Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Life After Crimson Desert (Your Voicemails) - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

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Your candy stash just got an upgrade with fruity rainbow five-hour energy shots. Grab the shot, dive into that sweet boost for your sweet tooth. Order now at 5-hourenergy.com or Amazon. What's up, everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Friday, March 20th, 20th, 2026. I'm one of your host Greg Miller alongside Forbes 30 under 30, a.k.a New York Game Awards nominated.

A bicep Poppy. It's blessing. Adioia Jr. Good day, Greg. Good day. How are you? How are you doing? Good. We already have this. We just had this. We just had this conversation on games daily. How bad is my voice? Because I saw people in chat putting out like, oh, it's blessed sick and I was sick. It's not bad. It's just clearly you're going through. It's not blessed. It's not blessed.

You know what I feel the same way as I'm dealing with allergies right now. Now granted, allergies are on the back of me coughing for a month. So it's like. Yeah. I haven't heard you cough in a while. Actually, no, you coughed. Yeah, but it's the allergies now. Right. So it's like a whole thing. But yeah, I'm not doing the horrible wheeze. I went to the, you know, I got the fucking inhaler. That's all done.

Oh, we're done with that. Thank goodness. So we're fine with that. Now we just get to hang out all day long. It is that sin. Getting this all. I feel like it's been that year. Because January, we all got sick.

Like January to February, we all got sick one in a time starting with Fran. That's the last time we let Fran into the office. I think it was hanging out with you guys on your anniversary. I was like, all right, Frank. I don't know, like, I don't know if it's us that did it to him or if him that did it us. but like whatever happened to Fran, that man. He was never, he was never the same again.

He was never the same. Like, he was in the hospital. He was wearing a cast on his arm for some reason. He didn't do that. But like, I just imagine him looking like, Bear, you saw the episode of SpongeBob where they were delivering chocolates and you had the woman. Chocolate?

Yeah. Did you say chocolate? Or no, I'm thinking of, um, I mean, yeah, those are the characters. But there was another character in that same episode that was like, my bones are made a glass every day I wake up. Oh, yeah. That's the same episode where because he's like swindling them into like buying a, uh, more chocolate from him.

Yeah. Because he's faking a medical thing to like pay for bills. That's how I picture Frayne Marabella this last January where he was going through it. Well, that too, but more so he's just,

you know, a very sickly man that month. Let's talk about Frayn for a second. Sure. Because you know we love to do it. I've known Fran a long, long time. As many of you know,

Fran used to be on kind of funny a lot at the old studio, the comic book studio. And then he has streaming stuff, our schedule, us getting more employees. It's kind of just, you know, calm down. And we don't use Fran as much anymore, right?

But we still love Fran. The other night. And to be clear, I don't text Fran a lot. All right. So like, before this text on Sunday night, I texted him previously of like, do you want to be on the marathon review, which he did, right?

And then double checking that he's on the marathon review because we hadn't talked in forever. And then it's a few, you know, you start going back in pretty quickly where like, there's one in December. One time I texted him in November. Before then it was September. We're not like texting a lot, right?

Yeah. So Sunday, Mike says in the thing, I'm sick. I'm going to be down. You say, hey, I'm going to be down. Andy says, hey, I'm going to be down. At 817 on Sunday night, I text Fran. You want to do kind of funny games daily tomorrow? And Fran responds, hey man, probably shouldn't.

A few things are piling up after GDC. Unless it's urgent, in which case I'm always there to help out. And I started drafting. I'm like, Fran, how often do I text you, Sunday night at 8, 7, and I'm like, you know what? I just thumbs up the message and I was like, I'll do the, I'll do games daily. I'll do games daily. That's funny.

It's on my side, everyone's drop, unless it's urgent. Frank, why would I be texting you and 8.20 on a fucking Sunday if it wasn't urgent. It wasn't that urgent, though. The more I learned about Fran, the more I'm like, I get it now. I get the, I get all these stories. Yeah, I get the high years and years of IGN stories. God. I'm excited for this game's cast blessing.

Yes, I'm excited too. I talked about it on Greg Way today, of course, which you can get. with your kind of funny membership, Patreon, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, that I think we've been doing a, there was an energy to that review for Crimson Desert. It's 3 p.m. We're live.

We're election night in America. Everything's coming in. And then since then now, using both games daily, obviously, the continued coverage of the launch of Crimson Desert. Obviously, the games cast plays. Andy's amazing stream last night. Great job, Andy.

And then games casts of, all right, cool. this is a controversial review. Midler, come in, let's talk about other controversial video game reviews. Today, when we got, when Fridays, games cast got moved to Monday because of all the sicknesses where we're going to check in on Pocopia two weeks later, there was this conversation, what does this one become?

And you were like, well, we could do a voicemail one. And I was like, oh, interesting. And then the idea of bubbles, of course, what if it was, we asked the audience to voicemail in with what's their most anticipated game after Crimson Desert? what's an assistive game that broke your heart? What was an anticipated game that critics didn't love but you love? And it was like, oh man, I want to applaud you audience who answered the call.

You all had a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of great voicemails that we're excited to dive into right now on the Kind of Funny Games cast because we're here each and every weekday, a live talk show about video games. We cover reviews, previews, and just things we need to talk about. If you want to be part of this show, maybe you missed the phone call voicemail segment. you can super chat YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Tell me what you're anticipating after, Crimson Desert. Tell me about the time. And anticipated game broke your heart. Tell me about the time you didn't agree with the critics about a review.

We'll try to pepper them in as we go through some fantastic voicemails. Do it all on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games with your Super Chats. Of course, we couldn't make this show happen and this company happen without our Patreon producers on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you, Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, and Delaney the Psalm, Twining. for now. Let's begin with what is and forever will be. Topic of the show.

Crimson Desert is here. For some, a game of the year contender is what they were trying to build this as. Some still saying it is their game of the year contender. Paul Tassie. Fair enough. Fair enough. And I'm sure many of the audience will at one point be there too.

However, now they were there, and of course it's been an interesting week of it, like I said, most anticipated after Crimson Desert. the anticipated title that broke your heart and in a game critics hated that you did I put these questions out in the voicemail so many of you wrote in but I feel like it would be

unfair to not start with Crimson Desert and talk a little bit about that can I get the first voicemail from the 903 now that Crimson Desert is out my most anticipated game is Crimson Desert because I am still installing the plethora

updates on my base PS5 Damn. Hate to see it. Your base PS5. How's that going to be running, bless? Yeah, it might look blurry, but there's a lot of articles

that are going to help you with the blurriness of that game. It was funny because I think I had the same thing during the review cycle where, like, the initial install was fine. Actually, have we told the story about how? I mentioned it briefly on the review,

but didn't go into the weeds. So feel free, go for it. So we get the codes, and day one of the codes, it's like, all right, let's go. Because we got it on it, Like, we got it like a afternoon on a Tuesday, I want to say.

Yeah. And then was it later that night where we got the message? It was that next morning. Was it the next morning? Or night. So, yeah. Oh. We get Crimson Desert.

We know it's going to be a big game. And I mean, like, large in terms of hours and things to do. Yeah. So yeah, ran home, kissed Jen on the cheek, got Ben to sleep. And I went downstairs. And I played through the intro well into the world, I thought, enough to come in and have opinions the next day. Yeah. And luckily, I only played like 45 minutes.

But when I woke up, I opened Slack and what did I find was. Yeah, so I was in the Discord for the reviewers, and there was an announcement on the Discord that, hey, we're going to push an update soon later today that is essentially going to require you to restart your save. You're not going to be able to take the progress you've made in the game so far into the new patch, so plain accordingly. Which we're like, oh, that sucks.

And then it got worse. And I want to make sure, to be clear, this is not me. Somebody said definitely off on the wrong foot. annoying for sure. None of us held this against the game. This is something you can hold against it. And again, what I want to, what I'm about to say will also not sound great, but this is, this is the job.

And it's not Perlbus's fault at all by any stress the imagination. I don't want anybody getting bent out of shape with them. Hey, we're going to get you a patch. It's going to do the thing. Okay, cool. The patch will be here, hopefully by the end of the day, whatever. End of day rolls around. It's going to be maybe by midnight.

Midnight rolls around. It's going to be tomorrow morning. And the next morning it was. So it was already. big day embargo would have been like just I think a solid two weeks maybe two weeks in a day if everything worked but suddenly now you're it you're past that two-y thing and it's like damn you got to go so if you have a Paul Tassie if you have a blue thunder a ticotker we love over here like these people who are like I put a hundred some hours into it you need to know they

know life to the shit out of oh yeah where that's all they did which is happens a lot in our job but I think also then to have this problem after problem. And problem isn't even right, right? Like, again, no company owes us a review code. And then to get it out and then, hey, we're so fixing the game and doing stuff, that's, it's an opening stumble. You know what I mean? Like when like the bullet goes and it's like, all right, you got to you're running and you take that opening stumble. It's like, oh, man, you know, it's so hard to get back up, but you do it, right? Because it's part of the job. And yeah, like, I'm, I'm sure the people that are talking about hundreds of hours,

I'm sure that first day they probably put in a lot of hours. Oh, sure. Yeah. How to restart and that's frustrating. Well, that was the thing in the Discord, too. There were the conversations of people who remain nameless and I don't know if they did it, but they were like, well, technically, I guess I could turn off automatic updates and just keep playing. I don't know what it was fixing, but you would have had a completely different experience. That thing is you can't review that.

Yeah. You know, like, with the amount of updates they're pushing, because then the other one was midway through getting an update where it was like, all right, you're going to download 30 gigs or something like that. And me being like, ah, shit. And then like, Steam being like, you do not have the space. And then having to go into my computer and be like, all right, what do I have to delete?

But honestly, it was a blessing in disguise. because then I learned I've had Suburpunk 2077 downloaded on Gog Galaxy Oh wow For like forever apparently So I got to get rid of that And free ups and face in my thing Well it's funny that you keep bringing this up

We're talking about updates I'm giving Bear a little I was gonna I was gonna go as long as I needed to for you to run Because our next voicemail will take us into this Can we go to the 737? Hi this is Paul

I've been watching our show for a couple years now Thank you, Paul. Just started funding. Thank you, Paul. I didn't even know what this phone was, but I just downloaded Crimson Desert, and of course there's a 35-gibite day-one patch, so I still haven't been able to play, and all I've been hearing about kind of mid-reviews,

and it's kind of just upsetting me. I'm just trying to figure out, what's up with all these day-one patches? Why are they so long? I was around the country, so it takes a long time for a 35-gigabyte patch to go in, you know, half a day. That's all. I never would have guessed you're out in the country, Paul. Paul, that first sounded like a slim shady skit.

Oh, sure, sure, sure. Like, you remember the Paul skits of like, hey, it's Paul? Yeah, that's what that sounds like. I'm going to call this, motherfucker. It's Ken Kinnett from Connecticut. Uh, great question, Paul. Um, and also, I should shout out. If you missed the whole phone number thing yesterday, I didn't tell what people they were

calling it in for. I did just put out the number and then I just, uh, BS did, uh, equipped it, whatever, put out the phone number and then let people call. So a lot of people were like, oh, okay, I explained it in my voicemail thing, whatever. Great. question, Paul, a great way jumping into it. And again, bless. Yeah.

This is modern video games, right? Yeah, I mean, the game went gold fucking forever ago. And we were like, oh, snap, it's ready. All snap is ready. It's like, no, you can, nowadays you can make a game gold gold whenever you want because day one patches are a thing, right? Like you continue to work on the game after you've pressed it to disc. And so like, that's what happens nowadays. And like, I think the big day one patches can be kind of annoying, but you come to expect them. I, I get more annoyed when I haven't played a game in a couple months

that I come back to it and like just on a whim of like I want to boot up this thing real quick and I boot it up and it's like download and I'm like fuck dude the amount of times I turn on Steam and it's something I forgot to install and it's getting a pen I'm like oh uninstall I should say and it's getting an update I'm like oh shit fuck cancel that I'm never going back to that uninstall I can't it out of there yeah and I wish they were faster like I think part of that is with the hardware I remember I feel like PS4 for some reason had really long

download times for things I think they got yeah internal internal uh a modem or whatever. It's not probably the right word. But you know what I mean? Whatever the, your Wi-Fi slash Ethernet connection. Yeah, they had a problem on how they could process all that jazz. Exactly. So some pieces are hardware better than others, but. This I think leads again in the conversation we're having, though, about Crimson Desert, day one patches in video game reviews. Barrett, could you have the first BS? That's a blue sky, Tim. I put in here from Brendan Graber. Of course, Brendan does amazing work over at IGN. He's a senior guides editor. But yesterday he BSed, Blue Sky, Tim.

Man, I cannot tell you how stressful and shitty it feels to put a ton of work, figuring out how to best guide players on an upcoming game, and then a surprise day one patch invalidates a giant chunk of that help. Time well spent, happy for the players who don't have to deal with it, but dot, dot, dot, damn. If you needed more, I put in a chain that, this is how I originally saw this happening. Brendan responding to Will Borgier, quote, being, quote, BSing Mitchell Salsman from IGN. Mitchell said they added a fast travel point in town with the day, patch, L.O.L. Oh, my God.

The game you all are playing is not the one we did pre-release. Will saying, I'm going to become the Joker, bro. Are you kidding me? Then Mitchell, on his own response was, like, good, I'm glad this is a good addition that removes a big pain point for the game, but also why wasn't it there from the start? And then you see more conversation here. Brendan, I found out, I found this out

immediately after publishing a tips page on early stuff, like where to unlock your first fast travel point? Will says, Brendan, I genuinely we would have lost it. Brendan, even better. They added a fast travel spot to the gray main camp,

30 feet from the one you have to spend 50 hours progressing to learn how to unlock. At that point, I stepped away from the computer to stare at the sun for a while. I know exactly what they're talking about.

Yep. Because in the gray main camp, which is a big deal, I unlocked it, I went away from it, and then I was like, how do I get fucking, I got to,

I get back to it, and then I was running around. I found what will be the fast travel point I assume 50 hours in, covered in ivy and stuff, but you couldn't use your bone era there to burn the ivy because I guess

it's going to be something like, I was so like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, I'm not even going to worry about the camp that I'm out of here. Yeah, this is like one of those ones where, like obviously, you know, we're on the internet, we're on social media, we see people complain about game reviews, game journalism, all this stuff, right? And most of those complaints are like, oh, people are just mad

to be mad, kind of stuff. This is one of those things where I think it's a genuine conundrum of how to tackle and like I don't think there's any right solution as far as like how video how much video games change from the review copy to the consumer copy right the day of a week after a month after where like this goes back to me for to cyberpunk 2077 of reviewing that game and like it being a similar similar is situation here's a PC copy I'm playing the PC copy in actually honestly a worse situation because cyberpunk was so buggy on PC and me being like well they have told me

they're going to put out a day one patch. So what does my review of this game look like when I know I am playing the most broken version of this? And there's a chance that, like, as I'm talking about this game during my review, the people that play this game aren't going to see half the bugs that I'm seeing, like, is that going to happen? And then I don't even want to say thankfully,

but it didn't end up that way, right? People will end up still seeing a bunch of bugs because that game was broken regardless. That continues to be a thing, especially of games of this scale, games that go for it like this, right? Like there's, there becomes a bigger risk of more things,

going wrong, but you have the hype, you have an audience that's, that's bought in. Like it's, it's a weird thing. You could go, well, let's not review it until end of week one, but then who are you serving with that when the game's for sale and there's nothing? It's, it's a weird thing. It's in, and it's been a problem. It's not my entire career, but as the internet and day one patches and everything else have come along to change how we get games and review games, right? Where there isn't a right answer, right? You're serving your, your audience and your community and the experience you're having with your time with it is it. But yeah, to get it out and be like, well,

this is dramatically changed from what it is. And again, this might not sound like a dramatic change. Is you, okay, a fast travel point got added to camp. It was annoying. It was annoying. And I, the way I circumvented all this, if you want a Crimson Desert Pro tip, of course, is that this game is inspired by several other games. And just like breath, or I'm sorry, tears of the kingdom, there's the sky islands above you, right? They call it the abyss. And so when I didn't have a fast travel point for where I wanted to get to, I would go to the abyss. jump off the side, and I'd put all my points so far into flying. So I'd fall down, fly out, run out of stamina, fall, stamina, fall,

you know, fly, fly, fly as far as I could need as close as I could to what I wanted to do. Now, would a fast travel point have been better? Yes. When I was exploring the world, was I looking for those? Yes, like that was a big part of me trying to go out there and do it. But these quality of life features that are getting added in do then go in and negate this thing. And as critics and pundits and video game press or whatever you want to call all of us, the problem is that we have our experience and move on.

And then, yes, the players have their own experience that then crystallizes. And again, changes over time. We sit there and we have to binge games, right? So we can get it for the review embargo or just for the conversation. Whereas somebody who even bought Crimson Desert yesterday at launch is now going to play that for seven months. You know what I mean? So like in three weeks, they're going to be playing a different game than they are right now, but they won't even know it because they haven't gotten to that part yet, so on and so forth.

But I think it leads to an interesting conversation that we kind of started having on Games Daily, and we'll continue here with a call from the 801. Hey, this is Travis. I just was thinking about days gone seem to follow this exact same cycle, right, where days gone, everyone's super hyped and then comes out. Reviewers, Greg in particular, didn't like it. People blasted Greg thinking, oh, Greg just hates open world games, he even mentioned open world fatigue.

And everyone's like, he doesn't get it, he doesn't understand it, and it comes out, and just kind of fizzles. And that was heartbreaking for me. I was one of those super excited for days gone, and I just see this exact same cycle with Crimson Desert. It's just exactly the same thing. Anyway, that's all I want to say. Love you guys, thanks.

I'm going to be fascinated to see what the audience reception is for Crimson Dawn, like we were talking on Games Daily. Desert? Thank you so much. at the end of the year. That was Roger. That was the Roger Mike Bitt from last year.

I hate them so much. Crimson Desert at the end of the year. When we get there and it is the people who have been playing it the entire year have seen the updates or just are doing things. Right now we're at a 50, whatever, 53% mixed review on Steam when those swing back because of updates. If this, the other, how it's running on PlayStation, blah, blah, blah.

If it's going to have this, is the audience with it the way they were with it with days, gone. Where Days Gone is a notorious one that did not review well, for the most part, I know, like, there's people who love it, there's always going to be people who love it, but for the bigger sites, right? And then there was then this undercurrent to it of like, they don't get it,

we get it. Yeah, but isn't it all art? Yeah, I mean, like, doesn't all art, even for the people that, that would say you name it's like, this thing sucks, there's still those people that are like, you don't get it. Like, Greg, for me, this is going to be something that's tough to admit for me, right? There's a rapper named Chance the Rapper.

I'm pretty familiar. He has an album, called The Big Day. This album is like a historically bad rap album, right? Everybody talks about how this album is the worst. Andy Fantano, I think, gave it his first zero out of ten. Oh, wow. When I tell you, I really like the big day. I think it's a great album, and I don't think people got it.

And guess what? Like, I can't sit here and sieve. Like, guess what? The world decided that they don't like this thing. That's just all me. Maybe I like a bad thing. That's okay that I like a bad thing, right? Like, and I'm not tall in Chrisman Desert

No, no, no, no. I don't think so. But it's the thing of like, hey, like, fuck consensus. Fuck the 78 metacritic or whatever. If you fuck with it, you fuck with it. If you think people are wrong, you think people are wrong. I think the world's wrong about so many things, but it's okay. We'll get through this together. But yeah, I think like, I, to your point, right,

toward the end of the year, I think we are going to probably be in that days gone situation to, like, a greater extent. I think there's going to be like a, a crazy. easier discrepancy where people are really, really going to fuck with Crimson Desert and be like, yo, critics were a wilder or whatever, but I think that group of people is not going to be

the vast majority by any means. I think most people that play Crimson Desert are probably going to be like, oh, it's fine, oh, it's okay. I forget who it was yesterday, was it just yesterday that we reviewed this? No, two days ago, when all this was happening and they were out there on BS,

that's a blue sky too, and being like, I love this. I love seeing this 70, 77, whatever it was at the time on Metacritic and being like, this means that Perl Abyss took a swing. They didn't make a boring, safe game. They did something that is going to resonate with some

and alienate others, and I am 100% in that camp. And it goes back to what I was talking with Jordan about, and you hear me on these shows all the time of like, how blessed we are to have this plethora of voices talking about video games. So it really is that like, when I say, I don't like it because of X, Y, and Z, but you know what I like. Usually, you can then compare it to somebody who you align more with, less with, whatever, and see

why they liked it to be like, oh, this will speak to me in a way, it didn't speak to Greg and vice versa and so on. Like, I love the idea that people are making art. And it is that thing of like, like, oh, geez, man. I forget what episode of what we were doing or getting ready for. And I asked for a reader comments and stuff. And it didn't make the show, but it was me, maybe it was just a live chat or whatever.

It was me talking about how much I love story and video games, right? Yeah. Someone, and I'm way out of school on this one, because I'm not familiar with the quote, but the person writing it was like, Damon Hatfield says video games don't even need to have story or he doesn't like story in games. I don't remember what it was. And it's like

both opinions are totally valid. Yeah. It's like okay, yeah, I need that to anchor myself in a game, right? Yeah, Greg, what I think what I appreciate, and I saw this a lot yesterday with people talking about it, right? What I appreciate is somebody being like, hey, that person is wrong, this thing's actually great and here's why. I appreciate that. What I don't appreciate is people being like,

hey, that person doesn't know what they're talking about. Sure. Hey, that person, they have bad opinions. Oh, that person, like, they liked X thing, so I'm not going to care about them saying, talking about Y thing. I think when you... I can't trust them because they rushed through it.

And they didn't like... Yeah. Combat, they don't like combat. That's where I roll my eyes, and I'm like, dude, fuck that, right? Like, art is allowed to hit people in different ways. And it's okay to think other people are wrong, but I don't think it's okay to go,

they're invalid. like they're like they you know they don't know like that when you get into those personal attacks that's where it's like oh we're talking about video games here you're being a baby like let's let's grow up grow up a little bit here it's okay for us to have different taste in what we're looking for here i agree 100% with you and luckily i've never been wrong i've never been out the odd man looking out and so let's just go to uh let's move on to games people are still anticipating this year there's so many great games still to come this year take me barrett to the four seven nine hey kind of funny

My dad and I were both really excited for Crimson Desert this year, but after the reviews, I'll probably just wait until it goes on sale. So right now, my most anticipated game coming up is Starfield for PS5. My first ever RPG was oblivion when I played at eight years old. I played every Bethes a game since. I've just kind of been waiting, and as a no-man's son, I think taking a few years to improve your game, I'm excited to jump into Starfield and see what they've done with it. How many people do you think

are like the 479 out there? I'm so curious. I'm so fascinated by how much Starfield sells. Because we've seen Xbox games come to PlayStation. We've seen how Wall of Forgeal Horizon does when that comes to PlayStation. Do you think Starfield has the same sort of juice

to blow up? Yes and no. I keep seeing it on the subredits and stuff of, what are the most popular pre-orders and whatever. And, like, Starfield was right behind the two versions of Crimson Desert. And now that they're out, right now on the PlayStation Store.com, it's Starfield Premium Edition for 70 bucks,

followed by Lego Batman, followed by 007, followed by Starfield Vanilla Edition. So it's like, always hard to say, like, what does that actually shake out to? But, like, it's been so crazy for me this week. as a Starfield sicko. That suddenly everybody's excited about Starfield. They're positive about Starfield.

They're talking about Starfield. I talk about this and Greg Way today too. The fucking Starfield subreddit that was so toxic. I just started going to no sodium Starfield where I'm like I just want to enjoy what I enjoy. The Starfield subreddit is positive. You got it, Bethesda. You know, I'm proud of you, Bethesda. I'm like, what the fuck is going on?

Like, suddenly this happened. I will tell you, I if I'm comparing Starfield and Crimson Desert in my time reviewing both because I think both of them I would give around the same score even though Starfield actually finished I enjoyed Starfield way more than I enjoyed by Tom with Crimson Desert so take that for what it's worth uh not everyone agrees with you can I get the 9-1-6 in here talking about I anticipate a game that broke their heart give me just a second here I'll give you all the seconds you need don't worry about like you shout out the area you could's too because I've

been looking them up oh yeah yeah I should have done that ahead of time yeah a couple I forget the name of the person from the 801. That's Salt Lake City, Utah. So, Travis. So one of the games that came out recently was highly anticipating that kind of broke my heart was Starfield. Now, I did enjoy the game,

but I will say it still broke my heart with how uninspired it felt compared to the previous releases from Bethesda. Thank you very much. Love you guys. We love you, 916. Thanks for writing in.

That's the question for Starfield PS5. Is that if you were a PlayStation player or just a looky-loo who could have gotten on PC and Xbox but never did. And you've just seen this thing

dragged out into the streets and beaten and just wailed on for years and years and years. Your expectations have to be so low. Oh, yeah. Go back. to where 9-16 was talking about, right?

It still broke my heart how uninspired, like, compared, like, I always go to it. Remember, Mike was like, Starfield left to be a game of the generation. Like, that was the fucking hype and intention and need for the Xbox platform for Starfield. And so, yeah, no wonder, like,

it just collapsed under the weight of all that stuff. Yeah, I'm so fascinating because I'm, when we look at the pre-orders for it being at the top of the charts, right? Like, to your point, you have to know, Like, people have to understand what Starfield is by now. And I think for those people, they might be very pleasantly surprised because I think when you go into Starfield with very measured expectations, you still have enough of the Bethesdaisms where you can get through and enjoy it, right?

Like for me, Starfield was a game that I wanted to love as much as I love a fallout. But I just don't think it's nearly as good as a fallout. And so I was very disappointed. Yeah. However, like, there's still that, there's still like, you know, it walks like a duck enough to where, I'm doing the quests. I'm getting into the combat. I'm doing enough things where I'm like,

yeah, this is giving me enough of the gameplay loop, even though I want more of an traditional open world and I didn't like flying around space. Yeah. Some of the map stuff, I just didn't vibe with me. I didn't like how like the procedurally generated like worlds that are,

like this procedural generation design of the planets when you land on them and kind of like have not as many. P. Yeah, PLIs. Like, man, that stuff didn't vibe with me. But if I knew that going in,

like if I knew, what I was getting going in. This is literally what we're talking about with Crimson Desert. Yeah. Is that they've fixed so much of that or are promising to fix stuff with this April 7th thing. Okay. So it's the thing of, I think people will jump in. And I remember what when they launched Escape, which was one of the creations that Bethesda put up on the creation shop.

I was telling you about it. I'm like, dude, like, this is what you and I were looking for at launch. And now having finished all the tracker bounties they just put out or whatever, like, dude, those five are, all like, you're back, you're back, Bethesda, of like,

cool, it's not just run into this place, shoot everybody to death and grab the Mcuffin. It is a choice. It is a swerve. It is, we're taking away all your stuff

and now you've got to fight from zero. It's like, damn, you really understand what I think so many people expected out of vanilla starfield. And even before Shattered Space and before the creations, right,

like they were doing the updates of the 60 frames and they were doing the updates of, all right, you know, you don't have to be encumbered anymore. you can really tailor your experience, where it's like, obviously,

I've loved Starfield from the jump, but I told you at the time when I reviewed it, and I think I gave it a seven or whatever. Maybe I aided it. We're even doing scores then? I don't fucking remember. But like, it had plenty of room to grow,

and it's grown so much that I really do feel like you come in with the expectations for the reviews you heard at launch. I think you're going to be not blown away, but I think there's going to be a lot of the, why was everybody complaining and like not understanding,

like, no, no, this wasn't what the experience was. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I'm fascinated to see what it does. Numbers-wise, sure, but more. The more of the No Man Sky moment, the resurgence. This is another one that keeps coming up on Gregways of people being like, you know, they've said that this isn't 2.0, but it really feels like a 2.0.

And I think, again, like, that was a measured choice by Todd to come on our show and say that because I think it was, let's knock that expectation down. So you don't, your expectations again are low. And then you see Freelanes and you. You see the Terran Armada and you go, oh, wait a second. What the fuck? Like, it's what I had been predicting, even though they say they're not stopping, that it's, here's the complete edition of Starfield.

Like, I think this is like the, this is our vision for what this game always was. Okay. Because the back to it of like, I'm right there with you of like landing on it. Same recycled POIs. Same recycled. Oh, I know what I, I look at this building that the Crimson Raiders are in. I know already what the layout of the building is because I've done it 17 times or whatever. Yeah.

And they, in our, the presentation they gave, you know, Tim Lamb was very much like, we've gone in and tweaked all of that so that they aren't appearing as much and that there's more of them now. So like, you know, the POIs are going to be more randomized and it's going to feel like, no, you're not getting the same shit all the time. Okay. We'll wait and see if they can do that. But right now playing it, I'm having so much fun. I can't wait for April 7th to get all this extra content and get in there.

What will do, you know, sales wise on PlayStation? Well, but it's, you know, we're coming off games daily with the Circana charts, where it's, you know, at the top was Resident Evil Requiem and then a bunch of old ass games until you got to like, what was it, 11 Mario Fever? Like, there's still so many, a new game is easier to break in if it's got some juice behind it.

So I expect Starfield to do well on that front, but I don't know if it'll be like, you know, I mean, first of a Ryster 5 was on there too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm hopeful. We'll see. I want to stick with heartbreaking things and especially blessing breaking people's hearts.

Oh, no. But first, I'll tell you about the Patreon slash Kind of Funny slash YouTube slash Apple. The subscription that keeps this going. Remember, if you like us hanging out and talking games, we couldn't do without your support. Pick up a Kind of Funny membership, Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games. Apple, Spotify, you give us $10 a month. We give you more than 80 episodes of ad-free content.

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So he's got to be funny, but too bad, he's also never funny. Head to kindofunny.com slash answer for it for tickets and info. And we're back. A couple super chats before we pivoting further. Kaiju-Cori wrote in and said, My Starfield game save on Xbox is nine days. And I can't wait to play on PlayStation 5. Wow, nine days.

Nine days. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought I was pushing something with six, but yeah, nine's insane. And I know there's 216 hours. Crazier numbers than that out there. The Starfield Sickos are out there. And we play like crazy things. So yeah, yeah, I refuse.

I mean, don't me wrong. Do what you got to do. But I can't leave. Starfield is Becky Lynch. That's the story. You know what I mean? So I can never, I can't walk away from that now and start fresh and go in there. Bam says, Greg, do you think, Greg, do you think our reviews are used the same way they were used before?

Compared today like they are now. I'm glad I'm not crazy when I read these things. Because I'm struggling. I understand the box is small. There's a bunch of different things. So our video game reviews being used the same way today as they were back then. Oh. I think so.

I think it's more of the fact that me and Jen talk about this all the time of like, we don't need to know everyone's opinion. That's the thing right now, right? Whether it be Facebook, Twitter, BS, that's a blue sky team, etc. It's the fire hose of just everyone puts out their opinion on everything. So then it becomes a, well, what do we do? I don't, who do you want to trust? What do you want to believe?

you want to read? Who do you know? What do you think is a better driver for sales? Critic reviews or user reviews? Oh, man. I think it was You know what? It's a weird one. I'll tell you the honest answer. I don't think I'm, I can tell you. Okay. I think, you know, there was a conversation with you

and Raj, right, of like, but are we distance from, are we, do we have, do we have objective sight on this? I think is somebody who writes the reviews and then does not use. user reviews that way, I couldn't give you the honest answer. And I think there's a big difference between you want to get it in the first week, we'll say, right? Because obviously day one, there's only critic reviews versus you want to get it a year from now.

Because I think that's where that steam, that's a good point. The steam aggregate means way more to our point of what you said a year ago when the game was whatever it is. That's a really good point, actually. Yeah, because I think that day one, I would say it would be the critic reviews, right? Because like that is the, I think that's the core of where from where the hype generates from. But yeah, a year later, like, there have been so many Steam games that I buy that are older Steam games that I see. And I'm like, oh, this looks cool.

And then I immediately go to the Steam page and look at the user reviews and be like, all right, people, it's mostly positive. Yeah, let's check this thing out. Yeah, yeah. Let's take Blessing a Task. Oh, no. Can we go to the 5-7-4? One moment. No problem.

Where is that? Oh, here we go. Seven. Here we go. Hey, Gamescast. This is Sasquatch Oni. This one is in particular, directed a little bit at Blessing, because when you guys were doing the Nintendo 64 list,

I said Glover, and I haven't let that go. Glover is a good game. When you were a little kid and you were like, whoa, dude, I'm playing as basically Mario's Glove. That was the sickest shit ever. You go back to it, you know, okay, sure, it's not the best game of all the time. But it is iconic. There is only one Glover. There was supposed to be a second, and we were robbed of that.

Rock. Okay. But to write it off, no way, man. That's a solid game, one of a kind. The fact that you knew there was supposed to be a second Glover. I didn't even know that. The Glover fan, the Glover fan. The Encyclone, I'm, like, typing in.

A game where you play is Mario's Glove. So this must have been a shit list. That's awesome. And, like, I don't remember doing an NCT4 list. It must have been, let's say it was top 25. Okay. Let's say it was top 25. I'll tell you right now.

Glover's not a top 25 in a 54 game. Like, I don't know what else to tell you. Like, an awkward reading exists. smash exists, you know what I mean? Like, name them 23 other years. Yeah, I was going to say, the Nintendo library in the benching that deep, though. Mario 64, all the Mario

All the wrestling. All the Mario part. All the wrestling. All the Mario parties. All the Mario spinoffs, that at least is 20 games right there. Pokemon Stadium's both one and two, which I was looking at the Wikipedia for yesterday

because that's what I do here. Yeah. And like, I learned, like, Pokemon Stadium 2 has lower reviews than you would have thought, at least that I would have thought. Okay. But like Pokemon Stadium 2, fantastic video game. Need I go on?

Donkey Kong 64. You know what I mean? There wasn't a Metroid. The Earthbound got canceled. Banjo. Oh, Banjo. Oh, all the rare, literally every rare game. Yeah, no, sorry, Glover.

Yeah, when your platformer competition includes Mario, Banjo and the dog from Jet Force Gemini. It's like, no, you're not going to make it. I'm sorry. Conquer. Nana. Let's move on back to some anticipated title. Start me off.

with the 704. What's up, Wainers? First off, congrats on earning the ire of the internet by telling them Cribson Desert and Cliff, aka Calfour Milk Toast, wasn't, in fact, the second coming of Christ. I like this guy. So here we are post-Crimson Desert,

and what game am I absolutely jonesing for? We've certainly got a lot to pick from Soros to Wolverine to GTA to 007 first. Just kidding. Nobody's looking forward to that. One game stands above the EU that could steal game of the year. It's going to get that. Handedly save Microsoft.

A game that's left us doubting its existence, only to come out years after its announcement with the most impressive show I've seen in a long time. And that game, of course, is Fable. A series I grew up, stuckling the teed of back in 2004. And the recent showing was so impressive with the reinvented systems. If they aren't pulling a Peter Monoloo on, us. This could truly be something special. Anyway, I'm running out of time, but we need to see

under the hood. We need to see the magic systems, the weapons, and all that, but it looks like it could be something that pulls Microsoft back from the brink. Anyway, that's it. Don't call me. I like this guy. We should have it on an episode. We need a full episode with that guy. Call those Weirers. What up weirders? Listen, but I did love the dunk. Yeah, for 007 standing there just I have a few points here. One, I like that guy. He's from South Bend. Shout out.

Not to docks you. Two. I have North Carolina. Listen, the 574? 704. Oh, maybe I've missed road it. I wrote 574.

Maybe that was the previous guy. Either way. Cool guy. Yeah, 5774 was the Glover. Who you hate. You're going to go. Oh, that's right. That was Glover, man.

Yeah. South Bend. Secondly, I don't like this double seven shade. Because I stand by it. I go interactive. I'm not counting them out until they're out. I gotta get my hands on the game first before I'm like no

this ain't doing it thirdly Fable A Fable I would say is probably like a top three Most anticipated game for me this year After they're showing at the Dover Direct I was really convinced

I was really blown away by what they had to show But now that we're post Crimson Desert We've been brought down to Earth Me and you like what does that do for your anticipation for a fable? It doesn't affect Fable Okay

I look at Fable and I mean Crimson Desert I felt was so out of the blue. I've just like, the Black Desert Online guys, I've heard of that game. I've never actually seen it. Like, what, you know what I mean?

Like, could you possibly get all of this in the game and have a compelling story and have an open world that runs and all this different stuff? Like, Fable, as long as that's gestated, as good as we know playground games is, even though they're usually known for Foursos

rather than, you know, open world RPGs. That demo, them coming out and be like, nope, everything's handcraft. did none of those people are AI. You can go follow them all because we did it. You really get into, oh, oh, fuck, this,

I hope this is as special as it looks. My thing about it is, I can't wait for Fable. Fable is at the top of my most anticipated game, was probably, but I don't believe Fables this year. Oh. And I think a lot of that is just me setting my own expectations,

so I'm not always caught up in the hype of Fable. Yeah. But I can easily see that being a game that they're not going to get out this year. I hope I'm wrong. I hope they get it out. I can't fucking wait for it. Honestly,

I'm okay with it. Like, it's already such a big year that if it gets kicked out to the same year that GTA is coming out. Right. Even though...

You believe that? It's GTA coming out this year is another question. Yeah. Yeah, I'm like at a place where, honestly, delay all your games. It's been a year.

I have so many things to play. I think this is only going to continue as far as there being so many games coming out and me not having the bandwidth to try all the different games I want to play. I've wanted to play way more marathon than I actually got a chance to you

in the last couple weeks. Like, hey, everybody, delete your games. I don't care. I'll get to them when they come out. Take your time. Yeah. That's where I'm at.

Okay. Fair enough. I'm okay with Fable. Elaine, but I'm really looking forward to that game. I feel like again, too, like, I want Fable to be as good as it looked. Because that's like,

that is a game of the generation what we saw in a very brief presentation. Don't be wrong. But if you nail that, I mean, come the fuck on. Like, oh, yeah. To the point,

would it bring Xbox back from the brink? No. Fable's not going to sell enough to bring Xbox back from the brink of wherever they're about to hurt. waff into, but it'd be awesome to see, and I'd love to see it. It just seems like too nerdy of an RPG, you know what I mean? It seems like too nerdy of a video game to be like the one. Like I think Mike nailed it when it was talking about it having to be Starfield. The Starfield is that as the big RPG, right? Mainstream appeal. Like that is going to sell well, even if it's

not that great, it's going to sell well, right? If that was a generation defining thing, I think that's a, this can hold this can carry a console on its back sort of thing. Babel, I think is going to be a prediction is going to be a darling, right? It's going to be one where we're like, yo, it did X, Y, Z thing. It reminds me a little bit of, like, Indiana Jones, even on a bigger scale, though, right? Where Indiana Jones comes out, and it does things that, like, nerdy video game reviewers really like,

because it has systems, and it has, it, like, asks you to solve things yourself and explore and do all these things, and it really invokes what it feels like to be Indiana Jones. There's something about that type of game design that I think resonates with a lot of people that are critics in the video game world, and I think Fable's going to have a lot of that stuff, too. Hopefully.

Let's stay with the Anteastern. We're going to move on to the 252. What up kind of funny. So I think my most anticipated game this year is definitely going to be Control Resonant, solid closely by Wolverine, but Control Resonant definitely edges it out. Sorry for the bell. I'm out of school. I work here.

Control Resonant just looks absolutely insane. I love the first control, but what I love more are Hack and Slash-style games, games that make you feel like a monster, like prototype or infamous. And this game is definitely taking some influence from it, I think, looking awesome, can't wait. The game that bummed me out by the reviews was definitely Anthem. I really thought Anthem was going to be Destiny, but more of an Iron Man simulator, and it ended up being more of a crap man simulator. That's a bad joke, but either way, the game was wildly disappointing.

So yeah, thank you for letting me be involved. if you'll even hear this call, who knows? Nobody does. I know. You too. Imagine like you're in seventh grade, you walk into your teachers. He's huddled over.

He's on a phone. He's on a game podcast. Who are you talking to? I found a phone number on the internet. I just dialed in. He's like, listen, you know, do as I say, not as I do. Control resident.

Where is your anticipation level for that? Oh, very high. Very, very high. I think all of us here love control and even the people that are playing control for the first time coming very late to it, yeah. Coming late to it, still like adore it, right? I think it being so different is the thing that has me like,

oh, interesting. I love so many of the aspects of the first control, right? Being in the FBC, reading the notes and like the weird shit that goes on in the FBC was so cool. And so it being such a dynamically different game, I think is really interesting for it, and I want that to pay off. Are you scared by that?

A little bit. Firebreak was a radically different game, right? Yeah, I'm a little bit scared, but they're pivoting to things that I like a lot because I like melee combat. And I like an open world melee combat action game that feels like a prototype or an infamous or a Spider-Man kind of thing.

So that seems cool. The last big gameplay thing they showed was showing off like fighting a boss and how the different kind of like poles of gravity work when you're jumping between things. And it's a really cool presenting game. I just want that to translate into like when I'm playing this game for hours, right?

Like being engaged and being like, all right, now I need to do this. now you to fucking dodge and pay and it's still of the kind of same track of their other big releases right yeah uh whereas what was the fbc fire break i just threw that in there for the conversation yeah it's like such a big weird pivot where yeah i'm interested to see you like what they what they do to make this feel different from both uh like obviously the gameplay of alan wake but even furthering control of all the weird shit you can do yeah yeah i can't wait like uh you know Remedy is a day one, you know, front of line for me every time where I want to see what they're up to and have it be back here in that control universe. Yeah, and be getting weird with it and giving that superhero sci-fi fantasy part of it. And shake it up from what control was. Like, yeah, hell yeah. Let's see what's up. I think I'm partly curious on if this splits the audience at all, right? Because I think I could see myself, as Baird even brings up the gameplay here. I look at this and I'm like, there's a good chance that all like this more than Control One. But I'm curious to see if there's people that are like, oh, no, this is too different. Like, I actually like

the gameplay of control one more because of the telekinesis and the flying and all this shit, right? Like, it's just such a different game, which is ballsy. Yeah, I like that. For sure. Yeah, Remedy keeps doing weird shit, which is both awesome and then terrifying. Yeah. But then you're in a place where it's like, I think for so many video game sequels, the sequel's automatically better because you're learning from the first game and go like, all right, take this, upgrade this, take this, make this better. Like, we know the places that we can improve. When you're making a sequel that is so different from the previous game, you, like, you run the thing of like, hey, no, now it's not just about making everything better.

It is about re-exploring what makes this compelling. And that's, again, ballsy. That's a big challenge. And I love that they do it. Well, let's talk about being ballsy. Let's talk about a different challenge. Let's take a call from the 585. Hey, what's going on?

My most anticipated game is honestly a game that hasn't even been officially announced yet, which is the untitled Corey Barlog game. You know, I can't wait for that, no matter what it is, because I love, you know, everything he's done. But, you know, after the recent leaks about the Faye video game, I honestly, that's just all I want right now. I think it's going to re contextualize the Norse games, and I think it'll be amazing. And the game that came out that kind of... You can cut this part, better. We don't need to do that part.

I want to focus on the Corey Parlog part. I don't care about the rest of the one yet. Well, people ask her all the questions at once. That's great. But for this part, I just need the Corey Barlog part. How much do you believe the Faye game thing?

Where there's smokes, there's fire, right? Like, I mean, I feel like that's the common occurrence in our land where, you know, okay,

we know something's happening and then something like that happens and it seems like it's got enough juice and people behind it. You go, okay, that's what's going to happen. On the other side of it,

the rumored 2D Metroidvania God of War game was rumored to be an Atreus video game for the longest time. That ended up being like a weird, game of telephone, I feel like. I don't remember the Trace thing. Yeah, that was like the, an aspect of it. It was like a Traus going

to like Greece or something was like a part of the rumor mill for a thing. Interesting. Yeah. See, I feel like that's one of those ones where people will conflate like, um, what, let's say it's Jeff Grub saying it, right? Jeff fucking what Jeff is saying that he heard versus what he's speculating. Because I remember, I remember that coming up, I think maybe casually in conversation in terms of throwing

what it could be. Yeah. But like, I remember the hard for the, and maybe this is me, here's the thing. I heard from my sources to do that that game existed for a very long time. And so, like, for me, it was very straightforward of like, 2D, Metrovania, God of War, Greek game. And I'm like, all, sick. Like, we got exactly what, uh, what that was. You heard.

Yeah, what I heard about it at least. So then how are you feeling about this Corey Barling bit? I think the fake game thing is really interesting. I just got to see it. I don't, for some reason, I'm not like totally in on the idea, but I think that's just because I'm not seeing the trailer. she showed me the trailer, I'm probably going to be like, damn, that looks fucking awesome. Yeah.

Maybe I just got to go back to Godvore Ragnarok and rewatch the face stuff. I just never pegged her as a character that I'm like, oh, that's who I want a full game around. But maybe that's what makes it exciting. I think when we see her as a giant doing whatever she's doing combat-wise, gameplay-wise, I think that could be super fun. Especially with Shryor talking about, like, it's not a new IP, but it's going to be made to feel like a new IP. Like, I do wonder, even like, bless you going back and looking at the face segments of

Ragner Rock or even like looking back at what they're they were doing in Rag Rock, I do wonder how much of a pivot it is, even like gameplay and design-wise. That's like a top-down Diablo-like game. Hell yeah. Let's go. Let's stay in the PlayStation ecosystem. Give me the 309.

Damn, she fine. Sorry. Oh, 309. That's West Central Illinois. That was confusing because there's the 309 time as well, hold on. Gotcha. That's like Bloomington. This is my cousin?

My cousin calling in. Maybe it's Addison. I'd say my most anticipated game of the year is Wolverine. I mean, Insomniac rarely misses. But second place, if it actually comes out this year, is Star Wars Galactic Racer. Always need good Star Wars games that aren't, you know, Jedi survive, you know, just got around being a Jedi.

I call this one out for Wolverine, and I should call out, of course, 90% of them all started like, well, my most anticipated game, and I'd be boring is GTA, but everyone knows everyone wants GTA. It's interesting to see the second places that are going in there. But you owed the Star Wars part of it. Well, yeah, because I've been very much looking forward to Star Wars Galactic Racer. I got a hot take that I can't share right now. Is it a barred? Yeah. Have you played it? No.

But like either other games that like to play when it comes to Galactic Racer for me, where I'm like, it's a really interesting year, man. I'm excited for this year of racing games. Yeah, this is one that I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy, even though I do a little good Star Wars video game, and I'm not the biggest racing guy. So this is when I, I think rare times I get to really sit on the bench and watch you guys have hype for something that I look at and go, neat, but I won't play it. Yeah. Do we know anything of

like when this game's coming out? I know they said 2026. Yeah, I don't think we have a specific day for this. See, that's what I need. And I need, like, what is the right window for a Star Wars Galactic Racer? Yeah, that's a good question. That's a good question. Is this like a summer? Can I expect a summer turnaround? Is this summer seems good. Summer would be like a good spot to drop it. right? Where did we hear about this? Was it game awards? Game Awards was when it was officially announced and then I think the other trailers have just been from like them randomly dropping, maybe

like one of the recent state of plays or something like that, but yeah, there's been here and there. Yeah. Yeah, this is looking right. Meanwhile, Wolverine, I feel like is in that GTA conversation. Another superhero from insomniac? Fuck yeah. Cool. That's going to be great. Good to great. Good to great. whatever. Yeah.

I'm, I can't wait for it. It's like, it's almost so much of a given of what, what that game is going to be that is boring. Yeah.

You know what I'm like, I played all the Insomniak Spirty Man games. You know, I know what a Wolverine game is supposed to look and feel like. I'm sure that game is going to look and feel like an insomniac Wolverine game, which will be fun to play for 15 hours

and probably get the platinum. Yeah. I'm, I'm juiced to see more, but I do feel like that's a, I know what that's going to be. What I want, this is my extra credit assignment

for Insomniac. make that story fucking hit. Yeah. I know the story's gonna be good. Like, I don't expect y'all to make a bad story. Like, all the Spider-Man games have good stories. But, like, make the story one of the ones where it's like, yo, y'all ain't ready for this shit.

Like, that's what I want to say coming out of the review. I want to go into the review and be like, yo, y'all aren't ready for what they do with Wolverine. Like, that's the feeling that they need to invoke for me. Okay. Sticking with superheroes, let's move on to a heartbreaking superhero story. This one's from the 7-8-1. Hello, Greg, and kind of funny crew. Video games, I was super excited,

but broke my heart upon review embargo releasing. Spider-Man's Chartered Dimension was my world for nine months leading up to it. And that came out, the kind of middling reviews. I still loved it when it came out, just because Spider-Man is my life. And also, Assassin's Creed 3, of course. I was looking forward to that game, watching the trailer every single day waiting for that October 30th release.

And yeah, so that's my take. Thanks, Dad. Bye. From the suburbs of Massachusetts. It's a good take. I would have told you and expected Shattered Dimensions to have a great Metacritic. I love shattered dimensions.

I remember really like it. And I think you go back now, Hillary over at IGN reviewed it back in the day, which I remembered. He gave it an 8. Metacritic right now for 360 is 76. And it's like, oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense because you start conflating it. The story, of course, for Shattered Dimensions was it was Binox making a Spider-Man game

and getting to make their own. It wasn't tied to a movie. It wasn't some licensed bullshit. So, like, expectations were so low at that time for superhero games that shattered dimensions and jumping in and being four different Spider-Man. Like, it was awesome. But yeah, I guess it wasn't eight awesome. You know what I mean?

I don't know. It was eight awesome in my heart as well because, you know, doing the, what was the black and white, like detective Spider-Man. Spider-Man noir. Yeah, Spider-Man noir. Like, getting introduced to, like, different versions of Spider-Man,

I think that were not in the mainstream at that time growing up was, like, really fucking cool. And then having different gameplay styles. I just, my point is, it's crazy, not crazy.

I wouldn't expect this to be, like, it broke my heart at the review embargo. Yeah. Because, like, I remember expectations being so low that when Hillary was like, no, this is great.

I was like, oh, fuck, yeah. And I went home and played it. Versus, I wasn't expecting a 10, I guess. I wasn't expecting a 9. Right, right, right.

AC3, I get, though. Oh, AC3 for sure. You're coming to America? That's going to be awesome. Oh, parkoring on all of this new geometry we've added into this game is not good. Man, nothing is tall here. Nothing is tall at all. Wow, how long is it taking me to get into being the assassin?

Oh, shit, this sucks. Great villain, though. Great villain. Hayth and Kenway, honestly, number one villain in the series. Let's give Grand Theft Auto its due and get through all the questions in one from the 619. Hey. Boiakapuha.

619. Raymisterio. All right. I'm back. Figure it up. The most anticipated game is obviously Grant the Thought of Six. I just feel like

Red Dead Redemption 2 was amazing. And this is rock stars return with, you know, one of the most famous IPs in video game history, probably. And then a game that really made me depressed.

Assassin's Creed Unity. I was so hyped for that. It was the next generation of Assassin's Creed. And even though it got shitty reviews, I still kind of like it. Me and my friends played online multiplayer, and that shit was amazing. And good times.

Still think it's one of the better Assassin's Creed games as far as movement goes in combat. But yeah, I miss those ones. Thanks. Bye. Love you too. Santa Cruz Unity is interesting because I feel like I for me is the person who doesn't really like Assassin's Creed that much. Yeah. Assassin's Creed Unity when that was shown off, the PS4 and Xbox One still had like the new console smell.

Yeah. So I remember seeing the trailers and being like, oh, dang, that seems kind of dope. Oh, in this co-op? Like, again, not really caring about Assassin's Creed, but like just watching the trailers. The power of the new generation. Yeah. I'm like, oh, that seems kind of cool. And then had probably one of the most memified like launched.

cycles, I remember, as far as like the faceless... The float-eyeballs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy. That was the iconic where I remember, still to the say, where that review embargo was the morning of the game coming out. So technically reviews came out after the game was available to buy. Oh, that's crazy.

I still wanted to that game stop and bought it. Yeah, you did. Yeah, I did. Yeah, you did. Yeah, fucking did. GTA. Yep. We talk about it in these kind of conversations all the time.

But I feel like that's the one. where it's like, yeah, of course, can't wait to play it. But I don't Jones for it. You know what I mean? Same. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's maybe it's been, maybe it's just been so long since GTA 5 that we've

come out of the other side of just like not even like being not even Jonesing for it anymore. Just being in the place of like it'll happen when it happens. Like when it comes out, we'll play and that's when we'll get hype for it. But like, you know, after being after it being so long. Yeah. I'm kind of just like, I've lived life now without GTA. I feel so interesting.

I'm so more, granted, there's GDC behind this to a degree, but I feel like it's all the smaller indie stuff I'm way more stoked about. Like that taste they gave us of mouse PI for hire, and that's like imminent. I'm like, yeah, let's go fucking do that. I mean, I really want. Mina the Hollow, yeah, I want to jump into that. Obviously, Starfield updates, which doesn't go to think, but I mean, like, to show that there's bigger games.

Soros. Yeah, Saros around the corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like so much where it's like, we're on the precipice and I can see them where I don't think about a grand theft or not think about a fable. And maybe, yeah, just getting closer. Even at Wolverine. Like, yeah, I'm excited for September, right?

That's what it is. Like, when we get there, I'll be there. I'll be ready for it. But I think I have a weird thing too where, well, I think there's a few things, right? Because they said the marketing cycle will start this summer. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe, I think once we see the next trailer, that's when it'll, like, reignitis.

I think, though, there's something to that. But also, I think a personal thing for me is that I'm just way more of a San Andreas person than, like, a city person. Sure, sure. So, like, I'm excited for GTA6. But like if this was, like if you go back to the GTA 5 marketing cycle, like, I was fucking, I was like, oh man, we're back. We're so bad. Like I was obsessed with the idea of GTA 5.

And now with GTA 6, I'm like, I'm still in. But, you know, when we get to, when we get to GTA 7 and we're back to San Andreas, you're going to see another side of me where I'm like, I'm turning up the Tupac and the radio. I'm like, fucking, you know, I'm wearing a bandana. I'm doing it. I'm crazy. I'm so excited. We got two more before we get out of here. Let's go to the 207.

Specifically, for one, the critics loved, but I'm sorry, the critics didn't love and you did love. Hey, it's up y'all. Okay, so I'll hate you with a quick two for number one. I was gutted that Yakuza Kiwami 3 does not have the juice. I love the original Yakuza 3. I strongly recommend that to anybody. It's a shame that they really blew it on that one.

What else? So, last record's Blumen Ridge. Get this. actually a really touching, wonderful game, and it just did not get good reviews. But yeah, for your consideration. All right. Have a good one. I will have a good one. Yeah, Yakuza, or Yakuza, good for you. Yeah, and I understand that. For me, it was the lost records one. Yeah. Oh, that was the one of, I did the preview. I thought it looked cool. And then I forget what I was reviewing when Joey and Roger tackled the, maybe you, and tackled part one. And then

And it was part two was months later. Part two dropped with no fanfare. It was like a month later. A month later. It was like such a bad rollout. You guys were so lukewarm on the first one. It's like I think about lost records a lot of like, I should get that on my,

my Rog ally and have it so that when I have that down to go play. So that has a 74 on Metacritic. So it's like firmly in the yellow. Yeah. And yeah, the tough thing is when you give a two-parter and it's a month between and we're not blown away by the first part, it's impossible to ask us to pick up that second part.

Especially when it was like, there wasn't a code situation, right? At that point for part two, you have to wait for it to be out for everybody. So it's like the question of, well, we don't have time to review it because we're getting it

at the same time as everybody else. So like if we get to review it, people aren't going to click through to the review. So it's like, if we're going to play it, it'll be for the love of the game. Yeah. And I don't really have love for this game.

Yeah. So, yeah, man, that was such a tough one because I know from even just part one, like, I'm sure I believe the caller fully as far as it probably being a touching story, especially for you, right? But like, man, I think you needed a bit more to get me to that touching part of the story, especially if it's like that toward the end.

One day I'll get back, I'm sure. Maybe. You will not. Our final call is our final most anticipated game of the year. Take me to the 9-7-8. So for me, the most anticipated video game at the moment is Soros from Housemark. it's going to be good, I hope, because it's followed up returnal

and Housemark is really well known for the gameplay, so that's the one for me. Saras is another one that I can't wait for, but I'm not obsessed with. Like, Rahul, awesome. We love him, obviously, friend of the show. And then Housemark, a studio

whose games I've loved for so long back to podcast beyond to be here with it, I just look at it. It's like, okay, cool. So it's Returnal with Rahul. And I need to be told slash shown what is why it's more than that, I think, to be like, oh, I can't wait to get my hands on it because I'm looking forward to playing it for sure. Yeah.

I mean, if you remember, the year Returnal came out. I want to say that was 2021. Returnal was my game of the year that year. So like, if we're using the like transitive property of game of the year, like, Soros is probably a front runner for what could be my game with the year, 2026. and like I think I'm kind of with you as far as like I look at it and I see Returnal again which excites me because like that means I'm really really going to love this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think there's a level of, okay, is there something for me to discover? Is there something for me to learn to be like, oh shit, that's how this works? All right, let's lock in. And I'm like 80% sure that that will be here. And so I'm excited for it for that. But it's another one where like, I don't think I'm going to really think about it too hard until it shows up. When it's the point of like, we should have a review code for that. Why do we have read?

That's when I think that's what I'm going to be like, as soon as you hit my DM, be like, here's the game. Yeah, I think that's what I'm going to be like, everything stop. I'm just playing Soros now. Like nobody make any plans to me anymore. Hell yeah.

Everybody, great job with these voicemails. I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. Blessing. This is a really fun one. It was a fun one. We will do it. Maybe we can keep this phone number because they, I didn't use the old one enough and they close up without.

Everybody, let us know your most anticipated game. The game that you were anticipating that broke your heart. and the game that you think critics got wrong in the comments below. Remember to like, subscribe, share, but most importantly, pick up a kind of funny membership. We, of course, are a business all about live talk shows. Right after this, you are getting a party mode for plate up. It's going to be super fun and exciting.

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