget that E3 pest conference for Nintendo went. and like, all you can all play the 3DS and all these women with them attached came out. You're like, what the fuck? And they just went in the crowd and people are playing and what's going on? That was the whole thing. And remember, that was an E3. I was there with Alfredo.

So fill in the gaps in the stories there. But there were some. And they were fantastic. Alfredo took. I love Nintendo. Did he meet a few booth babes? I love Nintendo so much. E3 is a special thing.

Nintendo's booth always a special thing. So close. It's like 110 days away. Fuck, I fucking hate E3. So fucking love E3. So many announcements. So many games. The press conference is the only good part.

B. Tyler 411 says, Hi. Since I was born in 2000 and the first consul I outright owned was a Wii. Yes, I'm young. I was wondering if back in 1997, when people saw Final Fantasy 7 for the first time, did they think those graphics were quote unquote good? Or did they still think they look like shit, which they are? People thought that, I mean, Final Fantasy 7 wasn't first seen in 1997,

but the people did think that game was beautiful. The FNZs were the big deal there. But even the in-game stuff was, first of all that looks like shit. A lot of the pre-the-the-rendered backgrounds and then the, and drawn backgrounds are actually still beautiful. I actually played Final VICE 7, not too long ago. Now when you're talking about character models and so like that, I mean, they look awful. But even then, I mean, they were impressive because we had never seen anything like that.

But I've often said that the N64 PS1 era is really the one era that just in no way shape or form holds up graphically, unless you're talking about, you know, Sprite-based stuff and stuff and stuff like that, which still still still look great. Final Fancy tactics, for instance, still looks fucking phenomenal. Obviously, Castlevania Symphony Night looks awesome still. But jumping into 3D, it was such a learning curve and people did not know what they were doing. It was absolutely jarring. But yes, at the time, I mean, as someone who bought Final Fantasy 7 the day came out,

so you're a young man. Yes, it always looked beautiful. And it wasn't until years later that I realized it wasn't. Yeah, and I think there especially was the cinematics that, like, gave that the beautiful level that it had, where people talked about the graphics of the game solely talking about the cinematic. Sure. And the summons and all that kind of stuff. It was interesting.

Yeah. So this Brash Candiput here has a question that kind of follows up on that. I'm playing Resident Evil remake remaster. on PlayStation 4 for the first time, going for the platinum. Or re-re-re-re-re-re. I'm amazed at how great the game looks and how well the atmosphere feels when playing.

It made me think of pre-rendered backgrounds. Could it be implemented to a greater effect now, or is it a technique of its era? Anamusha, anyone? Peace. It's an interesting thing. Yeah. Because you think of, like, Final Fantasy in particular,

and you're right. Final Fantasy 7, the backgrounds do look amazing, but the problem was since they were on, like, a game on CD and whatever, like they're so small. if the pre-rendered backgrounds were a lot bigger it'd look great in 1080P you're Yeah, no, I agree

I think that's an interesting question I think that there probably isn't a place for that anymore because I think that was about technical limitations Like why would you need pre-rendered backgrounds now That's the bigger question like Yes, Animusha Beautiful game Devil May Cry

Devil May Cry, beautiful game But at the same time like When you play Resident Evil 7 You realize why you don't need them anymore Why you don't just like why you don't need tank controls anymore Tank controls were from a place in time also made the games more difficult,

which made them scarier. But when I think about it today, I'm like, I'm not so sure that that style, that 90s style would really be needed today because I really do think that it was a design choice, but it was also relative to technical things as well. Yeah, I think it's interesting to look at how games have grown

and things that we've just become used to, like using the right stick to control a camera. When you play a game and can't control the camera, it feels very antiquated. It feels like you lost an arm. Exactly. Like it totally feels off and I think that I mean with pre-rendered that's what it was and it's kind of you can't really think of a way to have a camera with the pre-rendered backgrounds because it's like a static image. But yeah, I mean, Ani Musha looked incredible back in the day and devilman cry like the

tone and atmosphere of that game is entirely owed to its pre-rendered backgrounds because you can have the cool setting me designs possible running around but like if it was the just the polygons you can imagine that being it would not have had the same effect. So Yeah, it's interesting. I think that the only genre where that kind of stuff probably actually would work, and it probably still exists in some ways, maybe the adventure game genre, especially with static screens, obviously. But any game that requires locomotion around an environment,

it's just very antiquated. It's the same reason why you just won't see certain design choices anymore. It's the same reason why FMV is not the thing anymore, really, because it's like you don't need it. Yeah. Tim Geddes. Do we talk about this, Colin? Crash Bandicoot coming out on my birthday.

It's very strange. Come the fuck on. It is, I mean, that's profoundly strange. It does not make sense. Come the fuck on. 2017 has the likes of Mario, Zelda, Sonic, ukulele, filling in for banjo. And of course, Crash himself returning for a new generation. So with that in mind, how important do you think gaming icons are today?

And how important will they be in 10 years? Well, they're always going to be important. But I think that the point here, the ones you're naming are cartoonie from a different era. Or at least harken from, I mean, obviously, ukulele is. but harkens from a different era. Today we think, you know, we talk about Aloys being really the next great, great PlayStation icon while 20 years ago, well, not quite, well, yeah, 20 years ago, I guess, Jesus.

Crash. It would have been incomprehensible to be like, you know, oh, the guy from the getaway is the icon. So it's a little different. The guy from the getaway. I think it's, not that that's a PS1 game, but you understand. Yeah, I think it's interesting that a lot of those characters are still iconic. Like, yeah, some of them went away, like crash and then, you know, whatever. I think Sonic still is iconic to video games.

I think Mario is obviously iconic. I think that Pikachu is iconic. And I think that as we grow with all this stuff, I don't think there will ever be a time when you are discussing video games that these cartooning characters aren't immediately brought to mind. Well, I mean, it's just because of, it's a statement on where games were.

You know what I mean? It was a smaller pond. Now it's a huge ocean. It's so vast. You know what I mean? Like I got in an Uber yesterday coming to work. and the guy I immediately noticed had a Mega Man plushy

on his dashboard or whatever and so sure enough we started talking about games at some point I'm like so what are you playing right now and he leaned forward and went like this and pointed it back and there was a character and like words on it I'm like I don't,

he's like, I don't fucking there's no way to take in his Mega Man plushy but like you can't have this anymore sir I'm sorry you've lost privileges to this I mean it's just so much going on it's so split up I mean this is a different question

than like who are the most iconic game characters and whatever but like it's interesting to think in 20 years from now, like, are people going to think of Nathan Drake? I don't think so. I think Nathan Drake will be thought of the same way Dante from Devil May Cry's thought of. It's like, yeah, important, but not on the same level of Pac-Man, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But even then, it's like, I do think Sonic will be there. I don't think Sonic's going to go away from being- well, I mean, part of it, too, is like... He can go so fast, you can go so far away in that time. He can be a bit of be right back. He's just going to come right up behind you. But it's also, I think

part of this is the things speak to kids and kids adopt those and go into it too. Like I would never sit here and be like, oh, you know, Minecraft Steve, he's a huge deal. But when we were just in Target, there's fucking shitloads of him everywhere. I'm sure to people and I'm sure to the kids who are growing up playing Minecraft, a creeper in 20 years is going to be symbolic of video games because that's what they played and what they knew. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because it is those, the more mature characters, but like Master Chief, where's his place going to be in when garbage can't where it belongs. No, I don't think so. What up kills him.

I don't think that Chief will ever have that same type of legacy as as Radic. But I mean, but at the same time, I don't know, like Chief's helmet is, I think,

going to be an iconic thing. I mean, a good example has got a Kratos. You know, what is Kratos is legacy in terms of being a character and what people think of him as a mascot or whatever. Yeah.

Interesting thing to ponder. Lucid Dream has a very, very long question. Oh, good. It's a good one, though. Do you think the skill of the player has a significant impact on their ability to review a game or even enjoy it? Do you ever find yourself playing a certain game to challenge yourself? Which genres do you feel are the most reliant on skill? I find competitive multiplayer to be the most obvious demonstration of skill in the gaming realm,

and I enjoy watching professional players compete, particular in fighting games and sometimes heartstone. Do you enjoy watching competitive gaming? There's a lot of questions. A lot of questions. A lot of them have to do with, let's go back to the beginning, reviewing hard games. Sure. I reviewed a game once, or,

what was it, Under Siege on PS3, which was like a term-based strategy game that was fucking impossible. Like, I think I'm good at that genre, and I think that a game shouldn't kick your ass a half an hour into it like that game did.

They patched it actually to make it easier because it was fucking outrageous. So you encounter that kind of stuff every so often, but, you know, do I play games to challenge myself? Yeah,

there's really very few, like, challenges today in games. And I think that that's fine because you can also use sliders to make the games more hard. I mean, I fucked around a little bit with Horizon on very hard and it's very hard. You know, so it's it's it lives up to the billing. So it's, you know, it makes you play games differently. But, um, I mean, I think that, uh, no, I don't think there should be a problem with the reviewer and skill level. Because I think the problem, when you're talking about reviewing a game, unless you're a niche site, you're talking specifically to this person,

that kind of idea. Like at IGN, right? Like, I'd dial it to normal and I'd play the game and tell you my experience because I'm trying to appeal to the widest audience of this is what I got out of this game and these were my problems and this and if something's fucking insanely hard and I had to dial a difficulty down to get past it or couldn't get past or something like that that would be a big part of the review right like this is an issue for it for me so it might be for you as well yeah I mean I'm not very good at game so I always started normal I'm not the type of guy that's gonna push the difficulty up but uh I've never had to review games in the way the way you guys have either so I've had to think of it in that way like I just say if I like the game or not and

don't worry about the rest of it, right? I think Neo is a good example where it's like, that game kicks my ass. I could never beat that game. A game is really hard. Could never fucking beat that game. But I enjoy playing it. But I also do not enjoy it in my ass kicked enough to dedicate the time to beat it.

Because I do think that if I sat there and tried and tried to try it over time, if I played every time, I'm sure I can get through it. I'm not sure, actually. You could prove first your way to the game statistically. I could probably get through it. But it's like, that shit's hard. But I mean, there is something about that challenge and knowing that it's hard that I wouldn't review that game poorly for being hard.

I would... You know, it's part of the equation. Exactly, that's part of it. And that is the fun. And that is the thing that would grab me and that does make me want to play it, even though I'm not good at it. If it was easier, then it would be like,

all right, this is a hack and slash, what's the point? You know, like, the point is the hardness. Without the hardness, there's no game. There you go. Final question of the day. Colin, this is a U question. This is from Mugel to Sly.

He says, what are the chances of Nino Kuni won getting a remaster? Maybe bundled in his, a pre-order bonus for two as some games have already done. We'd like to play it, but don't know that I'll dust off the PS3 to do so. Yeah, I'd be so much shocked if it wasn't available on PSBOR before Nino CUNY 2 came out because it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, personal porting these games is in a huge challenge. I think there's more games to be sold here in that respect.

But also it sets the stage for, the game was bigger than, than Namco Band. I thought it was going to be, I'm sure, but, I mean, it definitely was, but, uh, but you need context probably for why the sequel matters. So, um, what's all drippy up to? Who's this guy? So I feel like I feel like it's I don't want to say likely I mean who knows

I'd be surprised though if it wasn't made available It's similar I hope they don't do a similar situation what you beated with South Park to stick a truth where it was like kind of locked behind pre-orders for the next game

Like it would be a nice idea for them The you know a few months Before Nino Cuni 2 comes out It would be like The Nino Cooney one available on PS4 For 20 bucks And you'd probably sell a bunch of copies And it's basically free money

It is on PlayStation now So there you go Yeah whatever There you go There you go You don't need to buy new games When you have PlayStation now Thanks a gentleman

This is Ben kind of funny games guys. Thank you very much for joining us until next week. I love you.