Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Most Controversial Gaming Opinions - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 204

Episode Date: January 14, 2019

Learn more about the programs available at University of Advancing Technology at http://uat.edu Start your trial month of Hims for $5 at http://forhims.com/kinda Andrea Rene joins us as we give our most controversial gaming opinions. Things get REALLY heated. Time Stamps - 00:22:10- Start 00:24:45 - Finished Red Dead Redemption 2 00:33:20 - Destiny 2 00:47:02 - New Super Mario Bros. U 00:54:50 - Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 01:05:29 - Most Controversial Gaming Opinions 01:59:21 - End of GC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, guys. Welcome to the first ever, episode 204 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes. He's joined by the Reverend Jared Petty. When the Gregies away, the part-timers can play. That's right. There we are. There we are. There you go.

The hair. Fran Mirabella. Hey, best friends. I love this. I love this so much. And joining us for her first time in a very long time on the Kind of Funny Games cast, the busiest lady in the business, Andrea Renee. Yeah.

Hello, gentlemen. We're going to have a good show today. I can feel it in my bones. And ladies and gentlemen, that pre-show, riveting content. If you want to hear Fran talk about true motion, that's where you want to be. And if you want to hear us bitch about USB cables. There's a lot of USB talks. Why do they call Universal if it ain't universal?

All I'm saying. Women needed to be here for that. Yeah, exactly. That sounds like a Gary Whitton ass thing. Ladies and gentlemen, there's a whole bunch of new stuff going on here with Kind of Funny Games cast. If you go to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games at the Silver Level. You get to watch the show live with us. You get to watch the show three days early.

It's great. You get a whole bunch of other shows, including party mode and a bunch of other content that we're doing. And you get to watch Kind of Funny Games daily, ad free, be a part of that show. Tone of different stuff. All for the entire month of January, we are crowdfunding from you guys on both our Patreon. Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny and Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny games. Every new dollar we get from any new patron or existing patron upgrading will go towards us funding the content for the first half of 2019 and a world tour that we are doing. We are on our way to Hidden That London Goal.

It is very surprising. Thank you guys so much for all your support. I'm getting a little scared of how much stuff we're going to have to do this year. But guess what? We're going to do it. We're going to nail it. I'm going to feel really good about it. Because of all that, we now have a new permanent fourth chair.

Yes. Fran Maribel on the show. A new chair. Greg is off shooting some secret stuff. He'll be back. Even I don't know what he's doing. I didn't ask him. To be clear, when I say someone's off doing secret stuff, it means no one knows what he's doing.

I killed him and he's in the trunk of my car. He might be in Jared's car. Who knows? He's really just taking a couple days off and he's using work as an excuse. Is that it? Okay. There's something wrong with that.

You don't know. We don't know. You should tweet at Game of Reggie and let him know what you think he's doing. We can go from that. Take some guesses. But this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games

and Podcast services around the globe. You just got to search for Kind of Funny Games cast. We talk about video games, all the things we love about them, what we've been playing. We have a big topic that we talk about. Today's topic. I'm very excited for.

But before we get to that, let's just start right off. What have we been playing? Andrea, I want to start with you. Oh, okay. Well, I have been spending most of my time over the last couple of days, finally finishing Red Dead Redemption 2. So you rolled the credits.

I know some people don't like that phrase. I'm not quite sure why, but after two, yeah, I don't know. How could you not like it? It's a good phrase. Yeah, I thought of us too. People just hate everything these days. It's true. Everyone has griped to pick about something.

Yeah, it's a real thing. I like it. I feel like it's very, like, self-explanatory, but also it's such a indicator of where video games are at these days where beating the game doesn't really make sense anymore. Rolling credits is like, oh, that's a good level indicator of how far you actually are in the game. Because so many video games these days, the end game, the post game is like more content than the actual game. Yeah, I think it has its birth in RPGs where if you waited to finish everything there was to do in an RPG, you would never, ever see the credit. So they would put those in a head.

And gradually it came through more complex and more service-oriented. I would say roll credits, even if there were no credits. Like if it was the end, you know. It's just a phrase. Yeah, exactly. I mean, so my reason for kind of pushing through the story to the end, because on what's good, we've talked several times about how if you want to experience a lot of the open world. And Jared, I think you and I talked about this on Red Dead Radio when I was on,

that you should probably stop around chapter three or four and just, go out into the world and explore and take your time because once you hit those later chapters, some fundamental things change. And I think it's not as fun to do those things because the pressure of the story is now mounted and you don't feel as relaxed in doing those open world things. You mean when you're in chapter three? No, when you get later into the story. It definitely changes the atmosphere of the game in a very intrinsic way.

I'll agree with you there. So if you're just wanting to wander, you're certainly welcome to wander after, but the sense with which you will wander the world will feel decidedly different at that point. And likewise, you can wander in the epilogue, but again, that's a very different experience. Right, and just for everyone's knowledge, we are not going to be spoiling what happens in the end of the game

or what happens in the epilogue. We are actually doing a spoiler cast on what's good games this week. So if you guys want to hear that, and you have played and finished the game, please come check that out, but don't worry. We won't spoil it for you here. Fran, last week, I was asking you what you've been playing, and you were saying that you were like coming up

towards the end of Red Dead, but we didn't talk about it that week. What's your progress on it now? I'm dying, I'm screaming internally because I said I was going to finish this thing. It's the biggest slog in gaming. Thank you exactly the word I used. In so long, yes.

Oh, it's crazy. I was talking to Gary Weddy. He said the same thing. And I was like, that's the word I've been using because it is on the money. But I'm at the end of the end of the end. You know where I'm at. You think you are.

I think. No, it's legit beer. and I feel like it's a whole nother discussion. How many houses have you built at this point? Oh my God. No, no, it. Houses. I mean, fences anyway.

Oh, no, you haven't? Oh, Jared. He doesn't even know. That's what I'm on a, that part two of that end. In any event, Tim, going back to what you said, so it really has been a true plague on me that I'm like, I'm going to finish this, but I want to play these other games. I got my destiny grind. I do actually play Fortnite like we talked about.

And so I'm really stretching myself Finn. I went back. I'm like, I'm going to get it done tonight. I got eight hours, you know, and I still couldn't do it. No, dude, it's long. And that's the thing that I'm frustrated with is that I, you know, have talked at length about how it's clear this game is designed for people who want to take their time with it. That's obvious.

And I am pressing my way through because the other girls have finished it and I have to be able to talk about the end. But I got to what I thought was the end and was a really like nice fitting climactic end. And then it was like, oh, man, oh, wait, there's more. And it wasn't just like a little bit extra because epilogues, you know, are a pretty common thing across all different types of media. But this epilogue is ridiculously long. And the thing about it that upsets to me the most is that there's the most mundane bullshit they make you do in the epilogue. Yeah.

Like literal scooping of shit in the epilogue. I'm not even kidding. Kevin, did you beat the game? I did not. That is the discussion that I want to have at some point. is the gameplay design discussion. You know, there's story and there's gameplay design. And what they do in the beginning of that epilogue,

the mundane stuff you're talking about, I was just like. Why? But yeah, like I want the roll credits before that. I would feel better if they just rolled credits and said, you know what, don't expect more. But there is more and they, the pacing in games is so important to me.

Listen man, there's shit out there and it needs to get shoveled. That's all I can say about that. You literally do, yeah. But dude, the game is, Gameplay design and that is just vexing. It's not for everybody. And quite honestly, I think Rockstar is in a bit of their own bubble in the way that they did things.

But it's a longer, much longer discussion. Sure. I will say, playing as much as I have over the last several days, probably 25 plus hours worth, it is the best horse riding simulator I've played in a while. In a while. In a while. If you're being serious, though, Andrea. No, Assassin's Creed honesty is by far more fun.

I love the horses better. But realistic horse riding, man, they really nail this. There are some realistic horse riding. It's like the Grand Turismo of horses. Do you like the game? Yes, I do. Listen to your review, though. Do you see the problem with this?

No, but here's the thing is that, and I said this when it first came out, when we first did our initial review in progress, that this is one of the most conflicted games I've played, or it makes me feel conflicted because there's so much about it that I think is so amazing. And Jared and I talked about this at length of my episode. But there's also these things that I'm like, why did you make this choice? And I think that's why, you know,

we're seeing kind of a split decision. But my experience as somebody who critiques games has shown me that even though there's things about that game that are pain points for me personally, the good parts I can see through. Like, oh, yeah. The bad parts don't outshine the good parts of that game. That game is more good than it is bad.

A game, in my opinion, it puts you through trials due to the gameplay design to feel some of the reward. Yeah. And I would put it, it's a weird way to put it, it's the smell of the game. If you could take it in and actually breathe it in, that is what makes it very special. But it's a really weird thing to say because, and it's, that's why. I just flash to like Bobby Hill smelling his alarm clock and then smelling.

Because there is no smell like it right now in gaming in my personal opinion. What they have achieved is incredible. But then I feel punished at these times where I'm just like, dude, this is not a spoiler in any way. I go, I think I talked about it in the last episode. I'm like, you're really going to make me foul you around on my horse while you pick herbs, dude? Like, literally, that is it for like 10 minutes. And it's more about the smell, I think. Anyway.

Yeah, I'd really, I'd love it now that we're a little out, that there's a little distance from the hype that most people have finished it. We did a spoiler cast over in Red Dead Radio. I'd love to. Well, if I ever finish it, Jared, I would love time. Red Dead Revisited, baby. Let's go. I'd like to do that. I'd like to go back and alliteration.

I'm down. Because let me tell you. I doubt I'm going back. I think now that the credits have gone, by the way, those are some long-ass credit. Those credits are amazing. I mean, they're great. They put some artwork in that's really beautiful and really poignant. And, like, I would encourage everybody to watch the credits all the way through. They go full Ferris Bueller, which I totally did not expect.

I love that. Or not, no, fast times at Richmond High. I was like, I'm not getting them. Not Ferris Bueller. Fast times at Ridgemont High. Arthur comes out at the end in a bathroom. No, no. I said to Jared, I don't think I said it on the show, but I said it would be so awesome.

So I'm glad to get it out there. If in the game, what they actually did is that as you think you approach the end, Dutch just keeps saying, have some faith. I have one more mission. And he sends you out and it becomes the online game. And he just keeps giving you missions. And you realize there's no actual end. And that is almost how that game feels.

There was a very, very good-natured poke during the kind of funny fundraiser last week when you guys managed to plan out the next year and lay this wonderful groundwork for everything you're doing. But somebody had taken all of y'all in Photoshop Dutch under all your heads. And they just said, just one more score. Yeah. Come on.

It was adorable. That was really funny. But it was very sweetly done. Andy hopped in. It was like, this is hilarious. Yeah. It was really cute. Next up, Destiny 2.

What's going on? We did it. I mean, you picked the right we did. I know. To talk about Destiny 2. People were asking. Yeah. So I jumped back in.

Destiny in a really big way during the dawning, which is the holiday festival that happens in December. I didn't quite bake all the cookies. Yeah, I was supposed to bake. So they brought back Eva Levante, who's been a longtime Destiny character there. He haven't seen for a while. Exactly. So she was one of the customization characters in the tower previously. And so she comes back and you have to like build this little oven. And then you have to go and collect different items to make cookies with and there's like 12 different cookie recipes, I think. Felt like there was a secret 13th, but yes. Yes, there is.

A baker's dozen. Yes. Just figured that out. The secret one is like a no recipe one where you have to like screw up a recipe. Oh, wow. And then once you have masterworked your oven, you bake a bunch of cookies and go deliver them to different quest givers around the world. All your friends in the game who give you quest.

Now you give them cookies back. Friends and air quotes. And that you do get rewards for it. You get power level and other. So there was a reason. Enhancement cores, which are really important to upgrade in your gear. And if you are like me and you're constantly infusing things because you hate the way your hunter always looks. Why is the hunter always ugly?

I don't understand. Wait, no, no, no, no, not at all. Well, you- Titans always ugly. No, listen, there's like two armor sets for the hunter that are good. The rest of them are trash fires. Disagree. You clearly made a warlock, don't you,

before we move on to Hunter aesthetics. Was going and getting cookies for your friends and baking them? And was it fun? Well, the gameplay is always fun. That's the loop about destiny that keeps people like friend and I coming back. That's a free release right there by the way, the dawning. Yes. Free content.

If you bought destiny too. So you can make your cookies, like that was the fun part. Right. So going out and playing missions or strikes or playing in the crucible earned you, donning essence, earned you different ingredients. And then you take all of those items that you've earned and then you can craft different cookies. And then the cookies you go and deliver and get rewards for. So you are earning rewards constantly throughout the open world.

whole, air quotes, open world, the persistent world, wherever instance you are in, to kind of further along your progression lute. And that's really core destiny. It's like go out, do a mission, earn rewards, trade those things in, get some gear, right? Like, that's the loop.

But it wasn't just, yeah, maybe to bring that full circle, it wasn't really new gameplay content. It was, I mean, it was in the sense you could bake these cookies, but you went back to the same places. What you were trying to get, I'm probably forgetting something was basically, especially there was a machine gun that you wanted,

and you could keep re-rolling it by turning these things in, and obviously your sets of the way you look, which is really important in death, and you're like, yo, look at me, I got this set of armor because once it's gone, it's gone,

that's what people play for is this limited time vanity, like emblems. But other than that, I don't recall there being anything gameplay-wise that you guys would be like, oh, that was a cool edition. Because it's not that,

it's like, it's one of those seasonal events, truly seasonal, it's winter. They decorate the tower and Christmas lights, basically and there's snow falling so it's pretty cool in the same way that fortnight added snow and had some events in fortnight so the real the real uh motivator to get in is not just the donning but really uh the black armory which is the new separate right it haven't different so that's paid dLC that you have to you know fork over money to get into whereas the donning was free for

anybody who bought base destiny to and so all of the people in the what's good guardians clan were have bought the season pass and all of the season pass not deal see. Right. Because they're worried about the expansion. Yeah, it's it's very confusing right now. And so you there's a lot of overlap on the rewards there. And so I was trying to power level to light level 600 because I fell really far behind playing everything through end of September, October, November. Now here comes the new DLC and I'm like light level 530 or something. So thankfully, Bungy was like, yo, there's going to be a bunch of people who are probably joining because this new, the dawning is here for free for people,

based Destiny 2, we want to encourage them to want to buy into the DLC, how do we do that? Let's let everybody power level. So they had a prime attunement, so these things called prime engrams were supposed to be dropping more. But Fran, would you- You're not finding that? No. Because that's if you're under 600, which you are.

I'm not. Yeah, I just broke 603 last week. But my persistent problem, and my clanmates have told me that I should talk to bungee about it. It's not that I've gotten one exotic forsaken drops since September. Oh, that's totally normal. One? Yep.

Out of 15? It is so rare. You are suffocated to want just one more real true new. So angry about it. But people are torn on that because when you get it, you actually still flip out. But it's so R&G, that's the problem. And then the few missions and the quest that aren't are so ridiculously grindy, it's maddeny. You also, one, you may not have the best RNG, but two, you also need to be playing.

the events, which you may because of your grind, you're not doing some of the stuff which has a higher exotic chance. They're so hidden that even I forget like I think some of the spider bounties. We're getting off. So I'm desperately... We're getting into the weeds of Destiny. I wanted to have the two of you here together. I'm so happy about this

opportunity for you to jump right in on Destiny because obviously I make fun of Destiny a lot because of conversations like this where I'm like that doesn't sound fun. Yeah, but you'll think everything in Red Dead's fun. Yeah, exactly. And we move on from there. That's a very fair point. I'm joking. I don't know that you do.

Oh, no, it's flawless. No mistakes at all. I love shoveling crap. All silliness aside, Andrew is talking about the gameplay loop, and you were kind of agreeing there. One of the issues I've always had with Destiny since very early on was that it takes a lot of the traffic because I have an MMO,

which is typically built on a more RPG-ish combat structure and an RPG-ish enemy structure and loot structure, which allows you to have less fidelity. larger spaces, it's easier to build levels. You don't have to build combat situations. Your AI can be very different. You can build much bigger, more varied areas. Yes.

Because Bungy is limited by the kind of game destiny. As a shooter, it has to very carefully tune every area built. That's high polish, you're right. That is exactly. With their stuck out. Yeah, and they have to do that. And that means that the game must, by its nature, be smaller. Mm-hmm.

Can you explain to me what is? Because when I hear you talk about, and the grinding and the grinding, the grinding, and then you're happy, but then you're sad, but then you're happy, but then you're sad. What is it about, and this is for both of you, and this honest question, not trying to pick on you, what is the grind joy? What is it about moving to those same areas doing the same things that makes it fun? I've said this over and over again, that the first person shooting mechanics that Bungie has crafted for Destiny and Destiny 2 are the best I've ever played.

And I say that because I've spent literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours playing it because it just feels so good. The polish level, as we've mentioned, is exemplary. And the variety of guns is enough to kind of hit a sweet spot for any type of fan, no matter if you're more of like an SMG or machine gun person or if you prefer snipers or hand cannons or whatever. It's a style of weapon that you prefer to play with. you'll find something that you like. And the loot pool of gear is pretty varied at this point. And obviously it's gotten better and better with each iteration and each piece of DLC and each patch that Bungie has made.

Are there still issues with it? Yes. But I think what keeps people like Fran and I coming back week after week despite, you know, our gripes with the game, our kind of quality of life gripes, is that gameplay just feels so fun to play. I'm glad I got to go second because I really got to think about. how I wanted to put this, and I thought of a great way.

And I'll start by saying that, yes, the shooting mechanics, and that is what attracts me to games like Mario, I always use the example of, you didn't know, but the friction equation when Mario slide and he turned, and they tune that, and certain, that is one of the many things that separated why anybody could do a platformer, right? Especially back then, they're just jumping on stuff,

but the feeling of it, and the way the destiny feels is amazing, especially if you're on PC, but not shaming consoles, I was on consoles forever, and an amazing constant. shooter as well. Just they have aim assist, auto this, and those little things that Bunchy's been doing for decades make it awesome. And by comparison, Red Dead sucks with shooting. It is so frustrating, but it's not a shooter. But what is awesome in Red Dead, again, the smell, the feel of it. But just when you hop on your horse. The shiny horse butts, man. Just hopping on your horse

or feeding it and brushing it, the feeling is incredible. And so that is what separates Destiny from a lot of other games like it. And there's just nothing like it when it comes to that first-person shooter plus that grind. The grind is also just very different. They really do keep these really cool things from you that the whole community talks about

and you really feel like you need it. Sometimes for no reason. And that's how I get you. Let me have supposed to be an old man question than related to that. I have a centipede arcade machine in my house. Oh, sweet. The old arcade game.

Centipede is the same game. Every time you hop in a quarter, it's always the same. It's ridiculous. difficult. I mean, one of the hardest arcade games I've ever played, and I'm still not me good at it, even after owning this thing for over a year. But I am playing the same perfectly tuned shooting level over and over and over and over and over again. And I don't particularly get tired of it because I want to master it. Is it analogous? Is the experience

analogous to that, or am I thinking in the wrong direction? I think it's got some of the same overlap, but there are clearly apples to oranges, right? And I think the mechanics go a long way to making the replayability tolerable and in fact, not just tolerable, enjoyable. It's something that I crave. Like if I was going to pick what I would go home and play tonight, it would be Destiny. But I have another game on my list. I have to play for the show tomorrow. So will I get to Destiny tonight?

Maybe if I stay up super late. But I think something that Fran touched on that I want to maybe make sure gets added into why destiny is so great is the. lore of the world of destiny is so expertly hidden within the game itself that it's really clear to people who are in the know about destiny and who love destiny that Bungy has crafted things just for those players to like be able to go and find like this little hidden area in a specific level that gives you like a piece of lore that kind of like reveals something or some of the quest lines for some of the exotic weapons and how the Reddit community just

ravenously tries to unravel what the mysteries are. Like a Dark Souls type thing? What's funny? I don't know. I definitely don't have enough experience of Dark Souls to tell you if that's... I want to play Dark Souls.

People have been asking for it too. Later. I'm laughing because right now, okay, for perspective, there was a box that you got a month ago with a launch of black armory called the Mystery Box,

an exotic item, and you had to get these keys by shooting things in the world that were just hidden, which all has lore that you can dive into. And right now, the whole community, it may be solved by now where it's recording on a, can we say when? Doesn't matter, right?

According on Tuesday. So we just hit reset. People are trying to figure out hours on end to open up the new addition to the game. So it won't open until you figure this crazy mystery box puzzle, just finding these keys in the world. And then there's these runes hidden around the world that you got to like go. I don't even know how to solve it yet. But that is how deep it gets. And they've really, it's funny because such a small amount of people are doing it.

But the idea that that's happening makes it really cool. That's so cool. Bunchy's always been great about that type of game design. Since Marathon, they were really good at that even though. Oh, I didn't know you were a Marathon fan. Retroactively, because I loved Halo, fell in love with Red versus Blue. Red versus Blue at some point goes into Marathon. Oh, yeah.

And I was like, what is this? I got to play this. Durandal. So fucking cool. I would just want to finish that thought by saying that absolutely like any game, Destiny is not for everybody. Red Dead's not for everybody. But hopefully that's a little peek into why some people love it. I think the one thing you absolutely can't deny Destiny is what we touched on.

It feels amazing. I mean, whether you like that style of shooter is different, but the feel of it, there's almost no games out there in that style that feel that good. Just when you pop someone's head off and the different styles of enemies, it feels so good because of the sound design and the polish is crazy. And again, another discussion for another time, all those little things. The little things make such a difference. I went and talked to the Etra guys who were working on torchlight frontiers a while ago. And they were talking about how, again, it's the same thing with like a Diablo-style game. It's that feedback.

Anybody, you're just clicking on things. But the flash happening at just the right moment, with just the right throwback with just the right, yeah. And suddenly it's fun instead of not fun. The particle, the design around. I mean, there's someone or a team of people's job sometimes is what sound do the particles make and how does that all come together? In fact, yeah, there's effects audio people. It's crazy, the detail. And that is, you know, the choices you've got to make in games.

You spend a bunch of money on that. You spend it on story or 700 voice actors in Red Dead stuff like that. It's amazing to see where you can lean into the polish and stuff and how it changes games. I've been playing New Super Mario Bros. Oh, look at you. Can't talk too much. Yeah, it's not out yet, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's out this Friday as of recording or it's out today as of you guys listening. But it's super we've talked about this many times One of the best 2D Mario games of all time I feel like it got really kind of shafted because it was a Wii You launch title people were really over the aesthetic and style of the new Super Mario Brothers games when that came out because it was released the same year as New Super Mario Brothers 2 on the 3DS so it felt very like all right we don't need this right now but for the people that played it they had a really good time the

return to the Cooper kids being done in a great way like a lot of really good stuff there. I remember replaying the game because what's his name? Jeremy Parrish wrote it an article he does his top list on Polygon I think it is.

Yeah he writes all over the place but I think that one's a Polygon that are his like he ranks every game in a series and he ranked all the Mario games 3D everything and his number one was this game and I was like

you're fucking crazy. That's number one. Do not underestimate the power of Jeremy. He's a brilliant misemaker. But above Mario 3, above Mario World, he put this game. And I was like, you're fucking crazy. But then I was like, you know what? It's been a couple of years since I've played it.

I'm going to replay it. And so what you, man, was... Exactly. Your mindset was so different. You were so tainted going in. And then I replayed it. I'm like, holy shit. This game is amazing.

The level design is impeccable. The secrets are great. There's so much awesome shit going on. Better than Mario 3 of Mario World? No, no, no, no. But it's in the conversation. Like, I can see in certain ways how it's better or how it's different, at least. You and I have had this discussion about Super Mario Wii, which is my favorite.

Yeah, and we talk about the same reason. And you is quite arguably a better version of that same aesthetic. Now, having said all that, if you haven't played this game before, now that it's coming out on Switch, I think it's a great time to get in and play through it and see, like, see, wow, this game actually is really damn good. However, for me, I don't think I'm going to complete it again. Oh, really? Now it's like, all right, I have had kind of too much 2D Mario, and especially having replayed this game recently in the last three years,

and with games like Celeste and with just a new style of 2D platformers. Like right now, this style of Mario game, I'm like, you know what, there's not enough interesting things going on that are unique to this game for it to keep my attention, I think, again. Are you playing it alone? Yes. We're going to do a bunch of party modes with it. So I'm excited to play. Because I feel like this game has become a different thing when you play them with other people. Well, yeah, but I think the reason why Nintendo is releasing this game at this time is because they need their number one poster boy to be staying fresh in people's minds.

Right. So Super Mario Odyssey seems like a long time ago at this point. And we don't really know when the next major game from Nintendo is coming because we don't really have a solid release date for any of their tentful titles for this year yet. So I think it's really smart of them to say, hey, we're going to kind of repurpose and like freshen up a game that was really popular and uses our, you know, our most favorite characters to keep people picking up their switch and looking at the e-shop. I mean, it writes itself. At the end of the day, it's like every single Wii U game that came out that was the first party Nintendo title that of any importance is going to come to Switch. And there's no reason it shouldn't. You look at games even as small as Dogging Country Tropical Freeze. It sold way better on Switch than it did on Wii U.

Mario Kart sold way better. Well, it's had double the installment. Yeah, Wii U is a failure. But it's like, why not take them and bring them over, right? So with this game, Kirby sold over a million almost out of the game for crying out loud. So it's like they're going to just keep going. This is Nintendo handbook stuff.

Yeah, totally. It did not sell. They spent money on. You're not just going to sit there. And to your point, they need to, they have Mario release schedules. And that may mean they don't have like a 2D or 2.5D. We were talking about it last week, too, Mario, plan for this year, but we don't know yet, but it's such an easy way.

Like, we always, I mean, we can make a huge list of all the games we want to put on there. I'm sure you have already. So I think it's awesome that they're doing it, but what really you hit on that, I think makes a lot of sense is that game was made, almost mastering those games that, you took Mario World and three and like, you love them, but now just put you're like, well, but I'm looking for something new. And games like Celeste and others, they do offer that. And you know, you know, actually, a thing I forgot to say is, no, it's not.

And I think that a lot, I know so many people haven't played. As you said it. People haven't played it before. I want to go back and play it. So it's like this is going to be great from them to play for the first time. But I think that I'm especially burned out on it because of all the 2D Mario games I've played. But on top of that, Mario Maker. You know, when Mario Maker came out, they had this graphic style as an option and playing

through the game. I played through the hell out of Mario Maker and Wii. Then when it was ported to the 3DS, it was one of my like playing games until the Switch came out for like a year. I'm just, I'm just going to play through some Mario levels because why not? And all of that really, I think, kind of hindered my excitement. You're just going to burn out on it. I'm burned out because this game doesn't offer much new visually.

There's the Starry Night level for anybody that played any of the 2D Mario games in the last 20 years at this point. Yeah. I wish the whole game or the story night level, that would be in- 720p or whatever it runs on an airplane. That's what it does offer. Meaning the fidelity that it offers you on the places like that. It is what you easily forget about Switch, but just lying in bed or uncutche, you have not been able to do it there. to do it there. But you may not play your switch that way.

Or maybe you do, but you're just, oh, yeah. But again, you're over that you've consumed so much of it. Yeah. But anyway, excited to see what you guys think about. I'm excited about it. Question and a comment. I'll start with a comment. If you haven't played this game before, even if you have, if you haven't played a two player, it's a completely different and even better experience.

Both these games, we and Wii and you, in my opinion, are better with two people. And if you doubt of Mario game could be fun with two people, grab somebody you love. This game is carefully designed around a two, three player experience. If it's supported voice chatting online, would it also still be awesome? I doubt it, honestly. Oh, really? Yeah. It's one of those on the couch. Yeah, it's kind of got that Mario card thing going on.

It's one of those. Exactly. Exactly. Commercial. I think cooperation. Yeah. The other is, and then the question, this is very important for me. Right. So, since we know that Wii U GamePad, is there an allowance for me to find some way to use the

Tapy Touch? I don't know because you're definitely a small part of the pie chart. with it. That's the gift. Let's get that gift. So much fun. Yeah. We'll have to see with that stuff.

I disagree with you. I don't think you can. I don't think you can. But the thing I disagree with you about is I don't think it's better as a multiplayer game. I think the multiplayer aspect of this is fantastic. But I feel like that's a different game. It really is like playing the campaign in a shooter and playing the multiplayer mode.

Where it's just like it's this, you are playing through the same levels. But the way that you play through them totally changes. And I feel that with, this game does better than Mario 3 or Mario World is the challenge coins where they add them. That really makes this game hard for a single player experience and it makes it worth playing alone and not with someone else. Not that you can't get them with someone else, but like that's going to be ridiculously hard. I don't know because they make such great allowances for how the characters come back into the levels.

I mean, I've played through it again, this is just we, but I played through 9-8, creating all three star coins on all levels co-op on the Wii version and it was exhilarating. So I think you does it actually kind of better. Well, there you go. And then the next game, you said you've been playing France, Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Of course. How's that been going?

Well, I finally got back to it. I think the biggest thing that comes to my mind is when I first played it. I was like, I hate the online. Like, I am not happy with it. But I was PVPing with people that I knew. So the connection was actually reasonable, but just it felt like off to me because the game is so fast. But I finally got used to just something,

sunk in and like whatever that lag is, my brain is adjusted to and it's tolerable. Also, I'm... God, I love when this adds up. Smash for his ultimate background right now. Oh, yeah, maybe. And I also came into my own with... I've always played Smash. I've always been, I think, pretty good at Smash.

But I felt like trash, yeah. Felt like trash because of some of these reasons. But I finally was like whooping on people and feeling good about it. And so, yeah, I'm just happy to be back. I'm maintaining Link now, actually. But... That's Brits main. I'm not giving up on Peach by any of.

She's still one of my mains, but... But that game is going to last for many, many years. Yeah. Are you doing any of the... Kevin's raising his hand because he's... Are you using... What? We'll repeat the question.

I was going to say, are you using the Ethernet adapter or are you just going... Kevin asked R. Am I using... No, I said it to something like. If you're playing Smash Brothers online, get the damn Ethernet adapter. Stop contributing to this madness. Yeah. But I will say I've had some terrible matches and I hate that you can't like thumbs down people or report them

because they should not be allowed to... play. It's toxic. It's terrible when you run into someone that. Like it literally is in like slow motion. And you can't just like you could close the software but there's no way to get out of it. It's super frustrating. Nintendo lead needs to get his crap together with online. They're doing

this much better but they've got so far to go and people just do not understand GSP either the rating. They're like what happened? Like I hit like 2.2 million like after five matches I just got lucky and then I was like it fell down right away. I'm like I don't even I try to understand the college bowl system.

Yeah, it's freaking amazing. Have you got Elite with any of the characters yet online? No, because I don't know how it works, and I haven't not played that much. I haven't been playing online about. But I was getting up there with Link. And actually, Peach, but I think you need to put in hundreds of games to get into my guess. I've been playing a lot of the single player because I just want to get all the spirits done. So I can just like whenever it is games of service and when they add more stuff, I'll go pop back in.

You're collecting more than the competitive side of things. Yeah, well, I mean, I play competitive with my friends and stuff. But just when I'm playing the game, I'm not playing online. I've been doing single player. And right now I have, I just crossed 900. So I have 900 out of the 1,300 spirits. Nice. Dude, I probably have like, that's what's the, it's crazy to think how much more you've played

of that. I probably have like 50 of them or 100 out of a little bit. There's the challenge boards that are essentially like achievements or trophies. And I have, there's 124 of those, I think. And I have 90 something. So it's like, I'm getting there, man. I'm pushing through. I need your guidance.

I just, just be classic. mode with over half the characters. So I'm like, I'm getting there. Classic mode's kind of cool. Classic mode is fantastic, man. I love it. There's so much loving care put into that. They really knocked out of the park.

I keep being surprised by like things I'll see in classical. Funny, I'm more likely to play that mode since it's a little more straight on like a fight. Spirit adventure. I like I just don't, I haven't wrap my head around it yet. Everyone's heard my thoughts on it. Yeah. It's funny because you guys are talking about the grinding of destiny and all that stuff. And that very much is world light mode.

And you were talking about like, this sounds like you don't like it. Everything you're saying sounds like you don't like it. A lot of people, the comments on our top 10 of the year were like, Tim, you put smashers on it. You didn't say anything good about it. You literally just said everything you don't like. And it's like, I feel like you guys know why I love the game.

And I've talked about on so many different shows. I probably should have done a better job praising it during that episode. But I just care so much. But my point was, despite all the bullshit, I still love so much about the game. Did you see this thing floating around Twitter this week with somebody made a me, Anakin Skywalker fighter? If you're all seeing this.

It's got the lightsaber. He's got the face. Somebody nails it. It's a zoom in on a victory. And it's him, number one in victory, over four young links. And it just says, not the young links. It's beautiful. I was like, oh, that's lovely.

But something that I like that they added. So there's these spirit, like, events, I guess they're called. I don't even know where. That's called church. Every Sunday They do events where you can capture these spirits Right? Yeah, it's about every week where it's like

There'll be a theme for the week And you can go in in spirit mode Like one week was like I think it was called like Let's a go And it was like all Mario characters That you go in And it's like when you go play spirits There's a higher chance of Mario characters popping up

Then there was a fire emblem event Where it's more chance of fire emblem And like that time was someone like This is really actually kind of meaningless and stupid Like it's randomized anyway Like who cares But one of the events Actually I think it was the Mariardinblem

one had spirits that you could only get during that week. Exactly. That was the thing I noticed. And I'm like, oh, that was neat. That's going to get me like, I hope they keep adding that because that would get into like destiny territory of just like, oh, it's small meaningless stuff, but like, well, I got to get it though. You know what I mean? It's like I need to keep coming back.

I'm hoping they do a lot more. It'd be cool if you can somehow show that off online, you know, that you have certain things. Like, but that's like, I don't want to knock it. I love the idea of it, but it's kind of just for you right now. It's collector game. I guess you can show your friends, but you can't show it off online or you. Jared and Andy, you know, not smashers.

I play Smash quite a bit, actually. Oh, yeah, and Jared plays. But I have long held that Smash is not my game. I have no problem with people who like to play Smash. It's just not for me. Do you like a fighter? The only fighter I like is Mortal Kombat. Oh, that's right.

I have played a lot of other fighting games over my time as a video game player, but the only one that's resonated with me that I'm actually eager and excited and want to play is Mortal Kombat. Does injustice end up fitting into that with you, too? So I really liked my time with Injustice because obviously it's from Nether Realm, the people who make Mortal Kombat. And they took a lot of the learnings for Mortal Kombat and applied it to the first injustice. And then they took what they did with the first injustice and applied it into Mortal Kombat 10, which I loved even more. And so I'm really excited to see what they do with Mortal Kombat 11, which is... Did you play Injustice 2?

Yes, I did. Injustice 2 is... Fantastic. Freaking fantastic. The story mode in that game is how fighting game story mode should be. Absolutely. Totally riveting. I was super involved the entire time.

Like, have you played it? No. What's so cool about it is the story mode is there's an actual story that's cool. It's comic booky and it's whatever. But every match makes sense for the story going on, but you switch characters throughout it. And then there'll be like points where you choose which character you get to play the fight with. But it just keeps moving and progressing and like you really teaches you the mechanics of the games based on the characters that you're supposed to play. It's also a game where the Joker can beat up Superman with us first.

And then there's all of that. It's, oh my God, it's so fantastic. That wasn't a plus. You know, why? Right after I... It's fantasy, Jared. I mean, right. I was just going to say,

right after I finish all the Dark Souls series and grind through all of Anthem and finish Assassin's Creed and play the new Super Mario and finish getting all the characters and spirits and specials, that I will play. Well, the story vote for Injustice 2

does not take an incredible amount of time. It's, you know, maybe what... I'm doing it. I actually love fighting. games. I grew up on Street Fighter 2 in Moral Combat at the arcades. It was formative for me. I would make my parents drive me to the bowling alley where I would challenge people and sit there and my brother would be like, you got to play my little brother. So loved it. But I kind of gave up on that life and Smash has become the one fighter that at least I love. But I do love the games

and they sound so good. I freaking love Ed Boone and Nether Round. Based on what you were talking about of the like the injustice led to Mortal Kombat, Tan led to whatever, I cannot wait for from Injustice two going to Mortal Kombat 11 and it's coming to Switch. I'm like oh my God. I cannot wait for a flight to New York just so I can beat that game on a flight. Maybe to your point is

something I've been thinking about this a lot. Like I played a little bit of agree right. I have not finished it or anything. It's pretty short but maybe I should just play a little bit of Injustice 2 campaign and like do you think that what if I... At this point it's outdated. Wait for Mortal Kombat 11. Yeah well and Gris is only like four to five hours

so you should be able to like knock that out. I mean, if I was to go back and play some injustice, do you think it's worth it or just wait for the next one? It's a solid fighting game. You should play it. I mean, I was crapping on the fact that Joker beats up Superman. But if I just want to play for two hours. Yeah.

You could put to make it for a couple of hours. It's worth it. It's worth it. You know, the point I was trying to make is, I don't know, do you guys feel this? I feel, I grief myself constantly because I don't have enough time to really know the games. And when I look at a game, even when it's like $7.99 on sale, I'm like, I can't get into it. Part of it is the addiction of wanting to be. that completionist or just amazing at it.

But then sometimes I'll play something. I'm like, why didn't I just play this for an hour? Because you experience something new. But where do you land on that? I'm going to play it for an hour ago. But you're okay with it. Services are so popular right now, right? You have Xbox game pads.

There's PlayStation now. There's tons of subscription services where you can just try it. Does it bother me? Yeah, do you go through this? It's literally the pain. No, I'm not a completionist. So I can pick up a game and then walk away from it. I'm not a completionist either.

I should say, like, I really want to go into the depth of the game. I think that I appreciate where you're coming from because you can't truly know a game until you get to a certain point in it. And each game is different. And certain genres require a much bigger time investment than others, right? Like, I think about some open world RPGs where you're scratching the surface in the first 20 hours of the game, right? Like that's wild.

I think that you put that much time in and you're not really there yet. Yeah. What if I just played for an hour? Probably not enough, right? No. I'm thinking about a day when I was growing up, Fran, where we would go to the Sam's Club and eat the samples for lunch on Saturday. You know the sample section?

You mean like last weekend? Like Costco? Yeah, exactly. Like at the Costco. You go, you get the samples, you get the little cheeses. Yeah, like last weekend. And you get those and you eat them all up for lunch. And then that same day, like five hours later after shopping with my family,

we went out and had a fancy dinner at like the Olive Garden. Oh, my gosh. Now you're speaking to my heart. Yeah, this is home, right? Back days. So I think that for a lot of people, it's possible to enjoy samplers at lunch and then dive deep at dinner. I don't know if you enjoy samplers at Costco, but if you do, give yourself a little time to have some, have some, like, crappy samplers for a while, and then go back in

and have a big dinner at the Olive Garden. And those samplers don't have to be crappy. I love the analogy, Jared. I don't understand what it means with what I said, but you succeeded in making me hungry. I definitely want breakfast now. All right, Jared, we're going to keep this guy for next week. Oh, which one with that game? Yeah. Oh, sure. We can say that. This episode of The Kind of Funny Games cast is brought to you by the University of Advancing Technology. The Robotics Revolution is coming. Don't be afraid of it. Be a part of it.

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That's F-O-H-H-I-M-S-D-com.com slash kinda. Forhams. Slash, kinda. That is all. Now back to your regularly schedule a program. Watch out. I want to get into the topic of the show, which is our most controversial gaming opinions. Oh my gosh.

I thought this would be a fun conversation because now that Fran's part of the show, we, for years have given him shit for many things. For many years, we'll continue to give him shit for many things. Right when he brought this topic up. Yeah. I was like, I know what you're doing. But one of the things that Greg Miller has given Fran's shit for the longest is the infamous 7.9 that Fran gave to Mario Kart. Double dash. Do we have to listen to him to defend this again?

I mean, apparently, I mean, you're going to lambast me for a year. You should make him defend it when Greg is actually here. Yeah, I think Greg's going to be bummed.

But trust me. I'm happy he's not here. I won't be surprised if it's on every show. You were right. Ah, yeah, let's go. Let's go. Mark card double dash.

It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. It was officially good, not great. Yeah. I'd give it to that. Yeah. Good.

High on the good scale. almost great. I'm calling Forbes to kick that award back. What would you give Mario Kart double dash? If I were rating it today off the top of my head. Oh, then I'd have given a higher score probably. Really? Yeah, yeah, I'd give it a...

After 64. What did you say? Oh, yeah, 64. I am not a huge... Try it carefully here, Jared. It's a good game. But if I was going to flip, I'd say that double dash is probably about an 8.6, 8.7. and that

I'd probably give a solid 8 to 64. How dare you? Mara Card 64 is one of the best games of all time. Don't ask. How long since you've been so you've gone back? It's bad, but you can't go back.

But battle mode is good. Battle mode is good. And Double Dess didn't have it. It's not about the way it plays today. It's about what it represented when it came out. Well, if I'm comparing those two then, though, absolutely. Double Dash was the.

leaps and bounce more fun in everything but battle mode than 64. The tracks were better design. The two-player dynamic was fantastic. But you know what? I shouldn't be the one talking about this. Grand Mary Bella, shit. Let me just say that unless you were there and had to do the job and live in the ecosystem of GameCube and PlayStation 2 and 3 and all that coming, you cannot rate it. There's no, well, I went back and I play because it is all about looking around you.

And when we rated games then as well, it was about a couple things. And the way that we did at IGN was games on the system. And really basically that, the value of that ecosystem. We were encouraged not to compare to directly those systems, right? Because you may only own a GameCube. That was the idea. So that was a big weight, right? I looked at all the games on GameCube and just sort of what it offered versus other things

on the system that you give value out. So that was a big part of it. Certainly, you look back at old Mario Carts and things like that. And of course. But I would put that out there is when you also. I did look at PlayStation and other stuff that was going on and technology. And it was just like, it just was missing a little something for me that it was good, but it wasn't great.

But I will admit that my expectations were so high for GameCube. I mean, that's how I got. I mean, they should have been. They were so high. And certainly it weighed on me for some of the greatest games of all time going into, finally we're going to get online, by the way. They were talking about it. And that above all the missing of online.

and looking around on PC and even PlayStation, you could get some reasonable online experiences. And Nintendo just completely botched it up, and it was a huge miss, like factually, I will say. If Mario Kart played even reasonably well online, it would have been cool. But instead, I found myself using at the time,

it was like warp pipe to play land. Yeah, I was a hack. It was a hack to try to get. So, yeah, I had big expectations to play online, but battle mode also sucked. Did you think you could make a good version of, Mario card on the wired backbone that existed at that point. Yeah, absolutely, because other things were doing it.

PC was doing it. I mean, I got to look back, but wasn't, huh? Yeah, but then again, Tony House Pro Skater online? Yeah. But that's not a, that's not a precision cart racer. And those games are a precision. Jared. Okay.

Here's where you smash cut to footage of Smash Bros. Today, and it's like a freaking slideshow. Yeah. And people are playing it. So, you know, anyway, there was. I'd have to go back and look. I don't remember it was like a Grand Treasonment. I felt like there was like racers at the time.

I was like, yeah, they have like a reasonable online mode. Just think of like ghost racing even. Like they didn't even have. Well, Warpipe made it work on her life. I mean, they, it was obviously possible. But that's no, I'm not going to make excuses for Warpike. My point is that if you had a high speed back mode, yes, it absolutely would work. I know it's not a racer, but just go play Halo back then.

Okay, it worked. You know, it's funny you bring that up. We'll talk about that. Okay, but it did work. And he's making me nervous. Whatever the case, it just, it underdelivered, they got online. But I do want to say, I mean, the co-op and the design of the campaign and single player racing and all that was tons of fun. See, that's where I'm at where I'm like, that's where I don't give a fuck about the online.

And especially back then, I think that that's like not something that was standardized enough. I'm not saying that. I get it. I didn't hinge it on that. That was just a big part of it. Some of the tracks, there was not enough iconic tracks, the baby park. There also was not enough. The single player content was severely lacking, and the introduction of the dual cart system, the dual characters on the card with the items tied to them, broke it a lot where there were certain characters that were just flat out better than others.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure. You think that's untrue in other like Mario Carts that there aren't characters that are just flat out better than others in almost every version of the game? But in those games, it's like if you chose one, other people also couldn't choose them and there wasn't other characters. But, I mean, 64 was the same way. I mean, 64 was. I'm not arguing for 64.

I'm not a 64 fan. You got into imbalance at the time, and that was part of my other guy. Whoever picked Toad had the advantage of the acceleration. Maybe that's why I liked it. I played Toad all the time. It's funny because I've been playing Toad since 64. But if you chose them, then someone else could. I never really quite noticed, actually, some of this imbalance stuff that you're talking about.

Probably because I always played Toad. So was that on your list, though, of your top five most controversial game in a scene? It was at the bottom of the list. I mean, I had to put it on there, but it was, to me, the least important controversy on my top five. But I mean, it's funny, it was a big one. I put out two things that would add more weight to understanding it. At the time, magazines were the Queen B's. They were in charge, and EGM had put out their scores, and it was 9, 9, 9, 9.9.

By the way, right, no online really available yet. And back then, you had to kind of, like, in this internal working with Nintendo who delivered the boxes under lock and key, like let you play before a month because of the magazine delivery. So they put out huge scores before IGN did it. Guess who was next in line? One Fran Mirabelle the third, and I was the first person to come out the door and review it, and it wasn't like what they put it at.

So just the contrast at the time, they called for my resignation and said, get out of here, Fran, you suck. And that was like I couldn't live it down and it made the Urban Dictionary. There's the first I ever heard of the Urban Dictionary. It's still in there, 7.9. And if you spell the words out,

it's getting 7.9 was a term. One of my friends in freaking, just outside Chicago in a suburb, he was in a class and somebody used the term, you get seven-nined. And he's like, did you just say what I thought you said? Like, it really, like, made it as like a fail, which is awesome, I think. Hell yeah, dude.

It's been all uphill from there. Give you one. Oh, my gosh. So when Tim told me that this was going to be the topic for this week, I was like, how dare you? I already get enough shit from everybody on the internet. You're going to make me talk about some of my controversial gaming opinions. So I have a list here of ones that I'm kind of like still workshopping, and I want to make a full disclosure that I have not properly researched my arguments

that my theories are thin and that I don't have enough evidence. Controversy, baby. Let's go. To support my opinions. Hell yeah. If I was doing a true oral defense of my thesis, I would come prepared with the right supporting materials. I did not do that today.

These are your opinions. The goal for this, by the way, and then to set the tone correctly, these are not like things... This is not trying to start shit with people. This is just our individual thoughts and opinions and for a fun argument. We already told them.

I think the sirens add color. It's real. Sorry, you were being very impassioned and pure there and we both interrupted you. It's all good. I'm afraid we're going to run out of time to talk about all five. Are we going to be able to talk about five? We shouldn't...

This is the kind of funny news guys. We can do it. Okay. Let's just fucking go. Okay, okay. Okay. So one of the ones I put up here because I knew that this would be controversial

was one of the most controversial topics of last year is about microtransactions. Oh, yeah. I think microtransactions are a-okay. To be clear, I don't think loot boxes are a-okay. Loop boxes, bad. Micro transactions, totally fine.

Expound. Curious. So, this is coming out of, like, Battlefront? So, no, this is coming really out of destiny, more than anything. And my original gripe about, about the way that Silver and Bright and Grams and things worked previously,

but I thought about this quite a bit over the last year because it came up continually in the news. And as somebody who loves playing mobile games, which might be one of my controversial opinions later on, I want to say that definitively, I think that there's nothing wrong with microtransactions, as long as you know what you're buying, it's clear what you're paying for,

how much you're paying for it and what it gets you in the game. Because I love the microtransactions in a game like Assassin's Creed Odyssey. I keep finding myself wanting to put more and more money into Helix credits to buy the skins for Phobos, my horrors, to buy the different crew themes. He did say horse, right? Horse, yes. Skins for my steed, my mount, my horse. Yes, the animal that I ride and gallop around in the world.

Okay. Don't take it any other. way that you'd want it to. You know what? Wow, quote it. All that is fantastic. I'm sorry. I mess that up.

Here's the thing. My point is I really enjoy the customization options that you can buy through micro transactions in that game. And I think of it's fine. I don't care that it's a $60 full price game. And then they add customizations on top of that because there's plenty of things that you can earn in game with in game currency and buy through the money you earn in the game. For example, I bought the, the,

white unicorn skin with money I earned playing the game. And I bought the black unicorn skin with money that I paid into the game in Helix credits. So I am definitely saying that I'm okay with them and you can have me. I'm totally with you where it's like I feel like they can be used for evil and they are often used for evil, but they can totally be used right and are often used right. Well, I think the reason why they're so controversial in today's day and age is that a lot of people are complaining that video game developers are continually pulling content out of games that used to be included in games and saying not only are we going to make you pay for the game and give you less, but we're going to make you pay and then make you pay and make you pay.

Are they withholding? I'm going to go a step further. I think it's fair to say that some video game developers and an increasing number of video game developers are trying to get funding for their games are having to go to investors that have heard about this stuff and say we are designing our game around microtransaction models. We are building a game that is designed to extract money from people. a little bit of the time. And what that does to the way you design your game, what that does to what the game is about, what that does to the art,

can be extraordinarily disruptive and corruptive. That said, conversely, it also allows things incredible games, great games, like Fortnite to happen, a game that is free for everyone and available on every platform under the sun and not exploitative of its audience whatsoever. So I think there's a lot of merit to what,

you're saying, but I do think that not only are things being taken out, I now think that vast AAA games are being designed primarily around how do we keep getting money out of people. And that has less over time to do with it being a good game and more over time to do with, say, exploiting somebody's tendencies toward gambling. That's the slippery slope because it can, by the way, I do agree. In some cases, it's fine. Like, it's just vanity. It's extra.

There's so much in the game. And in those cases, some people still hate it, but I'm on the side of where I'm like, it does not affect the game. It's fine. But the slippery slope is when you find out the game director spending time in these meetings. Couldn't they have spent time on that boss design that I didn't like? By the way, did you withhold this? And actually, I think famous, I was trying to remember the game.

Wasn't it like a Tekken or a Capcom? What was the one where it was on the disc, but they unlocked it after? Now, that was not microtransactions. Yeah, but that was part of this infamous controversies. In fact, I was thinking about it in this list. At one point, when it were all started, was when stuff came on disk. And you found out it was burned in the digital. disc, but you had to unlock it by buying stuff and separate.

We've evolved way past it. But I think it's a great pick, by the way, because everybody, if you just Google trends microtransactions versus some other stuff, that's probably like off the chart. Well, I think some of the talking points we always come back to around the conversation of micro transactions is the base price point of video games and how it hasn't raised in quite some time. And that these microtransactions post-launch are really supplementing the overall budget of these games because games are not $799,

games are not $89.99 or even $99,99, where they probably should be, given the way inflation has risen over the past two to three decades. And so they're really supplementing a lot of the ongoing development, particularly for games as live service, to make sure that they can keep funding that development team and they do so with microtransactions. That's so hard for people to understand, though.

And you're right, but I think that's where you got into it with Destiny. They said, no, we're doing this so we can build, blah, and it didn't really work out that. way. Well, you end up in a situation. It didn't work out because it was RNG, right? Like, I can't go up to, well, you could insert in certain things in regular Destiny and Destiny, too. If there's a specific emo that I want from the, from the Silver Shop, I can't buy silver with my real money in the PlayStation network, get silver, and then use that silver to buy the Emo. I have to buy an R&G package, hope that I get it. And then if I don't, I have to break down those items into Bright Dust and

then use the Bright Dust. It's just kind of... We end up in a situation sometimes with contemporary games. I know all the focus goes on what's taken out, but where we need to be asking ourselves, am I purchasing a game or am I purchasing a store? Because a lot of things that are disguised as games now

are as much stores as they are games. And I think that's important for us to think about. Do you have an example of what you mean by that? Yeah, but I can't say it. Let me see. It's the game he's designing right now. No, I'm sorry. I think a good place.

No, let's just skip that for right now, Andrew. Jed, what's your controversial statement? Starting at the bottom, let's go with one that's not going to make people too angry. But let's roll back to where Fran was. Halo made shooters worse. Scoff. That's such a broad statement. Yes, it is.

It's a very broad. Yeah, I'm holding my thoughts. Very quick one here. Halo is a fine quality shooter. As a matter of fact, it's a, Halo 1? Yeah, Halo 1. Oh, I didn't.

I want to make sure. Halo 1 is a shooter that elevated console shooters to a new level. It took the very janky but enjoyable golden eye and perfect dark formula and turned it into something much, much more complete and comprehensive. You okay? Everything okay? I got fucking hacked today and there's now my fucking PlayStation account. God damn it. Do you need to go off?

No, I'll deal with it later. We can get, yeah. No, I'm sorry. Didn't need to be that dramatic. No, that sucks. That's horrible. It's horrible. It's terrible.

It's terrible. Seriously, though, if you want to go take care of this ACP. I'm going to deal with it here. It's okay. All right. So, continue, Jared. Going back to that, obviously a super polished, well put together product. Unfortunately, it also ended up creating a new set of expectations for what shooters would be,

not in the level of polish, but in the designed for more category. Console shooters and Fran's a shootery guy and a PC guy are inherently a different kind of video game than pre-consul. T.C. Shooters. There's a time that shooters were designed to be remarkably fluid, and that word meant a very different thing that it does now 20 years later. Halo made a new kind of video game that is enjoyable, but it's also slow, linear, clutchy, largely built around cinematic in-game set pieces and dramatic Michael Bayish events that then pull the user into a further story. storytelling drama. This sounds awesome though.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm like arguing against himself. Yeah. But at the same time, the gameplay suffered tremendously. In what sense? From the design or from the console? Formed the design. Because wasn't the technology.

It wasn't the technology. No, I'm not talking about the technology. I'm talking about the fact that anything you have to control with a handheld controller. So it was a technology. It's slower. Yeah. Okay. That the online interface that was required by the first two Halo games required

a very, very, particularly Halo 2, I think I wanted to say. Halo 1 do we have on. Halo 2, that's what I meant to go. My apologies. With Halo 2 slowed things down. And then it created a set of expectations from the way that we control the game to the way that we interface with other players to things like melee that has made shooters. Fran Zitching.

Frankly. Oh, that's crazy. Frankly, more boring and more invested in beauty than actual quality of gameplay. Well, he is describing destiny. I mean, he's describing, yeah, one of my favorite shooters of all time. It made shooters far more conservative. And that's what it made shooters more like one another. Up to that point, shooters were startlingly innovative.

They were trying vastly different things. From Halo on, everybody wanted to make Halo. For good reason. I think you're completely out of your mind, Jared. Okay. I wholeheartedly agree. From a multiplayer perspective, no. That he's out of his mind.

I just want to be sure. I agree with you. He's out of his mind. mind. Halo, I feel, was the first time that a shooter felt right on a console where it was like, oh, this game is actually as good as PC players are having with shooters on their thing in a different way where it's like different platforms. Yeah, completely different platforms. Different games. It worked on consoles. Was factually the best shooter on a console at the time. It was absolutely the best shooter on a console at the time. And then nobody ever made anything else again. Because they

introduced matchmaking. You don't play a lot of shooters, do you, Jared? Actually, and this is the funny secret. I do. Oh, yeah? You don't think, you don't think since Halo, there's been zero innovation in shooters. Did you not play time splitters? Crisis? How about this? I think there's been less

innovation. Yeah. I think there's been less innovation in shooters. Before Halo. Than there has in any other major genre of video games, including sports. That's a whole can of worms that I have to really think about. Most of the innovations that have taken place in shooters have been marketplace innovations.

XP systems, ways to sell people things, ways to keep... But that's not Halo's fault. I mean, by definition, the base gameplay mechanic of shooting things is going to be inherently

more limited than an RPG where the mechanics involve like crafting and gear making and potion making and a bunch of other shit you have to do. But go ahead, Fran. Oh no, I'm sorry.

I interrupted. It was my bad. There's so many layers I know what you're trying to say. But you're in a way, you're like blaming the technology, but also a mindset. You're right. Some of these RPG elements came to mind. I'm not blaming the marketplace more than anything.

But that defines what is, that is every day. Fortnite is now defining, like you said, micro-transventions. Just because it happened doesn't mean I think it had to happen. But wait, I do have a simple question. What are you positing as the solution? I do not have a solution. But meaning what is the controversy? You're saying there shouldn't have been an awesome shooter on consoles?

No, my controversial opinion is that Halo made shooters worse. No, but reformed that. No, what? I think that's a thing that happened. You think fundamentally today, first person shooters are worse than the, than Halo. If we have lived in a world where Halo had not happened. Is that what you're saying? No, no, that's not what I'm saying either.

I'm saying if we lived in a world where Halo had not happened, we'd probably have better shooters today. See, they would be a less popular, less well-funded category of game, and they would be much better. He's allowed to. He's creating controversy. I was not prepared. I was not prepared. My thing is the argument that you're presenting. I feel are more appropriate towards Modern Warfare 4.

Well, I feel like Modern Warfare 4 much more set the tone for what multiplayer shooters look like today than Halo did. What did modern warfare four do that change when Halo 2 dead? The XP systems. Which again, it's about selling you. The progression system, yeah. No, no, no. That's about the player before. No.

about player engagement, my friend. That has nothing to do with making a better game and everything to do with making sure you play that game longer. Are you crazy? Here's a big secret about XP systems in video games that aren't RPGs. They are no longer, and have not for many years been designed to do anything, but make sure that you are playing the game longer and it gets reported back to the publisher, developer, where you made the game through the little internet system, wait, through the internet system that you signed up for to make sure that you're playing more so they can report that in their meeting so they can look for the next way to monetize it in the next game.

That is the only reason. Those elements exist in the last five years. You have to look at that. And that plans for that monetization have been being laid for last 15. It did not have monetization tied to progression, Jared. I think that you're unfairly judging a whole decade of shooters because of what's happened recently with microtransactions and online play. That's what they were building to, Andrea.

That's really a gigantic leap you're making that's completely unfounded. It's not that people plan that far ahead. They look and they said, how do we get more people playing our game longer? Why is playing a game longer a bad thing? Y'all. My first controversial opinion. Thank you, Tim. That's so much more that I later.

Guy Fierry gets way too much shit. What? Was that a game of here? My first controversial gaming opinion, I'm excited. I'm excited for three in one because I'm excited for Tim's list. Here's my Final Fantasy. Controversial opinions. Three and one.

Final Fantasy seven is absolutely. actually that good. I feel like back in the day, it was like, oh, it's so great. And then it's now the new cool thing to be like, eh, it's not that good, whatever. No, it actually is that good. Had to be there then.

The characters are fantastic. I feel like, now, cool. Okay, of course it doesn't stand up perfectly because no old game does in the way that we're grading them that way. Fawn Fantasy Seven's characters, the look, the music, the thing, the thing. Everything is going on. It's fantastic.

This is your controversial thing? Yeah. Just that it's good. Yeah, it actually is bad. I didn't even know that it was bad. Nobody told me. No, that's fairly controversial. I feel like in modern times, the least controversial thing would be like, Final Fantasy 9 is the best.

I tend to ignore stupid stuff. All right. So Fawn Fantasy 13, not that bad. Honestly, gets a lot of hate. It's very linear and that's true. The story, not good. Gameplay, fantastic. The battle system is good.

Fantastic. The paradigm system was amazing. And I just wish that it was a little bit wrapped in a better storyline. I really like that you hopped in on both of these. These are good hills for you to try to die on. 13th battle system, I agree. It's really unique. There's nothing quite like it.

It's very well done. The fact that you're just kind of choosing the approach you take to battle as opposed to the specific, that's a really neat twist on the active time battle system. Seven, that's much harder. I played it back in the day. My problem was I was an RPG fan already. That's a game that introduced a lot of people to RPGs. And if you'd been playing a lot of RPGs before seven,

I think it was much less compelling because most of the RPG stuff in seven isn't great. What was great was all for marketing just for the meetings. Yeah, the cinematics were amazing. No, no, the cinematics were beautiful. Oh, yeah.

For the time. Now you look at them, they're like freaking, they look like demanded dolls, but they looked incredible then. And none of us noticed the inconsistent art styles back then or any of that. I like that.

I feel like that adds to its charm so much. Yeah, you really like. The inconsistent art styles of just like whether it's battle or world map or little images. I feel like that adds to the creativity. I mean, like, I don't know. Going back on it, it's harder for me now.

But my problem with it was then and now that it's not a great RPG. It's a good RPG with a great cinematic take on it. That it's extremely important. It introduced a lot of people to the PlayStation. They introduced a lot of people to RPGs. But I think that compare it to six or five that came before it, compare it to Dragon Quest 5, compare it to Swiquidon, compare it to Ulton. compare it to Ultima,

compared to any of its contemporaries, and they're all much better RPGs. That's the problem with seven. And then finally... Huh? No. But yeah, then 13, it's not that bad. I'm not saying it's great.

I'm just saying like everybody acted like it was the fucking worst thing. No, and it's not the worst game. And it's not. And then my final fantasy... Whoa. My final fantasy controversial topic.

The Fallen Fantasy 10 laugh scene is unfairly taken out of context. Everybody posted like, And they use it as example of like bad voice acting. And they're just like, look at how fucking shitty this is. And it's like that was the point of that scene. That would be like taking a random bit out of this episode, just putting it up and being like, this is how these people act all the time. I mean, that wouldn't be wrong though.

There's no narrative going on here. But it's just like that scene was about Titus and Una getting to know each other, him trying to get her out of her comforts of him trying to make her laugh by acting like an idiot. So him walking to that dock and laughing out loud, ha ha ha, he was like trying to make her laugh. Like he was, it was a cute moment of character development between the two of them. And people just act like it was bad voice acting and they're crazy. It was way better than when that wizard came from the moon.

I mean, that's definitely true. Hey man, more destiny for you. No, I'm not going to. I'm pulling my list up. I think Tim thought I was in the same way. He referenced destiny. That was why. Give me your next one.

Should I go down the list still? I mean, or should he skip it. All right, I'm going to throw out a big, one then. Press the button, Fran. Yeah, I'm going to throw out a big one. I might as well just throw out the top. Top pick. Mortal Kombat was one of the, if not, the biggest game controversy. Now, again, you had to be there

in 1993. So you're not picking your personal. You know what? You're picking, like, general like... I didn't know. We didn't get rules. Here's what I think. I love games cast because there aren't rules. There's no rules. The thing, take the instructions is how you want. Yeah, wait. Oh, he... Jared's creating controversy. Yes, yeah, I'm like you.

I also picked controversy. No, that is contra. I'm picking industry controversy. I love where you're about to go with this. Go for it. Please, die for it. Sorry, I might have misunderstood the list, but we talked about there's no rules. I like Fran's idea way better.

These are the biggest upsets and controversies, which defined as your own. Anyway, Mortal Kombat was so huge because of the blood in the game, the violence. We had never seen it go public like that. It got into, I believe, of the Senate at the time. But there were people recording tapes of the scenes and showing, can you believe this is in games. That's why the ESRB exists. Exactly. Howard Lincoln had responded.

Could you think of the bigger... Howard Lincoln, as I think Retronauts pointed out, through the rest of the industry under the bus in those hearings. We've got them crumbling to the integrity of the game at Nintendo saying, well, we're going to put it in the green blood and take out some heads off the spikes. He went further. He was like, those guys over there and Sega want to murder your children, and we don't. I mean, that was...

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you think the whole blast processing and stuff was a big thing. They'll do Nintendo. Literally was this war of like, who's cool, who's not. Nintendo was not at the time because of that. I was very devout Super Nintendo fan. I didn't have a Genesis.

But I went over to my friends and put in the Ab-Cab Code, which is what it was, AB-B-C-A-B. I think. A-B-A-B-B. Dang. But it was A-C-C-A-B. I should have asked Jared first. But anyway, it was huge,

and it did lead to a 1994 formation of the ESRB. But what's crazy is there were so, many other games out there that are like, come on Wolfenstein was already well out and so many things happening on PC, but Nintendo's prominence and it became in the media, but it, I mean, it made it into government at the time as a discussion. Mortal Kombat, Night Trap. They brought the justifier in, the light gun, uh, into the Senate and showed it off. You can watch that entire thing on C-SPAN. It's still on C-SPAN's website. Oh, nice. Yeah. It's funny to see that the discussion, of course, still exists today.

Should kids be playing video games and the violence and whatever? How you. you perceive stuff, you know, is fortnight violent or not because it's a cartoon, but you're shooting people with real guns. But that was such a huge moment in the industry. I love that. That's great. Like I said, there are new rules. We do whatever we want.

But I did text you, Fred, and say gaming, controversial gaming opinions, not controversial gaming moments. Yeah, okay, I define it. It's fine. I enjoy it. I like it. I had 7-9 in the list. That's what makes this fun.

Yeah, you did it right. Okay. Andrea. Um, all right. This one, I'm, I'm going to going to take a leave of faith on. Let's go. I love this. If finally achieved, I think cross-platform play will be incredibly underwhelming.

Expound. That's great. So the reason I think this is because we have been so siloed in our ecosystems on console for decades now that by the time cross-platform play finally makes it, like true cross-platform between all of the platforms, I don't think people are going to use. use it as much as they think they do. And I think very few developers are actually going to implement it into their gameplay systems. Because balancing multiplayer is already a tough gig. And the idea of trying to balance multiplayer across multiple platforms with multiple inputs that with controller systems that don't work exactly the same way and trying to make it equally

even and fair is a ridiculously high ask. And I think the games that are going to try it, the one game that is doing it right now, Fortnite, there is not a single person. that I know that's playing Fortnite actively that cross plays on the regular. Now, I know that my experience is probably different from yours, but this is my opinion, and I just think by the time they actually implement this, it's not

going to be this big eureka moment that gamers have been calling for for a long time. I think it's going to come and it's going to be celebrated and everyone's going to be like, yeah, finally we can play with our friends on other platforms. And then it's just going to like slowly fade into the background and not very many people are actually going to use it. I think there's a lot of truth

to what you're saying. I do think that people that are less interested in competitive gaming are more likely to engage in it. I think people with less money are more likely to engage in it because they'll be playing on older or lower cost hardware and just be happy to be part of the game. But I think that what you're saying is largely true for a different reason. I think that what's going to happen is it's going to just kind of slide in. It's not going to happen in one fell swoop. And by the time it happens, we're already going to be invested in some kind of online ecosystem where we're all friends through something different that we are now anyway. And so it won't

seem like as big a deal. The matchmaking, the way that we communicate with people in the online space, I think it's going to change tremendously. You think there's going to be one network to rule them all? I think there will be, no, I think there will be two or three major ways that we communicate with one another online that are different than the ones we use now. And I think that's all we'll use. I don't know where, what reality you're basing that thought in. I'm basing that on watching Microsoft go out and say we're building an infrastructure for a streaming future. You're talking about the Azure Cloud Farm. Well, the XCloud online.

It's called XCloud. Yeah. I mean, we think of that. We tend to think of things in terms of consoles. We think of terms of the hardware, right. But Microsoft's not thinking in terms of that. They're thinking in terms of how to engage every aspect of our social gaming and artificial intelligence-oriented cybernetic life.

And that includes our messaging. I know when I talk about cybernetics, I can maybe go down a fantasy path where Google is that platform because they already have their fingers in damn near everything and almost everybody we know has a Google account of some kind, right? Whether it be Gmail or YouTube or what have you. But I don't think that there's ever going to be that because there's too many stakeholders right now that are making too much money off of their individual networks to want to make some kind of a parlay with the other side to take a smaller. I agree. I just think it'll happen, but I think it's going to happen five to ten years from now. And that's about the time I think that crossplay is actually going to happen. Yeah. I think it'll take an event like that to really force it.

Yeah, it's interesting because it's such a huge discussion. I agree with you that the discussion is much bigger than the actual maybe need. But I do think it's an absolute necessity. And it affects, for me, cross save more than anything. Cross progression. Cross save it. Yeah, it's so annoying. If I want to move to a different platform or play with someone else.

less about I want to play on the same server with Xbox and PlayStation and Switch. But, I mean, certain games, huge. I mean, think of how big certain games get. You got to think of those small games is suddenly you take a small game that may not have enough people matchmaking. And now you get the power of Switch and, well, Google and XCloud all coming together maybe. I think it's important. But, yeah, it's not like it's prevalent that everything needs it, right? Jared.

I have a segue one here from that discussion, actually. Thanks for setting this one up. By the way, I'd like you to know Tim that while I'm having a ball, I'm so horribly uncomfortable with this Controversy and hot takes are not really my thing So the guy with the highest take you're bringing the contents and I love it Let's go But I'm just like I just want everyone to get along I think my only hot takes are the Banjo Czui sucks and and DK Country blows Okay, see you know that's Benjo I don't want to fight about I don't really care

Donkey Kong country Two specifically Tropical Free specifically Tropical freeze pretty good. They took the mind card level. You said they suck? Both of those? Oh yeah, I have strong feelings about this. No, but two completely different game styles.

By the way, these are not my controversial opinions that I'm bringing up to the show. But this one I think is controversial, but I really have come to believe it. The game of the decade, I was listening to Game Scoop the other day, and they were talking about the game of the decade. And that got me thinking about this. And I was, what's the game of the decade? The game of the decade, my friends, has already been made. I don't particularly enjoy playing it. And it's called Fortnite.

Yeah. I thought we talked about it. That is a very controversial opinion. I agree with you. Yeah. But I understand the controversy. We talked about those reasons very quickly. It's free.

It's cross-platform. It's friendly to children, adults, families. It's team-oriented. It's constantly changing. It's a phenomenon. A wonderfully monetized. It's a phenomenon. But it's mostly about bringing people together to play in ways that have literally never been possible before.

Yeah, I mean, it's impacting pop culture. So I think it depends on, it's funny, every time we made these lists, and when I make these lists, that's why I want this set of very specific rules, because depending on how you look at it, are you judging the impact of the game on other games, or does that not matter? And so you could get into the details.

I think it's in all of the above on this one. Well, yeah, but I think it's an easy thing to say that, yeah, Fortnite is the biggest game of the, or what are we saying? Can you make a shooter now that doesn't take Fortnite into account of it? If you're, right now, if you're working on Destiny 3, are you not terrified that somebody else is going to come out?

You look at Division 2, you look at Destiny 3, that somebody's just going to create exactly the same revenue model Fortnite did and pull it off. They will own that space if they do. Yeah, that's so hard. Yeah, but that's so hard. It was lightning in a bottle to a certain extent because Fordy had existed before, you know,

the Battle Royale mode was released. And it was because of the groundwork that PubG laid, that they were able to be as successful as they were with Battle Royale. The credit that Epic absolutely deserves is how quickly they pivoted from their people. BVE mode in Fortnite to a PVP structure. Now, I want to make it clear that I know that Epic had always had PVP modes in the can

because they've been working on Fortnite for like seven years before it finally launched. It just vanished off the map for years there during development. Exactly, because they were iterating and iterating and iterating trying to figure out what is the most, you know, the game mode that makes the most amount of sense for the infrastructure that we've built. And I'm still a diehard, you know, Save the World fan. I don't really play much Battle Royale. But I think that, you know, Fortnite was built on the back of a lot of other games

that did a lot of other innovative things. Now, obviously, PubG was not the first Battle Rail game. We all know that. Right? Like, there's plenty of others in the space. But what PubG did to ignite an audience was really what paved the way for Fortnite to become the massive success that it is today.

I agree. And I don't necessarily agree that it's the... I mean, I guess we would have to agree to terms of what the game of the generation has to, like what criteria. It has to tick off in those boxes. Because I think Fortnite is going to burst its bubble quicker than people realize. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that hits down the head.

I just want to say that Fortnite absolutely dipped its cookies in PubG's milk. Just want to get that out there. But amazing that they did it in such a short amount of time. I love it. I got that song. The Jackie Hollywood? Jackie Hollywood, baby. Where are we at?

Anyone? I think it was me. You should go. The Wii U had a better first party lineup than the Xbox One has. I love you so much and you're so right. It's a fact. If you're not counting accountability, I agree. Hold it out.

No, I'm not. You didn't name some of the games you're talking about it. Mario 3D World. You Sue Mario Bros. You. Super Smash Brothers 4. Mario Maker. Mario Kart 8. Mario Maker.

It's a lot of Mario games, but they're all different games. Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild. Yeah. I mean, okay. We're just, I don't even need it.

We could not count it. No, no, no. So, Breath of the Wild was on a video. So lifespan are we, you including all that. Versus where Xbox, you're talking about first party.

Some big Xbox one exclusive. Halo, Master Chief Collection, quantum break, Ori in the Blind Forest, sunset overdrive. Justin. Verizon. Forza Horizon for Hala Five Guardians.

Gears of War for Cuphead Sports and Motech Seathees You don't watch See a lot of watch See thieves Yeah

No I think of those two If I'm gonna put them on a scale Wii wins I think it's so subjective As the type of gameplay you like Yeah If you like platformers The Nintendo's gonna win every time

Because that's what they do best That's good hot tape You know and I think Xbox really kind of scratches the edge of gamers who like a more action-based experience A lot of what Nintendo does Is more puzzle exploration based

17.9 experiences. You know what I mean? But even those, you're talking about Halo 5, Gears 4. Is anybody to argue that those were particularly standout installments? And that's my argument. No, I would argue that they weren't, actually. They were two, you know, really unremarkable installments and two otherwise really fantastic franchises.

Yeah, and that's part of where I feel like maybe people weren't getting fed as well as they'd like to on those. Forces hard to argue with, obviously, especially Horizon. Those games are incredible, and we had nothing comparable to those. I don't think you should undervalue. Cuphead, I mean, I think is a good standout. It's amazing, amazing, tremendous. It's every bit as good as anything.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah. It's a hard one. Come at me. No, I like that one. Fran. Well, I now realize my list is all fudged up because of I misunderstood. You want to throw it out?

Throw it out here, Fran. Let's throw out more. We can have less discussion around them unless it's necessary. But it's funny, because now I was trying to realize, like, I landed on something because I listed yeah industry controversy stuff so yeah like what I'll just start saying I'll go again yeah let me think the dual shock four think of an opinion while he's bad I got a million I'm here the dual shock four despite its obvious battery problems is the best controller we've ever had how dare you get out out out of here because this is yeah it's

so it's just saying stupid stuff that's why I wasn't prepared the dual shock four is he super controller and one of my very favorites but the wave it's not the way bird, so go away. Jake. Right. Look at that. There's a really. The wave bird.

Consensis. Oh, the wave bird is the best. No rumble, baby. I want you to think about this for just a second, Mr. Royal Rumble here. Okay. Think about how many game controllers there have been in the history of this medium. How many dozens and well over a hundred controllers in the history of this medium. And two out of four at this table just identified the same one.

No, I understand that. The game controller is amazing. It feels so good. But when we're talking about modern games, We're talking about the control, like how games are played nowadays. I think that the dual shock four, at least for the games that I play, it works best for. What do you play smash with? I love having the deep, I'm the pro controller now.

I love having the, but I play it with a fucking dual shock four. I love the D pad on the. The touchpad is a really fantastic addition because dual shock three was crap. I still think Xbox 360 controller is the best controller ever made. My biggest thing is I've never liked either or any of the Xbox controllers because I don't like the way that the buttons feel. bubbly. I like the flatness of the dual shock face buttons. I think a lot of it comes down

to stick placement too, right? If you like the side by side, if you like the offset sticks. It's the beauty of elite controllers, right? You can and there's a lot of good stuff here and I think we're all making good arguments, but let's not forget the recency bias that's going on here as well. The kinds of games we play now require these kinds of controllers so we think they're better. But there's an argument somebody could easily make this Japanese Saturn controller is the all-time

best controller. It is the best controller. No, only you can make that. To me, the dual shock four, I want the dual shock four for any old game. I love it for, I would love to go back and play, like I wish I could use the dual shock four on the Nintendo Switch to play the NES online games. Oh wait, I can with the power of eight bit those little Bluetooth connector and it's awesome. I love that. It's fantastic. I love that.

Great controller. Battery, horrible. Why can that thing not stay charged for more than 20 minutes? It needs that touch bad. So important. Man, I love that. I honestly think the light bar has a lot to do with it. It does.

Because you're constantly emitting and so it's like, it's just another drain on the battery. On one hand, I'm like, we don't fucking need the light bar, get rid of it. And then I'm like, my controller literally glows blue. So keep it. Also, Astrobot. And the games that utilize the functions of the dual shock are really interesting. When you get audio coming out of the speaker on the dual shock is really cool. Yeah.

Tear away. I definitely think it's one of the most innovative controllers. best controller, disagree. What's your favorite controller? I said the Xbox 360 controller is my favorite. The all-time favorite is 360. Yeah. Even with the bad D-pad?

I mean, bad is relative. No, it's not on the 360. I guess I'm not much of a D-Pad user. Xbox-1 D-Pack user. I love everything about that controller, but that D-Pad can go straight to hell. It's, ooh. But this is true. I mean, we could talk about the rock band Fender guitar being the best controller of all time.

Oh. Wow. See, I always preferred the guitar. Power gloves over the rock band controls controllers because I didn't like when they turned it into more of like a flippy thing You know what I'm talking about? Yes, I do I didn't like the click of the strumbar on the guitar hero guitar Guitar Hero three's wireless guitar was my favorite of any of the proofs because I feel like it it was the most precise for going for high scores and stuff Whereas I feel like the rock band that's when it turned a bit more casual on the guitar side at least

Yeah if the SNS controller's triggers were just a little farther back could be way up there. A bit, though. Eight bit, though. Indeed. They changed the game, man. The SN30 Pro controller, is that? Yeah, right.

That's fantastic. That's fantastic. It's perfect. Give me one, Jed. Yeah, okay. I think my next one here is going to be, I'm going to step out a little from the other. So, let's go ahead and say it.

Games are not expensive enough and not for the reasons you think. Games don't cost enough and not for the reasons you think. That's an opinion I hold. We talked a lot. about games have been locked at $60, $50, $60 range for ages and ages and ages. And there's a lot to be said about the rise of DLC and how that's supplementing company income, et al, et cetera. And I've come down before on the fact that I think games ought to be more expensive on

that end. But that's not what I'm arguing for here. What I'm arguing is the other side of the market, that the low end of the games market is far too low, that we set our expectations for what smaller development studios or independent developers have to charge for a game for it to get made. And in particular, so they don't have to mortgage their house and then lose their entire lives in that process. So while I don't necessarily advocate now for games going over $60, I absolutely believe that we should be looking a lot of small studio games and going,

we should be paying $20 to $30 more for these than we are already. $10 to that studio? They need that money far more to get that project done. They're taking a much greater financial risk than the mega corporation that's, funding the AAA game who can write the whole thing off at the end. Therefore, this person ought to be charging $30 or $40 for their little 2D platformer, not $5 or $10. And in the mobile space, it gets even worse.

So I see you nodding over there, Andrew. Yeah, well, it's such a, it's a very conflicting opinion. I agree with you as somebody who knows a lot of people who work on the development side of video games. I'm often the corporate apologist on kind of funny because I side with developers, the people who actually make these games and who risk their lives to make games. And so I see that value and I absolutely agree that in no way are we should we be paying $2.99 for a video game.

Like why is a video game cheaper than a latte at Starbucks? Yeah. Right? You know, like the idea that we're in this crazy inflated price in the year 2019 and that you can get a two to three hour gaming experience with custom art and music and programming for cheaper than you would buy, you know, a hamburger at a fast food restaurant. Yeah. No, that is, the dissonance there is real.

On the other hand, I also understand that we are also at a really tumultuous economic time in the history of not only the United States, but a lot of other countries around the world, where the dollar is stretching far more than it ever has had to in the last 30 years, right? We're at a really tough time where people are having to make really tough choices. And so the idea that an already expensive hobby should get more expensive. is a tough pill to swallow. And it's hard because I just sat here not that long ago, you know, champion for microtransactions. And it's, that's why I say that it's such a conflicting statement that you made because I agree

that games should be more. We should be willing to pay more for pieces of art or the amazing, like, interactive storytelling medium that video games are. But at the same time, it's like, I only have so many dollars in my pocket. I'm with you there. We're charged. This is such a hard thing to talk about, to look at people and go spend more money, because you're right. We are stretched right now.

And people keep talking about how, well, inflation has affected things. But the fact is we don't have a lot of purchasing power as individuals right now. We just don't compared to our history. We have less disposable income proportional to our income than generations before us have had in many cases. That is true. Even though dollars are individually worth a different amount, we still have that formula playing out. But that said, right now we have a system. where people risk their lives to make games for us,

literally risk their financial futures, risk bankruptcy to make us a game. We celebrate stories like Cuphead, or we look at people like Toby Fox going out there, or look at something like Star New Valley, and they're like, yeah, all they had to do was risk everything for five to seven years to make this happen. Sure, and it worked for them,

but what about the thousand men and women it didn't work for that year, who were in bankruptcy court and living in their parents' basements now. And that's the part. There's a, we need to be looking, I feel, at the Hollywood model and even to a degree, the more dysfunctional Hollywood independent film model, which has its own issues. And at least looking for ways that people are pricing their products, what it actually costs to make the thing.

You're referring to like a standardized ticket price. I think so. Like if I go into a movie theater, all of those movies, if I'm going at the same time a day, cost the same. Like I'm buying a ticket for a matinee, let's say, like every movie in there. Regardless if it's good or not, it's going to cost us. Or indie or huge. Right now we're used to an iPhone game being free and a steam game being 10 bucks.

And I'm saying we probably had to get ready for a world where an iPhone game is 10 bucks and a steam game is 30 bucks. And that that's probably what it would take to make this a sustainable business for those people that doesn't largely exploit their hopes and dreams. I think about this a lot. In 1989, Jordan Mechner was working for. Oh, yeah. Solid year. Jordan Brett Nettner is working for Broderbund, and he's designing Prince of Persia, the original.

He designed that game almost entirely on his own, built on an Apple II. Game comes out. He's got a marketing department at Broderbund. He's got, you know, their publicity people. And then the game is ported over to other platforms by their staff members. But largely, he builds that game on his own.

I was looking at a 1991 catalog. Two years after its Apple II release, the DOS port of Prince of Persia is selling at Radio Shack for 39, In 1999, in 1991. That's a game that one guy developed and one or two other guys probably poured it with a little marketing support.

And that's what they were charging. Then we look at a $30 game on Steam and say, no way. One of the reasons I like Monster Boy is they have the balls to ask for $40. And because it was worth it. We are running out of time for this show. Yeah, I was going to say,

it's never going to happen, unfortunately, because it's like you're just peddling goods and like, I mean, how would, you could never standardize it. You keep looking for solutions. But I agree with you. I know. Yeah, I'm not.

I'm just posing, obviously. They're like, well, that's kind of important. But, like, some people do go out and sell it for 30 bucks and it fails. And then later they sell it for less. And then people do buy it. Do you remember people's complaints when the witness was 60 bucks? Yes, I do. People don't complain about anything.

I differ in an opinion from you from this where it's like, I really feel like it's like not everyone is owed the right to make games and to make art even. So it's like. I agree. come up with a system that you're going to be able to fund your thing. Exactly. There is no magic system for that, Tim. It doesn't exist. But I will say it's in development in a sense of subscription model is coming.

Streaming is coming. And when you have something like Netflix, there's a reason why somebody can make an indie for $500,000 and somebody makes it for $20 million. And all you pay is $5 a month. And then they're in charge. These things are super key with X-Must game best happening. But that's okay.

But the thing that's great about the subscription services. And I don't think a lot of people know this. On YouTube, for example, you make no fucking money on YouTube ads. Like, the demonetization, all this, it's like, it's dire, it's bad, whatever. And like, everyone's always talking about it because it's a real fucking thing. YouTube Red or now YouTube Premium, there is so much more money there. For people, for you guys that pay for YouTube premium and watch our content, we make five to ten times as much money from those views. Because your money's going to YouTube and we get a percentage of it.

than these YouTube ads. And like that, I feel like we're moving towards a future where that's true for things as well. I joke about there being no solution, but that's why I'm excited. Maybe more than anything else, the streaming future has the opportunity

to bring more games to more people for less money and more money in the pockets of developers, less money to consumers more than anything. Yeah, it's the world where you just subscribe to PlayStation or you subscribe to Nintendo. Rising Tide lifts all boats. Hell yeah, baby. All right.

Before we end of this show, I just want to say three really quick things. Warrior Within is as good as Sands of Time. Crash Team Racing is better than any other cart racer besides maybe Mario Card 8. And Twilight Princess is better than Win Waker. Oh, right, man. We will see, oh yeah? Oh, right.

Let's go, baby. It's time for the post show. We're going to do a real quick one here because we've got a lot going on here. Kind of funny. I love you very much. Thank you all for supporting us. Andrea, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for having me.

Where should people stay tuned to to see that Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2, spoiler cast? Well, you can get it on podcast services. What's Good Game. You can get it at YouTube.com slash what's good games. If you want to support what we do, Patreon.com slash what's good games. Yeah, it's going to be publishing this Friday morning. Until next time, have a controversial day. Oh, man.