Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Our Predictions For The Future of Video Games - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 205

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

The first 500 people to sign up will receive a 2 month free trial. Go to https://skl.sh/kindafunnygamesdaily to start your trial now. We give our thoughts on Onimusha, Resident Evil 2 One Shot, Hades, and predict where we think gaming will be in 2021. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the first ever, episode 205 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. I am Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games. Greg Miller. That's me. And eating pink stuff out of diapers. Oh, God. Pre-show content. What a ridiculous pre-show that was, ladies and gentlemen.

The Reverend Jared Petty. Dokey dokey. And once again, the hair friend, Mary Bell. The new guy. What's up? Big fan. I've been loving having you on the show, man. This has just been an energy.

There's just been like last week's episode Was one of my if not my favorite episode we have ever done Really? You Jared incited Went off the rails and it was just exciting to be a part of that ride You know I I think I stick to my point I think I defended it poorly I love it I think I didn't give you a chance I didn't I didn't really Shut that shit down

I wish we had gotten to my most controversial opinion which we never did touch That wasn't even it Oh no no no that's a that's a that's a That's a horse of a different color right there. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together to talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. You can go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games.

And at the silver membership level, you can get the show three days early, both audio and video with the pre-and-post show. And you get to watch live as we're recording it. We just did like a 25-minute pre-show that was really insane. Kind of went through. Talked food, top foods. Yep. A lot of food, really. Something about

pink and bloody oatmeal. There was a delivery that happened. Oh, yeah. That was unexpected. That's why you watch live. Maybe we'll accidentally break an embargo. Maybe. Maybe a Romago should have been in the printed piece of paper you gave me.

I don't know. I don't know. But if you don't have any bucks to toss our way, that is totally fine. You can get the show for free on Monday at 6am on YouTube.com. Slash Kind of Fun of Games or on any of your favorite podcast services. Just search for Kind of Funny Gamescast. We appreciate very much. But if you do.

You have some dollars for us. That'd be really cool because the entire month of January, we are crowdfunding our way to a world tour, a whole bunch of new content, and the future of Kind of Funny. Go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny or Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny games to be a part of that, and we appreciate it very much. But for now, let's just get right into it. All right. We've been playing this week. Hey, what you've been playing? I want to start off with a little game called Animusha.

Oh! It's been a long time, my friends. one of my favorite PlayStation 2 games of all time. Let me take that back. One of my favorite PlayStation 2 series of all time. Three was actually my favorite. Controversial opinion there, but whatever. I stand by it.

One, I loved one of the first major PS2 games. The first one to cross a million in sales. It was a big deal back in the day. It was the first Resident Evil-style game we got on PlayStation 2. And I remember it just being the coolest fucking thing. There was cut scenes and there was action. and it was like alternate Japanese history and everything was just fucking badass and cool.

You were kind of sitting there going, okay, I finally see where the next gen's going. Because the PlayStation 2 was hard to develop for it, and it really did take a while for the games to start feeling next gen. Oh, go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that was my bad.

But yeah, I was going to say, wasn't it pre-rendered as well mixed with real-time stuff? Yeah, there's still... It wasn't mixed with real-time. It was pre-rendered. Yeah, there's still a lot of tricks used in there, definitely. But you started, it definitely gave you a hint of where things were headed. But that was always amazing.

We saw it when Resident Evil, but then when that came out, like the fire, your character, everything looked amazing, but you're walking around this really photo-realistic world back then. Yeah. And that's the thing is back then. There's a lot of keywords there. Now, interesting thing about this game, it's only like five hours long. And it's actually even shorter now because back in the day, it was tank controls. It was just like Resident Evil. You hit forward to go forward, but then if you want to go the other way, you'd have to hit left.

Your character returned. And then you'd go. All camera relative, every time you get to a new, like get out of the shot, the camera would completely change to a different pre-ender background and your tank controls would totally flip. And that totally made sense for a survival horror game that's slower pace like Resident Evil made a lot less sense for an action-oriented game like Anamusha that at the end of the day is kind of like a 3D version of a side-scrolling brawler. Yeah. Like beat them up. We were just kind of go and mash the button, hit the things and then suck the energy and you're done. It's kind of part diehard arcade and kind of part DMC and kind of part Resident Evil in a really weird way.

And back then, that was novel and it worked. Playing through this game for the first time since then, it's cool because they added analog controls. So now you can just fully walk around the areas and stuff. Does the camera move now? No, the camera does not move. Still pre-rendered. It's widescreen now. So it's HD remaster.

Okay. So it looks, I mean, bad compared to other games. But it looks good. Kind of like when they did Resident Evil One's like remaster and it still had like the same camera angles and stuff in it. Did you play that? Yeah. That was like full asset remake and all. Well, actually, oh, you're talking about on PS4.

Yeah, it was on PS4 PC. The PS4 remaster of the remake on GameCube. Oh, yeah. Yes, it is just like talking about. It is just like that. So because of that, it does look good. But since it didn't have that remake in between, it is just like widescreen and uprest from the PS2, not from like a better looking version of it. Sounds like some older assets and stuff.

Is it multiple games? It's only mission warlords. It's just on Emusha Warlords, the first one. I didn't realize that. I thought it was like a package of games. No. You said it's actually shorter than five hours now with a new controls. It's short than five hours because the tank controls would slow you down before.

But now that it's analog, you kind of just run around zip zaps off. But that's, in my mind, that's a feature, not a problem. Oh, yeah. That's great. Totally with you. It makes it so much better. But slowing or speeding the game up that way just gets you to the like weird ass things that we put up with for so many years. a lot quicker.

The puzzles in the game. Wow. It is totally, it's old school Resident Evil. Shiny flickering objects. There's a blue thing here. It goes in the blue thing there. There's numbers here. One, two, three, five, four, six, seven.

Oh, we got to put them in the order that the numbers should go. A great puzzle. And it's just like, oh. Penny Arcades, best joke ever. You know, I found the rooster key. All right, when I see the chicken door, I'll let you know. And that's totally what it is. And so that's super weird.

The cutscenes are unskippable, which is like, oh, no. A lot of them worked on him, Tim. She has some respect. And that was a big problem back then, I remember, because there's certain scenes where, there's certain segments of the game where you can't save wherever you want. You need to go to a magic mirror. Right.

And find that to upgrade or to save. You save. Then you have to go through the, like, dungeon areas and, like, do the puzzles. Then you fight the boss. There's a cut scene right before the boss. If you lose the boss, you got to do all that over. It's just like, oh, no. Because, like, it wasn't that fun to begin with doing it the first time.

and having to do the one, two, three, five, six, seven puzzle again. You're like, oh, great. Already knew the easy-ass answer to this. But it's just like, it's not that the game is bad. It's just that we have come so far. In a lot of ways, I had such a blast playing it just because I didn't realize how primitive it was. You know, like, I would have, I would have been like, oh, it's not that different than things are now. Oh, my God.

It is. It's like a time capsule. It's such a time capsule. And it just brought me back to playing it. And every time I'd get to a different box. get a new weapon upgrade because at the end of the day onyusha still fucking cool the three different weapons you get with the different elemental powers Super badass they make you feel super powerful which is all you could want from an action game like this But my favorite thing is I love the mechanic of when you kill the the enemies you get this gauntlet that you

You hold I think it's circle and after you kill them you like suck their souls in And it powers you off and then you cash those in it's like that's the currency system and there's just something really freaking cool about killing them and sucking like mid fight mid fight you're like you're surrounded by enemies you kill a couple of them start to suck while another guy's coming out to you stop sucking

slice of you're literally sucking Mega maid has gone from suck to blows yeah there's like there's no better way to like fucking explain what's happening that gauntlet is sucking hard I want to go back for a second to what you said about not realizing how primitive it was

I think everybody here's read understanding comics right Understands comics? Understanding comics, the book about comic books and how stories. I've not read this. Never read it, it's fantastic. I know Greg's read it. Have you read it, Tim?

I don't read. It's this really neat book that explains how all this stuff is going on in well-designed comics that you don't realize it's happening when you're reading them to make the story go. Like, what's happening between the frames, your mind is filling in the gaps between each picture. And that a good artist, a good storyteller in comics manipulates that in ways that you can. in a novel or a movie or one of the things that I'm discovering as I get older about video games is we do the same thing in a weird way with old games. We're like we have these memories of the context we were in when we first saw them and we kind of fill in the gaps in the game and we filled them in then so unless we go back and look they just stay that way in our heads. Sure. That makes a lot of sense. It's a really neat. The backstory you would give for why you're doing something in an eight bit game that like you're like, all right, cool, you're going there and you've read the instruction manual so you're filling all this information. It's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of stuff. You're feeling all this information. It's. It's, you're feeling all this information. and to craft and weave a narrative to make it more entertaining for yourself as you play

but then when you go back it is just like I go there and it's kind of yeah exactly and it's kind of unique to like other than comics I've never seen another place except games this happens and I think there's probably a scholarly paper to be written in this somewhere I haven't figured out where yet but I really think that's a cool

observation I want to go back to take a look at this I mean it's super super rare to play through because like there's like fun nostalgia things that aren't bad just because they're old like the sound effects are Super novel and fun. Every time you slash an enemy It has this like obnoxiously

Like it sounds like you just take a grapefruit And just like throw it on the ground It's like It's like so unnecessary But like it adds to the like kind of Again coolness of this game The main character Saminooska Awesome I fucking love them

The story is bad shit insane And I swear to God every cutscene Goes back and forth between This is cringe worthy The worst voice acting The worst writing It's unskippable. The animation is so stilted and bad

where it's like everyone moves like this at all times. And I'm like, this is horrible. And then the next cutscene, they'll introduce like some evil character demon thing. And you're like, this is like the coolest parts of the animas that I love. Yeah.

And I love the, they take actual Japanese history, but then like totally just make it like, but what if some crazy shit happened instead? And as you go through the game, it just kind of gets more and more crazy. And I, by the end of it, I was just like, I enjoyed that way more than I should have.

And I hope that they released two and three. Brad. Man, $20. It's really not bad. Yeah, I couldn't tell it first. If you were like, it kind of doesn't hold up. It doesn't, but you really enjoy the nostalgia, it sounds like, and appreciating how far things have come. So if I, if I'm a kid these days, I have my switch, I haven't played an ony moosh before.

Do you recommend it? I can't. Okay. Yeah, I really don't think that it would hold up like that at all. But if you are an adult that. Played on a mush before. I recommend giving it a shot if you're an adult that hasn't played on a mush before but grew up with the PlayStation 2 I think it's worth looking into just like really like it's a weird look at what a PS2 game actually would be nowadays We all I feel like we talk about that a lot when we are talking about new games like oh it feels like what a piece

PS2 might be king of ars yeah, but like this I'm like oh no I'm wrong about that This is really what it would be like and it was interesting playing on emusha and then also playing the Resident Evil 2 one-shot demo. You played that. I did. Did you play it? Me, Andy, and Nick played it for upcoming party mode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you think?

I can't wait for that game. I can't wait. I had been, you know, since it got announced, we saw the trailer, I was like, yep. And then you started hearing people who, like, Jared or Britt from What's Good play it and be like, this is amazing. For me, it had been that thing of,

didn't connect with the Resident Evil 2 back in the day because the tank controls just wasn't something I could put up with. And I just, it took me out of the experience. So then obviously, you know, seeing Resident Evil evolve and come around, even with Resident Evil 4, which I played and enjoyed, I was always like, man, this would be cooler if it was Resident Evil 2 or even one, right? Which I know eventually they'd double back for. But I want that zombie experience. I want a zombie movie experience. But even then with Resident Evil 1, they never doubled back to fix the tank controls.

Right, exactly, just to make it a little bit. Well, in the remake, actually, they do have a non-tank control mode. Really? Yeah, the latest remake, the one that came out. Oh, the PS4? Yeah, the PS4 PC. I played it on PC, but yeah, there is a non-tank control mode. Yeah, because I remember the GameCube when it first was remade.

I was like, this looks how I wanted to. Yeah, that was the thing back in college playing out my GameCube. I was like, yeah, this is cool and the lights are down and I'm creeped out. But it was like, oh, fuck, how am I doing it? So, yeah, you didn't get a chance to play the three demos. Correct, yeah, I didn't play it. Jared Wynn did it. Yeah, exactly.

So this is my first time getting on sticks and it was awesome. It was that rare moment where, you know, everybody had been talking about it because of the, you know, if you're not familiar, it's the one shot demo where you've one shot to play it, you've 30 minutes on a clock, and that's all you're allowed to do in the game, which is such a cool concept. Like when I, excuse me, when I finished it, it was, Jen's like, oh, man, that was great. Can we do it again?

Can we restart? I'm like, you must be able, and you came back and me like, no, buy the game. Like, oh, fuck, all right, that's awesome. I respect that. I think you can hack it on PC. People were speed running it. I didn't look into how, and you probably shouldn't.

But I heard that. People did it in like two minutes something. Oh, sure, yeah. Of course they did. And that's what they'll do. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, for somebody who doesn't have an affinity for it or like that nostalgia other than when I put it in and I knew I should enjoy it and couldn't enjoy it.

Like, you know, the space is creepy. It looks beautiful. It's not just like any of what we're talking about. No, no, no, no. This is completely ground up. They took the world that is resonable too, and everything's rebuilt. And they're doing new things too, right? It's set in the same path, right?

I don't know enough about that. It is. It is some of the same moments. Everything I've seen of it is a lot of the same iconic moments. It seemed just to be kind of parsed to the best. moments of the game. Yeah. They're very smart in their approach.

And it kind of exists as this weird hybrid place between Resident Evil 2 or Resident Evil 4. It looks a lot like four, but it brings you in closer and handles claustrophobia well. It's really cinematic. Right. And most games don't handle being really close to enemies well. But this game slows everything down without being tanky. And then suddenly you have a lot of, you have a lot of agency in those close moments, but you have to react quickly to make a limited. It's almost dark solsy.

You've got a very few options available and you've got to choose them immediately. Yeah. And if you don't, you're just dead. That makes it frightening. I truly believe that this has a shot at being the best Resident Evil game we've ever had. Yeah, me too. That is taking four into consideration. I absolutely love four.

But there's something about this like watching Andy play at me playing at E3. It looks so good. And there's shots in this in the one shot demo when you see the Zorro, zombies in the jaw is like fucking open and like it like just starts moving shit and the RE engine that came from Resident Evil 7 paired with the simpler times story of Resident Evil 2 where it is just Raccoon City it's kind of just distilled down to like the best elements of what Resident Evil was I think that's what people have always pictured Resident Evil as you know it was reinvented on the farm so to speak and the cults of RE4 and then 7 like the weird back country stuff

All that's been great. I mean, overall, but I think anytime you mention Resil, for the most part, a lot of people are like, oh, there's like a cop, and there's like a hero, and there's zombies, like you said, and there's cop zombies and all that. So that's what I picture, and for me, when I went back to it, it feels, it's a little bit of the nostalgia you were talking about for some of us, but I think it's just so what you picture. And, man, I played it at E3. I didn't get to do the one-shot demo, but all I remember is running into a hallway with my, light on the end of my gun. I could not see anything and there was like murky water in the hallway. I mean a level of detail we've never seen. And the shadows, dude. I could not find my way around and there was somebody like chasing me down. Yeah. And and screams and sound effects that

are just so far beyond what it was. And it was terrifying. Yeah. I think that's the key point is that this is the, likely to be the scariest resonant evil ever. And that's what that's what it is because I don't know if it could beat seven. Okay. And that's my thing is seven having the first person perspective and with that engine, like, had some, like, real capacity for scary-ass moments. With this, I feel like the camera angles, it's going to be very scary, but I feel like it's still going to be a bit more. There's something about that first person of like, yeah, I hope. I don't play the 30-minute dumb you said?

Yeah. Well, Andy did. I watched it. Oh, we did. Play it, dude. Playing. The feeling of running away is. Through seven, right?

And playing half of the game in VR. Like, it was definitely unnerving. And, you know, oh, what's going to happen? Stuff like that. like the 30 minute demo was me and Jen on the couch. We had seen everybody tweeting about it. We waited to that night when the lights

turned on the lights to put on the thing. Like, I legitimately screamed and I don't remember screaming in Nazi Evil 7. That's the thing you have that agency. They found a way that the argument was always before the tank controls make the game scary. Well, they did in a lot of ways.

But it seems like, and I can only express this through feeling, I want to analyze it later when I played more of the game, that they found a way to put you more in control and use that to make the game. scarier. Because you have that agency, you're frightened. They found some magic formula to make that work. And, you know, Resident Evil 4 is one of the most important video games of all time. Resident

Evil 4 defined the third-person action adventure genre from its inception. There were games before and after that. And everything from Gears of War to, you know, to Fortnite owes that game a debt of gratitude in certain ways. I don't think two's going to have that kind of impact on the industry that four did, but I do think that it might be more fun than four was. Yeah, I was blown away like what you're talking about with interiors and how it looked and being just a zombie movie fanatic, right? Like the feel of it, the environmental storytelling of like, you know, so you haven't played

the 30 minute, the one shot. But like, so I don't know how much you read about it either. Or you saw Andy. Sorry, my apologies. So if you, if you're joining us, it isn't 30 minutes from the start of the game. It's for a little bit into the game. It's already happened. You're in the police station or whatever. But like to wander into like what the briefing room for the cops where all their desks are and they have like the welcome Leon sign up.

There's so many little touches in there. I was like, oh, right. Like there was a life here before this happened. Like I'm in the moment of it happening still. And going back to what you were saying about the tank controls making it scary, whereas this game does other things to add to the fear, I think it is those little touches. If this feels like a real world that you couldn't achieve on PlayStation 1. Sure. And going forward with that with the graphics, like,

it looks stunning. Like the character animations look great. The shadows, the lighting, the water effects, all of that. I feel really add to the claustrophobia and the fear because when you're walking down the hallway and like as you're moving and as your light moves, you see the shadows move on stuff. Yeah, all those small. That gets you because there is only one zombie here, one zombie there. But the fear is that there's hundreds.

Like it really feels like that. That's what I'm saying. And I know that you can obviously appreciate a game by looking at it. But seriously, when you put your hands in control and you're the one who's got to runaway, when you make one bad turn in that game, just meaning that feeling that grips you, that is what Resident Evil's about.

And in a way, it is still... You've got your last few bullets? Yes, your ammo, what you're conserving, your health, all that. But even without the tank controls, that was a device in some ways back then, but it was just part of it. And like, meaning now it's still slow.

It's not like you can just, like, run and jump out of window and leave. Okay? You are trapped in here with all this stuff happening. and it very much is the atmosphere. This is a game you're going to want to play with the sound up, the headphones on. I'm super excited.

The one negative thing I have to say is, especially after having just played on Yamusha is, it still is, here's the blue thing, here's the blue thing. But you can't get rid of that. I get it. I understand. I'm just saying it's like, that is definitely not great for modern game design.

But maybe this is where it's going. You know, this is that first step to go back to where it really all began. Resident one was great. Two was the one that everyone really, and really was like, oh my God, back then. So this, they get that out of the way. Everybody's super happy to take all this tech and guess what the next one is that complete,

that complete reinvention, though, of taking everything that they've learned and doing maybe what you're talking about. Bring it back to that feeling in the city, all this stuff that you love. It's not a cult anymore. It's not the back country of Louisiana or whatever and take all of this,

but now without those puzzles. Now it gets clever. That would be awesome. Because I love seven, but it lost me at some point, where it's just like, I love it as the game, and I feel like there's so much

that game did it right. But I feel like it was too long in the story. I'm just like, you're doing too fucking much. Like, keep the simpler, keep this about the horror and the scary moments. And I just feel like it got a little too. Okay, now. It did the same thing I feel. All the Resident Evil games do is that as a zombie guy, I just want a zombie movie.

And inevitably, they all go, go. Oh, fuck. Guess what? There's a zombie shark. It's all reads this and it's this. I'm like, can we just be zombies? Okay, let's hop in a rant. First off, I love the zombie shark.

Second. Second, I think this is something we haven't commented on a yet. Do shark, zombie. We haven't seen deep into the game yet. But at least in the early stages, one of the things they've done that makes the game so effective is they've made one zombie. You talked about it's usually one or two, but you feel like it's 100. One or two zombies feels like a legitimate threat. That's another huge change is that every zombie you encounter, at least when you don't have a clue what you're doing, really has the potential to just make you very dead very quickly.

There never seems to be enough bullets. You rely on the hand-to-hand combat elements more than you ever did in the old game. And so that makes it feel really-survival horror. Yeah. And I love that. So I think when they escalate that curve up, I imagine that'll come with better weapons, kind of like it did in the first game. But I don't think they're going to diverge wildly from that idea that a single enemy of any kind is always a threat. Yeah.

I think that's the thing that people who haven't played two in some of the earlier games, you've played four and seven. they are markedly different in style. Four was an action game with the tank controls still, but all that came together. But I mean, there are hordes of zombies running you. And Seven kind of mixes all that together in its own way. It's just different and unique, especially with the first person. But I think when you go back to two,

you'll realize what a survival horror was and how they made it what it is today. And I think we're going to go back to that world. And you'll realize when you got one bullet in the chamber, you're running down that hallway and you can't see anything, that is the feeling that makes it so special. Meaning, I played, I felt that.

Hopefully, you know, you can keep that up without the fatigue. I mean, that's why we end up with Zambi Sharks, because eventually you gotta fight a big boss. Yeah, no, I get it. What's funny about what you just said is that I didn't put this together, but it, this game reminds me a bit more of Dead Space than Resident Evil 4. Interesting. In terms of what-

Yeah, it was more survival. Yeah, it was actually too, man. Yeah. So, that's sad. That's sad. That's right. Yeah, Dead Space One. Then Dead Space 3 is like, now we're to make a bad game.

I think a lot of the RE4 comparisons are just from the fact that you can control where you're going. Yeah, I think that's where a lot of that comes from. Yeah. But it's definitely everything I've played of it feels like something especially unique and a wonderful hybrid of two different design philosophies that seem to be working well. Super excited to get it. Yeah. Next up, Fran, you finally beat Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, too. I did.

It's all right, girl. So it would be a very long. discussion. I don't know if we should stick on that one, but I will go back to what I've been saying. I'm glad that my feeling through the thousands of hours or however long it's been has been mostly right. It is a, you know what it? It's a cowboy RPG and it is so real when you're in that world. Too real. We were talking about it in the last show. I said it's the smell of the game. And it really is for me. The atmosphere is so thick, like literally the way it looks and and smells to you.

And that part is amazing. But oh my God, I got into, you know, I'm not going to spoil anything. You got into like the end after the end. And I'm like, I mean, this is not a spoil. I'm milking a cow for like, I don't know, it was like 15 minutes. You milk that cow for like five minutes. Okay, but you shovel crap in the game. Like five minutes.

No, what I mean is, no. You see exactly. No, what I'm talking about, the section that I actually went back and looked at this. That section that everybody gripes about is, is one mission that lasts like five minutes. Get that. But what I would say about the game, though, is it. takes you so the opening really strong amazing atmosphere it's winter or whatever right and then it drops you into like this huge world we've talked about it you can spend your time doing

unbelievable amount of stuff robin trains and that's what it's about and it's very real to you despite some of the weird bugs and some of the paces you just follow people forever but if you like that stuff you are it's amazing i actually do find myself wanting to go back to it now um i don't have the time but you're like on stream playing the game you just drift off out the window Wistfully thinking of naying horses. How do you been streaming Red Dead at all? Oh, I did the whole thing. I played the whole, well, I played the entire experience for Red Dead.

That's right. Thank you, Tim. Be sure to catch me on Twitch TV slash FM3 underscore. Seriously, do need your support. And actually, by the way, I should mention I do giveaways all the time. It's always running. So all you got to do is head over to Twitch TV slash FM3 underscore. If you had exclamation giveaway in chat, you'll get the link.

But otherwise, I'll put it on my Twitter. If you open your DOS and put. Reset Hard Drive. All you have to do is follow. You always have a chance to win for a game. Anyway, plugs aside, I play everything that I play on there. Thank you, Tim. Including Gris.

Including Gris or whatever. Which I've finished. By the way, glad we get to go back to this. So, rewind. Have you played any since then? We talked about the show, right? No, I haven't played any more since then. I was ahead of you.

You had just started it and we were having that conversation. So you did play some. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Remember we talked about this. Yeah. I got, I did an unlocked four, five, six colors somewhere in there. You're basically done.

No. Yes. Okay. Well, then four colors. But you're super far. So you'll know what I'm talking about that. I actually have to say, I'd go back. When I first started playing it, I did that thing that I think everyone who's jaded industry

person does and you've played so many games over your lifespan. You're like, oh, it's a pretty indie game, cool music. And you played for a little bit. You're like, it's cool, you know. But you're thinking about experiences like God of War and Red Dead and anthems coming up and division. But I went back to it to beat it. And man, I got to say, please play this game.

Really? Beautiful for me. I'm curious because you've actually played a lot, but play it with the headphones on. The music is outstanding. It's such an experiential, beautiful artistic game. I realize you don't die in the game. It didn't even occur to me until later. You're always moving through this beautiful watercolor fantasy world.

And it is honestly, I think it's a beautiful achievement in gaming. It's funny because it's not like heavy puzzle work. It's just this experience and this story. So anyway, I really loved it in the end. Got to put the headphones on. And by the time you get to the end, I felt very connected with the world. And it's only about four hours, by the way.

Three or four hours. I'm going to go back to it then because I was scared off by the heel, Greg Miller, who doesn't love video games. Hey games. Gated industry guy. Yeah, pushes us away from anything that's not Spider-Man.

It's been proven. It's science. But, yeah, I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed this. I do want to try it out. Curious, I mean, Greg, the thing is you juggle a lot of games at once. When you played the game, did you spend a good, like, hour within that world and with the headphones on kind of sound up? Well, yeah, yeah, I was sound up on TV, but yeah, I played through, yeah, with Jen and Lucy in the room, we were hanging out for a while. Did you feel, I mean, even with, if you remember the line I came away with was, I didn't find it entertaining, but I don't know if it's meant to be.

I think it's meant to be a meditative, it's not pushing you too hard. It is, you're just going through and bringing color back to this world and stuff. is more of going to the art museum and enjoying the art. There are things in the game that there's true platforming puzzle work though. And you've played some of it with platforms disappearing and things you got to find. Time and things right. You jump, something comes disappears or appears. It is a platformer in the end.

That's the biggest thing that it has going for. But I really like the beauty of it. And I just think these are the types of games that we need in addition to these like crazy giant blockbuster risks that are taken. And you should go out there in support. It's only I thought it was 17, but maybe it's 20 bucks. somewhere in there. So check it out. I really liked it.

Next up, Hades. Yeah, man. Oh, yeah. Early access. By the way, another game you can support me. I am an epic store creator. Everything from the division to this. I can say to the link.

It's on my Twitter right now. But if you buy the game, you get a little share of that. Hades is so fucking good. That's right. It's Fran Mirabella in the creator street. You can just type it in the creator tag. Anyway, plugs aside again. So Hades, has anyone else played it?

Yeah. Cool. I'm curious what you think. I went in and I was like, I've been wanting to play this game. was getting some buzz at the end of the year. It's in early access. And it's basically this sort of end, not endless, but it has that feel

of an endless dungeon runner. Are you getting these upgrades? The big twist on the game or just the unique thing is every time you go reenter the dungeon, you kind of go back to hell each time and back into these dungeons. You get this RNG from the different gods

of different powers each time. So you're not playing with one set of powers and a skill tree exactly, but it changes every time. And the rooms change with what you have. So anyway, I really enjoyed it. I found myself after the first 20, 30 minutes,

and I like games like this, I was really starting to grind and trying to get the keys and the currency to buy the stuff I need and get a lot better. It is a little more, I think, of the, I haven't really played League of Legends and Dota, but games where you're doing multiple directions

while pointing directions with the mouse at least. I don't know how it works on console. Dork. But it plays like a super giant game. It's a super giant game through and through. And that's the thing where, yeah, it feels like, It feels like taking bastions, mechanics, and mashing it up with a rogue light and then putting me back into this world with a really funny story and really cool.

Yeah, really cool characters. Can you guys clarify for me because this is the kind of game is generally my jam? How deep do they dig into the roguelike element? When you die, what do you lose? What do you bring back? Because that varies from every roguelike. And I'm really curious what the structure is. So when you die, you go back to the beginning.

But the thing is, in your room, you can buy types of weapons. that's one thing. You also can buy a couple buffs. Like as you enter each room, you get plus one HP. Or you get, you earn more that it's called darkness. So you get little buffs, and I've only unlocked like a portion of them. So not a lot. So you kind of go back to the beginning, but a big difference, for example, right, you start the game, you have your sword.

That's it. Yeah. But then after you earn four keys or whatever, you can buy the spear, which is a completely different way to play. And do you retain the spear for every game from that on? You can only choose to go in with one or the other. But you always have the choice. Yeah, you always have. It's in your armor.

So that unlocks. So it's not a full reset. It sounds much better than dead cells. And then there's little things like you earn ambrosia, which you can gift to the gods and they will give you a keepsake. And for example, that's a permanent thing. You also have in your room and you can put on one keepsake. As far as I know, I don't know if you can put on multiple, but for example, you'll start

with a chance of better RNG. So you'll get a rare type perk from one of the gods as you go in. It's three perks when you go in. Anyway, I really encourage checking out. Again, only a $20 or less game. Early access, I think a studio that's proven to us that they do great work. And by the way, it's in early access

because they're doing updates every month. They just did their first big update, patched up a bunch of stuff. And yeah, I think if you're interested in this, be part of that experience, they're open to all your feedback. Now's the time to get it. I think this is going to be a huge shit for them.

I think, and I'm not trying to take away from anything. I think Pire was a bit too weird where Pire had an audience and people, and people loved doing it wrong, but it wasn't, you know, it was Bastion and Transistor and then it felt like Pires, fervor wasn't as loud.

I feel this is so approachable, so engaging. When this comes to Switch, like, yeah. This is, the way I was obsessed with Rogue Legacy on my Vita will be how I'm obsessed with Hades on the Switch. Because, yeah, I had the same thing. I played it here at the office, right, Tim,

when I actually, I was so into Super Giant that I actually played a PC game, right? And put it in there and made it work, and it ran like shit, of course, because it's PC. And I was... On your PC. Yeah, exactly. Of course. It's my fault, of course. Yeah, Jared's thing. It can't even fucking work.

My graphics card arrived. It works. Let's see if that works. It's so lovely. Seven years old. But anyway. It works great. Yeah.

Like it's totally a game of just jumping back in. And that's, yeah, you bring up dead cells, right? And why I feel like I've struggled so much to find a rogue light since a rogue legacy that I've loved that much because I want that sense of progression. And I want to feel stronger every time I come back. Yeah. And this seems 100%. That sounds awesome because dead cells was the first one like that I've ever played. And I fucking fell in love with it.

But it just hit a point where I'm like, I cannot put. more. I think I played 18 plus hours of that game. And I'm like, I feel like I should be it. 18 plus. That's a lot though. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And there's just that there's very little sense of progression. Like there's some overall like health stats and things that you have. But it's like I would have loved to be at least given the option of this weapon or that weapon. Yeah. There's a ton of that stuff. A lot of different ways to play and get skilled at the way you use that stuff. There's crits on top of there's all kinds of RPG mechanics. It's fantastic. Greg. Yeah. Walking Dead, the final season, And episode two.

Right. What did you think? Episode three came out yesterday. At which point I was like, ah, fuck, I never played episode two. So I was like, I'm gonna go home and play both of them. But I'm still very tired. So I only played one of them.

So I played episode two to bring myself almost fully up to speed. So the last one from Telltale before they were like, peace everybody and left. And then Skybound picked up and made the still not bitten team. I don't know why I waited as long to play it. I think it was, it was just weird because if you remember that games release was paired with all the bad news of

Telltale. And so it was very much like talking every day on games daily about how worse and more dire the telltale situation was. Didn't really psych me up to go home and play it. Jumping in last night, I'm glad I did. I wish I had started earlier, so I could be 100% up to speed. Because episode two is great. It does another great job of driving home what this final season is all about.

And that's not only, you know, ending Clem's story, right, but seeing what she's learned from lead and now make AJ. And so there's actual tough decisions again of popping up of like, you know, or if you're totally out of the loop, AJ's this kid and like a baby that Clem's been raising and now he's like toddler so he's talking and doing all sorts of stuff and make his own choices. It's probably three I'd say at least and that may be being generous but I don't know how kids are but this kid's like a fully a fully blown kid. Where do they come from? Who knows? My mom still hasn't told me. Um and like there are some tough decisions in terms of that it was cool for you and me as him as big comic book fans. A couple really interesting ties to the comics that I had really yeah yeah the first time and I'm

not spoiling here and maybe and I'm rushing. to, but I think the first time that I've run into characters and threads in Clem's storyline that are directly tied to Rick's storyline where it's like, oh, he's like, I don't ruin things, but like

a person referencing events that I know who you, I remember. I remember that event. In season one though, right? We had Glenn. Sure. And then we had Lily. But if you remember, they left. Then they went to Rick's storyline. I'm talking about people interacting with the larger work and coming back.

Lily was the woman in season one who had the dad that was a racist you killed the dad or you didn't kill the dad but he still got killed and then she killed either Carly or Doug and then you either left her she stole the RV she canonically at least back in the day

her story was going to be then that she went and then she joins the governor's people and when the governor, spoilers for walking in the cops when the governor forces her to shoot Lori and Judith then she kills the governor and she takes over the governor's people and that was the last time we saw her in the comic did that happen in the comics?

Yes Really? Yeah Okay, I didn't go back and check that out Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, I don't remember, I mean, I know they got shot. I don't remember someone taking the governor's place, though. Well, I mean, it was that she killed the governor and then she started giving orders to people. It wasn't like a very much like, I'm in charge.

I don't think I'm in charge. I'm in a long time. Yeah. But remember she shoots them and she turns out of her like, you made me fucking kill a kid and a wife? Yeah. Push and pushes him into the zomsoms. Walk walks.

Is this the last installment that? Is out now? We have one more episode. It's four episodes. It's four episodes. Episode three just dropped. This is not what we're talking about. I did not play episode three yet.

Even though this morning on our subreddit, one of the kind of funny best friends was like, fucking Greg, you got to play this. And I'm like, I know. I fell behind. I was like, how long is it? Like, just as long as the other ones, three hours. I'm like, I do not have three hours before games cast today, but I will get to it soon. But it's three, the first one to come out of the skybound.

Correct. This is the first time since. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. This is the still not beaten team that we talked about at. the kind of funny game showcase. Awesome. And from what I hear, it's great.

Because if, you know, kind of funny best friends tell me to play it and they liked it, they were walking dead fans, then we're in a good spot. It's awesome. But yeah, it's still that weird thing.

Like, I started episode two last night very much than that the sense of just like, they really should have stopped after season one with Clem's story, right? But now I'm like, no,

I really want to see how we're going to wrap this up and where we're going to leave her and what the takeaway is going to be. And again, you know, like, they're just hitting the right notes for me in terms of pushing her ahead

and giving her her own story, but then also making callbacks to episode one, let alone now, or I'm sorry, season one, let alone now the bigger world. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And then Y2K.

Y2K, a post-apocalyptic, post-modern RPG, right? One of my most anticipated games, got a code, and I have not been able to rub together two consecutive hours to play it all at once. So I'm playing in a very broken up fashion,

which is, I think, the worst way to do this. I'm excited. It's finally out. I still love the art style of the game The problem I'm having right now And this is not a definitive thing Next week on GameCast

Hopefully on the flight You're about to get on a plane Exactly I gotta do some work for us But then either out there are back I hope to just sit down And put time into this thing I'm finding it not hooking me The way I wanted it to

But it's still so early Like if the story is you know You just got back to your hometown You're involved all this We've just gotten to the real Like what the fuck is going on thing Of like what is going to motivate this But what I'm finding early on

Is that it's all doing a lot of really cool, interesting things. I just don't feel so far as doing any of them extremely well. Like I like, you know, it's, you know, I don't, we've talked about on this show. I have a preclusion for not enjoying turn-based RPGs, right? Like it's just, I don't really dig that kind of combat, but this one makes it more active,

where I select my attack and like for him, he throws LPs, he throws records, right? And so as you choose that attack, then the record starts spinning and there's an active, like you can get, you can multiply the combo if you don't screw it up and going through it. So it's like Mario RPG, or, Paper Mario type.

I didn't play paper Mario on weed, but I don't remember that. I'm mostly just flashing to Sean to the dead at this point. Exactly. Yeah, totally. Totally. Totally.

It was the first time I ever bought. Stone roses. But even that, that's really cool, but it's not super engaging for me right now because it starts slow and gets harder, but it's still, it's basically,

I have the game. I'm going to play more of it. But you didn't get the chance because you have been playing, Barry Me My Love. Oh yeah, we played Barry Me My Love and beat it. Yeah,

that was another one that since the kind of funny game showcase. They had shown that. I was like, this game seems like a Greg Miller game. I can't fucking wait to play this. Jared, you played it as well.

Yeah, and we've been playing on a different platforms. I've been wanting to ask you about this. And you're like, save it for the show, Jared, I'm playing on mobile. And one of the things that I didn't really

understand about the game before I first played it on mobile was that it's notification based. So on mobile, you play it and there's a conversation and then Nora disappears for a while. It's like, okay, offline.

And then I might be, it might be five minutes later, it might be a day later. I'll get a notification on my phone and I opened my conversation back up. And so I found myself in situations where like she's making a very dangerous decision. Yeah. And there any way to force it? Yes, absolutely. But you have the option to play this way. That is freaking cool.

It's amazing because like I'll ask her to, you know, I'll give her advice. And she doesn't always do what I say. But I'll give her advice. Something dangerous will happen. And she'll just vanish. I wonder if I'm ever going to hear from her again. And it is like heartrending.

That game rocks in that mode. Does Switch duplicate that experience? That is so awesome what you just said and everything. No, it does not duplicate that and it is so fucking boring on Switch. Because you play it and you're totally in the moment of just like, I'm not even playing this game. Like I hit A and stuff, it just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes,

hit A, goes, goes, I don't feel like there's choices. there's things to say, but there's plenty of times where there isn't for a long period of time. And I thought I had already hyped this game in my head to be another, a normal lost phone, which, you know, a mobile game I played and loved so fucking much. And it does not deliver that experience. And maybe it's just a switch thing. If I was, I am actually kind of, here's the best way to put it.

It ended, I thought it went on way too long. It ended and it was like credits. And Jen's just like, I would never play this game again. And she would not, I would never play this game again because I would never play this game because it just took forever and it didn't really pay off in the end. There's no chapter. It's like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. I'll play it as that way. Yeah, I'll play it that way.

I'll play it in two minute bursts, maybe once or twice a day at the most. Interesting. And that's really, really cool. How long are you playing it? Quite a while now. Yeah, because I was going to say, that's my thing about it is like the game is dense. Yeah. It goes on a long time.

Not only is a dense, but there's multiple endings. Yeah. And multiple paths that I, I've been coordinating, well, not coordinating, but I've been. texting back and forth with a real world friend who's also playing it the same way. And we're getting vastly different outcomes to certain things. Yeah, and that was my problem with it

is I felt like it wasn't active enough in the way that, again, normal lost phone had me doing all sorts of stuff and cracking codes and using calculator things that look like calculators but they're actually past codes to unlock and doing all this different stuff whereas yeah, bearing me my love

is very much like A and sometimes you don't even hit A and it'll still go because it's just you're not to a choice. Here's a prescripted response of what you're in a Yeah, the way the game was originally designed for mobile, those moments happen, like I said, very small bursts, and then there's long waits. And I wonder, I really do sometimes, like, is she ever going to write back?

That is such an interesting thing, because that was one of my, I did not get why the game loads the way it loads. Because when you're playing on Switch, it is like, cool, send the thing, and then it'll fade to black, or whatever, it is fade out and fade back in, and then it'll be, it's gone ahead five minutes. And I'm like, why the fuck are you doing this? Every other conversation I'm clicking through and you do it. Usually the fade out means it's going to be multiple hours. That makes so much more sense of like I would do it than five minutes later. I think this may be a casualty of port everything to switch.

It's become apparent through a lot of news stories now that the most lucrative space, generally speaking, in independent gaming is becoming the switch for certain kinds of games. I mean, yes, there are mobile games that thrive on on loot box models that are obviously going to do better on iPhone and stuff like that. But by and large, it seems Switch is the place you go if you want to make money, even more than Steam now. It may just be a case of they figured this was the place that they could sustain the game. And so they put it on Switch, but it's not designed for the platform and is just a superior mobile experience. I can't recommend the game enough as a mobile game. Yeah.

But what you're describing sounds terrible. Yeah, because it's just a slog. It's just a slog of sitting there and having text, I'll stop that. Again, that if I'm hitting A sometimes advancing quicker, and then if I don't, I'll just, as the husband, my response, just pops up. Not that I missed a choice because most time there isn't a choice. Then you get to points where it is like, I should say most time, lots times there isn't a choice. Then you get to what emoji do you want to use? Here's the highest praise I can get the game.

I'll get a buzz notification on my phone after I've made a hard decision, maybe a day later. Yeah. And before I've got it face down and instead of thinking, oh, I hope that's Angie or oh, I hope that's Greg. It'll be like, oh, I hope that's Nore. Like to check and make sure she's okay. I'm going to do it. I'm going to buy it. I'm going to buy it right now.

Then, okay. Jared, you want to talk about a game called Ding Dong X. I want to talk about Ding Dong XL a lot. Wow. What the fuck is Ding Dong X-L? Ding-Dong Excel. From the makers of Bing Bong XL.

So I made the terrible mistake of visiting IGN the other day to see a few of my friends over there. IGN, that organization that famously fired all of us. you got fired. After we were all fired from my Jan. I went back over there and they had a computer set up and Damon, Justin, and Sam, the Omega Cops of Game Scoop were playing Ding Dong X-L, a game I'd never seen before. Ding-dong is a one-button video game. And I have kind of an obsession with one-and-two-button video games.

It's a very simple premise. Every time you press the button, you cross the track. You're trying to cross the street, Frogger style, freeway style. and you're just trying to stay alive. The game gets faster and faster. If you wait, every second you wait, you see the ball's growing. Okay? So it gets harder and harder to cross if you wait,

and eventually you just pop like a balloon. Every time you hit the other side, you reset. Power-ups pass through the middle, like that one right there, and make things easier for you. If you get good at it, it's possible to develop a tremendous degree of mastery on this game. It's really, really finely tuned. And way, way better than what I think we sometimes

think of as a novelty game because it's one button. Yeah. There's a lot of thought went into this design. That's really cool. That's really cool. It's really well done. Can't wait for it to be on Switch. I am now currently the number 10 globally ranked ding-dong Xl player on Steam. You're number one ding-dong in my heart, you're the number 10. I'm the number 10 ding-dong play. Again, I don't know what the pool is, but the game's like a dollar. I think it was 50 cents for a while and I think it's a dollar now and it's totally it's also on mobile it's totally worth your time oh it's on mobile yeah and also

that it has a kind of a like a techno soundtrack that just kind of key and it's it's got that I'm gonna buy it's I'm getting ding dong dude it's got that one more play thing like like like because it resets immediately so it's just like bump bump I died oh one more time and you just keep it reloads immediately I got a couple questions for you Jared one what's Bing Bong two why is it Excel was there just a ding don't he likes to put Excel at the end of his games, the designer. I forget his name. I should have, thank you. Most of his games and in Excel. That's just a thing he does. And he made a little shooter that I actually have played around with that I really enjoy. Bing Bongxel is a whole other concept. You can take a look at that on Steam

as well. But this little single button game, the other thing I like about it, and I know I talk about these games I never make because I'm, you know, I'm full of it. But the design for, you asked me once what my game was about, which was Two Frogs Kissing. Yeah. Ding Dong Excel is not all that different than a prototype. I put together for that. It is a different game, but this reminded me a lot of that. Mine was a two-button game that does some different things, but this also reminded me of,

it was kind of a convergent, you know, evolutionary thought thing going back to that freeway frogger thing. It's a lot of fun. You just sold four copies of this game. I hope we sell a lot of copies. Everybody should play this. Everybody tweet your ding-dong photos to Jared.

That's right. 217 points. Beat it if you can. Can I see what it sounds like? Yeah, Absolutely. Oh, gotta hope it's ding dong, ding dong. Oh fuck, it's got a jam too.

Okay. Wow, that is. And now, Jared's bringing the year 2019 to the table. It's really good. I love that. And again, I want to thank the Game Scoop guys because they're the ones that showed me that. That's awesome. That's awesome.

And then next game, Dusk. Okay, so this came out of the discussion we had last week where I enraged our co-hosts by suggesting that perhaps we had a little too narrow a focus in mainstream first person shooter game design. It's not what you said, bro. And that's totally what I said. He hates it. So Andrea brought up Dusk, which was an excellent point. Dusk I do not regard as a mainstream shooter by any stretch of the imagination.

But I did want to go and really give it kind of a dive in. Dusk's a lot of fun. Have it any of played? No. This is not fortnight.com. What's that? This is the one that's not Fortnite.com, right? I assume.

Dave or a Shrews game, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah. You know that, yeah, the URL for the game is not fortnight.com, which is such a really fucking thing. Probably not like whatever.

Yeah, so it's obviously, it's a single slash multiplayer oriented, very Quake 1 inspired shooter. A little fragon tag. Yeah, a little fraggant tag, but also with that like story mode to it that you expected from early Quake 1, Quake 2 where you had this really well thought out,

you know, level design that was kind of John Romero inspired, the kind of stuff that went into doom and kind of just around the time he left the company became a part of Quake. I really like it. It's not just a gimmick. I thought that this was maybe

just some kind of gimmick game. It's like, oh, it looks and feels like something you remember. And that makes it cool. This is a ridiculously well-designed video game. It is not a quake rehash. There are certain muscle memory things that feel similar, but it's definitely informed in some very intelligent ways

by contemporary game design as well. It's a little more, exploratory in different ways. It uses light and shadow in ways that wouldn't have been possible on older systems, particularly the flashlight stuff and the way it handles secrets and things like that. Enemy behavior is

it's a little more spooky than Quake was. Think sneak up on you. It's a little more successful in its monster closet approach because it's got some scary sounds that again would have been hard to pull off. It's real good and it's not just like, oh, here's something different for shooters.

Here's something that's really engaging that I think just about anybody that enjoys FBSs could have a really good time with. Have you? Nobody's played it, right? No. Yeah, I really, I can't recommend it enough.

You'll start out and be like, oh, this sure is a Jared game. Play it for an hour, and I think you'll really get pulled in. It's red, and the secrets, so many secrets. And I love secrets and shooters, and I feel like that's kind of a thing that's been left behind.

It feels very open. It feels very, you got a lot of agency in what you're doing. doing in it? It's just rad. I mean, it's no ding-dong X-L, but what is? Excuse me? What is? Excuse me,

Tim? I saw you to communicate with Kevin. Kevin, pull it back up. You're going to tell me there's a ding-dong XL VR? There is. No way. Same game? Put PlayStation VR on it. Pull that, yeah. Yeah, I want to see that, Kevin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because I had a question for Jared, too.

When you try to make it across, do you just need to dodge the shapes or those like yellow exploding things. No, you just have lots of shapes. It's just a particle. Okay, cool. Those are just particles. Is it angle like this in the main game, too? No, it does not. No, this is the VR world. That would mess me up. So if you tilt your head,

see, now you're like... It's... Someone in the chat is saying it's the VR is, uh, so this is PSW, uh, we. Oh. This is the VR version is $3 on Steam. Yeah. So there is PS VR. No, no, no, no. There's a person in our chat named PSW. Oh, okay. Sorry. And you notice that, by the way, you see him hitting the blocks and the blocks

exploding. If you're good enough, you can just barely clip a block and then instead of it killing you, you blow it up and get extra points. So it's... Wow. It looks fun. Some of us are good enough to do that. It's more of a phone game for me.

I like the look of it. It looks more like a phone game. That looks like a great phone game. In bed on the go. Hell of yeah, man. Tappy, tapy. Let's go. This episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast is brought to you by Movement.

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Fran. What was your little victory dance for? Oh, Tempe. Largely know, in fact, great party town as well. I want to not do it online and go. And they have a portemps. Man, win, win, win. And next up, shout out to four hymns.

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You are such a special, special human being. Now it's time to get to the topic of the show. Before you do, I want to give a shout out here to, of course, ding-nong Excel. It's creator Adam, right? And his studio is Nickervision Studios, right? Creators Adam, though? Yeah, the guy, I think it's a one-man team. It's Adam Nickerson.

Oh, so it's Nickervision Studios, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. But what's, his tagline in this thing, I'm learning to make games by making games. Yeah, I love that. And then it's all these different games. made including a very, very basic looking one that I was looking at while you're talking,

Fallopian frenzy. It's made all of it. Fall, like falling, apparently, right? It's not, like, Philopian isn't spelled it. It's Fallopian. Yeah, but they're, brilliant play on words. You're definitely, it's, go get them. I tweeted at him. Let's get this shit on Switch and VR.

Let's do PlayStation VR. That's fantastic. Yeah, I can't say enough things about Ding Dong X-L. It's a really good video game. Topic of the show time. Last week, I don't remember where it was. I think it might have been last week.

We're talking about the future of video games. We're talking about the next generation of video games. We put the date of 2021. But I wanted us to all give some predictions for where video games will be. All right. I think a lot of this came from the bungee conversation. You got to do the first. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. What's up? Tim doesn't even know it. No. What is it? Conan O'Brien back in the day. Leaning up to 2000. You would have in four years old.

You would have blocks. In the year 2000, Conan O'Brien. Sorry. It was on Games Daily. Bungy now single and ready to mingle They've got their

Tinder profile, so we were kind of going into predictions of like who could they link up with are they going to stay independent what's going on there and I was like this is kind of fun so now we're going to do it

let's do the predictions I'm going to start off I'm going to start off I won't I won't understand unless you go first yeah no you understood this time you understood the rules it was still fun

you missed it Greg Fred Miravella I did it Pulling the most Fran Mirabella ass thing of all time. I tell him like, what are your most controversial video game opinions?

And he's, one of his was the Mortal Kombat blood situation of the 90s. Because I thought you were the biggest video game controversies of all time. And he wanted us to manufacture

or just have a crazy opinion like Jared said that Halo ruined shooters basically. I did not say that. Watch last week's episode. That's what the thumbnail said. The switch will have at least two revisions leading to it selling more units than the Xbox one and 3DS and PS3

and 360 but not the Wii which is at a hundred million so it will sell between 90 and a hundred million by 20 by 20 more iterations by then mm-hmm yeah I actually I think that's one but two is I think it's gonna be two because I think we're gonna get we're gonna get the baby version we're gonna get one that's for the little brother sister that's trying to play Pokemon. Switch baby, Switch baby. I like it,

that was good. But then, have you heard about this baby shark thing? Yeah, I remember hearing months ago, Barrett's girlfriend talk about it.

I was like, whatever. And then all of a sudden, boom, it was everywhere. Like, what the fuck just happened? By the way,

I want to go on record right now and right here is saying that this current popularized baby shark that's completely absolutely neutered, all right,

where there is no verse about the shark eating a swimmer, which is the key to the entire baby shark song originally, which goes baby shark. That's the uncensored swimmer, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude. That's terrifying, though, for kids. Dude, dude.

Dude, dude. Happy shark, dude, dude. Okay, that's all about eating the swimmer. They took that out of the shark or out of this. I'm just, I can't, I can't stand it. I'm team shark. Team shark. Absolutely.

I put your cookies in my mouth. I put the cookies in them in there. All right. But yeah, I think there's going to be a 2DS style revision, but I also think there'll be a 3DS Excel style. revision at some point. Oh yeah, we love the Excel. I want that. I want that. 3Ds Excel are you talking like with improved

hardware? I'm thinking a similar type of jump between like what we've seen with PS4 to PS4 Pro type thing where it might but on handheld scale so actually probably more similar to the Excel situation but I do think there will be a hardware jump where I think

the games will run like they do docked. Okay I don't think so I'm very close to you on most of this I think your sales figures are almost perfect. Absolutely think it'll be under the Wii over those others. I think that hardware revisions of some kind are definitely coming. I don't see Nintendo, and this is actually one of mine, I don't see Switch releasing a PS Pro Switch. I don't think they do it. I don't think they do it. Got to do it. Why? They've got to do it. Why they have to do it? Because, yeah, this thing,

it's like, why not? Because Nintendo has generally profited on the lower end of price on the market throughout its history. They've learned to make hardware that's profitable at lower production cost and that is their ammo, their bread and butter for their entire history, including this generation. My argument for that is, I think that they're still going to have that with what I'm saying, the baby version. But I feel like the Switch has brought so many people back to Nintendo that are now addicted to playing the Switch and they're going to want more options.

And they know that there's people like us that will get the Excel version and they know that there's a lot of other people that are going to get the other one. And I think it's just going to maximize it. They might know there are people like us that will get the Excel version, but I don't think they're going to get the development support to make it happen. I don't think they want to fragment their market that way. It is a huge thing. But it won't fragment the market.

The games are still, they're already being made like that because it can play on the dock. To a point. To a point. But you can't produce a, again, now we get in the fun space.

Lowest possible. We were into this a long time ago. This first started showing up in the 80s when people would talk about doing iterative jumps like the C-64 to C-128 or the C-16 platform. There's some other places that's app. Commodore. Where you end up developing your software

for the lowest end of the spectrum. And that even when you provide more power for a similar piece of hardware, for a hardware iteration, people are still generally targeting the lowest end of that. Therefore, it's actually an enormous amount of pressure, particularly on third-party developers. First party, it's much easier to pull off,

but for a third-party dependent platform, like the Switch, which is well known for being Nintendo's first successful third-party platform since we, you end up having all the games made for the lowest common denominator anyway, and there actually proves to be very little value for the high-end hardware. Usually have two, three, four breakout games,

but it's going to be really hard to sell Nintendo's $20 to $30 game developers, largely independent or small studio, that are the backbone of their business right now on that. I don't think there's an... Every single game on the Switch right now is already doing that. It can run better on a dock, but that's not what they're targeting.

But it's 10... So a game that's 1080p on the dock is 720 right here. I'm saying the Excel version is going to be 1080. Why would anybody want a 1080? a handheld over a 720 handheld. Would you pay that much more? I would. I would. I would.

I would. I don't see it. I don't see it. It would have a battery as well. The battery. Yeah, the battery is a huge part of the product. And again, that ups the cost. Nintendo looks at that on one end and goes, yes, we can produce this and sell it to a small number of people where you can put those same resources into, let's say, making another game that's going to make us a lot more money. What's they're going to do? They're going to do it. Yeah, I mean, if it is just right, like, if you take today's model and it was like,

it's just running like that, but on the go? I mean, it is already there. It's not the full-up res plan and all that, which is very different. But people aren't writing their games for the dock now, and I don't think it's going to change. Oh, you're saying they're skipping on that part of it now? I'm saying that people are targeting the handheld mode

and the docks of bonus. But that doesn't matter because we're talking about 1080. We're not talking about 4K. It's like even if they're making it for the handheld mode, which is not true because even the third party games, they're obviously like if you played Wolfenstein, they're definitely making it for the dog. But how are you playing Wolfenstein for the dock or in your hands?

I want to play in my hands, but it doesn't run that well. But if I had 10 EAP support where it ran better, I would. I think Nintendo just waits for a switch two on that, and I think 2021's too soon for that. Tough call. Two of them sounds like a lot, but interesting. It all happened. Jared. By December 31st, 2021.

Really coming in. Half-life three has been officially announced. He's so good at this. It's not going to happen. That's crazy. What? I just think it's fucking crazy. Yeah, why not?

Why not do it now? There's a pretty good time for them to move into it. It's obviously been on and off in development for a very long time to keep going back to the idea. We're in a period right now where Valve would maybe like to reap a little goodwill. And what better way for Valve to reemphasize the primacy of the same store than by elevating their number one property of all time, something their fans have asked for forever? What better marketing can they do than... sell you marketing. And that's what Half Life 3 would be.

We are selling you goodwill. We are making something you want. We know that you will buy it. We will make money on making news about ourselves. Why the hell not do it? That's very, very interesting. I don't see him doing it only because that seems like a reactionary thing to what's happening now at the Epic Store and stuff where I don't think they saw that coming.

And I don't think that they can quote unquote waste Half-Ly. three like that. I think there are people that plenty people in that company that want to make that game anyway that this may be what tips it over the top. I do not think this would be the only reason they would make the game. I think this might be the leverage that somebody could walk into a room with and say, all right guys, we've been talking about this for years. We've got the resources. We've got the script. We're happy with the story. We've got the tech. Let's make it. So you're saying announced by the end of 2021. When would it release? I don't know. I'm not going to That's, I think it would release fairly soon after announcement.

Huh. I don't think it would wait too long. If that's true, it's not going to be a good game. I think it would be a year or two, probably from announcement. Probably 2023 would be my guess was a 2021 announcement. Wow. Bold, bold, I like it. I could be completely wrong.

I mean, it's the future. I'm not a prognosticator. Fran, you are a prognosticator. You are, Frank. I realize you guys are way better at this than me. They're so specific. I'm like Mr. Broad Strokes. So.

It's like video games are cool. Dial what. No, no, no. I'm always doing like. Video games will remain in fact. It's cool. But we talked about this one, the subscription train to participating in a subscription of some kind. It's already starting.

But I think it is going to be more of a staple. I mean, I think it only represents a 10 or a 12% kind of stake in the industry for some, for some publishers of meaning their total sales. But buying, for example, you spend $100 on EA Origin or something to you get. like all the games actually you get more value out of it as long as you pony up up front so i think that that by 2021 is just a trend that is not going anywhere and in fact i think we're going to see some people it becomes a staple weather you know nintendo gets more into that game again this is beyond just like a live service yeah sign up you get these two free games and you're part of our subscription and it's it's like pledging your support to a major publisher or company so i think i didn't

have a specific example of what one of those would be, but I think we're going to see a ton of that. But I also think on top of it, the repercussions of the battle pass and what has been able to accomplish, that is where, I don't know where and what franchise is going to do it. I don't want to say destiny, but I think it's the right model. That for the nine bucks battle pass model, you now will just get a game like that. A premium game will exist by 2021 or as announced at least that will have that model, which is roughly, you know, four times a year you pay. I think it's eight or nine bucks to participate.

But it's, we just read today, I think it was, that Fortnite has amassed, it was an insane billion, billion, billion dollar amount. It amassed more than any other game in sales, and it was in large part to a huge number of gamers just buying the battle pass. So I think that's going to be a big part of it. I don't know if you guys think any property.

So jumping off of that, one of my predictions was there'll be a huge focus, obviously, on services, like service-based features. But they're going to be streamlined. I think that by 2021, we'll hit a point where Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo will all have one subscription each that gets you online, gets you the games, gets you everything. So Xbox GamePass and Xbox Live will be together. PlayStation Now and PlayStation Online will be together.

Nintendo is already doing that. It's just, I feel like Nintendo is like the snail that's just like that has it now, but they're inching towards. By 2021, I think that we'll have the GameCube games and like the virtual console library that everybody wanted two years ago. You think only one version of this option though? Per system, I think so. Do you think that it would include, like it's a big thing with EA's package as an example. I was surprised. I mean, you get Anthem, you get Battlefront, you get Battlefield.

I think you get all that for the hundred hours a year or whatever. Do you think it would include premium stuff like that or you're saying? I think Xbox Game Pass is a very good model of what that is where it'll be for. first and second party titles that come with it, but then every once in a while, there'll be exclusive third party deals that. Yeah, that's good point. Games Pass is that today?

I mean, it is, is it five or 10 a month? They had a, they've had a, they've had only sales. Well, yeah, they had a sale for one buck a month at the first month, which is an amazing deal, but you get C at thieves, like all these other games on there as long as you subscribe.

And that is, of course, because the research that people that do, the people who are subscribers are more engaged users who end up buying all these other things, micro transactions and all. So it nets out, So the industry's going that way. But that's why I think,

I see we're mostly in agreement, but I think one option is not enough. I think you need the battle pass because the parent only wants to spend that quarter or the nine bucks or whatever. Sorry, to be clear. I'm not talking about DLC, I'm not talking about micro-transactions,

I'm not talking about the online service and their streaming game service will be one in the same. Oh, you're saying specifically. Xbox Live and Xbox Games Pass, that's two different services. It'll just be one thing. And PlayStation or whatever.

That's an astute observation. I think we're moving there. Okay. But that's like a package of games that are available during that time period for streaming, et cetera. Okay, I see what you're saying.

Look at this guy over here biting his time. Just listen to the good conversation, Jared. Go for it. Greg Miller. You prognosticated. And it's such a broad question. In 2021,

it sounds so far away, but in reality is still in the year, 2021. I will start with this, that this is not, a positive one. So far, most of these have been happy-go-lucky prediction. A robot has come to life. It's chased humanity. Ding-dong X-L has taken over the world. That's right. This is not a positive one. However, it is not me wishing ill on anyone. But it's a prediction thing. I want to swing for the

fences, right? I think by 2021 or in 2021, gearbox is either out of business or is no longer independent. and it's wholly owned by somebody. Right, yeah, and I think this is why it's on the set my tongue, obviously, as of recording, this is the week where Monday started with the Games Daily reacting to the lawsuit between Randy and the lawyer and the bickering back and forth. And then today there was more follow-up after Games Daily. I don't know if you saw this, that Aris Technica got the guys report, the lawyer who filed it, and he's claiming religious discrimination in there, too, the people, and it's just like... It's all-out warfare now.

To be clear, this very much seems like a very personal, fight that's been dragged into court of law. I have nothing to do that. Let's even divorce yourself from that and throw that out. It's just sitting there and thinking about Gearbox. What is Gearbox done? Recently, that has been a huge success and has been well received. Greg, when it comes to that,

looking at what's happening right now, I anticipated wholeheartedly that sometime of the next 12 to 18 months, before all this happened, that Gearbox would effectively be a Microsoft second party studio. I had no idea if that was going to happen or not, but that was something I thought might. With all this news out there now,

do you think anybody wants to touch them? One of my predictions, Microsoft 100% is going to get gearbox and they're just going to put somebody else at top. That was part of my thing. Borderlands is ours, motherfuckers. Yeah, that's my thing as well as part of this, right? And again, it's muddy because of everything happening right now

in the court of law. It is the fact that, yeah, whether they're around or not, I don't think Randy's there. And that makes sense, obviously, because if they're closed or not there, And if they sold it, he's a founder. He wouldn't be there either, right? I feel like that's, if, if gearbox was publicly traded, right?

And it had the traditional board we always talk about, right? They just wants money and dollars and cents and stuff. I think, right, they probably would have bounced brandy by now. For every interaction I've ever had with the guy, totally nice, right? And like, great. But I mean, like, again, let's look at, you know, the games they've put out, right? You start talking about colonial Marines. You start talking about Battleborn.

You start talking about Duke Nukem. We Happy Few was one of the things they just published, right? which didn't move the needle. Like, you know, like, when we get done to business decisions, that one V one game, right? Like,

yeah. Everybody talks about gearbox, and when we talk about gearbox, if we're not being negative, we're talking about borderlands. Yeah, yeah. And so then it just becomes,

is it borderlands, now just the Hail Mary? Also, again, they're a privately traded company, or private company, right? Yeah. Is borderlands such a huge success? And it was.

It was a movement, and I fucking love those games. Enjoyed the pre-sequel so much, enjoy the handsome collection, yada, did that just generate enough income that they have just a Scrooge McDuck vault that they don't need to worry about anything? I imagine they did and I

imagine that Microsoft is looking at all this and is like Borderlands is the type of game that if they put out a game that wasn't called Borderlands 3, there was kind of like a Borderlands reboot on the next Xbox system or Backson Compatily how we want to play it. Yeah. I think that would be a huge win for them and like that adds up with how Microsoft's been building out their portfolio. The only thing you get into right is just then like 2Ks involved with Borderlands, right? And what's the agreement there in terms of who owns publishing rights to Borderlands, right? And like what what's going on with that and how yeah where in like why I mean we've heard about borderlands three every so often in passing you know things a new gearbox shooter landerboards and even

then but I mean like even like that does to me doesn't strike me as a good investment for Microsoft right where it is like cool but what I mean think about like we're I mean and I don't mean to I'm not trying to insult anyone there but it feels like borderlands too is the breakout success right and the brain trust that made borderlands too when you talk about Anthony Burch and uh damn it the name just escaped me. I was going, but the people who you think about when you think about who we got, they're not there anymore. So are you thinking that the property has way more value than the company at this point?

Yeah. I think so. And I, but I, but I, and I, and I think, always do kind of. Well, yeah, but I mean, and that's not, I mean, you hope as a creator, your products are more successful than you, you know, in terms of like mine share and stuff like that. But yeah, that's just the, what is going on with Borderlands 3? Is it going to come out and be the Hail Mary, boom, footness, we nailed it. We're, we're, yeah, we fucking crushed it.

Or is it going to be like we see with a lot? of games when they come out after a long time. We've been waiting and they've been gestating and it gets here and it's like, boom, wow, this is a game that feels two years ago that hasn't, you know, there's been so many different things when you look at a game like Destiny 2, right? And the way it's iterated and evolved and changed to get to where it is, like even Division 2 on the cycle it's been. Like think about all the shooters that have come out since Borderlands 2, right?

And like, sequels to those shooters that have come out since Borderlands 2. Like, where are they? Are they getting into, is that game in a way, the same breath like we talked about with fallout where it was like fallout four came out and was a great was a good fall it, great fallout, whatever you want to say it, but like got out class by the Witcher, the Witcher came out and was like, oh, you want an open world RPG that looks beautiful

and runs great and doesn't crash and does, but in falls like, ah fuck, we got the fucking baseball stadium. You know what I mean? Like, is that what we're dealing with here? Or as like I said, since it's a brand new thing, maybe it's been restarted and returned over so many times that they're into something they really love and they really trust, but you look at

gearbox and gearbox publishing. It's just like what is, and again, and again, Again, to the point of the Scrooge McDowalt, they're in Plano, Texas. Everything costs nothing there. I'm sure it's not, you know what I mean? There's a million different things happening. Yeah. But what does it all look to?

And what, you know, I don't know. It's, and we're talking about like, into the future. I look at them and I, we've seen so many studios, change hands, you know, clothes, stop being independent. They just strike me as one of those. They've held out forever and done great stuff for years and years and years or what. I was looking at their Wikipedia. I think it's 21, no, 19, 19 years of in business or whatever? Yeah, 19 years old.

They're 19 years old. They were founded February, 1999. Like, that is rare in this day and age, a video game developer slash publisher that is out there. Maybe what you do is create like a semi, you know, that pseudo independence that you have from things like intelligence systems or Hal or even Game Freak where you have a very close relationship there, but you have that second party semblance of a, of independence while at the same time being an exclusive provider for Xbox. That makes sense to me.

But then it just gets into it. Like, what are you buying off your Xbox? and you can't have Borderlands. Yeah. I think it would have to beat you right.

I think Borderlands has to come with it. That just has to. My next one, despite everything that we've been talking about, PlayStation 5

will have a demonstrably better first party catalog than the next Xbox. By 201. Are you counting? Are you counting? Remasters and its back on this next gen?

I think in 2020. 21, you're correct. I think in 2022, it's much more up for grabs. But I think in 2021, Sony probably has more in development ready to pull out and shoot with in the launch window era than Microsoft does. And we are talking, if we launch in fall of 2020, like a lot of people are expecting, then a year later, there's still not all that much software from either. Yeah. No, you're right. And then to be fair, that prediction, I'd the whole thing is it was a vague. I only said 2021 because I like was trying to like, okay, We do have the next systems. That prediction I'm saying is going to be over the whole next life cycle of the systems. Wow. Really? Expound.

I just think that they're going to continue Sony's going to continue the dominance by itself of putting out quantity and quality of first party titles. I think there'll be at least three a year. The first year might be the one like warm up thing where they will focus on the third party titles a lot to like start selling the system. But then after that every year is going to have three. super high quality games that you can only play on PlayStation 5 or Sony's next system or whatever it is. Whereas Xbox, I think, is going to still maybe have one or two in that same time period every year. And I still think that those are going to be more questionable, questionably loved than the PlayStation side. Fascinating.

One of my predictions is I think in 2021, Xbox is the toast of the town. I think that it's going to flip. And I don't mean like, I don't mean like maybe, I think the way we all were like, holy shit, the switch is great. Holy kid, like, you know what I mean? In 2017, we're like this, I love this thing. Holy fuck, blah, blah. I think that's what's going to happen with Xbox Scarlet, which is what I'm calling the next thing Scarba. If they release at the same time or roughly the same time, I think if I was a betting man, my odds would be that even though the software libraries in terms of exclusives will be fairly similar in number at that point.

PlayStation may even be a little ahead. that in the United States, Xbox will be outselling PS5. I don't think that'll necessarily be true in Europe or Japan, but I think in the U.S. it'll be demonstrably true. I still think it's going to come down to Xbox doing, and this is again worth predicting, right?

But just the way everything's laid out, I think in my head, maybe I just drank my own Kool-Aid, and I've talked about it long enough, that yeah, Xbox Scarlet or whatever you want to call it is going to be the, yeah, oh, yeah, it's backwards compatible with everything on Xbox One. Xbox One's everything going forward.

on you can play all your like it goes back and forth games there are no Xbox two games there's Xbox games that look fucking awesome on Scarlet they look less awesome on Xbox one of my predictions to further again

I think that's true for PS4 as well see PlayStation 5 is where I get weird with it where I just don't I don't see that being I think PlayStation is going to be like we are on top of the world we're the best selling console people want consoles let's give them an amazing fucking console

right and then and I think it'll be a great console I think PS5 would be great and we'll be backwards compatible with PS4 But I don't think you're able to play PlayStation 5 games on PlayStation 4. And I think that that's where Xbox is going to understand that, hey, we got to make up grounds. What we're doing is literally, this is an Xbox platform. And we have the Xbox stream or the Microsoft streaming service built in their service built into it.

And it can play your phone and it can't play your computer and it can't play your tablet. And I feel like it's so early we still don't know. So I might sound like a complete fucking idiot in a couple years. But we've been hearing, you've been hearing so much about the Xbox and the streaming services and they have game bass. and they have all this stuff, I think that Sony's working on all that shit as well. Like, I think there's not talking about it.

I think that's not, like, there's nothing leaking from that. But when we, we see the landscape and when we hear all the different things with Verizon, with Google, with Amazon, with all this,

there's no way Sony's just like letting this all slide. I think the PlayStation now is a good reason for me to believe that. You know, forever, we always talked about, like, we not, us not taking that seriously.

But then it's like, oh, now they have PlayStation 4 games as well. And I feel like that's like a quiet thing happening in the background, that they're eventually just going to be like, PS5, here's what it is, boom. Here's the potential problem with that, Tim. I think that they would love to do that.

But unlike all the other companies, you just listed there. I don't think Sony has the infrastructure connections in the United States to make that happen. I don't think they have the ability to build the network, or at least they don't have the ability to do it nearly as easily as those other companies do. And it's not an easy task even for any of those. But Sony is not connected in that space.

Partner with Amazon. And partners something else. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know. Partnership, I think, becomes a much more likely possibility for them. As a matter of fact, I think it's their only option in that space. Yeah, I was going to say, I really agree with the sentiment that Greg has on Xbox. I hadn't really thought about it until you said it.

But there is a very good chance, I think, of that, you know, toast of the town flip. Because we look at what's going on now. It's so freaking quiet almost. And, you know, we've got Phil Spencer there. It's all about the games. They announced some studio purchases, but we don't really know what that translates. to quite yet. And when you really start to add it up, I mean, yeah, they are Microsoft, for starters,

one of the biggest, most rich companies in the world, and they've got this team that really understands games. But why isn't it translating to Xbox One? Maybe, you know, they gave up on it in some ways because all resources are on this next huge bet. So I like that concept, that boom, they come out swinging so hard with gaming, which is not what we saw with Xbox One. And you put XCloud and Microsoft's the Zer Services and everything on top of that.

that's a really good package. They just need, of course, all the third-party support. It is. And that's the thing is, I hope that I'm wrong about this, because I do hope that Xbox has a fucking huge comeback. Because I don't, even if Xbox has a huge comeback, I don't think Sony's going to fall as far as they did in PS3 or as far as Xbox one fell this generation.

But bringing up the Switch, I think there's a key difference that I have no reason right now to believe is going to change with the next Xbox. I really hope I'm wrong. But Nintendo has first party titles. PlayStation has the first party titles. And I feel like Xbox so far, it's first party titles, the big marquee titles, Halo, gears. That's the connection to PlayStation when we're talking about things like Uncharted. We've moved past Uncharted now.

And I'm not even talking about Last of Us. I'm talking about Horizon. I'm talking about Spider-Man. You know, they revitalize God of War in a way that I don't think Microsoft's going to ever be capable of doing for Gears of War. And I wish they could for Halo. but I don't think they're going to pull that off. I bet they won't. Right.

And so moving on from there, it's like I feel like it's going to be very hard for Xbox to come with a huge first-party title. And if they do, I think it has to be something brand new like Horizon. Yeah. For the next gen. And I'll see it.

I'll believe it when I see it. But that's why I think if you look at the recent announcements and them snapping up studios and even whatever you got ran in the background, see it's just one thing. I think maybe that's what we will finally see as they come out with these newer franchises. Like, none of us knew what, you know,

last of us or even on Charter was at some point. It needed actually a console launch and the new tech. So, yeah, I actually think they're lined up pretty well for it. It's going to be this, I think, a wave of positivity in the way that everything's so great now with GamePass, right, in the other services of backwards compatibility, and Phil Spencer saying all the right things. And yes, where is gears and where is Halo?

I think they're biting their time so they can get us to the next generation. And it give those at the very end, right? But if it's backwards compatibility, who cares, but then launch this thing and say to you, look in the face and talk about Xbox Scarlett and be like, here is the giant Xbox that'll run everything in B4K, here is the $99 Xbox that will stream everything,

and you can stream these games, and here is these 13 first-party studios we've been assembling, right? Here it is what the initiative, and Santa Monica is working on it, is fucking her eyes, and you know what I mean? I fucking hope. Right, and just hearing about the teams right now,

I'm like, right now it's just a bunch of logos. I mean, that's what I want until I want, I mean, like, I hope that when the Xbox, whatever a real deal event for what they is I hope it is here's what coal or here what coalitions were knows here's what initiatives game or the initiatives game is right bam here's what ninja theory is bam yeah it's and it's just hit after hit of like yep these are new things fucked out but do you need to know any more than the fucking people who made Hellblade are making in another

fucking game you can only get here that looks awesome yeah I mean that they will push that also in the middle of this discussion kind of rising in my mind this idea that Nintendo is either like completely borked or enacted secret genius I'm tempted to lean toward the ladder in the of all this talk about streaming services and the rest of that affecting next generation. I think it's obvious to all of us that's going to be a huge part of what's coming. Switch is uniquely positioned because no matter what happens in the streaming space, Nintendo doesn't have that infrastructure background either.

So again, you're probably looking at a partnership model. But they also are working on a handheld where we're not going to expect streaming capability for some time either. That's going to be something I think folks are wireless streaming is probably something we're going to move toward in the next generation, like over 5G, et cetera, that kind of backbone streaming service. So Nintendo having a console that's primarily perceived as a handheld is largely going to insulate them during this period of time and give them a few years to figure out what they're going to do next.

And I have not thought about that until this very moment. You think so? I mean, they're testing streaming in Japan. They are, but they can't do it here. Japan is a completely different animal. Japanese, this fact that the country is geographically so small, so dense and so wired, make streaming work fine. It's the same reason they're not testing streaming here.

Because the United States, if you don't like to hear that we're not the best at everything, our internet blows. U.S. Internet sucks. If you're in one of the major cities, maybe it's okay. But throughout the United States, where a vast number of the video game customer base lives, streaming's not likely to work with that infrastructure improvement or some kind of extremely powerful compression technology probably accommodation of both and so I think that streaming is coming next gen I think it's gonna be a immense factor for the

people that can build the infrastructure to make it take place but I think Nintendo is not gonna have to worry about that for a while I think streaming I think we think about it kind of narrowly where it's like oh you're you're just playing the games live from it but I also think that there's another side to which is like the Netflix model being able to download stuff and and PlayStation now and like in Game Pass even right and I feel like Nintendo is doing that currently with its NES online games. And I think that it's going to be a pretty easy transition into full games.

And the nice thing is I think they know we don't expect any more from them for a while. Yeah. And that's an interesting place to be. And it largely has to do with this thing being handled. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting to see how the other companies do tackle it. It's the one thing we haven't heard from Xbox or Sony. But you can't not look at the switch and be like, dang, like, there's so many sales. It's doing really well. And they're looking at mobile phones. It's just amazing. I think again that's Xbox. They don't have it. Yeah, I mean, maybe we see Microsoft could be the company to do it that you have that version that is

When I showed that video right as I've talked about before when Microsoft and Google went back and forth with those announcements I was like this is fucking awesome and then we had Amazon the other day just that that leak came out and they're like oh yeah looks like they're getting involved too Yeah, I mean dude my favorite thing about the Nintendo switch is being on a plane Using my little like holder thing having it there and playing with a real a real controller pro controller Oh, you bring the pro yeah and it's just like I would love to just get rid of the fucking switch and have an iPad Pro that streams the games. Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, it doesn't matter.

It's like just being able to have that. Being able to download the games to the thing and somehow have that work, that would be insane. Yeah. Tim get it. Oh, go ahead. I just say you touch on an important point, which is where is Apple still? They've had every opportunity in the world.

I do, that was one of the ones on my mind. I think they're out there. I feel like, whatever, I'm just going to say it because it's fun. By 2021, we will finally have Apple's solution to holding a controller and playing not only on an iPad but your TV. I think it's been really in the background

to everything else they got going on, but I feel like they're finally going to get there and take that stab. Like Apple TV disappeared too. But like, I mean, they already have like, you know, ding dong Excel. The only thing missing is a... They have to do...

They have to use... Apple has to do something to make more money. I have trouble imagining a Tim Cook-led Apple ever making a serious play at that. They're not going to make a ton of money on gaming. Well, they make a ton of money on gaming. Yeah, but not compared to this. That's where they make a lot of money.

That's where they're making all their money on gaming. I mean, what is it? Almost 70% of apps sold on the App Star at this point, or money generated on the App Store is generated through games. They're making tons of money hand over fist on games. We say just the App Store. It is a lot. I'm just saying hardware sales is a crazy amount comparatively.

My only point there was that they, that's why they haven't taken it seriously. And it is surprising. They've had every opportunity. Apple has been actively hostile to what we would consider. consider traditional gaming since jobs returned in 98. I mean, that that has never changed in the company culture. It could because they need to sell something.

Yeah. They have a problem right now. They gotta call them Sakamoto-Jones. The only thing missing is Apple still. Like, where's, where's their interest, you know? And I think it's been out there and might come up. That wasn't really one of it. They're capable of it.

I don't know if they're humor so long. Yeah. And I don't know if they want to get in a crowded space because it's getting crowded real fast. My next one, Final Fantasy 7 remake, will actually come out at least episode one, but it'll be better received than the last few Final Fantasy games

and actually well liked. Better received than 15? I'm going to go from 13 on. Well, 15 was pretty beloved, I thought. It was kind of mixed. Yeah. I think it's going to get a... What's the Metacritic on Final Fantasy 15?

I'm just curious about this because I feel like that game was, yes, the last third of the game is, you know, not finished. I bet you it was around 80. I'd say it's in the high 80s would be my best. I think that's too. I think it was around 80. I'm gonna say 81.

I'm gonna say 85. I like this year. I bet one dollar. I mean regardless to me like that's I'm talking nine above. Like that's what I'd want. Oh. Oh. For.

Super. Uh, Mescore is 81. User score seven points. That's a lot. Yeah. Can I? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You're saying that's where she's a lot. It'll be better than that. But also the meta score. I got I'm talking about like the public consensus on on on Final Fantasy 15, which is that it was fine, but it's not great. I think that had it been finished, it would have been great.

I agree with you, but it wasn't. But then there was so much DLC to finish it and then it didn't finish it. Seven will be well received for two reasons. One, I do think it'll be a tight, well-designed game by square terms. Yes. Yes. And two, I think that nostalgia and the fact that people wanted to succeed alone will carry it pretty far. But I think it will likely be a critically better received game than 15,

even with all that said. I think that the only reason that this is a bold prediction at all is because the flip side of what you said, like half the people are nostalgic and want to see this happen. Half the people are nostalgic and don't want anything that they love to change ever. Yeah. But I feel like those people, a lot of them are going to be surprised by this game. I don't think there's going to be implied bodybuilder sexual assault in this version of Final Fantasy 7. Maybe not.

I don't think that's going to happen. Who knows, man? Because that was in the original. Yeah. Do you think, do you think Final Fantasy 7 remake is actually going to come out? Yes. By 2021. I think at least part one, yes, absolutely.

Also, while we're on... Deep breath from Fran. I'm on the hot takes on the scores, Tim. I believe it's going to be awesome. I'll say that. I'm going to pop in with Death Stranding has amid a critic somewhere in the 80s. Oh.

Which is unexpected. That's a 7-9 right now. That to me is such a surprising thing because I think it would either be nine above or under eight. No, I think what we're going to get with Death Stranding and I, again, I literally have no basis on this.

You're not from the future. Yeah, I'm not from the future. Is a game where nearly impossible expectations are being piled on something that is, in fact, a video game. And while Hideo Kujima is a

tremendous, super gifted, extraordinarily capable, uber talented, video game making genius, it's still hard to make a big giant video game. and he's unfettered relative to what he's had before.

And when we've seen Kojima unfettered, we tend to get Metal Gear Solid 2 or 4. Maybe a little more than we get the best Metal Gear Solid games, one and three. Hot tags here. I think that what we're going to see is a great. I'm using that, that IGN scale. Probably I'm guessing higher in the 80s,

I'm going to say 80s great, but not world-changing video game from Hideo. For the things that I love most about Metal Gear Solid as a franchise, which are the crazy stories, the world, the characters, all that stuff. Metal Gear Solid 5 might be my least favorite Metal Gear Solid game. The gameplay, though, is a 10 out of 10 impeccable, one of the best video games I've ever played in my life. The fact that you can take those two things, and that game is still amazing when added together,

I think that's stranding from the story perspective from all that stuff Who the fuck knows it could be Kogima back to like smaller scale metal gear solid one I don't think it's gonna be but I do think the gameplay is gonna be Better the Metal Gear Solid 5 Nice Wow wow I fucking hope so I do too god I hope so

I mean the fact that MGS 5 Gameplay was as good as it was insanely good I'm like they got this that that is modern game design to me At its best and they they have vision for It is definitely the best gameplay in any middle grade. But I do think that all the story stuff is going to take the score down or bring the score up. We'll see.

I think that's what I hope is that the pacing is good. I think the gameplay will be good. What I hope is that it's not too much of one thing and not enough into the other. I hope it doesn't applaud. There needs to be somebody inside who's able to say to Mr. Grigima, maybe we should think about this a little more. And without that. We got Norman Reader's age, just like, that sounds cool, man.

And again, this is me picking on one of my old... Not even. Rebus has been a public interview. He's like, I don't even know what's happening. This is an attempt at a hot take. This is a legitimate worry about one of my all-time favorite game designers. I think that Snatcher and police knots and Metal Gear One and some of these are just extraordinary benchmarks in video milestones and gaming. But I don't know if Death Stranding is necessarily set up for that kind of success.

I think... Are you also, I'm sorry, saying Death Stranding comes. Is that in 2021? I think it's out by 21. By 201. It's supposed to be. I was going to say, I actually think the opposite will be without all the shackles of, you know, you get stuck in that world and the gameplay mechanics.

Obviously, they evolve. But I think without it, it'll be the option. Be like, oh, my God. Look at what he's been able to do now with like a free mind in this new world. So, I mean, obviously I'm hyped about it. But I think we're going to see the opposite. You're like, holy cow, this new world. That's what I want.

Yeah. I'm worried that expectation is going to screw it. What's your next one? Oh, that was your. That was your. Sorry. I've got tons of them here. Bring one.

Bring one. I think by 21, 21. I don't know if anything will be out, but it will have been announced by Nintendo that they will actually have released like a real mobile game, like a core mobile game, be it a real Mario game or a real link to the past or whatever it is, which they have traditionally, right, Mario Run. And like, we haven't really got it a real one yet. Fire and Bloom Heroes.

What? Fire Enblem Heroes. Yeah, but that's not really a little. Fire Armilom Heroes. Yes, but okay, I'm sorry, that's not Mario or Zelda or whatever. So I think by then we will finally have. I don't know, Fire Emu now, it's up there as a franchise. It was great, but meaning that's not Mario, it's not Zelda and a mainstay.

And again, Mario Run wasn't like quite what I think we wanted. It was good actually, but it sort of was forgettable in a lot of ways, I think. So I think by then, so I don't know if anything will be out, but we'll have the solution to it that it's coming and that's as far as I got with that thought. Yeah, I think Mario Part will be the closest one we get. On the platform, maybe. Yeah, there you go. Maybe you'll be able to actually play.

Well, they've already announced it. Is that a port? Mario Kart World Tour? No, it's going to be its own game. It was supposed to be talked about by the end of last year. But they're like, no, no, no, we're going to talk about that in 2019. They haven't shown anything on it yet, though. No, just a logo.

I didn't even see that for, it is coming to, like, Android and iOS. Do we do that? Okay. Don't worry, you can 7-9 it when it comes out. I'm so they're saying a fucking chance. Exactly. Great. Yeah.

This is one I started cooking on today during games daily, and I'm ready to take it out of the oven. There we go. Get all in my face. I think Disney will have wiggled out of the Star Wars exclusivity agreement with EA, and I think that Xbox will have a Star Wars exclusive game announced. Ooh. I think they will have said. When does Disney's deal end?

Yeah, it's a 10-year thing, right? That's what we're talking about today. 2020-20-23 would be the thing, yeah, 2020-three would be the idea right now. But there's got to be some escape clause in there. Yeah, wow. Wow. That's here, but to give up an exclusive on that. I mean, I guess,

I think Microsoft's going to have money. And I think, and I read, and this is what else. I want on Games Daily today. I really think that the EA Star Wars deal was made in a different industry. And I think as you look right now at Marvel Games, who I will continue to say, I think is killing it and making so many awesome moves. I think you look at them and they're like,

fuck, we need a Bill Roseman for Star Wars and he can build his Star Wars games team and they don't make the games internally, but they partner us up with the people that we should be partnered up with rather than what I think happened, which was, hey, we have Star, we're Disney, We have Star Wars. We need to team up with somebody who's great of video games.

EA's great of video games. We've seen, they have a whole bunch of studios. They have cool ideas. They have resources. They have assets. Let's put them together and go. And I think you'll see the Star Wars czar

of games now be going like, okay, cool. Who wants to do what? And I think you'll see Phil, uh, Spencer come out on stage. Hey Amy Hennig, what are you been working on?

Dude, this is exactly. Oh, Amy Hedig has joined Ninja Theory and they're making a single player narrative star. Yeah, my crazy. Today and the games daily of one of the people on Patreon.com, slash kind of funny games. Their question was like, what would be your dream thing? And I was like, Phil comes out on an E3 stage and he is like, you know, sorry to see you that

happened. You know what? Let's just, and it's Amy talking. We fade up on her. And it's that, yeah, they brought her on and had it brought back as many of the team members as they could and they have the rights to it. And yeah. Or they just let her go again. But yeah. But you're talking about how, you're talking about how. I mean, let her go. Oh, oh, okay. But I mean, like you're talking about like how we're always saying Xbox, you know, needs an uncharted. Right. Like they've said that they need something like that. What's better than that even? How about a Star Wars? Uncharted. Yeah, fuck. Dude, that's, I love it.

But that's when, I mean, like, don't even wrong. Well, not wishful thinking, but that is like our usual E3 bullshit. Where I'm like, if I ran Sony, if everything went perfectly, this is what I would do. Why am I talking like this? I'm going to say it. VR will not be a pillar of the next Xbox or PlayStation in a major way. It might still exist. It might just be a thing that PlayStation has.

Do you consider, if you were to, if I was going to say, hey, right now, it's PlayStation VR a major pillar of PlayStation. you'd say yes okay yes I think it's going to be less than it is now okay ding dong VR not changed you not see that do we need to roll of footage again to be fair I think it's gonna work better as a mold game I don't need that um what do you think though Greg my prediction was that it but but in 2021 by 2021 PlayStation VR2 is a reality it's a wireless headset and has better move ones I think that they I think that it's and I have no internals on this at all I think PlayStation VR Gen 1 has gone

better than they thought it would and I mean obviously we saw the old reports of like yep you know Andrew House being like they sold way more units than I thought it would and that's why it's been hard to keep them on shelves yada yada yeah but I think even now the continued success it's found and again I'm using success small s not like you know fucking

it's Spider-Man numbers but in the way that it has garnered a PlayStation community in the same way the PS3 did in the same way that like there's a unified passionate base around it and there are developers doing really cool shit on it No, I think you raised a really good point there. I think about how Connect sold extraordinarily well, better than they thought it would during the Xbox 360 generation.

And then what really killed Connect was that they tried to force us to buy it. That if they hadn't packaged Connect in the box with the original Xbox One package, we might still be playing Connect games, and they might still be making a lot of money on them. I think if PlayStation can look at VR and build around the same kind of model, I think there's a real chance that we're going to see it. I think they put way too many resources into it now to just walk away from it. But I also don't think they're going to try to make us.

I don't think they're going to make you do it either. Yeah, but I definitely think it's, if you think it's a pillar or now, it will still be a pillar. The craziest thing about my prediction, I think is wireless. I also think that they might build service-oriented products around VR for the first time. In addition to games, they might take the first step towards software that puts us in the same room with our PlayStation's, where you're sitting here, sitting at home, and the experience changes, where there's a kind of, version of the kind of funny games cast where this desk is sitting in your living room. Oh, you're saying for actual viewing of VR shows.

Yeah, for actually viewing of VR shows communicating with friends and relatives, etc. Maybe, it's funny, I think there's a market for, I actually expected Facebook to get there with the acquisition of Oculus and all that stuff way back. And we just haven't seen it, yeah, maybe for the reasons we're saying, we don't think it's a major pillar. I mean, I think that the VR thing to me is it's like 3D in movies where it was a huge fucking thing and then it's still here now but it's most people don't like it and

after that it's like it's just kind of there to make money and I feel like with PlayStation it'd be there to make money in the same way that Nintendo has always had its console and then handheld they fucking own the handheld side always even when console was like this or that I feel like PlayStation's like well we got the like mainstream console market VR it's gonna just keep selling it's gonna be a success so

that's what I was going to ask, do you think they would ever consider detaching it as a standalone? No, granted, it might work on both, but as its own product that you don't have to look up to your PlayStation. I'm sure down the line, they'd love that. I don't think we're anywhere close. Not in 2021. That'd be too soon.

Yeah, no way. I think it's too bold to say wireless, but I'm saying it because I'm a bold individual. I love it, dude. You are a. They call me bold. Futurist. I do call you bold. Jared.

For portions of the year. Fortnite. is the number one streaming game on Twitch in 2021. For portions of the year? Yeah, there may be periods where something new popped up and goes above it, but for significant portions of the year, Fortnite is the number one streaming game on Twitch. I put down Fortnite will still be dominant.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, on platforms like that, we've seen it with whether it was League or Minecraft and like, yeah, Minecraft owning YouTube forever, it definitely is possible to have that kind of lifespan. I mean, we've only gone a little over a year now. So it's crazy to I have trouble imagining because I feel like I've been playing the same map over and over again But there's so much more to come obviously. So yeah, I think you probably be right

Fran last one I honestly don't have anything as good as you guys So I have a question for you. Yeah Bungie. Oh sure where do I see them? Do they stay independent? Do they match up with someone? Yeah, no I see them as still independent two years from now taking the path that they chose to make and like I said Maybe we see destiny's model change Dramatically from being the $60 game to maybe there's both. Maybe there's Destiny is the Service and updating like today,

they try to update the service they have today and keep up with that while they make this something good. But yeah, I do see them actually being independent. I mean, whatever happened with Activision is still a mystery. It could be one side, by the way, that they didn't make enough money. And in the contract, you think about like, how did they get out of that contract?

Did they buy themselves out? So I always get confused about this, and I'm sure you three know way better than I do about the publishing versus development. Yes. Who would publish Destiny? I mean, they said they want to be an independent publisher. So wait, well, that's a good, is Devolver digital like a publisher?

Exactly. So they take that model, but then they're making the game themselves. Like, being smaller publishers, you know, do exist. They don't, Activision's reach and amount of games is huge or size of games. So, yeah, they would do it all in their own and just like Epic, you know, think of it that way. They make their own game. They publish their own game. There's a lot of expertise that goes into that.

So it's going to mean a significant increase. personnel, you've got to hire people that understand media buys and TV and very, you know, you're bringing an entire new division into your company. And not only do you have to bring in the expertise, but when you bring that publishing division into a company, you are changing the culture because those folks are all going to expect to see the table in the game design decisions. They're going to start coming into your meetings where you're just being concerned with, how do we make this work game-wise? And they're going to say, how do we make this up? something we can sell. How do we make this more monetizable? How do we, you take a huge risk when

you do it, but you also have more control over that kind of relationship that you do when you have somebody above you who's feeding you money that you then have to placate. It's a, it's a tradeoff, but it is risky. Yep. Greg, what's your final one? I give it you, Arden. Good. Love it. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been the kind of funny games cast. We're about to get into the post show. I'm going to read a couple of you. your submissions for your predictions from Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Tim Geddes. Members and above.

Tim Geddes. It's very important, but I'm just affronted that we've been on here over two hours now from the pre-show. And you still haven't wished me happy birthday. Oh, we already said happy birthday to you. You got this. Good. Happy birthday. Jared.

Barry Jarrett. You should watch the Kind of Funny podcast to hear my thoughts on people who ask for birthday wishes. Yeah, dude, they're not nice. I love you. Happy birthday. 40th birthday. Did we talk about it on the post show? On the pre-show?

No. Going on 45. Fellas were falling. Yeah, we did. The entire fucking pre-show was us talking about how old we actually feel like we are. It was about Curry. Did we wish it? No, it turned into Curry because we were talking about you being 40 but not, but having been

40 for a long time. I don't know that it was an explicit wish, though. We called him a. Fran old man. Fran grandpa. Graham's right to be in Graham's. You know what? I didn't get, I, it's not out there for the masses.

It was implied, Jared. By the time of the masses, to see this, it won't be your birthday. You know what? I'm 40. Halo sucks. That's right. Jesus Christ.

We're in the post show, right? Halo doesn't suck. Now we're in the post show. Right now when you hit your hand on the table. That way he's still, he's not on the record of saying Halo doesn't suck. He's fantastic.

No. Happy birthday. Oh, is this cake you can't eat. You should put candles in a sushi. Nobody knew it. Got to wait for the post show. I'm where you guys are going to throw sushi at me.

Joey put candles in the sushi and tell you. It's not about the series. So I interrupted, we have these wonderful Patreon supporters at the bronze level. Yes. And we really ought to read some. We're going to read some. Did we get into the post show?

Yeah, I said now we're in the post show. Joshua, what do you mean? Greg Deff said something. I said a whole bunch of stuff on the show. Mr. Yossman said it began when Tim read my birthday message

to Jared on the chat and he said he's 40. So you know what? I wanted to get the main episode. I don't know if someone's 40, though, if that's a birthday message. But I read his happy birthday message to him. But that's not yours to Jared. I mean,

you didn't say happy birthday. And I'm going to be, happy birthday from me. I would have totally done that for you. I'm sure you would have. You should watch the KF podcast where he talks about this. Yeah, we talked about it earlier, actually. It's a whole thing. I kind of leaned into that.

Cameron Kennedy says the developer of Ding Dong X-L is pretty pumped on Twitter. How do they know about this already? I tweeted out of my one. I don't know if that's what it is. Yeah, remember I said, I'm going to shoot this guy and I want it on fucking places. The best thing about it is this is wonderful, like, the ding-dong sound. Like, you hear that bong-wong. That's what I'm trying to hear.

But when you're playing with earphones, like when you play with headphones, you hear this, ding-dong, ding-dong. Every time you hit. When you were doing the ad. Somebody chats already addicted to ding-dye. So, really, when we were doing the ad, when I was like, oh, fucking Kevin, I look over it, he just, like, I hate him. No, no, we made eye contact. Happy birthday to June.

Happy birthday To June Copyright strike Happy birthday to June It's a bunch of smoke Team Yeah

I was trying to stall Because like Cool Greg earlier was like Hey should I get Jared a cake And I was like No could you go get him some ham And he's like yeah I got it And so when you called me out

But not say happy birthday I was like shit Cool Greg where's the ham So here we are Happy birthday, Jared. I hope you're happy. We put a lot of fun into this. I'm very happy.

Shut off the fire. All right. So that's fire. Here we go. Cover the ham though. Oh, my God. Yeah. Do you want to start the post show now?

So people know we actually had the ham? Yes. Now the post show begins. Now the real post show. Ladies and gentlemen.