Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl & Halo Infinite MP Impressions - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Download the DraftKings app NOW and use promo code KINDAFUNNY to play free for millions! Go to http://fitbod.me/kfgames to get 25% off. Go to http://nativedeodorant.com and use code kfgames to get 20% off your first purchase. Tim, Andy, and Blessing predict give their thoughts on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and Halo Infinite Multiplayer. Time Stamps: 00:00:00 - Start 00:01:16 - Housekeeping 00:02:15 - Pokemon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl Impressions 00:22:19 - Halo Infinite Multiplayer Impressions Epic Creator Code: KindaFunny Follow The Gamescast Team On Twitter: Tim Gettys: https://twitter.com/TimGettys Andy Cortez: https://twitter.com/TheAndyCortez Blessing Adeoye: https://twitter.com/BlessingJr Barrett Courtney: https://twitter.com/SadBoyBarrett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at Ae Aalje, Jr. Tim, I adore your shirt. Thank you. Thank you. It's one of my fancy ones. It was from a sponsorship.

I don't know, I don't remember which one. Let me see that tag. Yeah, I'm having trouble. There's no way. I will say, you know how Greg usually brings out his Busan and that gives him this burst of energy and he comes through on not even 10. He's on 11. I have my green tea in my Ricketts.

and Morty Cup, and it gives me the opposite effect where I don't have the energy of the Greg on Bousson, but I do have the chill of me on green tea. The introspectiveness. Yeah, and so if I seem a little bit more laid back is the green tea, I promise. Okay, okay. I love that. I love that. Nice little tea time with blessing. And now that other voice you here, of course, is the one and only nitral rifle, Andy Cortez. Hello, Tim. It's been a great week for clicking heads and really has more and more weeks yeah yeah yeah we're going to talk a lot about clicking them heads in this episode i have a feeling and i'm excited about that because halo is upon us a lot sooner than we expected which is such a fun thing to say but we'll get to all of that later first off let me tell you

that this is the kind of funny games cast where each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them you can get it on youtube.com slash kind of funny games or you can go to roost your teeth dot com but if you want to get it as a podcast all you got to do Go to your favorite podcast service and search for Kind of Funny Games cast, and we'll be right there for you. If you wanted to get the show ad-free, if you wanted to watch it live as we record it, and if you want the exclusive post show that we do for every single episode of the Kind of Funny Games cast, you've got to go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games, just like our Patreon producers, Pranksy, Tyler Ross, Delaney Twining, Julian the Gluten Free Gamer, Alex J. Sandoval, Techie Haas, James Hastings, and Casey Andrew have all done. We appreciate you also very, very much. And because you supported us on Patreon, you will not need to hear the ads for me undies,

uncommon goods, and stamps that will tell you all about later. Where do we want to start, guys? You want to start with the Pokemon or do you want to start with the Halo? Start with Pokemon. I want to know all about what the heck this game is doing. Let's start with the Pokemon. Pokemon, a brilliant diamond and shining pearl. I have been playing Diamond.

Blessing has been playing Pearl. Bless, I want to start with you. Have you played Diamond and Pearl before? And what are you thinking of this so far? So this is my first time playing Pokemon, Diamond, and or Pearl. My history of Pokemon is kind of like a bit all over the place because I played the first three generations. And I love and adore the first three generations. Then I had a hard fall off because I didn't own a DS growing up or any like any handheld that came after that.

So DS or 3DS, I didn't own those. Then I came back around and played Pokemon Sword. And I liked it fine. I actually wasn't really in love with it. Because I think the thing that I realized with the Pokemon sword is that I think I've outgrown it. Not necessarily that. It's not because like Pokemon is for kids or anything like that.

I think just the Pokemon formula is a thing that I think over the years I've just gravitated toward games that I like do different things. I've played more different types of games. I've become such a big persona fan. And like, you know, I don't know. There's something about Pokemon that hasn't really grabbed me in recent games. that is like connected with me in a way where I'm like, oh, I got to go play this. Oh, this is the one. Oh, snap. I got to get to it. That said, I still love the brain of Pokemon. I had a fun time Pokemon Go when that came out in 2016. Like Pokemon spinoff games have such a good, I have such good memories of, you know, Pokemon Stadium, too, like the Pokemon anime. There's so many different facets of the Pokemon world that I feel a big connection toward, and a lot of that is the nostalgia aspect of it. And so I've been very curious jumping into Pokemon Pearl seeing how I'm going to take to this one. And I'm going to take to this one. one because this is one of the more, at this point, older ones.

You know, it's kind of like, I guess in the mid range of like, you know, like the time it's been since the original Pokemon Pearl and Diamond came out. 2006? Really? That feels, that's wild. Holy cow. Jumping into this one, not really having any preconceived expectations or like even knowing what the like the deal with this specific generation is.

I am halfway through the game. I have four out of the badges and I've probably put in about eight hours so far and so these are only like halfway impressions. I'm pretty bored with it so far. Like it's, it's Pokemon, which is I think the thing that people

come and expect this game to be, right? I think Pokemon has that solidified formula that like you go in, you know you're going to catch the Pokemon, you know, you're going to defeat the gym leaders. You know that like depending on what kind of play you are, you might be going after. Like I want to catch my favorite shinies. or I want to catch them all, or I want to like grind and like level up all my Pokemon.

I think Pokemon speaks to a lot of different people in a lot of different ways in terms of how they want to approach it and come to it. For me, I just like to go in, you know, complete the campaign or complete the story, catch as many as I can and then be done with it. And I move on to the next game. And so far halfway through it, I think the thing I'm realizing with this Pokemon is that the Pokemon formula is so like, it's so standardized and so fixed in. that if you told me I had played this game before, I would have believed you. Just based off of like the, you know, going into, jumping into the world for the first time,

going into the first like route, like Route 1 or whatever it is in this game. The first thing you run into is like a bird that is basically a pidgy. Oh, cool. I'm going to catch that. Next thing you run into is a rodent that's basically like any other early rodents. Oh, cool. I'm going to catch that like a normal type Pokemon. And then like I go into a cave.

It's a geo dude. Okay, sweet. I'm going to catch that too. Oh, it's an onyx. Oh, the first gym leader's rock type. Sweet, cool. I know what this is like. My fire Pokemon isn't going to do me great here.

And it's such going through the motions with it that like, you know, I don't necessarily have anything bad to say about this game because I think as a, as a video game, as a Pokemon game, like it does pretty much everything is supposed to, right? It's Pokemon at its core. And like, if you're a Pokemon fan and you're a fan of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, I think you're going to like this one. But for me personally coming into it, I guess like looking for my next Pokemon experience, looking to jump into this Pokemon game for the first time, I was hoping for something that was going to stand out a bit more to me. And it's, so far, it's fine. Like,

I think I'm going to go, I'm going to finish it just for the sake of finishing it because I've made it this far. And I like playing Pokemon in general. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. It's not, it's not blowing me away by any means. I do like the art style, though. That is one thing I will say. And I know the art style is conflicting for a lot of people. I like the cutesy art. style that's a bit like the what is it links awakening that came out a couple years ago it's not as as links awakening by any means but i do like the direction of it i think it's cute but tim where were you out with it i am i'm actually pretty surprised that i'm right there with you for almost everything you just said with the exception of the art style thing uh but i i'm really surprised by kind of how

bored i am playing this i have played diamond and pro before i played all the core generations of of Pokemon. And my favorite gen has been Gen 2. And my favorite Pokemon game ever is Heart Gold and Silver, which is the Gen 4 remakes of Gen 2. Gen 4 had a lot of like kind of big steps forward and advancements for the

Pokemon core gameplay, specifically dividing the special attacks and physical attacks into like different types of stats. And that was a really, really big thing that fundamentally changed a lot of the more kind of involved elements of the combat as you, go on. And also something I appreciate a lot about these games is the Gen 4 pushed the level cap up a bit. So you're not facing the Elite 4 at like level 50. Like it's a little closer to the

70s. So there's a little bit more there. There's a little bit more challenge and you're not just able to steamroll everybody from your first try without even really grinding, which I always kind of appreciated. But having said that, I think you're right that this game is so by the numbers of what we expect for Pokemon. And I really enjoyed Diamond and Pearl when they first came out. And like, let me, I should actually even start it by saying this. If you've already made up your mind about this game, you're going to, it's going to deliver. Like if you're like, I love Gen 4 and I'm so happy they're doing a remake, you're going to get what you're seeing here. And it is the game. There's some things that are changed. I know that a lot of people are going to be upset about the,

the way experience share works. Like, there are modern elements of Pokemon that are put into this. Go for it. Bless. Yeah, well, I'm actually glad I have you here as somebody who's played the original because I've had a lot of questions in terms of what's different from this one versus the original and like can you can you give me like a quick like hey this this this is this this is our new like is experience share a thing that's always been there No not I mean experience sharing the older Pokemon games was like an item you got pretty later on that you could equip and then it would share it across your team but in the more modern Pokemon games it's kind of just your entire team gets points and that really kind of divides a lot of people's thoughts on these games I personally am I'm a fan of it, and I think that it kind of helps kind of speed things up, because that's a big problem I have with this game is the first bit of it, I would say, I'm a little behind you. I'm about to get to the fourth gym. But like that whole half of the game, it's slow and it's kind of boring and it's not like

the most interesting kind of environments. And there's not the most interesting Pokemon you're seeing. And what you're saying about it being kind of formulaic Pokemon of the type of Pokemon you're seeing, the type of environments you're in, the type of gym leaders you're facing. Like, again, it's a remake of an old. game. So I already knew this going in the Gen 4 wasn't necessarily my favorite in the Cino region, at least. But I think the biggest problem is for every advancement this game did that like kind of helps speed up the gameplay and stuff. You got the running boots or running shoes, which were in the original too, but it feels a little faster. I still would have liked it even faster than it is in this. And the big thing for me is the level of customization of the buttons. It's like, guys, just like allow me to do whatever I want. with button customization and mapping because what I've really liked about Diamond and Pearl

back on the DS was you can use the shoulder buttons to act as the A button. So you can play the game one-handed, which was always really, really nice for that thing, especially for this type of grindy RPG, where you could kind of multitask if you want or just the ability to play it one hand is always very nice. This game lets you do that, but only with the left hand.

Like the right hand, the R button does work to select, but the analog stick on the switch doesn't work to control it. And I know that sounds like a very small thing to complain about, but that's an example of one thing that's like, why not? Like you guys got 90% of the way there and you didn't do that last 10%. So it kind of feels weird. And it's a reminder. I think Poppa on Lesco had that.

Let's go Pikachu and Evie. I think you could do either one. Yeah. You just can't in this. And the problem for me is like, I want this game to kind of feel faster. I want this game to kind of like give me a reason to play the remakes as opposed to the originals and I think that's the thing for me where I'm like I do not recommend these over the originals like I think the diamond and pearl holds up way better than what I've experienced so

far playing this my memories of those games are way fonder than my experience playing this right now it feels sterile I really dislike the art style um I think that the and I've disliked it since we first saw it and if you disagree cool it's for you this is not for me um I you bring up the links awakening and I'm like no it's not links awakening links awakening was fantastically designed didn't run well, but looks fantastic. This doesn't. It doesn't really have its own identity. It's kind of just, hey, here's some cheapy Pokemon stuff.

And on top of that, they don't even fully commit to it. And the battle scenes look, they look totally different in these kind of empty looking environments that aren't really interesting and don't really feel like they're part of the world. In the battle scenes that we have seen in like, I want to say the last like four generations of Pokemon at this point, Tim. It's ridiculous. Oh, yeah.

Then that's, I think that's one of my things with it is like, I like the cuteness of the art style, but I think you're spot on in terms of how sterile it feels, especially when you are switching back and forth from the overall environment into the battles. I swear, I swear the battle scene feels like it's not changed since like the last four games. At least like since I've jumped in, since Let's Go Pikachu, I feel like they've all been relatively the same. And like it's a fine battle scene. And like I think they have a lot of good like accessibility stuff there in terms of ease of, like player friendly ease of use. Cool, press X to throw the polka ball, shit like that. that makes things go quicker and easier.

But yeah, when I'm running through the overall, there is a level of, yeah, like, I think there's just a level of, like, of personality that's missing, that makes this game feel like it stands out from the other ones where it is, it's cute, and that's kind of what it is. And, like, there are some formulaic things, too,

that I think they've introduced within the last few generations that they seem to lump into this one as well. One of the things, I remember playing Pokemon, Let's Go, and they do the things, where as you're making your way through the game, they'll introduce you to the Elite 4 in ways

that they didn't have in the original game where you'll just run in to, like, Lance, and he's just there and he talks to you for... Lower lie. Yeah, Lore lie, they'll talk to you for one or two pieces of dialogue, and they'll help you out, and then they peace out or whatever. And, like, you know, that stuff never felt of consequence or felt like a, oh, man, you guys are building a world here.

It felt like an attempt, and it felt like a step, but it never, that stuff never went all the way. And there are elements of this game that I see. are kind of a similar deal where there are characters that I run into. And they're there for like two seconds and then they piece out. And I'm like, all right, I wonder if you're in the elite floor or I wonder if you're an actual character that I'm going to run into again or like, you know, I don't have any point like where I meet a character.

I'm like, oh, they're of consequence. I'm going to, I'm going to like have a whole plot with this person. Like none of that feels, I guess, of consequence here. Without getting too into the nerdy side of this stuff, Diamond and Pearl, I think was really kind of a turning point for the franchise with them to try to make story elements that and characters that felt a little bit more fleshed out than we had seen before uh ruby and sapphire had their whole plot with the team aqua and magma and stuff but like the teams in this one their story kind of like i think does have a bit more consequence overall uh for how they're doing things and there

are a couple elite foreign members in uh diamond and pearl that are awesome fantastic characters and like some of the series best. But they're few and far between. I think it all goes back to one of my bigger issues with it is this is really the first generation to introduce the rival that is just kind of like not an aggressive rival. They're just another like friendly person that's with you. And like it doesn't feel like I want to beat them. I feel better than them from the get go.

Like you don't have that kind of antagonistic relationship that like red and blue had. you know and i think that that's just kind of like something that i like a lot from Pokemon games so when this this is uh one of the first ones that ruby and sapphire had this problem a little bit as well um but ruby and sapphire i thought were a little more interesting from the onset in terms of locations and what you're doing and it it felt like a lot more um new Pokemon we're seeing whereas this kind of it just goes back to being a little formulaic and um in terms of the visuals like not just the art style but uh there's decisions made where like the edges of the the screen are oftentimes like blurred a little bit.

Yeah. And it doesn't look good. Like just at all. And that's upsetting. But then every once in a while, there's like a moment where I'm like, oh, okay, like you had something here. Like you'll be in a patch of grass and like you'll see the shadow of a cloud that's

above you. You never see the cloud, but you just see the shadow kind of moving over you. And I'm like, all right. Like it's not like there was no effort put into this. Like, but that also just kind of makes the. stuff that's like, ah, that doesn't look great, kind of stand out a bit more. And like, it just sucks that this game kind of has the vibe of like a fan made game,

which a fan made game in like 2012, which is like, okay, cool, you use unity to, to make some stuff and that's cool. But nowadays, we get fan made games that look utterly incredible. And this isn't that. You know, this is kind of like, it feels stuck in time a bit. And I'm not going to be completing this one. I'm going to give up on it. Yeah.

I it's just there's something about it man it lacks the personality to to make me want to keep going and it it it's just isn't isn't too great but I will say it is fantastic on the OLED very colorful and the the lines look sharp as hell like it's there's nothing offensively bad about it and like you were saying earlier yes like even though it's not bad it's just not exciting and that's kind of the end of it Andy what's up Tim did you finish sword or shield yes how would you compare the experience overall to this because I'm coming from this from a perspective of not having ever played the original and not having access to the original in a realistic way where you know yeah I want to play the original I'd have to get a new handheld and I'd have to

eBay some stuff most likely um the reason why I've been interested in this is I didn't really think I'd cared about Pokemon until Sword and Shield came back and I was or came around and I played that on Switch, and a lot of it was playing that on a big screen that I kind of cared about, and I'm rarely the handheld type of gamer. And so I like just being able to sit down and experience that on the big screen.

The same with, let's go Evie and let's go Pikachu. Like, I beat those as well, and I had a lot of fun with those. I don't really play Pokemon games for the story or the characters. I feel like I'm rarely blown away by, wow, this character arc is pretty fantastic. It seems like, though, I still might enjoy this because it is kind of a base level Pokemon game.

No, it's a Pokemon game, man. Like, if you're going to give you a fix. You're going to get the fix from this. Like, there's a quality game here, man. Like, Diamond and Pearl are good games. It's just, they kind of, especially these being remakes, it just feels like we've gotten this a hundred times because we've gotten this a hundred times. So it's like, I think that's the reason that like to me, it especially doesn't feel

that like special. Like, even if they were to remake black and white, I think that'd be a lot more interesting with this type of engine just because of what those games actually were. But like playing this, it just does kind of feel like, all right, I've been here before and I preferred how it looks before. So that's kind of the biggest thing for me. Your mileage may vary on that. So if you like this art style, hey, it's here for you and like this game exists.

But I any day would rather play the original Diamond Pearl over this. I also think with the Pokemon Sword and Shield comparison, I had a lot of similar complaints with Pokemon Sword and Shield in terms of the formula of it and feeling like, oh yeah, Pokemon, it's just Pokemon. The thing I will say about Pokemon Sword and Shield is that I think that game goes far enough in a lot of its gimmicks, like the stadium setting, like the buildup of like you walk in through like the stadium and you see the dude, the Pokemon ballhead dude and you like

talk to him and all this shit. I think there's enough there in terms of what it brings to kind of try to expand the world, even though none of it is like super amazing or none of it feels like it pushes the bar. Even the overall world sections too. Yeah, the overall section. It was different, slightly different in like personality. and presentation. Like it really tried to hone in on the presentation of things.

Yeah. I think there's enough there to at least for me when I was playing it. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm for sure going to finish this because at the very least, I'm, there are exciting new things here that I want to see and I want to see through. Playing Pokemon,

uh, shining Pearl for the first time, it feels like I'm regressing in a way where I'm like, cool, this is going to give you your Pokemon fix and I'm getting my Pokemon fix off of this. But I think we've gotten so much Pokemon within the last three or four years. that this just does not feel special to me.

I'm halfway through this game, and I'm like, I've played this game a billion times at this point, and, like, there's nothing about it that is separating it out from any other Pokemon. It almost feels like I'm playing Pokemon the game at this point, right? Like, nothing about it feels fresh and new. Granted, it's a remake, but I don't know. I was looking for something, at least anything,

to, like, bring me any kind of, oh, this is, like, this generation's thing, right? And I know there's, like, the Pokemon, like, not the fashion show, but, like, the Pokemon show stuff where you can decorate your Pokeball and like do dances and shit. That doesn't speak to me. And so like I did that once and I was like, no, I'm good.

I'm good on this. But yeah, like I'm not really getting anything special. That sucks to here, like, especially because Andy, I'm like you. It's just like, when a Pokemon game comes out, it's like cool. I'm down for this like basic JRP, mindless, collecting, collecting some pocket monsters and chilling out. And like what you, Tim and Blas are saying, it's like, yeah, like, I would go into this game being like totally cool whatever but like right now I'm also playing persona four golden

like I'm going back to that and like trying to actually complete it and that is like a much more interesting like collect monsters with like fully fleshed out story so like like I'm scared I'm going to go into this and like play an hour and be like well it's not persona four and then just like completely ignore it so it's sexy here that it's not bringing the heat in this generation yeah I think it's a good it's a good excuse to play a classic Pokemon game, you know, and I think I'm gonna finish it because this is my first time playing Pearl. And I like it as an excuse to be like, cool, I finally, I've finally played this generation. And when they put out a remake of the next one or of black and white or of X and Y, I'll play those so I can like have that, I guess, like, back knowledge filled or like get that, get that experience of playing those games that I missed.

It's a lot there for you, bless. Like, again, I want to say gen 4 is a good gen of Pokemon for sure. And like there are moments and especially the elite 4, very good. cool stuff and some of the end game stuff's really interesting as well but yeah i just think that this this remake doesn't necessarily do it too much justice but moving on halo infinite multiplayer andy cortez it dropped it happened on the 20th anniversary of the xbox you've been playing the hell out of it what do you think it dropped it happened and it's functional holy shit is it functional Granted, people get kicked out every once in a while. What game doesn't kick you out of stuff?

But for it to work this well on the launch day where how many we're playing concurrently, $220-something thousand on Steam? Somewhere around that. And that's just steamed numbers. 272. Just steam numbers, which is absolutely wild. And the fact of that, again,

this is why you have flights, this is why you delay the game. for everything to work as seamlessly as it did, even yesterday were me and micro-streaming, and we are coordinating large custom games with viewers in chat to come play and switching teams and picking the game mode. Like, all of it was working so well.

I was really just blown away by how well it worked. When we think about how, when we think about Forza's release and we think about trying to enter a multiplayer game there or just trying to join somebody's party, I was pretty worried with this game releasing yesterday. especially when the plan was if it releases, we play Halo all day, and then it's like, well,

we're going to try to play Halo all day. Yeah, we know what new releases are. That was a major concern when the rumors were popping off on Friday, when we recorded Xcast, and Mike and Paris were talking about it.

It's like, they didn't see that this was, like, based off the rumors, they didn't think that this was going to be true because they were convinced of like, servers were going to melt. Look at what happened to Forza this week. There's no way that they're going to be able to pull this off. Like, there's no way they're going to do this on Monday.

Apparently it's the Microsoft Azure servers, which is what Halo's operating on, which I don't know whether Forks is operating in those or not, but it doesn't seem like it because this just worked really damn well. But not only was it all functional and the experience was great, but the game plays so incredibly great. On PC, I feel like it's been optimized so much better than it was during the earlier flights. I'd still think it could do a bit where, like, my GPU gets really maxed out, whether

I'm on low or high settings. And I just feel like there's something kind of not connected. connecting there in when it comes to just making the game perform a little bit better. But God damn, it's so much fun. The maps that we haven't played might be some of my favorites of the catalog. I haven't been able to play this at all just because I'm playing some games for review and stuff and just general work shit. So the test flights we've done, there was three levels, right, that we got to play. Eventually a fourth, which was the behemoth, big team battle one.

That's the one that's like, that Halo 2 level the start of the day. Ascent? Ascent, right? No, the second map. No, the third map is more like Ascent. The one I'm talking about

is the big team battle one that is like really, really, really, really big. Gotcha, you're right. I didn't play the Ascent one. That was the only one I didn't get a chance to do. That was like a mid-size map. Besides that, tell me about... And I think I called it Bohemoth,

and I don't think that's the actual name. So sorry, if I got that wrong. Tell me about the new ones. How many are there? and you're saying you like them a lot? Yeah, so I think most of them are, there's one of the larger map that we're watching right now on the screen for the viewers,

and this one is one of the larger maps that you could do CTF on, and it's also, there's a new mode where you are essentially, I don't know if I love this new mode, Tim. It seems kind of confusing, especially when you're doing a big team battle sort of thing. What it is is there are canisters to collect around the world, and you have to collect five of them

and bring them back to your base. And once you collect five, bam, that's a point. And I think it's like first to three. I didn't necessarily love the gameplay and feel of this mode. I'm not sure if it was maybe there's too many people playing. It just didn't really feel like there was a whole lot of synchronicity between the whole squad. But CTF feels as good as it ever does.

This map, I wasn't the biggest fan of, but there are a couple of the smaller arena maps, the 4V4 style maps. that are really badass Tim, like really just well laid out levels. Cool verticality in some moments. It just feels like this is the prototypical kind of way you build out a 4V4 arena map. And then there's another fairly, there's a couple of other fairly large maps that are, I think we were playing with our buddy Chris Anka and he said,

yeah, they put us in this game on 4V4 and it is too big. And then after playing big team battle on that map, I was like, damn, this is a really big map for 4B4. And maybe those are just things they need to iron out and make it a little bit more fair, you know. But goddamn, like it still feels so good to play. I felt all of the, I got the fix, you know, it all came back to him. It feels incredible. Yeah. I'm so stoked, man.

Bless, have you been able to play at all? Do you plan to play at all? Oh, yeah. I was playing a whole lot yesterday. I was playing with Andy and Mike a bit on their stream as they were doing big team battle. And then before that and after that, I was playing a lot of the 4V4 modes. And I've been having a blast with it. I'm surprised by how much I'm already like craving it and wanted to go back.

And even today, as I've been working, there have been multiple times where I'm like, how much time do I have before the next thing? Do I have like 15 minutes going to do a quick match of Halo? And like, I'm not, I've not been able to get back into it today, but I can't wait to get back into it. And I think that's where I'm, that's where I'm at with it. You know, like I've been, I've been enjoying the 4V4 modes more than the big team battle stuff. I think the big team battle, I might need to work my way up to, or it might just not be for me. I think there's, there's less of an ownership of like what's going on. And like,

I like the idea of with 4V4, I have an actual impact on this match. Like, the, if I don't perform, then we are losing. And I kind of, I kind of like that element of the 4B4. And so, like, I've been really enjoying that. I like the actual game feel. Like, historically, Halo has just not been my thing. And, like, I gravitate, I've gravitated towards other competitive FPS's, you know, like Call of Duty, Apex, Fortnite, like, pretty much anything else that's not Halo, all gravitate toward. And this being the one where I'm like, okay, I'm going to sit down. I'm going to play a hell a lot of Halo Infinite and actually see if I can, like, get into this thing.

So far, I'm so excited. So far I'm super into it. I love the customization. Seeing other people's Spartans, Spartans, right? Andy? Yeah, seeing other people's Spartans, they look sick. And I can't. It's been that double-edged thing of me going, oh, man.

I want to customize and I can't wait to get there, but then trying to grind for stuff and realizing, oh, this is taking a while to get anywhere. Like, I, it seems, it seems like XP is very slow to dole out and it seems like it's very much dependent on doing the, like the daily objectives and the weekly objectives as opposed to like getting XP every single match for kills

or just for completed matches. And so like, that's the thing that I guess, they are aware of it, which is good. Are they aware of it? Okay, is that like a common complaint people have? Very big discourse. Oh yeah. It's been pretty big already of like, damn, it's taking a long time to level up.

And it's something I hadn't really tried to play a game where I'm grinding for a battle pass since I guess I did a bit of it in Warzone, but that's where I'm just playing the game. And Fortnite was the one where I'm like, all right, let's do the challenges. Get a kill with this gun. And I never did that with Wars. And I was just kind of always leveling up anyway. But I didn't really notice those issues because I am. just my brain hasn't been trained in that way. So when I open up Halo and I see the challenges,

get a kill using this weapon, I'm like, I just kind of ignore all that. I just play the game. And then seeing all that pop up, I go, oh, you know what? I haven't really been even noticing the XP gains. And a lot of people are unhappy about it. And they're saying it's definitely really, really slow.

And a lot of the people at Halo already kind of mentioned, like, yeah, we're going to look into it. Okay. Thank God. Because, like, as somebody who plays, somebody who plays like a lot of apex, that's a thing that whenever I'll do them sometimes if there are challenges that suit me like if it is play two games as Loba well I was going to play as Loba anyways so I'm going to do that or like you know get a few kills using the R301 it's like cool I'll I'll do that um but for the

most part if there's anything that is anywhere near the outside of my like purview that I'm like cool I'm not going to do that because I'm I just want to play the game to play the game right I just want to play the game to try and get the wins and oftentimes I just see those dailies in those weeklies as distractions if they are going too far in terms of the way that I want to play. And so I like having the option of ignoring that stuff and still leveling up my battle pass or my general XP. And so, yeah, I'm glad that it seems like they're at the very least aware of it. And I hope they, I'll pay pivot with it in a way that like satisfies everyone.

But Andy, go for it. I just want to say, and I want to apologize for just seeming so incredibly unprepared when Tim asked me what my favorite maps are. And I'm like, oh, should I should have like come up with a list of them. But the newer maps that they added Aquarius is fantastic. That's one of the ones that I loved. We played one of our first competitive modes where you can actually go into competitive and get ranked after a certain amount of games.

And we played competitive and it was CTF. And it was one of those games, Tim, where we are yelling and it is intense as hell. And we go to overtime. And we're just hoping to tie because this team is really damn good. And we ended up getting the final capture for sudden death. And we're just like, that's our final game of competitive. I never wanted to that was way too sweaty. I never want to do that again.

So Aquarius is fantastic. That's one of the closed quarters maps, along with Streets, which is the map that IGN had the exclusive on. Streets is also super well laid out. It's really visually and aesthetically good looking as well. The larger maps, the one that you hadn't played was Behemoth. That was the third or fourth map during the flights. And then the gigantic one was fragmentation.

That's the big team battle one. And we also have had fun. Which is the one that we were playing? Big Team Battle. or? Big team battle. What was that map? Well, there's a couple of them. So fragmentation is one of them with all the rocks and the mountains. There's also another one that's sort of rocky and mountainy

which is kind of the overall aesthetic that they're going for with outdoors maps. And that one is called High Power. And that one's really cool. That one has the gigantic hole in the center of the map that Mike was like, Andy getting the Gwardhog, let's do this. And he drove us right into the center hole, which is like kind of meant to be there

as a be careful. But that one is a lot. Think behemoth but a bit smaller in scale you get from each side pretty quickly and there's really good lanes there's good lifts that send you to the opposite side and get you verticality and high power is a really cool map it's going to be awesome for a lot of um capture the flag games but i'm with bless i prefer more of the the four v four style stuff yeah i love kind of hope you know trying to be the x factor for my team and pulling through the clutch when it's one reason why um i don't grab I'd say towards battlefield because I just don't really feel like I'll get a couple kills and

oh, we're still losing our point, you know? Like, oh, am I doing anything here? Like, does my input really matter here? The 4V4 maps definitely feel really, really damn good. One of the things I want to mention, too, is like, one thing I really appreciate about the game is how polished it is, just on all aspects, you know, from how it looks, because the game looks phenomenal just in terms of visuals. And, like, when I kill somebody seeing their weapons drop down, like, it took me a while

before I realized, oh, I can pick those up. Like those weapons just look like they're part of the environment, the way they fly out the character. And I'm like, oh, shit, I can pick those up and actually use them. So, like, it looks beautiful. I think it controls super well and, like, the shooting feels so good. And, like, that's something that's never really hit me for Halo. The times that I've played Halo at a friend's place or downloaded it real quick to play with a friend online, I've never really loved the feel of Halo just compared to the shooters

that I do love. This time around, I think, after being a bit more committed to it, or after, committing to it a bit more. I think the actual game feel of it has grown on me just in terms of, oh, this is, I'm getting kills here, and now I know how I kill feels in Halo. Now I know how this is supposed to feel. Now I know the actual flow of it

of like getting shots off and then getting closer and then meleeing them in the face and getting that kill. Getting into that flow has been so fun and it feels so clean. And then, yeah, like just the general like even UI, the way that the UI looks in the game is so clean and so good. The sound is, I've never heard a video game sound this good.

I miss, Tim, I miss the fucking melee sound. Dude, melee someone and that like crunch and you're like, oh, yes, it's so chunky.

So good. But the thing with Halo is it's always had an amazing sound identity when it comes to the sound of different weapons, the sound of the punch, the announcer of the multiplayer matches, like so many things as well as

obviously the music and God, even in multiplayer, they really, really knocked out of the park with the music. We've already talked about all that. But playing this version of the game so far, I am blown away by this is actual Dolby Atmos mix from from them like the game is made for it and it is on a level I've never heard whether it's in headphones or in actual like surround sound at most speaker setup I am utterly blown away they fucking they did the thing and I don't know that I'm going to be able to play other games and like like like in the same way because it's like I've I love sound I love that type of stuff and this is it's so next level that it's kind of like it's brought you into another like that big of like I don't know that it's brought you into another like of audio snob.

It's no real talk, man. And like that melee, all the crunch, the punch that is. It's something I was saying, Blessing Roger and I were playing for a little bit last night while y'all were in the middle of a three and a half hour podcast about the Amazinging Spider-Man.

It's still going. It's still going. People say. And like Blessing, we were in a match that I think was just Slayer, just get to, you know, 50 kills. And we were popping off and it was like tight. and we got to the like it was 49-49 and I think bless you might have like gotten that last kill

and the way that like all of us fucking yelled at the end and like all this stuff like the thing that it was it was the thing of weird that whole match we were fucking around and like just joking and talking about shit and then when we realized the score we're like oh shit we got to lock in and we were like it was all together watching our corners watching the past kind of see where enemies are coming in it really just brought what I think uh like y'all have been saying during these flights and uh Like something that I just didn't realize until being able to play it yesterday is what it's doing what it needed to do. And it brought me back to playing Halo 3 with my friends back in middle school.

And like it's just, it's such a nostalgia trip without feeling. Like it feels how I remember Halo feeling in the best ways possible. And that's just, I'm so excited to play more of it. The one thing, like I would say, like, yeah, I agree the XP stuff. really weird. I hope they address it soon or whatever. And the only reason I do notice it is because of like, I love customizing my Spartan

and like that is the primary way to like get all the cool customizable options now is to like level up and unlock those in the battle pass. So that's really the only reason why I notice it where I'm like, fuck I want that helmet though. Like it'll give me a little give me to that helmet a little quicker. And then

the playlist stuff where like I love playing 4V4. I'm never going to be a big team battle kind of guy, especially the way y'all are talking about it, like, that's definitely just not for me. I know it's a beta, and I know, like, you know, we'll get the full launch in a month. But I just wish there was an ability to just select Slayer, just when doing, like, quick play and stuff like that. If I don't have, like, a crew to, like, do custom matches with, like, every single time. Because, like, yeah, I don't love, like, what you're saying, Andy, with that big team battle one where you're, like,

you have to, like, go grab those five things and then bring them back. Like, I feel the same way about, like, oddball, which I don't think is, like a new, new one. I feel like, yeah, I've played oddball before this game. But that's this one I just never love. And, you know, like, I got to be in the mood for capture the flag and stuff like that. So just like those two little things where I'm like, man, I wish these were slightly different, but I know we're going to get the full game in a month and it'll probably be improvements as well.

Yeah. So even with Halo 5, like, they are constantly changing playlists. Yeah, exactly. I love the seasonal, not even seasonal, but it's more of a weekly thing of like, hey, Shottie Snipes is back. Come play Shottie Snipes on this map. And it's something that you kind of want to tune in for. And every once a while, I'll get a text from my brother.

Shottie Snipes, Talo 5. And, yeah, I know that they do, Bung-G-4-3 does a great job with sort of coordinating things like that. I wanted to just quickly touch on. Before you do that, before you do that real quick, let me tell you about our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by Draft Kings. What an NFL season it's been so far, or so Andy tells me. Again, it's only getting better. Get in on all the actions still to come with Draft Kings,

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code KF Games for 20% off. Native Deodorant.com code KF. Games. And now we're back, Andy. Go for it. Halo. What's up? I just wanted to quickly touch on the polish that the overall release sort of presents itself with because the during the flights, even looking at the viewport, you know, you're looking at your Spartan standing there and there was always something broken with it and you just sort of expect things to be broken. So when the game launches and suddenly I can see how many assists I have and then the Spartan that I'm looking at which is mine that I can turn around

Suddenly isn't in 640p Because I was happening a lot during the flights where the UI is super crisp everything looks great But everything in the background looks very very low Low quality. It's just like they're running a lower resolution for whatever reason and to see how crisp everything looks at its like full power and now we're ready to go and here's a Halo Infinite, season one, dropping three weeks early or four weeks, however much it is, it just feels, it feels surreal. To have that moment yesterday, I didn't, there was a lot of leaks pointing towards it, and I still didn't think it was going to happen, and it's here, and it kind of just changed

what the next month of mine looks like. Yeah, dude. I mean, so that's the question I have for you, Andy, is, you know, obviously it's super, super, super early with this, but you're saying the next month of yours, where do you see the Halo kind of craze ending. Obviously, we're in the spike of it right now. But do you think that in March, you guys are still going to be playing? I think so only because it comes down to 343 adding new modes.

I know everybody says, give us a battle Royale. And I feel like that's the next logical place to go. But I enjoy the feel of this so much. And I feel like I'm pretty decent at it. and I normally gravitate towards games I feel decent at. And it's the same thing with Wars and where I played that for over a year. And I will still hop into Overwatch every once in a while because that's still a game that I play. You know, I think this has become a regular multiplayer game for me.

I don't know. I haven't played Valerent in a while. And I feel like Valerant has not quite become the regular multiplayer game for me in the rotation whenever I'm bored, whenever there's not another game we have to be playing for review. I think that Halo in the way that it is right now, where you have your single Spartan, you want to level up to get that new piece of armor, you want to get a cooler color,

you want to go up in rank because I'm stuck at gold two right now. I want to get to platinum, whatever it is that we're talking about. It has that progression drive that I think really motivates me to keep on playing as of right now. And I feel like I will definitely be playing for the next couple months. I think I will be playing this in the long term though, for sure. What map or mode or what do you think they could bring back, like an old thing, bringing like a classic thing being brought back would get you most excited?

I mean, it would be so awesome to see like lockout being brought back in this visual fidelity to have it look as good it would look with the materials that they're using in this game. The art style and the visual fidelity in this game are so fucking superb. and I would love to see a map like lockout, which is kind of the go-toe for Halo 2. That's where you go, that's where you go settle arguments with friends. You go to lockout,

and that's like the one that I'm hoping to see come back. And when it comes to modes, I've always been, like Barrettos mentioning, I've always been the one that gravitates more towards Slayer, if it's 4B4 Slayer. I feel like big team battle, Slayer is kind of the one that I would prefer to play anyway. I'm more into CTF,

and oddball on 4V4 maps. I don't really know what sort of game modes I would be excited to come back. I just don't know, I don't recall what else there is out there, to be honest with you. Yeah. I mean, even things like shoddy snipers and stuff. Oh, oh, yeah, stuff like that. Oh, for sure.

I mean, yesterday I made a custom game to be our final game in the night, shoddy snipes, and it was a freaking blast to have those panic moments of two people up close, just missing every snipe that they can. And then they remember, oh, I have a shotgun. Let me bust out the shotgun.

I remember like stickys only being in a mode. And these are all things you could just do in custom games. And the fact that it works so well, you could just say, no weapons, everybody only has sticky grenades. And it's a stupid fun game that you could do every once a couple months and it feels fresh and new. So another question I have for you is we've been talking a lot on games daily about the progression system. We got alluded to a little bit in this. But one of the other things they announced yesterday with the surprise beta release is that, they're going to actually have season one last a lot longer than people expected.

They thought it was going to be like three months, but it's actually going to end in May 2022. Does that do anything for you? Is that necessarily a bad thing, good thing? Are you kind of like, eh, it's fine? We'll see how I feel in March or April. That was immediately one of the first things brought up while we were streaming it yesterday on the kind of funny games, Twitch channel.

And somebody brought it up in the comment and I was kind of like, hey, the game's been out for an hour. Like, let's worry about that later. We're just having fun with this video game right now. I'll see how I feel about that later. I'll see, you know, how long will it actually take this battle pass to level up? Maybe that was part of the design. Maybe it was, hey, this battle pass is going to take a long time to level up,

so we want it to last all the way through May. I don't really know. I will say one thing I have worries about visually is like I'm not super keen on the samurai skin in this game, like the samurai sort of armor-looking thing. And I don't really know what art styles would clash well with Halo. When it comes to Warzone,

when it comes to Warzone of Fortnite, even something like Warzone, which takes itself more seriously than a game like Fortnite, which Fortnite is just the metaverse at this point, whatever character you want. But in a game like Warzone, it took like a day to get used to the fact that there would be John McLean running at you,

or a skull with their head on fire. And you kind of go, oh, that's a really weird skin of seeing this sort of like realistic, semi-realistic military shooter. And then who cares at the fun time? We're just blowing shit up. But in a game like Halo, it does feel weird. And I noticed I was going to have an issue

when I was playing Splitgate, because Splitgate kind of takes a lot of its art direction and arena-style stuff from Halo. and it too they have their sort of soldier-looking Spartan dudes and when they started introducing you know here's a a unicorn whatever kind of sparkly skin and here's another thing it just

it feels kind of off and I don't really know like we're not going to see a Spartan with their mask with their helmet off I don't think in multiplayer like we're not going to see like a normal dude with their helmet off and maybe it's I don't know what's his name, Marcus Phoenix from Gears of War.

That would be a twist. That would be wild as hell, right? But I don't think we're going to see anything that doesn't resemble a Spartan. So how really can you kind of expand the visual identity of what Halo is? How can you, I don't know, it's just weird to think about. It's weird to think about, Tim. You think that, because I agree with you that there is the style. I do think all it's going to take is like one crazy set to be out there.

And then all of a sudden is going to change the game. And it's like, that could be all it takes. You know? But do you think that the AI, the voices, do you think that's going to be something that they have a lot of fun with and have a lot of like cool cameo type DLC packs for? Or do you kind of see it's like, oh, maybe there'll be one or two of them and that's the end of it? I think we will start to see things. I think they're going to just take a lot of stuff from war zone and see how they are doing. where you buy the bundle.

You get that skin, you get this AI voice, and you get that emblem or whatever. I think they're taking a lot of their cues from Fortnite and Warzone with their battle pass, aside from the progression speed. I think so. I mean, as of right now, it is day two of Halo Infinite multiplayer. The world is their oyster.

They can do so many things with it. It just depends on taking the first right step. And you take a wrong step one way, and you get some IP that nobody gives a shit about and it's going to get meme to all hell and suddenly that becomes like its own sort of topic so like they need to like make sure they either partner with the right IP or bring on some sort of character from a game that feels familiar um it would just be weird to me to see anything that's not a spartan in this game yeah i mean what's interesting there is like thinking back to like halo campaigns uh of yore and like you see

the Marines without helmets which I know is different than the Spartans themselves but I feel like that'd be easy enough to translate to different outfits and stuff for the characters you know well we we even had the elites in multiplayer at one point yeah that's right but like that's they're part of the lore they're part of the the world here and when I say like I'm I would be surprised to see somebody with their helmet off I mean more of like we're gonna bring in the rock Got it. And you have to have his helmet off to show off that it's the rock. You know what I mean?

Like that's sort of the stuff that's going to, I don't know how well it would clash, but you're totally right. It could just take, here's one thing. Oh, that's kind of weird. And you get used to it. You get, you know, after a day who gives a shit? You're playing Halo. It's fun anyway.

But they just have such a kind of visual identity right now that it's one thing that when I'm playing Overwatch and I think Overwatch does it the best when it comes to cosmetics. I think they're untouchable when it comes to iterating and showing a really cool variety of different characters, sort of skins and what we can do and how creative they can be with them. And just how good they look as well. In this game, I started getting questions in chat about what do the skins look like? And I kind of

just was like, you know, I guess I've just been really stoked about different color combos. And maybe I should demand more than just Colour combos, because yesterday the esports skins kind of released immediately, Tim. I don't know if you saw these. No, I didn't. But, Barrett, if you can look this up and bring this up for Tim because they're really, really fucking cool. Halo e-sports released all of their official team skins, similar to how in Overwatch, you could play as the silly roadhog skin or you could get the Dallas Fuel Roadhog skin, that sort of thing. And so all the orgs already have their official skins that they're going to be.

using in-game. Right. And they are all really fucking cool. And they look sleek as hell. They're basically team uniforms that they're going to be wearing. That's so cool. It's really, really awesome.

And at the end of the day, it's still just a material and texture color change. And maybe I should demand more from different add-ons. And obviously, you look through the battle pass, you see different add-ons that you will be unlocking. And here they are, here are all.

Yo, some of these are hot. They are so slick. I mean, the thing with the Sentinels, the third on the from the right, the left arm is all red, and it looks so fucking hot. You just can't see it right here. But the middle one is Envy, which is my squad, which is really neat because envy is they merged with Team Optic, the green team. They merged with Optic. They are merging their whole business. So the Envy skin will be the most rare of all of them.

because it's going to get put away forever when they eventually release the optic skin. So that's kind of like a cool thing that if you get it right now, you won't be able to get in the future. So keep that in mind. But at the end of the day, Tim, like, these are just color aesthetic changes. There's not a whole lot else happening there. Kind of to your point, though, I think that this is just day two, right? Of this. Oh, for sure.

Yeah. For now and then maybe add more stuff later. Like, I wonder what our conversation is going to be like in a couple months. Like in early 2020, are we going to be like, all right, why? Like that whole system worked then. But like now I kind of just want to customize every single thing that I want, you know? Yeah, we definitely will. And I think one thing that I am kind of worried about is the same thing that I didn't love about destiny was the shaders and how, I guess, how static they feel.

They don't feel super dynamic in the way that you could make that arm piece, that certain color. It's just, if you get the shader with the red on the bottom and the blue in the top right, then those parts will be blue and those parts will be red and the rest of them are black or whatever. And I think that's already kind of going to bother me because I see really cool shaders. I go, ah, I wish those colors. I wish those parts weren't purple. I wish these parts are purple. So you sort of run into that already.

But, yeah, we'll see what sort of variety they can bring with the different helmet styles and armor pieces. but at the end of the day, does it all just start to feel like armor noise in the way that like Transformers, movies just kind of like added more and more pieces to the transformer and you go, it just kind of looks like noise now. I need something a bit more distinct looking.

I don't know. You know, you bringing up these esport outfits that look really freaking cool. Like you are the biggest fan I know personally of watching esports. You know Stone Mike. You know Stone Mike Mike.

Well, there's him as well. But with the Overwatch League, Do you think that a Halo League of some sort is going to be a big deal? I don't know if it will hit personally with me. I know that Halo Esports already has a pretty dedicated fan base, but I don't know if it's going to hit. I will say this right now. It will not hit League of Legends levels of popularity.

But will it be able to hit. I guess I have to talk about you. Like what makes it work for Overwatch, but maybe you think not for this? I think it's the style of play. And I don't necessarily love watching controller gameplay, gamepad gameplay. I'm always more impressed because when I think I'm controller gameplay, playing on a gamepad, and watching that visually, I think of Call of Duty sports, which I don't necessarily love watching. I am definitely more impressed whenever I'm watching somebody with a mouse and keyboard just like flick towards a target way the fuck up there and hitting that headshot. Those are those big wow moments that I love.

And I don't know if GamePad gameplay gets me as excited as it used to back in the day when we were watching the ogre twins and Walshi and all those dudes making their mixtape. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know how in it I'll be until it's opening day and I'm watching my squad. Like that's going to be the definitive moment of am I in or am I not because that happened with Cod and I'm a fair weather Cod fan. I'll watch during the championship tournaments or whatever, but I won't really watch day-to-day like I do with the Overwatch League, or even Valerant. I'm a really big fan of Valerite e-sports as well.

You keep referring to it as a Gamepad game. Do you think that, like Halo, obviously, traditionally has been GamePad, but there's been a couple PC ports. I mean, even Halo 1 was on PC at some point. But this day and date being released kind of equal opportunity across platforms, do you think that there is going to be a shift to the Mousy, keyboard? No, no, I don't think so. I think it's going to be what do you feel more comfortable playing? I know for a fact that I am so much better on mouse and keyboard that I am on controller and maybe

I'm just out of practice, but I've tried playing some games on control last night and I'm just absolute ass. I just, I don't know what I'm doing it. I lost a touch, Tim. I lost it and it feels really, really bad because I was pretty decent in Overwatch on GamePad. But playing keyboard mouse on this game, it feels really damn good. And I've seen some people out there say that, like, this game is not built for keyboard mouse.

Don't play it. I totally disagree. I think this game feels fantastic. I think the aiming feels good. It never really feels... It doesn't feel like... It feels like it was made natively to run on keyboard mouse, which is like, it was.

It was all in-house. This wasn't. some port done by somebody else. It feels great. I don't really see. I think it all depends on what platform did you start off playing Halo in. And if you play it on GamePad, like I know I was watching Courage, play with Dr. Disrespect and a couple of other streamers.

And they are usually keyboard mouse players, but they are like, no, we're Halo GamePad players. Like, this is how we feel comfortable playing. With me, I totally made the change. And it's all about where do I feel my skill? ceiling is the highest and it's definitely keyboard mouse really exciting stuff are you still doing the dual thing you still rocking the dual thing

oh yeah well I'm going to when I like really dedicate myself to everything but yeah it's in a place right now where I've been trying to just play on game pad because when we did the test flights 90% of the time I was just keyboard and mouse and the 10% I would like do the other version that my little monstrosity but

I'm trying to switch it's awesome dude. I mean, the thing is like now that the we're inching towards like the final release and even with this beta, there are more options than there were. It seems like there because there was a lot of bugs with button mapping in the test flights and they seem to be gone. I can't wait to take a Sunday to just spend a couple hours like tweaking it, getting the sensitivity, get anything right? Cause yeah, I'm really I'm really excited. I think it's going to be going to be awesome. I just wish that like they would make a controller for this, like specifically for this. Like, I just want a left-handed thing with paddles. Yeah, I feel that.

I think I'm, here's the thing. I was rendering yesterday on my computer, so I was like, I want to play Halo, but I can't because I'm rendering. So I fired it up on the TV behind me. And man, I really wish I could have just grabbed the controller. And I fired it up on the computer, on the TV behind me on my Xbox. And I really wish I could have just fired up my controller and then just got my mouse and moved over there. Because I didn't want to move my keypad over there. there.

Well, guess what, Andy? You can. Okay. What you just described is as easy as plugging the mouse into the Xbox. That's it. It reads both at the same time. You go in and custom map. That's what I do with my TV.

Yo, it's sick as hell. Yeah, that's what I, for my TV set up, I'm doing the same thing or at least trying to get the setup like that. And it's like, I just love that the game gives you the options. If you think that we all sound crazy right now, cool, that's fine. But you have the option. to do this. Mostly, I just don't have space for my keyboard and I don't want to unplug the USB

and all that shit. So that would definitely be an easy alternative. Bless, do you see yourself playing this for, like, in the same amount of way that you got into Apex? I know Apex has the Battle Royon. That's a different kind of itch to scratch. I want to. I want that to be the case.

I'm kind of in the market for a new first-person shooter. I'm a little bit of a free agent because, like, I think for the last. think for the longest time, Overwatch was kind of my go-to fallback game of, all right, I'm bored, I need something to play. What's something that my friends are playing that, like, you know, I feel like I'm competent at and can have a good time with. Overwatch was always my fallback for that.

And then I think that eventually became like, I became Fortnite for a little bit, and then it became Apex, inevitably. And Apex has kind of been that for a while. But even with Apex, I think Apex has grown so much in the last couple of the years. And they've added arenas this year, earlier this year. And like, arenas was kind of

my transition, I think, out of playing Apex Battle Royale and realizing that my battle reall era, at least for how much I was fucking with it heavy early on, I think I'm over the hill now in terms of me looking for a battle rea out. And I think I'm back to like wanting something that is more of an arena shooter. And so like Apex arenas has been, or at least was my jam for the few months after it launched. I was super into it. But even now with the latest like season and a half of Apex, I've not been as into it. And I, I think the thing is, it's just missing the hype and excitement from my friends playing it. And I think Halo Infinite, from playing it just yesterday, it seems like it has the customization stuff that I like in terms of good

unlockables and stuff that is appealing to me in terms of, oh, I want to make my Spartan look sick. I want to have, I want to have them like done up in the best way. When I logged in yesterday, I saw Mike Spartan and your Spartan and I forget who else like somebody else in Spartan. Chris, Chris Anka. Chris Anka. Yeah, I was like, oh, okay, I see what this is. And I need that. I was like, oh, Mike, you know, like you get the ballot pass and you get that.

And he was like, oh, yeah, I spent $100. And I spent $90. I spent $90. Mike, I'm not doing that. But I do want to strive toward that because like that, that to me is the shit. That to me, I think is super cool, super awesome and super exciting. And like, I want to do that. And so, like, I think there's that aspect that's bringing me in.

the aspect of I think my friends are going to be playing this for a long time. I assume that you guys are going to be playing this for a long time. And like friends like I'm sure Yousef and like Rihanna and plenty of other people who I play these types of games with, I assume are going to play this for a long time. So that has been in there too. And then also there seems to just be a lot of content here in terms of the rotating playlists and like 4B4 being something that is my jam. And I think I could see myself sticking with for a while and like knowing that like there will be things funneled in like Shottie versus snipers and even the tastes I've gotten

from Splitgate in terms of the different types of modes or possibilities of modes that can make their way into Halo or at least like we're inspired by Halo and I assume this game will filter in. I'm, I think I'm going to be playing this for a while. I wanted to mention that

the it's weird how our tastes kind of come in waves and once I had gotten that battle royale bug with Fortnite and then Apex and Warzone, like almost back to back to back years, even though I was still playing Overwatch,

which I think is just a very different game, way more objective and team-based. I had thought, like, I never want to play an arena game ever again. Like, Battle Royale is all I care about. I don't care about arena games anymore, so good luck, fucking whatever HAL is going to put out. Like, it's going to be shit.

All I care about is Battle Royals. and I'm kind of with you, Bless War, I think I've just kind of slowly fallen off, and I had already stopped kind of caring about Warzone for a while, and I would still play just because the friends were playing, but at a certain point, it just kind of got a little too tilting, and I felt myself just more mad at the types of players I was running into and cheaters and all that sort of stuff. And so that definitely sort of ruined a bit of the experience, but God, I never thought that I would be really back into a 4V4

classic standard style arena game. I never thought I'd see myself being this into it ever again, especially a Halo game, which I had pretty much just fallen off a halo completely, except for, oh, my brother wants to play Halo 5. Sure, I'll go play with my brother. Let's just, I'll go hang with him for a bit. So I'm just pretty surprised at how

just our personal tastes will kind of... Yeah. You think you're done with one thing, and then if somebody does it right enough, at the right moment of you being tired of the other thing. It's just, it's all, it's all synergetic. Yeah, I think it's like, it's the circle of FPS life where, yeah, like I went from being super heavy into the objective base to Overwatch, like the 60, 6V6 objectives, like, you know,

super stylistic, super casual, but also you can get hardcore into it. And yeah, those years where battle reaille was the thing starting in 2017 with PubG, that solid, there was those solid, I guess, three to four years. at this point where I was with, I'm with you, Andy, that where I was like, oh, this is, this is how I'm playing games now. This is how I'm playing FPS is now. And I think this year was Apex arenas that made me realize, no, I'm, I'm ready to go back into something that's a bit more team-based, squad-based shooter. And I think the thing that's magical with me and Halo right now is I don't think, I can't think of an instance where I've had a more condensed, very arena-based

four-ve-for-first shooter like this in my life. Like, the last one I can think of was, Unreal tournament. I used to love playing Unreal tournament on PC and then I got like the PS4 game or PS3 game for tournament, which I know wasn't like great, but I played it anyway. But I always played those games of bots. I never played those games with other human beings. And I remember playing them, specifically the old PC one and being and being like, man, one day I'm going to have online and I'm going to play these games with other people. And like I never played that specific type of shooter with other people, unless it was getting my ass kicked in like Halo or something. And now that I'm in the place where I have an Xbox Series X, I'm here at a Halo launch. Like all the stars are lining up for me to actually be into this type of game. I think this will be my like OG like first, like arena based first person shooter that I'm going to dive all the way into. And I think part of that is the reason why I'm like, I'm all the way in as of day two of me playing this game. And it's not only it's not only the customization you were mentioning earlier and wanting to make your Spartan look dope as shit. But I think one thing that is really exciting me about Halo Infinite and it's something that I've, I kind of felt. was going to be the case from the earliest flights that we participated in was the idea that

this is your Spartan, you're going to make it look dope as hell, but also I want to keep track of my stats. I want to be able to like talk my shit about my KD ratio. I want to look at my win loss record. I want to keep all and HALA does has always done such a great job with that. And it reminds me like the other days of having the the bungee app to look at your, your, Your stats. Yeah, your stats on destiny and look at like your character there. The same thing. I guess I didn't play destiny.

I forget about it. Having like the Halo Waypoint app on my phone and having the website that you could just easily go to and see your dude and see your KD and see what your last 10 games have been like. Game changer, man. I think all of that stuff just makes it feel so much more personal. And it's another reason that I knew I was going to be in. And sure enough, I downloaded the app and I'm like, oh, yeah, this is really.

cool and they've they're implementing this stuff in a way that just feels um i don't know it's just it's just really cool to kind of have that one stop shop as opposed to going to these third party sites to see how you do you just you just reminded me how much i got into destiny crucible and i think that's another reason i love that yeah DNA is there man and that's the thing is like you know this being three four three it feels bungee in a lot of ways right andy yeah one thousand percent yeah whether it's we mentioned this in the earlier flights damage just they were able to capture that magic somehow and modernized it. And definitely modernize it.

And I really think it's a combination of aesthetics and sound design and just feel. Like they absolutely nailed the hell out of it where I mentioned on a podcast that I did with Alana Pierce that like it felt like Halo 5 was made by a company that isn't bungee, which it's not. It's 3,4,3. but Halo Infinite feels like they went back to the bungee formula. Like we brought on a bunch of bungee vets who know what the core of Halo really means and feels like. And it really does, it really does genuinely feel like that. Yep. Well, I'm sure that we're going to be talking a whole bunch of Halo Infinite in the weeks to come,

including hopefully the campaign stop too coming up sometime soon. But until then, let us know in the comments below what your experience has been with the Halo Infinite multiplayer. And until next time, oh, reminder, next week, we'll be doing our Game Awards predictions where we're going to go through every single category and predict who we think will be the big winners. Of course, we're going to be live reacting to the show as it happens.

A couple of us won't be there because we'll be down there. Isn't that right, Bless? I'm so excited. Yeah, I'm going to be down there. I'm going to crash the stage like on the US. The Returnal doesn't win anything. Yeah, way. Love it. Very, very excited for you. But until next time, love you all.

Goodbye. Thank you.