Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Marathon Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/kindafunny 00:00:00 - Start00:05:00 - Topic of the Show: Marathon00:15:00 - Fran’s Thoughts00:17:10 -  Jerica’s thoughts00:35:45 - Ads00:37:05 - The Fun and positive01:04:45 - Superchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Start your business today with the industry's best business partner Shopify. And start hearing, sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash kind of funny. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. What's up everybody and welcome in to your Kind of Funny Games cast for Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. I'm your show host Snowbike, Mike. And today I am joined by two. incredible kind of funny co-hosts and guests today. Of course, to my left in studio, it's Fran Marabella III. What's up, everybody? Thanks for having me.

Fran, I'm so happy you're here. I can't wait to talk about this game with you because we got a good one to talk about. We're getting into the deep. We're getting deep into it. And of course, our special guest joining us remotely is Jericho Hannah from JK Games. Hi, Jericho. How are you? I'm doing okay after the long weekend of extraction shooter. but I can't wait to hear what either one of you have to say about marathon

because I have no clue, either one of your thoughts yet. I haven't went on the internet too much about it, so I'm just ready to dive in. You're feeling beaten up from the runs? Oh, yeah. You can't see the black eye. I had to cover it up. Virtually, a lot of virtual black eyes. Day one, I was getting tossed around.

Day one I was getting tossed around. I had to feel it out. Day two through three, Fran, I'm up right now. My vault is full. I'm bullying some people out there for lutes. I'm feeling really good. I'm feeling really good. Of course, you get the little tease.

Topic of the show today will be our marathon review so far. Of course, we are one week in to marathon since it's launched last week. And I'm very excited to talk with both Fran and Jericho about the game. And their thoughts and impression so far after one full weekend with it officially now out. Fran, before we start, you know, a lot of people want me to ask you, what's up with this cup above your mug? You know, I need, I got a little double down here. I'm covering my coffee cup with a Dunkin' Donuts paper cup.

I just like to keep it nice and warm, Mike. You guys had no, like, little lids to put on top. You know, I'm a bit of a fancy man. Blame Roger for that, you know what I mean? Rogers is in charge all that. He's the coffee, man. He loves coffee. No, it's not normal to have lids for your coffee mug.

You know, it may not be normal, but it's smart. I don't want to drink cold coffee. So you know what? Sometimes you just got to be your own person. And then you think this is making a difference, huh? Sometimes I swim upstream, dude. Just what do you want me to do? You sure do.

I'm excited. I can't wait to get you guys' vibes, of course, on the weekend of marathon. And also, just like your bungee touchstones, of course. Brand, I used to listen to a lot of Destiny talk with you and your crew about bungee titles and destiny won a two. So I'm very excited about that. But before we do that, of course, this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We gather around this table to talk about. all the biggest reviews, previews, and topics of opinions in the video game world.

Of course, we couldn't do this without you. So if you're watching live, be part of the show by super chatting on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games to say hello to Fran, just like Arturotron Robo Bartender has. He says, Frantham, shout out to Fran Best Squadmate in the biz. Well, thank you for kicking off our super chats already. And of course, thank you to those who support us over on Patreon.com slash kind of funny. A big thank you to those Patreon producers for the month. Carl Jacobs-O-Megobuster and Delaney the Somme Twining.

Thank you all for the support. Let's start the show with Topic of the show. Your topic of the show will be our marathon review so far after weekend one of launch. Of course, Marathon was developed by Bungy. Release date March 5th, 2006 at a base price of $39.99, available on. on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S. Of course, for all of you keeping up with Marathon and the Saga, it was originally planned for September 2025 launch,

then Bungi delayed the game in June after Alpha Feedback. So we've been waiting for a while. Of course, it feels like it's launch week, but really it's like launch week and a half because they also had a server slam the week prior before this. So it kind of rolled into like one long week, but it is the official weekend launch. of this game. Yeah, we've only had the final game with all the classes and Brooke working and

everything for since. But we've been in Tau-Setti for almost two weeks now. Oh, totally. And even that, like, it's funny you bring it up, but I did, I played the play test back last year. I've literally probably put in 70 plus hours all between everything. But in the actual game, I'm only like 25, 30 hours, the final. Let's catch up with everybody before we jump into topic of the show and give our thoughts and impressions of Marathon. I want to get to know both of our co-stars here. Of course, Jericho, I'll start with you. Give me a little background on your bungee games,

some of your bungee favorites. And then, of course, let's talk extraction shooters. Are you big into extraction shooters? Is this your first? How many have you played? What do you think about the genre? Yeah, so like me and Destiny go way back. I've been part of Destiny 1 and 2,

Destiny 2 more so than 1, just because of how difficult it was to hop in with friends. do raids, but Sinson, a little bit easier. But Destiny 2, I've played every PVE encounters are probably my favorite thing from Destiny. I dabble in Crucible, obviously do Iron Banner.

And I think that's one of the coolest things that I've personally been, like, addicted to Destiny for. It was just the plethora of things you can do in that game depending on what you want. You know, it's always, it's always been like, I was big on World of Warcraft back in the day. in his World of Warcraft, but with first person gun. So it was a match made in heaven.

So I've been part of Destiny since, I guess, it's inception. And everything else under that is like, man, I put so many hours into Destiny 2 Pantheon that I almost wanted to die. I was really close. I don't know if you know what Pantheon is, but I do have the God Slayer title. It almost killed me. Yeah. So I have a pretty close group of friends.

that play every, ever so often. Have I been hot on it too lately, not as much stuff going on. I got my lightsaber in the Star Wars expansion that they had. But yeah, I'm really dialed into Destiny and how, I mean, I came to Destiny because it was a new bungee game. And I think that's going to be a topic, a conversation today, like, you know, what other bungee fans are hopping on a marathon and maybe they don't have an experience with an extraction shooter or even Destiny for that matter. Um, I will say like for extraction shooters, me personally, not my thing. I'm not an extraction girly. Um, but my, I, my destiny crew that I usually raid with and stuff have been playing

the crap out of arc raiders. And I was finally like, all right, I got to do it for science. I need to play this weekend. So I played arc raiders and marathon all weekend. Very good. So now, now I should have like a touch point for comparison of like marathon versus. arc raiders so okay okay jerica you're getting your extraction shooter on this weekend we love hearing that some great backstores with uh of course bungee Fran marabella i don't really have to ask

you about bungee and your love for it but I know it of course if people aren't in tune with Fran marabella the third FM3 underscore on twitch of course fire team chat and the destiny podcast I mean you've done it all fran yeah being around destiny or you're right talk to me really quick about bungee and destiny and then most importantly extraction shooters before we begin on this game. Yeah, I mean, I think it sets a stage. One, just because I've been on a lot of Destiny coverage, people sometimes assume it's like, dude, this man loves this game.

And like, I really enjoy Destiny and I've covered it a long time, but it's never been like one of my favorite games of all time, right? There's two different things. Like, it's live service, it's been ongoing. I've liked to, I just like the feel of Bungy games. And maybe that's the best segue. I love their gun feel. I was a huge Halo fan.

And so to see what Destiny one was and then what Destiny 2 became and all the stages. I sort of just got wrapped up in it, but I definitely like Bungy, the feel of what Bungy does. I think it's, I often have talked about like, you know, the Bungy magic, right? Or just

like, it's the feel of what they do. And they've changed over time, but from Halo through now to Marathon, and well, Marathon originally, but they've had a lot of... Mitzie. I hope you're doing well. They've had a lot of feel. What's going on? Where is it? Sorry. He's part of B-roll. He's right.

I heard the voice of God in the studio. You let it happen. You let it happen. He'll chime in so anyway, in short, have followed Bungi a really long time, obviously been on Destiny, but it doesn't mean that that's like my top game. And then extraction shooter set up, actually, if people don't know this, it's fascinating. It was during the pandemic.

I decided I was going to try Tarkov. And that was back, you know, probably 2020, 2021. And I refused to use any online guys. I'm like, I'm just going to play this. Yeah. I'll tell you what. Jerich, I don't know if you checked out Tarkov at all yet, and that is really the roof over the house that is Marathon.

Of course. I logged in that thing. Yeah, years ago, and let me tell you, I was afraid to start a match. Like, I didn't understand if I was going to lose

my entire vault, you know, bag and all that. I didn't even understand how to get, I didn't know what a scav run was. And, but they really set the tone. And Bungi followed that,

and I'm sure we'll get into it. But I can tell you, I loved the intensity of Tarkov. It was a bit like the dark souls of, you know, that genre. And so I, I really like it,

but I've never been, like, addicted to these or anything like that. You played a little Hunt Showdown as well? I checked it out just for reference this year. Okay. But I didn't play a ton. I probably played for like five to ten hours kind of thing.

Nice. Yeah, of course, kind of funny best friends know that I made Nick survive the gauntlet. We did a week to two weeks of just nothing but extraction shooters. So I found every extraction shooter under the book. And I made us try them all just so we could try them, see what it's like. We did fall in love with Escape from Tarkoff. We liked that intensity.

Yeah. That like feeling that it could go wrong at any more. moment and we have been chasing that high. I have not felt that thrill of the, oh, at any moment I could be shot in the leg and this could go only sideways immediately, like escape from Tarkoff capture. Tarkov's is like

actual constant pain, you know, in your brain and almost you feel like when your leg breaks in the game, you can almost feel it in real life. It's rough. But I would also last note that, of course, our graders, I played a couple hundred hours of. Yes, our graders were coming, of course, hot off of an incredible fall

into winter break. And that's, new year with Arc Raiders from Embark Studios, which has been absolutely killing the game and really bringing, I would say, extraction shooters to the forefront of a wider general audience as well, right? I think people know about Tarkoff, but like it does seem like the hardcore, of hardcore play that. And like, Arc Raiders, I felt like really broke down the wall. Like, hey, let's get everyone involved and give it a try. And it feels like it did just that all winter long. Yeah, I'll just say this at the top of the show. I mean, Marathon is not like Arc Raiders. It's got a bag and you extract stuff, but from gameplay moment to moment.

They're just, it's so much more casual. And I mean, it can be rough out there occasionally. But the point is Marathon is closest to Tarkov and Destiny and Halo and Apex even. Yeah. Well, let's talk about, of course, Bungi and their newest game, a return to a game. Of course, Marathon here, like I said, release date was March 5th to give you what launched, what came at launch with the game. You have three maps on Talsetti 4, which is the giant world.

You have one perimeter, two is Dyer Marsh, and three is Outpost. Kind of going beginner, medium, and advanced. Of course, Outpost does not unlock until player level 12 is reached. Each one has varying different environments, biomes, world. Of course, Outpost has a really fun one that I really dig called Heat Cascade, which is kind of environmental hazard that you have to move around the map with. There is seven playable shells, which is. your player character class, we'll call that to start.

Six of them are your normal classes that you can squat up with one to three players with. And then the seventh class is the Rook, which is a solo scavenger only, which is going to be very exciting to talk about. Of course, they launched with six world factions. Those give you missions, contracts, shops, and upgrades. There's 28 weapons at launch, which is a crazy number out there. I've only probably seen a handful. Same.

When you think about 28 being out there, the Codex is the world lore, along with challenges to earn unlockable gear. It also has a reward pass, aka a battle pass, that has free and paid tiers. Six pages of free and paid tears unlocked via the silk. And I'm going to tell all the best friends out there if you want to look quick. Games cast, helpful game hints that Andy Cortez always talks about. Your silk does max out at 140, and it will not go over. So you need to spend that in your rewards pass, whether it be. for you're paid so you can earn more

because it doesn't go over. So every time you're playing, you're earning, but if you're just sitting at 140, you're not earning. So get over there, spend those game points. And then of course, the basic extraction shooter load up. You'll select your shell, you'll load up in the vault, you'll buy anything from the faction

armory, and you'll jump in with trios, duos, even singles. You have some fun. That's your rundown of what is available at launch. Fran, did I miss anything? Are you going to mention the Crowo Archive? Oh, let's, well, just, yeah, let's talk about it. Tell me about it.

Yeah, without getting into it. I was just going to say, last but not least, so you've got three maps and it is true, progressively difficult, but the fourth one is in the process of being unlocked. And maybe we'll talk about it, but just know that there are. There are, I'm not used to these sudden, like. I'm sorry, that was supposed to be the tip thing that played earlier and then I pressed it. He's pressing the thing. I think Kevin's messy with me.

I promise you my talk. He makes, he's excited you're here. He's excited you're here, Fran. I am very worried and scared. It's going to happen again. It is hard to say on my train of thought. Anyway, Cryo Archive is the fourth map. There are four maps.

But this one most likely is more dungeon-like in the world of destiny. We don't know yet. But they do say that it has puzzles and frost vaults, I believe. Yes. Is how they refer to it. Raid-like mechanics, which is exciting if you're a destiny raider out there. But not out yet, but we'll see that very soon, which will be exciting. Fran, I gave you the rundown of what is here at launch.

I talked about the base price, the release date. We are coming off. of the launch weekend. I know you've put a ton of hours in. I've been watching you over on Twitch.com. 3 underscore. Let's talk about your impression so far if you want to put a review score on it

after your first weekend. But let's just talk about how's your experience been? Give me the rundown. Good. And also, Kevin, if you're on the B-roll, my YouTube channel now is FM3 plays. It's my recent marathon stuff. YouTube channel.

That one was a bit old, which is fine, but same diff. But anyway, sorry, your question again was... Your impressions, thoughts, and opinions of weekend one. Yeah, I mean, let's just level set on that, too. You know, it took the first 24 hours to unlock outpost for the third map, right? Or you had to get the level 12 if you were playing at launch. But we've had to do some wind up. But I'm really enjoying the game as the short of it.

And as I kind of hinted before, I love that it kept quite a bit of the brutality of Tarkov. and it does not pull any punches. And I think there's a ton of conversation out there about, oh, is it, you know, is you competing with Arc Raiders and what does it mean for live services? That is very different than if you just look at it as what it is. In a way, right, it keeps that Dark Souls Tarkov brutality. And I like, that's one of the things I was surprised about it.

There's no casual moment in it. Like, you get in the very beginning maybe, there's an early perimeter map you can play before you level up and like a small intro, but, In general, you, just like in Tarkov, you're constantly afraid to lose your gear. Eventually, though, you get quite a bit. But, man, I love the gun feel. The visuals I am playing on PC.

I have an RTX 4090, and it's a beautiful experience. So I also just love the visuals and the sound and everything. So early impressions or early review impressions, I should say, are very strong, positive. It's nice. I like that. Jerica, after weekend one, of course, you balanced both of them. you would jump in between this and our craters. Let's talk about Marathon.

What are your thoughts on Marathon after Weekend 1? I think I might have a unique, like, lens going into this because literally I shared earlier, like, my favorite things about Destiny are the PVE elements, and that's definitely not what Marathon is. So I'll say this, like, my first impressions in terms of, like, the first thing that stood out to me that both the gunplay, how the guns feel, and even the, look and visual identity of this game is like it is destiny i mean bungee dna um to a fault so immediately like if you play destiny like you're going to recognize and feel comfortable shooting all the

weaponry in this game um but on the flip side and sort of a balancing act because even as a destiny player i'm always wanting to harp on what's another thing they could put on the ui to make it hard to get to this thing um and i have trouble fighting this, where do I go to pick up this? It's a little bit more simplified now on Destiny, but it's still an abundance of information. So with Marathon, I love everything

about the style and the aesthetic. Like, I think it truly does stand out from other live service games like it in this space. Like, it stands out. It doesn't look like another one of these games that sort of look like each other. Is this something new?

What makes this? Like, it stands out. And I love that for it, but at the same time, the UI integrating that aesthetic of it, as we'll probably talk about, like, especially for the onboarding process, is intense. There's a lot to read. There's things and mods that I don't know what they do, but I got to take a second to read about it. And I got to figure out how to get to, how do I upgrade my vault? Because I'm already full, just like Destiny. My vault is out of space. So some things you felt at home with if you were like me and just, hey, this is Bungy's new game.

I want to see if I can get into extraction shooters. Can I get into this as a Bungy Destiny fan? And I say gameplay-wise so far, yes, but onboarding and trying to figure out is this game for me has been a little bit of a challenge for sure. Yeah, that's an interesting different

perspective, like knowing that, again, just to make sure I heard it right, you mostly love PVE stuff. You're not like into games that much like Apex and other shooters, PVP-wise, right? Yeah, I'm not, I'm not. not a sweat, you know. I don't go into these things getting sweaty.

Yeah, but you like the PVE side and it's it. This game is very much not that, but coming from that angle is really interesting. Yeah, and also coming from Arc Raiders, which was very much of like, hey, there's a lot of PVE here and the PVE, I think on the Arcader side is a little friendlier compared

to the PVEE on this side, where it is those robots are going to chase you across the map. They are actually quite punishing if you let them group up on you. And it is a more deliourable balance of danger as opposed to kind of the thrill of looking at some of the arc out there and arc raiders, saying

oh, I could take down a hornet or a wasp. Maybe something could get after me if I let it get out of hand. But this side of things, it's like these blue robots, the UNSC or whatever, when they see you, you got a problem on your hands. Yeah. You don't mess around. And there's big pvee escalatory moments. And again,

we're going to see even more of that when we get to cryo archive. We'll probably talk about how outpost is rough. But then it's the as soon as you engage with them, not only do you a problem with the bots, but you know people are coming for you. Because you know I got my sweatband on, Fran. Yes. And I'm sweating as Jericho just said, right? Like,

the moment I hear a gunshot in the game, you best believe I put a ping down to let my team know and we are making a split second decision of we're moving towards that or we're moving away from that. And that's the thrill of course of extraction shooters, right? Of like, we talked about this in Arc Raiders.

In Arc Raiders, the people with the most, the place with the most valuable lutes is the people in their backpacks, right? And so that means in this game, I'm coming for your backpack as well. And it is a thrilling moment of those blue robots, the moment they start shooting at you and you

start shooting at them, that is a couple of seconds of engagement where you have to go, I have to take these guys out and now be ready for a third party of Mike and his crew are going to jump on me, which I really find thrilling and fun in this game. Yeah, tell me if I'm getting ahead of us at all, but have you guys gotten trapped

in one of these like hack rooms where you get trapped with the PVE enemies? No, a hack room? No. Tell me about that. Have you, Jerica? Like a red room. We sort of did. It was the first time because I was like, eh, what's happening? Because I could, I got, yeah, got locked in a room. But the short thing, I feel like

I triggered something. Yeah, this is where the game is, I don't know how. Yeah. Interesting, commenting on PVEE stuff. Like, again, perimeters, pretty much like, well, you got a couple types of bots. You shoot them up and maybe they have a blue shield. And then you get the dire marsh and it's like maybe a purple shield or, I don't know if that's the exact breakdown. But there's, that's how it kind of escalates.

Slightly increase it. But then, you know, there's like a room with green lasers. That's the one that hacks. I've been in there before, okay. And you got to clean it. If you do that, it'll like seal the doors and all of these bots start coming out and you get hacked. So you have to have like a blue.

It's a clean. But anyway, you have to clean your software to get rid of the view. And it's an intense moment. Yeah. Stuff in outputs, there's even more of that stuff. There's also like special keys to get out of extractions or into rooms. And so the point is there is a PVE element that's really interesting. but it's always with the threat of PV.

Oh, big threat is right. I think, yeah, when I come down on my weekend so far, it is the thrill of the threat, right? This game is brutal. Day one, I was walking out there. My first ever run, I walk out, it's just Mike Solo. Boom, I get hit by one turret. It takes me down to half health.

Two more steps later, there's another turret. It kills me. I get frustrated. I go, what the hell, right? Match number three. I jump in, poison spore, poisons me. I bleed out right then and there. I'm uptight.

Match number four. I jump into solos, kids invisible in a bush murders me. I get uptight, right? But then I started to find the thrill. I started to find the fun and I really enjoyed it. Like Jericho said, the world that Bungi has created is unbelievable, right? It is coming hot off of Destiny. It's a cyberpunk-esque world.

I mean, the visuals, the cinematics that they have for each faction, that stuff is awesome, right? Taussetti is beautiful and dangerous. I love the three worlds, the biomes that feel each unique and different, right? the mountainous feel of outpost with the four big outposts. Outposts. A cool resource grinder in the middle with the pipe. Then you go over to Dyer Marsh and it feels wet.

There's just giant invisible wall and the anomaly ship that's sucking things up into the sky. You're like, oh, this is wild. And then you go to the final one, which is outpost, my apologies. And it's like, oh, this is so cool that it doesn't want me to be outside because there's just giant fire rain that comes. I have to get pushed inside, which means, boom,

we're all going to collide in here. And it's like the three maps have been fantastic. I'm excited to see the fourth with a little more raid-like puzzle solving. We'll be super fun. But I've had a great time with it. I think the thrill of the fight, whether it be NPCs, two fellow runners out there,

has been a really good blend of like challenging, difficult, fun. I do feel like time to kill is very quick, where it's like if I get to jump on you, I haven't seen many fights flip where if I get to jump on you, you can really turn it around on me. It does feel like if I get the jump, I win the fight, which is unfortunate.

But I have noticed if you're smart enough, you can let your teammate die, reset back up, and you can take on a three on one and win if you're smart enough to outplay them. But I haven't seen many turn a fight around after getting hit first shots. So actually, I think this is a good point to bring up

and curious how you guys feel, you know, we're out here doing a review. And I personally, like, to me, I'm like, whoa, review already, you know, But, like, of course, like, we can have a review in progress or review whatever you guys feel. Of course. But I think important to all the topics we're talking about, like, there's so much still to learn and understand.

Another thing that I'm sure Jerica could appreciate is like, you haven't even seen the builds yet when we're going to start seeing build videos in a Tarkov-esque game. But then there's like all this stuff you're learning that I even, I don't fully understand. Like as an example, you made me think about that huge square ship, right? That was the one you're talking about where it locks debt. It's a lockdown. And you have to get in there. have to have one of those green envelope software pieces.

It's called antivirus. And you have a certain amount of time to get in. There's better loot. I've barely even been in there. So there's a lot to like learn. And I think in what you're getting at there, I think you are going to be able to start countering people because what's going to happen is these games do that and you can appreciate it.

Eventually, everybody's got a blue shield. Who's got a purple now? Who's got a gold? But the time to kill is much different when everybody's rocking blue. And like we just haven't even unlocked that. Like I can't buy a blue shield yet. eventually I assume that will come and be common, but we're pretty far away from it.

And I do appreciate that right now. Weekend 1. It does feel like you can jump in with a free load out and still get kills, right? It does feel different in a game like Ark Raiders where I jump in with a free load and it's like, oh, he has a level 4 gun. He's running me over no matter what I do because the Rattler has eight bullets in it and that's not enough to kill someone in that game. Yeah. But on the flip side here, it's like a free loadout can get a kill.

A free load out can get you running and get you going. and that's all that matters at the beginning, which is fun. You got to get the training wheels going before you take them off. And yeah, I agree with Jerica. The UI is a mess. When you first jump in, it's a mess. There's too much. It's too convoluted.

Like, I appreciate after weekend one, I know where I'm going. I know what I'm looking for. But all the icons in the vault all look the same. You really have to do the desk, do the fran, read up on them. You got to spreadsheet them, which is fine. But it's like at the beginning, it is just a lot. to take in. There's a lot of menus that you've got to navigate to get towards X, Y, and Z. It's overwhelming. That's the fun part about this is there's a lot of depth to it that's

going to take some time to learn. And so weekend one, it is overwhelming. But at the end of it, it's like, now I know what I'm doing. I know where to go. I know where to get my contracts. I know where to buy. I know what I'm looking for challenges wise. I know where I really need to navigate to. Yeah. My short view of that was the same. Like the UI is overwhelming. I totally understand why people's first reaction was like, this is, some people were like, this is broken,

it's messy. I think it's a super loud design with all the color like you're saying. But eventually, your brain starts to process that. And I will say, yeah, 25 plus hours, a lot of that I just don't even see anymore.

And like, you could even appreciate this, right? At first, I was like, how do I cycle through the factions and then get the contract and then go to upgrades and get,

but then now I don't even think about it. it. And then there's all these little shortcuts even too. But it's definitely, it's all over the place in the sense that they have like menus and submenus and Jericho brought this up too. Like Destiny does that where it's like, wait, the directory of tabs is different in this menu. But like once you get used to it, it's not that bad, but it is absolutely overwhelming at first. Yeah. And of course, another one that I really have enjoyed and come around on, but I still, it's a new world to all of us, right? So like doing these missions is exciting, but it's like, go find the bio researcher lab chemist jacket or something weird.

And you're like, I don't know what that is. And now you're like running around this area waiting until an emblem pops up. But then when it's my third time doing it, I'm like, oh, Kevin A. Sacks, it's this red computer in this corner. Or we know that there's a giant, like, pillars outside. That's what we're looking for. But it's been fun when it's like a new world, all new vocabulary to me, right? And it's like, I don't know what that is. And then you have the panic of exactly what the game watching.

do you're in this new world go find it and now you're just running in circles trying to look for the objective that you need to complete yeah yeah honestly there's actually there's quite a bit of quality of life in the game quality of life in the game things that surprised me of like oh they had they put this in there that you know i'll have to think of some examples but i'm reflecting more again on like tarcov dude and like it's it shouldn't really be the excuse that it is overwhelming and it's all over the place but like try to play tarco oh yeah i mean i don't know if they finally i think they finally put maps in that you could see in the game. But like literally, you know, you had to have a second screen up.

And even then, there's no directions. I would print out the maps for Nick. Yeah. And I'd say, here's where we're trying to go. Like, keep this on your desk. And what I wanted to say about that, I don't know how to phrase this, but we're in a weird place. Curious if you guys agree.

We're finding things to complain about and it's valid. But why are we being so soft when some of the things we love most in games is like, dude, Dark Souls, Eldon Ring, Tarkov, like, dude, wait, this is what, you know? And you figure it out, and the learning curve, that's like what makes game so awesome, isn't it? Where you're like, oh, I get it now, even if it's painful at first. So I like that about it. You know, again, I think some things are confusing, but once you start learning the ins and outs and, you know, I have so much more to learn, it's really rewarding.

I think that's what you hear, the 180 for me, right? It's like, alpha beta test weekend server slam. I wasn't hot on this game. Well, I was hot on Alpha. I really like the engagements compared to Arc Raiders. Beta Test Weekend server slam. I wasn't hot on this. And then, like you said, I think it's the learning curve.

Once I dove in, I'm like, now I'm eager to learn. I'm excited to find the mysteries. I'm excited to solve those puzzles. And like, that's the fun part about this game is it has that. And of course, it has the bungee roots, right? It's like coming from that team, they're going to make these fun ideas. They're going to try different things. And I'm excited to, you know, pull on the thread and go search and look.

The quality of life with the contracts and linking up with your friends and seeing their contracts on your screen is so helpful and so much fun of like, I can't tell you how many good times I've had with Andy and Kevin now of like we all kind of started at the same time, but we're all on different contracts. But like I'm reading out of like, I'm on three or four with new Genics. Where are you? Okay, well, I'm doing this one for whatever faction. Okay, cool. Let's jump in.

And it has it all listed for us. So I know you're completing yours. I'm completing mine. hey, let's work together on this. That's been fantastic. Yeah, that's like one example. If you go into your map, into the contract, you can see the other players' contracts,

but then you can hover over the objective. And when you hover over it, it says on the second floor of complex is where this bioprinter is. And like stuff like that, you don't even know it was there until someone tells you. But it's actually really nice that it's there. I'm sure Jerica can relate. We've been doing a lot of talking, and I want to hear from you. No, no, no, no, no.

I'm sorry. No, go Jared. Discored delay. I would say like literally I feel the value you're getting for $40 is totally worth it. I think you are getting more than what you are buying for this game. I think the challenge is going to be another. And I'm going to be honest. Like I'm also having a really good time.

And what's hooking me is those little wins that I'm getting and then slowly getting better, slowly understanding, picking up, you know, different quests and figuring out like what. Because I've been playing a lot with my girlfriend too. me and her play and getting a random in there, like in trying to, what's the right path for me and her? And then whatever stranger joins us, us having failures and successes there.

And then me bringing home the loot is like I'm getting, I enjoy extraction shooters. Like I, that's the thing I appreciate about Dusty is a loot grind, getting something bigger, better, faster, shinier, and being able to come back and use that. I do like the risk of reward. of where i could lose it all because i think it's it sort of helps me not feel like

every loss is the end of the world because like i'll have chances to get it back um but i think like the contracts the contracts that you're getting like falling along those for new players the onboarding is this what i don't want people to shy away from is just making sure it's really transparent that hey you're going to have to take the time to get better at understanding this world understanding the shells that work best for you. Because once you do that, you do find the reward. And it does feel really good. No, like, I'm a fan of this game.

I might never be great at it, but I'm going to keep playing. It's fun. I'm enjoying my time. That's exactly, I was funny. You read my mind. I was wondering, I was like, I almost was going to ask you, do you feel like you're forcing yourself to play it? Because you were going to do this review and you come from the destiny side.

But you said it's got you hooked or interested in? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to keep playing. like I want to at least get to some checkpoints where, you know, I haven't made it to outpost yet. And based on what you're telling me about these, I've only been. Outpost is cool. Sick.

Outpost is like where I've been up till now. And yeah, I just encountered that one room with all the lasers. And I was like, okay, I love the evolved location within these areas that could be more challenging. And I'm like, okay. But also, oh, I'm so used to be. being a fast-paced hunter in destiny. So I'm playing, you know, it just left me. The double jump, the cool chick.

Yes, Vandal. That's all I've been really playing for me, feeling comfortable with moving in this world. But I have to stop myself and like really listen to my squad and like be focused on communicating. Because like you just can't dive in, obviously. You got to be able to use the skill sets of each shell. And I think that will also.

be an issue for new whether you're new to extraction shooters or you're just wanting to try this new bungee game is like understanding how to play with others as well because that's the skill said that you got to learn and understand and like knowing what the other shells

can do as well. Fran before we go to ad break, are you hot on this game right now after the weekend? Where do we stand? We're not doing review scores right now. Are you hot on this game? Absolutely hot on it. It's so much more polished and just it's got its hooks in me in that bungee way

that yeah, I want to play a lot and there's so many games to play and that's going to be the challenge. I like that. I'm just right there, Fran. I am very hot on this game. I'm having a lot of fun. I worry what will I do after review because I want to play more of this but man, Pocopia. I put down Pocopia for this and I played this all weekend when Pocopia screamed, help me and I was like, I can't. I'm so deep into this right now. And maybe we'll talk about this after ad break, but the grind is probably a big part of the discussion for me as well because it

relates to being hot on it is how much grind can you handle. Okay. Well, we're going to talk about the positives and negatives from our first weekend right after a word from our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When we started kind of funny in 2015, boy, let me tell you, I had a harsh lesson in what it takes to run your own business. We were the hosts, writers, producers, art department, tech support, garbage men, and so much more. We needed help. And that's exactly what Shopify does for millions of businesses.

businesses right now. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like Aviator Nation, Chubbies and Death Wish Coffee to brands just getting started. Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond, beyond. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner Shopify and start hearing? Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash kind of funny. Go to shopify.com slash kind of funny. That's Shopify.com slash kind of funny. Welcome back everyone to your Kind of Funny Games cast where we're talking all things marathon from

bungee after week, weekend one. We're going into week one, but it's weekend one. Fran, Jericho, I want to talk about the positives, the fun that we're having. I want to highlight the fun and I want to talk about some of our critiques after that. Fran, hit me with anything. What do you want to talk about what shell have you been running? I said, I brought it before. We have seven playable shells. Each one unique and different themselves.

You have the destroyer, which is the combat specialist made for offense and defense, has a deployable wall on its arm, has a missile barrage, which is very cool, has thrusters, tax sprint. You have the vandal, which is the combat anarchist, enhanced movement, which Jericho brought up, that it has Amplify and Disrupt Cannon, which is a speed boost and a damage dealing push projectile. There's Recon, which is the Intel Specialist, who has the Echo Pulse and Tracker Drone.

That's a sonar pulse and a microbot that's built for tracking. You have the assassin. That's a shadow agent that it has invisibility systems. Smoke screen and active camo, which I'll tell you, that's smoke? Very difficult to see inside. Oh, yeah. That can change the tide of a battle if you're good with that one.

Then you have triage, who is the field medicatic, all about damage mitigation. Of course, has a reboot and a medic drone. Reboot is a quick revive for a down teammate and deployable med drones to teammates. And the really fun one is that med drone actually goes into one of the traits called shareware. Dot EX, which is share benefits from all medical consumables with med drones crewmates. So you can throw out your med drones to your teammates. And if you use a stem pack, the teammates use the stem pack. Get a little cardio kit, which is very cool.

And then, of course, number six is Thief, the covert acquisitions, which is pickpocket drone and grapple device. I've been playing nothing but thief. I love the thief. And then seven is Rook. I'm going to pause Rook. We're going to talk about Rook after our favorite ones. Because Rook is a whole different thing.

So let's first go around the table. What shell have you been using? What do you like? Fran, I'll start with you because I know I think you're dabbling with everything. Yeah, I would just put out of the, I'm, man, there's a lot of depth as you just covered and I like to dabble. That being said, I kind of end up filling triage a lot because other people, yeah, they want to play thief,

you know, they want to play assassin or whatever. So I tend to fill a lot of triage and I don't mind. It's fun. As a note, too, that quick revive is also an EMP. So you can shock enemies or shock runners, you know, other PVP folks. So you can use it as an offensive. So I tend to play that

or the Titan as Jerica could probably relate to with the destroyer. Destroyer, okay. So a lot of these, well, not a lot, but a number of these classes are about the mobility. Yeah. Right. And so as Destroyer, what I like is you can double tap, shift, well, I'm on keyboard, but you

start running fast or you can double tap, jump, and, like, boost jets. Yes. So, really, like, you'll see people doing shotgun plays where, like, you're over there, Mike, but behind a box, you know, and as a Titan, or sorry, as Destroyer, you're like, you boost your heels behind him, and you, like, float around behind him with Shottie, hit him in the back

of the head. It's pretty amazing to see the combat's still evolving and like we've seen some nutty thief stuff. Sorry. Oh yeah. So it'll be interesting to see as they balance this out, but those are two I definitely like. Okay. Jericho, what have you been running around as is your shell? Probably the worst one for what I'm trying to learn to play this game as the vandal. Because like I have no patience and I'm just zipping around.

And I feel like this shell is like the definition of speed and chaos and the game already has too much of that. So maybe it is me playing as a vandal. But I do like being more agile in this world because like to what we're understanding here and what we're talking about, like it's just is moment to moment and anything can happen. So I'm predictable. So like I just want to be able to react faster. I feel like because that for me it was a little bit of a it was a little bit of a whiplash like realizing how some of the shells can feel like a little slower. And I feel like I can't get around as fast because like I'm just so used to because it feels so much like destiny gunplay. and everything else, like, it's sort of jarring for it to be a little bit slower for me.

So, like, I latched on to Vandal. My girlfriend Audrey's been playing as the thief a lot, which I've sort of been wanting to dabble with lately, because just, like, there's been so many moments where I feel like she's able to save us. And then I'm like, well, that's cool. Maybe I should be triage or the thief just to be able to have some balance to the teams that we're squatting up with. But yeah, maybe I look more towards a support role because, and then someone else tells me when to go. I like that. I think it's safe here.

The team comp is important, of course. I've been playing exclusively thief. When I jump into these games, I like to focus on one so I could learn the ins and out and then move on to the other one. And I only picked thief simply because it had the coolest cosmetic in the store. Oh, all right. The white rabbit was a sick skin. I bought it for $20 and that shows my shell from this point forward. And you know what?

I came up big because the thief is a ton of fun. It has a grapple hook, which is a perfect get in, get out, whatever you need, like mechanic that I love. And it also has the, what do we call this right here? The drone. It's like the drone. So the drone, I've been using for just strictly eyes. But the fun part about the drone actually is it has this pickpocket mechanic. And the thief is all about pickpocket.

and target acquisition via your most valuable weapons and items. So when you go to drone mode, you can actually pick pocket from afar from the drone and pull out the highest rarity item that a player has in their backpack or a backpack on the ground. You can even close doors with it, which is pretty wild. There's also an X-ray vision, which mixed with the finer things. More items in your backpack gains more weapon and handling

and grappling hook recharge. That's the finer things. and then the X-ray vision will ping everything around you, and any box of loop, it will tell you what the highest rarity item is in there. And if you have eyes on targets, you'll actually ping an enemy and be able to see them, but you have to have eyes on target. So the thief for me so far has been perfect for Intel and being able to get in and out of fights really quickly, which has been great.

Because I've been playing with my friend Kevin, who has been either triage the medic or mainly the smoke assassin. So it's like a perfect blend of, I usually see someone, one. I'm like, oh shit, Kevin, they're coming. I grapple hook out to like higher areas so I can get the high ground and then we'll pounce on them together, which is fun. Yeah, thief seems, I'm curious if any character's going to come out overpowered. But if you haven't seen it with thief, you probably have right, you put Claymore's on the drone and float them around. Just seems like a little broken. And I've also started to see people starting to swing on the drone. That's cool. Somebody else will

be the thief even and pull them across the map. And people will figure out how to like swing a round it. That's pretty nuts. Wow. Yeah, the, the grapple hook is very much similar to Fran, help me, Apex Legend. Yeah, Pathfinder. We were talking about it.

Because, yeah, at first you're just going to kind of shoot it and don't use it to pull you up. But yeah, there is a lot of give where you can kind of whip it sideways and get momentum. You can kind of use it like Batman and kind of grapples yourself up even to higher location. So it's all about how you use it. But I found so far that kit in particular is the kit kind of style I want to play. Seems deep. Yeah. I saw an esports player that came, I think, from the Hill community, Voski, I think it was.

But he set his drone because someone was kind of down around a corner. So he sent the drone out and he was able to, yeah, curve around like you're saying, swing up like right in their face. Yeah. And he actually did like, I think it was like a no-scope sniper type. It's pretty crazy some of the stuff you can do. It's been fantastic. So those are the six shells.

I'm glad to hear that you guys are playing them. The really fun part about this is you can, of course, play solo, right? When you go in, you click on your own shell, you fill out your load out. Click no fill on the side. And it will take you into solo. only lobbies, which is great. I've really enjoyed that as like, yeah, I played my first day exclusively solo and I had a good time, right? Now, sure, there was some snow bike mics out there getting a little sweaty, maybe sitting in some corners, but it is fun when you are playing solo.

There's a big threat out there. You can play with two people, no fill or a random fill. They do have prox chat, which not used as often as you would think. We've definitely had some good team chats. We've talked with maybe one or two other teams, but not many people are using prox chat right now in my world. Have you been hearing any prox chat? No one's safe. I don't trust anybody, so no, I don't want to be. I'm scared to use it. Yeah, you totally should. Well, in solo,

if you think it'll benefit you, and also, you know, I know plenty of people like you might, you'll just lie to them. I'll lie right to you. You'll be lying, you'll be baiting them into places. Like, just triggering people can also be pretty effective. But, but I mostly have only used prox. We'll talk about it later with Rook, but it's good to be a

and have prox chat, but it's useful in solo and teams. It's awesome that they added it in. I saw a clip of somebody just screaming. Did you see this clip floating around? It was like 50,000 impressions on social. But somebody was screaming as if they died in real life because somebody killed them. Those moments, they add so much to the game, right? It's just funny.

It's just fun moments. It's right. Let's talk about that seventh shell. This is a very interesting shell that you can't play with others. You can play exclusively solo. So it's called The Rook, the Solo Scavenger. And when you click on the Rook, similar to all the other ones, they give you a rundown. And this is what the Rook says.

Solo only, limited loadout, contracts paused, restricted zone access, requires season level three, moves, recuperation, and signal mask. You can restore health and mask yourself from enemy AI so they think you're one of them so you can move through areas freely. Now, the Rook is very interesting. Kind of gives me scavenger vibes from Escape from Tarkoff. friend. I've only played the Rook once. Did you play it a lot? Yeah, yeah, I've played Rook plenty. Jerich, have you played Rook as well? Not personally.

Okay. Well, now I'll give you the straight dope real fast then. But Rook is very much like Skav style. A little different in, well, I mean, it's similar to that, yeah, you do get a kit that if you get out with it, you get to keep those items. But the main thing is, I describe it as the janitor. So you're going in about 60% through the match already or 40% or something like that. But just to like pick up some. quick money, quick gear, you're probably not going to go out and try to kill things.

And you also, most importantly, you cannot do contracts as a rook. So that's a big difference. You can't just be like, oh, I'll be a rook, but I want to work on this contract. No, it's literally go in, be the janitor, find some coin. And yeah, sometimes you come out big because you'll find a bag. And it's just a runner that left like a blue shield in it or a really nice gun. It does happen. And that's the general idea.

And I will actually say once you understand that, you can just get in it out, five, six minutes if you want. and get really valuable stuff that really eases the gear fear that I think it's easy to have where you're like, dude, I'm broke, I have nothing. Do a few rook runs when your vault's getting dry and it's way more friendly than Tarkov in that sense. That's cool. Okay. And Zeekspeak, Super Chats and says, and you can upgrade your rook with faction capstones right there. I haven't seen that upgrade.

So if you're working on your faction upgrades, there you go, keep an eye out. I do want to move on to factions as well because I brought up there's six of them, right? So you'll have your intro one, which is Cyber Acme, which is a great intro. You get hit with the AI, but super cool cinematics on all these. They're so cool. Lady Gaga with the Gou Lion, that's a crazy one from Traxas. Yeah. Yeah, I'm calling that Lady Gaga with the Gullions, crazy combo.

I think that's the voice of ERIS, by the way, Jericho. Very cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. So, yeah, you'll start with Syak, who introduces you to all the five factions, and then you'll start doing missions for each one. you'll have a fun blend, well you'll be jumping from one. I do like that it's like one contract per run. Let's focus you.

Let's keep you aligned. And as Jericho said, I think that's the best part as a beginner jumping in, right? I think for me, I come from the battle royale kind of arena shooter where it is. I'm just trying to get sweaty and bang into you. And I think you got to kind of drop that as a beginner and go, hey, the training wheels are on. Let me focus on my contract. It's going to take me to different zones. And those zones are going to be high populated areas with other players that are

probably doing similar missions, where you'll bang into them or you can avoid them. But like the goal should be, hey, focus on this. It's going to take you around the map. Then you'll ex-fill. You'll earn reward. You'll level up so you can buy more stuff in the shop. But I think at first, if you're jumping in as like a new player, follow the contracts. It will lead you along the path of the gameplay that they probably want you to play.

Yeah. It's funny. The first contracts for Syak, like you're saying, are the onboarding. You know, there is an official onboarding. That's like just sort of basics. and but I don't think, yeah, people are prepared for the idea. If you don't know the genre, the idea of just like looting around a building for stuff. And again, it's overwhelming at first.

You're like, why do I need this microchip this, this, you know, unstable gel that? You're like, it seems almost nonsensical. And I think some people will find that very uninteresting. And that is, again, it brings us back to like Tarkov. This is so much what people love about Tarkov. And like, you're probably not going to like the game if you don't, you know, don't like those things. Maybe Jericho, you comment on that. Like, I know you deal with a lot of items in destiny, but like, you know, you're literally picking up like all sorts of nonsensical items at

first. Do you feel that were you interested to do it or did it seem like you just wanted to shoot the bots? I think not at first until like I had contracts like leaning into certain items I needed to upgrade and progress. And I think that realizing that and sort of doing those to help me get familiar is what sort of like help me understand that and after after a while like now I'm feeling more confident like I don't need I there's certain items I know I don't need um and I've started using like the the tracking yeah you can try yeah so that's really helpful but at first yes a little overwhelming but just know like I say like trust the system keep going through your contracts yeah slowly things start to make more sense so yeah it's it's just got a big skill ceiling

A high-scale ceiling. And that's what it's all about. You're going to have to like that grind. And that's why I pointed out, we're still, like, in the early part of it. And that's that extraction shooter mantra, right? That is the name of the game. You're going to drop into a world. And your goal is to loot and scavenge and bring that stuff out to upgrade and get stronger.

And, yeah, at the beginning, when you see it, you're like, well, what is all this? Right. What is this weird larva bug? Like, I don't need that. It turns out when you go into the upgrade panel, it's like, oh, well, you need eight of those upgrade this. You're like, damn it, like, I've been selling those. I don't be picking those up.

Like, what am I doing? Jerkka, you brought up you and Fran tracking items. What do you mean by that? School me, maybe I'm missing out on a... You are. There's a couple big things here. Derek, do you want it? Well, I was looking for something bioed for my vault space

because I'm like, I'm like, I missed it. I missed it. And I'm like collecting all this stuff. I'm a hoarder of things, which, you know, I'm sure Bungie hates me and my vault all the time. Now I have to buy more space, but I have these very specific things I need, and I was just missing them when I was out in the field.

So I'm out that you can track them. Exactly. So the function, there's a couple things, actually, that, again, there's this quality of life in the game that Tarkov, I don't know if it has now, but certainly didn't then. But as an example, you go to your factions, and when you're hovering over those upgrade items, so you're like, oh, I want eight more slots on the vault.

I want another row. You press on keyboard, it's the R button, track salvage. Oh, you're going to track every item for you, automatically, when you're in the game looting, what happens is, and this is a, it's just like Tarkov, but an extraction shooter mechanic, when you start to reveal the bag, it's all fogged out, right? You can't see anything, and it starts, there's a loot speed. You have to upgrade.

But what I'm getting at is when you track stuff, and, like, I don't know if any other extraction shooters do this, you'd have to tell me at this point, but it'll, it's a yellow eye. So as you're going out, all of a sudden, you'll see these blinky highlights. You're like, ooh, it's stuff I'm tracking. I need. And it makes it makes it so much. more accessible. But there's so much of that muscle memory to learn. And then even like, I even forget this is there. When you start tracking stuff, I don't know what the button is

on controller, but if you press escape on the front menu, you usually pull up everything you're tracking. Oh, and it's actually, sorry, it's in the game too. You press escape and it shows everything you're tracking. That's rad. There's a lot of little things like that. See, what I appreciate. See, I haven't found that on controller. Oh, I need that. You got to find that, Erica. See, I haven't been doing the tracking. What I appreciate is what I hope we've ever, over over the item, it says, hey, this is on perimeter and outpost. This is where it's at and those things. And so at least I know the general area.

So it's like, hey, it's on outpost, south-house post or North Relay, South Relay. I'm like, okay, cool. I want to be there, right? I'm going to find this there. So that's good to know. Exactly. I can get one extra level. Yeah, you want to do both.

And that's exactly it. You should start, once you start getting into the game, you're going to be like, what do I want revive speed? Because I'm heavy on PVP. Do I want loot speed? because whatever, it's burning me up, whatever. So you can really start to dial in what you want to track. And that is the way to play, by the way.

If you think of playing other, even just RPGs. Like, if you're not tracking a quest, you're going to be at a disadvantage, because then you're just bringing out too much. And then, like, you were hinting at you're like, oh, I left those behind. I've been seeing those all the time. And you're like, I could have all this extra vault space.

Like, I didn't know I needed an unstable diode. So, yeah, definitely get into the depth of that if you enjoy the game. It makes it so much more quality. Yeah. Jerica, Fran, I want to talk some more. What have I missed on the positive side of things that we want to highlight before we start flipping sides and talk about some of our critiques and some of the things we don't love. Okay.

I mean, look, I said it, I think is the setup at the beginning. The positive side is just the quality of production. And again, you'd have to tell me you went and played all the other attraction shooters. I just, I'm like, wow. Yeah, it feels like super high quality audio, super high. super high quality visuals. You know, it is very much the extraction genre. And I think that's the part that people are struggling with.

But, dude, it's quality. And when, yeah, when you get to the outpost map, I wanted to ask you, did you have a wow moment? The third map, outposts. Oh, yeah. Like when I went there, I was like, way, way, wait, this is huge. It's beautiful.

It's immersive. I mean, honestly, that map I'm still processing. It's a huge leap beyond the first two. Did you have that? I think the quality, I think you nailed it, the quality of all. all of this is outstanding, right? And that third map is something special

when you finally get to it. And for me, it was the environmental hazard. It was the fire rain coming down of like, me and Kevin were running around. And like, clearly it's a map designed of like it wants you inside. It very much feels like Stella Montes in Art Raiders, which is the final one

where it's like, hey, you're going to clash and you're going to be in these tight corridors. That's what this felt like of like, hey, you see this giant factory? That's cool and all. But most of the time, you're going to be inside. and there's going to be threats in there, and I really dug that. There's so much to learn in there still.

Have you seen where the fire or rain comes from yet? From above the missiles coming down? Yeah, I didn't even notice that first. I thought it was just raining ash from the sky, but then I'm like, wait, this map is like the labs or whatever. They're trying to keep you out by shooting this ash into the sky. It's pretty sick. Oh, man, we had an extraction there.

Jericho was crazy. We were, we clashed with something. There's like this moment where you start steamrolling, where it's like we took down one team or we took down another team. You're like, we're unstoppable Kevin A's X like, no one can stop us what I'm going out of. We take down another. We got, we found this one kid just walking by himself, got him, right? Like it feels so good.

And then we got to the end and it's like, we need to extract. Kid hits the button. What happens? Fire rain. And we're just all sitting underneath the roof like looking at the extraction, watching doors like waiting and it's like this intensity that you don't feel anywhere else because now it's like we're on pause, but other teams are coming to like, they do a great job limiting the extractions on the outpost, which, like, there's only one.

And it's like, okay, most people are going to come here, right? And it's like, here they come. And it's like, oh, we had a blast on that. Love it. It reminded me of cut their momentum. Keep pushing. You know what that is, Jerga? A little iron banner destiny for you.

Love that. That's great. You start rolling. But anyway, I was going to say, there's so many little things again, as you talk about it, like, for people who haven't played the game, again, I feel like the most rewarding part. about it is what you start to learn and master. And I feel like an absolute novice still after 25 hours.

And just to use an example, you're on outposts. I just realized it last night. So if you get overheated, it shows you the debuff in the corner. It's actually a two minute overheat. And I was triage. So I threw my drone out and it exploded immediately. And I was like, wait a minute. I just, I thought I cooled down because I went inside, but I was still overheating.

There's all these little things. So you would have to pop one of those purple mechanics kit to cool your hardware down. So there's a lot of little things like that. And some people are going to absolutely hate that management. But that's, frankly, again, it's very Tarkov. Like there's all these little things to boost your agility. And again, we're at the beginning. Like, I have not rolled blue shields with a bunch of goodies, let alone purples,

let alone whatever's going on with these exotic, you know, or gold prestige buffs. I haven't looked into it because I want to be surprised. But that's probably what's going to come out of cross. cryo archive. So look, we have just seen the beginning of the depth, I think, and the people that get into the game and love it are going to be those people. You want to grind for like 100 hours

or 200 hours and master this stuff. That moment when you look at your load out before you go in and you start to really fine tune what you want, right? Like, make sure I got my shield buff on. Okay, here's the three power buffs on the bottom. What do I want? Or I'm not using melee damage. Take that out, right? Oh, I want a little bit more on the heat sink.

So I'm not, I'm not slowing down on running, right? It's like, I love that game of like, Jericho brought it in. It's like, at the beginning, I'm like, I can't lose any of my stuff. This is all important to me. I can never lose this. And now I'm on like, run 20 and I'm like, I'm going to find the best load out and we're going to risk it all and we're going to go forward because now I am that little extra step more powerful than you out there in the battlefield.

Hopefully that takes me to the next level. But I appreciate it's like, hey, it's anybody's game out there. And they can, it can quickly roll over you if you think you're the top dog. And by the way, am I the only one, like stabbing bots, the feeling. and the sound. So good. It's nice. All the iconography is brilliant,

but even like finishing enemies, like the feeling of the, don't you feel it's super high quality? And getting the health back to you as well. It's just the feeling of hitting the finisher button and you're like, I forget the animation, but it like sucks the life out of them.

It's so cool. All that stuff I love. Have you had your life sucked by the tentacle monster up in the sky? That thing, dude, get that thing out of here. The first few nights. I'm just constantly getting sucked, which doesn't sound great.

But, you know, it's just like, Help me. Help me. I'm screaming out of the game. I'm going to help. I'm getting sucked. I'll put that on cons.

And then you'll get two bots. I'm like, I'm getting double sucked. Help. You just got to embrace it. Jericho, what are some fun things that I have, that we have missed that you want to highlight?

I think, you know, just bring, so, you know, I love, I love DESE because I get to play with my friends. So like bringing in,

like, just to, uh, folks you enjoy playing these games with has been probably the most rewarding thing so far and just like, finding those wins with them like just the teamwork element is always what drives me to keep playing destiny and then getting loot and is this a little bit of the same thing it is um i think just the the the pvp quick turn of events of being able to get good as they say is going to be the challenge

in it but the reward just also the reward and when you finally get to exfiel with some finally find some good stuff just feels so great. And yeah, if anyone's going to figure out how to make this game last a while, I think is Bungy, because they've done a great job with Destiny, in my opinion.

I mean, it's had its ups and downs, but very quick to change a system or figure out for next season, what needs to happen, weapon balancing. Like those things that we feel like that might not feel great right now in terms of balancing of, whether it's players, weapons,

environmental things like that is thing those things will get fixed by bungee like they'll figure it out so like i don't know like i'm a fan it feels fun to play to your point like i feel like my $40 has not been wasted and i'm just really eager to see how it evolves and like what could come from marathon way what other modes can we expect to see that haven't been shared already so it's exciting i'm glad i'm glad it's good I'm glad that you're enjoying it. Yeah. For me, it's the production value, Fran, like you brought up.

Like, I am wowed at the beginning of this with all the cinematics into just the beautiful world of Towsetti, into the gunplay that you know is so tight and so good with Bungi, right? And, like, extraction shooters are fairly new for the general audience, right? And it is a tough nut to crack of, like, learning it, living it, breathing it, of mastering it. It's like, that is a whole lifespan. Like, you brought up with the learning curve of, like, You know, shout out to one of the Gibronies out there in our audience. I came off of the service slam.

I was like, I'm not hot on this. And the kid just wrote, get good, Mike. And I was like, you know what, Jibroni? I will. And I've had the time of my life because of that. So whoever you are, thank you. Because I spent the time, I took the time to slow down and say, okay, Mike, like, let's learn this. Let's try this.

And I found the fun. I found the rhythm and I found the good times. Yeah, so interesting. Like, you mentioned that 180. But I didn't realize it was actually that big. Like, you really were down on it. And like, once you- 1-180.

Start the field of mastery. Yes. When we played the server slam, I felt like the game was too slow. We were doing 15-minute matches that we'd only bump into one team. I felt like we were running around the maps and it was empty. I felt like the AI was too strong and we'd get run over by them. Or I felt like the time to kill was so fast that teams would get the drop on us and it would suck because I would die and it would lose.

And like the hardest part of an extraction shooter is there is no response. You do have to reload into the game. You have to reload out. You have to jump back in and do all the steps you're doing. And so, like, there's this giant punch to the face that, like, you kind of got to get back up on and be like, all right, let me try again. And, like, that is one of the hardest parts of this kind of genre and battle royals in general. It's like, there's no respawn.

You're not going to try again in a fast manner. You've got to really commit to doing it again. Yeah, and I would just really stress again. Like, these, you know, we're early on. And that's why we'll talk about our final thoughts at the end of the show. And I'll be like, dude, this game is evolving. these games evolve, you haven't seen, we haven't seen it yet again.

When everybody's running Purple Shields or whatever, and I have, like, very little good gear. I was just thinking about, like, scopes I have, like, very little. And when I've had the opportunity to put on a blue scope or just to see the production value in the game, but also use the actual scope, like I haven't had a thermal scope, but I've seen them and they're OP. You know, there's just all sorts of little things that,

in the depth of the game that I know I haven't even seen yet. And I'll be really interested to see how that evolves. Let's have some fun. Let's jump into some super chats. So I want to round down the show with some super chats. And then just some of our thoughts, our critiques, and then we'll put our final touches on it. Guitar Hero Ero writes in with the $10 super chats and says, put in 20 hours with an open mind. Just not finding the fun. Very let down as a fan of the originals.

Bummed the IP was used for this. What's your history with the OG marathon and thoughts on this as a reboot? Fran, Jerica, do you know about the OG Marathon? Did you play any of it? And what are your thoughts on the reboot? I played very little of the original, but I mean, that was the precursor to Halo. And I really look, I know why they use the IP.

Yeah. I easily see the, the argument is put simply this, is we all wish that they took this and turned it into a Halo-esque marathon campaign, right? I wish it had that as well or was that. I mean, of course. But that's not what this is. but now that the job is done,

I think it's really cool. And they're tying a lot of their worlds together, which they kind of already had, you know, between Marathon and Hale and stuff. So, like, I don't have a real issue with that. It's that I also want the campaign at some point. Of course, of course. Right?

I don't think it's a problem, and we're seeing the lore now in the game, and it's pretty sick what they've done. Jericho, any ties to the OG marathon? Not at all. I know a little bit like the history behind it, but, you know, impacting my decision to play wasn't a factor.

Yeah, I have no ties to the OG marathon. I don't even know about it. So it's all new to me. I'm loving the world and the lore. And yeah, I mean, there's a piece of me that like sees these incredible cut scenes learning about the world. It's like, oh man, like they would make a crazy cyberpunk sci-fi game. And it's like, you know, I can't, I'm looking at what I have right now and I'm still having fun with it. Yeah. I mean, I think we'll see it in this cryo archive. But the one thing that is good that they were inspired. fired by it and used it as like Marathon was all about being kind of creepy

horror-esque like first-person shooter vibes and like you get even as colorful as this world is it's pretty like scary and ominous and we see that the maps are increasingly so so yeah Mike likes music writes in it says extraction shooters are the new battle royale we have so many of them now what has slash can bungee do to innovate in this genre I actually just disagree. Go ahead, Diorca, please. Well, I was like, I had, I mean, after my, my weekend of, like, what extraction shooters can I play?

And the reason why I haven't played that much is because I don't think there are a lot. Unless, yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think, like, Arc Raiders is the only thing that's standing out, Tarkov. Like, those are the two I think about. And, like, that one moment from, God, it just left me. Division. It wasn't actually the, it was like an extraction mode. that I played. Like, that was my touch point. So I don't, I think, I don't think there is enough.

And I do feel like they are doing a lot already that's much different than anything else. I think it's in its own lane and the genre, which sounds great, a subcategory to some extent. Yeah, I think it'd be a longer discussion of like, why did we arrive here with Marathon as an extraction shooter? But Mike, I would actually ask you, you did this recently. Like, what are the extraction shooter? Yeah, I'm actually, you know, I'm on the opposite time very much like Jericho, where it's like, I don't think there is that many extraction shooters. I still think this is a new open market that people are diving into. There's history with extraction shooters, especially with escape from Tarkoff.

We point to the division with the dark zone, which was like a very fun, different thing at its time. But when I look at the extraction shooter market, there's actually not that many, right? I don't think that the Hunt Showdown is an extraction shooter. Actually, it has extraction like, but yeah, I do not call it an extraction shooter. The cycle frontier is shut down. down. That was one. We still are waiting on ExoBorn, which is one that I previewed out in Vegas a long time ago gave you guys a preview up. That one didn't drop. And then of course we talk

about Escape from Tarkoff, Arc Raiders, and Marathon. Those are the big three that I have. Did you touch Grayzone or Delta Force? Are those? Oh, yeah. I didn't touch that. That's an interesting one. Yeah, when you talk about their extraction shooters of Grayzone and Delta Force and then Call of Duty had. Oh, DMZ, sure. DMZ, right? and I think that this is kind of a different class of those. I haven't played much gray zone, so great pull on that one. But I still think that's like this is an unexplored place that people are wanting to find

golden. And yes, you're seeing that happen right now over the past two years with so many games trying to try a new mode. And I think it's just like you're coming hot off of Fortnite and battle royals, which have dominated the market for almost 10 years, people saying, I want something new. And now developers going, okay, well, what is new? what is different, what can we try, or they just keep making you battle royale.

So I think we're still early in the extraction game. Yeah, I think you could have a long conversation about like, wait, let's assume we wanted a PVP-focused game. What would you want Bungi to do? Sure, different discussion. But they made an extraction shooter, and all I would say is there's not that many that are done well with especially this level of quality of life production value,

the lore, the cinematics, whatever. But then, like, honestly, like, I just personally don't know other than Tarkov that feels like, this sort of brutal and like challenging. I haven't played, you know, gray zone or Delta Force, whatever, but... Someone brought up dark and darker. A little bit different vibe, but I like that.

Well, no, no, dark and dark. That is both. It's just a... It's not a shooter. It's medieval, yeah. I would call it more hack and slash with some, like, spells and it's true. It is an extraction game.

And there are, there's more extraction games. And I would just circle back to the, like what I said about Arkray. Sorry, these games are just completely different. Yes, they share some very similar stuff. But the gameplay loop is the field is completely different. What can Bungy do or has done to innovate in this genre? I think that's the exciting part.

Is Jerica and Fran and brought up with the raid system from Destiny and how Destiny really captured that idea of like solving puzzles on the fly with a group, right? And I think that's where this team will probably double down on the next map that we see. And I think in the future is they will start to have world that you will solve puzzles in dynamically and differently throughout each map. that will be something special, right? It's like whether it be writing on the wall that leads you to one spot or it is, hey, we know that these are the five things

that we need to do to unlock the special room. I bet you will see that happen a lot moving forward. Which will be something special in the genre. Yeah, I mean, right now we are seeing a little bit of that what Bungi does innovate in, right? Like they have a community-driven event. There's panels in the game that nobody knows exactly what they're saying and they're unlocking a real ARG website for the Cryo Archive

and you're seeing cameras of the fourth map that are being unlocked by the community as a percentage of like, so there's, I don't even know how it's done exactly, but you'll see a panel in the game that's doing something, and then eventually you'll find one that's saying something, and then you've got to go to like another panel, and everybody's starting to connect these dots,

and then you have to input this information, I think, on the website, and you're unlocking the fourth map, meaning Bungie's done this a lot, but they're letting the community actually unlock the fourth map. And I don't know if there's going to be a world's first type thing on that either, but I think they are innovating in that sense. I don't know if the other ones have done much of that.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, you're feeling that bungee sauce there. Jeff writes in and says, got over 20 hours of marathon and loving it. The intensity is fantastic. Rock solo runs. Rook solo runs plays like survival horror. Lore and story is deep too.

Yeah, we highlighted that. We enjoy that as well. Yeah. I got to play some more Rook. I don't know. I like playing with my crew. I'm having so much fun. Yeah.

So, I mean, it is good to reinforce. If you want that experience, solo is the one to, like, you want to feel horror and scared. That playing solo is rough. Street Shadow writes in and says something I think gets missed. Marathon is PVPVE and Arc Raiders is PVVP. This is intentional and can really decide how you view the game. Overall, I'm loving it. Yeah, I mean, I think we're mixing up the letters on that just to have a little fun.

But it is like, I do think the focus is more. player versus player with environment in the background. As like you said, Street Channel, like, I think in Arc Raiders, me to sell it to Greg, it is, it's very heavy player versus environments with players as a threat in the background as opposed to. I think Marathon is kind of that next step of like PVP you're going to clash here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, Arc Raiders most often can be a lot more friendly or you can find ways to get in it out of there. And there's a lot of cool PVE stuff. Yeah. uh, Zeke speak writes in and says, super late to the conversation, but I've been mainlining marathon since release and really digging it. A game, a game for everybody is a game for nobody.

Yeah, I saw that. I thought that was a fair. Like, it was kind of what we were talking about, right? That deeper mastery. Yeah. It may not please everybody and like the genre may not be it for everyone. And that's okay. Like we're not,

we don't all like the same games. Like some people will absolutely hate dark and darker or they just might hate call duty multiplayer, you know, like that doesn't make it bad. but this one's going to, it's going to be more narrow. And I think that's, again, a different discussion. Well, it is a different discussion and a bigger discussion because Tristan does write in kind of following that. I see so many toxic opinions online, even desiring bungee devs to be fired.

It seems so many opinions become fashionable and it's so depressing. I love this game and I hope it survives. Fran, you and I pulled you aside. We talked about Steam DB and Steam charts, right? And that seems to be the latest trend in the video game. game online conversation is pointing to charge saying, oh, they don't have enough players, this and that. And then there's always the conversation of, well, there's two other, I mean, three, but there's

two other major platforms, Xbox and PlayStation, that this is on, right? You can't always point to just numbers here. But it does seem to be the fashionable thing. And I know, friend, you've been in this industry a long time. You've seen it evolve, grow, and the conversations change. The conversation now seems to be, if you're not dunking and being negative, you're not in with the fun conversations. You're being mean. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, if you haven't followed, people are just posting screenshots of steam concurrence and stuff. And like, all I will say, I mean, I could go off. But it's really reductive to the game discussion. I love discussing game play. I love discussing the game loop. And what does it matter what the concurrency is unless you're having a problem

matchmaking? And even then, like, you shouldn't even have to go look at that. either the game's working or not. There's way more than enough players right now. Or, and you brought this up, but I'm like, I think it's very rare that someone's like, oh, am I marrying this game for the next six to 12 months? Some people do do that, and it's a fair discussion.

If you invest your time and like maybe it gives you some insight on that. But again, I'm like, why don't you just, it's 40 bucks, you know? Like, not everybody can spend all the money in the world, obviously, and I want to be sensitive to that. But my point is, like, if you want to marry this game, sure. You can look at Steam concurrence? But otherwise, can we please just talk about the game? And we can focus mostly on, you either like extraction shooters and this brutality.

It's Apex meets Tarkov meets Destiny, whatever. And it has nothing to do with the fact that it was this many concurrence this weekend on Steam. And like you said, I'll leave it at this too. People just don't understand that sometimes, like you see, let's say, 100,000 people on Steam. That's a simultaneous number. That's not a unique daily number. It's not a unique monthly number. We don't have that.

It's also not engagement. And some games, you get in and out in six minutes. This game, you're in there for 30 minutes. Engagement time and the way that people behave is like, that's a whole different number that you'll never see. But I just think it's really reductive to get into that. That's all. Everyone loves to be armchair quarterback his rights.

Yes. That's my take. Everyone has an opinion on how they would run in the business. But as Fran said, let's talk about the game. Is it fun? Let's talk about the moment to moment. Tell me about that. And then if you want to talk about the business side, that's a whole other conversation.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's different if it's having, like, actual problems or it, maybe it is a bad game. Like, look, High Guard is obviously in this discussion. And I was the same thing, a big defender of it. And I've seen some of these jabronies in chat coming through even like, is it the High Guard dude. And it's like, okay, you don't even know what the High Guard dude is. So let me just cover off on that.

Look it up. I never said that game was going to be successful. I never said it was going to be incredible. I said, let's talk about it. Let's play it. That's what I'm about. I'm for game discussion, not game cancellation. And like, yeah, you're starting to get set off here, obviously.

Hey, no, Fran. We need more of that. We need to set the tone of we're here for game discussion, not game cancellation. I mean, I never in my life that I think I would see so many people so mad at a free game. It's just like, just move on if you're, you know, you're mad at it. But there is a deeper discussion in here that I think, again, it's worth covering at some point. This live service problem and the way people feel treated and like they feel like the development. are wasting their time.

Absolutely, there's a discussion to be had. But that doesn't make Marathon bad. And it didn't make Highgar bad. Highgard was definitely an early game. And I wish that it could have gone through more early access stuff. But anyway, Marathon is very different and it's quality. Well, here's a fun palette cleanser to finish out the super chats. Avey Nuts, write since and says,

Snowmike, Mike, when is the Frans only apron-only cooking stream? I need to know when I need to renew my only France account. Get your money out. I mean, it might have to cook you up something soon because I could use a few extra tips, save. Thank you very much. You're the best. Jerica, Fran, we will go around the table one last time. What did we miss that you want to add to the conversation?

Any final thoughts to close us out? Let's get out of here and go play some more games. Jericho, start with you. I think we got a game here for $40 that has so much potential. And still to all of our points earlier, just things we have it even on. unlocked or figured out that like I think this game for what is delivering it told us what it was going to be for the most part like it delivered on that and I feel like there's still a lot that I haven't even discovered so like as a right now like I feel like this is a great game like it's got everything

I would want from this world I think in terms of just how everything looks the the factions are really interesting to me it's got so much character. and there's you do feel the I feel the heart in this and at a glance you could look at marathon and think this is just something they're throwing at the wall I get at first glance if you're not dialed into like the production and development of this game but they really took a took an IP that's been long forgotten and made it memorable like I'm already if I see marathon like splat like splat up on a billboard somewhere like I recognize it um it's exciting and I'm so thinking like I'm glad.

Bungy the team got to work on something brand new. Like God, I feel like I've just been wanting something new from them for so long. So it's a more like a smaller scale thing, but like I'm, I'm eager to see if it continues the path that's on, if it can open up in new ways. Like I said, talking about raid design and level progression, loop progression. Like Bungy knows how does it knows how to do that. And I'm just really excited to see like what they. What's the fun thing they do to evolve an extraction shooter game? Fran, anything we missed?

Anything you want to close on? Yeah, I mean, I would like to wrap up by thoughts. Yeah, of course. I know you guys do score stuff sometimes. So I would just say, look, like, I'm the type of person I like to get into the depth of a game. So, yeah, not playing a ton of outposts yet, not even understanding a ton of these detailed mechanics. Like, seeing you go from a, I don't really dig this game to like, ooh, I'm kind of digging it. That can really change in a game like this as you get into the depth.

but put shortly, like this game is not for everyone, and Tarkov was not for everyone. And it turns out that Bungi decided to make that type of game. I definitely feel, again, all this extra quality of life and polish and lure and everything that Bungy brings to the table, and it's all there, but it's under this roof of this pretty hardcore extraction. Johnny, that's very PVP focused. And so you're not going to like it if you don't like those things.

I think you might even jump in and you might like dig the world. Is it worth your 40 bucks to kind of like roam, around and roam around as rook. Like, maybe. But I think a lot of people will find that it's pretty unfriendly out there. It's not like Arc Raiders. And that's even a meme. Like people going up and finishing people on comms and they're

like, this ain't Arc Raiders, kid out. And they're like, and that is this game. And you're going to have to like it. So I think they did a really nice job bringing it to the finish line, getting that extra six months versus where it was on last year. It looks a lot better. You know, granted, that was a play test

alpha last year. And that was the same thing I was saying then of like these things will evolve and change look at how much they did in a year so you know imagining that marathon will stick around for at least several seasons imagine how it will change but point is I want to see the depth of it but from a quality side and review and progress side I will say this game's absolutely in the eight type territories it's solid it's great but you've got to like the genre and for some people they're going to be like no dude I hate it you're like yeah you wouldn't like tarkov either yeah so I would leave it at that and I'm really interested to see, again, how it evolves and seeing, like, seeing builds probably, and the rare

loot that excites people, like, we haven't even seen that destiny side of it. And I'm curiously we will. And I'll leave it there. But like, oh, I have to get the backpack out of cryo archive because it does X or Y. Like, I don't know if we get there, but probably. You'll be really interesting. And then you'll have that dance of, do I bring it in? Because it's very powerful and helpful, but also Mike and his cronies are looking at me, you know? Like, that's the fun part about the extraction world. Yeah. And, and maybe the last. thing I would think is important to bring up is like it is a live service game. It's got a reward pass that you need to buy for 10 bucks or something or with the

deluxe edition. And yeah, either purchases, right. You have two routes. Yeah, you can get quite a bit of cosmetics from challenges and stuff out of the codex, though. Yes, yes. But it's a grind. And I just wanted to bring that part up to that if you want to get a lot of cosmetics and stuff, it is a grind.

But the whole game is a grind. And I was just remembering that I wanted to point that out as it's likely a negative for me. as much as I dig the game, I mean, similar to Tar Copp, that's like, dude, I feel like I have to play this for like 70 to 100 hours before I'm going to be getting these purple shields.

Okay, okay. So you have that conversation. It's like, well, wait, if I can't, in other words, if the reward is, I want to feel the power. And that's when you really start enjoying it. I mean, Eldon Ring can be that way, et cetera. You really got to put in a lot of work, and Bungee can be particularly grindy. So I'm taking a guess here, but it might be too

grindy for me and some, but some people love that. So, yeah. I've done a full 180 on this game. If you asked me last week, I would have said, absolutely not. Now this week, I am really into it, right? And if you followed me here, kind of funny throughout the months of Arc Raiders to this,

you probably, just like France said, right? Like, this is right up Mike's alley. This is not Arc Raiders. I am looking for the PVP. I'm looking for the clash. The tight destiny gunplay and movement feel great. The world and production value is through the roof. I really enjoy it.

I'm having fun chasing the high. I look forward to playing it more. And yeah, if we were to put a number on this, Fran, I'm at like really good to great. I'm at like a high seven to an eight, right? Like this game is good. This game is a lot of fun. And so it's like, I hope that people who want to dive in have a great time with it.

I hope they learn the world and enjoy it. People who are on the fence and they hear this. I hope they hear what Fran and Jericho and myself have to say of like, this is a punishing world. This is arc raiders to the next level when it comes to PVP, right? It's like, Arc Raiders did so great to get you in and understanding the extraction world. And if you started enjoying that and you want more and you want to try something different, this is a perfect next step, right?

I really do think this is like the next 2.0 of what Arc Raiders is of like, here's the welcoming world, here's the way you learn, here's where you have a good time. Hey, if you want to go even more in depth and you want to get to a little hardcore sweaty, this is the next game for you to try. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be interesting. I want to see where I land once I've played. everything and get to the depth. Like it, my favorite games is when you see

the gameplay evolve and you get the mastery of it. So to me, again, I feel a novice there and that's why I don't feel comfortable actually scoring, but it already, yeah, it's absolutely a good game that may not be for everybody. Yeah, no doubt. And that has been your kind of funny impressions, review thus far of Marathon

from Bungee after weekend one. Looking forward to more fun in Towsetti 4. I can't wait to hopefully stream it with Andy and Nick, maybe some more Fran and Jerica. And we'll see you on the next kind of funny games cast. We're not done though. If you're watching live on YouTube and on Twitch,

Nick Scarpino has a very fun solo stream. Y'all asked for it. You said, Mike, we want Nick to play dispatch. Guess what? For the next two days, Nick is playing dispatch all by himself just for you. So come out and support it. Come out and enjoy the decision making and the fun of that awesome superhero superhero tale.

But until then, this is the end of the games cast. It's been our pleasure to serve you. Goodbye. freeze frame