Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Is Metroid Dread Too Hard? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Visit http://joinhoney.com/KINDA to get Honey for free. Go to http://upstart.com/kindafunny to get find out how Upstart can lower your monthly rate. Go to http://chime.com/kfgames to get started. Tim, Tamoor, Andy, and Barrett give their thoughts on Metroid Dread, Back 4 Blood, WarioWare, and more! Time Stamps: 00:00:00 - Start 00:01:20 - Housekeeping 00:06:25 - Back 4 Blood 00:23:59 - Metroid Dread 00:59:58 - WarioWare 01:02:45 - It Takes Two Epic Creator Code: KindaFunny Follow The Kinda Funny Team On Twitter: Tim Gettys: https://twitter.com/TimGettys Andy Cortez: https://twitter.com/TheAndyCortez Barrett Courtney: https://twitter.com/SadBoyBarrett Tamoor Hussain: https://twitter.com/tamoorh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Gettys. Join by the Nitro Rifle himself, Andy Cortez. The debonair in Times Square or something like that. Somebody tweeted at me a catchphrase. I couldn't remember what it was, though, Tim. Couldn't remember that. That is too fucking good.

Look in debonair and Times Square. I love it. I love it. Andy, I'm not quite done with you. I want to introduce everybody, but then I have some things I want to talk to you with one, Andy Cortez. But before we get to that, Of course, it's a sad day.

A beautiful, beautiful sad day. We got sad boy himself, Barrett Courtney. I was like, what is this? Hello. Hi, I am here. Yeah, very exciting, very exciting. And rounded out this crew for what must be the very first time these four gentlemen are together.

Of course, we have GameSpot Zone. Some more, Hussein. Hi, thank you for having me. Excite to be here. So Greg's not here. You know, a whole baby thing. He's not going to be here for the next couple months. But Blessing Strip lost his voice.

Snakes must have got him there too, so that's why Blessing is not here today. But they spit venom into his throat directly. The throat snakes. The throat snakes. Oh, God, I don't like that. I don't like throat snakes at all. But you know what I do like this show, the Kind of Funny Games cast that happens each and

every week right here on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. If you want to get it as a video, you just go there or roosterteeth.com. But if you want to get it as a podcast, search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad-free, if you wanted to watch it live as we record it, and if you want the exclusive post show, you got to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like our Patreon producers, Pranksy, Tyler Ross, Delaney Twining, Julian the gluten-free gamer, Alex Jay Sandoval, Techie Haas, James Hastings, and Casey, Andrew have all done.

But if you don't have any bucks to toss our way, that's okay. You're out there buying video games all the time. I see you. I hear about it. And if you're doing that on the Epic Game Store, make sure you're using our Epic Creators. code kind of funny and it'll help support us without costing you anything extra so that is very very cool thank you guys all for the support so far it has been awesome to see um moving on from all of that we are brought to you by upstart honey and chime but i will tell you about that later

for now i want to talk to Andy cortez because we're going to talk about metro dread and his thoughts on that later in the show back for bloods just coming out sorry that that's the hottest i want to get at but i just want to congratulate you you know not only are you looking debonair in time Square this weekend you were on the front page of twitch. TV rep in Hispanic Heritage Month. And last I saw, you had like 14,000 people watching you play Metroid Dread and you were fucking killing it. Last week I gave you the shout out saying I'm proud for the Times Square thing. I'm even more proud of this because you had a captive audience of 14,000 and you entertained the living fuck out of them. So round of applause.

Thank you, homie. I appreciate it. You peaked at like 16 or something like that eventually. crazy. Yeah, we hit like 17 something by the end of it. And the coolest thing was, obviously, you're on the front page for a limited amount of time. And then when that time is off, you are taken off. But even after the front page is taken away, I average around 250 to 3 something viewers nowadays.

And even when the front page is taken off, there was still like 2K around, which is really, really cool. I was a blast. I was watching. And my favorite thing is Tim said, like, oh, you were killing it. playing the game and my prevailing memory of that stream was Andy waiting with his blaster for an Emmy to appear from the distance. And then it drops down right in front and he goes, ah! And he falls off his chair. And I was like, that's a TikTok moment right there.

It made no sense. Where did that Emmy go? Where did it go? My favorite moment was when we were convincing 14,000 people in chat that tomorrow wasn't a real gamer. That was my favorite moment. Wow. They hate to see it. Wow.

It's true. It's true. It's true. It happens. So it's so, so, so funny to me that like my entire job and most of my life at this point is hanging out with you guys in some form, having these conversations about games, playing games with you, watching Twitter streams, all that stuff. But for some reason, there's this thrill that I get when it's an unexpected, uncalendered, unplanned moment where I come across something. An example of what I'm saying here is I was watching Andy stream. He didn't know I was watching.

I just randomly pop it in and just trying to support. And then he mentioned my name. like, oh, this is what Tim Gettys was talking about on the Gamescast. And I like had like a freak out moment where I was like, he said my name. That's so cool. I don't even know if that was the moment, but I feel like there was nine of those moments where I said, this is where Tim said he got stuck. And that happened about 10 other times later on that night.

I did tell you, it's going to happen a lot. And it does. It happens right up until the end of the game. I was playing it the other day. And I was like, why am I stuck again? Yeah. We'll get in Metro. We'll talk about the, sorry, go for it, Andy.

I was just going to say you wanted to quickly kind of tease some future talks that we're going to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now that we're moving out of the Andy Cortez praise, but you guys, let us let him know in the comments. How much you love him. Moving on a little bit more from that. Battlefield 2042, maybe not so much praise needed to be thrown that way. But we're not talking about on this show. That is going to be saved for the kind of funny X-cast later this week, where we're going to have Mike with Paris this week.

Correct. Correct. With Paris Lily and Andy, can we confirm things? Oh, yeah, I'll be hopping on for sure. And Andy Cortez will be hopping on to give all of his latest thoughts on Battlefield 2042 and where it ranks in this very, very busy of fall first person shooters. But that's what we're talking about on Gamescast today. We are talking about Back for Blood.

As a recording, it is the day of release. You can get it now. We did a stream of it where Andy, Nick and Mike were playing along with Kevin. It looked like they were having a blast. I want to get your thoughts. Let's start with you, Andy Cortez. So much fun. I'm so glad it's actually out so that, you know,

there can be some semblance of progress being made. Again, if you all don't know, if you haven't had the Internet for the last three years and then decided to, you know, download this as your first podcast back. Back for Blood is the new version of Left for Dead by Turtle Rock Studios. It has all of, I think, the heart and sort of rhythm and pace that the Left for Dead games have.

It's a lot of fun. You pick a lot of different characters. You can customize their looks. Each character that you pick has their own passives. It's not just an aesthetic choice. One character might heal better. One character might have more stamina. One character might have faster melee, things like that.

One kind of key issue, we're not key issue, but key point with Back for Blood is that they have this thing called the card system. And whenever you are progressing through the game, you are unlocking points to then go buy from a station and you can unlock new cards for your deck. And you're essentially building a deck of 15 cards. And the decks all range from, you know, you can kind of build the deck how you want. At this point, I'm just kind of like putting whatever I've gotten there because we're so early. But again, the decks can be you find more money on the ground or you are more efficient, healer. It's all sort of little passive upgrades, but you can kind of build decks to be like,

well, if I'm playing with these three gibronies and they're not going to be too great at the game, maybe I spec a really, really high offensive deck where it's like, you know, extra headshot bonus damage, all sorts of stuff like that. You can kind of customize you however you want. You can make a bunch of different decks to make each experience feel new and brand new. And I think that's what's really unique about it. We had a lot of fun today. This is a game we've been looking forward to for a long time and we've played every beta and alpha that there is. And it's finally here and now progress can be made and we can kind of save everything. Crossplay is fantastic.

Kevin hopped in from his Xbox when we were all on PC. And it's a blast so far. And I'm really happy that it's kind of turned out to be the game that we were hoping for. It also performs a lot better than it did during some of the betas and alphas. I feel like I was getting a lot of frame drops and just CPU usage and GPU usage are just kind of through the roof. but now I feel like it's running really, really well. Granted, I have a really good graphics card and stuff,

but it's still performing like I think it should now. Pam or Barrett, have either you been able to play at all? Andy, would you describe it as a cheap copy of Left for Dead because KFC Gaming did? And then Turtle Rock hit back with the most brutal, the most savage retaliation I have ever seen. In reply to KFC Gaming, it said 11 Herbs and Spices, and still no taste.

It's fantastic. It's just... I'm not one for like massive internet drama, but this is like, this is the best internet beef and I'm all on, I'm all in on it, you know? I'm always up for some corporation on corporation crime, which is like... It's also weird because like, you know, Turtle Rock made left for dead. Like that's such a weird thing. We're just like I feel like KFC gaming like may, may not really understand the history there

and like where that talent eventually went. because it's like, yeah. Because it's KFC gaming. Yeah, like they don't fully understand. Dive deep into like who's making what and stuff like that. I just even like seeing that tweet before Turtle Rock hit back, I was like, it's the same people making it, you dipshits. Come on.

Who even is KFC gaming in this world. KFC gaming's like four employees, one intern on social, just took the biggest hell of the week. And it's like just sitting at home right now. I thought Brian Altano had a good look at it. Like, oh, yeah, they're just. kind of they're just a marketing firm from some place that has nothing to do with KFC kind of running a social page

but I kind of love it because it's KFC gaming their bio is just finger clicking good they were involved in like the the dream daddy kind of KFC game that they made right like which was like a visual novel with the kernel in it yeah yeah yeah it's

chicken's still can you actually date them I don't know if that was ever confirmed I don't know you can I I'm monitored it though I figured out of way. Tam and Barrett, have you all played it? Yeah, so I've been playing it, I've been playing a bunch of it and like fundamentally

like I know everyone says this and it's cliche at this point but like you can make even the worst games fun by playing with people that you like. I think the surprise, not the surprise, but it's better when the game you're playing is actually pretty

decent. Which is what Back for Blood really is. It feels a lot like Left for Dead. and when you play it with a bunch of folks that you know as Andy did like it just elevates the experience I do think that it's the card system is quite good like I don't mind it like I don't pay too much attention to it and it does feel like it's slightly unnecessary at times but also it's just enough of a twist on the formula to kind of well distinguish it from left for dead but also keep you

engaged in the moment to moment in between the actual like shooting add a strategy layer to it which I kind of like, but I will say it is kind of, it's missing, it's got some rough edges and it's missing some of that polish of Left for Dead. And it kind of makes sense because that's what I imagine where Valve stepped in and we're like, we're going to spit shine this bad boy. And that's what we got. So there are things that happen here and there that are weird and kind of odd. And there's some decisions that are kind of really annoying. My current most annoying one is that you can turn off friendly fire. And you can also get a kind of card that if you're crouched, eliminates friendly fire.

You don't take it or receive it. However, if you've got it off by default, when you shoot the enemy, you're a teammate, sorry, if you shoot your teammate, the teammate still reacts as if they're being shot for real. Oh, don't shoot me. I thought you knew how to shoot a gun or some shit like that. And on your screen, it will also show you the hit indicator where it came from. So like it, all that's happening is they turn the damage off. But every bit of feedback that, like, and that's just a rough edge that someone in testing or design should have gone, maybe we shouldn't do that.

And it's just in there for some reason. And it's something that can be patched out later. And I feel like that kind of exemplifies what this game is. It's solid. It's fun. It's just got a bunch of things that needs to be patched out. There's like a bug that one of the people, Kruper at RKG, Daniel Kruper had, where for some reason, his audio cut all the way out and you had to quit out of the game. I had a moment where all the sounds of gunfire just vanished.

Oh, yeah. So weird. Like polish-wise, we were playing today. And there's one unfortunate thing is that there's a lot of DMCA music in there. There is a moment that is trying to sort of mirror the Sean of the Dead, you know, bar fights with the music. There's a lot of different music that plays, though. And you essentially have to turn on the jukebox to draw people towards you so that other people can get. you know, can get back to safety or whatever,

just random NPCs that you don't really see or anything like that. That's really cool. It's really cool, and it plays like three, like, so far we got, the Aces Spades, the A-N-N-N-A-N-A-Bode, which is pretty sick, yeah.

And a couple of other songs played. The unfortunate thing, though, was that we ran into a bug where we failed the mission the first time. The second time, I could hear the music, and it was super low for everybody else. And then at one point, we turned off the jukebox, turned it back on,

and then it worked for everybody. The music kicked back in. But again, the issue with DMCA stuff is that there's no way to turn it off. There's no way to turn off. Like a lot of games offer streamer-friendly mode. And that's one thing that I hope maybe gets fixed. Just add in some royalty-free music and let's check that box or whatever. I keep running to, are you playing on PC, Tim?

No, I was playing on PS4, PS5, sorry. Well, PC gaming, you know, PC gaming. Yeah, I just got my PC. see you back and I just remember that I've got a 3090 in there and the only thing I've played on is loop hero so I could probably put that thing to use. I kept running into an issue that I brought up on stream where whenever I if I go into my settings it's got two modes, it's got windowed and it's got borderless full screen. And when I go into my settings, it immediately kind of my windows bar will pop up and the game

shifts down and it won't go away unless I go back into one. windowed and then back into borderless full screen, then it'll full screen again. And that's just some weird kind of nuisance that always pops up if I ever want to go dig into the settings. I agree with you though, Tam. I don't think it's like, I don't think it's this 10 out of 10 game, but I think it's so solid that again, playing with friends, like we've played, we've had a lot of fun playing shitty games with friends.

And this game, I think it is way more than solid enough to feel good. And I think as you keep on unlocking the cards, Tam, you will feel like it makes. more of a difference because early on, I agree. It doesn't feel like it's make or break. Like, oh, I didn't get that card. Who cares? We'll probably still win anyway. But if you want to play on the higher, if you want to, what I assume is play on higher

difficulties, the more you unlock cards, they do have their own rarities to them. And you will start to unlock like the blue and the purple cards. And I feel like those, if you stack them and strategize a deck that is like super off offensive focused where it's like crazy amount of headshot multipliers and all that stuff, I feel like that meta game is enough for me to kind of feel satisfied. I think there's a place for this game in like the long term or mid to long term. Like it feels like because Total Rock they did Left for Dead and everyone was like, this is amazing.

They did the second one. People are like, this is amazing also. And then they were like, all right, we're going to go and kind of mix up the formula and try and make something cool, take it in a new direction and kind of innovate on it. And they did evolve. and everyone was like, this is not amazing. Please do not do this. And that kind of spoke.

I think the message that sent was like, the thing that you were making is good enough. Just keep making that. And the funny thing is like in the time between evolve and back for blood, there's only been a couple of games that really tried. I think Vermin Tides, one of them. But like nothing's come close to like the matching that.

So they kind of walked back into a field where it was only them. That's very lucky for them. Like, I'm surprised more companies didn't try and ape that. And at the same time, like, it's solid enough, like Andy said, that they could keep building on this and keep, like, introducing new campaigns going forward. It's not built like a games as a service, like lifestyle game, but there's enough of the framework and the underlying, like, foundation for them that, like, I reckon they're like two patches away from making it, like, really well polished.

And then from that point on, they can treat it like a platform, where it's just like new stories are constantly coming out, new campaigns, you know, let's look at a different part of the world or that kind of thing. They could very easily build it into something bigger than it currently is. And I hope that they do approach it like that. And I hope that they're given enough support to get it there. Do you think that that is the future of Backford Blood? Like I know it's launched day, so it's still really early.

But do you think that they'll make enough patches to fix the simple things, have some type of roadmap? And then my second question with that is, do you think with those, fixes and patches that back for blood back for blood can find a place in kind of just gaming like in the same way that now we have these battle royals that kind of compete with each other but then overwatch is still there do you think this could be like a new pillar for it i i think i think they can um i think the the interesting thing about left foot dead was um they they kind of the content dropped off but the community carried on for a long time and they were sustained by mods and that kind of

stuff. And like, mods definitely changed the experience in a big way, but fundamentally those people stuck around because they had an attachment to that gameplay style, right? It was just the new content dried up because Valve cut ties or like Turtle Rock moved on, etc., etc. So

past experience says that there is longevity in the thirst for that kind of gameplay. And I feel like given the investment in there and it makes business sense for them to carry on building on what they've got, they've got a good foundation here. And also, we live in a world where

the business models exist to necessitate, not necessitate, but like, encourage that. Like they could very much a month, two, three months down the line, I mean, it's on Game Pass, I believe, am I right in saying that? It's on Game Pass, right? Yeah, it's on Game Pass, chuck it on that, give it away on PlayStation Network, and then you just sell new campaigns every now and then and if it cycles out of game pass when you've gotten enough you know a big campaign coming back out put it back in game pass people will check check it out or maybe and buy it and i feel like they could i hope it's what it would seem wasteful for them to want and done this because it it would be weird for them to bring it back this specific

concept back in the way that it exists with the cards and then just be like okay cool everyone see you later bye and then move on it feels like a lot of the potential is in continuing to support it and making it a platform and polishing the things that are like small rough edges that people are bumping up against. Andy, do you see yourself playing this game, like if those things were to happen? Let's say February 2022. Is there a chance they're still playing this game? I think when new content comes out, I'm always down to go back to games with friends that I've enjoyed. And we've seen that with games like World War Z.

And I think this game is a bit more polished than that when it comes to gameplay. The gameplay is tight enough to make me want to go back and have fun. Like it's not, again, when we've played games with friends and sometimes we've played really crappy ones, but you're having fun because it's with friends. This one just feels satisfying enough to play anyway. Like if we're adding in new cleaners, which is what they call like the human characters, if we're adding in new cleaners or adding in new cards like Tam has already mentioning, adding new story campaigns, absolutely.

Like I'm going to, I've played through these intro levels so much. many damn times throughout all of the alphas throughout all of our our streams and then our personal streams offline or whatever you know after work hours i've played through this shit so many damn times and i still have fun so like absolutely i plan on yeah the great thing about today's stream though was like we actually hit uncharted territory with levels that we hadn't played in before and that was so much fun it was so cool to kind of like oh i haven't seen this area before what the hell's going to happen here and it was really surprising and cool. Was the jukebox thing, something you've experienced before?

No. That's awesome. Then I go find that clip. You can go find it. YouTube.com slash kind of funny place. If I was working at Turtle Rock or it's 2K that publishes it, isn't it? I think is that right? Yeah.

If I was working there, I would be looking at games like Fortnite and also more, more closely to it dead by daylight and looking at how they could start thinking about having their own original content, but also, bringing in an audience through licensing content. Like you introduce an Ash versus Evil Dead or the Evil Dead campaign where you're playing as Ash and three others or you know, you have the Stranger Things campaign where, you know, you play as the kids and you have to go up against X, Y, and Z. Like there's ways to bring, there's enough material out there for you to kind of like license

it and bring in your audience, introduce the Jason Voorhe's type character and like put that And they're like, this dead by daylight is doing so well that if there isn't a bunch of people looking at it at the Evo, at the 2K side or Total Rock side, they're definitely leaving money on the table and kind of throwing away an opportunity to make something out of it. This is crazy. But can you imagine a world with some type of collaboration between Backford Blood and Left for Dead as a franchise? That would be incredible, yeah. Bring in those cleaners. Yeah, bring those cleaners in. And like, it's not impossible.

Like Valve has done like, see, Valve seems very cool. Valve did stuff with Fall Guys. Yeah, they're like, they're like, yeah, we'll let you use this character and whatever. We'll barely make our own games. We'll let you like, put our characters in your games. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you want a half-life? No, but I do have this tiny portable gaming PC.

How do you feel? Barrett, have you played at all? No, Leferredad was never really my jam. That was like one that like my close friends from high school would play all the time. And I would love watching them play and stuff like that. So like whenever, you know, we're streaming it Back for Blood, like I'll probably come in and watch and just like think about those high school days. But that's never really been a thing for me. I don't know particularly why because it does seem like a fun time.

But yeah, never caught on to the left for dead craze. Even though I do respect like what that franchise is and like what it did and what Turtle Rock has like done over the years. And then to eventually come back to Back for Blood. Oh yeah Any closing thoughts on back for blood Can't wait to keep rocking with it Can't wait to keep playing it Yeah

See it all the way through If you've got game pass It's a no brainer Just like give it a shot Grab some friends It's a good time Moving on back to Metroid dread for a little bit Tam I want an update from you

How any any new progress on it Yeah so I've been I've been taking my time with it Just kind of like enjoying it You know how you know how infrequently these Metroid games come along so I didn't want to power through it. I was like, I'll take my time with it. And I'm just, I'm pretty sure I'm like at the final boss of the game.

I've had the big revelation. And I think I kind of, I'm still at where I'm at when we talked about the game. I think it's fantastic. I think it's excellent. But I, there are some, a few annoyances at it that I have like developed over time. I think that it is a. A lot of the discussion has been around his difficulty, and I think that it is, it can be a difficult game, but I also think that it's, it can be pretty cheap at times. I found it to be in a way where I was like, just indignant about when certain moves, the way they hit.

Like, there's that one enemy type. I don't want to say what it is, but you have a, you have one-on-ones against this type of enemy multiple times, and they have this one-specific red. move that that kind of like they do I know Tim and Barrett is in you're not on your head so I assume you know it the hip box the hip box on that shit is just unbelievable it's unacceptable like it is so bad because like it's not only goes through like objects but it's also like just very vertical also yeah exactly it's very vertical and kind of past the the area of it and you you rarely ever are yeah you you never feel like your it and it's it's just really like stuff like that will happen and then there's like

certain other enemies that are kind of cheap and annoying but it's it's one of those things where you're like okay for me once for me twice third time you probably you'll be fine um if not you're descendant of george bush unlucky uh but like going going into other parts of it is like there's certain things that kind of irk me still i stand by my music thing where i talked about it on our discussion previously. I think the music's not good. And I'm even more confident about my opinion of that because there are moments when like Tim,

we talked about this straight after. There's a moment where Samis's theme kicks in and it is like, immediately like I felt chills and I felt like my, there's another moment where it plays music, redone music from Super Metroid. And when that kicked in, I was like, I was about to cry. I was like, this is so good. Straight up. It's special, man.

And then you go back to the non-that stuff and you're like, this is bad. Like, why is none of this good? Like, I forget that it's even in there and it's just annoying at times, certain of it. So there's nothing in this game that really stuck out to me as like really good musically. There's not a single track on this original track, not based on the thing that I would go to YouTube to search out and find, which is a shame because I listen to the prime soundtrack still. I listened to the Super Metroid soundtracks. still, I listen to Fusion soundtrack still, and it's just like, it's slightly disappointing to me that I don't have a new selection of

Metroid songs to listen to if you know what I mean. And the other thing that I kind of wanted to, it sticks with me is, one thing I really love, actually, is there's a, oh crap, how do I talk about this without it spoiling anything? There's a language in this game that has been created for it. and I really love languages. Like, there's something about, like, I study Japanese, and there's certain languages that I just really love hearing.

And there's a cutscene in which you're interacting with a character, and they're speaking a different language. And I watched that cutscene about seven times, just because I love the way it sounded and the way the voice of itself. I really want to, like, just hit up Nintendo. I watched that cut scene seven times, mainly because of the fight. He died. You died.

Yeah. I do agree with you. It was weird to have like for so long in that game, right? Where all you're really talking to is like Adam when you're uploading information. And then it was like weird to like actually have like a dialogue with another character. I was like, oh, this is like so this is so weird. And that kind of that was real cool. But it leads into something that I actually one of the people that I work with,

writer Jordan Ramey actually has written on Arcore about, which kind of encapsulates everything that I was thinking about it. I miss the parts of fusion where Samus would think to herself about what was going on and talk to herself. She's silent in this entire thing, which is like, okay, Samus is like stoic, silent bounty hunter, just get shit's done.

But like that is okay for the first few games. In this games, there are like profound revelations about Samus and her history and her feature and that kind of stuff. I don't want to spoil it. But like the entire time, that's happening, she's just like, dead silent the entire time. And you're like, this is life-changing stuff, Samus, around. Like, what's going on? What are you thinking? And I, and it kind of made me think about

the characterization, because on the one hand, they did really well in her, like, non-verbal stuff, where she's got a lot of, like, confidence to her, and she behaves like a bounty hunter. And, like, the way she moves and the way she reacts is so, so good. And you get a lot of characterization. and from that, but then there are moments where I was like, this cool sequence where, you know, like you're using the fast travel, going through an elevator, in fusion, you had that, but you also had like her talking about what had just happened and she had like humanity there. And I miss that a lot. And I wish that they had that in this.

So there are definitely narrative successes and narrative triumphs in this game that I really respect and I really enjoy. But I think there's characterization failures that are. are quite significant. And I wish, and it's weird because, like, I realize that what I'm saying is Samus Aran is behaving the way Samus Aran has always behaved, which is like a weird thing to criticize. But I'm also like, she shouldn't technically be behaving like that anymore. She does speak, you know, in other games. Other M.

Yeah. Other M is perhaps like too far out on the other side. But it is, it is canon to the storyline. It is canon to the storyline. And I wish they had found a better way to give her her voice and let her be that person a bit more. But otherwise, yeah, I mean, like that cheap bosses aside, I had a fantastic time with it. I'm so glad that it's out. And I'm hoping that it continues to do well because that gives me hope that Nintendo will invest further in it.

We've got Prime coming. And then I hope that they look at it and they're like, oh, people really care about this Metroid shit. Let's get it done. Let's do more of this stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I beat it and I loved the final hours of the game for definitely my favorite of the whole game. I love the way that it kind of builds up from that enemy that you're referencing that kind of you see a couple times throughout the game, really sending to me type. I really, really enjoyed that type of gameplay with those bosses and it does get very hard. The final boss is ridiculous with the amount of phases it has and amount of things you need to kind of like deal with.

But I like that type of gameplay. I mean, it goes back to like things like Cuphead that really kind of. vibe with me of the you need to learn the pattern. It's really old school and it's going to beat the shit out of you. But what I like about Metroid Dread specifically is a lot of it is up to the exploration. And when you're getting your ass kicked by a boss, you can just keep doing it over and over and over to beat it. Or you can go explore a little bit more, get some more missiles, get some more energy levels up. So when you do the boss, it's that much easier.

And that was something that was really rewarding to me where I was getting my ass kicked by the final boss. like, if I'm being honest, probably like eight times in a row. And I was like, I'm going to go grind out some of my stats a little bit. And it felt good because it rewards you to keep going back and exploring and using your new found abilities to go open up old areas to find things that you saw before but couldn't reach. And it's like if you're not doing that, you're really missing out a lot of the experience. I think that's why a lot of the bosses can be super upsetting when you just get your,

your ass handed to you. Um, but yeah, I think that there, there are enough narrative moments that are so incredibly well done. And like, I can't believe they made some of the choices they did. It's so rewarding. But Tam, I think you're absolutely right that there was a missed opportunity now that I beat it now that I've seen it all, uh, for Samis's character to kind of have more of a voice. And I don't even necessarily mean it needing to be literal, but like just having something to say that would match how amazingly well animated and, and how much emotion you get from her actions. and how much you've seen her grow throughout the different games. But from a gameplay perspective, one thing that towards the end I was a little

down about is the shift away from the melee combat. Like I feel like about halfway through the game, it just hits a point that the counter is very much just a quick time event trigger. And it's less of an active kind of like dance with the enemies that it feels like more in the beginning. And I kind of wish that they had done a little bit more of it because that was one of my biggest criticisms of Samus Returns on the 3DS. was they implemented it.

It made the game a lot easier, but it kind of didn't really feel like it was making you more mobile and that you were in control of it. It was very quick timey. The first half of this game, I enjoyed it a lot more because the basic enemies, it felt more engaging.

The bosses, it felt like pointed. But over time, especially when you start facing more similar bosses over and over and over. I'm like, all right, I get what I'm doing. And this kind of just feels like a rhythm game more than I'm actively interacting

with what's happening. one of the situations that I'll talk about I tweeted about this in vagaries but I'll like describe it, there's a boss that it's one of the most annoying design things I've encountered in a long time and when I tweeted about it everyone replied with like this is how Solz games do it

so why you can't come back? I'm like no they don't do it like this there's a boss that has like basically not three phases but three different attacks basically and they're kind of like mini phases that you guys will know it and it's the I don't want to say what the boss is actually but like at one phase it

like puts its tendrils on each of the roofs and, and you have to attack them. In that phase, and it's in between two other phases, where one's like you've got dodged some beams and the other ones like, you're just shooting at it and stuff like that. In that phase, it specifically requires you to do one thing. So it's like you need to shoot these things. But at the same time, it's attacking you with a special ability

that hones in on you and basically it does massive damage. So in that phase, I was like, I'm just going to focus on dodging in this phase because it takes just a bit too much time to attack properly and I'll play it safe in this phase because I know I'm good at the other phases and I can recover health. So that was my strategy.

I went into it. I was like, makes perfect sense. Avoid, don't risk anything, play defensively in this part and then do the damage on the other parts. I did that shit for 40 minutes. 40 minutes. And when I'm talking 40 minutes, I'm talking I was wrecking that boss's shit for 40 minutes. Like not taking damage, just absolutely destroying it.

And then I like, I snapped out of it. I was like, how long have I been doing this for? I do not. Like, I was like, holy shit, what's going on? Why is this boss dying? And then I realized that in that second phase, it, you have to shoot the tendrils. Otherwise, the boss takes no, it does not progress. And then when I did it and did that, the boss took 30 seconds.

Straight up. 30 seconds. Straight up. And that was like that is one of the worst design things I've seen in a long time. No. No for the future. Yeah. Final boss, very similar.

Very similar. It's all I'm a say. Okay. Keep that in mind, everybody listening. People are like, oh, yeah, the souls games do that. Loads of games do that. I was like, no. Loads of games don't do that.

Usually when there's something specific you can do, it doesn't push you to do something else. at the same time. It places your focus in the thing, right? Like, in a soul's boss, if you need to deliver a death blow, like, the boss is on its knees and is not attacking you. And you're like, I can approach now and go for a visceral or something like that. In this, it's like attacking

you at the same time, presenting the idea that defensive in this phase is optional and is a possibility. So like, it's just a weirdly bad, designed boss fight that if you're not careful, we'll take close to an hour and should take 30 seconds. And I'll

like this is just, it's another one those things where I'm like, oh God, this game could have been amazing if they weren't these small things that annoy me about it. Yeah, I agreed with Imron's tweet a couple days ago just talking about the lack of feedback, lack of visual

feedback to the player. And, you know, you could make that easier by putting a health bar like a lot of games do, like a lot of games do, or just visual feedback of make the enemy turn red or like in doom you see sort of physical things happening, degradation, and you know that you're kind of making a dent into it.

But yeah, I do think that some enemies lack a bit of visual feedback and are inconsistent in the messaging of what it's trying to get you to do. And it's, and I feel like I, I feel like I've died quite a bit to stuff that I'm just not understanding what's happening as opposed to like I got outplayed there. How frustrating is it, Andy, that every time that happens, the tip screen comes up that says, every attack can be dodged. And you're just like, I know, motherfucker. I just don't know how to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of attacks. I'm just like, do, I mean, I jumped, the attack went straight towards me. And I jumped up in the air. And I'm not sure why I'm not dodging that. But I do think that anytime I unlock a new ability, it's like, I'm running a. out of fucking fingers, Doc. I don't,

I don't got any more fingers to work all these, all these movements and stuff. And it's going to take a lot of practice. And God damn, this is a nightmare game for accessibility. Holy shit. Like, I,

I am struggling, like, to remember using the grappling in the way that I want to do it. And that's getting me killed a lot when I'm, you know, she has a grapple beam, spoilers. Yeah.

And, like, when you're getting chased by an Emmy, right? And, like, you're trying to utilize, that like a grapple hook at that points and it's just like fuck what shoulder button was it to hold down and then press like it's

that was something that i thought about too where it is a an accessible nightmare yeah um especially when it comes to you know oh damn it i equipped the missile there instead of the grapple and things like that and all of that comes down to just you just got to keep on doing those abilities and you'll eventually get used to it but it can get a little bit frustrating i'm right with you tam where i feel like this game is so close to being perfect. And there's just some decisions that I don't really think were super well thought out.

But I still love, this game feels so linear for being a Metroidvania. Where any time I want you to teleport, you teleport. And you will progress. It's really hard, I think, to get lost. I've only been stuck in a couple places

because my brain isn't firing at 100%. It's like, oh, there was a moment where it's like, I should have sprinted with the sprint ability, but I just didn't even think to do it right there because whatever, I'd have nine other, nine,

10 other abilities to think about. I think the game is fantastic. That sounds very, very nitpicky. I'm having an absolute blast with the game, though. It's so much fun. I think that,

I just, it hurts me that this, that it looks the way it does. Like, God damn, can you imagine this game look like the ascent? Can you imagine

if this game had some sort of visual upgrade and lighting upgrade, because it's, other than that, I was just, I was just mentioning Tim that like I, with all the other nitpicks, you know,

that we already kind of mentioned, I think the game is absolutely fantastic. And it's so good and fun. And it feels so tight to control. And yeah, I don't know how far away I am from beating it,

but I feel like I'm maybe three hours-ish away. I'm having a blast with it. I think it's a very, very good video game. And I'm shocked. to that Nintendo made a first party game this difficult. Yeah, no, I mean, honestly, it's one of those things that I enjoy the game more now that it's done just because I'm like, well, I did it all. So I don't need to worry about how frustrating some of those bosses were, you know, which isn't necessarily a great thing, but it makes me feel really good. And so that's kind of like part of the design there.

But yeah, I do think from the accessibility perspective and even the difficulty perspective, I really think this game needed some more like difficulty options at the very least because there are sometimes which is like this just simply isn't fun. Like I, I'm a big proponent of when it comes to these type of video games, especially ones that are designed to be this type of difficult. Like there should be options for, okay, this boss fight.

I've tried enough. I've had enough. Let me just dumb it down for this one. I'm okay with that. Like Kna had some similar things where I ended up beating all those bosses on normal, but I would not blame anybody for dropping it down to easy for this fight or that fight, you know?

Yeah. So simple. For me, I think that the difficulty it's weird because I think the balance of how much how aggressive the enemies are the tight timing on

the parry window and the amount of health they take is completely out of whack like there's too, it's like too many of those things are cranked way too high like bosses are aggressive the timing window is too tight and they take too much health

all at the same time where it's like you can't have that If your window is tight, you want to crank down how much health they take. And the further you get into the game, especially where I'm at with like bosses, the last few bosses I did, it was like, you take two hits. And it's like, you just see, you just see these energy bars that you spent hours accumulating, just vanish like in seconds. And you're like, that seems so ridiculous.

And it's not, yeah, and it's not like a special attack anything. It's just a normal attack. And you're like, it's out of whack. Like they needed to tune the kind of like, output as well or like if it's if you want high damage like take the aggression down a bit because there's times where the bosses are like on your ass and the window is so small the margin for failure like and this has come from someone who like revels in souls games and loves them and like I love hard games but because I love hard games I can also tell when it feels like something's

out of whack and something doesn't feel right like Andy you know the same as well and you You guys all understand games to the degree where you can feel when something feels wrong in a game. And there's so many parts of this or so many encounters in this game where I felt like, this just feels wrong. This just feels like it wasn't, like, there wasn't enough back and forth discussion and design iteration on this part of it, which is a shame. Yeah, the guards that we had mentioned earlier that I was, Baron and I had a discussion actually earlier, that like you have to stand close enough to want to parry that one attack, but the red charge that's unblockable and unparryable,

that you just have to dodge it, that attack has two different timing patterns. It's either like a long, low, or it's like a really, really quick one. But if you're too close, you're going to get hit by the red one, but if you're too far, you can't parry it. and I'm like closely monitoring my health and I'm like this is surely the one surely I'll kill it right here and I have 88 health with like no bars left just 88

and it hits me with one little fucking ball of energy out of its gun and I'm dead it's like how does that little shitty spam like that shouldn't be the 88 damage thing I could understand getting hit by the melee or getting hit by the red or even the pariable one and that killing me with 88% health or whatever but you should not hit me in one shot with a little stupid beam that you shoot three of that is clearly like,

this is supposed to be the easier part of the fight. This is like the weaker like attack where you can kind of like get your bearings a little bit and think about the layout and stuff. Yeah, for sure. Matt, I want to hear from you. What is your history with 2D Metroid and what's your experience like with dread?

I have this is the, I've decided that this is going to be the first Metroid game that I've ever beat. Hell yeah. I think the only other 2D Metroid game I've ever played is Samis Returns for the 3DS, and that was purely for work purposes and stuff like that, and I didn't play much of it. And I played like a little bit of Metroid Prime because I remember like growing up, my babysitters really liked it. So like I remember playing that like a little

bit. But yeah, that's like the most I put into a Metroid game. I'm like five and a half hours in. You know, like there's a certain amount of Emmys. I think I have two Emmys left to like give you an idea of where I am in the game. I have no idea how much I actually have left, but it's really cool because I love a lot of Metroidvania-inspired games, so it's really cool to actually dive deep into a Metroid and kind of see where its roots and how Dread is able to, being able to see the roots of Metroid from, you know, decades ago,

but then seeing, being able to play it in 2021 and feeling the kind of the modernization of it, especially with like, you know, I love Guacamayle, which is very much inspired by Metroidvania, particularly Metroid and stuff. Like, I had no idea, like, the statues that hold the eggs in Guacamale are like a direct rip from, like, getting certain powers from Metroid and stuff like that. Yeah. And so, like, little things like that, like, it's really cool to, like, kind of go back to its roots and feel how intuitive it is. Like, maybe I had the advantage of you and Tam kind of warning last week of, like, Yeah, you can play an hour and then for an hour you get lost.

And we're like, thankfully, I don't feel like I've gotten lost like super long. Like maybe like for five minutes. I'm like, all right. Like maybe there's some like a door that I'm overlooking. And then yeah, it's usually like, oh, like I have this new ability and there's this door that I pass like 10 minutes ago that I should go check out. And like kind of detailing the map for where to go next. Which has been just like really cool. And I'm having a lot of fun like getting lost in each of like the different,

main areas and discovering new things and having that classic of like, do I have an ability for this? Try it for like a minute. No, I don't. All right. We'll move on. We'll figure it out and we'll probably come back later. And so it's just been like a really fun time exploring.

I really love the Emmy encounters. They are terrifying, but then also like at the same time, it's like this weird balance of like they're terrifying in the moment. But then when you get killed, you're like, all right, well, I'm about to get loaded into like the door that I walked into 10 seconds ago. So it's like not that big of like a, fuck, I like lost so much progress. But probably if they went the other way and you had like go back a fuck ton, like I'd probably be more frustrated with those encounters.

Yeah, I agree with the boss fights. Like they're on paper in design. They're really fun and they're really cool. And then there's, but yeah, there's like a lot of visual stuff where it's just like, you know, there's one that's, you know, there's water in this game. So you got to, I don't know what, what are spoilers and what aren't spoilers, so I'm trying to be like as spoiler-free as possible.

You know, there's a, there's a boss encounter where there's water involved, right? And you know, I was getting through the first phase like really well and it was just like, all right, like now I see this thing where I can attach to the ceiling and I get halfway through and then I get hit by the boss again. I'm like, what am I doing wrong here? And then it's like the simple thing where it's like,

oh, there wasn't like that big of a visual cue for this thing I gotta shoot on the wall to get to the other side to like continue the fight and stuff like that and just like little things like that where it's like all right there yeah like you guys are saying like there should there should have been these fine tweaks once you figure it out though it's like all right like I'm I'm having a blast and like now I can mess this thing up and it's it's really fun and yeah with uh I posted like the the enemy type that we keep mentioning I posted my first fight with them on Twitter because yeah I was getting my teeth kicked in the first

encounter with that and then like coming and then like I had I had to let it go for the night because it was like 930 and I was like oh man how did I I used to stream until 11 o'clock, like, every fucking night. And I was, like, really, like, fading out. And so, like, I went to bed and woke up kind of early, and I was like, all right, let's try this before starting the workday. And it was, like, on the second or third attempt where I was like, hell, yeah, I got this.

I, like, understand the cues and stuff like that. And it's those fights that I actually enjoy the most, even more than that. I love those fights so much. And I can't wait to where, like, months removed and, like, the spoilers and stuff are, like, lifted so we can have a proper conversation about it. Because the way that the game progresses, those fights specifically, I think, is something that the Metroid series has never done and has direly needed. Yeah. There's those fights, and then there's even like a different enemy type, but is still very quick, where you're fighting a singular enemy that, like, all I'll say is, like, they got a staff type of weapon.

And it's like this very quick battle, which I really like, and it's very different from the boss battles, which I feel like a little more, like, you're fighting this giant thing and you're not really moving a lot, and it's like a very slow thing where it's cool to have, like, these formidable. foes that are like essentially your size and they're moving around the room as fast as you are and stuff like that and that's really cool and like yeah the way they iterate upon it right where it's like the second encounter with that enemy type you know it's like a very different landscape for the room so it's not like technically a more

difficult fight but it is because the kind of design of the room is a little different so you have to figure out of like how to best utilize your fight and your tactics against this enemy type in this room and then like they amp it up even more where you have to fight two of them at one and I finished that, I think, this morning. And that was just like, uh, Jesus Christ.

Like what I started it, and after like the first. Man eater, 10. Man eater. Yeah, true. There's no idea what the, what the context is for that. But before we get back to you, Barrett, let me tell you about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by honey. Online shopping.

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overdraft fees report. chime.com slash KF Games. Go for it back. Yeah. Yeah, just the way everything like ramps up in that perspective is like really, really cool. And like the Emmy Encounters and the those specific enemy fights are my favorite parts of the game. And I'm really enjoying it.

I'm hoping that I'm approaching like the last like a couple of hours here. Because, yeah, I think even though it's like, it feels like a short game and, you know, like I feel like a lot of like really good Metroidvania games can can be short but still like be very effective in what they're doing. Yeah, I'm like having a lot of fun and I'm ready to like wrap it up soon. So yeah, I'm enjoying it a lot. And playing it on the swoled, loving my swolid. It's been a fun time playing that, playing Warrior Wear, rebooting up Breath of the Wild. Tam, you were right, of, like, booting that game up on the OLED screen.

It's like, goddamn, just like the, when it gets to, like, sunset and you're like, oh, yeah. Like, the way everything, like, pops, it's so great. It's funny, man. One of the things I want to bring up, you talking about the Emmy fights. Overall, I like them. I love the Emmy's design. I love the colors. I love the film grain effects in all of their areas.

I think the level design layout is spectacular, honestly, for so many of them. And like you were saying, Barrett, I like how if you lose and you lose a lot. And I love how tight the counter is there where it's like, you're probably not going to get it. But if you do, you feel like a badass. It's really rewarding. But that if you lose, cool. You get sent right back. You know how to run through and you're fine.

What I really don't like about the Emmys and I thought this was going to get more enjoyable as the game went on is having to kill them, the way that you do it with the Omega Blast or whatever. And, like, you kind of have to, like, then hunt them down and run away and have enough space to, like, load up their face. I like, I like, I like, the first couple are, like, a little basic where you, like, you know you have to have, like, a certain amount of, like, floor where they're walking to you. And you can have, like, just that slow buildup of, like, oh, my God, did, like, do I have enough space where I'm going to melt off their face so I can, like, power blast them and stuff like that? But the one that I encountered either last night and this morning, um, or part of it is, like, underwater, which was, like, a complete bullshit. it and I hate that. Every underwater level in any game, I don't care if it's a metric game, bad.

Get it out of here. But like trying to find the space of like, oh, I actually need it to walk on the ceiling and come towards me and stuff like that. Like it turns into like a really fun puzzle. As a fight, yeah, they're not like super like interesting and they don't like iterate upon it. But like I think it becomes more of like a puzzle and like figuring out the level design to work in your favor.

Absolutely. And that's the thing that I kind of lets me down is that I just feel like it's not as clever as it thinks it is. And as much as I know how well designed so much of the rest of the game is, that that I'm like, I wish there was some time I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do. And then it just became kind of like running around and waiting to get my distance from them to be able to do the thing. I just feel like that was a for something that's new to the Metroid franchise.

I mean, like we had the X stuff in fusion, but that was a little, that was different. That was more similar to the Resident Evil 2 style like bad guy chasing you when you're not trying to be chase type thing. Whereas the Emmys are, it's a different game. You know, it kind of pauses the gameplay that you're, you're doing your exploration. It's more like, nope, you gotta deal with this now. I just wish it was a little more like interesting.

Yeah, innovate upon the rest of them. Because at this point, it's, it's gotten to the point where for me, it's like how in NFL Blitz, you could just skip kicking the extra point and just say you did it. Like, let's just let me hit a button that says, I kill the Emmy because it's just like, I just want to get to the next part. Like, I got you, bitch. Like, unless you're going to, unless you're going to kind of innovate and,

and keep on kind of adding to the complexity of these Emmy, take it down, and then you blast it in the face or whatever. That's a part where I'm like, all right, well, I guess I got to do this again. And it kind of just feels like a chore at that point after you've done a couple of them. Yeah, I'm kind of with you, Tim. I'm really excited to hear your guys' thoughts as you keep playing through the game. Tam, I'm extremely excited to hear your thoughts on the. End, end of it.

And even you guys, I'm excited to hear as, like, non-super Metroid fans, what you think about the whole, the whole thing when it comes to a close. I mean, it is fascinating where I'm like, these got scenes or whatever's happened in this conversation with Adam, probably really cool.

I had no context or understanding of any of it, but I'm still enjoying my time. Yeah, very interesting stuff. I also like to add, Shine Spark still one of the coolest video game abilities in existence. Like, is in there,

and they do it. so well in this game with press B to like hover in place and then direct it and that kind of stuff. It looks amazing. I love the shine spark so much. Yeah, very fucking cool. I've always felt in the Metroid games that the speed boost, like, like how do you have to like run forever? It always takes a little too much area to hit it. But when you get it, oh, it feels good.

And I feel like that's a lot of Metroid. It's just like, oh, I wish this was just a little simpler. And then when you get it, you're like, oh, hell yeah. And I love that the Metroid games And this continues out I beat it I can say like In the beginning It fulfills the power fantasy

Of being this badass That can do anything And by the end of the game Oh you feel that way It feels so damn The last hour you're just like Fuck yeah Fuck yeah

I can do anything But moving on I talked all about Warrior Ware A couple get it together That's what it called Yeah get it together A couple weeks ago

But Barrett You're playing it now What are your thoughts Have you been playing on the OLED Or what's going on? Yeah so I think I maybe started it on my regular Switch. Like, there was a point where I was kind of forcing some, the enjoyment of some games.

Like, I was trying to play. I was looking for anything to play on the Switch. And I was just getting myself excited to, you know, use the OLED a lot and stuff like that. So I was, like, playing games like Eastward and stuff like that. And nothing was really hitting where I'd, like, give an Eastward, like, five hours. And I was like, all right, this is just, it's really cool, but it's not what I'm in the mood for. and I knew my dumb egg brain was like, Wireware, spent $50, you know you want to, you simple bitch.

And so, like, that's what I did. I'm a simple bitch and I got myself Wariaware because I love those games. I just love the simplicity of it. Yeah, like it's very short, like story campaign, but that's never like really like the draw for me for Wariaware. It's like unlocking those modes of like, all right, here's the mode where it's just like random room and just go as long as you can and stuff like that. So, like, yeah, I really enjoyed, like, going through the story of it, right,

where you get sucked into Wario and Company's video game, and you have to, like, fix all these glitches and stuff like that, and just, like, the weird memeability of, like, Wario and all of his friends and stuff, I really enjoy. And so, yeah, it's been my fun, like, kind of mindless game to just kind of sit back and relax and not have to think about, you know, Metroid design, or, like, really think about the complexities of, of characters and like story-driven games and stuff like that.

Just, like, really dumb fun. And I like that, like, I was, I was a little cautious about, like, controlling all of these different characters. And they're definitely, because, like, in past games, like, it's not really, like, character-based. It's usually just, like, you're not even really controlling a character. You just, like, for a handheld Wario, you're just, like, using your pen and, like,

moving, like, a no, like a finger to poke into a nose or something like that. And in this one, you're specifically controlling characters to complete these dumb tasks, like knocking apples off of a tree and stuff like that. There are definitely characters I don't love, but now that I've beaten the game, it's like, all right, I never have to play those characters ever again. And it's like when I'm picking my crew of five, like I just pick the five that I know that work best with my brain. And so, yeah, it's a good old dandy fun time.

Definitely, I agree with you, Tim, it's not worth the $50. Even as like a big Wario-ware, like fanboy, like this is, I adore this game. Maybe it'll even hit my top 10 favorite games of this year and not even because it's a great game just because I love Warioware. But definitely, unless you're like me, don't spend $50 on this game. Yeah, totally. A ton of fun, but just the price point is just a little off. But the price point is absolutely perfect for a game called It Takes 2. Andy, you have not played it before this week, right?

Correct. And now you've been playing it with Nick Scarpino. Tell me all about that. I mean, the fact that I want to keep on playing this game on stream with Nick and finish it. With Nick of all people, yeah. With Nick of all people who will, as the hammer lady, just constantly hammer my character into the ground. Like, he's a piece of garbage. But, God damn, this game is so exquisitely designed and it's so fun.

And I remember being on the review with you all, and you all kind of, rant in a raven about it. And it's everything, you all didn't lie to me. You all didn't lie to me. Everything you all said was true. I wasn't very trusting of you all. But God damn, this game is a lot of fun. And it is just so, it's the best parts of Mario 3D, you know.

It's all the best parts of any sort of 3D Mario game where you've really appreciated what the game is asking you to do. And actually doing that task with a teammate and coming up with really clever ways to utilize both players at the same time. time and in not feeling like one person like I'm fucking capy. Like it's it's it's just really smart and really fun. I think it's just it's a blast. And I totally understand why there was a lot of Game of the Year praise about it

earlier on this year. And I assume that all of the Hitman three fans are going to be similar to the It Takes two fans of like, don't forget this game when it comes to Game of the Year talks. This game is incredible. Please don't like be a prisoner of the moment and just kind of like, what have you done for me lately? Because so far I think this game is pretty damn near perfect

in terms of design. I haven't really run into anything. Then I go, that's kind of lame. That's not fun. Inner, you know, sprinkling in these sort of versus mode games that have nothing to do with the story

and have nothing to do with progressing anything, just to have two players like fun, have bragging rights. And it's an absolute blast. This game is like, not only perfect for, us to make content on and for but it's just i think a really damn uh damn good design game shout to joseph got us totally stoked you guys are playing so you think you'll actually beat it on

stream yeah yeah i think that's a plan i think we want to play this friday on to a taw tv slash kind of funny games and then monday again when our next sort of uh this friday we're doing a fundraiser thing for uh Hispanic heritage month on our stream um but monday as well I definitely want to see it all the way through because it's that much fun and I think it's really good content as well. Tuesday, Andy, Tuesday. Something else has happened on Monday. Yeah. What is that something else, Barrett?

This Monday's the 10-year anniversary for Batman Arkham City. So one, episode two of the Arkham files will be dropping at 2.30 p.m. Pacific right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Or I'll dive deep into what makes Batman Arkham City still so damn special to this day. but then if you remember two years ago for Arkham Asylum's 10-year anniversary, Greg and I sat down and played through the entirety of Arkham Asylum in one sitting. We're going to do that again. No Greg Miller this time because he's a big old baby daddy, so it'll be me and Mike. We're going to start after games daily at roughly 11 a.m. Pacific starting Arkham City, and then we're going to kind of take a break at like 2.30th for the YouTube premiere for the Arkham Files. And then when we come back from break, we're going to play through the rest of the game.

We're gonna play through the entire game of Arkham City on Monday to celebrate this fantastic superhero game. Oh yeah. Tim, when you said what when you said and what's on Monday, I thought you were asking me. I was going to be like, fuck. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, Tam, thank you so much for joining us once again on the kind of funny games cast.

I love that you are now officially a part-timer. So for the rest of the year, especially as Gray's gone and beyond, of course, we're going to be having having you a whole bunch more on different shows, whether it's games daily or games cast, the streams. Who hell knows where the hell else you'll pop up? I'm excited. We got to get you on the kind of funny podcast, right, Andy? Yes, the core podcast.

Just hang out with them, talk about some bullshit that's not video games. But where can people find you now? Yeah, I mean, please do watch the kind of funny stuff. I love doing it. And so, yeah, check it out. But otherwise, you can find me on GameSpot doing stuff there. I'm on Giant Bomb doing very online show, born to run. giant bomb cast every now and then.

And yeah, Twitch.tv.4 slash to MoorH. I stream Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and I have a good time. It's fun. Hell yeah. Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.