Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - LEGO Horizon Adventures Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

- Start - Housekeeping - LEGO Horizon Adventures Review - Ads - Trophies and Activities - Any Bright Spots? - Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Wednesday, November 13th, 2024. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the taste maker, Roger Percord. 1113. I don't like 1111. I don't like it. You didn't like 11.11. I don't like writing it out. I don't like writing out because I put three sets of 11s. I don't know what I'm doing. Oh, that'd be cool. Yeah, if it was 2011 again, 11, 11. We didn't know how good we had it back then. Bring us back. Yeah. We should really go back. What's fun about 1111 is that then it's like, oh, even if you're European, the date's the same. Oh.

Because, you know, they like to put the, even Canadians, sometimes it's confusing. Is that like, is it just us that does it this way? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Just like inches and shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What are you going to do? No way to change it. Bend the knee. Bend the knee to America is what I say. We just wait him out and then eventually they'll come back. Exactly. They'll figure it out.

It's Christmas in November, Joey Noel. This hair tight definitely did. I was going to say, I can tell you're, we talked about it before. hand you were pissed at your hair ties and they were breaking and doing this and then as I went on the way to work I stopped on the way to work to get more and then they snapped here as I went to pitch it to you I saw the anger in your eyes like you're still fired up about it's just annoyed I would I just would like my hair to I spent more time of my hair than I have maybe ever coming to work today because I had to do it so many times damn damn you hate to see but it looks good I wouldn't know

it doesn't we're also dudes right you know what the amount of times lands has changed your hair salvageable but yeah we'll try again next time I'm on the show I hope this doesn't affect your review of Lego Horizon. Oh, it doesn't affect it, but maybe... It sets the stage. Yes, maybe sets the stage. Oh, I'm interested to get into this. Of course, this is the Kind of Funny Gamescast each and every weekday.

We run you through the biggest topics in video games, whether they be reviews, previews, or just said topics, things that need to be discussed. If you like that, pick up a kind of funny membership on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or Twitch. No, no, no, Patreon.com slash. Kind of Funny. Of course, $10 gets you good karma for supporting an 11-person small business, but it also gets you all of our shows ad-free, the ability to watch the afternoon podcast lives to record them, and of course, the daily dose of me in a series we call Gregway.

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We are not live right now. Roger Head. Oh, don't break the illusion. I have it. What? Is this live? Is this live? Is this live?

Why have they reading the Super Chat? I gave $1,000 to ask if Aloys cool. They didn't answer. I was thinking about it. I was like, is there a way that we can integrate super chats into this episode? Like, Greg comes out. I'm going to do a pop up with them. I mean, we could stop the podcast.

It would be like one of those gambles of like we do a section that's five minutes of dead air here and it's just me on the mic then and be like all right and this guy asked this joey what are you favorite five minutes go go go yeah exactly and then it's like there's nothing so it's just filling this time nobody's super chat no super chat today don't worry about it uh but if you say hey i was going to super chat today i had a bunch of different things i wanted to say that would have cost you money and of course you could use that money for a kind of funny membership or the new visual triangle merch the merch the merch drop is here the year is 2024 we no longer have to choose between frame rate resolution and quality.

Take full control of the visual triangle right now at kind of funny.com slash store on sale for a limited time. A little CRT filter right there. I love that. I know, right. Of course, go over there. It's the newest drop. Andy's visual triangle has been realized in both a hoodie, a hat, a t-shirt, a knit cap.

Like, so you got a ball cap and then you got a knit cap? Is that what you call a beanie? A beanie and a baseball hat, yeah. All right, cool. And then you got a long-sleeve tea. A lot of talk about my big head. I don't think it's that big, y'all. I see what they're saying.

I think your head looks perfectly normal, but I see what they're saying of there's, it's a little bit. You're jutting it out a bit. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a fish eye lens, you know, you know, Nick, notorious with the fish eye lens.

He loves that. Everything's got to look like a some 41 music video for him. You know what I mean? I hate it. Of course, like I said, we are a little business all about live talk shows. You already got the biggest stories in video games on Kind of Funny Games Daily

with guest host Ila from Easy Allies. Unless for some reason that didn't, happen, which, you know, it's a gamble. Here's the other gamble. The stream after this is going to be windblown. Will it still be? You never know with the Gibroni boys. Anything could happen, but it's supposed to be windblown, and I'm excited to see that one in action.

If you're a kind of funny member, of course, there is a Greg Way up. What's it about? Who knows? I do it on the way to work, and I didn't do them, yes. You know what I mean? This is the thing. You couldn't fake all this. You couldn't fake it. You couldn't fake it. Thank you to our Patreon. There's no way I could possibly pick a Greg way ahead of time. There's no way that you could think of someone to talk about right now.

Thank you to our Patreon producer Carl Jacobs and Delaney Twani. Today we're brought to you by Sonic at Top Golf, Marvel Snap, and Shady Rays, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, we begin the show with what is and forever will be. Topic of the show.

The topic of the show, Lego Horizon Adventures Review. Better known as just Lego Horizon. It's time to review this year game. Of course, the developer, Gorilla Games, and Studio Gobo. It is out on the 14th. That's tomorrow.

and your Steam description reads, join Machine Hunter Aloi as she leads a colorful crew of heroes on a quest to save the world and learn the secrets of her past, dive into boundless adventure, customized to your heart's content, and take on an action-packed battles,

solo or with friends. Of course, we have been talking about Lego Horizon adventures for quite some time, you know, Horizon, but on the PC, on the switch, it's everywhere. Well, those three, in PlayStation. three places, you know what I mean? Roger?

Hi. Joey. Yes. You've both beaten this game. We have. Interesting. Separately, not together. No.

That would make too much sense for the co-op game. Why would you play together? Why would you possibly do that? I don't think we ever thought about that either. No. Like, instantly, I was like, can I get two codes? Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

Joey, I know you previewed this for us. I did preview this. At length and I appreciate that about you. So I want to save you for last, but I do want to know how long did it take you to beat? It was somewhere between like seven to nine. hours. Can we talk about the PlayStation game clock being like supremely broken? Yeah, it said that I'd play for four hours and then Lauren said I think nine. So we're like,

I don't know, we'll split the difference. I'll call it seven, I guess. Six. Okay, so did you play co-op the whole way through with Lauren? The whole way through. Oh, nice. Okay. And then top level questions, you'll have to answer these two. Are you done with it? Like, yeah. But I mean, did you do everything in it or are you just done with it? Um, I did every, like, I mean, we finished the campaign and then the side stuff, I did one of them just to see what it was. Okay. Essentially, it's the same thing. You're just fighting different bosses. Okay. And I was like, oh, well, now I know what this is and I don't really have any interest in going back. Okay. Okay. Roger. Hi. You've beaten the game. Yes, I have. How long did it take you?

Again, with the clock, I have no idea because the clock was like one hour after four play sessions. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening here. So I'm assuming it's about six hours, six to seven hours, maybe. Okay. You played it alone? No, I played it with Lianza the entire time. Oh, okay. Okay. So that was a fun. I was looking forward to this game because, you know, her and I don't really have that co-op game that we can go into. We try to do one every year, kind of have the full-on play-through of one of these games. So this was the chosen one.

Have Joey and I told you about Diablo 4? That is an interesting one. I think Leanza a little too scared of it. I think she's like, this looks too hardcore. It's called Diablo. There's a four in the title. You know what I mean? There's a lot going on there.

What about Minecraft Dungeons? Yeah, but it's Minecraft. You know, I mean, she don't like Minecraft like that. But like Lego. She's a hater. She likes, Okay, okay, He likes Lego,

okay. Okay, so then. We need Lego Dungeons, apparently. Yeah, kick me off then, Raj, on the kind of funny review scale,

what would you give Lego Horizon Adventures? I'm sorry to say, Greg, I'm giving this game of five out of ten. Oh, mediocre. Yeah,

this is definitely a mediocre game. It's a mediocre Lego game first and foremost, right? Okay. Now worth pointing out, I always,

I always liked, as somebody who reviewed like a dozen Lego games, this is not TT games. This is not formerly Trave, Traveler's Tales that became TT games, the people you think of

when you think, oh, it's a Lego game, that's not them. This is Gorilla and Gobo. Yes, this is absolutely a new take on, or a new take, quote, unquote, on the Lego types of video games. Because, of course, TT games, which I didn't know they dropped the Traveler's Tales, by the way. I thought it was just, I didn't I don't know. I'm talking about like,

Wow. Well, I don't know it's at IGN. They dropped Traveler's and GEOPLE. So TT games, of course, they're to me, like the goats, right? Like, they created the games that were my childhood. I mean, Lego Star Wars, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, whatever, like any of them that had the Lego title I was buying, right?

Yeah. But I totally understand, especially after playing and reviewing Lego Skywalker Saga, that game has really soured over the years for me. Oh, really? Because it is just that formula, they've tried to innovate on it, but that formula is just, it's old, right? It's an older formula. I wanted something new.

So I was interested in what Horizon, a Lego Horizon Adventures was going to bring to the table. And sadly, what they bring to the table is a lot of them ignoring the good things that T. Oh, no. Had, right? Like, TT games created. a good formula and a good basis for what Lego games could be. And of course, there's a lot of

ways that they can improve on it. But instead, Lego Horizon Adventures seems like they're like, we're going to do our own thing and we're just going to la la la la la, la, pretend that those things didn't exist. We're starting from scratch and we're not learning any of the lessons positive or negative. Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, the gameplay is extremely, extremely linear, right? Like, it is, there is no, there's very little room for exploration. I was very surprised by the ending of some levels where it's like, oh, you didn't get everything. I'm like, what? I feel like I've How did I possibly miss anything? Yeah, it is so cookie cutter.

It almost feels in a weird way like a mobile game or almost even like a port of a console game. Right? Like it feels like it is a, there was another Lego Horizons game out there that is like the real version. This feels like the one on the DS. Yes, exactly. That's what this feels like to me because, yeah, you can, I can go right now and close my eyes and explain to you the exact mission structure for this entire video game every single level. Copy and paste with the halfway point that has three different chests that you can. go to. You know exactly what

you're doing all the time. And the gameplay itself, the combat itself, is just kind of monotonous. Like, I found myself wanting and needing that, surprisingly, I can't believe I'm saying this about a Lego game, but like the depth that the original level Lego games had, right? Where like, when the other Lego

games, you can go in there and you can change your classes, you can have different types of people. You can build and have puzzles. There's really no puzzles here. Are you only AOL this whole time? No, you are multiple characters. No, you're four different characters. Do they feel different? or no. Two of them

feel in their weapons. Yeah, exactly. Two of them feel more different. You know, Varl. I say Varl. Yeah, Varl for sure. No, Varl is just kind of like, he's throwing stuff.

So he's like, he's like Aloy pretty much. Oh, but I mean, he's one of the characters. Yes, exactly. I don't know if we can talk about those other characters. I don't want to, I can look into the entire.

Yeah, don't, don't spoil them. But there's two other characters that are a little bit more different. But even then, it is, the gameplay is just, you're just mashing buttons and they have some of the things

like the original Horizon game, which we should say by outset, I did not play any of the rising games before. What the fuck? I haven't either. Yeah. What the fuck? I tried it and I didn't, I don't like stealthy, sneaky around stuff.

Okay. That kind of lost me immediately. I do. I just, for summary, it was one of those times where like I got into it late and I just, there was other things happening. I just joined kind of funny and I got the show.

Whatever. I will be, I will be playing that game. And I'm bummed because cool robot dinosaurs is like a Joey thing and I'm like bummed that I don't like it, but maybe I'll give her another shot. Yeah.

So I was, I was excited about this and I wanted to, at least understand like the basis of the story. Because this is a retelling of the original story. But from everything I'm gathering from here, it feels like they have just made up characteristics of all the characters. Like they really focus on some of these like,

like, like, Aloy loves pickle sandwiches. Like that's like, that's her basis of our entire character. Yesterday, Roger asking Blessing, like, are any of these things in the real Horizon game in seeing like where Bless could like get you?

Yeah, because you asked at one point was like, is she really into sandwiches? and Bluss was like, oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what I think is. Because it's... Sorry, I don't mean to burn too much the review, but I just want to get out there really quick because it's so interesting because right after I finished this game, I was like, I had such a bad taste in my mouth because it's not a bad game. I'm sure kids are going to love it. I'm sure that, you know, families are going to have

a great time playing it with their kids, but... It's disappointing. It's a disappointing game, and it's also like, we have so many better Lego games. So I booted up Lego, the Complete Saga, which is the one from the 360 PS3 era. That was a compilation of the... original two games on the PS2 era. Star Wars. Yeah, Star Wars. And I had a great time with it, but the cool thing about it

is the way that they characterize those characters right, inside the Lego story, right, where it's like Obi-1, his whole thing is that he's not, in the first, in episode one, in Phantom Menace, he is not good at being a Jedi, right? Like, and like, that's where the humor comes from. The humor here is based on things that are not from the game, right?

Like, it's not from the actual story of Eisen. They're using that, Horizon as a backdrop to then put in their own story. It's like, okay, like, this character His whole thing, all I know about one of these characters is that they love donuts. That's it. Like, I don't have any... That's accurate, though. And I know that this is coming off extremely negative because it is about a kids game.

But I think we have the basis for really, really amazing. I don't know if we can call it a kids game at this point. Joey, I'd want to pivot to you because you and me love the old Lego games as adults playing through them. And obviously, from you with the Marvel ones or the DC ones, it was always... Lego dimensions. Yeah, oh, don't get me started dimensions, right? But it was like, yeah, these are kid games. but I can find so much enjoyment out of the IP I love or the characters I love or whatever.

Yeah. Not happening here. Yeah, this totally missed the mark for me. What's your score? Mine's also a five, which is so funny because we came to that decision separately, but I'm glad that we're aligned on it. Yeah, there's, it just feels, it feels really bare bones. And any time that there's anything extra, it was like, oh, we're adding this just to pat it, but it doesn't actually, it's not additive to the experience.

at all. Gotcha. Gotcha. The open world, or not the open world, the map when you first do it has like three different areas plus your home base area. And there's different like plots of land and like little different like upgrade things you can do. And you're just like walking through this whole land for essentially the entire game being like, oh, I need 60 gold bricks for this. I need 50 gold bricks for this.

I need all of these things. So you're just like walking through and you're like, I can't really actually do anything. So it's like, what's the point of doing any of this if like, like you just have to, it's like they're just teasing you with like, oh, things you can do. And then when you do unlock them, it's like, I don't know, do I need a Ferris wheel here? Like, what the fuck does this have to do with Horizon? All of, like, the things that you can add to your, like, home base area, it's all Lego Ninjago or a guy dressed as a hot dog.

Like, there's definitely a Horizon section, but it's also like, why do we have all of these other random Lego properties in here that don't, aren't video games don't match at all? And it's like, I guess so it's, you can, you can play as a bunny rabbit and like a penguin. but I'm just like, this is a weird mismatch of, not even IP because they're just kind of like blanket characters. I haven't been craving a new Lego game. I feel like I've had my fill personally. And that even happened with Supervillains where I'd never even roll credits on that.

I was like, I'm good. It was great. I loved Supervillains. It was great game, but I was like, I don't feel like the collectathon thing. Yeah. So on top of that, then Horizon being like an IP, I do enjoy, but not that I'm like, I want to go. I've been like at arm's length with this game to begin with.

And every time they've shown that area, and it is the hot dog. man, it is the faire of someone. I was like, but why, why would I do this? And what is it going to? I don't give you any answer. And it's fascinating that, again, for this to be on the, in the shadow of Astrobot. Yeah. Not to have it be, hey, we did a bunch of Lego PlayStation stuff here and you can go through and get a Joel and an Ellie and a thing and build off, you know, the infamous and it's like Hooper. Yeah. Even gameplay wise, I feel like each level is like the exact same format, which like, as a Lego game fan, like, that is kind of what we're used to. But there's just no depth. to any of it. Sure. I think it's crazy how much of the landscape stuff isn't breakable.

Because we're so, so used to going in, you destroy everything, you get the studs, you get the stud multiplier, all that kind of stuff. Like, it is like very little stuff that's buildable,

um, or that's breakable in this. And buildable. And there's, and like some of like the fun secret things when you go down the wrong path are these like little huts and stuff that you build, but like they don't do anything. Yeah,

you're just like in the other like, It's just a thing to check off that you've done, but it doesn't even really pour out studs, maybe like a little bit? It's kind of wild playing, like, again, last night, booting up, of course I have nostalgic glasses because that's one of my favorite games of all time, the Lego, Star Wars Complete saga,

but booting it up and being like, oh, even when I'm like bored of the gameplay because it is simplistic, I can just start breaking everything in this whole place. You are not doing that whatsoever. Even things that you look at, like, oh, I'm sure this is going to be breakable, you smash it, it's a tree, it's a small little tree, nothing. There's nothing going on.

And even like the studs, they treat the studs like very conservative conservatively when it comes to like actually giving them out to the point where they have like these little crates, these little treasure boxes. And they just have like 500 studs in them. And like that's the thing. There's no mini-can. What are you spending them on? What are you doing with them? So it's either skins for your characters or it's those like upgrade to unlock the like, I can now put a donut shop or a vet hospital. on this plot of land,

which is like a real, it might not be a vet hospital, but it's a giant ass dog house. Um, on my land and you're like, why? Yeah, it doesn't make any real sense to me.

It's like, customization for customization stay. Okay. And by customization, it's just these little pre-prepared areas that are just like, oh, put this thing here. Put this there.

Like, there's nothing that's exciting or creative. That's what I look forward to. I look forward to the Lego aspect in video games, right? Like, how are they getting that creative? How, maybe I can mix these two Lego pieces

and put them together. No, you're just putting just a little minifig in that little area. Cool. All right. They really want me to do it apparently because there's not really much else going on in the game. So they make sure, hey, really, you don't be like, every time I'm walking past it, I felt bad. I'm like, okay, let me look into it. What is this thing? It's just like, yeah, you're right. Ferris wheel. Okay.

I have devastating news for you, Greg, about this game too. If you play two-player remote, which is how Lauren and I played, she played as my player two hopped into my game. She got no trophies, no progression. Nightmare stuff. So. And I remember bitching so long at the TT games people about this for Lego and it was such a big deal when

PS4 version dropped or PS4 dropped and they had the Lego game and it was that yeah you could dual sign in and both get trophies I remember being amazed the fact that we're stepping backwards into that but she's not signing in right that's the deal no well she's playing remotely from her PS5 on her copy so she is signing oh oh oh it's even worse yeah yeah wow that's not to mention that after because we played this in two sessions after the first night she went in to start her game and she had to start from the beginning. Like no cross progression. That's really dumb.

Yeah. Really, really, really, really dumb. A couple other things that I didn't love about this. Wait, hold on. Before you get there, because I have questions still. All right. But before then, I want to remind people, of course, we are a small independent business and we couldn't do this without your support. If you like this show or any other shows we do each and every day, that's right,

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You're giving it fives out of two fives out of ten, but just a heads out of that. Joey, I was going to keep the tiger in the cage. Okay. But you unleashed it early there at the very end by bringing up trophies. There are a lot? But, okay, so this is kind of where I was going, and I know you don't care, but like, are you done with it? Like, are you on the verge of platinuming it if you wanted to go play it more? would you platinum it or is there some annoying as shit?

Oh, I couldn't even see the full trophy list. Oh, because it's not out yet. Yeah, yeah, you got a discount for me. I feel like I was popping trophies like fairly often. Because I'm looking at, you know, Power Picks has it up. Okay. Well, how annoying would it be to obtain 75 decorations? Oh, that's, well, because in order to get the decorations,

you have to pay for them and you need studs and then also you need gold bricks to unlock the plots. Collect 50 gold bricks. I think I have. 40, so that's not terrible. You could probably play to me. I mean, I'm not going to. How many red brick things are there, or is there anything? I don't have red.

I don't see anything about red bricks on this list. I'm sure that's going to be a trophy, though, doing all those. Doing all the side stuff. Because that was the fun that I had in the game was when there was any boss battles. There was like a very small amount of boss battles in this game, surprisingly. Like you would expect. Really? For all the monsters? Well, at least like one that has like the big bar at the top.

This is a big deal. Yeah, there was, the first one was maybe, yeah, two, maybe. I think there's a mid one and an end one. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, that was the most fun I had in the game because it was a little bit more strategic. I was playing on normal mode, but, but most of it was just mindless until those moments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go over here, you go over there. Uh, I'm just disappointed with like, the horizon aspect, at least for me, when it comes to combat is like stealth.

Like, I'm, I'm interested in that. And like, stealth is such a non-factor in this game. I feel like, I don't know how about you. Good for Joey. I just was not. Well, it's, like, it's a factor in the game in that it exists. I just doesn't work, I don't think. Yeah.

Because, like, you drop down into the... Star Wars Outlaws problem. Into the arena. You're in the tall grass. You have, like, tall, Lego tall grass on your back and it's cute. But then it kind of immediately feels like the... What do they call them? Dinosaurs.

The robots? Yeah, the robots. I don't know what they have, like, a lore name or whatever. I mean, I'm sure they do. I mean, what the thunder jaw? I give you the actual... Oh, yeah. I just meant like the general...

Yeah, I don't remember off top of my head right now. The machines. I mean they're just calling the machines. Yeah. They, it doesn't seem like going into grass really. Jana Garcia screaming at her desk right now. It,

they don't, it doesn't really provide you much cover. I feel like it doesn't really do anything. Yeah, and I feel like once you pop out like you're done. Like there's no way coming back from that. So I did not attempt to play stealthy at all in this. I'm so interested that you liked the big boss battles because I feel like

that's where I had the most gameplay issues. Um, so I played with Lauren. I was playing as Aloy. She was playing as somebody with like a giant. hammer thing. You can tell I really dug into the story. He loves donuts.

So because I was player one and I was Aloy, I had the bow and arrow, so I was a lot more ranged, she was hammered so she needed to be up close. Because there's no split screen, she kept getting tethered back to me. And it's super, super annoying. These arenas are not that big in the fact that you don't have a tether long enough to free you guys to be on either side of it. is really, really bad. Talk about not learning lessons

from TT games, who created the greatest split screen, in my opinion, which is the dynamic split screen, being able to just walk off and then boom, now your split screen, there's none of that.

There are so many platforming moments where I would fuck up or Leanza would fuck up, mostly care, but one of us was fucking up, and then it would just immediately right to the beginning, and it just felt like

I was in purgatory every single time. It was maddening. There was some, like, platform jumping where I would die and then I would go back and then Lauren would be done and she would get to the other. It got to the point where it had been such like a shitty week

that like we had, we just laughed and like could not stop laughing because we were like we just, I don't know why we should do this. This is why I tweeted or maybe whatever we call Blue Sky now. I was like me and Lauren's like one singular shared brain cell today trying to do jumping puzzles and it's just the sponge bob like doing everything thing. It was real bad. This is a question I had here on my list of did your partners enjoy it? Because we're talking about Lauren and Leanza, right, who, you know, play video games.

I'm not insulting them. They're like, they don't know what they're doing. But I mean, like, it's not their job. They're not kind of funny employees. Like, right? Like, dude, was this a fun activity for you guys as a couple of you guys as friends? Um, not really. Every time, every time Lauren and I would talk about something because I was playing

split screen on my PC with like, ran my PS5 through it. She would hear my keyboard going. She's like, are you taking notes on this? I was like, yeah. She's like, oh, maybe I don't ever want to review games. maybe this is a lot more hard work. And she was like, yeah, like, Loran will pretty much play anything with me,

which is why she's such a good friend. And so she's like always down to clown, but she was like, oh, this is like not great. But it was nice to have somebody for player two to see how everything worked because I think a lot of my issues wouldn't have, or would have been, my focus for my issues would have been different

if I had played solo. Yeah, absolutely. Similar situation with Leans and I. We were both very excited about this. We were, well, I think when the time, She wants me to play the Allo-A-2 DLC with her and I just keep on pushing it off for some reason. Why? Because I'm like, I got to review this game.

I got to review Lego Horizons. I got to do it. But then when we got into it, she was having a good time for the first hour and then by the ending of it, man, oh my gosh. How many play sessions did you guys do this? Like three. It wasn't too bad, but still like by the last, it was Sunday night and I was falling asleep on the couch. And like we're playing, we're playing a split screen so that I would fall asleep. I'm going on.

And she's like, I got you. I'm carrying you. don't you worry? Like, she's like trying to get us through this. Like, we're just, we're like, we're both, like, handed off the controller, essentially because, like, one would just be disinterested, one would have fallen asleep. It was a disaster. So, yeah, no, it was, it was not a good time.

Um, Barrett, can you pull up the picture that I brought up in assets? Another just small thing with the UI that I have an issue with. So any, every time essentially you come back to the home base, you get all of these notifications with the green and the star. Yeah. And they, you get a lot of, you get multiple of them. I feel like every time you come back because you unlock stuff with every level and they cover this menu because they load in one by one by one and they cover this for so

long and it's like can mean there was nowhere else that we could have like put this so that it didn't because then we're like trying to figure out like how don't what are the things that we unlock how much do they cost all this stuff and it's just annoying yeah which is not great yeah there's just a lot of thank you bar it's a lot of there's a lot of little small things like that that are just not polish. Like even when it comes to the co-op situation, every level you start off, this is so stupid and small, but like it affects it because it happens every single

time. You load into a level and they have like a base area in the beginning of the level where you can choose who you want to play as, right? And then if one of your players gets to like the end of the level where the loading screen is to load into the actual real level, it would take the other character

and like transport them and have a whole animation to that loading screen and then there would be a beat and then would load into the level. And it's like those little areas are just like, why don't you just loaned level? Why do we have to have a whole animation of bringing my co-op character to the area? I think there was maybe two or three times out of like, because every like almost quarter of a level that happens. Yeah. Where I didn't get the animation because we happened to be walking at the right pace. But that happened for me like almost every time. Every single time for me. Yeah. It's just, it's frustrating because I again,

booted into an actual real like TT Lego game after this. And I was like, man, like, Like they had so many little lessons that could have came into into play here, but it just seems like they were like, no, we got to, we got to do our own thing. We got to make, we got to make this its own thing. And I wish that either T.T. developed this or they had them as consultants during this, because I think that would have went a long way, just the little things. To be able to break things would have helped so much throughout this game. Did you feel like you guys were stunning each other with your weapons?

Oh, yeah. We were constantly. That's the thing is the, for the audio listeners over here. This is not a traditional Lego game in the sense that it's like a, third person type deal. It's more like top down is the way you describe it, or how would you describe this? I don't know game terms like that well enough to describe it.

It's more of like, not Diablo, but it's like... It's asymmetric. It's asymmetric. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's an isometric game. So when every time I'm playing, we're in like a big heated battle, every single time by the end of this game, I just could not figure out who I was. Like, I would just be like, I'm like, I would think that I'm her for a little bit. And we're playing as different characters. Very clearly different characters visually, There's so much going on.

And that little blue circle that's supposed to represent me is just so small and blends in. Even you can see it there. Blends in with the environment so easily that when there's so much going on, it's tough to figure out who you're playing as, where you are. Yeah, I would stun, um, Leanne's like constantly, she would stun me. It has the same voice lines over and over for it. I would be throwing shit and then I accidentally hit her. And it's like, we're just constantly going back and forth.

And it's, it's tough to figure out what's going on and, and with the action of it all and kind of decipher it. Did you have any bugs? Um, No, nothing crazy. I had, like, one visual bug at the very ending where, like, a character was supposed to be dancing on Lance Reddick's DJ party that he was playing.

I don't know the character, but, like, silence. Yeah, he's a DJ in this one. It's a big deal. And there's, like, a character that was supposed to be dancing. They were just vibrating real fast. So that was the only thing that had. Okay. Yeah, we had some gameplay bugs for sure. We had, like, one of the level bosses just, like,

fully not spawns. So we're just like, well, I guess we just walk to the end. I guess. That's fun. And then, We had a couple of bugs with resing where Lauren would res me. It was only in that like end boss battle where like you have your little ghost and she would res you and you like go into the sky and then you pop back down. And like it would just she would res me and I just got stuck in the sky and never came back down.

That sucks. I think at this point my question is are there bright spots to it? Like you talk about it's not a bad game. It's a mediocre game. So like we are bagging on all the reasons it is not living up to the Lego video game moniker. right? But was there enjoyable stuff? Yeah, again, the first few hours, when I'm not

playing it for review and I'm not like, oh my gosh, like, this is repetitive and I'm having I think if this was broken up over a month playing it with my kid or playing it with just a friend or whatever, I think this would be totally fine, but playing it in these like looking at this as a Lego game with all of the baggage that it hasn't being able

to be like, hey, there's clearly other better Lego games. This is a totally serviceable video game. Like there's nothing wrong with this. Nothing I'm mad at necessarily. I'm just annoyed at, you know, some of the design decisions and how repetitive it all feels. But at the end of the day, it's still very pretty. The story is funny. The story is like genuinely... The voice acting is really good. Yeah, like Ashley Burch is doing great job. And I was very surprised by how much of the

returning cast there is in this. Like, I mean, from what I can see, it seems like most of the people are returning. Yeah. It's kind of incredible how much, how different their voice acting is comparatively to the original game and how good they're doing at it. Like, it's a funny game, it's very meta. That's the thing that I would describe about this story that is different than the other TT games is that the other TT games kind of make fun within the universe of whatever their game is.

This one is more of like, hey, we're just making meta jokes about video games and like, oh, this is a video game. Oh, I'm a narrator, but I also died or whatever it is. Like, there's some meta stuff there. So I think that was funny to me as an adult. I don't know if it would hit for a kid, like meta humor like that, but yeah, that's the bright spot, the graphics

are great. And yeah, some of the games If you just want to turn your brain off and just fully just mash buttons, like, I think it's totally whatever. It's fine. Yeah. I think in a non-review scenario, Floren and I would have played over like a couple nights, we'd been like, oh, that was the thing we did. Yeah, but for 60 bucks. That's the most egregious thing, I think is that it's like a full $60 title. And I don't. I think that if you are looking for, I think if you're looking for another Lego game, you should just play one that is maybe already out. I don't necessarily think that this is worth

the full price tag. Yeah, and I just, I'm just a little bit interested into the choice behind this specific franchise. I know we kind of all are, we've talked about this to death, but like, I think about it, man, an uncharted Lego game would have been sick.

Like, even a god of war, I can see, like, being really good. This is, it's just a weird mismatch because it feels like they're almost, hey, we have the IP, and this is like the most T-friendly game that we have. Let's try to make this into a Lego game,

but we don't really have the stuff in order to make the story, makes sense or like the universe feel exciting with the customization. So let's put Lego Njago in it now. Like it feels like this was like a boardroom decision that then had to be like, okay, well, how do we make this happen?

How do we make this work? And it resulted in this. So I'm interested to see, I think this game's going to do well. I don't know. I'm like bullish in the idea that Lego plus, you know, the time that it's coming out around Black Friday, I think this game's going to do pretty well. I wonder if this is going to continue down a PlayStation's

lineage. Are they going to make a Lego Horizons too or are they just going to be like hey now we can do this with everything now we can just start you know making i don't know ghosts into a lego game like i wonder if this is the beginning of something or this is just a one-off experiment right to great question i feel like i'm inclined to believe it's like a one-off thing but i obviously could be wrong about that i mean it really comes down i think to how successful it is yeah you know what i mean really really yeah critics they're not going to care i think in the end it's going to be the sales and of course being on pc and being on switch uh we should have clarified you both played on play on playstation five

Yes. So there could be juice there in terms of it and switching that. But I mean, PlayStation is in need of hits, right? In games and stuff like that. So if it middles and sales, I don't think you'd see another one, yeah. Yeah, I think the most disappointing thing to me is that the potential, because these machines are so easy to translate in Lego form, just didn't really do anything.

Essentially for combat, they have these gold parts that you just target for it. But anytime you beat a machine, it immediately goes into a cutscene. There's no, like, fun, Legoy animation. Or like, it's exploding. It, like, kind of breaks part into pieces, but I didn't find it, like, particularly satisfying. And there's no, because you, like, harvest things out of it. It's hard to, like, talk about this game, not really knowing what Real Horizon is. But you, like, harvest parts out of these things.

Which you do in Real Horizon. Which you don't even really do in this. Like, there's no, like, gameplay. It's all in cutscenes. Okay. And it's just like, oh, it would be more fun if, like, I could do something with all these parts or whatever. Like, even if it is, like, the mini kits or whatever where you're just, like, going to a thing and building it in shadow or whatever. So no mini kits, no, like, assembly, no, like back at home base.

Here's a thunder jaw I made or something like that. No, no. There's, yeah, again, the stuff that you're finding in the world, which I was very excited about when I first broke something. I was like, oh, my God, I can build something. It is just, you're building something random. Like, it's like something that, yeah, a car. Like, a random car. And it just gives you a few studs.

It's like, oh, this has no, like, there's no. Like there's no, I'm building something. Oh, now this is the solution to a puzzle. Oh, this is a zip line. This turns into a button or a lever. I built one zipline this entire game, and I felt like that was insane. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you use ziplines to get into every main interaction with bosses or whatever.

I felt like that was such an easy slam duck to be like, oh, you just build the zip line. And then now you go down it. Like, no, they're just all there. It just feels very on rail. So, yeah, it just kind of, kind of weird. Kind of weird. Yeah. Dang.

What a miss. What a miss. All right. Any final thoughts? Play other Lego game. I mean, like, I mean, we're in this weird place where I was thinking about this yesterday and when I was talking to y'all about it. Like, it's been so long from the last TT games to Skywalker Saga and then now from Skywalker Saga to whatever T.T. Games is going to make next with Lego. So I was excited for like the middle ground of like something else.

So I do hope if there's a sequel, they learn from this. Like, I hope that they can maybe actually listen to what T.T. Games did and see kind of the stuff they did. And I have to feel like, oh, we got to make something fully different. But yeah, it's disappointing. but I also know, I don't want to table it with this because I stand by all my opinions, but I also know that if you play this with a kid, it's going to be totally fine. But I honestly believe that they deserve more. I grew up with the Lego Star Wars games, and those games are fucking awesome.

Like, they stand up to this day. So I think kids deserve more and not just a five out of ten. They deserve something a little bit better. Yeah, I think that there are, if you're looking for a game to play with your kid or with a partner or a friend or whatever, and you want like the Lego vibe, I think that the other games that are out between Supervillains, Skywalker Saga, all of the Marvel, all of the DC ones,

I think that all of those are more compelled. Right? Just let one of the play. More satisfying options. And like really that's the takeaway that I have from this is like, man, I want to go back and play like,

quote unquote, a real Lego game, which sucks. Like I don't want to say that. Or like, this is obviously a real Lego game too, but it just feels like pretty half-baked. I know you mean. I know you mean.

Dang. Dang. Well, there you go. Maybe Roger and I'll be on a gamescast We're excited about the games we played. You both gave it a 5 out of 10. Mediocre on the kind of funny scale. Remember everybody.

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