Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Summer Game Fest 2023 Review and Breakdown - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

The Summer Game Fest Showcase just ended! Let's breakdown our thoughts. 00:00:00 - Start 00:02:38 - Grading the Showcase 00:15:03 - Breaking Down the Show 00:35:10 - Ads 00:38:23 - The 2nd Half of the Showcase Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I am your host, Tim Gettys, and I'm joined by the new face of video games blessing at Eo Yew Jr. What a day. What a day. The master of hype snow bike. It's an awesome day, Tim. One of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. What a time.

What a time. And the Texas treat Latino heat clicking heads and ripping him to try. It's Andy Cortez. Hey, guys. What a day. Tim's been talking for four straight hours, and then I just didn't. Of course, this is the kind of funny. gamescast for each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things

that we love about them you could watch it on youtube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteeth.com you could also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for kind of funny games cast and we will be right there for you the entire summer game fest season you're going to want to hang out and watch live with us over on youtube.com slash kind of funny games and twitch. tv slash kind of funny games where we will be reacting to all of the biggest showcases we'll be breaking them down we're about to go down and to Los Angeles to play a whole bunch of games this weekend and then talk about them next week so you know all of our up-to-date thoughts on everything going on. So stay tuned to kind of funny for

all of your gaming needs. If you're out there on the streets on the epic game store, use our code kind of funny and at no extra cost to you. It helps benefits us with some money, Mike. Does that make you feel good? That makes me feel good. Let's keep the lights on, Tim. I really would like to keep the lights on. If you want to go above and beyond and help. Oh no. Oh, no. The lights are off. If you want to turn the on patreon.com slash kind of funny is where you want to go. Just like our Patreon producer Delaney Twining, we appreciate

you so very, very much. And because of your support, you get the show ad free, but for everyone else, you can hear some ads for Shady Ray's BetterHelp and of course Amazon Gaming and Summer Game Fest. Thank you guys for partnering us with this showcase season. You can go to Amazon.com

slash summer game fest all summer long to pre-order the latest games being announced or to buy the that you might have missed out on this year because there's already, it might be the most difficult year to come up with the top 10 list already, you know, and we're not even halfway done. So Amazon.com slash summer game fest is where you're going to want to go for all of that. But the topic of the show today is our thoughts on what we just watched,

which was Jeff Keely's Summer Game Fest, kickoff live, 2023 live at the YouTube theater in front of 6,000 screaming fans, blessing. I want to start with you. What up? We're going to go around the table. and we're going to, on the kind of funny scale of one to five, give our rating of what we thought of this showcase. Go. I thought that was a great showcase.

I had a really fun time. I think it was a big step up from last year, where last year we ended up giving it a two out of five, right? Because there just wasn't enough hype moments, right? The pacing was off, all this stuff. This showcase wasn't perfect. I think there's still some pacing issues there toward the latter half of the show. There were extended moments that felt like there were the commercial moments, even though we were out of commercials and we're legit in the video. video game announcements, but they weren't hitting in the way that the first half was, right?

Like, we started off strong with Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown. We had Mortal Kombat 1, and we had things like Street Fighter 6. We had Path of Exile, too, which also had a pretty good trailer in here. And a lot of these trailers were hitting. Like, Mortal Kombat 1 was such a substantial trailer in terms of the content we were getting, the pacing of it, how good that game looks, even for knowing it's a big new entry into the Mortal Kombat franchise, the way that Mortal Kombat 1 is pushing things forward from Mortal Kombat 11 and 10. I think that definitely needs a shout out.

That was such a good trailer. But even in the latter half, we had some exciting things. The fact that we had Spider-Man too, and that came with a release date and even more really fun tidbits that we didn't even get out of the PlayStation Showcase, I think that's really cool and really impressive. And then the ending with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I think was a really solid way to end it with a trailer that, again,

was fantastic and a release window of early 2024. For me, the showcase had so much. And yeah, the only thing I'd say for it was that the pacing was a bit off with a lot of stuff in there that probably could have been cut, right? And that's the struggle of throwing a showcase is you want to pay the bills. And then you also are at the mercy of the games that you can get and can't get in all that stuff. But I think for the most part, Jeff and the team managed it fairly well. And so for me, I'm giving a four out of five.

Mr. Snowbike, Mike. Yeah, very well said there, Blas. It is a four out of five on the kind of funny scale for me. This is a great showcase. And Jeff and his team got in their Duffy. And I was really impressed. I think having the live audience really changed it up for Jeff. right. I think we're coming off of two years now with him, creating something that is not live,

not in front of an audience. And really, I think it changed up his formula on how he had to do this. You can see him smiling up on stage, getting the crowd to interact and be a part of that is a big deal. Bringing up celebrities. I think we did hit the snooze button halfway through into the three-fourth part about this. And like, that's the only downfall that I can really critique the games he had were solid. There are some great titles in there. There are games that spoke to me, didn't speak to me. hit the wider audience, probably didn't hit the wider audience. But all in all, two hours here, a little bit on the long side, but great conference from Jeff. Greg Miller.

What I love about the kind of funny review scale is you have to make tough decisions. And you have to decide based on this word and this number where you want to go, right? For me personally, I'm going to continue the trend and say it's a four out of five great. I say that because I just don't think if anybody was to talk, when we talk tomorrow, ad nauseum to everybody in the industry about what we thought. thought of this SGF presentation, it would be unfair to say it was okay. I think that you said so poignantly today and reminded everybody on Games Daily Tim, Summer Game Fest as a presentation hadn't found an identity yet.

I really truly hope that Jeff looks at work about this show and says this is the identity. I really appreciated the awesome trailers and then also having devs up there to talk about it. We're going to bring somebody out like Nicholas Cage and we're going to use them and let them be Nicholas Cage and be fun and be exciting. we're going to show you plenty of trailers that are in out really quickly and like that'll be a sonic thing that maybe speaks to somebody or maybe doesn't maybe it's going to be like you know blessings game of the show kind of thing or maybe it'll be somebody's whatever I forget about it and then of course yeah there's going to be the ads in there that pay the bills or whatever I thought it was a good mix I agree with Mike I do think in that there was a second section there in the second hour where it was dragging a bit where it was like okay cool we're getting a lot of the bills paid right now but that has to happen and I think if you want to compare this to other SGF presentations I think this is the best one yet and I think that this is uh I think maybe when we get maybe three or four from this and look back on SGFs, it might be okay, that was a three out of five. But in terms of what SGF has been, what it is now,

I think this was a great presentation. Same, but I mean, you know, just big echo chamber here, San Francisco, you know what I mean? Yeah, I'd give it a four out of five as well. We got a Liza P date. We got a Spider-Man date. It ended with an awesome showcase from Final Fantasy. The one thing that did feel kind of odd was we're used to the big block of commercials

back to back to back to back to back and that's when we usually talk to the audience or go to the restroom you know that's that's kind of become the norm from a lot of these game game awards or SGF or whatever presentation it is we're watching i was surprised by as much as we were making jokes of like oh only an hour left only that i was surprised at like how quickly we were suddenly at the end after what we're used to a lot of blocks and suddenly it was like all right here's the final thing like oh shit we're yeah i'm used to like a couple of nice announcements after those big blocks and then the big one more thing. But I still think overall, like, it started off super strong.

And we got some really important info for different games that we weren't sure we were going to get anytime soon. And then, of course, I want to shout out the, again, the Liza P. date I have written here. I was not expecting to be excited for a Sonic game. And that was an awesome surprise. I would have never in a million years thought that I'd be excited for a Sonic game

but that looks like it's going to be a lot of fun with friends. Join us. Join us. And again, ending with a great showcase of Final Fantasy getting the Spider-Man 2 date. I love the idea of the Space Marine game which is Warhammer. That game looks really, really awesome.

Alan Wake 2, this was probably the most interested that I've been in Allen Wake as a franchise. Remnant 2 from the Ashes was a pretty quick showing, but I'm still super stoked on that game. which fire looks awesome as hell. There was a lot of games in here that I'm sure we'll get to. But yeah, I think there's a four out of five.

Great job. That's a five for me, man. Wow. Leggimately, I'm not saying it's all caps five. This is the greatest showcase of all time. But I do think that on the fat five on the kind of funny scale, that was an amazing showcase.

Like, what do I look for from showcases? Announcements, answers to questions we have, surprises. We got all of that stuff. Memes, fun presentations, like great production value.

presentation across the board they did all those things um that this spoke to me very loudly ending with final fantasy seven rebirth it looking as incredible as it does earlier today you're like tim what what would they need to do to get you excited like give me a trailer that i'm going to watch a hundred times over the next couple months they did that dissect the shit out of starting this off with the prince of persia game that legitimately looks like just the thing of my dreams made by the rayman legends team a two-d game with hip-hop inspirations and it's prince of persia castlevania what are you talking about give it to me right now. I have full faith that game is going to be incredible.

A 2D Sonic game. We were hoping we're going to get a song announcement. I was hoping it was going to be a 2D game and here we are. I'm hoping we get to play. I'm hoping I get some answers soon of what the quality is going to be. But so far, I think that looks fantastic. And even beyond that, Mortal Kombat, what a fantastic presentation of gameplay.

I was already excited for that game. I'm even more excited now. I love Nether Realm's single player. This looks like the best yet. This looks absolutely incredible. Allen Wake 2 getting gameplay of that. I said this during the show, but I didn't think it would be possible for me to be excited about Allen and Wake 2.

I know I want to play that game. That sold me on it. That's what a showcase should be for, right? Beyond that, like going through, seeing some of the other things like party animals getting a date, Spider-Man 2 getting a date. We got dates, we got answers. These things weren't expected, and we got a Ubisoft game in Prince of Persia.

We got Spider-Man 2 from PlayStation Studios. We ended it with the Big Square Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. This is the identity I want Jeff Keely's shows to have. It doesn't have to be a PlayStation showcase or a square thing or Ubisoft forward. He has the power to have everybody on the same stage. And I think that this is a glimpse into the vision and the plan that he has. I am supremely impressed. Is that to say that it's perfect?

God, no, it isn't. There was pacing issues. The Marvel Snap stuff personally to me, what they announced is really exciting, how they announced it fell flat and like really didn't work. And I think that was the moment that kind of created a lot of the pacing issues in the show, which is unfortunate. But yeah, I feel like that.

That's the low for me. Otherwise, it was two hours, great time hanging out with you all. And again, when it comes to the showcase stuff, like, what are we looking for? This is what I'm looking for. Yeah, as much as I agree with you as a non-snap player, I think you introduced that segment with Pro ZD's little video short,

and then you bring on the developer, and you talk about these changes and things that you're doing because it really seemed like they were teeing up, hey, look at the stuff that Pro ZD is complaining about. Guess what? We have a new mode that's going to come up. kind of alleviate those issues. That was just a little short. And that's cute, but it was awkward and weird. Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing that impresses me is that Jeff, more and more, I think,

has proven how trusted he is. Like, the fact that he was able to get the Spider-Man 2 release date, and PlayStation didn't even have the Spider-Man 2 release date at the showcase. Like, of course, PlayStation could have done it if they wanted to, right? Like, after that big old gameplay presentation, they're going to smack the date on there. But the fact that they look at Jeff Keeley as a worthwhile place to reveal additional information. We had it last year or two with the Last of us. Most player stuff. And then also last is part one,

which we're both revealed at Jeff's thing. I mean, that's really impressive. Like, I'm looking forward to game awards and then next year's Summer Game Fest kickoff to have PlayStation things there.

And I think that's huge for him. The fact that, you know, you listed off the Square NX thing, but even with Final Fans of Seven Rebirth would have sworn that that would have been at a PlayStation showcase,

right? Because that is where you get that type of information. Having that be at Jeff Kiley's thing and him being able to close out with that, with a release window. And again, with that trailer,

which I was already excited for this game. Seeing that trailer somehow has me even more excited. That's very impressive. And then, yeah, you go through the list of Capcom and a billion focus on interactive games. And yeah, an Allen Wake 2 trailer that got me. That God focuses that. I love it. An Allen Wake 2 trailer got me super excited for Allen Wake 2. And I'm somebody who's not an Alan Wake person. Like that did its job. I think the trailers that were here, especially for the stuff that I think was on the more exciting side, all pretty much hit, right? Even the like a dragon guide in the main who erased his name, that trailer going into it,

didn't care that much coming out of it, damn, I really want to play that game. And I can say that for pretty much any of the big announcements here. You know, like, I think the only thing that makes it feel like not a five out of five is there was just a lot in there where it's like, okay, do we need this? But the stuff that hit in here for me is, was fantastic. Like, I think they did a really great job of getting in the hits here at a time where it feels like there wasn't as much to talk about or as much to announce, right? Like, we didn't get Lnering DLC. I'm surprised by some of the stuff that we didn't get, but even without some of the big hitters, you still got Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, which is huge.

And so, yeah, shout out to that. Liza P release date. You know, like, that's huge. It's a really big deal. Look cool demo out today. Like, for me, like what you're talking about of like all the, the fluff stuff. Like, the problem is if this isn't a five, what is a five? Because that stuff is never going to be gone.

That stuff cannot be cut. And I feel like for this being a two-hour show, it wasn't even two hours. This came in at like 140-something, right? Yeah, 145-ish. Yeah. So with that, it's like you don't get much tighter. normally these shows go way too long and they say two hours and ends up being like 2.15 and it's like oh we could have cut this could have cut this. Yeah there's a lot of stuff we could have cut. Guess what guys?

That's never going to happen. There never has been a showcase that doesn't have that stuff and there never will be because that's not how this works. Yeah. Also the twist a twisted metal trailer. I get that that might be a low point for some people but like I feel like those people got to have fun. Like that trail, I was having a blast during that trailer as putting off the act, right? As terrible as that fucking like clip was as bad as that show is going to be, I'm all about. about it. Like I was, I was having a fun time watching that. As someone who had a very bad video game show made about one of his favorite things.

That's my question. It looks way better than Halo. I'll say it right now. Oh my God. I watched that tale and I was like, I'd watch this a thousand times before I watch Halo ever again. I think it's just a jarring way to drop into that world is my hope. Right? Of like, so

yeah, like, what's the car combat? And then I was like, oh, well, the set looks kind of bare. This must be filmed for a promotional thing. You guys are like, no, this is a show. What does that go? Huh. Okay. That's the show baby. We will see. Stop in, buckle up. July, here comes.

Here it comes, man. Let's go thing by thing. Oh, thing by thing. There's a lot of things. A whole lot of things. A whole lot of things starting the show. My announcement of the show,

Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown coming January 18th, 2024, a 2D, Metroidvania style Prince game. God, this looks good. It looks awesome. Made by the Raymond Legends team. Like, what are y'all's thoughts on this one? There's another one where I'm not,

a Prince of Persia person, but watching this trailer, I really want to play this game. I'm about to be. This game looks dope. Like you mentioned, the hip-hop stuff in it, like in the trailer, I think is really cool. And it being more of a Metroidvania, I think, is a very interesting take on Prince Persia, let alone the different style of it. And yet, it being from the Rayman team. This, I'm surprised, I guess not surprised that they didn't wait for the Ubisoft

forward to show this off, but like, this has given me something, I guess, additional to look forward to out of that Ubisoft forward, which is what I think that forward needs. And so, yeah, I think it was a great announcement. As awesome as it is, I do kind of, just for Ubisoft's sake, wish it was only in the UvSov presentation, because it does kind of take away some of the gas from there. And with this being such a out-of-nowhere announcement, for me at least, I had never really heard of any of these rumors. I think the combat looks cool as hell, great art style, awesome abilities. We see this character having, it looks like just a crazy toolkit of things to use to dispose of these enemies.

I think this game looks awesome as hell and I'm definitely going to be playing it. Yeah, someone who has fallen in love with Ori in all of these kind of games. I've never played a Prince of Persia, so this will be high on my list of right away, give this a try. For me, Tim, it's not the Prince of Persia I want,

but I'm excited to see it. You know, I do like Prince of Persia, but, you know, a Metroidvania really is in my genre. I think it looks great. I love the surprise factor, but I think it was a great way to lead off of like, hey, here is something that you're not expecting, and it's not the world's biggest thing,

but we're setting the bar kind of for what we're going to do and what kind of announcements we're going to have. Yeah, totally. I mean, you guys know me. I'm a big fan of Prince of Persia, Sans a Time trilogy, all that stuff. But I also love the classic 2D Prince of Persia's. And when they put out, I forget the name of it, but there was a Sands of Time visually inspired

and like some of the tool set 2D1, there was a XBLA game. And that was super, super good. This just looks like the 2024 version of that. And like, oh, man, very Spider-verse inspired too. Like, I can't be more excited about that. But then Mortal Kombat 1, September 19th, we got a very extended look into some of the story bits, gameplay bits.

Bless starting with you, where are you at with this? I can't believe that I'm somehow this more excited for Mortal Kombat 1 than I was, I guess, three hours ago, where the stuff they're doing with it being a reboot, right, then going back and remixing the original Mortal Kombat lore, I've been back and forth on my excitement on it because we've had that before. That's what Mortal Kombat 9 did. And so the fact that we're three games later and you're rebooting it again, And for me, I was kind of like, all right, cool.

Like, I get it. Like, that's what the narrative is. But seeing what we're seeing that, oh, no, we're really remixing this. Like the fact that Ed Boone came out and said, hey, yeah, Scorpion and Sub Zero are bros, seeing Kenchi, seeing, like, this version of Johnny Cage, it all looks fresh and different in a way that looks really neat. The cameo system looks fun. And I'm not, I'm not a person that gravitates toward the assist fighters, but I think

that kind of change from Mortal Kombat is welcome. Mortal Kombat for the last few iterations has done a pretty good job of finding what is the, what's the gimmick this time, right? That doesn't feel like a gimmick, right? What is the twist or angle this time that's going to make this one feel like it deserves the next numbered entry, right? This is a new Mortal Kombat game. And then leaning into the cameo stuff for them having that as a way to filter in more characters that we love, because Mortal Kombat is filled with characters.

And at Boone coming out and confirming that, no, just because a character is a cameo character, doesn't mean that they're not going to be able to be playable on the main roster. Love that because that is my big fear with it. I don't want to smash for this trophy situation. And so, yeah, I think with all that, the story set up, I think posits a lot of interesting things you can do with that. Either Ed or Jeff during the thing said that, oh, yeah, you can play a sub-zero, but also have Sub-Zero be your cameo.

What does that mean in terms of, are you doing weird timeline shit with that? Is that how you're going to do it? Is it going to be two different timeline versions of Sub-Zero? I think there's a lot of cool stuff you can do. But, yeah, like, I think there's a great way to showcase the game. And every single thing they showed moment to moment, even though. was an extended gameplay demo, I never got bored. And that's huge for a showcase like this.

Like that's what you want to do. For a fighting game specifically. Yeah, for a fighting game specifically. And like, Mortal Kombat's one of those ones where it's so mainstream. Like the fact that, you know, Andy and Tim and everybody here is like pointing out, oh, that's Goro. Oh, that's K&O. Oh, that's this, that.

Like, that's what Mortal Kombat is. And I imagine that most of us here are going to show up at least for the story mode, which is big for it. One thing I want to toss out there from the official press release that's coming since this was live. Ed talked about the cameo system. He did all that stuff. I found this interesting, right?

Additionally, the video features various cameo fighters, such as Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonia Blade, Kano, Goro, Kunglau, Striker, and Jackson, Jacks, Briggs. Each cameo fighter is based on a classic version of the character, pulling from over 30 years of Mortal Kombat history, and it goes on. So I like the idea that when they're coming up, they're easily identifiable, but this is, you know,

the start of a new timeline, but they're, you know, having a call back there to the classics. Greg, I know you're not necessarily ever a big fighting game guy, not even a Mortal Kombat guy with the Injustice series though like you did get into that for the DC reasons Nether Realm being so good at the single player stuff you interested in giving this one a shot

Absolutely not but I'm glad I thought I thought Again especially to sit here because even He's a father now bro Well no because injustice Didn't work for me if you remember Injustice one I struggled through on easy I would just put the controller down let him lose so I could get the easy fight at the end

And Injustice too I started and I was like I don't even do this again So it was one of those things I love the Injustice comics Tom Taylor. I read those. You know what I mean? So much great stuff there. No, I won't be playing this and it's not my jam. But I love the look of it. I love the care of it. I love Ed Boone's 30 year history with it. It's one of those for sure that as a player, it's not my bag in any way, shape, or form, but as a video game, not what I want to call it as a critic fan, like somebody whose job it is to talk about games, I love talking to Ed about the game. I love

seeing this presentation. Again, this is really where I think I even said it. This is awesome. I hope They did this the entire way, because this is such a beautiful way to showcase games. Here's the trailer, and for them, here's a very in-depth trailer showing story, showing fatality, showing gameplay. And then let's come out and talk about these individual things are adding to a game. People know so well. Andy, what about you with Mortal Kombat? I mean, I, you know, the most recent iteration that had a lot of story elements built into it and it calling back to a lot of the movie stuff, I, for no real good reason, never played it.

And I know I should, and I know I'd really dig it because of the fandom that I had for Mortal Kombat as a kid and how much I loved those movies back in the day. I know I need to give it a shot, and I definitely plan on doing so before we get this one. Because as somebody who's not very good at fighting games at all, I just love, like, this feels so much more than just character enters the stage and says something that's kind of like, oh, that's a little lower tidbit. Like, this seems so detailed. And after seeing a lot of the cutscenes from the prior Mortal Kombat game, this seems like really, really high production values are going to be here. Sorry, I'm also watching the Hyperlight Breaker footage from some... Day of the Devs is happening right now.

Yeah, I got, if we are, of course, if you're watching this later, we are reacting and giving your post show while Day of the Devs happens. I know people are sometimes like, oh, I can't believe they aren't watching it. I was pre-briefed on this. I've actually seen the presentation. Great lineup of games this year. Hyperlight Breaker looks so fucking sick. I've got a thought of you.

If you would kind of... I'm on work. You could have watched it. Oh, man. I want to shout out a few of the details. Om Jesus mentioned that, like, Raiden, I can't want to say writing because it's a metal game, but Raiden is just a dude. Right. The fact that they're making the, like, they're doing that stuff with it, right? Which is coming off of the last game, but it still feels fresh from the ground up. Like, you can jump in the fact that it is, fire god Lou King is the god in this one.

And he's recruiting people for Mortal Kombat, almost like it's a heist movie or some shit. Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat. I got to say like Chris Cameron. So cool. And then some of the details of it of, seeing one of the cameo fighters early on in the trailer do what looked like an x-ray move, right? And then seeing later one of the cameos doing what seemed like a fatality, I am very excited to see how that actually manifests in game. Like, is that going to open up my, I guess, abilities to do things like that? I'm all about it.

I'm, I can't wait to, one, like, watch this trailer for myself again, just see if I can see the more details, then also watch the max millions of the world, watch this trailer and break down all the stuff that I'm not seeing. I'm so excited for it. Mikey, Mortal Kombat. I'm a Mortal Kombat kid. I've been telling Bless this whole year. This is the one that I've been waiting for when you talk about all the fighting games.

So I'm very excited, of course. The environments and the stages looked wowing, right? The fatalities were all so bloody and, of course, very squishy, which I can't wait. So, yeah, I'm very excited about Mortal Kombat one. This is the fighting game for me this year. When Bless brings up Street Fighter Tech and, hey, Mike, what are you going to jump in and let me beat you up in?

It's Mortal Kombat. So I'm very excited about this. Mike was too busy with moral combat to know what a Hadoican was. Yes, exactly. That's how much this kid loves. He fucking loves that. All right. Next up,

we had Path of Exile, too. We're going to find out a little more about that on July 28th. Really appreciated the setup of this of Jeff kind of comparing it to Diablo 4. Another thing I kind of love about what Summer Game Fest and Game Awards and the Keeley events allow, which is kind of a shared love of video games across all the devs, all the pubs, all the major console hardware makers. So I didn't expect that. I like to see that and want more of that.

Greg, being the bigger Diablo guy here, what that one did that one do for you? Looks great. Yeah, you know, Mike, you talked about Path of Exile when it popped up and a little bit more with it. Like, I'm not familiar with Path of Exile 1. I did not play it. And if I did, it must have been a preview event and just glossed by.

You know, obviously being obsessed with Diablo right now, it was a look at them. I'm like, all right, graphic fidelity looks great. Powers look cool. Environment looks creepy. I think, again, I was very impressed that, you know, Jeff took it right at it, right? of like Diablo 4 is out right now, it's hot.

Here is if you're in that action RPG, let me sell you on that game, right, of what this is, which again is one of those big things, I think that these kind of showcases can miss, right? Where it is, I'm just going to drop a trailer, not tell you about it, not give you a hook for it. It's very hard to drop a smaller game, a double a game, just in a trailer form,

and it looks like every other first-person shooter looks like every other space marine game. I appreciated the intro, the walk-in of like, hey, y'all are obsessed with that right now. This is going to be coming and deserves your attention. And doesn't require hacking your Steam deck, probably, to get it on. Roger, if you're watching it, you got to come out of the question. Yeah, well said on this one.

This is, for all the hype that Diablo is getting, here is a great one to put on your list, be able to jump into it. I think Greg can attest to it. It's like, you love these games so much, and then you want more. You're looking for that next big thing. And like you guys said, Jeff sold it so well. Shout to that team for being like, yeah, let's put that name in there. Let's try to get the hype.

Path of Exile 1. A lot of people talk about it, so I'm excited for two. next time we have exo primal cross street fighter capcom co-lab one a little weird classic capcom let's get crazy classic capcom getting some uh robo reu and gile fighting some dinosaurs i still don't understand what's happening

yeah i prefer i prefer to mccu versus capcom but i guess exo rio versus dinosaurs um yeah so this this is interesting i do like this capcom colab one imply there might be a couple more i'm a little confused about like what where the co-lap is this i mean playing this in exo primal This is definitely exopimal. I don't think, but that's the weird thing is that that scene had them doing Hadukin. I think that was just a cute little thing, a little tidbit.

I would love it there to do both, though. Like, oh, here's a weird exopimal skin that is a new costume for Ryu because that's the kind of stuff they can do with Free Fighter now. They're adding in a Battle Pass and shit. That's what I think it is. I do feel like these are, you're going to get these random. You'll get a Monster Hunter style skin for whoever in Street Fighter. I feel like these collabs are possibly going to go.

both ways with it, yeah. I think it's neat. I'm looking forward to exo primal, and so playing as Ryu and exo primal, I'm like, oh, let's fucking go. Okay, cool. Now, is Ryu a skin for somebody or is Ryu an actual character class? He's one of the dinosaurs. Okay, gotcha.

Yes. And then from that, Jeff had a great segue. I'm talking about like, that's not the wildest collaboration. Now we have Dead by Daylight with Nicholas Cage. Bringing out the man himself. And it was great. A lot of fun. You know, we always make fun of the celebrity stuff and there's that meme potential.

I thought this was flawless victory here. Loved it. It's like when you bring out somebody like Nick Cage who can talk, right? And like he isn't going to get stumbled and doesn't need a script to go off of, even though clearly he had been briefed. But he knew what he was talking about. It wasn't like this was, he's looking out of the monitor.

It wasn't like he didn't know it was going on. It wasn't like he wasn't engaging. He was engaged with Jeff. He was engaged with the audience. He was engaged with how goofy this idea is, right? And I just love even the callback of like, you know, talking about, oh, yeah, you know what? There's a dead by daylight enthusiast in the family, right?

And that's how I got the hook. Yeah, I made a hook. It's like, yeah, it's like, all right, Nicholas Cage, you're doing, right? And like, are you playing yourself? Are you playing somebody else? He's like, I am playing, you know, a very heightened version of an actor named Nicholas Cage or whatever. So it's, exactly. It's goofy.

It's completely silly. I appreciate that he's a survivor. You know, I think when it dropped, people thought he was going to be the killer. Like, as Mike said, it's going to be crazy to have four Nicholas Cargers is running around trying to get out of there. Yeah, I mean, so well said there, Greg, right? Like, you think of the previous ones, Al Pacino coming out, right? You just, you look at moments and you're like, oh man, like this just isn't hitting, right, Jeff? Like you're missing the mark.

Nick Cage, off the cuff did a very good job at selling this and getting excited. And also, let's focus to the game, right? Dead by Day, like continues to impress. They continue to bolster that roster with just iconic characters from all of your favorite horror franchises. And then they get Nick Cage, just a fun little one right there. So shout out to you, Dead By Day. Like continuing to bring it. Then we switch over to the video game TV side of things, little Witcher,

season three trailer leading by Henry Cavill via a video thing who's most excited about this one then does trailer do anything for you? No. Oh, we I'm excited for it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I loved what I saw you know, I think I was hoping when they announced it that they would be there in person

you know, get the audience riled up, have something of that at effect. I always understand it again, it is what it is and it's hard to get people together but like would have loved that. The trailer itself, I mean like it looks great. It's more, I mean, it looks like the budget's up for action, you know what I mean? And like they did the 360 spin around head, blood shooting out of the neck kind of thing.

I'm excited for that show, but again, I don't think, I didn't need to be more excited. I love the Witcher that drops, and Jen and I make that appointment viewing. Yeah. Then after that, we got Witchfire from the makers of Edith Finch, the September 20th, getting early access. Andy, you're pretty hype for this one? Yeah, it looks awesome as hell. I think just like visually, and I've seen the developer talk about how they want to

incorporate magic with these guns and how everything's very like, passive base where if you shoot twice before reloading, that makes the next shot even more powerful. Like, there's a lot more metanus to it as opposed to just when you run out of ammo, you reload. There's a lot more, like, thought put into the shots you're taking. I just think visually, it looks cool as hell. All the magic spells look great.

And again, I love, like, a side dodge in a first-person shooter, which is why when Mike and I were playing Destiny, I was like, I need a side dodge or a backstep for something, because Doom kind of spoiled how I feel about a lot of first-person shooters, yeah. Just a little moment. One quick correction, you said Ethan Fitch. Ethan Carter. The Vanishing Ethan Carter is the studio.

The studio is astronauts, right? Astronauts. And they have other people from other games, not Eve Finch, but it's just a... Thank you. Giant Sparrow isn't making a giant departure here. Yeah. They go to much fire. There's a real different there.

And then bless. God. After this, they did it. The announcement of the show. Superstars, Fall 2023, a 2D Sonic game. Four players, what do you think? I did not expect it like this, right? And I'm totally, I'm totally down for the idea.

I thought whatever Sonic thing we could possibly get here could have, would have been a Sonic Mania 2 type situation. And it's funny because in our conversation, I believe on Gamescast or one of our shows, we talked about what we'd won out of a new Sonic game. And I mentioned, like, give me more new Sonic shit. Like, if we're going to do another 2D Sonic game, give me more of what I love from Studiopla Zone in Sonic Mania 2,

or in Sonic Mania 1, right? Give me that new new. And they're doing that here. Like, this is a different way to play Sonic. It being four-player co-op locally, I think is a really fun idea. It brings me back to New Super Mario Brothers. And I enjoyed playing New Super Mario Brothers with my siblings, right? Back on the Wii, that was such a good time.

And translating that to Sonic, I think is a really good idea. Our style looks neat. The courses, the gameplay, looks fun. And the fact that it's coming this year is a surprise. Like, yeah, let's go. Yeah, definitely surprise to you. This did not expect a new 2D Sonic. Very happy.

We're getting one. This isn't Manny 2. This isn't like the Tim Getty's dream here. We did get Sonic the Headchog 4 back in the day, and it looked like this, and that was very, very bad. But I think that this is a different Sega. I don't know the exact team working on this. There's a lot of questions out there.

I am worried about the multiplayer side, like multiplayer 2D Sonic doesn't seem like something that goes well together based on the speed and just momentum that Sonic's kind of known for there, just like sharing a screen, a little problematic potentially. And my other big question is, is T-lopes doing the music? And if not, we've got to figure the shit out, okay? But yeah, I have questions, but very, very excited about this and excited. It could have been so many other things. It could have been so many things that I'm not interested in.

I'm very interested in this one. I was very kind of confused by the way they were pitching it. When we're 10 seconds into the trailer, I mentioned, oh, I bet you there's going to be a button you press to switch between art styles. But it's like starting off this trailer with like, hey, That old shitty art style you don't like, guess what? It's brand new and 3D now. Like it felt like that's what they were doing. Like get rid of the old shit.

This is an all new look. Like, no, you could just show us 3D and it looked pretty without having to say, we're getting rid of the old stuff. What that told me wasn't so much we're getting rid of it as much as this is a 2D Sonic game. It's not a 2.5D. Like, you look at generations, that plays differently than what. This looks like it plays exactly like Mania does. And I think that is the message they were trying to get there of like this is this type of game.

Okay, got you. Because like generations, even though it's 2D, it very much has the like, even the classic Sonic, it feels like a 3D Sonic game just in 2D, whereas that looks like it's going to play like the Genesis games. Gotcha, okay. You excited for that, Mike? I mean, my only critique of this, because I am very excited about this, I think it does look very, very cool.

The idea of playing four-player co-op is going to be a ton of fun. Sure. We'll be on the couch. My only critique is no online, right? We had that conversation of like, hey, we played that Mario and it was tough online. Hey, Sonic is faster than light. It's going to be tough online. But like the day and age that we live in now, this has to be online, right?

Like, think of how many times you really have four gobonies on a couch. Like, it just doesn't happen like it used to. Sure. But where is the audience for, you know, specifically online multiplayer for a Sonic game? I feel like the best suited for multiplayer for a Sonic game would be couch co-op, right? I just don't know. I don't know if there's an ask for online multiplayer in that way. No, but I don't know why.

Anything multi-player is always online now. Yeah, I think anytime you put, it doesn't matter what game, what genre, I think if you put four players together, it's got to be online. I mean, to the point of like New Super Mario Bros. You, when they pointed it to Switch and it's like the same type of game, we all got ready for a stream back in the pandemic era and we went to play it. It was like, oh, wait, there's no online. It's, you just expect it.

And the fact that it's not there is baffling. Yeah, I think now it's more, nowadays you're more surprised when there's not couch co-op as opposed to like oh there's no couch co-op oh but you can play online that's kind of weird i feel like i would not expect this to not have an online component yeah um before we keep going i want to tell you a real quick word from our sponsors this episode is brought to you by amazon and summer game fest we are in an absolutely stacked year of video game releases and you can find all of them on amazon dot com slash summer game fest i hope that you've found a spare few hundred hours to play all the amazing games that have come out this year already.

Gamers have been eating good this year. But this is the only place you want to be Amazon.com slash summer game fest. Because guess what? This summer, there's going to be even more exciting announcements coming through of so many more video games that are about to be on all of your favorite consoles. Like Final Fantasy 16, Armored Corps 6, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, XO Primal, Assassin's Creed, Mirage. The list goes on and on.

You can go to Amazon.com. slash summer game fest all summer long to discover the top new and upcoming games as soon as they go up for pre-order or you can go check out the website now for everything you might have missed so far this year again that's amazon dot com slash summer game fest for all of your video game needs shout out to shady rays for sponsoring this episode do you want to look as cool as i look yes you do and you can you can take on the sun with gear built to last our friends at shady rays have you covered for the the warm weather ahead with premium polarized shades at an unbeatable price. Shady Rays is an independent sunglasses company that offers a world-class product that's just as good as any expensive pair that I've ever worn in my life. Every pair of sunglasses is backed by lost and broken replacements. If you lose or break your pair, even on day one, they told us they will send you a brand new pair, no questions asked. You can wear your Shady Rays with confidence because they have your back long after you purchase.

Exclusively, for you listeners, Shady Rays is giving out their best deal of the season. You can go to ShadyRase.com and use the code Kind of Funny. You can get 50% off two plus pairs of polarized sunglasses. You can try for yourself the shades that are rated five stars by over 250,000 people. From a code, Kind of Funny at ShadyRace.com. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. It's so easy to get caught up in what, everyone else needs from you and never take a moment to think about what you need from yourself.

I know this from experience, how often it just seems easier to care about others and to keep it moving. But when we spend all of our time giving, it can leave us feeling stretched thin and burnt out. Therapy can give you the tools to find more balance in your life so you can keep supporting others without leaving yourself behind. Some of my very best friends use better help and love how helpful it can be for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule.

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Kind of Funny Today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. So then after that we had, plus, you want to take this one? I mean, Honkai Star Rail. It's a game that just came out recently, came out about a month ago. We got PS5 news, right?

It's coming Q4, 2023, and it was just an additional trailer. Looks cool. I want to play it or I want to try it out when it comes to PS5. I'm really excited for their other game, Zenless Zone Zero. That's the one I'm like really anticipating. But I've heard really good things about Honkai Star Rail. people are saying that it's really fun. There's a lot of sort of chatter on the internet

about how, you know, Square is moving away from traditional turnbase, right? Like when it comes to their big AAA releases and saying people are more engaged with third person sort of action games, right? And Honkai Star will be as successful as it is already and how much hype that game has, they're using that as like, hey, look, people still care about turn base. So it's a much bigger deal than I thought it was when it comes to player base. that do anything for you, Mike?

No, it did not. It did not. Yeah, just not my cup of tea. Well, did Liza P coming out September 19th with a demo out today do something for you? Yeah, that definitely did something for me. I'm very excited about that. That's pretty dope. We finally got a release date for this.

We do know it's coming to game past. That's a big win. Of course, a demo out right now. We love these things, like these tangible things of, hey, it's now. You can play it now. Take your excitement from the showcase right now. I love that. And that's always the tough.

part of these showcases are fantastic. They're awesome and you get to see the future. But I want stuff now, Tim. And I love whenever you can hit us with a demo, especially this because I watched Andy play hours of this and I was so jealous because nobody would let me have the sticks and play. So I'm pumped up to finally get to do it. I mean, Game Pass. That's real big for this one. Another big win. Andy, you I think are the most excited for LizaPia. I know you are as well, but Andy, what's this due for you with his date? I mean, I'm glad we finally got, yeah, that actual date because 2023 just that year just kept on showing up and I was worried that it might slip into 2024 because they were never even giving us like a window a window of time for the release.

So yeah, awesome, super stoked. I'm hoping that the demo is not what I played only so I can hope to play a little bit more in different parts of the game. But yeah, I think people are definitely in for a treat. I'm excited to see what sort of boss fights they allow you to fight in this game. this is like just so aesthetically similar to Bloodbourne it plays a lot like Bloodbourne with a lot of really cool

mechanical changes that they've done to you know for a lot of people not familiar with a lot of the Soulsborn games when Bloodbord came out they noticed that whenever you get hit you can immediately get back into the fight and hit hit hit back and you can regain health back that you took away right and it sort of encourages momentum. In a very similar way here,

the way your health potions work, I'm not sure exactly when this sort of mechanic sets in or whatever, but the more hits you do, you are charging up a health potion. And then, so it, again, encourages your aggressiveness in combat. It's fun as hell. It looks really, really damn good. It looks great on this, like, you know,

God bless the little Xbox Senate that we played it at. Really crappy TVs that they got sort of like whenever you do these demos, you don't always have the best tech that you're playing on. And this monitor I was playing on was not great and the game was still really astoundingly pretty, so I'm so stoked. The next time we had Sandland

from the creator of Dragon Ball. It looked pretty, look cool, but yeah, I don't know, does this do anything for Mr. Dragon Ball over here? No, I don't even know if I'm Mr. Dragon Ball. I like Dragon Ball. I like, it looks cool. Chat was popping off. about it. So like, I think it's one of those ones where

they were probably thinking of a trygun. That's true. Yeah, at first they thought I was try good. And then they're like, oh, no, this is the other thing. But yeah, I mean, shout out to Sandland fans. Like, I'm sure if I call up Michael Hyam right now, I'm sure he's like, yo, yeah, dude, Sanland's that shit, bro.

I used to watch that back in the day. Like, I'm sure he's super excited about it. And I mean, it looks like Dragon Quest, right? Because it's Akira Toriyama. And so that's pretty neat as well. Yeah, it's got a good art style. Obviously, I like, I appreciate them bringing over the manga style and how they've represented that in a 3D space here, right?

Like, I thought that's what stood out for me. I think it's a really cool, yeah, how do we bring that anime and make it, like, 3D without cell shading, like, what you're used to? I guess my biggest disappointment was that when Jeff is introducing this and says, a brand new game in Unreal Engine 5, you expect ultra-realistic graphics with crazy lighting. And then you see a cartoon guy, I was like, ah, okay.

Like, it's still going to look really damn pretty, but not what you're used to seeing. whenever you see epic showing off the Unreal Engine, you know? I mean, we got to cross that gate at some point, right, Andy? Like, everything is hyper-realistic for UE5, so we got to, you know.

Oh, I mean, I guess when you say Unreal Engine 5, though, I don't know if that needs to be introduced in an anime game. Yeah, if it's this sort of style, you know. I just put it together that Liza P is coming out the same day as Mortal Kombat 1. Mm-hmm. And there was another game

that I couldn't find the date, There was one that was September 20th. Which fire? Oh, yeah, man. I want party animals. Greg's reply to Jeff Keely is great. Jeff Keeley tweeted, no one was arrested a day at Summer Game Fest,

and Greg replied yet. Jeff? Kind of funny. He's coming to L.A. in a mere four hours, son. Who's it going to be? It's going to be me. My eyes on Mike. Oh, I'm going to be talking to somebody.

Next, we had Anna Perna, Interactive Showcase, June 29th, getting a little hype trailer going through the kind of past that they've had. And I love it, man. Love to see a lot of these developers and publishers come through. And, like, we've seen it with Devolver kind of like get a foothold in the industry and like you understand what that means. And Apurna now, they're like, look, proofs in the pudding. Look what we've done.

We're about to do more. What I love about it too is that it's working hand in hand with Summer Game Fest and Jeff. Hey, let's use SGF to promote the fact this is happening, right? We saw it obviously with Capcom teasing out their thing. We saw a few of these, right? like you'll get more info on this date. That's a great way to do it. We've talked about before.

We want Jeff and we want Summer Game Fest to be directing traffic. And this is a great way of let's bring it all under one umbrella. Even if you're not showing something here, you can tease out the rest of the summer announcements. Yes, absolutely. Any Anna Perna hype here? Oh, yeah. I can't fucking wait.

Yeah, I love you. The last few have been really great. So very excited. He sounds like it. Next thing we have rolling in Liberty. Good. Amazon. M-M-M-O-R-P.

Amazon games. Hey, we did fall in love with a couple that they brought out recently. For a few weeks. Yeah, exactly. Hey, you know, I will say right after this ad break, right after Sonic is where we start to hit the lull of like, okay, we're really feeling it now, right? And this went on for quite some time. And there was some hitters. There were some misses. This one did not speak to me. But I will say, like you said, Greg, we jumped on the train a couple of times now with Amazon games. They've shown that they can make a product where you might get really into it or you might not. I'll give it a try. I wish it was Tomb Raider. Of course. Was this the one that Barrett said look like the Uvysoft fighting game? For Honor? One of the two, because I think there's another.

I feel like there was two back to back that. War Haven was next up. Oh, okay, got you, got you. I would argue here with Mike. I don't think it's after Sonic that we really hit a low. I think they're still putting out enough because it's Sonic, then Star Rail, which of course, okay, whatever, but I thought we were in. of lies of pee that gets a big pop.

People are stoked about that. You get a date. Sandland, we're confused about Anna Perna. I'm excited about. Throne in Liberty, I'm interested about War Haven. Okay, party animals, you pop war. Dying like to two, again, which is like a very interesting one of like, nothing to show, just, hey, you might want to bring a barbed wire, so are you teasing

Negan or just as whatever? Crashy Brumble, Samson, and then Alan Wake. Honestly, I feel like the biggest get of all of this show was a date for party animals. This is a big deal. This is a game that like straight up, we played the demo about three or four years ago it feels like and I can't believe that

it's actually here and here's a date that you can actually play this video game. Love it. It looks great. So yeah, the party animals was shown there unless someone has something to say about Warhaven. War Haven. And then Alan Wake 2. You know, they promised we were going to see some gameplay. They delivered. I think it had

a really, really, really great setup. You jumped Alan Way 2? Yeah. Yeah. Go for it. No. I think Alan we've talked about it during the presentation. but if you missed it right, I think it's that thing that there's not a lot of love and kind of funny

for the original Alan Wake. I remember at the time playing it, not finishing it, it didn't work for me. I tried it again some other time and then of course

they remade it or they put out the remaster or whatever. I jumped in there expecting to get lost in it and it just didn't work for me. Obviously, that's remedy. That's their DNA

but now I think so many people know them for control, right? I was a max pain kid. That's where I was all about them. So to be on that other side of control watch this demo, it really does make me think that I'm going to be all about Alan Wake 2.

Of course, Sam came out, he said a lot of cool shit. I really appreciate this idea that you can switch back and forth between the character, the two playable characters, and you can pretty much play the entire game as one if you wanted, which is fascinating to know what you're going to see, what you'll miss, is it two play-thrus? How's any of that going to work? But it's evil two status? Just watching this gameplay, right? And what's fascinating is, if you're watching with us, obviously, the way our picture

a picture covers the HUD, it looks like you're just watching a movie, right? but that's like the game with the exception of the stuff at the bottom or when you're interacting. Game looks beautiful. It looks like it's going to be Control meets Alan Wake and it's going to be something I'm really going to be stoked for in October. I said this at the top of the show,

but I am blown away by how impressive this looks. Didn't think I could possibly be sold in the game and this showcase showed this game off. This is giving me so many RE2 remake vibes and like I loved that game. So I'm like, cool, I'm here for this. The shot of the jump scare deer running by, you go around the corner,

and then the deer person busing through the walls, that looked incredible. Like, that's one of those moments where, like, that gives me Killzone E3 vibes,

Greg, from decades ago. How is this real? Like, yeah, like the vertical slice of them were like, oh my God, but like,

we know the games can do that because a couple years ago, I played Resident Evil too. I can confirm it's a real video game. So getting that vibe with those type of set pieces, ooh, yeah, let's go.

Yeah, great pacing on that scare too, right? Like the setup of, oh, man, a deer, okay, good, we're good here. And then you take a step and then the actual deer man

bust through the wall. I love that kind of shit in survival horror. And it looks like so far from the trailers we've gotten, it's an alien. This was the trailer to sell me on it. I'm fully in. Yeah, influenced by a true detective, as they mentioned, and ritualistic murders, I'm super in. Whenever you have a cult, whenever you have a cult,

oh, we found a body, oh, someone got killed, and it's like, oh, there's a little thing they dropped next to it. It's the origami killer. So is the origami killer? I love the whole vibe of it. Will I play it? Remains to be seen. Yeah, so October 16th.

Yeah, so the fall's really starting to solidify here, Blas. Yeah, yeah. Might be busy around that. Next up, Warhammer Space Marine 2, this winner, Andy, take us away. Um,

I didn't really have much hype for this game until I saw Shinobi, noted video game dude on the internet, posting, Oh, video game, dude! I was just cool shit, and he's really, really into Warhammer as a whole. And Warhammer was,

I mean, you look back at, you know, presentations two years ago, I was always like, is this the rat game? Which fucking hammer is this one? But I've gotten more and more into it, especially with Dark Tide that recently came out, and also mainly Rahul, his infatuation with the IP.

And this one always being described to me that it's their Gears of War franchise. This is like the one where you are, the third person shooter, super soldier type dude, Space Marine. I think the game looks gorgeous as hell. Lighting looks incredible. It looks like, you know, you're about to see the thing

of the bottom that says like not real gameplay. Like that's sort of what I expect from games to look like this. And the fact that it's co-op that you can with, you know, three friends, Michael hop in with me, I'll yell at him a bunch. It looks like it's going to be an absolute blast. But yeah, I think just visually it looks awesome as hell.

Yeah, this is one of my top games of the showcase right here. I am so jazzed up about that. I really love the universe that they've created with these. I did not like Dark Tide, Vermin Tide on the other side. Both of them, they're fine multiplayer games to me, but they're not what I was looking for, not that kind of gameplay. And this one looks more up my alley

with kind of the camera angle, the perspective, the space marines. This is right up where I want to be on a multiplayer game. Moving on from that, we had, yes, your grace, Snowfall coming in 2024. It has that kind of replaced art style, the pixel art style.

Super minimalistic. Super cool light style. Exciting. Like this definitely, I'm waiting for one of these games to actually come out because we haven't got one yet. And this is definitely not the one I'm most excited for because I'm not a big Renaissance man. But, you know, hey, I'm happy more of them are in the works because I think the style is extremely cool.

Any of you guys excited about this? You say like medieval man? I don't know the difference, Andy. I just don't know. Yeah, I thought that looks great. I missed Yes, Your Grace, the original one in 2020. And so I thought looking at that, I was like, oh man, that's something I want to play or whatever.

So now I'm looking here on Steam right now where I can buy it for 70% off. Oh. Yes, your grace one for that. I got to figure out if it's Steam Deck compliant. It is.

It's verified. He's a Steam Deck guy. I'm a Steam Deck boy. But yeah, I thought that looks really cool. I like making choices, obviously in games. I like that.

And, you know, a kingdom management RPG sounds neat. Next, so we had John Carpenter's toxic commando come in 2024. Greg, what do you think of this one? We mentioned it, right?

Oh, man, it's awesome to see John Carpenter getting into video games. Of course, a famed horror creator, right, in the movie business. He talks about video games quite a bit and nerdy-ass video games sometimes. And that's super exciting when they said that and you watched it. And it was like, oh, okay, it looks like World War Z.

It looks like another, I'm going to team up with three gibbons. We're going to drive through and kill a gazillion zombies. And I'll probably do a let's play of it, a stream of it and never come back to it again. Not because it's bad. Just because it's like I can get that experience a lot of different places. And it's not to me the most compelling. Let's sit down. Let's keep playing.

Let's unlock the next tier of available bonuses and perks and yada, yada, yada. I needed to not be that game. I need it to be a, like, super straightforward 10 to 12-hour multiplayer experience. I needed to not have a store or battle pass or collector's edition. You get the gunskin for this and that. If it's going for that market, it is going, we're going to see it as a failure pretty immediately because games like this just generally do not have a long lifespan. And so I really hope

it is just a straightforward campaign game that you can play co-op if you want. And that way we can play through the campaign and say, hey, pretty good. Recommended it, four out of five, actually. Pretty surprising. But if it goes for anything more than that with all of the stuff that we see every sort of games as a service game, try to target, I don't know if that's, if it's going to really fit in that realm, you know? Well said. Yeah. Stick to what gear tied busters did, right? Give me a nice, tight story with me and my friends. Let's jump in.

Let's kick ass for a weekend. Let's get out of there, right? Nail the price point, nail that kind of gameplay. You might have a little hit on your hands. Once you get lost, as Andy says, and you get lost in the sauce, you don't come back from that. We've seen way too many projects come in and go, okay, well, you missed the mark.

We're out of here, you know. Next up, Mike sticking with you. Baldur's Gate 3. Yo, blessing, let me tell you what. This is going to be real hot this ballpark. They passed by Baldersgate in the Dungeons and Dragon series. It's crazy, man. I'm very excited about Balders Gate and what this team is doing.

I cannot wait. I know it's early access right now, so people have already been playing it. They're awaiting the 1.0 official release. We got the date here. We're excited, right? So I'm all about this. I cannot wait to jump in and give it a try. I want to make a basketball one called Ballers Gate.

You do that, Andy. Okay, Andy. That's kind of tight. It's kind of pretty little. actually. And then, PS I love you. I'm looking at y'all. Hey, Spider-Man 2.

We had Brian Inthar come out, see some art of venom. It looked incredible. A little more references to, hey, I saw the gameplay a couple weeks ago. It looked fantastic. Everyone's stoked. Boom, here's the release date. Max pretty much doubled. Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn. All right, yeah, and yeah, October 20th for it. Unexpected on my

bingo card. You know, I think we talked about it in our predictions episode of how many times we'd see the PlayStation Studios logo, right? And I was like, Oof, man, I really don't know, especially after what we considered to be a disappointing showcase that you would want to have had everything there.

So to have Brian come out, again, a great way to double dip and really unify what is Summer Game Fest slash the Summer of announcements here, where you can do the PlayStation Showcase, but keep something for Jeff, have that moment here, have that pop, show Venom.

Express, of course, that this isn't Eddie Brock. This is a different Venom. Brian was out there talking about the goal was to tell an original story, something you haven't seen the comics before. So we will see who is behind the symbiate when it's on Venom

to make or when it's on you know makes venom or whatever uh but yeah it's gonna be a surprise who venom is well i figure it's what it's got to be m and m like because the assumption is that it's harry based on how the last game ended well yeah and how this game starts if you want if barra courtney of course on the ones and twos was quick to point out when i got home after the showcase when you watched the trailer without us all talking over and screaming like pete bumps out jumps out and he's like i gotta save doc connor's he's the only one going to help harry like harry's already in the story and introduced in the symbiata i jumped from him to pete at that point so i saw the chat popping off, what if it's going to be Craven? What if it's going to be this? And it's also,

as much as I love Spider-Man as a property, right? I am not the Spider-Man expert like Tim is. So I don't know who hasn't had the symbionion on them before. Especially if you think back to the original reveal trailer of Spider-Man 2, where the V-O was Craven. And then I believe at the end, Venom pops up and he's kind of responding to Craven, like, yes, we will. And what if that's, you know, Venom talking to Craven while Craven's wearing the symbiote? which they're sim by out, as some would say. Some would say that. Really excited about it.

I think that we're all on to something really, really special here. One of the most iconic, if not the most iconic Spider-Man story of all time, Craven's last hunt does involve Craven wearing the black Spider-Man suit, not necessarily the Venom suit. So I think they might want to play with that. And him saying, like, oh, it's the story we haven't seen before. I think very much is saying, wink, wink. Like, yeah, I think we're right.

I think it will end up being Craven, at least for a bit. I imagine we're going to get multiple venom. I would think so, too. And also, I thought it comes back from the desk. Worth pointing out, right, that Brian called out the fact that Craven's come to New York to hunt superheroes. And he's like, he made, other ones. He made reference, yeah, that it's more than Spider-Man. In the reveal trailer where you see Craven, the map of New York shows other people like Black Cat and I think some other people that we saw from Spider-Man 1 in Miles Morell's.

Yeah, really cool. If we had never seen any footage for any sort of Spider-Man game or any sort of sequel Spider-Man game, and them showing that image of, like, here's how Venom's going to look in the game, which it wasn't like in-game footage. It looked very much like a very nicely drawn concept art. I had PTSD for Last of Us for Neil Juckman showing off, like, here's kind of a concept of art for factions for the multiplayer game. Like, I had those same sort of vibes, and I was like, oh, no, thank God, we have seen gameplay.

The date is coming up very, very soon. I love all the suits that have been appearing on Twitter, too, that Ensonics. Can we bring up the one that Chris Anka posted, our friend Chris Anka? They look incredible. Very, very cool. You rock, Chris Anka. And I also like the cover art of the game of Peter and Miles next to each other. And then you see the symbiote taking over Peter's arm and then the electricity power is taking over Miles's arm.

I'm going to buy that for electric edition. Oh, yeah. I'm going to swipe that card for that statue. I can't wait. I need to see shirtless Spider-Man and shirtless Miles Modiles. Great point. Look how good this looks, dude. And also, I like that they're going with October 20th.

The rumors were September. but like September started to get a bit busy there and so I think them whether or not what's the name? Venom was wrong whether Tony Todd was wrong or they're like actually it'd be easier if we just put this out later in the year either way I'm glad that we're leading into October with this

I think you can spread the love a little bit throughout the year with games and so let's go I love that we got a release date I think that's really really big we always want to see these things at these showcases and we rarely get them this was awesome this is exactly what I'd want to see from Spider-Man too at this thing. Bringing Brian out,

showing him some love. Love it. Pitch perfect for me. Do you think this is going to be a staple of the summer game fest going forward? We're going to see a PlayStation head of studio come out

to talk about their game about these things? It's the second year in the row. You'd hope, right? I think that that is creating the identity of what these things can be. I love it.

Next up, Powell World, Greg. It's Pokemon with guns. Why not? Go ahead. Catch them all, shoot them all. Early access coming

next year. No, No, no, this year. This year, early access is 2023. This game looks fucking, there's something wrong with this. I don't know what it is. This game is a drug front. You know what I mean? You know what do you see a place? You're like, I don't know. That's this video game. We're going to play this game.

We're going to get to the source of what's behind the pal world. We're going to figure it out, y'all. I don't trust this game either. I don't know what it is. There's an energy here. It's just, it's just every next, every subsequent shot of one of these pals holding a gun, like the gun

became more and more real where suddenly like they were on the mortar gun yeah that was an insane dude what is it going on here and like I was storing the beach of Normandy and shit at one point they forgot to like add in pals like to replace the actual

Pokemon that they used references and the actual Pokemon started appearing in the I'm like that's a Pikachu that's a blossom or whatever it's called yeah I love seeing this stuff I mean that game looks fucking weird or whatever but I love the weird games you know Doake V a couple years ago I was still waking for Doekee

when you get the Like, what the hell is this? Let's just have some fun with it. January 2024 in that one. Okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. Then we got a little Black Desert look, June 14th, Mike. Black Desert, always a very good MMO RPG for me. I like Black Desert.

I like the character customizer. I love the worlds that they've built. I like the gameplay a lot when we talk about these MMOs. As a wow kid, I've always wanted more like freedom and fast-paced wild combat. That's what Black Desert brought to me when I think of those styles of games. So, yeah, I like Black Desert always. And then Andy went to the bathroom when his boy Gimley started talking. We got Lord of the Rings return to Mario.

Yikes. Yeah, I don't really know much about this game. I just, it's another, it's the Tolkien estate just dishing out that fucking IP that license and say, hey, go make some money. And then they're like, wait, you made what, Golan? What is this? We didn't sign up on this. I know nothing about this game. I've seen it tweeted at me a couple times in the past.

We'll likely never. A co-op. survival crafting a game. The Lord of the Rings returned to Moria. The mines of Moria. Thank you. I mean, you have some cool ideas there. Co-op survival game, right?

Like we brought up, I mean, I'm interested, but it just doesn't look. Is it like non-space deep rock galactic? Yeah, that's what I was going for. Showcasing the renowned courage and camaraderie, the dwarves set forth into the cavernous minds of Moria. Harvesting resources crucial for crafting and building while rekindling long cold forges.

to smith more powerful weapons and armor as they venture deeper still into the dangers of the dock. No, thank you, blessing. I'm good. No thank you for that one. No. I tuned out. I'm not going to lie. I don't know what we're talking about.

I retuned in here for Final Fantasy Ever Crisis. June 8th, they're talking about it. Something's happening, some early access, pre-order access, some, some, some, what the fuck is this game? It looks awesome. Every time they talk about it, I'm like, this sounds great. And I'm like, I have questions, and then they don't answer them. they just leave me with more questions. What exactly is this?

When are exactly are we going to play it? Like I'm still only halfway through the original Final Faces 7 and I keep being reminded that this exists and it's going to come out and I'm like, do I just shift over this to get the Final Faces 7 story?

Should I just finish Final Faces 7 and ignore this? It's really hard to tell. And remake? They're not doing themselves any favors here. Like, I'm excited for this, but like I need more answers at this point. And then there was a sponsorship for DoorDash for FalaV

Ballamasty 7. That was awesome. That might be a moment of the show. Speaking of Final Fantasy. Oh, no. Nope. Nope. Nope.

No. Why was that the segue, though, speaking of Final Fantasy? Because it was a Doordash Final Fantasy. Yeah. He played that perfectly. Shout out that he played that. I mean, knowing that that's where they're going to close.

Yeah. He's going to have it. Yeah. So, yeah, that was great. And then that went into Banishers from Don't Nod. Oh, banishers. Yeah, yes. Yeah, this visually, it reminds.

reminds me a lot of what Sony Santa Monica did with God of War. And I think that that's like a crazy sort of expectation to put on this game and this studio. But quality-wise and like lighting and visuals, I think it looks cool as hell. And I feel like there aren't a whole lot of third-party games that attempt this level of quality. Like you always see like second-party studios,

or not second-party studios, you always see third-party studios just kind of making the double games in this sort of style, but the fact that this has like production levels of this, production quality of this level, I was pretty surprised by it. I'm exactly with you.

I'm the level of Hellblade 1. And what's the other one with the rats? Plague tail. Amicia. I'm with you. Not for me, but I do appreciate that it's not just naughty dog in Sony Santa Monica attempting that type of thing. Somebody in chat mentioned Vampire.

And I think that's probably a good comparison for it, because vampire also a don't nod game. And that came in, like, I forget what that is on Metacritic, but like seven in the sevens or eighths area, right, when you're talking about review scores. And I know people that absolutely love vampire. And yeah, I think it speaks to, hey, this is a very specific thing we're doing,

but if you fuck with this, you're going to fuck with this, right? We're not making this to, like, you know, take over the world on a mass level, but we're making a game that's very specific that hopefully speaks to an audience. And adding in all those... Vampire.

No. Hell no, we don't. Also adding in all the choices that you see, you know, there's that guy, he's like, should I banishes ladies, just fucking dies or whatever? Like, I know that that's kind of what they're known for and sort of choosing your own adventure

while going along with this really cool sort of third party act, or, Jesus, I'm saying third person and third party all the goddamn time. That's an action game, yeah, looks good. But all jokes aside, yeah, vampire, a lot of the systems in vampire, it seems like they're kind of remixing them into this, and yeah, a lot of that stuff and how it changed story and world in that game is really cool, so this is definitely one to look out for.

Don't know is a very interesting studio right now because, of course, like, I love them from Life is Strange, and they put out, tell me why, a couple of years ago, and then, like, today they had Harmony, the Fall of Reverie come out, and, like, that's, like, the 2D, kind of cool art-style narrative-looking game that is different from what they've done. Again, this looks different from what they've done.

They're in a very interesting place as a studio, especially not being on Life of Strange anymore because now that's Deck 9. I'm very curious about like what is the goal slash strategy slash like is this I guess the identity you want to have? Do you want to lean into making

these types of action games? Do you want to go back to making a narrative franchise like Life Strange? I feel like they're throwing a lot of things at a wall and I don't think it's working their advantage. The fact that Harmony dropped today and like it was like two days ago you were in we're in a meeting. I was like, yes it? I was like, is it? We looked at and you're like, and you're like, I think it is. I guess it is. Okay, yeah, it is.

And today I got the Nintendo press release again. And it's just like, it doesn't have an identity that pops off the page and the screen that makes me go, man, I need to play this. I want to play this. Right. Whereas the Life of Strange does. I'm way more jazzed about what deck nine does next than what I would be about what don't die does next. Next time we had

Like a Dragon, Gaden. The man who erased his name. Yeah, November 9th, release date. You know, that's something people were excited about. Oh, yeah. It's funny. We were just talking about it on Games Daily of oh, we'll probably get the, get answers at. At RGGGGG, whatever. Boom, here it is.

Yeah. Like, cool. But this is really neat. I know a lot of people are looking forward to this one. And again, this is giving me another one where I pick it up. I start it. And I'm like, man, this is a blast. And then, what, November 9th?

There's nothing else coming out around that time, right? Number nine, Halo 2, 2004. Yeah, as of now, I think we're good. So this might be the first one that I actually see all the way through. But don't quote me on that. You better a platinum Spider-Man by then, you know? Yeah, I love this style of yakuza combat. You know, I really love like a drag.

but then that was turned base and I fell off like you said. Bless, like I started to get the Yakuza bug where I'm like, oh, really want to play this. Then I started playing Yakuza Zero and I'm like, yes,

this is the style that I want. So to see this, I'm like, okay, I'm all in on this one. Ready to give it my five to 10 hours and then go, oh, it's just too much. I'll never play it anymore, you know? Bless if the persona three rumors are true,

you're not going to have a lot of time with this Yakuza. Oh, no. When is it supposed to come out? I mean, the rumors are November, but again, that would be weird if Yaku's, if they're dropping both, Yakuza and persona in the same month, but I don't pretend to know what Sega is up to at any given moment.

As always, yeah, this game just sounds awesome, right? Because it's Cosimo again. Once a legendary Yakuza, he faked his own death and abandoned his name for the sake of protecting his family. Now thrust into conflict by a mysterious figure attempting to drive him out of hiding, thrilling submissions will draw you into an epic showdown that unfolds the more you explore and enjoy the town. Ultimate combat with two high-impact fighting styles. Dynamically switched between the Yakuza and and agent fighting styles in visceral melee combat.

Would the accuser style strike fear into the enemies by unleashing wildly aggressive moves powered by Kiro's unparalleled strength and flare? Or up the ante with the agent's style by delivering blows with absolute speed and precision while using an array of high-tech gadgets like electrified bind wires to stun enemies and send them flying.

It sounds really cool. Then we have Under the Waves, August 29th. Under the Waves. This is my game in the game. the show. This, this captured me. This got me. I am such a big fan of games like Subnotica where you go underwater and you explore and seeing what this team was doing with the imagery, all of the different vibes that you were seeing from the sea life to getting those scary vibes of like, what's going on under the water right now? Is it going to be a good story? Is this going to

capture me? What is the moment to moment gameplay going to be when I'm outside of the sub and I'm just swimming around? What else? This game got my attention and you know what? I can I'm right there with you. Of course, this sounds like a Greg Miller game. And I think to harken back to the conversation we just had about the Life is Strange developer, don't not, the original one, losing their identity. It's so fascinating to see Quantic Dream, right? This, of course, is a Quantic Dream, Spotlight game. This is one of the ones they're publishing.

It is made by Parallel Studio, right? And from the get-go, first sentence, right? Under the Waves is a narrative-driven action, or I'm sorry, a narrative-driven adventure game about the engulfing power of grief. I'm in. And that trailer looked awesome and I love the idea of that all right, you know, love or hate him,

a quantum quantum dream, right? Is our narrative stories, make your own choices thing. So for them to apply the spotlight label and, you know, I think that immediately gives this context to like, oh, that's a game I'm interested in. Something that sinister is

of footing up in these oceans. Something's going on. What to find out what it is? Then we have College Duty, modern warfare to war zone. Something happened? What happened? A new map.

I'll speak on it really quick. That's a big deal, of course. Anytime that Warzone adds a new map always gets some of the lost player base back. You get new energy. You get revitalized on jumping back in. Of course, you absolutely get dood on by all the players that are way too good and or cheating. But this is what you want to see, right? We talked about Warzone 2, trying to find its footing off of Warzone 1.

Was it crumbling? Is it still the same juggernaut that it is? Hey, you didn't give me the content. You didn't bring the maps that we wanted during Warzone 1, right? It felt stale by the end of that life. cycle. Now when you look at war zone two, they're doing a lot, right? This is the third map here that they've added to this

game. That's what I want to see when we talk about war zone and battle royale. So good on them. Excited to check it out. Very interested in the urban combat, right? We saw a lot of buildings. We saw a lot of different verticality amongst that. I'm interested in this. This is what I want to see.

I like that there's a new soccer stadium. Soccer stadium, Aquarium. Football for the European. A castle. So yeah, definitely in. And then what everyone rating for the big Xbox reveal. They're collaborating with Porsche for the worst looking Xbox I've ever seen in my life. Sorry to be such a hater, but Goddand. Yeah. Now,

this was an interesting one, 75 years of Porsche. And then I think he said 75 different custom Xboxes that will go along with that and then they're not for sale and stuff. So I do look forward to knowing, is that actually 75 different Xboxes? Do they all look different than this?

Oh yeah, they look different in the back. If this is just the one, didn't love this one? Well, you're winning these, right? They're not for sale. Correct, but like I'm interested in seeing the other ones is what I mean. Like, pull it back. Let me see the other ones. What you got here for sure. I mean, if that's the one they're showcasing, though.

There's a bunch of tweets going around already about it, like with real critical takes of it. But I think Janet's my favorite who tweeted in reference to this. There were more Xboxes on stage than women at Summer Game Fest. Wow. Wow. There was one, right? Yeah, there's a Verge article. I've seen multiple people comment on it.

But yeah, like shout out to The Verge for writing a whole article about there was not a on that summer game fest stage. Like we can do better than this. Then we had Fay Farm September 8th. This is weird. Farm game, really cutesy, but like something about it seemed off to me. I mean, that was just like our chance to talk to chat. What I would say about it is, yeah, I don't think it's anybody at this panel's game.

We made a joke about Joey because it's a cozy game. I like the idea that they showed a cozy game. I don't think something seems off about it. I think that there's a lot going on in it outside of like, It's just going to be Animal Crossing. It's just going to be Starry Valley. It is this, you're doing these farms, but you're also a fairy or whatever. Like, I don't know what any of that means.

But it's not our kind of jam, but I thought it looked fine. The off to me was, we talk a lot about like the flash animation where it kind of looks like little cartoons being stretched and skewed to animate. This looks like the 3D version of that where it kind of looked. There's something about it that right after me. Yeah, it didn't, like the look of it seemed off. next up we had Marvel Snap I of course I'm really excited about it

Conquest mode they announced I definitely want even more to do I'm still playing this game every day I don't understand what Conquest mode Yeah I don't think he even told us what's He didn't that was so weird That's so weird about this Yeah it was a major letdown here

In terms of like this bit of the show The presentation for it Especially for something that Obviously speaking to Millions of people that are playing Snap every day still Like this game is huge Yeah But like you need to say the things the right way

And that definitely wasn't the right way I am sure that they're going to put out a new story in a blog post like they always do explaining exactly what it is for everybody that cares and we're going to get that info but that was not the way to show that. Agreed. Next up, King Arthur's Legends Rise. You got stoked for this one. You popped off. Yeah.

Big King Arthur fan. No, not at all. What did you think it was? I know when it was going, you thought it was Disney Mirverse. I thought it was more Mirverse stuff. Mmm. But, you know, it was it. Mmm.

Then a Wayfinder, early access this summer. Yeah. I've seen a lot of promoted tweets about it. I'm sure this was maybe one of those. Yep. Advertisements in there. I mean, this is where I think, this is for me where we get into the sag. Where we start to sag here.

I think it felt it felt it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's interesting is like, it doesn't look like a bad game. It has a neat art style with a lot of fun colors and cool looking combat, but will I sign up to be a founder? Probably not, you know. Mm-hmm. Then we got Fortnite.

Optimus Prime is in it? Are you in? Is this what brings you to Fortnite finally? No. I mean, I wish I liked Fortnite more than I actually do. And it's not anything I don't like it. It's just like I don't really play that type of game. Like multiplayer, that's not how I spend my time.

But like Fortnite's awesome. And the fact that they have these characters, the fact of Prime looks that dope, I'm super in. Don't like seeing Prime without hearing Prime. That's not prime to me. Yeah. I thought that was where you didn't get one roll out or anything. Something. But it is what it. it is. But I guess that is Fortnite. Yeah, they usually don't talk.

Yeah. We said before. Fortnite Wild, I guess is what they're the conversation. Wow. Then after that, Wild, wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Wow. Wow. First clip from the show. This was jarring. Yeah. This was a jarring thing of Will Arnett on a Zoom call. Okay, cool. And yeah, the other voices we're sweet tea.

Yeah, all right, cool. And then we were just into it. And I was so, I was so shaken of what am I watching exactly? is this? He was shaking, Andy. Is this the movie? Is this the show? Are they going to, is Jeff Keely going to walk in?

He'd be like, break it up, guys. I don't know. But it was the show. I like the part where they sang the Fong song. Yeah. Yes. I mean, it looked like a Super Bowl commercial. Yes.

That's a great way to put it. And not like, hey, here's a clip from the, it just looked like, yeah, like this is something you show off. And then in comes goddamn Brett Farv. And he says something racist or something. Jesus. Wow. Breffar awful human, dude.

Yeah. Then dick picks one. I'm super excited for Twisted Metal. I don't know much about this Breffar guy, but I'm very excited. He played for the Packers. Most people who play there are dirt bags. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Green Bay. Then next up, we had Lisfanga, the time shift warrior, fall 2023. This is come from a French indie developer. It looks cool. I was like, I went back and forth on being sold, unsold, sold, sold a couple times on this. I think I ended as, I'm excited for this. I'm hopeful.

Now what's interesting is this is another Quantum Dream Spotlight. So this is another one. Oh. That I don't know if it, you know, like flies in our face or whatever of what I was just saying, because it does seem story-based,

but it doesn't seem choice-based, right? After a half of them, after half a millennium of peace, a new danger hangs over Antella. Its fate depends on you. Oh, man. Eam, the Svanzo of the New Kingdom, protector of the realm,

the ancient cities previously, but you just go on. It's like, key features, muster an army yourself. Use the godlike powers to rewind time for a few seconds in the past to summon clones of yourself, remnants, to create an army to overpower your enemies. Push your limits, challenge your skills, and wits to outdo yourself. Taylor each fight, each arena can be approached countless ways, investigate gigantic ancient cities.

The old-time locks are gone. The raxes are now free to create chaos again, explore the abandoned cities of the old continent previously locked in the other yet. So it doesn't seem like a big story one, which again doesn't need to be. but when we're just talking about what does a Quantix Dream Spotlight game look like, I don't fully know. I think in this area is where I look back at past

Keeley presentations, whether it's game awards or whether it's something like Summer Game Fest, and one of the big pieces of feedback we always have is if you would have ordered things a bit differently and spread out some of the hype, like it's

around this sort of area. I mean, this game actually looks pretty cool, right? But even before that, maybe before or after the twisted metal thing, you bring one of those things that we kind of pop for in the first 30 minutes to 45 minutes and move that down. You know, let's shift them some things around. So it isn't. So you're not always talking about the big stretch of stuff you don't remember, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. I thought this looked cool, though. When it first popped off, I thought it was going to be more of a 2D side scroller type game in that art style. I was like, oh, this is going to be great. And then when it was more top down, I was like, I don't know about this. But then I was like, oh, wait, Haiti's. I loved Hades.

and, you know, Hades being a game first shown at a Keeley event. Obviously, this is a very different, different, way, way different type of team. But looked cool. The rewind mechanics and having the clones of you fight could be kind of fun. Next up we got Immorals of Avium. I talked during a bathroom break. I'll talk more about it on SGF Gamescast next week. We're going to go play a bunch of games in L.A.

Come back and talk about the things we want to talk about. I want to talk about Immortals of Avium. I know Mike did a hands-off impression. I didn't hands-on impression. and played two or three hours of it at EA not too long ago. And I left going like, that is something I want to play in July. Will I stay through the whole way? Will it grab me and keep with me?

I don't know. But what I played in that preview for a couple hours, like, yeah, this is fun and I'm interested to see how the story is going to unfold. This is for anyone else? I mean, made by some call duty devs, right? That first-person shooter battlemaids vibes. I'm interested in the gameplay. I was not sold like Greg will talk about later on of the dialogue and the story itself.

Let's see where we go next week when we talk about this. Yeah, if the gameplay is fun enough, again, I'm somebody who really enjoyed outwriters, and that didn't really have great writing or characters or dialogue. So I'm still excited for what this looks like gameplay-wise, because I just love clicking them heads. You love clicking heads. My dog got kind of messed up, so Fortnite was actually here. I don't know why I talked about it earlier. But then it ended with the big one that Jeff was kind of hyping up the entire time,

the grand finale, Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, early 2024. on two discs on the PlayStation 5, taking it back to old school multi-disc, Final Fantasy, Legacy. What's up, my question is, for you, Tim, was this worth the hype that Jeff started off with saying that we have a grand finale that you don't want to miss? It's weird. It's yes and no, but at the end of the day, absolutely. This is huge. There's very few games that are this big in video games. There's very few games that speak this loudly to this group of people in different ways. I do think that with Rebirth kind of teasing over the last week, we expected it to be here. So to kind of build up a thing where he even said like, y'all aren't going to guess it. It's like, that's kind of weird. Literally like on KFG, I was like, you think this closes out the show, right?

And like the fact that, yeah, it was like, oh, you guys aren't going to imagine what it is. Like, I think I can imagine what it is. But also, like, I do think that this is a worthy show closer. Like, I think there's such a fantastic trailer, huge game, right? Like, this is a game, the follow up to a game in the year contender for, for, for a, from a couple years ago. That is a remake of a game that people consider

one of the greatest games of all time. Like, yeah, it's an incredible game to close out on. But I thought the hyping it up, hyping it up throughout the show was interesting. Because, like, I feel like you could have done that for,

like, any big Jeff Keely show that has a big closer, I feel like you could do that for any one of them, right? Like, this made it feel like it was going to be something different. I started to be like,

yo, are we going to see GTA? Like, is it going to be that level? And that's what it felt like. I think that's the problem. That's why I'm kind of, No, absolutely, where it's like, yes, this is like the way to close the show. This is a huge, this is a unicorn game we always talk about. No, in the sense of if you're going to tease it as something we haven't thought about

and like the way you presented that, we're expecting, what are we not thinking about? And you start getting your mind racing. So that kind of creates problems. But in the day, absolutely, this looks fucking incredible. This is like beyond my wildest dreams of what a video game can be. How is this real? Andy Cortez. This looks awesome as hell.

I think the gameplay and everything character-wise, like this is exactly what I want to see from a, from a gameplay premiere, right? Where it's a mix of cutscenes and it's a mix of these quick time events and it's a mix of combat. I love when presentations show, when developers and studios show off their games in that way. I really wish they were not tweeting about any of this shit

leading up to it. Yeah. One thousand percent. That would have made me. so much more excited because because all of those tweets start to happen you assume, just like we assumed

on our games cast predictions, we're probably going to get it with all these tweets that they're like kind of leading up to and they're hyping this up and then when Jeff says you're never going to expect what's at the, or like you're going to be so blown away by this finale. I'm like well it can't be, by the way, where's Kojima? But I was like, by the way, it can't be Death Stranding too because like

we're not going to, we kind of expect that to be here even though it wasn't. And And it likely wouldn't be Final Fantasy 7 remake because of all of the hype leading up to it and all of the tweeting about it. So that's why I wasn't too surprised. However, I still think it looks awesome as shit and I'm still happy that it did sort of bookend this show. I was at one point expecting either GTA6 or a Nintendo game because Nintendo games feel like at an E3, a different event that isn't just a Nintendo direct. I was almost expecting a Metroid kind of moment or something like that

like the Golden Ring D.LC to me honestly. Yeah, I do think that it might have been misworded a little bit in terms of our expectations of why we're talking about this way but I do think it's important to look at what Keeley is done with the Summer Game Fest showcase itself and last time it was where's Zelda ring, where's Zelda ring, where's Zelda ring

and that's really hard to say and when the final it was like, oh my God, it's here and I think with this like the chat, not our chat, but I was just looking online Everyone's like, final message, seven rebirth, where is it, where is it?

So he had the thing, he knew he had the thing. So he was hyping it up for those people that might not have seen all the tweets. It's just like, man, you can't be doing that when there's thousands of people

judging every word you use, you know? Yeah. Incredible closer. Yeah. Yeah, the only knock I have is that I wish I knew nothing about it.

I wish that, you know, I didn't listen to games daily today today and I hadn't seen to comment and, and blah, blah, but it's like, that's just who we are

and how dialed it in we are. I thought I still presented extremely well. somebody who really dug remake. I'm excited to get back to the story here and see what's up. And I kept looking over at Tim and when they'd be saying something or reacting. Like, is this a big story thing? Is he excited about this? Is this whatever?

Because, like, I had to call him, obviously, when I beat that game because I had no idea what the hell was going. What was up with the opening to that trailer? I mean, the shit they showed in that trailer, y'all. I can't. You're talking about Max a Million dude for the, um, I can't wait to see Max a Million dude going on this. There's so much there that it's like, wait a minute. This seems like even different than the different we expected it to be.

And the final shots of like Sephiroth looking like he's killing Tifa? What? And the, the, the, the, the, the, B.O they had going on? Like, no. I mean, to go back to our conversation we had earlier today on KFD, this is the exact type of shit I was talking about, where I'm like, show me the way in which you're fucking up the timeline. Like, show me the ways in which you're subverting all of our expectations of what we know about Final Faces 7, what we know about the events of Final Fenton, even for me as somebody who never finished Final Fian 7, I know what happens? I know who dies. I know all this shit. What are you going to show me in this trailer that is going to blow me away and make me go, oh, damn,

they're really taking this all the way. And I look at that trailer and I go, oh damn, y'all are really taking this all the way the fact that, yeah, it closed out with what looks like Seferoth, possibly killing Tifa. Which is interesting. So that scene, we've now seen multiple times throughout the games from separate perspectives,

but there's a flashback we see in the original game and then in Crisis Core you actually play through that, like, it's not a flashback, it's just what you're playing through. But the VO there implies, like, this might be the death of her and things are going to be different and like she dies and all that stuff. We know, obviously, Ayrth, this being a different version of that. I could not be more excited.

The way they're playing with this up school. And Andy, there's a new timeline being introduced here. We see this thing of all them being put into the ambulance after whatever the fuck happened with the thing falling. There's a multiverse where she's alive. There's a whole. You know what I mean? A hope of change. She's out there.

Jesse's out there, buddy. That's going to be the D.L.C. Find Jesse. Somebody find Jesse. Jesse needs help. Cloud. Come find me. Any final thoughts on Summer Game Fest, kickoff.

2023. I wish I could go home and download the Liza P demo. I might just do that here. I'll do it for you. I'm doing that here at work right now. Great job from Jeff and the team. Really well done. This is his best yet for sure.

They are moving in the right direction. And as we look at the week ahead, still pressure continues to build for Xbox to deliver. I think PlayStation stumbled. We all said, oh, can Xbox deliver? Can they bring the best of the summer showcases? And we all said, yes, but we don't know if they can deliver. You know what?

Jeff, you delivered right here. And I think Xbox now is poised to be second in the summer showcases behind Jeff's show if they don't deliver. So, child to Jeff, great show, man. I'm absolutely shocked. I'm sitting here. And with the thought of, man, Jeff put on a better showcase than PlayStation, right? Like, absolutely wild. I think he did the dang thing.

And I think we're spoiled with video games. The fact that we got all of this, right, between Prince of Persia looking excellent, Mortal Kombat 1, looking excellent, right? Sonic Superstars, Liza P, Allen Wake 2, Spider-Man 2, and Final Faces 7 rebirth. with a dope-ass trailer and so many things that I didn't just mention just now. And we're like, yeah, it was really good. It was pretty good. Right? That was fucking fantastic. And so, yeah, like, Jeff did the damn thing and I can't, I can't wait to see

what he pulls off for the next thing, right? Yep, Game Awards. No, not even. Gamescom. Opening Night Live. But let us know in the comments below what you thought is, and remember all summer long, we are presented by Amazon Gaming and Summer Game Fest. You can get all of your games. You can get all of your pre-orders over

on Amazon.com slash summer game fest. Thank you so much for hanging out with us and watching all this. Like I keep saying, all weekend long, all week. Next week, we're going to be reacting to all the biggest showcases. So you can expect on Sunday we will live react to the Xbox showcase. We will then do a breakdown, kind of funny, Xcast episode, live for everybody. Then on Monday we're coming through hitting 10 a.m.

With the Ubisoft forward live reactions followed by a games daily breakdown right after that. Then we're going to be doing a live games cast that we're going to talk about all the things that we play this weekend at Summer Game Fest Play Days. And then we're going to close out the day with a reaction to Capcom showcase. What a time to be alive. Really quick, because I know the chat's freaking out. Our React video was taken down. Guess why, Tim. Twisted metal, man.

Twisted metal. So we were on it of removing that part of the stream to re-upload. Remoed from NBC. Awesome. Sorry about that, chat. We got cocked every. buddy. Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.