Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Is Xbox Gamepass The Best Value In Gaming? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 60

Episode Date: February 10, 2021

Imran's final official Gamescast! 00:00:00 - Start 00:03:00 - Steel Assault 00:06:00 - Clue 00:17:50 - Hitman 3 00:28:17 - The Division 2 00:36:56 - Ads 00:38:28 - Is Game Pass Actually the Best Value in Gaming? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys? Welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes, joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. I was very confused. I wouldn't fully listen to Barrett's explanation of how we would be live. I was like, nothing's playing. And then he's like, you're like, ah, I'm stupid. We are. We are now live. Joining us live is Blessing Eddie Oe Jr., the new face of video games.

It's me. What's up? And for the final time as a full-time member of the kind of funny. No. The former, Informer, soon to be the former, I don't know, kind of funny guy.

I don't have any, like, rhyme. KF. Yeah, the former funner. He'll take a bite out of fans. What?

Like McGruth, the crime dog? Yeah, McGruff, he'd take a bite out of crime, but he's going to fan bite so he takes a bite out of fans. Got it,

got it. Okay, okay. No, I got it. Immediately, I just like, all right.

It wasn't good. Just wasn't. All right. Guys, I just had a couple of orders. You got to wait for him to kick in. I'll be better. Abron, for those that are listening to this and are shocked, what is happening?

I am starting a new full-time job at Fanbite.com, building out their news site-ish. And I can't really do that in KF at the same time, at least as a regular contributor. So this is my last week. It's kind of funny you with on the games cast in KFGD. So there you go. It's been awesome. Everybody. Round of applause for the con.

Go follow him. What's your Twitter? Imron Z OMG. Yeah, go check that out. Find all the shenanigans he's up to. I'm sure he's going to be back a whole bunch. It just isn't going to be all the time. But you will be able to find

us here all the time right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games where each and every week we come together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can watch the show on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteat.com. You can also listen to it as a podcast. Just search your favorite podcast service

for Kind of Funny Games. If you want to get the show, ad free with the exclusive post show and be able to watch it live as we record it. You can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like our Patreon's producers did. So many of them, Graham of Legend, David Mindell, Trevor Starkey, Elliot, Patrick Higgins, James Hastings, Katie Gallagher, Gallagher,

Central West Gaming, Shy Jackson Burgess, Alex J. Sandoval, Julian, the gluten-free gamer, man bear paradox Talia Floyd civilian soldier Mizuki Trent Barry Kevin Boggs Joy Joseph Ousuf Tyler Ross

Jesse the discrepate James Davis and the nanobiologist did thank all of you for being super damn awesome today we're brought to you by honey but I'll tell you about that later for now I want to talk a little bit

about what we've been playing but even before that I want to talk about something that I haven't played but I saw for the first time a couple days ago and I want to share this with you because there's this game called steel assault that looks awesome Barrett if you could please play a little bit of this trailer okay this is kind of what I assume by the name mm-hmm like two these sprite-based anime mix

stuff oh my god that that's that you know this out you don't live though that that's here is hot so there's two two standout things about this that I appreciate one is the soundtrack which I hope the actual game uses because I feel you don't you don't you don't make this promise but that's a The thing is a lot of a lot of times, like, even with Cyber Shadow, I feel like a lot of the trailers you use music like this, but then you listen to it. It's all Chiptoon stuff. I like that this is kind of more of a butt rock chip tune hybrid going on. But the other cool thing is gameplay wise, I've never seen this mechanic that they use here where he kind of has like a zip line, but it's like on both arms. So it's kind of like Spider-Man style hanging on to things. And it's not here. No, no, yeah. It was earlier on the thing, right? But it's kind of like a Batman. Like in 89 Batman, he shot that little thing out.

Yeah, and it looks like it's a big part of the gameplay here where you're... You can do a vertical or diagonal or like over big chasms right there. As you can see, can you go back to the elevator part, Barrett? This is clearly like Mega Man Zero inspired. And that's awesome. Yeah. Like, Mega Man Zero is like a fucking amazing game. So I'm glad for that.

Yeah, right here. Thanks for that. But yeah, you can see it here. I love the idea of like the elevator kind of moving as you're holding on, having to jump in and do all that. Anyways, just saw this trailer come up on my Twitter. I'm like, this looks rad. So I wanted to share that with my friends here. So I like the-

Yeah, the 2021 for this. Yeah. How do you all feel about fake CRT lines? I usually don't like it. But I feel like if the style of the game is kind of built around it, I can vibe with it. And this kind of seems like it's part of the aesthetic built in as opposed to. to just, oh, let's put the filter on top. For me, it's like, I think it would be different

if I weren't so used to what real CRT lines were. Like, they approximate it, but it doesn't quite look right. Like, you need that level of, like, kind of blurriness and that certain light you get from CRTs that you don't get from, like, the emulation of it. So, like, if they could actually do that, which I don't think they can, I don't think it's actually possible, but if they can actually do that,

then I'd be like, yeah, I'll turn that shit on all the time. But usually when I tell I'm like, I'd just rather see the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I like that this has kind of like a Genesis look to it. Yeah. It's got a really, really cool our style. Yeah, because we get a lot of NES things. We get a lot of S&S things. But I like that this one seems a bit more Genesis.

Anyways, that's us looking to the future a little bit of 2021. But now I want to go way back to God knows what, the 1600s. Blessing, you've been playing Clue. Yeah, I've been playing clue. The board game invented into 1600s. Is it a 1600s? Yeah, they're all about Clue back in the 1600s. no yeah i got hit up yesterday by the homie abbey russell and she was like hey i'm doing a stream

me and some friends are playing clue if you went in and i was like i've never played clue before but why not that sounds like a fun time uh and so basically there is a version of clue that's available on steam that is it's called clue slash cludo the world detective gate whatever it's called apparently in the ukk they call it cludo yes because it's clue plus ludo ludo ludo being the word for game Cluto. And so if you ask people in the UK, hey, do you want to play some clue? They're going to be like, what the fuck are you talking about? And they have to say like, no, Cludeau. It's the whole thing. It's wild. The UK's so dumb.

Yeah, right? No one. We're able to beat him. USA 1776. Remember that? If Lucy walks in the background, ask her if she knows about Clue. I bet she'll have no idea what you're talking about. She'll have no clue. She'll have no clue. But yeah, like, I hopped on and it's only 12 bucks on Steam, so I bought it. And the, the interesting thing that stuck out to me first and foremost was that it has expansion packs with different, uh, like locations, a bunch of different character packs. There's like a Sherlock pack. There's like an Egyptian pack. There's like a whole bunch of different types of expansion packs for the game. And these packs cost money. Like right now,

if you go in the game, if you want to get, I forget which, which expansion it is specifically, but there's a certain expansion that is selling for half-priced, and at half-priced, it is $35. Oh, my God. Yeah, the actual micro-transactions. Ladies and gentlemen from GameSpot.com, it's the one and only Lucy James. How are you, Lucy?

Hi, I'm a one second. Let me unmute. Can someone say something? Wow, wow, wow, wow. There you go. Hello, hello, hello. Hello, hello. I give you an intro.

I want you to know that. Blessing has a question for you. Lucy James, how are you? Okay, thanks blessing. How are you doing? I'm doing good. How much do you know about the game Clue? Cluedo. Yes, Cluedo. I've played it. I saw the movie Clue last year.

Last year. Last year. Was that when you realize that your country is backwards and then why are they putting a do, a do at the end of it? It's Clue. Cludeau. Cludeau is just nicer to say? Is it? Is it? Is it nicer to do? I don't have that kind of time. Yeah, like, I don't think Cluedo is like a great name. So when did you realize that, did you always know that Clue was the version of America versus Cludeau in the UK? I think I learned it through osmosis or something through maybe a American sitcom or something.

Okay, that's fair. We've always called it Clodo. Now, do you know why they call it Cludo? no because basically I hate I hate I haven't to explain this

it's a combination of the words Clue and Ludo being like the word or the word for like a game Cludo is like the clue

and Ludo Ludo being Latin for I play and a common British term for the game Parchizi What y'all call Parchizi

Ludo? What the fuck is wrong with you British people? Jesus! In fairness, Partchisi's nonsense, too. Like, is that like a weird day. If I want to talk in Latt over there, I'm like Ludo, Ludo, and you'd be like, oh, this guy plays Parchisi, that's what he just said. Lottes is stupid too.

On pasta. It is not like a thing you does sound tasty. Thank you. That's why I like the name. But yeah, Parchisi sounds foody. It doesn't sound like a game to me. Yeah. Honestly, I don't actually know what game Parchisi.

I don't fucking know. Yeah, what the... Partchisi is like a very old version of like sorry, essentially, almost. It's an American adaptation of the Indian Cross and Circle board game. Pachisi. It was published by Parker Brothers and they changed it to Partizi. That doesn't sound good. This is too hard to say, fuck it, just change the word.

We're American. Well, Lucy, thank you for your contributions. Lucy, if you ever want to play Clue or Cludeau, holler at me, because it's the new wave. All the cool kids are playing Clue now. I'm telling all the guys about it now. We're planning on doing streaming it next week, aren't we? Bless.

Yeah. Yeah, me and Bear were talking about this last night. We want to stream some Clue. Get me in. Cludeau. I'll call it Clue just for you. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate it. $12 on Steam right now. Bye, Lucy. Bless you. Monopoly. Monopoly always gets this bad rap for being the game. nobody finishes. I feel that was always clue. Where you really went through all the little toys

and all the cards and stuff and you put it in it and you're like, oh, this sucks, let's stop. That's what's so great about the Steam version is that it's automated. And so the matches go by way quicker. It's still like 45 minutes probably for a game, but that's way quicker than I imagine it is if you're playing on an actual board game and actually taking the notations of yourself and doing all that.

So before you go, I looked up the season past content. Season past itself is $35. I'm sorry, yeah, $35.42 with the game. Right. The season past contents are classic theme, Sherlock theme, Egyptian adventure theme, international characters pack, Hollywood theme, vampire theme,

Snowy Peaks theme, murder express theme, which actually sounds real cool. Tropical mystery theme, Wild West theme, and masquerade theme. Dude, they have the Simpsons version in there. They do not.

Damn, because that was the version I played with a lot as a kid, was the Simpsons clue. It was really cool. When I tell you that I paid $3 to play as Jim Moriarty from Sherlock. That is a true story. I saw Jim Moriarty from

Sherlock yesterday and I was like, oh, you know what, man? I watched the Sherlock show. I'm such a big fan. Like, when he walks into the pool, in like the pool building or whatever, he's like, I'm Jim Moriarty. I was like, I love this guy. And I saw him in the car. This is my man. I got to have it. I got to rent my boy. Yeah, it's lost. I bought him yesterday.

Have you ever seen the Clue movie? No, I'm not, I'm not seen it. I'm interested in watching it. I like Knives out a lot. And so I haven't seen it either. And let me, blow your goddamn mind. What the f- What?

That's such a you movie. We gotta stop doing this every movie. I know. No, seriously. No, again, blessing, it's not surprising for you, because I weirdly only watch it because of my dad, but Tim? Yeah, it's a very Tim movie. We all have dads. But like, you're closer to like my dad's age than I am, you know?

So like, you're fucking old, Tim. That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying you're old, dude. Come on. But so, so bless, the key thing. here that I didn't fucking believe when Greg and Nick told me is that when this movie came out in theaters, it had multiple endings. Oh, I heard about this. Yeah.

With different people, like, win. That is the coolest thing I've ever freaking heard. And the movie did not make enough money to justify all that. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I hate to burst your bubble. But like, you understand they show all the alternate endings. It's not like every different, you like went on a Monday and they showed you one ending. You want to do you show you different ending.

That's not what Wikipedia say. Oh, really? The way I understand it is they ship different reels. They'd be shown one of three endings. All three are included in the home media release. Oh, okay. Yeah. See, I am not nearly as old as Nick, so I'm just letting you know that I only ever watch Clue on a VHS.

Do audiences know this when they're going into the movie? Or was there a thing where everybody went home and then they talked to their friends about Clue? And they're like, well, it's wild how it ended like this. And the other person's like, that's not how I ended. I mean, I don't think enough people saw the movie when it first came out to have that conversation, but that could have happened. Because I'm looking at this. It had a $15 million budget and its box office didn't even make that back.

Could you imagine if like a Marvel movie had like a different post credit scene depending on like region? And like granted the internet would move that immediately. But like it would be cool in like the 90s. Yeah. Well that's that's that's my thing that. So when Wonder Woman 1984 came out, I was having conversations with friends like I was having conversations with Belinda and Yousef basically. And we're talking about how, yeah, like we really viscerally dislike this movie.

But we look on Twitter and there are other people that really love the movie. And I pose the idea of what if as just a social experiment, HBO Max was like, hey, we're releasing two different Wonder Woman movies. One of them is going to be a masterpiece and the other one's going to suck just to see what happens. I love that idea that like clue, that could have happened actually with a clue movie. Well, just so you know, I mean, like, we're hoping that that's what happens. And Greg gets what he wants. You get your bad justice league.

he gets the good Justice League. So we'll see. There's no way this can be worse. There's no way this can be worse. So we're getting a good justice. I wasn't wrong about Batman v. Superman. I won't be wrong about this. There's an extra hour.

He wasn't wrong. They can be worse. Yeah. The screenshot of Joker. And don't tell me that screenshot doesn't look dope as fuck. In the nightmare, we're finally going to see Joker talk to Batman.

Yeah, it does it. No, but. Well, Joker talking to Batman, finally. I really don't need to see more chat. That's never happening any other media. Plus, What else you got from me on on Clue? That is you just having a good time.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Dude, I had a great time. That was the thing that surprised me the most is last night as I was playing, right? I bought Jim Moriarty, played as I did all that fun stuff. It was my first time playing Clue. Like I was very vaguely aware of the rules of Clue.

Like I knew it was you trying to figure out who did the murder where and with what and all that stuff. But I didn't actually understand the way that the game was actually played. And it took, it definitely took some time for all of us who were playing to actually. actually really understand the rules because the way in which is presented in the Steam game doesn't there's a tutorial and all this stuff but I feel like they just don't do a good job of really really explain explaining how notations work and all the things that you want to keep track of as you're playing the game and so it took us going through a whole round for then for us to realize oh okay so basically what's going on is that all of us have the cards all of us have cards but there are three cards that none of us have

and the three cards that none of us have correlate to who did the murder. And so you're basically going around in the circle and trying to figure out what cards people have or don't have in order to figure out who did the murder. And even the way I'm describing it right now doesn't do justice to the actual rules. I say all this to say that by the time we finished playing, I had realized that the clue is basically just all my favorite parts of Among Us. The thing I love the thing I love about Amongus, like I'm not a big thing. of being the killer and I'm not a big fan of lying even though I think I'm a great liar and among us I'm not I'm not a big fan of the actual act of lying do all that stuff the thing I love the most about among us is figuring out who did it by process of deduction like looking around

and seeing okay who was here like who did you pass on your way to the thing you found the body all right everybody else is a kind of for except for this person this person 100% did it and you realize that yes that person 100% did it I love that in among us and clue is a whole game that is framed around just that part of Amongus. And I'm talking like Clue came after Amongus. I know Clue came way before Amongus, but you guys know what I mean. But yeah, no, I'm like totally into Clue now, the Steam game. And I'm looking forward to me and Bear eventually streaming it up for the kind of funny

Vids channel on Twitch. In England, it's called Among Do. What? What? What? What? God the fuck. That was great.

And Ron, you just beat Hitman 3. Who you want to talk about it. So, okay. Let's be clear. There's no way to talk about this without spoiling the final level. So like... You kill me. Yeah, skip to the next time stamp.

If you do not want to know about this, I didn't want to know anything about Hit Man before I started playing it. So I understand to skip the next part. The final level, blessing you beat this game too, that final level is not Hitman. Like, I don't, I didn't really dislike it. I didn't really like it that much either. But like, so you, the Hitman structure is you have this big open area.

you have two or so targets and then you just find your way to kill them through missions to raise or like finding them and shooting them or whatever the final level is you were on a train which is by the way a fantastic reveal of you open a door and it's like fuck it on the train holy shit then that's cool that's cool

then it gives you like this this thing of find the guy you're supposed to kill who is obviously at the front of the train or at the back and you can you can kill anyone then you will not be punished for killing any non-target in this area because they're all bad people. They're all like Providence members.

You can kill anyone. Which I guess is like just saying, hey, grab a gun and just go fucking crazy if you want to. That's not how I play the three games up till then, which made that whole level feel like this weird fever dream of this must be what they showed MGM for Bond. This must be like the level they made and they showed them. It's like, hey, we can make a good James Bond video. This is the fucking Golden Eye train level. Yeah. If you just want to like, like, take a look to this.

I remember talking to it about it on, I think, IGN review crew where it's like, yeah, it feels like it's straight up ripped from that train level of golden eye. And it's just, it's a James Bond level. But it, uh, I think like a lot of the sentiment that like a lot of people have talked around is like making us excited for the James Bond game, but definitely a week ending for this game. Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah, I think you, you nailed on the head in terms of the game in this level is basically asking you to, hey, just grab a gun and just murder everybody. But the thing that I appreciate about it and the thing that did halfway through that mission kind of opened my eyes to, oh, this is very much going for the James Bond thing was it's not only just pick up a gun and murder everybody.

It is, hey, you have access to guns, but this gun has 10 bullets in it. And to get more ammo, you're going to need to take out the next two guys or the next three guys because you barely have enough bullets to get through whichever the thing is. And so it really is pushing to have this combination of you're doing traditional shooting, third person shooting, but then at certain points you do have to give up usage of guns and go back to melee or go back to sneaking and go back to spying around in order to get access to your next weapon so you can take out the next group of people, which feels very James Bond. It is very James Bond, but it's not hit man. And I think like, like I said, I didn't like or dislike the level, but ultimately I kind of wish there was like a big, you know, a really huge set piece that wasn't quite that. that was just like a big structure like the rest of the games have been because like

you can feel the first game had the most resources and like they kind of varied here and there as you went on and like that felt like a kind of low whimper to end this series on granted now they said like oh yeah no actually we're not in the series it's going to be a ton more but you know like this is the world of assassination ending and i really wish that like it would it had a bit more like bang to it in the way hitman has bang not in the way james bond has bang yeah I completely agree. That was one of the things that I think I've talked about in terms of one of my critiques of the game is you only have, what, five or six levels in this whole game, or at least

that are new to Hitman 3. And one of them feels like it is being not wasted because I enjoy the train sequence, but not a true hitman level. Like, I don't want to make contracts for this level. I'm not necessarily looking forward to escalations for this level unless they're done very, very well in a way that very much justifies why. justifies how linear it is. It just doesn't feel like a hitman level.

And so I feel like I am left with five actual hitman levels left in this game. And for how quickly I was able to get through those levels, it feels like a shorter hitman game than the first two. Yeah. My question was, you know, you talk about it not being a satisfying ending to the world's assassination.

And I'm probably playing way too fast and loose in a very PR answer. But like, as Hitman is always this thing that's continuing to evolve and get new contracts and you get out of it. Do you feel, is this the end, is it like a definitive end of the story that, and that's why you're upset? Like, do you not feel like there's more content coming? I know they're in the same locations, but that would be, the game is still ongoing. For me, as an outsider, Hitman is such a, here are your toys and we put them in this sandbox today, go play with him.

Here's your toys and we put them in this sandbox and go play with them to the, where, for me, personally, again, as somebody who played the first three levels of Hitman 3 and want to get back to it, I'm not in it for the story, right? Like I see the cutscenes and whatever, and I know it's there and yet yet it, but I'm just wondering how that patchwork works. It's the damnedest thing. I didn't care about the story at all the first game.

Then at the end of the second game, I'm like, okay, there's a cliffhanger here that's really cool. And I kind of want to, like, see this out. And then so I actually started getting pretty, like, into the story in the third game. And, like, it is a decent conclusion to the story. But it is also, like, not as, like, it's a, not a good game.

play conclusion. So like it's it's like when you when you're play devil may cry and it ends with like a fight thing. Like that would suck or like the joker boss fight and art of asylum. Yes. This is what I always talk about this and like classic video game stuff I hate of you play a game. You've been enjoying the whole time and then you get to that final boss fighter level and it's totally not what you've been doing the entire time. You're like well this sucks. I don't want to learn something new nor do I want to play something that's half baked because it's not even what you do in this game. Yeah. So with that with the the gameplay stuff you're saying that you think story-wise, it ends in a good place, but the gameplay of the train thing's not that

great as the end cap. Do you think if that level was earlier in the game that you would have enjoyed it more? I think, like, it's weird because the pacing is sort of all over the place because there's the China level, which is like so incredibly huge and so complicated, and there's so many moving pieces. I could easily see if it weren't for the story, that just being the end, because it feels like a final boss for this entire series. But, like, I get, like, it kind of feels like, okay, you do that. And the next level was like shockingly easy. Like I did it like 20 minutes my first time through,

which usually takes me like two hours because I'm honestly like walking around and exploring everything. But like it kind of feels like that channel level, it should be the end of the game. And the rest of it just kind of feels like extraneous like, well, we got to finish the story too. So, you know, here we go. That China level kind of almost does for me kind of feel like the end.

Where the way in which it kind of ramps up and the length of it and the, basically everything that level means to the overall hitman experience, I feel like does a great job of encompassing everything you've wanted out of the road of assassination trilogy. And I could have easily seen it, seen it ending there in that being a satisfying ending. Whereas for the train scene, I'm kind of split in both directions in a way where it does the thing that I don't love from video games that Greg mentions, right, where you're, you play the whole game one way and then towards the end, everything shifts.

And they're like, okay, cool, now you're going to play the game this way out of nowhere. And I usually hate that when it comes to difficult boss fights or shit that ups the ante in ways that I just don't, I don't love. But Hitman does it in a way where I think it's kind of the opposite, where they give you this power fantasy to end the game with, which I think kind of is satisfying. Because throughout, throughout three of these games, I've played them not murdering people. Like I've talked about the code that I have for Hitman, which is I'm only killing targets. The Bless God. And witnesses. If you see what I did, you're dying.

and if you're my time, I don't even kill women's in. The best code is the best code. I'll not say when this is. I won't kill them. What are you doing? If you saw my face, you can't live.

It's that simple. I mean, there's a master of, like I get where you're coming from, bless, your master says. Yeah, everybody else can be unconscious, but if you see my face

and I see that pop up that says, uh, uh, noticed crime or whatever, it's over for you. You're not, but you know if they're unconscious, they can't report you, right?

Like, yeah, but like, theoretically, I finished that level and then it's still in the back of my mind, even as the credits are rolling on that level still in the back of my mind of like, he's going to wake up and he's going to tell on me. He's going to describe me

to a police officer who's going to write down or sketch down my face and all and stuff, they'll eventually come from me and I cannot let that happen. I love so if you phrase it as they'll tell on me. These damn tattle tails. We don't fuck with tattles. Snitches get stitches.

But that's, that's my code and that that's my code. And that, uh, that last level of hit man after playing what 20 or so levels 19 levels that are that shifting it to hey murder everybody and just and you like you are you are agent 47 there's a part in that last train level where you get to two people having conversation they're like oh yeah like he he's not so tough if you had to fight face to face he's not going to stand a chance and when I heard that I like I did I stood up and I was like okay bet like I'm not even to use my weapons

we can fight this fight and I took him out and it felt great and like it's I'm with you, Ameron, in terms of, yeah, this is definitely a twist on Hitman that doesn't continue

what we know and love out of the world of assassination because I think the most appropriate way to end this game would have been a, just a grand finale. Give me the biggest level.

Give me the most intricate thing. And let me really like put, let's really push the gameplay boundaries of what this game is. But I do think the way in which they ended it, kind of try to go for that, um, uh,

empowerment feeling. And I did, I did feel that towards the ending. Yeah. like I really overall really love that game and I love that trilogy quite a bit but like as I was going through the train I'm like a train is such a cool set piece

it's a shame they're wasting it on kill everyone when it should be a crowded train with people in it then like I have to kill one person there or even like combined with a dartmoor thing of like a murder on the Orient Express thing where like I'm trying to solve a mystery or also kill people there like I think there's an option there

that like would have been more interesting and I hope they revisit the idea with a less aggressive play style at some point Speaking of revisiting, Greg, the Division 2. Yeah, I still obsessed with the Division 2. I forget when we talked last about the Division 2, if we did it last week or not. But the short version, of course,

they dropped that PlayStation 5, 4K, 60 frames per second patch, which got me back in, which brought in Snowbike Mike, Gary's back in. Kevin keeps saying he wants to get back in, but he's not doing the homework like I tell him to do, so he's not getting it done. Scott Lowe got back in, and then, you know, just in general,

you know, Khalifson. it, Andrew is in it, we're all out there killing again and doing it. And, you know, it looks great on PlayStation 5 runs really well, but then it's just coming back to the gameplay and remembering how much fun that game is. And, you know, last night, it was not the normal thing, I guess, but like, I turned on the PlayStation 5 and I was like, what do I want to play? And I thought about division. I was like, you know what? No, I don't feel like getting into something. I definitely, I'm tired. I don't want to talk to anybody. Like, that's not what I want to do right now. And so I heard a little voice from the future class of gaming blessing. And he's like,

pathless, pathless. I was like, yeah, the pathless. That sounds probably right at my alley for I'm at. It's a short game. It's really beautiful. I know Bless loves it. Let's get in that finally, right? Because I played Cardo. I think I talked about that last week. And I was like, oh yeah, okay, cool. I'm trying to clean off my PlayStation 4 stuff that's been sticking around. And so I, and I know this isn't PlayStation 4, but older stuff. Booted up Pathless, got in there, got off the boat and got a text from Fran. He's like, hey, are you, this reanimated event for division ends tonight. Do you want to go for these stars. I'm like, fuck yeah, I do.

And ran through an hour and a half left down the reanimated event, which is a global event they've been doing for the week, right? That dropped with the Resident Evil content because you can go through and do a bunch of Resident Evil apparel stuff right now. This one being that if you activate this event, if you don't headshot people, they'll come back up and you have to fight them again

after a little bit. That's kind of cool. It's awesome. And this is like what the division gets so right in terms of, you know, we want to talk shit about Avengers, deservedly so, of their not being enough to do, let alone none and villains lot, not enough characters and stuff. But not enough to do it, period, as endgame stuff. Like, this is what division gets to right of like, hey, for one week, you can go through,

you can turn this optional thing on when you do it, you know, you're earning stars because there's a whole litany of challenges to do that get you stars, then you can take those stars and that you've earned and trade them in for caches that are for optimizations or exotics or whatever the hell you want to do. You can, you know, bank them for bigger things, keep them for little. And then on top of that, there was just overall 10 level like battle pass to it. that another is all free it's not like one of the paid battle passes 10 levels to it that this is what fran was talking about is like hey i'm on the last one if you want to grind out a

bunch of these i can do it and i was like i'm on level eight but yeah if you're in i'm in and so we went and ran the um high-rise building where you go floor by floor clearing at enemies for 100 floors or whatever you can save every three floors uh and we picked up from where we left off last week when we did some stuff with it got in there are you know again the division so well designed in this way of like you know i was doing one set of them fran was doing another set of them. They were counting for each other. So we just went through in like 30 minutes cleared it all out and both of us had everything for it. And it was like, oh, great. And it was that thing I love about the division where he's like, you want to do a mission? I'm like, no, I am done. I am exhausted

and going to bed and I feel accomplished. I've accomplished something tonight, right? Like, I finished off the tier. I got the little skull. I got the exotic cash. I got the exotic, whatever, you know, weapon out of it and stuff. Like, yeah, hell yeah. And so it's so much fun right now being back into it, let alone being back into it and having the game look better and run better than ever and have, you know, I know some people don't like it. For the way I use multiplayer games, I enjoy the new party system for PlayStation 5, where, you know, there was one night I was on there, and it was me trying to get, you know, me, Snowbike and I have been playing on our, on my streams on Wednesdays.

We'll be doing it again this week, raising money for Bink, who you can find out on Twitter, or go to Kindofunny.com slash Jim Lee right now. And, you know, I was doing stuff with him, and Kevin wanted to play with us, but then was being Kevin about it, and then Joey got on to play Fortnite. And we were all just in, you know, a kind of funny chat room we had. and I eventually got, I had to go talk to somebody else, so I left our party and went to another party and was talking to them while I was still playing division with Snowback Mike,

then came back in and ran off, and it's like, it's fun right now because with the Warlords of New York, which of course is the year old expansion at this point, if you put it in, you can jump right to level 30, and then you clear out all the stuff in New York, and then you're right where the action is in D.C. So you can be doing stuff with high-level players. So I don't, it won't happen.

But I had that glimpse that it just makes me so happy, and I'm not, I'm not forcing it. I'm not talking about it I'm not talking about it but the other night Jen was watching me play and she was like maybe I should do this

maybe I should play this I'm like oh yeah you want to play and I didn't I didn't show my excitement you know you show your excitement for it I'm gonna it's a little flame right now I can't go in there you know I'll blow it out

you gotta keep the fire growing put some of that that dry moss in there you know I've seen people make fires I've seen people make fires yeah exactly because I would be I'm gonna tell you what like I don't be wrong it was a dream come tree to play like 70

hours of borderlands three with Jen but if I can get her on division oh my god it's over get her to watch when a fran's menu streams oh my god did you see this did anybody else see this the other day like i heard we joke about fran and the menus like because let me try to play it when you play with fran it is all right hold on a second i get him on me oh i'm ready this is well and like we we do these jokes and like yeah i think it was monday or sunday i was like i'm gonna play some division and i jumped in to play the division and i saw fran online and i was like oh man i i i maybe i should just jump into his game and play with him. And I was like, you know what?

And I turned on Twitch and sure shit, he's just fucking, his thing was called menus. When I started watching, which I don't know if this helps or hinders him, once I saw that he was doing it, I put it on while I played division. I didn't join his voice chat. I didn't do anything. I just watched his stream. He had already been going for two hours, just going through his loot in his loot table and filling out his reach off life.

And then he went another fucking hour while I watched him. Look at that. Builds, menus, and music. That's what his fucking stream was called. I read Fran on like a night that I'm streaming because he's like the only one still awake. He's just always on menus, just all the time. It's never. I love that.

It's a niche. There's a 192 people that are like, you know what? This is what I want to, you know, spend my time doing. And I'm all about that. I agree 100%. And again, like, I, you know, I didn't join. I play. I was playing the division.

I was running my man hunts for the overall manhunt for the season or whatever. And I was just listening to him. and I was enjoying it. You know what I mean? Like, I enjoy hearing, Fran thinks and talks about the game in such a different level a way than I do. You know what I mean?

Where I am very much like, he was like, a couple days ago, like I run still the demolition specialization, which is that crossbow that explodes, right? That has been there since the beginning. And of course, they've added like, I don't even know,

three, four other specializations you can use. And Fran was trying to convince me to switch it out to go run something. And I was like, now I understand that. And there'd be something new to chase, which I don't need. There's tons of things to chase in this game.

And it was just that idea. of like, this is my build, but Fran is the, and he was talking to me last night about it, right? I was just like, he is the guy that wants to be able to sample everything. He's chases everything and is trying to constantly boil this down and get it somewhere. I love it. It's awesome and it's cool to play with him and it's cool to be back. You know what I mean? Like, it's, you know,

the only reason we fell off is the traditional reason we fall off of any game, I think, when you talk about what we do for a career, which is the next big thing came and you had to move on. And so like last year with Warlords, I was able to jump back on, but then whatever else came out, in the spring, or maybe the global pandemic, came around Animal Crossing, I imagine. And, you know, I had to switch off and I kind of put it on the back burner and forgot about a million things happened. And I think, you know, it's still sad in some regard, because I am playing it and having such a great time and I love it, doing me wrong.

But I am also being like, man, I wish Avengers was like this. Man, like, we're doing an MCU rewatch. And every time I'm like, oh, I could go for it right now. I could go in there. But it's like, why would I do any of that? What is the point of it? Whereas the division is, here are man hunts you can do. Here's this new thing to do.

Here's this new battle pass to chase. Here's this item if you want to go get it. Like there's so many different ways that no matter what I do in the division, and even when I jump in and help Snowbike Mike in New York or I keep offering it to Kevin, but he just wants to play Fortnite. Help Kevin. It is this idea that like that's not the main stuff I'm out to help, but doing stuff with them still gives me XP.

It still gives me new loot. It still gives me the chance to get, you know, a god roll off of an item or something and take it over there. And of course today on a Ubisoft call, they just said that they, even though they're working on a Star Wars game, they're still going to support and make new division content in this year and next year, which is huge. Does that mean another warlord sized expansion, which added New York and all that shit? Of course not.

But it's still nice to know there's still stuff coming to that game. Hell yeah. Before we move on to the topic of the show, I want to tell you about our sponsor. This episode's brought to you by Honey. We all shop online. Some of us a little bit too much. But whether you shop a little bit or a lot, you should have honey. Here's the thing.

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Topic suggestions, whatever you want over on patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like a Jarula did. Ajarula, great name, says, I have seen so many people say that Xbox GamePass is the best value in video games. And I keep asking why. As someone that has a PS5, a series S, and a PC, my GamePass seems to be quantity over quality for any new experiences, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Will Game Pass ever have a barrage of must plays? Will it ever be more than a very very? very cheap way to play a bunch of really good old games. Will there ever be many quality Xbox exclusives? What am I missing here? Jesus. It's a big, big question.

I was going to say, can you paste this into Slack for me? Because there's a lot going on. I want to make sure I can break it down bullet point by bullet point. Tell me he's 80. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'll send it to you guys.

But essentially it boils down to, you know, the phrase has been, Xbox Game Pass is the best value in gaming. And so it's really kind of breaking that down and asking, is it? And if not, why? I mean, my question is, what else would it be?

What else could be the best value in gaming? Yeah, I guess theoretically there must be a best. Like, there has to be one thing that is better than the rest. Yeah. Like, we're entering a generation now. We've entered a generation now where full-priced games are moving up to $70. And gaming is getting more and more expensive. And with that, like, there's not many places to go where you can get a truly great deal.

Like, Steam has a lot of great deals. after the fact, right? When games have gotten a bit old and they go on Steam sales and stuff, right? Like, you can find a lot of great deals there. You can find a lot of great deals. On PSN sometimes or on, I was going to say the e-shop, but definitely not for actual Nintendo games. But, like, you know, you can go to different stores and different services and stuff

and find great deals here and there. And you have things like free PS Plus games and stuff like that. But for the thing that me and I'm saying currently, right, where it's like, all right, what are you going to compare it to? Xbox GamePass right now as a service for what it costs versus what it offers, I think is doing that better than any other service available. Like right now I have my Xbox Series X open on my monitor, and I'm looking at some of the most popular games.

And right now it's Minecraft, Fort Worth Horizon 4, Rainbow Six Siege, C of Thieves, which I was playing a couple weeks ago with friends through Xbox Game Pass. Star Wars Battlefriend, the list goes on. You know, it's kind of hard to compare it to anything. I think like... Oh, go ahead, David. Please. No, no.

Your time's running out, you go. There was a bit in there of, like, the must-have games that are not on Game Pass. And I think that's kind of misunderstanding what GameBass is supposed to be. Like, it's never... It would be great if we're like, oh, yeah, we have games sort of the equivalent to the Sony first-party catalog. Like, we have... If you don't want to pay for Last of Us 2, here's Last of Us 2 for free. That would be a fantastic deal.

That's not what this is. The reason those games get made is because they're not coming on services like this. But, like, it is like a... a collection of games that are not necessarily must-plays, but maybe should plays or maybe want to play, stuff like that. Like, I don't, I would not pay $60 for Crackdown 3.

Crackdown 3 on Game Pass is a pretty damn good deal, actually. Like, we were talking about Cyber Shadow last week. You could buy Cyber Shadow on PS5 or PS4, whatever, Switch, all that stuff, but also it's just on Game Pass. So just play it on Game Pass. Like, Ace Combat is there. Streets of Rage is there. These are not games that make you, like, go,

oh, I need to buy a console for these games, but they're like, I have this console, I want something to play. I'm bored. I don't like, my friends are, I'm a part of a podcast. I know I need a thing to play this week. Like, that is the kind of thing that GameBass does great for.

Yeah, that's for me, the way to look, I look at GamePass and think about GamePass as a consumer, again, not as like somebody whose job depends on this stuff, right? Is that GamePath, and this always goes back to the argument

people want to make when we don't like a game where I like a game that isn't that great. Like, Greg doesn't understand the value of $60. Like, I do. And I think that Game Pass eliminates the need for you to ever have a back catalog, to ever have a backlog, I should say, backlog of games. The games that are shrink-wrapped sitting there, like, oh, I never got to it. Oh, I did it right away. I downloaded it.

Like, if you know you're not going to get to something, why wouldn't you wait to see it fill out, right? Because it is looking at Game Pass right now, and I'd gone through and made notes, right? Yakuza, Catana Zero, Streets of Rage 4, Doom, Eternal. Fallen Orders there. There's old stuff, too, that I'm trying to dodge around to go that are great games. But Cardo, Dark Siders Genesis, like Haven, which is getting written up right now. I just saw a Kataku article go around about how great that game is stuff. There's Spirit Fair.

Like, if these are all games that, again, yeah, maybe aren't the 10 out of 10 must play, stop everything you're doing. But I would venture to guess, is somebody who has a lot of these on his hard drive that hasn't played them. They are games you didn't get to and you want to get to and you think you, like, these are all Saturday afternoon gambles where you sit down and you're like, I mean, I'm not in the mood for this, I'm not in the mood for that, what do I play?

You pop one of these on and you go. And so as you sit there now and think into the future, and think about your $60 and how much, or $70 in some cases, how much your money's worth to you, you go, okay, should I buy this game that I'm not going to play right away? I don't know for a fact,

but you can stand as a reason a lot of them will come eventually to game pass that you get around it. And this, will game pass ever have a barrage of must play? That is one question unto itself. Like that I would argue, it does already have those. They're games you've already played. You know what I mean?

You're already, you're, you know, you're being dismissive because you own a PlayStation 5 series S and PC. That's fine. That's great. You play a lot of games I get that. But those exist already that are there. And then even like as the king of old game is old, will it ever be more than a very cheap way

to play a bunch of really good old games? Like, again, to your guys's point, well, that's not really the point of it. The point of it is to get, yeah, Xbox first party stuff on there. But to have then a whole bunch of really good stuff that you probably miss. Monster Hunter Worlds on there.

I fucking adore Monster Hunter World, let alone to be able to get it for part of your subscription. It's two years old though. Sure. But I'm saying how many people didn't play it, like didn't take the chance on it. How many people bought it and let it sit there

or gave it two seconds and then bounced or whatever? Yeah. I mean, that's all true. And I think that with that lens, that Game Pass, absolutely, I think Game Pass, no matter what, no matter how you look at it, is an amazing value and it's amazing deal.

I do think that the, is it the best value in games. I personally don't think it is right now. And I think that that's just because I look at things where I'm like, I would rather pay $60 to get Last of Us 2 than to be playing a bunch of games that either I didn't buy in the first place have played before or, you know, I'm looking forward to exclusive titles coming to Xbox that so far they haven't really been my bag with the exception of Ori and Gears 5. But like, you know, the medium come wasn't really my thing and all that. But I still think that where I don't agree with you guys is that that that's not the point of Game Pass. I definitely think it's the point of game.

Bass, I think that they just don't have that stuff, but they want that stuff. It is the missing piece. Yeah. Because look at the Netflix model, right? Which is what this is. And it's essentially,

we're going to have a lot of quantity. We're going to have those, like the staples, like the office and things like that, that we know people are just watching every night when they're going to sleep or the SVUs or whatever the hell it is, whatever people's comfort food is, right?

But Netflix also has the original starting all the way back with House of Cards and as it kind of has went on, we can now rely on at least a couple surprise Netflix originals every year. And that is a thing where people are saying for that, but there also is an understanding that at this point, Netflix is not the dominant king.

And especially now with Disney Plus coming up and, you know, HBO Max and all the other competitors, and now with things like the comfort food of the office being taken off of Netflix and moving away, that's what Xbox GamePass has right now is its old school Netflix, where it has all of these third-party licensing deals, especially with EA play and all that stuff,

where it is the glory days of everything that isn't exclusive is going to be here. It's going to be a little later, but these are the video game equivalents of sitcoms and of these kind of like the comfort foodie type procedural shows, which is what you're talking about, the monster hunter worlds, the Jedi fall out orders, these games that are great games, but they are old games.

And you can get them cheap, maybe not this cheap, especially with the deals going on with GamePass. I think that that's where it gets even more crazy is when people are getting GamePass Ultimate whatever for a dollar. It's like, well, it's hard to argue that this isn't the best value in gaming because you're essentially giving it away

that even if you don't use it, it's still worth the dollar. Yeah. Right now it is like a, I don't want to say a money sync for Microsoft, but it is a thing that like, there are plans in place to make this framework build out. Like I was thinking not too long ago, Yaku's like a dragon.

It's not a game game. game. It is a game that you buy for however many dollars. That game is about a character who really likes Dragon Quest. Let it, let's say you buy an Xbox, you bought Yoxa, you play that game, you're like, I don't know anything about Dragon Quest. What GamePass allows you to do is go, look up Dragon Quest on that's on the Xbox. See Dragon Quest 11 is there. Be like, all right, I'll sign up for a little bit of Game Bass to play this game because this other game is telling me about it. And there's like an interesting little feedback loop there of everything you do, on the Microsoft ecosystem, it's designed to keep you within the Microsoft ecosystem.

And I think GamePass needs to get there with its quote-unquote original programming as time goes on. But like that, like you were saying, is the missing piece right now of it would be great if we did have that last office equivalent in perfect dark. I don't know if it's going to be the last office equivalent. But who knows? Let's optimistically say yes, like the initiative is their naughty dog and they're making a real big ass game out of it. Like that needs to be on there at some point. it's Microsoft can only go it's coming please don't worry for so long but do you think that'll like I have a two-part question with that do you think that that will ever actually change because I feel like

when we look at the Xbox lineup for the last decade I feel like we're constantly being like well they're going to eventually get there and we're eventually going to have this roll out of titles and I believe it more than ever now based on their acquisitions and how long it's been since this is all happening and now that we have the next gen consoles game passes multiple years years old down and been going. But then the other side of it is we already know about the Bethesda stuff. Are these games going to be exclusive on the on Xbox and game pass? Even if they're not exclusive, they will be on game pass, which means that like you will have a comparison of oh, here's a Starfield on PS5 for $70.70 fucking dollars. That's a lot of money.

And here's it on Game Pass for nothing. And like that is going to be a comparison that Microsoft is going to like scream from the hills of yeah sure if you got a PS5 and i know like the PS5 is almost certainly going to win an install base between the two of the generation like you could pay the 70 bucks there or you can give us a little bit of money and like get uh starfield free plus streets of rage plus all these other games that are that's the hilly's heel right is like when the marketing ads run and it is starfield or whatever the hell game it's going to be from betheseer we're talking about right and even ex or no just but this is sorry uh When it ends and it shows the Xbox logo, it's like, play it now for $14.99 or whatever.

And then you have people going into the store trying to buy it. It's $70? Well, yeah, it's $70 here. But if you already get, oh, fuck, what's game pass? And you get explained to it that way. Like, yeah, those experiences are coming. And I know, I'm right there with you, Tim, where you're saying, we've been saying that forever, that Xbox is going to, you know, respond with a first party lineup.

Like, are they really coming? They are really coming. And I think you do see that. We continue to see Xbox invest in first parties. You talk about Hellblade. You talk about the initiative. You talk about, I went from game to studio there, but you understand I'm talking about. You talk about all these different studios we've seen them bring on and the projects they're working on.

That clearly is going to pay off eventually where you are going to get Halo and you are going to get perfect dark and you are going to get a grounded final release that comes out and so on and so forth. Yeah. My thing is, like in terms of what the future for the actual software that's coming to GamePass is for what we're talking about, we already have those games laid out for us for the most part when we look through their studios. Like 3 for 3 is working on Halo. Halo Infident is going to come out this fall or. next year probably. We got Arcane. Arcane is working on

Death Loop, which is going to come out on PS5, but it'll eventually be on GamePass, and Arcane is eventually going to make more Arcane games, and we can say the same thing for machine games, right? But Indiana Jones is the thing that's announced that'll probably be on GamePass, and we can go studio by studio, and even though, yeah, for the last generation,

Game Pass, and the output from Xbox has been relatively unexciting. And I do feel that same kind of domino effect of, okay, well, we keep saying look forward to it, look forward to it and it's never here. I think at this point it is very it's very visible what's on the table. And like we all like we all understand too that like games take time to develop in. Deals kind of take time to to settle in. And so even with the

arcane death loop thing, you know, like that's a deal that's going to take some time to settle in. And so that game's going to have to come out on PlayStation 5 exclusively exclusively first in time before eventually they are going to be settled in as an Xbox exclusive studio or an Xbox game studio, I guess. That stuff that we can act, that stuff that I think for us kind of on the inside we can look at and be able to parse out and be okay, no, this is,

like there's a plan here. Like I don't know if I'm, I don't know if it's going to be a comparable thing of when is last is part two coming to game pass because I don't know, I don't know if that's what Xbox necessarily even wants. You know, like I'm sure perfect, perfect dark from them. Oh, they do.

They do want it. They just don't have it. Yeah, but like it's, but it's, But is that, does that matter though? Do they need that? You know, I don't think they do. I mean, I definitely think they, they do for. For game pass? Yeah.

For Game pass? For Xbox to, to, the argument's already there though right now. Yeah, but see, like, at some point it becomes this, this weird, like, the anti-consumer argument of just like, well, it's making them a lot of money in it. It works this way. But it's like, what that, what's that going to result in? A bunch of, we often say, like, oh, it's a perfect game pass game. And it's like, we should be holding our standards. perfect dark though. I mean,

mark your words here. Are we not? And I don't want to do the thing where it's like, you know, it could be cyberpunk. It could get all, it could be all these different things. But for what the big, for what the big plan, or let's do you Starfield Starfield as an example, right?

Like, Starfield isn't going to come out. And at its best, we're not going to say, oh, that's good for a game past game. Like that is a big AAA game that we're going to look at alongside something. 76 is their last game 76 was not good

so who knows yeah I mean who knows 76 is also a multiplayer game and all co-developed by other guys and all this different stuff but like for what we're looking at from Microsoft game studios at their best those games aren't good for game pass games

those are top tier incredible games I mean but you're talking about a lot of potential that we haven't actually seen like that's the problem is like when you're talking about timeline if we know what's coming it's like what's coming in the next year because everything you said is not the next year

except for Halo and even that is like, is that believable? And at that point, is it going to be good? I mean, we're going to get Helblade too soon and Helplaid one out lighting. Death Loop and Ghostwire Tokyo are both a year exclusive

starting May 21st for Death Loop. So the earliest Death Loop can come to game pass is May 21st, 2022. So I'm going to throw this out there. Like this is a thing that like we're not really talking about, but Microsoft made a fairly large deal with EA to put EA's like, library onto GamePass what's to stop them from making that deal with their third parties?

What's to stop there from saying, hey, Ubisoft, do you want to put you play shit on here? We'll feed you some money from GamePass and the newest has this Creed launches day and date on Game Pass or not even day and date, even a couple of months later. And you've already seen them do that with that Luna stuff, right? Where they have the Ubisoft Looney Channel. Clearly, they're open

to those kind of partnerships. Yeah. I think that makes a compelling case for GamePass, especially like the more you can take like big titles that are on PS5 and say, you're not going to play this day one. You're going to play this like day 70. So like why not just wait until it's on game bass at that point? Like the more that you can make that argument,

the more it takes away from the PS5. And from a competition perspective, from a system ecosystem perspective of you want to be subscribed to as many Xbox things as possible because they all feed into each other really well. And that works out better for that like their monthly activation numbers and all that. like that gives them the benefit they want

see what's interesting there for me is like looking at the bethesta situation and granted the bethesta thing's different than anything else because Microsoft straight bought them and there's preexisting things so for other people i don't think they're going to buy ubi soft but making some type of licensing deal yeah i wonder how hard that would get with sony not wanting them to do it you know because it's like that is such a fuck you to their partner sony uh if you can get the game cheaper on the xbox platform I mean, has the EA really suffered anything?

But is EA putting out its new games, though, or isn't that just the older stuff? It's the stuff that goes into the vault. So, like, I think Fallen Order took about nine months, but most games come faster than that. Yeah, but see, I think that's totally different than a new Assassin's Creed coming out day and day. I'm thinking, like, four months, five months for that sort of thing.

Like, I don't know exactly when the tale of Assassin's Creed game starts, like, dropping off, but I would guess it doesn't last six months. So I think Ubisoft is actually a lot. logical answer of like okay this will be part of your game pass membership as well like I don't know I remember that was a long time that EA had a hell of a time getting EA play or whatever the origin kind of what the hell is the name of that service now do you be someone no the EA one yeah play is it called EA play I thought EA play was the E3 conference I think it's both it's both okay what whatever they named things badly anyway

They're a good host though. Very good host. They have a lot of trouble getting EA play onto PS5, or PS4, because Sony just didn't want it. Like, they did not want that type of service on their console. Eventually they agreed to it, but it's just been that.

Like, if Microsoft is making a stronger argument to say a Ubisoft, to say a take two, I'm trying to think of another third party that has a similar service, but I can't. But let's say to a Ubisoft, then like, it might just be, hey Sony we'll do this for you as well but they're giving this money and you're not so

yeah that would that would be interesting where you put it in Sony's you know yard where it's like hey you can have it you just don't have that service but I still don't think they need that like I think we're still discounting

that the fact that I think for what Game Pass is currently it is doing extremely well and if they go business as usual and just do the thing where they put out their first party games on Game Pass it is already like a magnificent deal that I don't think really needs much more to justify it as a powerhouse like for the for the games that we've listed already

that are on GamePass like we talk about Yakuza there are Final Fantasy games on there there there was a bunch of different incredible stuff on there let alone indie stuff we see come day and date to Game Pass over the years and so like Outer Wilds when that came out it was already on Game Pass I can't remember this procedurally generated first person shooter roguelite game that people like that you're in space comic book style.

Void bastards. Void bastards. Yes. Void bastards was day and day in game past. Teresa Rage for. Like there's already a great list of games coming out day and day. And then when you add in first party Microsoft stuff, like, you know, I get, I know, I know, I know it comes back to the argument of what have you done for me lately. But still, like I think, you know, the games that they have working on or the games that they are working on, I think are good enough to justify that.

Like way beyond just being quote unquote. like what we look at as the medium as a game pass game like the fable when it comes out is going to be still way more than that you know I mentioned Hellblade too like this is a lot of counting chickens before they hatched though like we're assuming all these games are good or will come out

or like you know I mean we can't we can't assume that 23 studios aren't going to put out games though right but can't we though for the last like 10 years look at the beginning of the Xbox one generation and how much this didn't happen Like, I bet these games come out And like, I think you're, I think you're probably right. These games are going to come out.

They'll probably be quality. I think the problem is, I guess like not to mince words here, but if not for GamePass, the Xbox, these two new Xbox consoles would be absolute failures. I mean, 1,000%. Like, they're not, the games are not super quality right now and they're not coming out of a fast enough clip. But there's nothing next genn about this

besides GamePass being a cool service. But we're also talking about studios that have been acquired within the last three years. Like Microsoft's game studio says increased in sides dramatically. And so we're comparing beginning of Xbox one generation and beginning of series X generation Xbox. We're talking about two very different companies where back then they're putting out games, right? Like there was the Rome, you know, yeah. Rise, son of Rome and like, you know, Halo 5.

There was a canceled table game. There was a canceled platinum game. There was a canceled Phantom Dust game. Yeah. And like all that I think was just a result of Xbox just not operating well at the time. You know, like everything about Xbox in 2013 versus Xbox in 2020 is straight up 180. And now, like, when you look at their studios, studios, there seems to be a plan in place at the very least. And one that we can, you know, trust is a weird word, but it's a plan we can look at. And for me, at least, I can go, okay, I'm comfortable with this. Like, this seems like it's going to go in a good place when you look at both the Bethesda and non-Bethystas the size of Xbox. Like, they seem to be firing on the cylinders that they need to.

Maybe not all cylinders yet, as we perceive. But where they need to, they seem to be firing. I mean, I just struggle to stand with you saying that. What it's like, look at what happened to Halo Infinite. Yeah, but that's one game. It's like, it's a weird argument because like actually, it's probably better they delayed it. Like, it's a good sign for Microsoft Game Studios that they're willing to go, hey, Halo is our marquee title, but we're not going to release a bad one. Well, we will delay it into next year before we'll,

least a bad one. Unfortunately, what that says about the Xbox as a, like, thing you should buy right now is not great. But what is says about Microsoft Game Studios is actually pretty encouraging. That's true. Yeah. It's interesting to look and think about it like Disney Plus where, you know, Mandalorian happened. And then when there was no Mandalorian, everyone's like, what the fuck's the point of this platform?

When the point of the platform is all the Star Wars movies are there, all the MCU movies are there, all that. And now that we're in this, thank God, new era of WandaVision, companies. me out and all the MCU shows and the Star Wars shows and all the other stuff that they're going to have. All of a sudden, people are like, okay, I understand why I'm paying for Disney Plus now. Like, this makes a lot more sense. But Disney Plus also dirt cheap.

And it also had so many deals to make it even dirt cheaper over the last like two years. And it's also got Mandalorian and Wanda Vision. But that's the thing is it has those. And it has those consistently. It's going to continue. And it does have high school musical, the musical, the series, the Christmas special. It wasn't that good. But can't wait for season two.

Can't wait for season two. But my point is it's like, that all happened within the course of a year of them building up to that. And now we're here and it's going to be good for the rest of time. Whereas with GamePass, it's like they're building up and they have that old school Netflix model. But I do think that like to Imron's point of what is the things that make Xbox special now? Like now for this year, for 2021. And it's like, oh, if it's just a good place to play games cheap, then absolutely. They nailed it and they're going to continue to nail it.

And I do wonder the sustainability of it, though, because Microsoft spending money on this. And they have money to spend. Like, it's not that they can't do this. But if they were to go out and pay Ubisoft for a library, they're paying Ubisoft for that library. Like they do this deal with Disney Plus to get a, you know, if you sign up for GamePass, you also get the Disney Plus stuff. Like, the money's just getting spread more and more and more in different ways. And it's like, at what point does that change how these games are being made?

So when we do get these Xbox exclusive games, we're still saying, Oh, it's a Game Pass game. Like, in the same way, we say, oh, it's a Netflix movie, and we know what that means, you know? Like, for a Netflix movie to, like, be something really special, like when Marriage Story was on Netflix, people didn't call that a Netflix movie. It was a good movie that happened to be on Netflix,

whereas 90% of the other movies we watch on Netflix, we are like, it was there. So I watched it. Had to watch something. You know? There is definitely a path for Microsoft to, like, grab the narrative on Game Pass. and not just go like,

this is an alternative to the $7 games, but to go like, this is an undeniable, in arguable place to play the best games. That opportunity hinges into almost entirely on them and their ability to put out those games themselves. Because like, obviously they're never going to get

like Sony first party games, which are like industry leading single player titles. It is exceedingly unlikely that say like Resneple 8 will be like a game-pass launch game, maybe somewhere down the line, sure. But like at launch, almost certainly not. But like for them, the ones who are controlled, like pulling the strings on this, if they can deliver those things, if they can deliver Hellblade with a cinematic lighting,

and, um, uh, what else, perfect dark and halo and I'm sure there are a bunch of, like, fable and all that stuff, any I jios. All those, like, I was thinking the other day, I am so excited about a new Wolfenstein. And like, the idea that like one day a Wolfensign will just come out, It will just be on GamePass. And I don't have to, like, do anything. It'll just be there. It's exciting to me for some reason,

because that's like a new, that is a new idea in video games that, like, ever since I didn't have to, like, go out to a store to pick up a copy of a game, like, this is the biggest new change for me. Like, if Microsoft can fire on those cylinders, as Blessing said, then, like, that'll be enough to actually make that argument super well.

I'm kind of, like, circularly going back to like the original question is GamePass the best value in video games? I think I'm going back to the original thought blessing had of yeah it's the best but not for... Yeah, there's not because it's fulfilled its potential. It's because it's fulfilled some of its potential

because like fundamentally the value was really good. But it could be so much better. Yeah. And I think that's that that's the thing I'm more focused on is the fact that for what Game Pass is currently, I think it's already in a fantastic place. And if that potential is fulfilled in two years, in three years, that's going to be enormous,

or enormous for Xbox and GamePass. Because Tim, I definitely agree with you where we look at 2021 for Xbox and it's like, all right, this is very unexciting. You know, if you look at launch, if you're comparing Xbox Series X launch to PlayStation 5 launch, for example,

or even bringing Switch into the mix in terms of game libraries and an exclusive lineup, like it's just not, it's not there. But I still, I guess I just have the faith that it'll be. there because of the acquisitions and because of where these studios are at. Yeah. But then also when we when we look at it at a comparative sense of what is this competition,

I think the Netflix and Disney Plus analogies are interesting because it's similar. GamePaz is similar in terms of it is this first party service that is looking at having a back catalog of great software and then also software that's going to come day and date on that platform specifically. But I think the thing that, the thing that makes it apples and oranges a little bit for me is there is no Disney Plus to GamePass as Netflix, right? Like there is no Hulu.

GamePass is GamePass. It's the only service that is doing it like GamePass. We can bring in PlayStation to the mix and we can bring it, we can bring in like the first party libraries. But I think that's more comparing platforms and consoles, console libraries more so than a subscription service where I can pay a dollar to then have access to all these games and not worry about it. and that stuff will be available on XCloud

or whatever service I want to use. I mean, doesn't PlayStation have that with the PS Plus collection? Oh, you want PlayStation Plus? No. I mean, that's not growing.

But I mean, but that's a collection of games that are a lot of are exclusive to it that aren't on Xbox GamePass ecosystem and never will be because they're PlayStation owned, but it is their back catalog of games. But my thing still is that game, one,

Game Pass is growing and like has way more games. And then also, like they're including, they're including new stuff. Like PS Plus collection, I think is a cool thing for people who are coming into the platform new or want access to the, is it like 30 games that are on there.

But that is so limited that I just, I don't think it's comparable at all. I think the comparable thing would be PlayStation now. Yeah, which. But see, I just don't agree because you said the Disney Plus. Like to me,

I look at it as Disney Plus of like, okay, cool, Disney Plus grows very, very slowly with its content, but it has every MCU movie in the same way, and Star Wars movie in the same way that, that collection, it has bloodbored, it has God of War. It has, like, Gosha Shima, though.

It doesn't have like Spirited Maynoborales. But will it eventually? We don't know. But I don't even think it needs it to be able to be in the conversation. I'm not saying it's better than necessarily. But I do think that if you're just talking pure value, at some point, you can look at the dollars that it costs and look at the quality of the games and be like, this is more vibe, this is more vibe, depending on your tastes.

For sure. I forgot what we were talking about. I was really scared for a second that the Discord call froze I was like oh god oh no by two cents PS now is like one of those things that like

looks cool and like I feel like they just need some tweaks just some little tweaks to make it give it a fighting chance against game pass and like the talking points you know like figure out how to get PS3 games downloadable get more I don't know

get more relevant games on there oh wait you can only download PS3 You can only download PS4 and PS2 games. Everything else, you have to stream through, which sucks when I, whenever I want to play Batman Arkham Origins. And I'm like, oh, man, you play as bad as I remember. And also it's worse because I'm streaming through fucking PS now. I think, like, streaming is also going to be like one of those things. Because I remember a blessing you telling me that once you download, set a game and download, you just stop when to play that game.

So I feel like streaming is like the next answer for how you make Game Pass a more viable thing. is like like just when you click a game like option download stream and like I think that is a state you couldn't do honestly at this point why not just license well I guess you have your own thing at this

you have X loud like they're building towards that that is what I expect to be the next step for game pass is like right now looking at my game pass library and I click something right and the first thing is install I'm surprised there isn't already an option right now to play through X cloud while you wait for it

Yeah. Yeah. And I will say GamePass is like the way that it's presented and the way that your games have the little logos and stuff. It's like it is great. And like they really have a fantastic foundation that they've built. And like getting the install base. I mean, I'm looking now. They got 18 million game pass users.

A hundred million active Xbox Live gold. So it's like getting that them to transition up is going to be the big challenge so they can get that that one number to be able to always say like get the, you know, investor credit for. which is we did that really dumb live gold thing a couple of weeks ago of like they clearly want that game or game pass number to be higher and there's only like the only ways

you can really do that are to make game pass a better service via the library or to force people to do it they chose violence they chose the forcing people to do it I think now that that didn't work they have to do making game pass a better service yeah I mean it's gonna be interesting

because they, there's, Phil Spencer said in October 2020 on an episode of the Drop Frames podcast that their current pricing model for GamePass at this point was considered completely sustainable, despite concerns from some developers

that they were undercharging for it. And that Microsoft have no plans to raise the price in the near future. Obviously, near future, that can change and be whatever. That book says that shit every week, every fucking year. I know they raise the prices.

Yeah. Yeah. That thing is like once, once you hit that point in a year or two, where your games start coming out and you do have Doom Eternal 2 or whatever the next Doom is and you start having those games

actually start flowing. If I'm Microsoft, I'm raising the price. I'm immediately being like, all right, you're paying three, four more dollars for this thing a month. Remember when games started being $60? And Microsoft was like, we're not going to do that.

First party of Microsoft games will be cheaper. They'll be 50 bucks. And then they published Gears of War and Gears of War is $60. They're like, well, we didn't really make this. So it's not really first party. So it's going to be $60.

Then every year out of that was $60. I think that's kind of what this is going to be. It's like, well, this is kind of different. We need to improve GameBast for whatever reason. So we'll go up once and they'll just keep going up. And honestly, that's my thing is like it has to. Like for this to be sustainable. Like him saying it's completely sustainable.

It's like I am struggling to understand how that could make sense, especially with how rapidly they are growing and how many new things that they're pulling in, buying Bethesda, but then also having the EA play connection. and all that stuff. It's like, because looking at the numbers, they have their 18 million right now.

HBO Max only has 37.7 million right now. And granted, HBO Max came out a lot later and is only in America right now. And only on like specific platforms as well. Yeah. So that's a, it's a much more limited pool. But that is completely shaking up how the,

the film industry in Hollywood is working where with all the Warner Brothers movies being put day and date on in theaters where they can be. and on HBO Max. We've been talking on other, like, entertainment content about, like, that is going to radically change and shift how movies are made and the prices and scales those movies are made at. But that is the thing that's going to get people citing it to HBO Max. That's the equivalent of Bethesda games, you know, coming to Game Pass and, like, these things that we expect a certain level of quality from, which we do from this slate

of WB movies. Like, the fact that doones coming to HBO Max is insane. You know, that's like us talking about Perfect Dark coming to Game Pass. In theory, for what we expect that game to be, that's crazy that you'll be able to pay $15 a month or less with a deal. I play this game. But at what point is that sustainable or not sustainable anymore? I don't think I realize how close, like, the HBO Max Disney Plus thing is to actually Microsoft and Sony. It's crazy.

Disney Plus just being so hesitant to release their, like, big movies on this service, even though it's very clear we're not going back with theaters anytime soon. And Sony's like, yeah, no, we're not going to put like new first party games on PS now. so don't like don't expect that. Yeah. And I really wonder like how it's going to net out at the end. I mean, they don't have to worry about it until Xbox tries, has something to fight them with.

It's literally the argument you've been making, right? Of like, cool, Xbox GamePass has a bunch of games on it that are great games, but they're not the ones you're worried about. And you looked on this pipeline, you're like,

one of those coming until they are dropping Halo and they are dropping Perfect Dark and they are dropping every Bethesda game and they are all awesome. PlayStation doesn't have to worry about it. PlayStation now is a great service that, you know, nobody ever talks about. Game pass, the drum is beat so loudly all the time for. Deservedly so, I think it's a great service.

But, like, what, it's 800 games on PlayStation Now now that are out there. And you want to talk about quality over quantity. You look through the list of games on PlayStation Now. There's a lot of shit that I was like, I never would tell you to play this, but it's there for you to go play it or download it or stream it or whatever. But it's that thing of like PlayStation Now continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger, quality over quantity, a different argument. But it is that thing of that if,

the corner ever got taken. And if Xbox suddenly was finding a better success for it, I think PlayStation could counter and bang the drum for PlayStation now, they just don't right now because they don't fucking need to. They sell consoles hand over fist. Their first party lineup is continuing to put out hit after hit and find huge audiences and Game of the Year awards. You don't need to actually confuse the message more with that out there.

Whereas we've already talked about on this podcast, Xbox has to be out there banging the drum for GamePass because that's all it fucking has. Otherwise, it is two fancy boxes that, that you're waiting for stuff. Sorry, Halo isn't here. Yeah. Very interesting stuff.

Before we end this episode, I want to go around the table, take some bets on what we think is going to happen with the Bethesda titles, specifically Starfield, Elder Scroll 6, and Indiana Jones. And the options are whatever variation of how exclusive to Xbox are they going to be versus PlayStation. I will bet what I was saying before they will be on PlayStation but they will be on GamePass and the thrust of the marketing will focus on PC and Xbox

for all three of the games that I'm all the game yeah I'm with I'm with Emron too I think I think all those games will be multi-platform but will also be on Game Pass and yeah the marketing will be focused on on Xbox I do think there will be games like I think the next Doom, I think the next Wolfenstein

and games of that tier will probably be Xbox exclusive. Okay, interesting. So you think that the, would you say, like the lower tier ones will be exclusive? Yeah. What's the logic there? I think you get

I think in terms of money, in terms of deals, like Indiana Jones is the one I kind of struggle with because that one I would, that's the game that's the game that's coming out of machine games, which is a very great developer absolutely loved Wolfstein to you but you know it it i don't think it'll i don't think that's of the level of in all the scrolls or a starfield in terms of the amount of potential in sales that those games have i think if you're xbox and you and you're looking at starfield you're looking at that game is the game that is going to sell crazy on playstation and you want to make that money

um and an an an jones i don't know like who knows what the what the deal is there with uh lucas home games and so that's why i'm like okay no i can see that going to uh on other platforms also but i think the games that you can get away with it those are the games that you can get away with it those are the games that you keep exclusive in order to build up your library and build up game pass and Xbox is a platform and all that stuff which is why I think Doom you know whatever Death Loop 2 is like the the rest of the catalog for the most part I think is going to be exclusive Greg Miller so what were the three you called out Starfield Indiana Jones and what and Elder Scroll 6 thank you but also bring in Doom and Wolfenstein I think it's a tale of two

Xbox at this point I might my knee jerk reaction would be all of them, our multi-platform and all of them are on GamePass. And again, it is every commercial ends with the Xbox logo and play it now for $14.99. And I think that harkens back to what Phil said before, that he thinks exclusives are dumb. You know what I mean? That that's not what they're moving for and they want more people to be playing their games and they want to be everywhere. And I think it does speak to them being everywhere. Usually we say that meaning Game Pass or whatever.

But I think with all these different people you're bringing in and the fans that have already been established out there on those platforms. It's not like Hellblade, where I think, you know, Helblade 2 being Xbox exclusive is a different thing because Helblade 1 was a critical darling that a lot of people loved and found an audience, but I don't think the audience was so massive

that they're sitting there like destroyed by it. And so to get here to these big, Indiana Jones for sure, I think is multi-platform everywhere. Starfield I could see you trying to wrap that up. Elder Scrolls, I think it's too big. I think you put it everywhere, and I think you want to take care of those audiences. But the more I talk about it, the more it just to me would seem to make sense that it is not only beneficial because you'll make the money off the games being sold on PlayStation.

It is beneficial in the way that you go back to reinforcing the argument that we're having right now. And I do believe that Xbox is the best, or Xbox game passes the best value in gaming because it will continue to gain value over time. And I think as you get into these things, it is a great marketing thing of why should you buy an Xbox? well, you'd be getting all your games $55 cheaper. Like right there, you know what I mean? You do this thing on the monthly and then you go, let alone the hundreds of other games you might have missed and not had and done blah, blah, blah, blah, that thing.

I just think that's the way they've been marching in terms of their argument, in terms of their platform, in terms of getting Xbox onto your TV, onto your computer, onto your phone, under your whatever. Like, I'm more sick of it than anybody. You know, we're talking about, like, Xbox isn't saying the same things for exclusives forever. Like I'm sick of saying that they are building this foundation and they're ready to capitalize on it and go for it.

I'm ready for them to get out of the fucking blocks and show everybody what their plan is and who they are. And I think they keep doing chip damage. It's what we're talking about with Avengers last week, a couple weeks ago, right? I'm just like, I don't want chip damage. I'm more on your side where you were. You want one big drop that fixes everything and here's what it is. But just like that, I think this is going to be way more drip fed in small things and small doses where you keep looking back and understanding what they've been doing. why they've been doing it and where they've been going.

Yeah, it's interesting. I love, I love how it's one of those things where when it comes to this topic, specifically, the Bethesda thing, like, there isn't an answer. Like, I don't even think that they fully know right now. Like, I think that there's a lot of conversations happening. But, like, based on everything you're saying where my head's at, I think that all of them are exclusive to Xbox. And I wouldn't be shocked that they end up not being.

And because you guys are making clear arguments that I side with, which is there's money being left on the table when there are that many PS4 is eventually PS5s out in the wild. Why would you give that up? But I do think that despite things that have been said in interviews and whatever, like exclusives do matter and they believe that and they want game pass to have those things. And I think that that would change the Xbox conversation into not only is it the best value. Like I feel like it would then just be like it is a it is a must do.

You know, it's not just a deal. It's a quality part of your life now. It's like how everybody has Netflix. Like that has to be game pass. Yeah, and so I think that that makes the most sense for them to make the acquisitions that they did to then use all those big hitters to hit hard with Game Pass. Yeah, we'll see. I think they have a lot of potential available to them for whatever they do next. It's just a question like, Microsoft has very often made bad decisions.

I hope like Blessing said, like that era of. bad decisions over, but we'll see. We don't actually know. They've made a lot of moves since the restructuring around Phil Spencer. I don't know if they've really committed to them with their like full, you know, the full thrust of their organization yet. Or if they have, we've actually seen them pan out completely yet. Very interesting stuff. Well, Imran, thank you for joining us for this last official kind of funny games cast.

We've appreciated all of your appearances. very much. We're about to do the Patreon exclusive post show which will be a very special episode of Bless Who. This one with a twist. What is it, Bless?

It's a new game called That's the Spirit. Will it be me and Imran guessing spirits from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Probably some variation on that. Imron, again,

where can people keep up with you and your latest shenanigans? You can find me and pretty much everything I do because I'm too addicted to Twitter to ever quit. at Imron Z-O-M-G. There you go.

Until next time, love you guys.