Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - New Xbox Game Pass Must Play: Escape Academy Review - Kinda Funny Gamecast

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Greg's reviewing Escape Academy and thinks you need to play it; Andy's playing Resident Evil 2 and can't wait to stop. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:02:29 - Housekeeping 00:03:54 - Escape Academy Review 00:27:06 - Ads 00:30:15 - Sonic Origins 00:40:10 - Resident Evil 2 00:50:37 - Overwatch 2 00:55:12 - Young Souls 00:58:05 - The Cycle 01:04:04 - What’s on Deck? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Gettys and I'm joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at EOIA Jr. Tim, do you smell that in the air? Yeah, I do. I do bless. Tim, I'm thinking review season is back. It's back, baby.

It's back and better than ever. We got things popping off left and right. So yeah, it's a note for everyone. The next couple weeks, we got some fun reviews coming. So stay, keep your eyes peeled. Keep your ears peeled to the kind of funny games cast. Isn't that right? Big Daddy, Greg Miller. That's right, Tim.

New reviews can drop at any point in time, but usually just a day or two before we expect them the game to come out. But yeah, there's a lot of reviews coming and there's not enough time to play them all. I'll tell you what. Yeah, video games are cool. Isn't that right? Nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Apple time.

Apple time. Now, what did you say? What's an apple you said? Honeycrisp, of course. See, I want you to know, I, you know, again, I would never chat. Chap be cool, chapy, cool. I don't know where it went wrong. We had a whole conversation about Honeycrisp apples

and how they're amazing, right? I just had a gala apple. Who let this garbage apple into my house? I don't know, but let me tell you, doesn't hold a candle at the Honeycrisp everybody. It sure doesn't. Sure doesn't. I'm glad you're speaking the truth right now

because I was worried that you weren't going to be honest about your feelings, but yes, correct. You know where my Apple allegiance lies. And it's firmly with the Honeycris game. I appreciate that on this game's cast. Greg, already. out the gate, keeping it real. It's a fat five that is a fat five. That is a fat five. That is a heavy.

Just be fat five in general. I do believe just based on knowing him and eye contact over there, blessing went and Google those apples because he only knows if there's a red or green apple. Am I wrong? I saw it. I just went to click to the screen and then come back. I really

had to figure out which was which I was like, all right, which ones are their fucking gala apples, which ones are the honeychris? I love those green apples. These green apples are great. How about them apples? That used to be my apple. And then it's like sourine anymore. No, I know I fuck with them still once in a while. But then like that's such, you know, I'm a regular old clomp or horse over here.

I'll eat any, any one of the honey crisp, even this gal that shit. I'll eat it right any day of the week. Whereas a granny you have to be in a mood for. You want to do the sour face when you eat it. Yeah. I'm a regular clomper, clomper horse. This is the kind of funny games cast, everybody. Each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them.

And apples, how about that? course you can get it on youtube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteeth.com. You could also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad free, watch live as it's being recorded and get the exclusive post show. You got to go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games just like our Patreon Producers, Bargo Brady, Delaney Twining, James Hastings, Casey Andrew, Gordon McGuire, and our tribesmen have done. We appreciate all of you. So very, very much. If you don't have bucks to toss our way on Patreon, that's totally cool. When you're out there on the Epic Game Store, buying video games,

if you use the Epic Creator Code kind of funny, it helps us without costing you a penny more. And we appreciate you so very much for doing that. A little housekeeping for you. The merch of the month continues on the Tropical Collection is live now. Designed by Naked Campfire Designs. You can check it out. A lot of cool stuff there. If you ever wanted a beach towel, emblazing with kind of funny stuff, now is your chance. We got some sunglasses. We got some pins. got a whole bunch of cool stuff, including a very fun festive shirt in multiple colors that you can go check out.

So yeah, that's cool. Today we're brought to you by ExpressVPN Athletic Greens and Meandis, but we'll have to tell you all about that later. We got games to review because it is review season part two. Greg Miller, you've been playing a whole bunch of Escape Academy, a game that we played at Summer Game Fest play days a couple weeks ago and gave some of our impressions on, but you've now beat it and you have your really,

review. What are your thoughts? We went to Summer Game Fest. Blessing and I played Escape Academy and we had a great time. Isn't that a right, blessing? Yeah, I adored it. I can't wait for it. In fact, I was jealous when you got a code and I didn't.

I'm just sitting here watching you play Escape Academy in front of me and it hurts. Yeah, I believe it was that you just wouldn't bend that you wanted a PlayStation code. Wasn't that the problem? No, I think it was the other way around. I wanted a PlayStation code. I didn't want a PC code. somebody's lying here

somebody's lying I thought that's what I just said you wouldn't have been you wanted a PlayStation code oh yeah sorry I thought you meant like yeah that I didn't want a PlayStation yeah no I wanted a PlayStation code

because I wanted to play the game with a friend right and that's actually my first question for you is like I look at Escape Academy and I compare it to Operation Tango which for me was a co-op game I played that game with Yami we had a fantastic time because

it is like all right cool you go over here I go over here like let me figure out what like clues I can find so we can figure out how to like work together to escape this thing. And that's how me and you played Escape Academy. And if I'm correct, I think you played this whole game by yourself. I did.

Yeah. So I play at Summer Game Fest when you and I fell in love with Escape Academy and had a great time with that one level, we played at co-op. And so yeah, when they came out and they said, we have only have the PC codes right now, I said, well, if you didn't know ladies gentlemen, I'm a PC gamer, so go ahead, hook me up. Send me one of the PC codes right now. And they did

and I jumped in and yeah, I played the whole thing alone. And it was that I tinkered with the idea of like, well, you know, maybe I can do a few of the puzzles with Jen. and, you know, try something that way. And then it just never worked out because I usually play games after she goes to bed. So, yeah, I played the entire game through Solo. And I'm happy to report that the experience we had together and the, I think, how impressed

we were with the game at Summer Game Fest rings through here. I think this is a four out of five. I think this is a great game. I think it's a great game to the point that I would recommend it to anybody. It's a $20 game. It is on Xbox game pass, but it's $20 if you want to buy it on Xbox. If you want to buy it on PlayStation, we want to buy it on PC. and I had a ball with it.

And what I love about it is that, and again, if you're not watching the video right now, and haven't seen it before, the idea Escape Academy is it is a first person, pretty much point and click escape room. You move around with the joystick where you're going to go, but you click on stuff, you interact with it, you pick things up,

and as you just saw in the footage there, you have it over on your sidebar, like the hammer, the clippers there, you can then use around the world. And the idea is that each one of these are little escape room, It's from a developer called Coin Crew Games. They had made a bunch of real life escape rooms. Then they wanted to get into games.

And they started making stuff here. And their whole point was, how can we make escape rooms feel as good in a video game as they do in real life? And they achieve it here. And what I love about it is that Escape Academy and the puzzles inside of it make me feel smart, whereas something like the witness made me feel dumb, if that makes sense. Where the witness, I remember when that dropped in, I'm not I don't consider myself a puzzle gamer.

Like I don't like necessarily being stumped and staring at something for, you know, a bunch of hours trying to figure it out. Escape Academy is designed to be digestible. It is done. These are puzzles that are meant to be conquered. And even if you can't conquer it, there's a, you know, a big old button that is the hit button. And it's not some general wink. Maybe you're not even to that point of the puzzle or whatever.

It is very much like you're in this section. This is what you should be doing next. And if you want to keep clicking through, it'll get more and more specific. as to like, and eventually pretty much all but give you the answer, which I only used once or twice, and it was mainly because I wanted to test it out. And obviously, once you do it, it totally ruins the puzzle. Because there's 13 puzzles you do here. You can replay them after the fact. But once you know them, you know them.

There's no R&G to or anything like that. I'm sorry, Andy, your hand went up. When you lower the difficulty, is it, you know, I know a lot of people had issues with Doom where the lowest difficulty, it's, uh, there's no difficulty here. It's Doom guy with like a baby. face or whatever. Oh, yeah, the pacifier. Got the little pacifier, got the little hat on. Does the button say like, hey, I'm a fucking idiot or does it like, no, no, no, no, not at all.

I need a hint. No, no, no. It's just a hit button. And you do it. And then if you want to, if you want to keep going in, it'll keep doing it for you. I do think it affects your grade though. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. You are getting graded at the end of this because you are in an escape academy. There's a story they layer over

this whole thing for what's happening and why it's happening. And so, yeah, you get a letter grade and that does affect it. I think as well as maybe your time or things like that. But that was never the motivation for it. And if you were for, I'm sure, you know, again, I'm playing on, uh, you know, a PC now. I definitely will replay this for trophies. And when I do, I assume it'll take me no time at all. Because now that you know how to get to the thing, it's going to be over in two seconds, right? Like what I think is, you know, one of the most ringing endorsements here, it's my notebook. And these are not notes about, did I like the game or not.

They're all the gibberish puzzles and me jotting down what to do and like diary of a magic. man scribbling through like what this thing because the game is so diverse in what it does and how it challenges you and gives you these escape room things which is so great like there are ciphers there's sudoku there's invisible ink there's you know this botany thing you need to do at one point when you're like breeding plants out to make these like they do so much different stuff in here and again back to why i think it works so well is that when you are there the answer is there if that makes sense Like the answer is in the room. You're,

you're, you haven't locked yourself out of something. It is that, well, shit, fuck, what do I need to do here? And it,

you know, the two times I, the two times, ish, I used the, you know, hint button. Again,

I wanted to try it out for what it was like, but then it also was like, such robbery to me. If I, the recommendation I would give you is, of course, play this, I think you should play this game.

I think you should get on game pass. If you don't use game pass, pay the 20 bucks for it because it's going to be a bunch of hours of fun for you. But my advice would be, Because again, even if you, some of the, like, one of the things, I think Blessing and I talked about that we like so much from Summer Game Fest was the level we were doing didn't have like a countdown clock. It was counting up. And we're, oh, it's going to affect our score.

Yetta, yada. I would say the majority of the puzzles in this game do have a countdown clock of like, okay, you have 15, 30, 45 minutes, depending on how intense the puzzle is. 45 minutes. Sorry. 45 minutes for a while. Yeah, yeah. The deeper you get into the game, the bigger the rooms. tasks get to be or whatever.

So you start really go out there. I want to say, me and you directed one that was like 30 minutes. I'm sorry, what was a blessing of your question. You said we went for 30-ish? Yeah, I want to say the one that me and you did. Felt like, well, like 30 minutes, maybe like 20 minutes. Yeah, something like that sounds about right for what we did.

I don't know. Man, Siri, shut up. And then do I feel the pressure? Fuck yes, too. There's one that I want to eventually screenshot and put out that I literally got it with two seconds left, where it's like a 20-minute thing and I got it in 1958. and like yeah I felt the pressure on that and it was the same thing of there was another one that I missed or whatever where it was you know the countdown clock and then I finally got to the final you know

you know how this goes is there it's all there's so many different parts there's like any escape room you'd be in right but you get to that thing where you get stumped on one of them forever and it's actually where I burned one of the hints I got through that but I had screwed myself over where I tried so hard on that one thing that I burned so much time that by time I got the other stuff I knew what I needed to do but I just couldn't like there was one final one where like the door that would have been the next thing started to open and the time expired. It's like, fuck. But to my point from earlier, I'm just like, who cares?

Once you figure out, like, once you figure out the things that are stumbling back, when you come and redo it, you'll be to where you got, where you failed because you got stumped on time, you'll be back to in, you know, a minute and a half, five minutes, depending on what the thing is. Like you'll have so much more time to then explore and figure it out, which again, I think is the way to play the game. I wouldn't burn it or whatever. And like, yeah, again, to your point, bless, like, if you want to play this, with somebody you got to go you both got to go in fresh otherwise yeah there's no real again

nothing's going to change about the levels you're doing again 13 uh different puzzles inside of the game the amount of time it takes to beat it and play well obviously very person to person my steam clock was saying yesterday when i when i was uh finishing the final two puzzles it was like six hours so it probably ended at seven actually if i'm being honest not because of the game at all just because i'm an exhausted guy and we went to a comedy show i felt sleep last night pro dad move on the final puzzle I fell asleep so I woke up and all my clock's like 17 hours that doesn't help at all but again where I left off and you know fell asleep blackout just exhaustion I was able to get back to it no time so that doesn't matter but I would say it's

between depending again this is very depending how smart you are you know I'm a big moron you're gonna look at like five six seven hours of content in there like I went through before this and added up all my final my you have a best time for everyone one of your puzzles. And all my best times added up to be like four hours and 15 minutes, but that's not counting for the two or three where I went to time limit and failed or where I played for a while and quit and came back. So six hours, I would say right around there, maybe a little less, maybe a little more depending on who you are. Andy, I saw your hand first, then I'll come to you bless. What are you doing when you're not doing the puzzles? Like obviously you get higher grades for

completing them well. And what is the goal for getting a higher grade? Is that affecting anything outside of the puzzles? No, that's all just for, there's a lot, there's window dressing on this, right? Like, the easiest way is that, you know, coin crew games wanted to give you a bunch of different escape rooms to play through. And so they layer on this narrative that you're at the Escape Academy, which, you know, I think they introduce it really cool. And then you're into it. And it's a lot like deadly class, the comic book slash TV series, nobody supported the TV series. Comic book, you all supported. I'm proud of you for that. But the idea of like this secret academy that you're so good at escape rooms, they invite you into and you get to go do.

But it pops up very much like indie persona of, you know, like the character art pops up. The text fills in in a box explaining what's going on. Maybe there's a little bit of a back and forth. Maybe there's a throwaway line of dialogue to introduce every character. And then you're into the new room to go do whatever you want, whatever it is. And so, yeah, the grade is strictly there at the end to be like, cool. Like, you know, this is what you did with it. But I think overall it's pretty meaningless, right?

because you're just like, well, whatever, did I finish it or did I not finish it? And then even if you finish it, again, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a trophy for getting an A plus on every level or whatever, but that it would just be so easy to go back, especially with your notes jotted down for what the actual solutions were to run through and do it. Did that stuff enhance the experience? The set dressing, sure. Like I, you know, when Blessing and I were playing it and we were doing the level where the water was rising and we're trying to get out and figure everything out. like it was a kind of jarring thing of like why would I at an academy have this janitor telling me what to do? But the way they introduced it, I'm like, oh, that's a novel little idea. And then the characters you meet there are fine.

And again, they're basically a VO line here or there to push you on your way and do it. But I appreciated it. And you are earning badges as you go. That's how like you're filling out this thing in your dorm room and you're putting the little memental wall. And like as you go throughout in general, things from those levels are starting to populate your dorm room. But it's all just one of those, oh, that's neat. On to the next thing. It's not like you're hanging out in your dorm room or really going through.

I remember this level so well or anything like that. It's just a nice little. That was giving my question, because when we played, right, we finished the level and then it kicked us to the dorm room. And it looked like the dorm room was somewhat explorable where you can like walk to a part of the room and like do a thing

or like turn to a side and like do other shit there. Is the dorm room really just, oh yeah, you're here for a second, but really you're just trying to get back into the levels as quick as possible. 100%. Yeah, it's all just the webbing between this, trying to give you something to set the stage for why you're doing it.

The dorm room, yeah, you can click on stuff and get like a little throwaway line about whatever memento, but nothing like worth your time, right? You don't name your character, your character's not customizable. You only see it if you look in the mirror and then a couple, like maybe the final cutscene, but like it don't matter. Did you have a preferred way to play between single player and multiplayer? Yeah, I mean, like in a, it's, I think both have their pros and cons

and I think they changed the experience. Like, I definitely found it, what it reminded me a lot of, and this is a huge pro for me, but then also a con to think about how much longer I played it, it reminded me in a lot of ways of brain age. And like, I remember playing brain age on my DS and like that,

you know, it was at the time, like such an animal crossing thing, right? Of every day turning it on, doing whatever the challenge was, feeling it out, having a great time with it.

And for me, me playing and reviewing this, having it being like, all right, cool, you know, we finished watching this movie or the show. I'm going to jump in and do maybe a puzzle, maybe two, maybe an escape room, maybe two escape rooms, right? Like, I felt that and liked that and really enjoyed that experience. And I enjoyed taking my time with it. And like, there is that thing that is different than playing co-op. Like, when we played the level, bless, right, at one point, you know, there is, it was in Barrett's B-roll, where there is these like half-complete, almost digital numbers on the wall and you have to take like these like a translucent pieces of sheet and put them on and figure

out what number is what number. And so like when we were doing that together, I was over at the dial, you were calling out the numbers and like I eventually put it in and unlock the thing and we moved on in the world. So coming back to that this time around, it was like, oh, I don't even know what this experience is like. And so I like being able to walk over there and hang the things and figure it out and put it up and be like, oh no, this isn't it. And blah, blah, blah. Like there's a different vibe to it. Like when you and I were tagged to you. And you. And you and I were tagged. teaming it. I felt like it was about speed. It was about this. Call the thing out. Was it taking you longer now that you had to do all the steps as opposed to sharing it with another person?

It's hard to say right, but I'd imagine, yeah, for sure. I, you know, I mean, I don't have much to compare it on because, you know, by the time we got to our level, I did, I don't remember the solutions, but I remembered how to get to the solutions. Uh, and so, like, for me, for sure, there was like, there was a level towards the end here. Maybe, yeah, it's actually a lot, the last escape room where it was like, fuck my goat ass. Like, I'm walking around. Like, What this shit am I looking for? Where is it going to be? Because again, the game does a great job of hiding solutions in plain sight,

which I also think is pretty impressive of like, you know, shelves that look like every other shelf, but then there's something on them you need, or even something being in the seat of a chair that you've blown by four or five times. Like, fuck, this was right here the whole time. Like, that's good. Like, it wants you to be very much in the scene. It wants you to be very much living in that environment.

it. And, you know, if you're not watching the video and stuff, like, it's got its own art style. It's basic to an extent, right? It's not like realistic. It's not like there's a lot of nooks and crannies, but it's got, it's a charming art style that I think works for what it's doing. And then also like, whenever it introduces a new concept, like when you're looking around trying to figure it out, the clues are almost always like on the nose, not necessarily like this is the solution, but like, oh, you're calling this out, which means I need to pay attention to that. Why would you say you know, you've got to be an ace or whatever. Like, you know, it's all these different things.

Like, you know, you actually have to pay attention. You learn the rules of the world as you play. And I really enjoyed being lost in that. This might be a tough question to answer, but would you describe it as easy? Because, you know, as you describe it, as you describe it, earlier on you invoked the witness. And, like, you know, in the streets, Greg, they like to call me puzzle poppy.

That's one of my nicknets. I have heard that. I've heard that. Yeah, puzzle poppy. I think there's an emote for it actually on Twitch. It's kind of funny games. What streets, by the way, what streets? Puzzle.

Avenue. Jesus Christ. Okay, that's where we're going with it, everybody. But like, you know, the witness, the witness is one that I fucking love, right? Like, the witness is probably one of my favorite puzzle games, but I was also a game that

absolutely kicked my ass a lot of the time. And I think a big reason for that is the witness does not hold your hand whatsoever. And it being this open environment meant that I would go over to one area to do a puzzle and, like, start it up and go, do I

even know what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, did the game even teach me, like, what the solution to this kind of puzzle is? Or do I need to go all the way over here to figure it out, right? Like, the entire island was a puzzle in and of itself, which made it kind of hard to kind of condense things down in that way, whereas in the way that you're describing Escape Academy, it sounds like each room is so condensed. Like, each room is its own puzzle that you don't have to really think about what the rest of the puzzle rooms outside of that room might be or, like, what the rest of the levels

might be outside of that. Would you describe it as easy, I guess, comparative to other? puzzle games in that sense the word i i won't dance around it i'll give you a straight answer right and i would say yes but not but not in a negative sense what i think a better way to i would describe it would be approachable again i think like they've designed a game and they've designed these escape rooms that are meant to be beaten they aren't meant to beat you and so it really is up to you if you want to like double down and never use the hit button or use the hint button or you know once you just learn what's wrong what you missed that's always the thing right the two times i used the hint button it was like

oh shit yeah that me you know what i mean like oh fuck i walked right by that thing a million times or i never would have thought of that that would have been one that i would have walked around this thing for multiple playthrues and i don't know if i ever would have clicked in my head to push things over but like that thing for me was few and far between right if there's only one and i can think of that i'm like oh well that's interesting because i've never done anything like that in this game and I'm so late into the game that it wants me to do that. Awesome. That's a really cool way.

It's just like, you know, in some ways, you know, I'm resting in my laurels, right? You think you know what the game would have you do. And it's not like some drastically crazy thing. It's just unlike anything you had done in the game of exploring the space. And again, that's awesome. That's cool, I think in the way of challenging you. And then I also think, you know, it's awesome and cool that there's a button to get out of it if you want to. I would just say if you're not on a review deadline, don't worry about it.

Don't ever use it. Or, you know, if you're playing with your friends, call out stuff and try stuff out. Does the game feel designed around co-op versus single player? Do you think that you'd get a different experience out of it one way or the other? I do think you get a different experience out of it. I think both are fun and both are equally enjoyable. Like that was my concern because, like, again, like, you know, there was one where when Blessing and I were playing together,

we were doing split screen local. And there's online multiplayer for this too, but there's split screen local as well. And, you know, it was a cipher. And so Bless had pulled up the cipher and I was then looking off of his screen and jotting things down and then trying to do something on my screen, right? I was worried before getting the review code and being able to play through it that those would be those weird moments where it would be really clunky and it would really be annoying. That didn't happen. Like the game does a great job of when you call up the items in your inventory, you can pin things to your screen.

So like in that instance, right, I just pinned the cipher to my screen and then I was working off the code and doing it that way. You know, it'd be cool. It was cool and blessed. And I were calling things out and doing things. I was, you know, again, a notebook full of a whole bunch of different crazy notes. And then, of course, I was taking screenshots with my phone and then looking at them while I was trying to solve other puzzles and stuff. I think it really does morph to what experience you want out of it.

Like I really, you know, I would have totally been down to do this co-op the entire way through with somebody. But I also really enjoyed it on my own. Cool. On the kind of funny scale, what would you give it, Greg? It's a four out of five. it's great. You know what I mean? Like I think it, you know, it falls short of being amazing for me because I think not amazing isn't attainable. We've given out a lot of five out of five out of fives here already. But it's just one of those things where like this is so great. Like it's

such a great experience that I would recommend anybody, blah, blah. But like, did it amaze me? Like was I, you know, I was like floored by any of it? No. And I think part of that goes back to them making it an approachable game where again, you know, I don't think it's synonymous with easy, but it is some things of like okay cool like i understand what you're driving at here and i understand like when you're putting this thing out or underlining this like it makes me feel smart as i said right i am not smart i know that and so like it does get to that thing of like it is designed to hit me and scratch that itch and give me those endorphins where i feel like i'm solving something when i'm really not as the witness would have proved when you watch me play and struggle that right like there is that thing

which again though that is the experience i think's great here and I do think it works really well, and I do recommend it. I think it's like, even if you had a passing interest in that I would say, go get it, because I think like if you are looking for something to play with a friend, if you are looking for something,

you know, to be a nightcap for you. If you're just looking to try it and you have Xbox game pass, like it's, you know, my full power of Greg Miller behind it of how much I enjoyed it. I hope we get more. You know, again, like they are very clear in this,

like, you know, this is your like first year at the academy. I'm hoping that they do a sequel. I'm hoping that they keep going, maybe DLCs or episodes, or whatever. And that would be the one thing, again, that holds it back where it's like, and not even holds it back, I guess, but I finish it and I want more. I don't feel like

I, you know, I deserve more. I think $20 is a super fair price for this, especially when you consider like, you know, how much I want to watch the movies that are in theaters at home. So I'll buy the Amazon. I'll give you the 20 bucks for whatever, you know, early rent and I get way more hours out of this. But then there is that thing of like, outside of trophies, there's really no replay value to it, right? Like, since nothing gets jugular than nothing. It's not like a challenge mode or anything like that. Yeah, exactly. It's literally just like, okay, cool, you can replay this stuff from your dorm or start a new game, but why would

I start a new game with somebody when I'm going to be there like, well, why don't you go, Tim, go check out that thing. Man, that banana looks so weird. What's the same with that banana. Later this week, Mike and Nick are going to stream it on kind of funny games, Twitch channel. How do you think that's going to go? Excellent.

Like, it's going to be fun. And that's what, you know, a blessing and I saw that on our own when we were playing co-op with it. And I think they'll have the same experience. with it where I'm very excited to watch that and be on the outside being like, oh, no, Nick, do this thing, do that. I don't think it'll be, I don't think necessarily right away you're going to run into these levels of frustration.

I think it's frustrating in the right points. Again, it's the time crunch, right? There's a level eventually where, you know, you're poisoned and you need to make your antidote. And so running around and doing all these things and, like, it's always that thing where, you know, it's on the other side of the locked liquor cabinet. You can see the thing you need. But even the thing you see you need, you don't know how to. used until you find that like i think it'll be fun of them running around their hair on fire and

hopefully you know mike paying a little bit of attention to it we know that he's struggling yelling and nick what to do but i think they're going to have a great time with it i can't wait there you go escape academy four to five from kind of funny now i want to talk about some other games but before i do that let me tell you about our sponsors shout out to athletic greens for sponsoring this episode i started taking ag one because i'm not a big pill guy i don't want to spend a lot of time on extra things, but I wanted to make sure that I was taking care of my health. Now, I've been using it the last couple months, and I love it. It doesn't taste like it's super healthy. It has a fun tropical taste that I actually look forward to in the morning. With one

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Go to meandes. slash kind of funny. That's meundees.com slash kind of funny. Bless, it's been a couple weeks that we've been playing a game, a collection of games that you and I are both very big fans of. And we haven't been on the same gaming show to talk about it. So I don't want to take up too much time, but we got to talk about Sonic Origins.

What's your experience, Ben, so far? So I've been trying to work my way through all the games. I've only played through all the way through Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, and I've also played quite a few levels of Sonic CD and most of Sonic 3. And those are all, those are all four games. So I played most of it. Yeah. And like, you know, about what a week or so ago, you came to me and you're like, yo,

the platinum in this game was actually kind of attainable. And so I looked through the trophy and I was like, fuck, Tim is right. And then also do like the mission mode, which are essentially these like standalone challenges in each of the games that you can do. As I've been playing through, I've been having such a blast returning to these games. it's not like a perfect collection there are some things wrong with it which we can talk about in a sec

but just for the idea of returning back to these classic Sonic games I think I was telling Greg this the other week that like I'm surprised by how good Sonic 2D games hold up like there are excellent 2D platformers like not the greatest 2D platformers of all time by any means because I know people are always like

well you compare this Mario compared this to like no but also like they're good they're really good 2D platformers just in terms of like level design in terms of presentation, in terms of music. Sonic 2 at this point still remains my favorite 2D Sonic game, aside from Sonic Madia. And we'll see how that continues as I make more with you, Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

But like, there is like a probably like a four to five level stretch of Sonic 2 that had me like, yo, this game is on another level in terms of the levels it has, right? Like going into Emerald Hill, into chemical plant zone, casino night zone. Like there is a handful of levels in Sonic 2 that is. fantastic and then you get to the final boss and I'm like oh fuck this shit is difficult this shit is hard as hell but I've been having a blast with it despite some minor glitches that I've been experiencing and like you know I've looked online and I've seen other people experience other glitches that might be bigger than the ones that I've been experiencing but Sony2 specifically there's a bug where

tails gets caught off screen if you're playing at Sonic in tails and I had that bug multiple levels in a row and it was very it's a killer right it was very frustrating not in the you know, it's not a game breaker by any means. It's just annoying in the sense that, well, I picked Sonic and Tails for a reason, right? I want Tails to be, like, hanging out with me. We're trying to cheese those bosses, baby. Exactly. And then also, with that bug,

you can hear Tails off screen stuck on, like, a bouncy pad usually. And so, like, is this- screaming? Yeah, it's just this annoying sound. Yeah, he's like, God, please help me. No, this is this annoying bouncy sound that you hear off-screen as you're making your way through the level? It's the most annoying shit.

But yeah, like, that's been my experience. Tim, how you've been enjoying it? Yeah, I'm right there with you, man. There has been a couple of little bugs here and there, and it's really unfortunate for this type of collection because it's otherwise, I think, a close to perfect collection of the original Sonic games. This is really the first time we've had Sonic 3

and Knuckles in widescreen with kind of all the updates that the other titles have seen over the years. I'm similar to you. I've been working my way through them all. I'm definitely doing it the wrong way, where I keep bouncing out of the games and, like, playing through. other ones, just because I want to

play a little, little of CD, a little of two, little a three. I love the presentation overall. I love that they added all the animated intros and outroes for each of the games. It just kind of gives it a lot more kind of cohesion between the entire experience. And there's a mode that I'm really impressed with

that I forget the name of it. So there's classic mode and anniversary mode. Classic mode is just like how the games used to be, where it's like more 4x3 anniversary is the widescreen. And you don't need to worry about lives or any of that. It's kind of just, it's a better way to play the game, honestly. But there's a maybe it's called story mode or something like that. I don't know, but there's a mode when you go all the way right on the menu that allows you to just play all the games as if

they're one seamless experience with the animated cutscenes beginning and ending each one. And I really dig it. Like I think it's a it's probably the right way to play through these games, whether it's your first time or you're in my case, 100th time. But yeah, the the complete a lot of people have had. I am right there with the new music that they had in Sonic 3 to replace the Michael Jackson songs are horrible. There's some of the worst, the worst sounding things I have ever heard.

I can't believe they got approved. Like when you're playing one of the other levels, what do they sound like? Dude, it's just like super shitty quality, like really bad Cassio keyboard stuff. And it's backed up against some amazing, like Sonic music, like, no matter of who you are.

It's fantastic, man. Like you can, not like the games, whatever, the music is so good. And then you get to some of these levels that the original version, like Ice Cap Zone in Sonic 3, the song is so good. And the version in this, it's like, it's embarrassing. Like, it makes me angry. And like, I literally have turned it off a couple times because I'm like, who the fuck approved this, man? It's a disaster. Do you think that it was like a composer trying to emulate a certain style or does it feel like it was just, let's grab songs from a sound library?

it sounds like they were made for this i just don't understand what the direction was because it like it semi is trying to have that like sonic kind of new jack vibe but it just doesn't work man it just feels like it's out of place entirely like they it is a fail it is a huge huge huge miss that i can't believe that they're like it's good enough ship it um but the the mission mode that that bless was talking about. I actually really like. It's a bunch of, I forget how many per game, but maybe like 10 or 20 per each of the four games. And you'll just kind of go in with very specific missions where it's like, kill six of the the caterpillars or like go through and don't touch any of these guys. And for games that I've played so many times, I like having kind of new things to do. It kind of feels like the, like there's trophies

built into the game itself on top of the normal trophies and achievements and stuff. And like, Plus was saying the platinum is not only attainable, but like it kind of seems like a fun thing to go for. So I'm like, I'm working my way through and enjoying it a lot. One of the weird decisions that they made with this, and I hate when they do this, is they changed the button mapping and you can't change it yourself. So like if you're playing on a PlayStation controller,

the square button is how I would want the spin dash to work. Because like in Mario, you hold that and you kind of do that thumb thing where it's like you hold the run button and then you jump with the, But the other one, for some reason in this, in the original Sonic games, on the Genesis controller, there was A, B, and C, the three buttons. All three of them did the exact same thing. It jumped or spin dashed. For some reason, they changed that. So I had to go into my PlayStation menus and, like, do the thing.

Actually, like, into the PlayStation. In the PlayStation menu. Yeah, I changed it so it would work the way I want it to, which is like such a dumb Tim thing. But it's also like, guys, come on for this type of collection. It's like, there should be options, man. Yeah, but I'm really tired of these companies fucking a button mapping. It's like, why? Like, that should be the simple thing to get right.

Like, you know, game development, art, music. I get how that stuff is like difficult or whatever. Button mapping should be the easy part of this. Like, yes, let us remap the buttons. Because, yeah, I'm right there with you in terms of I'll press like square. And I'm like, oh, wait, oh, fuck. Okay, I'm not supposed to be doing this. I guess I'll just stick to X and circle for whatever arbitrary reason why they meet these the buttons to,

to do it with. But like, you know, speaking of interesting choices, one of the things I, at first was like, oh, this is dumb, but then I ended up getting like pulled in by it was the, if you, there's a menu you can go to to like unlock things with coins. As you play the game, if you're like, instead of extra lives, you can collect coins. And you use those to spend on like just random like videos and like songs and shit, right?

Like fan shit that you want to get. And like one of the videos Fan shit. Fan shit. One of the videos you can get are like the Sonic anniversary Orchestra videos for each of the games and I saw that and I was like I can literally watch this on YouTube. Why would I do this? And then I did it and then I played it and then I sat back and like let that shit play and I was like

oh fuck that was a really fun time. Let me let me spend five coins on Sonic 2 anniversary orchestra and I did that and I didn't have a fun time with that too and like they have like a lot of weirdly like you know packed together stuff like that like the anniversary stuff They have like, you know, I think the Sonic Generations version of Green Hill Zone, at least like some 2012 version of Green Hill Zone in there that you can unlock for like five coins. It's like a bunch of random shit that I'm unlocking mainly for the trophies.

But also I do like, I do, you know, click through that stuff and let it play sometimes. And I'm like, oh man, this is really nice. Like Sonic the Hedgehog just has this weird way of like, again, pulling you one with music and with like a lot of the nostalgia portions of it. but yeah like that's that stuff i do kind of kind of dig as well yeah i'm having a great time with it you know i i've i've always loved these games to varying degrees but i think this is a great collection i'd probably give it a four out of five because there are some glaring emissions and just some like weird little issues here and there that like hold it back uh which is really sad because i feel like this is the type of thing that like should be a five like it's like a slam dunk

just get the games and do them right and it's it's upsetting that's still not the case but uh i'm still having fun and i'm definitely on a in this at some point and then I'm going to play it all again on the switch because that's the type of life that I live hell yeah but Andy you've been living a very different type of life a very spooky type of life you're doing something I never thought you would do playing

through Resident Evil 2 remake how's that yeah sure I'm um it's been as scary as as advertised like I it's as scary as I assumed it would be um I knew I was kind of getting myself into

something and I have to play in I have to play in really short chunks which is why it took me about a year blessing to finish Resident Evil 8 if you remember when we play that on stream I have to play in like two hour bursts

I cannot continue adding stress like that because it just it just it fucks me up man mentally my body gets super hot and like my chest feels super warm it just feels so ugly you're describing exactly how I feel when I play

Bloodborne. It took me also a year to play that exact same reason. Yeah, it's a, it's just a bad time, but you know, I totally understand, this is a game that I played part two and then I watched a

friend play part two because we would just rent games back in the day, so I never owned it in any way, but it's a game that I experienced way back in the day that I just don't really remember a whole lot except for the liquor in the window moment. And and all sorts of things like that.

Those are like kind of those key moments that you remember as a kid. And I think this, I think the game is just super stunning. And the PC port that recently got ray tracing, ray tracing is a decent kind of implementation on Capcom's part, but they ended up releasing a non-ray tracing version

to go back to DirectX11 if you want the game to run better. Because apparently DX12 added a lot of performance issues. And going back to DX11, it has just that really ugly sort of screen space reflection, which is hard to explain. But like when Leon's holding up his gun and you are pointing at a door and let's say the floor is tile and you see like really ugly lighting underneath his arm that's like wherever you move, the light kind of follows wherever his arm is.

It's like, ah, it's just so gross. So I decided to go for the ray tracing version. and it's a pretty decent implementation. It's super spooky. It does really cool stuff with like just ambient light. But the tech side of stuff is like the reach for the moon engine is just on another level. It's not the RE engine. Everybody is the Resident Evil engine.

It's not Greg. You know it's reach for the moon, Greg. I didn't know that, Andy. You just taught me something. Thank you. Amron taught me that. Dude, it's RFTM. You just got to believe.

I've always been so impressed with the engine. and RE2 is my favorite use of it so far, I think in terms of visuals, because being in the police department, they're just having the reflections of all the wetness, everything's wet. So I can't even imagine how dope that would look with the RTX and all that stuff going.

But it's legitimately some of the scariest gaming moments I've had just because it looks so good and the way that the water reflects and you see the light kind of shimmering where it's like it's constant jump scares almost just because of the reflections in the water. Has that been messing with you, Andy? It's super unsettling, man.

It doesn't really matter in what moments. Like, if I, the, the 3D audio is so fucking awful to experience. And I hate playing, like, I hate playing scary games, period. I don't ever want to play them. But playing them with 3D audio and having headphones on just adds to the experience because I'm just, it's a 360 experience of just terrible little, little creaks of, wood happening and it's like was that in my actual apartment or is that like actually in the game

it's so it's so immersive they did such a great job with the audio it's just it's been me sneaking Lulu into your room and just having her kind of like walk behind you just a mess up figured I felt something to lick my leg is my leg or the lecking leg was me oh

okay I also like scragged into into your room as well just as a little roommate joke it's a bang up job you did how you manage to get by Um, the, uh, I will say it, I totally understand why this game is just so, you know, highly regarded. I, I think it's just really damn good with level design and, um, kind of pacing you through and giving you, um, like, you're not ever experiencing a whole lot of just either dead moments or too many, you know, jump scare moments. It's like a really good balance.

So yeah, shout out to Capcom. This game's gonna go places. What's up, Les? Have you reached Mr. X yet? No, but, uh, I just say Twitch chat is very excited for that to happen. I'm so excited. I assume you know the deal with Mr. X.

Yes, I know this motherfucker chases me down nonstop. Okay. That is gonna be so good. I can't wait to watch this. Maybe single-handedly like the most scary shit that I've experienced in a video game. And I like, I think that I love and hate is when video games introduced new fears that I didn't I didn't realize that had. You didn't even know you had this movie.

Yeah, like, Elgin Ring did it with the hands where I was like, oh, it turns out I'm very afraid when hands are very big and very fast and have too many fingers. Resident Evil too taught me that if you put me in the scenario where I am stuck in a space with a force that is chasing me and trying to kill me and I can't kill that force, it is the scary.

I don't know if you remember the TikToks about the snail. You know, the snail that if you get immortality and there's a snail that if it touches you, it's always chasing you. If it touched you. The old Gavin Free meme. The only, is that a Gavin Free meme? Yeah, Gavin Free started that discussion on the Rousseteeth podcast.

Oh, shit. Now you mention it. I remember listening to that podcast. Holy shit. Yeah. But yeah, like that type of shit terrifies me. Like, I hate the idea of just being constantly chased and like they always know where you're at. And like, I am not looking forward to the anxiety that brings.

What's the over under on you actually finishing this game when that aspect is introduced? Because that is the only reason. reason why I have not touched Resident Evil 2 remake it's I mean I have to finish it and we it's for charity we did it for charity I promised that I would play through it I would deliver and people were like oh Andy you should play through is Claire on your first play through or first play through this is not gonna be a second everybody chill the fuck out I'm playing one thing I'm I don't care about the rest of the story I don't care the true ending do I do not care about this universe

You gotta play both of them. If you only play one of them, then that's half the game. That's not, that's half the game. You gotta shove your head up your ass right now. That's not how it works, Andy. That's how the game is. I like, I do you know the full story. Huh?

What charity is? I raise charity for urban arts. Getting like underprivileged kids from neighborhoods, like, getting to coding and art and stuff like that. You can't back out of that. No, I can't back out. Yeah. It was like climate change or something.

It's like, well. It's already done. You can't mess with the kids. Yeah, you're exactly right. You're exactly right. But yeah, I think it's just such a brilliant game and it's gorgeous as hell. And I am looking very forward to it being done in the next, I don't know, like five to six hours. Depending on how long it takes me with the misdirect stuff.

I'm just very, very worried about it. I'm not looking forward to it. I love hearing you talk about this. It's so funny because it's like, it's so clear that you're like, oh, man, the quality is there. But I fucking hate this thing. It's a miserable experience. Like, I'm trying to laugh and joke through it. But at the end of the day, I'm just so envious of people who seek horrifying experiences as entertainment.

I don't, I will never get it. I will never understand that. I want to laugh. It fascination me so much. Like, how big will a blood-born fan you are? Because, like, you know, playing through Resident Evil, too. Mr. X was fucking terrifying to me. And, like, there were jump scares and shit that scared me.

But for the most part, like, Resident Evil doesn't get to me. as much compared to like Bloodborn where every moment in Bloodbore, like you watch me play right? Like I'm looking around every corner, I'm tiptoeing around and I think there's probably also the added fear of there's legitimate difficulty where these guys will kill me and send me back to the last

checkpoint. And you'll have to re-experience it. And I'll have to re-experience it all. And there's like spiders and creepy crawlies and all this shit that really fucks me snakes. I think again of it, it's the nature of the mechanics and fighting through things and the, I think, I think it's the corridor aspect of it's dark everywhere and I have a flashlight. And what I'm hearing up ahead, I know is like waiting to, there's going to be a jump scare coming up somewhere because they are, not that there's not jump scares in bloodbore, anything like that.

Like they deliberately have, you know, moments like that. But I, it's the idea of like, I got way too confident with the amount of bullets I have. And by the time I knew it, I was out of bullets. And I was like, fuck, man. This is just, I have like three shotgun shells. At one point, I had like 50-something handgun bullets. And by the way, this is fucking hand. What are these zombies heads made out of?

Why does it take eight fucking head shots, dude? I don't get it. Dude, this is one of the things that drove me like the old days, old days. Where I'd shoot in the head. I'm like, I don't want to, this fucking. They're not playing zombie logic. I want to play a zombie game. Like, I'm, dude, I'm fucking heads non-goddammed stop.

And like one time I've had a critical headshot in the first two shots. We're like the second shot I did it. They had exploded. I was like, oh, that was cool. And I haven't experienced that ever again. I don't think. I got theories. I think they base zombie health on how much ammo you have.

And so like if you're running, if you got three bullets, if you get two head shots, they'll explode on the second one. But if you have like seven bullets, this can take you like five bullets to take that thing down. The goddamn liquor scared the hell out of me. And I had the zombie dogs are so fast. And I'm just, but again, I'm on mouse and keyboard. I'm fucking whipping my shit. I'm fucking moving my mouth.

It's so good. It's really, really good stuff. Roger Perry, baby. It's a good game. Yeah. What about Overwatch 2? Overwatch 2 is back. The beta's out and it's really, really fun.

I don't have a lot of to say about it. Aside from like, they've just tuned a couple things and they've released a couple of more maps with their new added changes. Also, one of my favorite things is just to look at all of the new stylistic. changes to every character has their new version 2 skin out. Like they're you know, you always have

like your base skin and then all the other ones that you can download. But now they have the version 2 skin for every character and I just, as a fan of art, it's just really, really dope to look at it. But yeah, Overwatch is still good as hell, really fun. And I hope that they

let more players in because the Q times have not been great. The big problem with it right now is like, you can buy in to get into the beta if you don't already have access and it's $40. And with that $40, you get into the beta quicker, obviously. You have instant access. You also have the first battle pass for whenever the game comes out. But you won't have like a lot of people, including me, were confused thinking that the $40 was you kind of pre-buying the single player access whenever that does happen.

No, you're basically getting like three skins right now. You're getting access to the battle pass whenever the game launches in October. But for, so because of that, people are like, well, I'd rather just wait to see if I'll get a code to get into the beta instead of paying $40 because I don't care about these skins. And all that does is make the Q times awful because it takes a long time to find a game because everybody wants to try out the new tanks and the new damaged player changes. And if you want to play support, you get into a game in three minutes. Anything else, you're in a game like seven or eight minutes. It just takes forever. So it's kind of annoying in that aspect.

It's much changed since we played about a month or two ago? There's two new maps. Well, there's a brand new map that you didn't experience, haven't experienced. And a couple of newer maps have been added to the rotation that have been tweaked and tuned visually, but they weren't there from the last beta because the last beta only had a certain pool of maps. So there's a couple new ones there, but some heroes got

changed and there's that new tank, Junker Queen. Tall, muscular mommy. She's great. She can't die. She's like incredible. She's a really, really good hero. I'm happy to report, actually. I just check my email. I'm in. I got the Overwatch 2 beta code for

for PlayStation, Andy. He's in. He's in. He's in everybody. Andy, so far, do you think that this, could like break into your top five of the year? When the multiplayer pops up, probably not. I think that would just be kind of unfair to a lot of the other game.

I think after, I'd say around April, I was like, man, it's going to be a struggle to kind of build a top 10 this year. And now it's been like, I keep on saying, wow, this is probably a top 10 for me. And then I look at what I've played, I'd be like,

I actually don't know. There's been a lot of really good small gaming experiences that I've had that it's making things a bit more difficult. So I'm really stoked to like finally when we get to the end of your conversation and see what actually ends up there. But I don't even know if it would make top 10. I'm only saying that as somebody that wants to give the other games a chance because like I've been playing Overwatch my whole life. And I think it's the best multiplayer game I've ever played. I don't think I think it would be unfair to put. How long you been playing Overwatch?

My whole life, dude. It's just 2016. I'm sorry. See, the struggle I have with it, because I'm in a similar place where like Overwatch, I think, is one of the best most player games ever. I've been waiting for Overwatch too for like, you know, like, I've been very like highly anticipated. For my whole life, yeah.

But like the version is coming out this fall, that's just the early access version, right? Like, it's not going to be until maybe next year where the added single player is 1.0. Well, well, October is the official one. point no vanilla launch of Oh really? multiplayer for Overwatch 2 multiplayer is officially

October Everything that you're experiencing right now is like the the betas and all that sort of stuff October is like the official 1.0 launch And then single player is going to drop in 2023 Interesting

Andy you're saying that there's a lot of other games you've been playing that you think might make that top 10 Is Young Souls one of them Young Souls might be one of them. You all heard me like being a little whiny baby complaining about the gameplay in TMN T-Mt Shedd's Revenge and how it just kind of felt old and dated to me.

This is a Young Souls is a 3D brawler with, I think, one of the coolest art styles I've ever experienced in a game. And it is really cleverly written and funny. And it is a 3D-type brawler, like a 2.5D type brawler. beat them up type game. But it's got action RPG to do it too? Yeah, yeah, it sure does. And it also just, a couple weeks ago when I was looking for an RPG to play,

I went on Game Pass and this is there. And I played like a, I don't know, only 30 minutes or so of it. And I was like, oh, okay, this is cool. It's not what I want right now. But I understood why I popped up. And then when I tweeted about wanting an RPG, a bunch of people recommended it. Yeah, it was just one of those that I'd had downloaded on my Xbox for a while. And I kind of never went back to it.

Or I never even started it up. And I decided to just on a whim, like at 2 in the morning, like, let me just start this up, see what's up. And the writing is really engaging. The characters are super fun and witty and hilarious. It's the you play a twin brother and sister that you're, it starts off like in the present and then you kind of go back to the past to see exactly how you got to where you're at. but it's a 2D brawler with a lot of RPG elements

but it just feels modern and fast and is that because it has a parry? That might be why. I mean, it just feels a little bit better but it's also just a faster moving type thing. I think the boss fights are more interesting. I think it's easier to know when an attack is hitting you

as opposed to like other 2D type beatem-ups. A couple of boss fights I've had so far have just been really engaging and fun to figure out the rhythm and exactly what you need to combat them. It's got great accessibility options. It has like every setting you can want in terms of like lower the enemy speed, attack speed, or quicken your speed, or lower enemy health or do your stamina bar as like, you know, negate to it or whatever. It's just really, really fun.

And I am just surprisingly pretty into the story. And I think a lot of that just because the writing is so engaging. So check out Young's also. It's on Game Pass. I immediately, like, I fell in love with it, so I want to keep on playing it and beat it. Sick. That game pass.

That looks great, too. Yeah. You wanted to tell a quick story about the cycle, Andy. I did. I wanted to tell a quick story about the cycle because I talked about the cycle a couple weeks ago, and I told Greg what the cycle was and blessing as well. And Barrett's going to learn about the cycle right now.

It is a friendly, cartooning version. It sounds like you're opening to a cult. It's a friend. friendly cartoony looking version of escape from Tarkov. It is extraction-based shooting. It's PVE slash PVP. And it is surprisingly pretty deep. It's free.

It's free to play on Epic. It's a game that I saw Shroud playing for a while. And I was like, what is this? This looks really kind of weird and interesting. And then I realized that it seems like, oh, it's a little less of a hardcore version of Escape from Tarkov. And Tarkov is a game that always just kind of scared me And I never really wanted to hop in because of,

it just seems really intimidating and daunting to learn everything. But the way this game works is you are, you have this sort of home base area. And you have all these missions that people give you back at the home base. And then you eventually go down to the planet and you might be asked to mine for some minerals or find a couple of items.

And while you're doing that, other players might be doing stuff too, or other players might be trying to kill. you and ruin your life and ruin your experience. Great, cool. But I played solo quite a bit over the weekend. And

the play, the strategy is to like go into these to the world because I just want to do submissions. I'm not trying to fuck up with people. I'm not trying to fuck with people. Mostly because I'm, it's likely that they have a squad with them, right?

And when me and Nick and Mike played, we, we noticed that as long as you communicate and say like, hey, don't shoot me, man. I'm just doing this. People won't shoot you. And Mike completely like staps and dude in the back. I felt really bad about it.

Mike was like, he was acting like, no, friendly, friendly. I just got this and that. And Mike just, he just shotguned him right in the fair. Like, he was just like, I got him. Mike was like, well, you guys, we can't be trusting people. I was like, look, nobody's right to screw us over. He's right, though. You can't be trusting people.

I mean, again, the only people who have ever shot at us are the people. that don't talk or communicate on the push to talk and I had a lovely experience with a lot of different people like at one point I'm just trying to run and extract because I've got what I need and I get a couple I get a hit by a couple of bullets and I just hide and I'm like no no no please don't shoot please don't shoot I'm just trying to leave I just got my thing and he was like okay well don't go that way I was like what's over there and he goes a couple of squads and they are really kidded so go around them and I was like all right

cool thanks man he's all right yeah good luck and for the most part if you communicate people are cool and chill and I had a lovely experience with my new best friend his name is uh angel and I'm playing and I'm like trying to sneak and I need a get and I only have a pistol the the strat is go into an area with like don't really kit yourself out because you don't want to lose your shit and so I just drive into a world with a pistol I'm just sneaking because I know there's some people around all I got to do is kill a couple of shitty aliens and I get shot a couple times and I was like no please don't please please please I'm just trying to and the guy was like oh oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm

sorry do you need a do need a bandage or or a Metkit and I was like I know I got some I got some you know little stims or whatever they he's like oh okay okay that's fine if you need to kill aliens there's some over here I was like oh thanks bro so we just started hanging I was what's your name I he's like angel but it's uncle and I was like oh okay I'm from you from Chihuahua in in Mexico And he was just the loveliest fucking dude. So shout out to Angel.

I don't know where you are. I am so sad that we got separated at one point. Like it broke my, I wanted to become your friend, you know. I hope he didn't die. I hope he lived that round. Because then somebody else near the end called in an extraction ship. And sometimes, Tim, people call on extraction ships as bait.

Uh-oh. You call an extraction ship and you wait to see, like, is anybody going to go in there? And I saw an extraction ship come down. I thought it was Angels. like, hey, Angel, is that your extraction ship? And another voice is like, yeah. That's not Angel.

This is not the angel. This is the devil. This is the devil. And so I saw the dude. And then at the last second, I just ran, jumped on the chip, and I extracted it, and I was safe. But I know that that dude was going to try to fucking kill me. I know it. But Angel, if you're out there, I love you, Big Dog.

Many blessings to you and your family. He was just a lovely dude. he was so, so kind and so sweet, willing to, like, just give me whatever I needed. Yeah, it was just a lovely guy. I love how much Andy's a social butterfly in the cycle, but, like, won't leave his house for, like, anything. It was just, I don't know, it just reminds me of, like, some of my funner times playing Day Z where, like, there's no other games that can give me these experiences that are so unique. And, like, everything else, it's either, you know, oh, I'm fucking carrying the team,

bitch why you know fucking pick up the slack it's just always like multiplayer shit talking but in moments like these like there were several moments where people were gonna try to be aggressive or I would walk into an area and I'm sneaking and a guy heard me and he's like I just hear on on the mic are we gonna are we gonna shoot each other or what are we gonna do here and I was like I'll have a shitty pistol right we are I was like I just got a shitty pistol I'm not trying to do anything he was like all right man good luck and he just left so cool it's so

fucking cool, man. And I know that's why everybody loves to skate from Tarkov and people are going to be like, Andy just played Tarkov. But I'm having fun with the cycle. Again, it's free to play. I'm having a blast with it. And leveling up is really fun. Yeah, it's an absolute blast.

Hell yeah. Now, Greg, I want to end the show with you with a new segment, a podcast with the podcast I like to call. What's on deck? Andy, hit the jingle. Oh, man. Tim, you sure all right about that.

I'm glad you asked. I do have a jingle where I wrote the, let me get my lyric sheet out once. I was dancing. My deck was dancing because I thought we'd be to the, look at that. Plus, I can see my reflection of my deck and your, and you're, and you all, wait, hold on. Can you, let me know if you all hear this real quick. Did you hear that? No.

No. No, shit. Oh, fuck. God damn. Okay. Now, I'm just going to, I'm just going to see it then. Do you, do you know what's next? Here's what's on deck.

Yeah. Welcome back to What's on deck where Greg and Bless tell us what's going on with their steam deck. Hopefully soon within days, Barrett will be joining the illustrious ranks of them. I was on a roller coaster. I was on a roller coaster because I've been getting, I think my steam deck was like ground shipped because I saw it like getting updates of just like going through all of the different states in between California and where it originated. and so I think it was like yesterday it was apparently in the Bay Area or maybe like late last night it was in the Bay Area and then earlier a couple hours ago it was like

oh there's a weather delay on your steam deck and it's like it's in the Bay Area it's gonna be on a truck what's the weather delay it's gonna be very nice and sunny for like the next week what what is happening but now that I see it's saying it's still on time for tomorrow and that there is

no weather delay anymore. So the weather was canceled. So it's not delaying anything. It's about time somebody canceled the weather. I've said long as the weather's been around for too long, personally. Barry, this thing's going to do. Did you hear the music there real quick, by the way? Yeah.

That's ready to hear you about it. That's ready to do it. Everybody, the next segment, what's on deck? Do you know what's next? Let's see you. Fuck, I fucked it up. What is on deck? There it is.

Whatever you just played sounds like the music. they replaced in Sonic Orchins. Craig Miller, what's going on with your Steam deck? Tim, what's going on with my Steam deck is whatever you want can go on Steam. This guy fucking discovered ROMs for the first time. Did you guys know that every

video game ever is available online if you want to go and get an emulated? I didn't know this. But it turns out you can just, you know, why even, you don't have to dig out an N64? Like that's WWF no mercy running right there. You know what I mean? I'm happy for him.

That's the millennium thing. Chris Jericho coming out. People talk about game preservation. You can just get any game whenever. Why isn't we bitching about game preservation? Don't worry about it. It's all on the internet for free. It's great.

Are you kidding me right there? So, no, honestly, what's been happening with the deck is that I played a good amount of Escape Academy on it. I don't fully understand the whole like getting your game Steam Deck verified thing or whatever. This, I know it's so early. Escape Academy pops up and is very much like, well, I don't know what the Steam Deck is like,

I don't know what the hell this thing is all about or whatever. I was able to play part of it on there, and then at one point it got weird and I had to reinstall it and it did that. But then when I started doing, because it kept getting weird and it clearly wasn't meant to be played on Steam Deck yet. I don't know, you know how it is for a review of,

are you using a beta branch or this, that of the other, it's not the final copy of the game a lot of times, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I was doing when I got into that place of, okay, cool, it doesn't run on the Steam Deck in its current form and whatever review code I have for it. what I was doing with Escape Academy was streaming from the other PC to my thing,

because obviously Steam, you know, is, I don't know if you know this either. First off, Andy, did you know that like when you play a Steam game, it will just auto-upload your save? And so then you can play it on any computer you want or any machine you want, and it's right there. It's fucking, it's the future. Pretty great. Yeah. That's an awesome addition that the Steam Deck invented when it brought it on to PC gaming. Because that was, as a PlayStation player, I was pretty fucking impressed with that.

You know what I mean? That I didn't have to go in there manually uploaded it or what it was great. But no, I was doing a lot of remote play with it through Steam or whatever and playing it that way. And it was running, you know, again, Escape Academy, not a Twitch first-person shooter or anything like that. So it was flawless in terms of what it needed to do and how it was. So it was a great experience of like, you know, last night we went and saw Ron Funches and Nick perform at Cobbs. Our nanny stayed late to take care of Ben and then just stayed over because it's easier for her to stay here. So it was like, you know, I got home and she was sleeping down here in like the entertainment area.

So I just played, you know, streaming it from my computer up to the steam deck on the couch upstairs. And it was just running great. It's a great experience. And then it's this weird thing where a bunch of different games are coming in for review right now. And several of them I've requested to get Steam code so I can play it on the Steam deck or try them that way and run around with it. And, you know, it's various levels of which ones I'm choosing and why I'm on the road a lot coming up here in a little bit, let alone for smaller games that I know aren't. going to need the big screen or whatever.

It's just been a great experience having it over here and stuff. So I can't talk about those, which has been a weird place. I can tell you, of course, that, yes, don't worry. WWF, no mercy works on it, and that's fun. That's cool. You just win a match while you were talking? No, actually, Chris Jericho beat Taz while I was talking. It was pretty easy because Taz wasn't putting up any fight because I had Taz.

I was going to beat Taz. But I was just, you know, doing it to show you that it works, or whatever. That you can play. We'll run to everybody. How's those busters? Good. You know, it's I it's another one of those like honestly I'm I personally am impressed that how much of the new new games I'm playing on Steam Steam deck because it was like I originally thought yeah I'll get you know some emulation I'll play a ghost version on it when I first got the steam back and unpacked I played like an hour or Ghostbusters or whatever and then I was like oh I want to stream it and I haven't we haven't done that yet so I really haven't double back to it

So again like I told you about like you know don't forget that the master system had like that D pad that was all connected so it was very much like rounding the edges and stuff So you got to play the Northeast and Southwest when you're doing it on the thing rather than left right or whatever. But in general, like, there's a bunch of stuff on here that I am stoked that I can't talk about and I'm excited to play on the plane. That isn't like the normal stuff that I would be reviewing. And I think that's because, again, I have the PlayStation Vita 2 in my hands. And so I can just take any game where I want with me now. That's awesome, man.

We will definitely have to stay tuned here on Gamescast with more what's on deck updates from you guys. Tim, can I give like a quick what's on deck update. Of course you can. I just want to read to you because I like to. Let me intro you real quick, Blas. Let me intro you real quick. Let me get the lyrics out real quick. Do you know attacks?

Here's what's on deck. Nailed it. Thank you, Andy, thank you. No, Tim, I just wanted to read to you the last eight games that I have booted up on my Steam deck. All right? Yeah. Flying Dragon for the N64. Okay.

Fighters Destiny for the N64. That's not a real game. Wow. Fighting Force for the Nintendo 64. I went on a journey. You need to be stopped. I went on a joke. Pokemon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64.

I was specifically Jim Leader Castle. Cult of the Lamb. Oh, I can't wait for Colt of Lamb. Yeah, that was through the preview build. Yeah. Sonic Advance for Game Boy Advance. Okay, underrated. Very underrated.

And going back to it, because I picked it up because I'm playing Sonic Origins. I was like, yeah, let me play some of the Sonic Advance 3, which I had never played. It's a very fascinating video game. Let me tell you. That was not what I expected Sonic Advance 3 to be. Yeah. And then- talking about it's too,

not so good. I have downloaded the demo for X-Zodiac, the Star Fox. Yeah. Fuck yeah, you did. That's what I've been up to my son. I can't wait for that game to come out,

man. I played those first levels so many damn times now. That's good, though. And also, I want everyone to understand that a little over an hour ago, I slacked Andy and literally just said, what's on deck?

Come up with the theme song. And he did that. He did that. We got a talent here, everyone. We got a talent. Greg bless, I hope to join you. That was those next.

That was on deck. We'll welcome you with open arms. Yeah, I hope. I'm the first thing I've decided, because, you know, maybe I have emulators ready to go for this thing. You know, maybe I'm looking at workarounds for, you know, Steam games to actually get them working on the deck. Because, like, not every thing that's verified, like, works completely out of the box, stuff like that. But I decided that the first thing I want to boot up on the Steam deck, because, you know, none of us have talked about it here

is aperture desk job because I want to play that I think I did I talked about that a little bit a while ago I know it's like only like a 30 minute thing but I just want to you know

get a little bit more experience of the you know portal It's really neat Yeah you're gonna like it universe Hell yeah well y'all that's been the games cast We're about to do the Patreon exclusive post show

What's that? It's time for bless who Kind of beauty I'm gonna win nice not i'm gonna win bye