Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Reviewing 2018's Biggest Games So Far - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 156

Episode Date: February 5, 2018

Nick Suttner joins us to review Monster Hunter World, Shadow of the Colossus, Celeste, and more! (Released first to http://www.Patreon.com/KindaFunnyGames Supporters on 02.02.18) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome to the first ever, episode 156 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. Oh! Oh! And joining us for the first time, the very lovable, Nick Sutner. I'm also down with the sickness. Yes, that's what I like to hear. So, Nick Sonner, you actually wrote the book on Shadow the Colossus.

I did. In your Twitter bio, it says you lose. literally wrote the book. I'm glad I could literally write the book on something. Yeah, and that's fantastic. So what I love about this, the reason that we have you on this episode is I beat the Shadow of Clause's remake.

We're gonna be doing it. Thank you. What a man. Wow. No trophies to prove. Whatever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

But I wanted to have you on the show because you are quite aware of this game and its intricacies. Well, we're mutually interested because I actually haven't played the remake yet, so I'm really curious to hear how you feel about it. There's a lot going on there. But then I also beat Celeste,

And then in the credits, I see your name pop up. And I saw it great. I'm like, this is the perfect episode to have you on. I love this. It's going to be good. So, ladies and gentlemen, this episode, this episode, is going to be about reviewing all of the amazing games that have come out within like a week time frame. Hell yeah.

Monster, Honor. January, 2018 is already starting to look like 2017 in terms of, is this one of the best years in video game history? I just can't believe it. It's great time for everybody. This is the kind of funny games cast each and every week. we get together right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and talk about video games

and all the things that we love about them. You can get the show early by going to patreon.com slash kind of funny games just like our boy Tom Bach did our Patreon producer. He's a beautiful person. You can get the show early.

You can watch it live for just $1. You can get the show VOD with the whole pre-show and post show for $10. In the pre-show, we make fun of Tim a lot. We do.

We do. It's a good time. I didn't make fun myself. Do you think he looks goofy with the hat, not with the, you know, it's a little hot for the hat. You guys...

Oh, wow. Deal with the fuss. Now, Nick, this is a big deal because Tim is king of fashion over function. Fashion over function. So that'll let you know how hot it really is here in San Francisco today that he's going to let himself be on camera with that hate. Well, because if he kept the head on him,

it was going to like wilt into how he hates. He wants to become what he hates. Yeah, exactly. The real thing will he ever lose this bomber jacket? Oh, it's coming off at some point. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are an audio listener, pull the car over and get your phone out.

Stop it. Don't watch this on YouTube. Things are about to get really crazy. I want to jump right into it, Greg. All right. Monster Hunter World. Come on and let the hunt be the hunted. That's what they say.

That's what they've been saying. You and Kevin have been playing this. Have you played at all day? No, I haven't. Have you ever played Monster Hunter? No, so I remember when I have a very strong memory of when Monster Hunter was first announced than seeing it in some magazine at the time. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds like the greatest concept ever.

Yeah. And then it was revealed that it didn't have any voice yet. And I was playing, I forgot the exact timing, but I believe I was playing like Silcom at the time. Sure. into it and I was like, if you can't talk to your friends, what's the point? What's the point? This is sad. So I just sort of like wiped it out of my brain like, yeah, I'm not going to play that game.

And then I've waited and waited. And now I'm interested in some ways. I still have never touched one though. So I'm curious. And how like everyone I know is playing it. Because, yeah, we haven't run. I mean, your history, of course, EGM won up. You went to PlayStation.

Now you're out here, gun for hire doing all this awesome stuff. True. Yeah. I'm weird that I think on paper, I never, ever, ever would have given Monster Hunter, any Monster Hunter, a chance. but when I got hired at IGN, it was Jeremy Dunham's, you know, we're going to review everything,

and we don't care what anybody likes. And I reviewed two PSP versions of Monster 100. And so, like, when you, it's an obtuse game now, let alone back then. Yeah, and for a while, it was primarily a portable series, right? Exactly, exactly. And so, like, I, you know,

we would have, when I was reviewing it, Capcom would do desk side visits, where they would come and just play with you for hours and, like, explain intricacies and stuff. Yeah, and like, so I, and I, and I, you know, I fell in love with it there, at least learned to appreciate it, even though I was like using the PSP claw finger.

Like, yeah, like, God. Exactly. It was a, it was a big thing back in the day that then Peace Walker, of course, perfected. Perfected. But once I moved away from reviewing it and it came to, we, when it came with that controller and it came to 3DS and or maybe just DS. I was confused those. It was very much something.

I was like, oh, cool. I've had my time in those. I'm not very interested in it. And so even when they announced it for PS4, it was awesome. I'm glad that series is there. I know how important it is. I know how much people love it won't be for me. And then the closer we got to release,

the more people talked about, because I would talk about the shows that just wasn't that, you know, feeling it. And people like, no, they fixed this and they did that and blah, blah, blah. And it was, you know, as Kevin and I all at the end of, or throughout 2017, were warming up to actually playing multiplayer games together

and going home. This was the one of like, I got, I would say December, I was like, fuck, I can't wait for Monster Hunter World now. And so then I started putting Kevin's ear that he got it. Kevin, were you excited for Monster Underworld? Alright, don't freak out, but

Yep, yeah, I was I was pretty excited Oh, Jesus, you're such a monster Don't freak out You weren't excited At first you were telling me You wouldn't play it at all Yeah, I'm not gonna lie

I wasn't listening to the question But yeah, no, no At first I wasn't excited And when it came out I played maybe Like three hours on my own And I was like, man This game keeps trying to talk to you

You hate it when games talk to you Yeah, and it's like, I don't care, I just want to play. And now I'm like maybe nine hours in. Yeah. And I'm really enjoying it. Kevin and I are addicted to this. Okay. So when you say nine hours in, is that, like, is it, are you just playing with friends the whole time?

And is it like, are you doing? It's like Destiny where you're sort of doing the same. We're not doing the same stuff. We could if we wanted to, right? So it's broken up into like basically here's your story missions. Here's your optional missions. Here's your expeditions that you can go out on and, you know, do the different stuff. because there's like tons of people in your like Village Square or whatever giving you like,

oh, I research mushrooms for me and shit like that. And is it all, all multiplayer driven, like even in Story mode, that's a thing you're intended to do. Co-op? Story mode, not so much. Story mode is meant, is a painly asked to play story missions with each other. But it doesn't even slow us down. It doesn't slow us down, well, slows us down, actually. But it's just annoying because what it is is Kevin, it works like it did on PSP, right?

Where I'm like, all right, cool, you go to the quest board or to your keeper. And you're like, all right, now I'm going to pick this quest to do. you post it and the way they run it is interesting where it's you and I think it's 16 players can be inside of your like hub world and you can all go do your own fucking thing and not worry about it but when you're getting ready to make a quest or whatever you can go post it and choose if it's private or public and then people can come join you that way and that's four player right yeah exactly uh the problem is though like Kevin and I were trying to work it out like you know I'd been playing before him then he played a little bit after me and we're trying to

finally we finally got it to okay we have the same story mission let's go and And you'd try, he'd post it and I'd go to join and it would be like, you haven't progressed enough in the story to do this. And I'm like, but I have the same mission. And what it is is that you have to start the things solo. And like, you know, it's usually every mission is like, oh, go and find this monster. So you go in there.

And then you get, when they reveal a new monster, you get the cutscene of the monster getting revealed. You both have to individually play to that part. Then one of you has to quit out and then join the other person's quest that way, just for the story. Yeah, yeah. If you do the optional stuff, if you do exhibition, that, or, uh, uh, uh, I screwed up a time.

Not exhibition. Expedition. Expedition, that's right. You go out there and you do it that way. You can jump and go from the start and be fine. And so, like, even going back on certain things, it's fine. But, like, at the moment, trying to play it. Both players have to have seen the cut scene for you to be able to join on it.

So that's stupid for story, but it's a little gripe in a game that's awesome. And it is, like, Kevin and I, I feel like had way more problems. This sounds stupid, I know, but way more problems getting PubG to work with both of us when we first started. Didn't we? Or no, GTA. GTA. GTA online. PubG was way more fucking complicated.

in terms of how are we going to play the same match together? It was just a pain of the ass because there was no simple answer when we were looking for All right, we're in the same game world. I set this up but random people are joining. How do I private and... You know, even now I'm still not sure how to get it to work. I have a feeling like we still have to use...

Yeah, someone that is a higher level... Well, remember, it was peanut telling us, yeah, that we were since we were so low level, we didn't have it, who the hell knows? GTA online, dead to us, monster hunter world. Live to us. What is what makes it awesome? It's the grind of video games.

It's the hook of video games. Because that's, I will say, that's actually one reason why I'm not as interested as I would be, is I'm not really into, like, loot of any sort. And I don't really play game for that sort of lead part of the gameplay loop. So, and I don't play a lot of stuff. I mean, I used to play a lot of, you know, So-com like I mentioned, and Hello and some Rocket League, but I mostly have fallen off, like, online, you know, multiplayer gaming. So I'm curious, is that, like, how much of the driver is that?

Or, like, is the actual combat and hunting and everything just inherently fun as well and really well-done? like it's as well done as it ever it is where it's like I wish it was more one to one button control action than if that makes sense instead of getting into combos where I'll be like lock the monster moves and I keep going I'm like that's a small part

of it whereas like the joy of it is Kevin and I bullshitting around running finding the guy then trying to I'm coordinating traps I'm putting down he's talking about where he's at his cat is helping me out doing all this different stuff it's super satisfying to like actually do damage and

see this giant monster get hurt. Tim, can you move your hands when I move mine. Thank you. If you're an audio listener, Kevin has green screened his head in over to him. It's so perfectly. It's so good. It is really good. All right.

Yeah, I mean, but it is very, very gratifying. There's something about like this giant monster that like is T-Rex size coming at you. And you're just standing there with a little fucking hammer. It's not little. Do I have the game for you? That's fine to say, which game are we talking about? But it's, yeah, you know, learning to dodge roll. It's learning to work together.

It's learning, like, we're still at the point, obviously, where we're taking on monsters the first time. So when you start wearing them down and they're kicking our ass, but suddenly, you know, they start coughing up poison or whatever. We're like, oh, fuck, we're actually doing damage. Or they get angry and all of a sudden are breathing fire. Like last night we were playing, and it was like, we're working on this guy and he's way too big and we're working, working,

and then finally, like, a dragon four times bigger or whatever showed up. And we're like, what the fuck? You know what I mean? Like, we're terrified of him. He's fighting him. We're like in pandemonium mode trying to figure it all that. I was watching someone play a bit recently

and I do like how the sort of like damage state of the monster's expression of animation. Yeah, there's no help bar for them, right? You just are trying to, you're never quite sure how close you are, but they'll give you signs that yeah, this is it. And every one of them has a different strategy. Every one of them, I think, you know,

we're getting to the point where we're fighting monsters where I've just been going with my dual blades, right? And Kevin's mainly been using a hammer. But like last night he started working with the gun lance and all the stuff where it's like, all right, we have to start expanding it. out. Because it's, you know, the gear loop to it isn't like Destiny, where in Destiny was, ooh, a Bright Ingram. I can't wait to get that and bump up my stat. It's very much like,

you see all the sets and you of armor as you, like, as you beat new creatures, you see then that set unlock and you see what you can do for it. And so I have a costume I like a lot right now. I see like Grimecraft. I don't, I think he stopped making music and just plays this game because he's everything I look. He's like fucking insane and has all this awesome gear. They look like a badass shovel night. Right. And that's the thing where it's like I totally aspire to be that and to put that much into that game. But even right now,

I don't feel like I look dumb. And I also feel like the rewards I'm getting are building up and making what I have better. But it is that thing of like right now, you know, Kevin and I are out there fighting what I know from experience are smaller monsters.

And we're doing like, you know, five points, five hit points damage here. And it's like, well, I can't wait to where this is actually cranked up and we're really, we come back to these guys and just lay them out because we're trying to, you know,

we're so much better here. My other new monster on our question is what's up with these cats? Yeah, so that's the thing is, I have two questions. One is why is my timeline totally full of the cats? Well, you loved it, you said? I do love it. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Is the second question just what's up with these cats? The second question is just like, and why are they like sushi chefs? Because that's what the cats have always been, or in the palacos, they've always been in Monster Hunter. They've always just been your little companion. Are they supposed to like not be cats? They're like palikos? Correct.

Yeah, exactly. Because they can talk to you, right? What is it, a meowster? Instead of master, they call you a meauster? Don't say now they send me out. Okay, that's what has sold me on the game more so than anything else. Right. But it's very much like they're a critical part of solo play where they have a weapon of their own.

They're not doing a lot of damage, but what they'll do is draw agro. So like, because you need to run away and drink a potion to heal or taking an end. Are you like bossing them around or like? No, they're on their own. There might be, you know, elite strategies where people do do that. I definitely haven't gotten into worrying about that yet. But they'll draw agro. You get to run away.

You get to set up a trap or do that. do whatever. Do you like them? Like are they cool or they're like Slippy from Star Fox? Kevin says they are fucking awesome. Sorry. Wait, but do you like Slippy? No, no, Slippy sucks. But like it's the kind of thing where you're like you're playing and you're like fuck my health is down. Yeah. And then they come out of nowhere with this like bug that gives you life

like that they just brought to you. It's true. That happens. And it's like fuck, thank God. And they are helpful and I think that's more than anything. I would say I have a positive disposition to them but I'm not like in love with my My cat. Last sub question. Is the sushi, is this monster sushi of the monsters you kill? Or is the sushi that they're just feeding you from the river to help buoy your monster efforts? That's a great question. Everything's a monster in this world. I think since we're so low right now and I haven't even, I haven't even fucked around that much in the canteen. You know, a canteen to really get a feel for it. I would assume that, you know, the menu upgrades and changes as you go or whatever. But yeah, it's a weird game of you got, well, it's a weird game period. You can put an end of the sentence there.

But I mean, of like, yeah, you know, you're supposed to eat before you go out to have more stamens. You cook meat on the spot to get it to have more stamina. There's a million little. And probably, I imagine that Zelda also like got a lot of people thinking about that recently. Sure. Yeah. And that's the thing is. It's very interesting in the way Monster Hunter on PSP when I was told, you know, you're reviewing it.

It was like, okay, this is a big deal in Japan. Okay. Like, I know it moves PSPs and I know that. And the fact that over here, it was such a niche. And when I was reviewing at the time, I really didn't know anybody else in the industry. And then granted, you remember this. It was a much more insular industry where we did not talk to other publications.

But I didn't know people who were like huge Monster Hunter fans. And it wasn't until when we came out, I remember Charles Agnette revealed himself to be a huge fan. I was like, what the hell of you? Why did we never talk about this by the thing? It doesn't matter. And then now, like,

I think you mentioned now, maybe kind of funny games daily of like, this is, Monster Under World is really the persona for Golden of this franchise where it's like, everybody suddenly is like, oh, this is awesome. I've heard great things.

Now it's on a platform I like, everybody's playing it. Also, there's like a mainstream awareness. Like I was a couple days ago, I was in this little tiny diner in Michigan in the middle of nowhere. And there was like a sports bar like everywhere is there. And they had, they had like ESPN on mute. But then like there's a Monster Hunter commercial. And I was like, okay, this really is like this is a huge thing.

I think it's we're just in a much more interesting spot, I think, for online gaming, games as a service, whatever you want to call it. But where it's like before it was like, oh, this is a cool PSP. Let's ad hoc play and do all this stuff. It's like that's cool, but not many people are doing that. as Americans weren't that society where it was in Japan. Okay, you're on the train. There's another person. Yeah, we only looking at each other in person. Exactly, exactly. But I mean, even now where we are with online gaming with games like Destiny or, you know, with games like any of the other games of services that have crossed over, we even remember how it was so weird. I remember being a

console player and talking to people who played wow. And MMOs in general. And you're just like, wow, that didn't exist on consoles for so long. Whereas now the idea of going home and, you know, Kevin and I put, I guess, it was probably a 50 minute time limit into the T-Rex the first time we We were way under level and we kept getting our ass kicked and it was like well We are getting nothing from this we are wasting time. We are wasting resources, but fuck as is this fun right? Yeah, so is that what you were talking about earlier where I thought it was nine hours or no nine hours is total what you put in so an hour You put an hour into a fight and you got you lost you got nothing from it do you gain experience points do you gain is there any type of loot that you're getting even if you're you're Yeah, yeah yeah yeah you catch the monster yeah yeah you catch the monster or you can't capture small imagine maybe like dark souls where you're just learning exactly a big part of his learning Their methods, your methods, what weapons you need or don't need or how that would work.

Yeah, because you only have limited inventory space you can come into. You have a giant chest at home with all your stuff in it. I should know this, but is this one coming to Switch? No, it's not. I asked because I was just interested about that part of, like, Nintendo's trying to cultivate the, like, you know, we hang out and play with our Switch. Together seems like it would be a good fit now, but I don't know. There's a bug flying around. There is.

I'm trying to get them out of the fucking way. No, I don't, I think, I mean, it's one of those. Kevin, how's it running on your normal PlayStation 4? I've seen kids in my timeline complaining about it, I'm playing on a pro. It's running fine. I honestly don't have any complaints. Okay. Yeah, that would be my thing. Not to knock the switch because I love it so much, but I don't know how it could handle all that.

But even if it just had ad hoc play, that'd be something else for it there. How many monsters are there? And are there multiple of the same monsters that exist? Or like when you kill the T-Rex, the T-Rex is going? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. There's multiple, you're, it's an unlimited pile of monsters. Okay. Because what the game really is is about, when you talk about grinding, right, is you play

through all the story missions sure but then it unlocks the hunts for the monsters you've done and you can go do those turn those back in you're killing when you beat a monster there's you know the celebratory music and cool camera sweep and then it stops and it's usually 60 seconds of run up to the monster and carve them up because you need their bones and their skin and all this other stuff to go

back to make armor to upgrade your weapons to make these new things so it's it is I'm trying to think of I hope that's a really gruesome like trauma center of style you wait it does look a little creepy when there's three people just kind of yeah just stats the cat doing during Is he just kind of cool? Run around doing its thing.

Just being a cat. I'm really interesting. Wait, so how many monsters are there? I don't know. Unique. Well, okay. That's the thing. Is it like 10 or is it like 100?

I'm, I mean, we're only, in terms of how big this game is, we are that far into it. And I, and I've, I don't know how you feel anymore,

but like once we left the, like, hey, I'm doing like real games coverage. If a game interests me, I try to turn off about it for the most part. And so,

like, I'm having such a great time of me and Kevin playing and then like, Last night we ran into this like fucking flying squirrel snake creature that was made of electricity. And I'm like, this is fucking rad. It was so hard to beat. It was hard to beat, but it was awesome.

Oh yeah, hell yeah, I did it. Come on, yeah. And so I don't want, like, I don't know any of the like hardscore stats on there and that stuff. And again, like I'm not a hardcore monster under player. I have an experience from back to day. That's cool too. I imagine playing it for, well, I don't know. I guess you did play it on PSP, but I know some of the monsters are like back, right?

Yeah. But I'm sure a lot of them are new to you. Yeah, exactly. 100%. Do you see yourself playing this for more than two more weeks? Hard to say. Sounds like a job interview. Where do you see yourself in two weeks from this game?

I don't know. Yes, no. It really, my concern is just like, we are 10 hours in. And I, like, I'm so, when we got it and it was like, oh, there's the horizon pack as part of this. And I was like, holy shit, what's that? I looked into it. And you can get for your cat, like the fucking watcher face. And he looks like a watcher.

I'm like, I want that now. And it's like, you can't get it until your hunter rate six. You get that quest. then I'm like, we'll cruise to that. Last night, we finally got to Hunter Rank 4. And I'm just like, oh, fuck. And it's like, but now you can't give up. Now you gotta get that.

Well, no, no, no, no. I mean that I'm just, it's a game that I, I, I, I, this is, I'm trying to think of the last game. I don't even know if destiny was like this, because I guess Destiny I got to binge. Right now my life is not allowing me to binge this game, which is giving me such a strong pull of just like, fucking call in sick.

Don't come, you know what I mean? Like, we need to just fucking. He literally said that. He's like next week. We need to fucking figure this out and make content. out of or something because I just, I need a weekend straight to play it because I just want to play it because it's annoying, not knowing stuff. And it's like, Kevin and I were fighting the monsters and this might have been in PSP, but I don't think it was, but maybe it was. And I just don't

remember it. But like, we're on an elevated plane, right? And like the monster was below us. And I made a move and I jumped down onto the back of the monster. And he started for, and I'm like, and it's like triangle, triangle, triangle. And like, you're like, and I was like, this, I didn't know this was here. So it's like, right now, 10 hours in, I still haven't even gone. I like, I'm on the subreddit and I'm like you know glancing at here and there I still haven't gone into the let's watch a YouTube video about how you're supposed to do this because I know I am fight we are fighting like Neanderthals like I was telling I'm trying to dip and dodge as much as boss we have a for our I have a friend from back in the day who works at capcom who's a huge Monster Hunter fame and we were

she's been talking to me as it was leading up to it and she's like we should play sometime you know I'm just I'm like I'm just running around helping people and I'm like I'm too embarrassed by how bad Kevin and I are not that we're bad but like we're bad but like we I just don't... I know I'm bad. No, no, Kevin. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah, exactly.

And I'm like, I just want to get my feet under me. And I don't want to be sure, but through this. I love the idea that the game is to a point that Kevin and I can just do this. I mean, but I just want to get a day where it's like, all right, cool. Here's, I've set up my private world. Here's the code and here's the password. Just come join us and do your own thing. Because, again, it's not like they're forced on you.

I'm going to have people running up to me. You don't even see each other when you're in the world, like the hub world. You just have to post quest and see what's going on. So with Kevin, with you guys, how you're playing, you said you both just hit level four or whatever. Yeah. If you were to go on vacation or whatever and Kevin keeps playing and gets up to level seven, would that like totally not be fun to play together anymore? I mean, I don't know.

The monster scale to whoever's in there. So when you're playing solo, they're perfect for you when you're playing with other people. It'll scale a difficulty. Yeah. Okay, that's cool. And at that point, I wouldn't care. Because like again, Kevin and I are, we're Legion of Doom over here. You know what I mean?

We're bringing monsters their knees. So if that was the case where that would actually help us out in a lot of ways because Kevin would see all the cut scenes. And I'd be like, I'm fighting this guy. And like, we're in PS and party chat. Like last night, it was me, Kevin and Jen and party chat. And she was way behind us still trying to unlock the stuff where she could play with us. So we were just chatting up about whatever.

And he was off on a mission. I was off on a mission. And for me to get to, all right, here's the monster. Come help me. He'd be able to jump in and go do it. And I think. that's where you're seeing. You'll see when we start streaming it

or when I do start putting out my code on Twitter. I'm just like, come on in and post your quest and if I want to, I'll jump in there because I need to go get this. Can you drop people in live to like an encounter? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. If the encounter's going and you're open

or you invited them, yeah, you can jump in. That's cool. Yeah, you can have it open and there's an ID that you can just punch in. Yeah. He's talking about, though, if they joined our world and we were already off on a hunt.

Yeah. But yeah, our quest would still be there open as long as we didn't have all four people. How long do you think you're going to play, I don't know, man. I could see this going, like, I'm enjoying it on a level I did not expect. And so I'm very curious how much time we'll put in this. Because, I mean, I'm still definitely want to play PubG and I want to try to get some, like, PUBG going to this weekend, but I have a feeling it's going to be all Monster Hunter.

My thought process on it would be this, is that I love it. I'm super committed. I'm interested to see where it goes. And just like the Monster Hunter's before, it right and what you're seeing when I look at Grimecraft's story or anybody else putting up their photos is this story of Monster Hunter is your personal journey and when you got those pants when you upgraded your greaves when you you know what I mean and so I think eventually it might get to we're not we're not like I'm not ready to quit kind of funny to go play Monster Hunter all but it'll get to where Kevin and I do a match of PubG and it's like man I don't want to do another thing of that but I know you want to go grind some whatever but I'm this close to

this thing I want to do that like there's going to be a day where I'm like I in my perfect world, Nick, I'm always like, I should just have it running on my PS4 here and just go get some mushrooms here and there and do like the little side questy shit. And we're too busy here even for that. But I feel like that'll be it where it's like, we play for a while. And it's like, all right, you want to go knock off some stuff or jump in?

Or here's this new content or these new costumes or something to go get. I'm glad you guys like it. Real quick, let me just give shoutouts because like, there's something I experienced in the game that I've seen as a GIF in Zelda, Breath of the Wild, where it was like, oh, look, you're just walking up to this thing. and there's two, like, giant monsters that are just fighting. Yeah.

And, like, we've actually experienced that. Like, I never experienced that in Zelda. Like, I've never walked in and, like, seen a giant rock golem thing fighting some other monster. But with monster hunter... It's happened multiple times, yeah. It's happened multiple times where it's just, like, we'll be in an area where a fucking giant dragon comes out

and just swoops on him. That's pretty cool. It's amazing. It makes the world feel so real. Yeah, and that's the thing is, like, there's so much happening on the map And the monster hunter is such a big part of it is, I mean, and similar to Breath of the Wall, but I mean, I think,

no offense to Breath of Wall, a way greater scope and detail is crafting. And so it is like the, you know, ex, ex, what is it? I want to say exhibition. Expedition. I don't know why I can't remember. You're just an exhibitionist. Like the bar? Like the car.

Oh, the Ford Exposition. Expedition. Exposition. When you go out on these fucking free missions you can do, you know what I mean? Yeah. It literally is, they just drop you on the map. and they're like, you're here for as long as you want. There is no time limit, and you have like your side quest log of things to hunt or whatever, gather.

And so it could be that like, oh, and like the whistle, they added in this one the wish list function. So it's like, cool, I want to upgrade my swords to this, but I'm short of these things. I can add it to the wish list. And so when I'm running around, expedition mode, I can see what quests I have available things to kill and then that as well. And so it can be cool. I'm just gathering honey because I want to make more potions. Or I'm going to go out and hunt this very specific type of creature because I need more bones or skins or hide or whatever. It's great.

Monster is awesome. Pretty cool. Let us know in the comments what you're thinking about this there. Monster Hunter. I want to talk about Shadow of the Colossus, the remake on the PlayStation 4th. So you have not played it yet.

I've not. Is it killing you? No, actually, I'm like, I don't know. My emotions about it have been sort of up and down over time. I mean, largely I'm just really excited that a lot more people get to play it, especially for the first time, Greg. Yeah.

Well, not from total scratch. But I mean, you hadn't played much enough. I don't think I've ever got past the second. So I'm really excited for that. I think the PS3 remaster is incredible, and I think that's like the sort of best version that the game could have been. So I felt sort of conflicted seeing it.

And I was like, oh, it's like a pretty big change. I don't know if that's what the game needs, but if that's what it takes to get it into a lot more people's hands. And now that I've seen more and more of it just watched our review this morning, I was like, okay, it does look really stunning. Yep.

And yeah, now I'm just like super curious. My review of the game simply is this is the definitive version. Oh, you're right. Hey, friends at the FTC, PlayStation sent us this game for review. We didn't buy it ourselves. They sent it to us for review. No promises. It's not an ad thing.

Don't worry. Kevin, we need that disclaimer up here too. This is our, you know, fucking PlayStation. Couldn't you help us out before you left? We're in the influencer bucket instead of the press bucket now, so we've got to say this stuff all the time. Yes. So, yeah, they send us the game. Shout of the Colossus remake on PlayStation 4 is the definitive version of one of the best games of all time.

I, from beginning to end, was once again. enthralled by such an amazing world, such a different experience for what video games have shown us. And man, it is so, so fantastic. Still has issues. Still has a lot of the same issues that the other game had. I haven't beat Shadow Clause since it first came out in 2005. I bought the PS3 collection, but I

beat Eco because I'd never, Iko, whatever you want to call it? And you can beat it in like a sitting. But I'd never beat it before. PS2 so I beat that and then I booted up shadow and I was like cool shadow but I was like I'm not gonna replay this right now and even when they announced to D3 I was kind of like I don't know that I need to go back to the game it's you know it's very special to me but whatever but just like with how everything's been working out like early in the year there wasn't any game I was looking forward to muscle her doesn't speak to me I was like I'm kind of itching the more videos I saw the more I was like you know what they got me

because it is beautiful and I played it on a PS4 Pro and there's two modes in PS4 Pro that you can use. There's cinematic mode and, wait, I wrote down, performance mode. So performance is 60 frames per second, but it's at 30, or 6 frames per second, but it's a 30, wait, sorry, what? Performance mode is 60 frames per second,

but it's 1080, right? Or 30 at 4K, right? Yeah, cinematic mode is 30 at 4K, which is really, it's 1440P, but like super sampled up to 4K. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's not like true, true 4K. It doesn't matter.

It's fucking beautiful. So what did you play it on? It is. So that's the thing is I jump between the two. I feel maybe like I'd say I probably played half the game at performance, half the game at cinematic. And I was just trying to figure out the difference. At the end of the day, I definitely preferred the performance mode, the 60% per second. It made the monsters just feel the cloths eye feel so much more like real.

And I've seen the fur and seeing the way they move and the animation's really at it. And I think that that's one of the things that this game did so right is it made, they nailed the animations. Him jumping on Agro just looks so much better than it used to. And when you do the thing where you stand on the horse and you can like shoot bows and arrows, it's like, it looks real. It looks cool. And it like it totally fits. And the biggest improvement to me is the HDR. HDR on PS4 or PS4 Pro is stunning.

And a lot of people have been asking me what game has. the best to show off HDR and I used to say Horizon I used to say Raston Clank those are both beautiful this is the game wow I mean it's literally it's in the name shadow right like this game uses shadows so well and there's so much shadows and there's so much bright almost like blown out like it looks kind of like like that right there where it's just these this blown out light and seeing the difference seeing light go through the the uh blaze of grass between yeah blaze of grass and between the leaves and in forests and stuff

and the whole, the lighting in the game is unbelievable and the HGR just looking at it. There's so many times I would stop and just be like. I saw the photo mode looks pretty ridiculous too from what I saw. And there's also I guess a few filters you can actually play, you can turn on while you're playing. Yep. So you can just switch between a bunch of filters

and it's not the type of filters that are kind of like grown worthy where it's like this looks like some Instagram bullshit. Why would you want to fuck your game like that? They decided to go with a different look overall for the game as I'm sure that you're aware, just watching it. It's a little less warm than it used to be,

but there was a warm filter that makes it look like it used to. And I appreciate that. So graphically, it is one of the most impressive-looking games I've ever seen. Having said that, it's not perfect. A thing that really bothered me, and the reason that I was switching between the two modes, is the amount of pop-in is ridiculous. And I'm not seeing anyone in other reviews talking about this,

but no matter what field you, you're in, it looks like the grass is constantly just growing in front of you. And I was in cinematic mode for a while. And I was like, oh, maybe it's just because it's 4K and it can't really handle it. Then I moved over to performance and it was there as well. And I was like, it's kind of upsetting because that's such a expected thing for me where it's like when you're trying to make everything look so good. Like it stood out a lot.

I mean, that is. The original does have that on the PS3 one has that. So I wonder, you know, I don't know the process behind this. one and sort of what blue points started with from scratch versus like working on the existing code, but maybe that's something that was like not worth the trouble to, you know, revisit. Yeah. From my understanding, it is total from the ground up their code.

They made it. It's not from the original. It is them trying to remake exactly what that was. It's similar to the Crash Band of Kuddin's Sam trilogy that came out last year, where it is as faithful as possible to the original, but it's not actually from the original. Sure. And you can tell, and it feels exactly like the other game did. There's modern controls, and then there's...

How are the original controls? The modern controls, not perfect. And that's the thing is like, it's a weird struggle where I feel like I'm sounding negative about this game based on the... You love it. You just said it was the best thing. I love it. And it is one of the best games of all time, and this is the definitive version for sure. However, the idea of modernized controls excited me, because while...

I never really had an issue playing in 2005 on a PlayStation 2 because that's how games were then. Playing the idea of when I booted up on PS3, it fell outdated then. And it felt like, ah, like the amount of times you have to like hold the thing up and just, you got kind of claw like on the on the dual shock too. And I was like, okay, cool, they're going to modernize this. And the way that they did, it's definitely better. But it still doesn't fix a lot of the issues that I had. A lot of people complain about the camera. Camera never got in my way.

The camera, I feel, is great for making the fights feel like a struggle. Like, and it's not like an excuse. It's a, that's part of it, right? But I couldn't help but compare the game to Breath of the Wild playing it. Having just played Breath of the Wild, and it, on one hand, it's such a compliment to Shadow the Colossus, where I'm like, holy crap, in 2005, an experience like this existed. that on PlayStation 2 and seeing this game, it looks like you remember

the PS2 game looking. That's always the best compliment you can give a remake. But I was shocked playing it where Breath of the Wild is one of my favorite games of all time, blew me away. But when I was first playing, I was like, there's been nothing like this ever. And now replaying this, I'm like, yes, there has. There actually has, especially when it comes to the climbing,

you know, like just climbing the classes and all this and the stamina system and all that. It's interesting to see that, that comparison to and to think about a lot of people, things that people praised for, Breath of the Wild for are things that were likely Shadow the Coloss's influences, but it's easy not to think about it because it is weird that Shadow went down the sort of one route in a lot of ways, which I talk about in my book, that not a lot of other games went down. It's sort of on this weird branch of gaming history that Eco is super influential

in like myriad ways you could easily, obviously, point to with the companions and games. But Shadow sort of exists over here that eventually came around and had some influences and things like Zelda. But otherwise, it was sort of this weird outlier for a long time. So it's great to see it, like, yeah, have this status now. And I assume the modernized controls are sort of more accessible. They're definitely more accessible.

With the controls? It's... And I know it's hard because I'm trying to remember, like, how it all... Well, I imagine, like... They flipped the X and the triangle. Right. Great. Okay. Yeah, so that's good. Because you jumped with triangle by default in the original.

Yeah, now you jump with X. R2 is to grip and climb, which I think that that was original as well, which was really fun jumping between this and Celeste because both are the safe thing. That's grip. That's good for me. But, yeah, I mean, there's not too many changes to it. And I think that my... A big part of the controls, like, for me, missing Shadow,

I think it was the fact that when I got it on PS2, I just... I don't think... Buying it, sight unseen. It was like, oh, you jam liked it. So, of course, I'll pick it up or whatever. I think I expected something different or I didn't understand what I was getting into, whereas, like, I know people said this last guardian, especially when I didn't like last guardian.

But like the struggle of climbing and making it difficult is a key component of the game, right? I mean, that's why it's interesting to talk about some of the stuff of like the modernized controls and all that. Because a lot of it, I think, the design top to bottom is very intentional for better or worse. And they want their, you know, Oedason wants his games to feel a specific way, I think. And they do things where they prioritize, they often prioritize animation over responsive And I think, and I'm sort of a defender of the controls a lot. And I do talk about it in the book and stuff too. But I think a lot of people react adversely to it because it just doesn't feel like other games that they're used to.

So to me, like modernizing is making it feel like other stuff you play. Yeah. Which, again, if it makes it. But it doesn't, though. And that's the thing. It's like these modern controls, they don't. Like, these modern controls are just. And probably because it was never made to be there.

And it's, to me, the most interesting thing about the controls is it is easy to complain about it. And it's easy to be like, well, just doesn't feel like Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild. controls better. If this game control at Breath of Wild there'd be no game. Like that's like that you can't have the controls. Sure. When I, when I've talked about that and I admitted that it's just, it was

an unfair thing by me, but it's just what turned me off to at the time. I always say though, I didn't want them to come back and make it perfect and make it the way I think it should play because I feel like we'd get into Twin Snakes territory. You know what I remember? Because like when we had it first person, it's like oh great, you broke the ninja fight.

Right, great Foxx there. You're like ban, ban, ban. And then also the Vulcan Raven fighting the tank. Yeah. It's just like, boom, this is so easy where it was so difficult. And yeah, it would be like that. And it's very different than the Last Guardian.

I liked Last Guardian a lot, but I would liken that more to Eco than to Shadow the Colossus. And I feel like it was all the frustrating parts of Shadow the Colossus with Trico and how he moved. And like, I did have camera issues in that game. And you're right.

Struggling controls, it was never fun. But that's because that was a struggle to get on the thing and get them to do what you wanted to do Whereas the clauses, it's a struggle because you're fighting them. Yeah, exactly. So like it's inherently different and yeah, it's just it's funny because the modernized controls It's just taking the controls the original game had and just fixing things that are obviously weird like jumping with triangle But otherwise they're the same controls So which was your favorite? I gotta know was your favorite classes

So that's the thing I can tell you my least favorite It's the same as it used to be which is the the two in the smaller in the tiny ones, right? It's all the problems that existed before still do where the smaller colossi are way too hard to get onto and stay on to and to find their their points. And they're if they knock you down, you're fucked. Because the moment they hit you into a corner. Yeah, they bludging you in a corner and the animation is so long for you getting up that by the time you get up, they can knock you down again. So you kind of at that point aren't fighting against the Colosses, you're fighting against

the camera there and trying to like get into a place that he just can't hit you So I didn't like those at all but it any of the flying ones are just that that's where the this game the spectacle of each of these fights Like it is unlike anything I've experienced in a video game and when you get on one of these classes and it starts it's fucking taking off and flying And you feel like I can't fall off this thing you know and it's like you start to relate to the character and the struggle become so real Oh man, that so the bird like one and then the sandworm. The sandworm is so awesome. Another one of my least favorites would be the final one. Not too big a fan.

The scope is great, but the final parts of where you're fighting it. That was like one of the only times I'm like, this is just frustrating to me. Like I just, I'm not enjoying this. But I will say that the getting from Colossus to Colossus was my least favorite part. of the game where since I've done it before and I was like familiar with the world. It was just kind of a chore where I'm like just tapping the button to make agro go faster.

And like I see I reach top speed. I'm like I just wanna go faster than this. Like I just get me where I need to go. For me weirdly obviously I'm in like, I have a unique relationship with this game but that's one of the things I'm most interested in is just exploring and seeing every little thing that's been changed.

Because even like the little like you know a little shady glade of the glade of the glen of trees that I see in like some previews and stuff like looks very different now and just little different pieces of architecture sure look different. And I know they have added some stuff that I saw like some articles on about like, oh, there's some, yeah, Lyscardian Easter egg and stuff. So you're going to love it. I'm so excited for you to play it because I don't know Charlotte Cosses in that way.

I've been all the way down to the bottom of this rabbit hole and it goes like so deep of like little fan theories and whatever. So I'm really curious to see which of those that sort of like either pay a lot to you or went through. And there's lots of leftover bits obviously from the infamously like Colossi right that people have discovered. So I'm curious about that stuff. Is that still in there? I'm really curious about that. Yeah. No, I don't know any of that stuff. As the super fan, how does that start? Like, how did you get?

And I know this isn't specifically about your view. But I mean, in the realm of shadow, like, how do you get to writing a Shadow of the Claus's book? Like, like, from a release, were you, like, all about this game? Yeah, yeah, from release. So I was working at DB games at the time. And I think I helped get, like, the most pre-orders in our district. Because my manager, Greg and I would just, like, such huge fans of it.

And we both love, we loved Eco. And we just loved the game. We're super excited for it. And, like, you, I think I saw them praising it. gym or whatever. And actually, I remember the very first time reading about it, and I was like, it described it as the levels are like creatures you can climb. And I was like, what? That's so incredible. So for a moment one, I was excited about it. And then it really, as soon as I played it, I was like, okay, this is my favorite game ever. It's just one of my favorite things ever, too, like just pieces of

art, like singular influential things in my life. And it's always been number one by that great margin. And so I ended up being a Kickstarter backer of the Boss Fight book series, which has a bunch of great other books to Splunky is the other one I'd strongly recommend. Yeah. Which is written by the developer. So, anyway, I was a Kickstarter backer, and there's always each season of books, there's a fan-voted book as well that, and I voted for Shadow the Classes. I said, oh, I'd love to see a shadow book.

And then I saw on a backer update, they were looking for writers for it. And I was like, this is the role I was born to play. Yeah. So, yeah, so I ended up talking with Gabe, who runs the series, and it all worked out. It was sort of weird doing it, like, because I was working for Sony at the time. Like as this is like a non-official book, this is like a fan thing separately that took some. Were they okay with it? But yeah, I mean, eventually they were very cool and supportive.

What is the book about? Because I know a lot of the boss fight books kind of aren't necessarily about the game. Some of them are more about people's experience with the game and things like that. Sure. No, this really is sort of about the game. And I think it's, I approach to this sort of like a travel log. So I think it's a fun, like, companion guide in a way to, I would encourage if anyone ends up reading it to like play a colossos, then read the chapter about it. Because I divided it up so there is one chapter per.

Oh, I need to get on this. Yeah, I love to hear you think about it. Because it's one of those games where you don't really know what's going on. And it's definitely one of those things where as soon as I replayed it now is like, I'm going to go up on Wikipedia and kind of reads and things because I'm like, I don't really know what's happening. And that's stuff I try to dig into like why the different fights are interesting. And they talk about different aspects of the game along the way when they sort of like rear their heads.

And the other part is just talking to a whole ton of developers who from like Neil Druckman to just affairs and like everybody who was really influenced by the game. So there's a whole ton of chats and quotes with other developers as well sort of threaded throughout that about different elements of it because again it's like weirdly Like I said Eco is like very has its very obvious influences Shadow I think was very influential as well but in like a different weird way sure what's your favorite Colossus? Well I feel like I need to play the new one now to like reevaluate but just a third one on the top of the like pedestal and the Oh yeah in the in the in the you know an island

Was just I love that one but now it's like I've played through the game so many times and like that set because it's so much that it's like they're I love them each in different ways. Yeah, no, I chose. Definitely. Another way that they did enhance the controls that makes the game a lot better is when you're on agro and you're going in tight corridors and like you're on like mountain cliffs and stuff, the auto control of just kind of you just like need to just keep it going, press forward and it will do the curves for you and do all that much better.

That's cool. Yeah, because that was always there but I'm imagining now that sort of smooth out the geometry of the level so it's much smoother. Yeah, because before there was a problem, I experienced a lot of the people. to one where like if the horse hit a little rock would come full stop. And you'd have to awkwardly kind of like tank control it to turn around and then keep going. It was frustrating. There's also some really interesting things again just talking about the stuff that like weird things people find in the game.

Like there's this one like giant eagle in the game that lives in this huge weird tree that's in a very specific place. And that is the only eagle in the game that you can like hold on to and like you won't fall off of it and just keep flying with that eagle. So like is that eagle still in this version? I would like to think so. but I don't know. So there's weird things like that that I only know about because again I went down

this rabbit hole that is it still there? I don't know. That's awesome. Curious. So Greg, are you going to give this game 100%?

100%. If we got this, we got codes from this from Sony. Hey, FTC. Right at, I thought we were going to get it right before I went to Canada because we got an email

like the Monday before and I left on Saturday. I was like, oh fuck this will be perfect. And like on Thursday I email the ROM and I was just like, when are these companies like Monday? I'm like,

my fucking hell. And so like it. happened and then when I came back, Monster Hunter was happening. I'm way more jazzed for Monster Hunter. But it's just because that's a different experience, right? Of like when Kevin can't play or when we wind down, jump into that. Or like, I'm going to take my PlayStation with me on this trip. If the hotel internet sucks that,

but then against Celeste and then a million other games. I really wonder how you're going to feel going back and forth through that and Monster Hunter just with the basic sort of high level concept at control. Hey man. I'm going to be Mr. Japanese gamer all of a sudden. Well, the cool thing too is this game does not last long.

And I think that's definitely to its benefit. How long did it take you? Fuck, I want to say six. hours. But I bet that's because you played it before. I guess I knew where I was going. I'd guess probably twice that for your first. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, I don't know.

It's, well, there we go. Finally, I was hoping it would come up during this. Nice. Thank you. But yeah, no, it's, it's, I love that closest too, man. God. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. But it's a beautiful game. It is such a great journey.

I love how different it is from other video games. And like you were saying that, you know, Ego did influence a lot of things. And this one kind of weirdly didn't in a lot of ways until I'd say recently, Breath of the Wild. But it's just, it's so weird how I feel like a lot of things that we talk about this game sound like bad things, but absolutely are. It's like, it's such an open world and there's no bad guys.

Yeah. Well, I mean, think about pre-Breath of the Wild, too. It's like what other sort of AAA games give you room to breathe like that and just sort of be alone in the middle of nowhere with nothing else to do very intentionally. Yeah. And it's, like that's the beautiful thing about it is there's not just random little grunt enemies around. Like there are the 16 colossi.

They're out. there. And then it's just, it's you and some wildlife. And that's it. And it just creates such a different experience going in. And then just the way that they handle, uh, without spoiling anything, when you beat each one, things happen. And it gets progressively more and more like, wait a minute. What's, what's going on? And there's, that's the drive to want to get to the next thing to figure out what is really going on is so interesting. And like, just the way that it handles like, are you a good guy? Are you a bad guy? do you even know?

It's like, wow, this is a beautiful game. Yeah, I was going to say that to Greg, too, is I'd say, and this is when I talked to some people who sort of gave up midway through the Last Guardian, I'm like, just finish it because where the story goes really validates so much of what you've done so far. And I think just the ending is really interesting and the whole thing.

And there's not much story, of course, but there's a few like key cut scenes. And I think it's really interesting. And especially some of those elements of, like, how you feel about killing them and how that changes over the course of the game is great. And then I think it sounds a little bit of how it may or may not tie into the other games

too, because of course its own, interesting question. And that's a whole other very cool thing. And replaying this made me like Last Guardian even less than I did, but that's just because I love this game so much. And Blue Point knocked it out of the park. I was reading a red on recent era a thread of people talking about

what they want Blue Point to do next, if it's just continue doing more remakes, or is it time if I really just let them make something new again? I think the last time they did was early PS3. And I'm like, just keep doing remakes. Like they just do them so well, like looking at the uncharted collection. Yeah.

Like they knocked that out of the part. This type of like ground up. Yeah, come on. Let's go. That'd be fantastic. Well, I mean, they did the collection. Oh, sorry, that's my right. Oh, did they?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they had done the legacy collection or whatever they called it. Did they also do God of war and all those? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, those are great. Yeah. But no, this is different.

Like, this is somehow makes it look like a PS4 game. Like, it doesn't look like a remake of an old game. Like, if people didn't know it was a remake of a remake of an old game. Did you know it was a remake? Playing this, they'd be like, oh shit, cool. And I'm really curious how people are going to respond to it as like a new game for the people who don't really know its history. It's like if you walk in a store and you pick up this thing and it's like, oh, cool, giant creatures. Yeah, yeah, right.

$40, too, though. So it's like that's a thing. It's like it is a budget price. And that's great, I think. It's more than worth it. If you're interested at all, I'd highly recommend picking it up. And again, let me know what you think about Charlotte Claus. Is Kev, are you going to play this one?

Yeah. Good. I think you're going to like it. I think you're going to like it a lot. And while you're there, go to bossified books.com, and enter the code, Agro, for 15% off. Oh, I wrote my book for, I don't know, a little while. Yeah, shout out to my wife, Jean-Av Saint-Thange-Millaire,

whose book that is, because she's a huge shadow fan. She's like, oh, I picked that. I know that guy. Yeah, I buy that. I don't know that. That's awesome. Very cool. I saw it recently at Green Apple Books.

Oh, yeah. That's where I bought it. Oh, yeah. I did a reading from it there a little while ago. Wow. For the Splunky Book launch party, yeah. It's fun. Yeah, seeing it in stores is like a total thrill.

Oh, that must be cool. Oh, Tim's drinking LaCroy. Ah. You know, I want to talk about Celeste, Greg. But before we do that... I knew something was going to happen here. Oh, you're going to do an aderee? Yeah.

I'm going to go back. I'm going to get a beer. You want more water? Please, thank you. You want a beer? I know. Can I get another one of these guys? Sure.

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blue apron a better way to cook now Kevin just handed me his water glass when I was going to get my beer and did this and I came back with more water for me and I was like

you did not Yeah. You said, I love you. Cool, Greg, bring Kevin a Pilser. No, it's fine. Get baby his bottle, Cool, Greg. I went back there. Andy Cortez is laying on the couch.

What are we paying this kid for? I don't know, man, Gundams. I know. He's on his phone. He's probably looking at a Gundam. Yeah. Celeste, ladies and gentlemen. Game of the year.

Game of the year. Game of the motherfucking year, man. If you're not playing Celeste, get off your ass. Get off your ass. Get it. It is. Great point. $20?

Yeah. $20 on every system Switch, PS4, Xbox 1 PC, Mac you're saying I mean I played it on that It's available everywhere and it is so Damn fantastic I put a tweet out saying that It's only been 30 days into the year

But if this is not my game of the year At the end of the year I'm gonna be shocked because I don't know What could possibly take this thing down Spider-Man There's a lot, there's a lot but man Celeste is a very special game and you worked on it What did you do on it? I did so I was the script editor and contributing writer

or something like that. Yeah, I mean, so after I left Oculus a few months ago, I sort of went to explore the world of what other stuff I can do. Do some more creative work and do some more writing. And I saw Matt Thorson, the creator of Celeste, and along with another whole great team.

And he did Towerfall as well, of course. You put out a blog post when the game was delayed till, or, you know, whatever, delayed, till 28, or, yeah, 2018. What year is it? What years? Here is it. And he mentioned,

that he was right in the game, but I forget exactly what he said, but I sort of got the impression that, like, he was a little unsure because it was the first game, I mean, that he'd really put that much story into. And so I reached out like, hey, is this something I could help out with? I'd love to get involved. And he was like, oh, I didn't even think about you. That actually makes a lot of sense. So he sent me a build, and I played through the first, like, chapter. And then he sent me the script, and I, like, give him a bunch of feedback and tweaks and stuff, and he was into it. And then we just went from there. So I ended up just doing sort of some, you know, just like, just little editing, tuning,

and tweaks and changing this here and there and writing a bit here and there and just sort of help, like, fleshing out the story to help really tell the best version of what they wanted to tell. And I think really the story is, and I think the story is fantastic. The story is so good.

It was before I showed up. The writing is fantastic. And I think that, like, that is something that makes it so special because it's a 2D platformer. And, you know, in a world where grueling 2D platformers, retro style is nothing,

fresh and interesting. This game is. This game to me is up there with the shovel nights. A lot of people keep comparing it to Super Meat Boy. And that's that's apt in just the, in how difficult it is and the kind of like try and try and try and again, try and try and again, like, run progression system. But in my opinion, like this takes it to a different level because of the story and the characters and my boy Theo. Just the context, I think, too, generally. And again, I feel like I worked, my role was small enough that I feel like I can join in the praise on this game and not feel like. weird about it. We did such a great

job making this game. But I think what's great, yeah, is you, I think you care about, like, Madeline's journey. And, I mean, I love Meat Boy as well, but it's like, you care about this, like, brutal level design. You don't really care about, like, rescuing bandage girl. I mean, you do, but it's fun, but it's like, you know, and Celeste, it's like, oh, she's on as a very personal journey to, like, climb this mountain,

just from this urge she has, and meets other characters along the way, you're really interesting and weird. Like, I was in... Everything you're saying is correct. And the game excels at every part of it. The artist fantastic, the story is fantastic, the writing is fantastic. The music is insane. You can check it out band camp. Yeah. It's the whole soundtrack's available. You got to. It's awesome. Also nominated for an IGF

award for the music. Well deserved. And yeah, the gameplay is so good. But I'm finding myself, you know, it started off like, okay, cool. Yeah, I get the loop here. I love the room progression because it is, as somebody who's not great at platformers and obviously they're putting new mechanics in there. I found myself going for the strawberries, which are like the, you don't need to get, but are like, hey, feathering your cap, if you do. Because, you respond so quickly that the checkpoints are it's every room so it's like

I jumped to a room and it's like oh well there's yeah I'll spend 10 minutes trying to get a strawberry what the hell and then at the end I noticed like in the hotel levels last level I beat I'm playing only like on the go uh it was very much like I was not getting frustrated

because I was yeah my ass handed to me by the end boss or whatever but it was like God I just want to fucking beat this not to say I beat it but because I want to know at the end of his story. How are they going to wrap this up for him? What does it mean for her? What's the phone?

And you haven't even gotten to like that. You know, it gets so good. So how far are you now? So that's at the end of the third. Yeah. And you obviously beat the game? Yeah. So when I was working on it, I like played through it.

But at the time, the B sides and stuff were still coming together. So purposefully where there like wasn't story, I was like, I'm not going to play that. I'm going to wait until to give myself stuff to play at the end. So now as I'm going through, I'm getting every strawberry. And I'm, as soon as I unlock a bee. side I'm going and playing through that, which I don't know if you've tried them at all yet. I have my B side. I've been I've picked up my first B side but I haven't played it yet.

Okay, yes, it's interesting because they're, you know, it's essentially a brand new level in the same sort of world of that other level. Okay. But they're pretty brutal. And we're talking about it earlier, it turns into more of like a puzzle game where it's like, all right, I need to actually really think about how to figure out this, this, this screen, just like the regular game, but only sort of exponential. And you'll be trying some route for like 100 deaths. And you're like, oh, wait a minute, I should just be doing this and then solve it in like five. Boom. Yeah. And then because you advance the. the next screen a second later, like you're saying, it's like you, and you respond quickly. And I was like, all right, now there's a whole new, brand new challenge that I immediately don't feel exhausted by the last one. I can just hop straight into this one. Yeah, that's the thing is like, you're dying over and over again.

But it's, I don't feel like, I'm like, okay, that didn't work, but I know what I'm supposed to. Can I do? Okay, I did that. And then it would be the thing of solving that first little part and then, oh, died there because I didn't even think what was on that other side of the one. All right, now I got to figure it. And like, yeah, just I want to keep playing the game. There's so much I have to say about this game that I feel sounds hyperboats.

because it's just it's too good to me like the I love not only is the story good and you know we've seen a lot of games in recent years especially on the indie side try to deal with depression and anxiety and like character growth you know like personal growth and I feel like this game does it does it very well without being heavy handed and without being kind of like cringe worthy and in addition to that makes the gameplay relate to the story that it has like it makes the moment to moment gameplay of a 2D platformer feel like it is right there hand in hand meaningful with the story and with the characters and with what's going on and It's kind of like Charlotte Colossus where like you you have these moments of like why am I doing this? You know like what what's going on and I love that and I feel like when we talk about a lot of games the easiest thing to do is compare it to other other games like oh it's like this mixed with this mixed with this and this is one of those games where all of the the games that I compare it to it's like oh well it's like it's like the level design of Yoshi's Island mixed with the finding secrets of Donkey Kong country too, mixed with the difficulty of Super Meat Boy, mixed with the feeling of the jump being just right of any Super Mario Brothers game, mixed with the soundtrack of Shovel Night Mix. It's like an all-star list of the best parts of all these amazing games, and it works.

From top to bottom, it works. And I think the greatest compliment I can give it is, I think this is the first game to totally nail difficulty. and giving options to tone the difficulty down without insulting the player, the assist mode is amazing. If the game's too hard for you, there's just a, the level of granularity is ridiculous

of what you can do to make it easier for yourself. And it doesn't slap you on the wrist. It's not like Super Mario where you, you know, get the little, whatever the fuck it is. I forgot what it was by your story. Every game has different things,

but like you're invincible forever or whatever. The game kind of makes fun of you for doing it. It's not like a baby mode. Special hat in Super Mario didn't know what was I know you're talking about yeah but it's it's different and it's like it feels like it's like hey man everyone's different like that's kind of the point of the game I mean everyone has their home thing when you click on assist mode right to even find out what it is there's just a heartfelt message from the developer who's just like hey or the team I should say but hey the challenge of Celeste is critical to the story of Celeste like we want you to struggle here but we understand that's not for everybody so we've included this we'd urge you to only do this in your second play-th but if you want to use this now, by all means, we want this game to be accessible. And last night I was telling my girlfriend, she should play, because I really do think she'd enjoy the story

and just the adventure of it. And she wouldn't be able to get through it. I mean, she played games, but not like Twitch stuff. Sure. So I told her like, yeah, just use the assist mode. You can tone it down down, you can turn yourself invincible or slow it on time or whatever. Yeah, it's just fantastic.

And I love that it never overstays its welcome. And I feel like the progression and the pacing of it is so fun. The response being as quick as they are, You never hit that point where you're just against a wall. You're like, fuck this. And because you're always on to the next thing. It's like, okay, cool. And there is that sense of progression.

And I just love the, every level has its own kind of gimmick that makes it feel like a different game. Like I just mentioned earlier. Like there's certain moments I'm like, this is straight out of Yoshi's Island. This is some moments like Donkey Kong, like going through that. And to get the B-side levels, which we were saying, which is a whole other game, it's very much like Zelda with the second quest, you know, like going back and getting like this more difficult version of what you have. And I love that since each world introduces a gimmick, even on the B sides, there's those gimmicks as well, being really put to the test.

And there's stuff you learn on the B sides pretty early on. The basic controls, like, there's some pretty advanced techniques you can do right off the bed if you know what you're doing, but you want to really know, like, chances are until you play the B side and then you force to use them. And you're like, oh, now I can go back to the main game and do these crazy super jumps that I didn't even know about. Yeah. And what's really cool about it is to unlock the B-Side. sides, there's rooms you find that in addition to just the strawberries being all over and those being kind of the challenges, there's other challenge rooms that are inspired by Super Mario Galaxy 2 with the music-based levels where to the beat of the music, different platforms will come up and you have to go. When you get through that, you unlock the B-side. And I love that that's music-based because the B-side is the music reference. You get the cassette. And then each of the B-sides has music contributed by like iconic, awesome video game remix. creators and people that are just known in in the world of video game music and each level has its own kind of just remix theme song and and vibe to it that is totally music based that is nothing to do with Celeste the main game and I'm like it's the game that keeps out giving it's like no matter what

aspect you look at it it's just the polish is through the roof there's also another layer too which I don't know how much you know about that of like beyond the Bs size there's more you know Yeah, which I haven't, I haven't tried any of that stuff yet, but yeah, there's so much there. And I love that, like I was saying, each world has its own gimmick, doesn't outstay, it's welcome. And as you keep going, I feel that the story elements are perfectly paced in the, they never get in the way. If you think about it, it's like story in a 2D platform, it's like, oh, there must be a lot of cutscenes or a lot of text. And there's only one section in the game that has a lot of text. And it's meaningful. It's awesome.

And it makes the rest of the game that much better. I am utterly in love with this game. The end of it is so powerful, so great, and I could not recommend it higher. Awesome. I can't wait to get playing more on the plane tomorrow. And for what I'll say, too, with my experience with it, I will say, one of the best things I can say about the game is that it is, like, absolutely a total reflection of the team in this amazing way.

Like, it's such a warm, collaborative, awesome team of folks who all have, like, come from different backgrounds and have different experience, and I think you really feel that in the game. It just feels like this very, like, warm thing made. like this little gift of like here enjoy this thing that we have like a lot of heart in and it's going to destroy you but yeah yeah it was it was awesome to like even see a little tiny taste of that for me but yeah that's right so you earlier before the show and the pre-show you were talking about you were you were playing it with different controllers and things like that yeah yeah what's your

experience of that uh well i was playing it um with a dual shock four on on my Mac while i was working on it and now i'm playing through it again on switch um i still feel like i prefer playing it on a Dual Shock 4, but like having it on Switch is nice on the go too. Do you use the analog or the... I went back and forth. I think I like tend to default to analog, but when I need to like be sure of something, I have like some reliable direction that I'll... And that's something

for me as a... Which is tough on Switch because there's not much of a depot. Exactly. And the analog is also not great for this type of stuff. It's, the controls are so key and it's like you can't fuck them up. Like you need to know exactly what you're doing and I think this game does a great job of you look at the room and you

it starts as a puzzle and then it just turns into the mechanics of getting from point A to B. So once you figure out what you need to do, then it just becomes about doing it. And the doing it parking be very hard if the controls aren't perfect. And I could never imagine playing a 2D platform with an analog stick.

Like, that's blasphemy. This game kind of requires that. And I switched back and forth, depending on what I was doing. But I played the last half of the game using the GameCube controller connected the Switch with the... Because that kid said that.

Because the kid said it, because the analog has the octagonal just kind of like things. And it made it so much better. Yeah, it's based on like an eight-way dash. Yeah, so that was really great. I'm sure a pro-controller is also. And I played half the time in handheld mode and half the time with the pro-controller on the TV. And it's just like, I mean, no matter how you play this game, it's great. But there was many deaths I had where I'm like, thank you.

I did not. I should not have died. And it was just a stupid. Yeah, no, it happened to me all the time. When I was playing initially, I was on the plane playing it with the joycones just in handheld mode. And I was like, wow, this is great. But even the rumble it was giving me. I was like, that's too much.

And so on the flight back, I busted out the pro controller sitting there at the airplane. I'm a little, a little thing going with that one. Next game. The inpatient. The inpatient. Super massive PlayStation VR. Heads up, FTC. Kevin put a note here.

You're going to have to put it again. PlayStation sent us this game for review. We didn't buy it, but we aren't paid by them. because let me tell you what a fucking disappointment. No. Boy, yeah, Kevin kept walking in the room when I was playing it because it was when you guys went to L.A. for Funhouse. And I had gotten it and I was like, oh, perfect.

The afternoon off from like being on camera, I have the VR set up. I'm super, I'm super stoked for this game. Put it on, went in and it was just like, it's like the, for VR in particular, it's that critical moment when you know it's off rails of I'm in another world, whoa, and I'm like, where have any good emails have come in?

Like, you know what I mean? I'm waiting on our response. Because it's just like, it's, it's not scary. It's boring. You move too slowly. I mean, like, fidelity-wise, it's fine. It's not like it's bad there. And this is like the sort of spin off of until dawn, right?

It's the prequel. You're in the sanatorium that they, you know, is in until, I think it's the 60s versus, you know, present day until dawn. They do something at the end to try to tie it together. but it's just like... How long is the experience? I've seen a lot of people online say an hour and a half.

I want to say it was two hours, a little bit more for me, but I think I did do... You were checking emails. Kevin came in and I didn't pop it off and I'm like, I'm bored of shit and I did check emails and did do stuff. I think I came in here and filmed some bump for something. So it wasn't like I was just going straight through it. But it was a slog.

Eventually you turn a corner where it's like, okay, it's moving a bit more. There are, like, on top of it being an easy platinum, I will play it again because there will. There are butterfly moments. There's like six of them, though. It's not like until dawn where it really got crazy.

But there are things of like, by, you get to the end. It's a game that, thank you. Thank you. Yes, thanks.

Andy, Andy heard the call that. Thank you. I appreciate it. Good man. Thanks, thanks, thanks,

what is the gameplay? Because I actually don't know much about the game besides like the teasers that I've seen. I mean, yeah. Is it like until dawn? Like,

no, God. Well, I mean, is the third, you know. No, no,

it's first person. It's your, sort of action adventure. You're a patient in the sanatorium and you're trying to figure out what's going on. And so the first part is you in your fucking room a long time with your roommate talking to her. Well, it was her for me. And I don't know if that changes. I chose in the beginning to be a female.

But then it's like, you know, you pick up stuff and you flip it around and then it takes you back to a memory. Because like it starts to be getting like electric shock and I'm like trying to remember things and figure it all out. But then like things go off the rails. You know what I mean? And like at some point, I'm spoiling a patient. Like there's a lockdown and you guys can't get out for a few days and all these different things happen. And then finally the door opens, but like you're, you get separated from your roommate. You finally introduce some new characters and things start happening.

And they start trying to finally weave this story of like, who are you and why are you here and what the fuck's happening? And it, this isn't, I don't think a spoiler. Well, I don't want to spoilcast this. I didn't, it wasn't great, but it did leave me enough questions that I do want to play it again. Just to get, especially now that I know that it's super short and I know where to go and like skip a little bit. faster. But I was so, I was like, you know, I'm, I'm very pro PlayStation VR, right? I'm doing a PlayStation VR show, Patreon.com slash kind of funny games this month. And it's because stuff like Moss and stuff like blood and truth where I've seen it and played it and been like, this is awesome.

I played the inpatient demo the same time. And it, and it was, all right, I'm in the room. There's one jump scare. Okay. This could be, this will be interesting. I like super massive. And like, it just doesn't come together. It's just, uh, a, slog of playing through. There's a few jump scares. There's not that bad. I think they don't use enough things from Until Dawn that made Until Dawn interesting where there is a moment of like just one moment, I think, maybe too, of like stand still. Remember how I getting until dawn the first time that pops up? We're like, oh, fuck, don't move the controller. That's fucking crazy. This one pops up, don't move the headset. You're like, oh, okay. And then it's like, it's over. It's just like, all right,

cool. And on the next thing. That's so sad because, I mean, obviously, until Dawn's great. That in VR sounds amazing. And my favorite PSVR game is Until Dawn. on Rush of Blood. Yeah, Russia of Blood. Yeah. And yeah, this seemed like when we saw the trailer at, are you three? I want to say? Yeah.

I was like, holy crap. This sounds fantastic. Yeah. Well, I mean, you figure too. Yeah. Yeah. But still, but I mean, I loved. It was super massive.

It was VR. Yeah. Same people and like that had enough scares that I'm like, cool. And you figure for, you know, the other side of the screen for our expectations, it was in 2017, fucking Resident Evil 7 on VR. Holy shit. I think like the horror VR bar is pretty high. And that was the thing.

Holy, that was so amazing. When we filmed the PlayStation VR show, right, we tried to do an episode on paranormal activity. And we ended up stopping the middle. Like, this isn't good, scrap it.

You know what I mean? Of like, we wanted it to be fresh and jump scary. And we just didn't enjoy it at all. But my thought process when we scrapped, it was like, well, the inpatient's coming up.

I'll be able to drop Tim and do a cool moment and go from that. And it's just like, I, there's like, a cool, yeah, Kevin watched off screen

and it was just a lot of, taking stuff up and looking around. It's just like this isn't what this game should have been. Does it feel like something that was made for VR? Yeah, 100%. Okay. Yeah. But I mean,

not in a good way necessarily, right? Because you move so slowly. Like even walking around your room, like I, when you first got it and you put it on, like there's a whole scene of like calibration pretty much where the guy's like,

all right, now get out of your bed and walk to me and you walk over to him and you move so slow. I was like, well, this makes sense. I'm out of a wheelchair. I'm using it. And I'm sure that's all comfort issues. Of course. But it doesn't mean it's the best solution.

Exactly. And so like when they do open it up, you're like walking around the outside down hallways, you're just like, I'm clearly going there. Yeah, it's a-up of the game like that, I imagine. It sounds like you're in a room or in a cell or something where it's like you want to have sort of probably free teleportation, but then it's like you can't teleport out of your cell. So yeah, yeah. Maybe something's just done quite work thematically, which then taints the movement, it sounds like. You know, I thought until dawn looked so good. You don't remember how well faces looked in the main menu.

You're like, whoa. Yeah, granted it's VR. You're going to have the screen door effect. Yeah, I wasn't playing on a pro. I'm playing on my retail unit here. Like, there's a distinct moment that's meant to be like, the don't move moment and all this shit's happening. And when the scary thing shows up,

I'm just like, that looks terrible. Like, this doesn't, like, this just doesn't look good. And like, there's, there's no, at the end, it's almost, if it wasn't easy platinum, I would just read the Wikipedia. But I, like, at some point, I'm going to have an hour and half to myself and just be like, well, let's go make the other choices and see where it all plays out.

But I was like, so like, I can't. And it's sucked to be playing it and Kevin come in. And like, how is it? I'm like, it's not. I'm bored right now, but I'm hoping, and he kept checking it every 15 minutes. I'm like, ah, it's still, still not there. So I guess, I mean, I'm curious that from that spectrum of like until dawn to Russia blood to inpatient, like, that's pretty sort of connected games are very different.

Like, what would you want to see from Supermassive as like a next thing? Well, I'd want to see them do until dawn too or until dawn game like that, right? Like, they're doing Bravo team as well. And it's like, okay. This scares me for Bravo team because I feel like they miss the mark so much here. Like, I don't even think they're... I imagine that's a different team, though, too. Of course, of course, of course.

I'm painting with a very broad brush here. But it's just the fact of, okay, like, I thought this was a slam dunk. You know, I think since until dawn and with Russia of Blood, it's been like... I don't know everyone loved Russia Blood, but... Well, sure, but I mean, for what it was. I mean, like, right, of like, hey, here's this shooting yally around. My only complaint ever with Russia Blood was just like, why did they attach until dawn to this? Like, that was a weird thing.

Why are you trying to make this until... I guess to me, the reason I loved it so much, is, you know, with VR, shooting galleries work. And it's fun. The idea of shooting guns and being able to move and see the, like, see your hands on shit. Like that is, that is a function that really works. Yeah.

On rails on a roller coaster type thing, that works. Yeah. And when you take that and add jump scares and shit, scary games in VR, that works. So to me, I'm like, that game works more than most things I've experienced on it. Totally. And it wasn't just experienced. There's a game there. Yeah.

Yeah, no, you're right. You're not wrong at all. Like, I think you're right. And that's the thing here is that this is a game caught somewhere between a game. a game and an experience and like there's ideas here but they just didn't execute on anything. Yeah, that sucks.

Next game I want to talk about Guacamayle too. Oh yeah. You motherfucker. It's more just more as it. Yeah, being a jerk and teasing it. You motherfucker. How am I drink box boys doing?

And they're doing well. Yeah, they're making a great game. Yeah, so I've been doing some like consulting type stuff in my new weird freelance adventure. And one of those things was recently to work with those guys to sort of do a full playtest. and play the game,

give them a bunch of feedback, which was a couple weeks ago. And I basically got the okay from them to say, like, yeah, I played it. It's coming along great. I was going to say, I wonder if you.

Yeah, yeah. Your playtests is like, this is shit. They're like, oh, talk about it on any podcast you want. It's great to go back to that world after like four or five years or whatever it's being.

Just immediately really charming and funny and looks like beautiful. I mean, they had like a great art direction before art style, but now like it's amazing lighting and there's just lots of little touches that are really nice and it's coming along great. I can't wait.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect because it was a nice surprise when they announced it. Yeah. Like the PSX, you know, pre-show or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's coming along well. Because you asked me like, we're talking about what we're playing. And I was like, what have I been playing?

Oh, yeah, that one thing I can't talk about, but at least we want to say that. You have something to say that's something. And then Blossom Tales, Greg. Oh, right. Yeah, Blossom Tales. This is the one. I don't know what that is. It's a, here, I'll show you.

It's a link to the past style. It's a knockoff. It's a link to the past. Yeah. You know what I mean? Okay. Okay. Maybe I saw it on the store.

Yeah. No, no, no. It's fun. It's good. When I was trying to find video games on the Switch store, which is a thing challenge. If only there were a few on there. If only, you know what I mean that you weren't like constantly barrage by it. But no, it's totally a link between or a link to the past.

I was jumped to link between worlds. Zelda game that you're going through, you know, top down like that, except this time you play as. Even the menu font. Oh, totally. Totally. Totally. It's a brilliant game like right now as I restart it for you. It is very much.

Princess Bride, where a grandfather's telling a story to the kids. And so it's littered with jokes and all stuff. When you restart the game and you pick back up, he does a little recap of where you left off in the story. That's our direction. When you start the game, it is very much like he's like, have I told you the story about this guy who's lost in time and his name is and they cut him off? Like, yeah, you say that all the time. So he tells you this new story or them this new story. That's where you're the, I think, princess or the king's daughter or whatever.

and you want to join the knights and you've finally been accepted into the nights and then all hell breaks loose and you have to go through and you're playing through fighting monsters doing dungeons like that's some some quality pot smashing so that's exactly lots of pot smashing yeah i wasn't sold on this because i was like yeah i don't really need it seeing this right now in action in the dungeon yeah i'm like oh wow this really hold on kev's going to show you sky came in a second here there we go you have a 51 freder quest by the way yeah i know no no no he's got sky came he's got oh my god's got oh my god's another reason if you audio listener should pull your car out of it. No. I would have, what had happened is, I guess, yeah,

this is what I was wrong about with Celeste, is that I had played this on the flight to Canada and had a great time and loved it. And then when I landed there, my Celeste code came in, started playing it at the Airbnb. And I was like, fuck, I love this game. And then, oh, God. So Celeste is what derailed me here. But this game, also awesome. I had asked you guys last games cast that I was on, what I should play. And you'd shouted this game out, bought it. I love it. I want to play more of it. But it kind of falls into, here's the one downside to it. Oh, this looks cool. It falls into, um,

it's very stressful doing this live. What's the knockoff Zelda that I was always talking about? Ocean Horn. Ocean Horn. It's a very, Ocean Horn game, right? Of like, cool, when I left Ocean Horn,

I wasn't really compelled to go back. I, when I left this one, now I'm playing Celeste and there's a million other switch games I have on there right now. It is very much like, I loved this. This was a great experience. It killed the flight.

That was perfect. And I really liked it. But I'm not like, I need to go back and play. Right? Because it's more Zelda. And that's great. you want. Fantastic.

Yeah, it seems borderline the titchis, but very cool. Exactly, yeah, exactly. It's like 3D dot game heroes. Yeah. Or ocean horn, yeah. But yeah, I like it a lot. It's always great. Cool, thank you.

No problem. And then iconoclasts. I just back you up like six screens, by the way. That's fine. That's fine. This is very much going to be one of those games. I'm like, where did I leave on? How nice?

Look at Night in the Wood just came out today. Oh, yeah, of course. I'm on it, man. Come on. Another game that I abandoned two early on PlayStation 4. Oh, really? It's so good. It's so good.

game everyone's like Greg night in the woods is your jam you need to play this game and I start on PlayStation 4 I was like this is great and then the next day whatever came and I had to go play that uh iconoclass have you played this at all no I'm curious about it though I mean this is a shitty thing of where I played the first two or three levels or something like that or I put maybe 30 an hour into it before I left it was so good that I want to come back to it now back yeah it looks really really cool PlayStation 4 yeah yeah and it was that thing where I'm on Vita too I know I know it's on Vita and it was It was the day or two days before I guess I left where I was like, no, I'm just bringing the switch. I want to commit to finally playing some of these games.

Yeah. I bought so much stuff right before I left for the trip. I had a weird existential moment before I went on my own trip like a week ago where I was like, oh, I kind of class came out on Vita. Should I bring my Vita on the plane and play? Which is where I used to play a lot of Vita stuff. And I, you know, I worked at Sony and I loved Vita and spent a lot of time with it. But I was like, now I got the switch.

Oh man, this is a weird, weird moment. But then I went with my switch. I have this waterfield way back. They don't, it's not an ad. But it's the same. same bag I had for my Vita but big enough for the switch and I can fit both in there. So for a while I was dual wielding and I was like this time I have to

I bought so much stuff I put someone there's so much shit on switch I haven't played I needed to commit to it. I kind of class first blush really cool really like it beautiful art style I like the gameplay of it you know two D Scots going to shoot and stuff it's great have you played Alboy no I'm waiting for that here okay yeah I'm waiting for me from everything else as well isn't that like days yeah yeah wait

no no they pushed it right it's like two weeks right I thought it was like January 25 and not great. I'm tired to play that because they did you play it on PC at no no

I haven't played either I think Alboy I was maybe a little more interested in I think that I like the art a little bit more but I'm curious about both

but I came through our GDC stream right after we left and started kind of funny and we were like that's amazing but then it was so like well yeah both games have been around

for 10 years on 10 years on Steam and the Hollow Nights coming too we're excited for that yeah I think that's still no date for that

as far as I understand right but god so much cool shit yeah and then the The last game to talk about,

Mom hid my game. You guys both played this. Oh, yeah. What is this? Nick explained it. I would say I'm a long time fan of the franchise. Which started with

Hidden My Game by Mom. Yeah, on mobile. I don't know if it's just on iOS, but it's definitely on iOS. And Hidden My Game by Mom too. And then my brother, ate my pudding,

is sort of the spiritual successor there. Have you heard of any of these games? Are you fucking with me? No. Yeah. And actually the developer HAP, Inc, I think, has made like a whole bunch more games. But, oh, yeah.

Play level. Just play level. Can we just get that jam up on the... Yeah, put that. Got to hear that. That's... So, yeah, so they... I wish they had actually left the original title intact. Oh, yeah, totally. Now Mom hit my game. It's like, I guess that's sense that makes sense. Yeah.

Well, that was another thing where Jen, when I was playing this and the plane leaned over, it's like, oh, that's funny. Oh, wait, they fixed stuff? I'm like, what are you talking about? I've never heard of this before. It's just super charming, really funny, like... It's just like great comedy through game design. And you actually called it a hidden object game, which I hadn't even only thought of it sort of is where it's like... So the idea is that you play too many video games, so your mom steals what basically looks like a 3DS.

It might even be a 3DS for this Nintendo version. I think it looks more like a 3DS now. Yeah, exactly. And so she takes it and hides it around the house. So every level is you opening covers or moving drapes and trying to find it. But it gets progressively crazier and crazier and crazier to where crowds of people are walking through your house and you have to figure out how to stop them. Your mom's over there with a lampshade on her head in case you accidentally tap her. but sometimes you'll think it's going to be her

and it's not, that's what you need to tap the solution for. It's not some really funny, weird, subversive comedy moments and there's also some weird, I don't want to spoil any puzzles, but, do you play the originals or just this one? No, just this one. You should play the sequel too. I don't know if it's going to come to Switch,

but, um, so the first one actually was like 30 levels and this is the same thing, only they added like 20 more or so. And there's also a couple key levels where it's, have the sort of meta puzzles that I don't want to ruin, but are like brilliant. When you do it, you're like, oh, that's amazing. Oh, sure. And then actually, I don't know if you finish this one.

I haven't finished this one either. I've been trying to take it still on purpose. But the endings, actually, of both games are like really poignant and sweet. And I was like, oh, man, in this very silly game, they managed to have this really, like, sweet commentary on, like, playing too many video games. And it's just like a wonderful ending. It's really charming. I love that. I love that.

I love that dev. I was going to say, I do not like the controls at all. Then I realized. Touch screen. Yeah. The touchscreen. That makes that shit choice. It's funny because, like, it's, this is like, it's amazing that, like, there's a version of this now.

on Switch and it's like, you know, barely, like not a mobile game, but it is and it works. And it's great. And like I said, like 50 levels now, there's a whole bunch of new stuff. So even if you play it the original on iOS, which you probably didn't, let's be honest. It's a great game. It's hilarious. Like, it's a wonderful thing. If I hadn't played the original, like, I would be recommending this even more strongly.

Like this would have been like a total shock out of nowhere. Oh, yeah. That's what it was for me. Where I started, I'm like, I don't know, like people, you guys had recommended it, the games cast audience. And I looked in and I was like, all right, like, I don't know. I like Hidden Object games. How is it going to be interesting?

And then when it is like, oh, this is just a comedy, where it is like you start doing stuff you think it would do or whatever, and like that's totally the wrong. I just opened a closet and an alligator came out. Yeah, that's a lot of the game. I'm trying to pull up my phone so I can look at the other. There's another recent release by that same developer. That's a little bit creepy but still fun.

Mom hit my body. Toki meter. What's to tiki meter? You're like sort of trying to impress a girl that you're chasing after and just doing different things and like catching flower. for her and stuff. And it's got a tokey, Toki-Mecke meter, which I don't know what that means, but yeah, anyway, a little

weirder, a little creepier, but still fun of sense of humor. Yeah. Well, Nick, thank you very much for joining us. Where can people get the book? BossFivebooks.com. You can also, and actually, that's where you get like the physical book. You can also get the e-book, maybe the physical book on Amazon and a couple scant

bookstores across like the Strand in New York and maybe, what's called Powell's in Portland, like some of the big famous bookstores. But yeah, bossobics.com. Agro is the 15% off code. We're going right now in celebration of the remake.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Now, Tim, before you let us go, I of course again need to remind the FTC at PlayStation sent us those games. They didn't pay us to tell us about you.

We've got to tell you that they sent him to us because I'm sure you thought we somehow murdered a man and got Shadow Clause this early, but no, in fact, they sent it to us. But they didn't pay us to talk about it. That's why I can say the impatient. Not worth your time or money.

Sorry. Until next time. I love you. I didn't get anybody. I'm just saying what it is. Call him like I see him. Play Monster Hunter, everybody. Come find Kevin and I.

And play Celeste. Seriously. Too many games already. Too many games. And shout out of the Colosses. God. And buy the book. Do it all, man.

Follow Nick on Twitter. By the soundtrack to Celeste. Grow a beard. Do it all. Oh, my God.