Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - The Worst Mario Game Ever - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

It's a WHATCHA BEEN PLAYING episode! Let's talk about Super Mario Sunshine, Little Kitty Big City, Homeworld 3, and more! Time Stamps - - Start - Housekeeping - Is Mario Sunshine the WORST Mario? - Joey’s Little Kitty Big City Review - Mike’s Dark Souls Journey - Andy Finally Plays Elden Ring the True Way - Mike’s Homeworld 3 Review - Joey’s Botany Manor Review - Mike’s Quick Hits Thank you for the support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Monday, May 13th, 2024. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the Hispanic hardthrobed Texas tree, Latino heat, clicking heads and ripping and mischreads, the globe trotting, headshot, and rootin, two, and three-point shooting. Nitro rifle from Twitch TV, Andy Cortez. You're perfect. Crushed it. You're wearing this Andy sweatshirt, too. I like this one a lot.

Thank you. I wear it mine a lot, you know. I didn't wear it today. It's one of the softest sweatshirts I own. It's good. Good. It is good. Touches, Joe. This is nice. It feels nice.

I've worn mine. Great. I've worn mine. This is the master of hype. No Mike Mike. What up? Shout to all the moms out there. Now you're wearing a very cool sweatshirt as well.

This is an Mega 64 shirt. Yep. Never heard of them, but I saw them at Paxies and I bought their sweatshirt. You never heard of it. No, they've been on the show. We've worked with him. We've done things with them before. I've never met them.

But hey, if you ever want to introduce yourself, to me, I'd love to meet you. You got cool merch. What up? They do game stuff? Yeah. They're iconic. What do you mean? They're an institution of the internet. No. They work with Kijima. They've done like Kajima things.

So like Scott Van Pelt level? No, they're not like commentators. They're like doing skits and stuff. I'll check you out. I think Mega 664 is a Scott Van Pelt of gaming. Okay. That's what I need to know. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know who Scott Van Pelt is. SvP? Come on. PSPN. PTI level?

They're not... Like, that's iconic. You know what I mean? They're iconic. Yeah, they're iconic like that for sure. Then I'll check it out. I'll check them out. Also, Scott may have held I think a Mizzou grad.

Correct me of one. Correct me if I'm wrong. Because there's one of the, one of the ESPN guys is a big deal. Mizzu guy. Christmas and May, Joey Nuel. Yeah, that's totally in my wheelhouse of knowing. Go to Mizzu. He went to Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

What moron am I thinking of that? Somebody. ESPN. Maryland. He's a big brand Maryland guy, I remember. Back in the Duke

in Maryland right. John Anderson. Ah, John Anderson. I love that guy. I think long been, I think he's been, he got laid off a while back.

Sure. When ESPN had a big layoffs. Well, sure, you still think about him, though, you know. John Anderson. Oh, that's a singer.

Hold on, John Anderson. John Anderson did wipeout. He was in Whiteout as well. You did do wipe out. I think he's actually still there. Okay. He survived the layoffs.

Good for him. Good for him. It wouldn't be the same without you John. him and his family are thriving. Remember, ladies gentlemen, this is the kind of funny games cast. We already did it. Oh, great. Each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the biggest reviews,

previews and topics and video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the kind of funny membership. Just $10, of course, keeps the mics and lights on here in lovely San Francisco. But in return, you get good karma and, of course, each and every one of our shows, add free. they're doing the Zuma and you for some reason. It's cracking me up. Don't you love me?

It's close to me. It's great. Andy was so mad that Mike took a spot. Andy Cortez, this is your life. Bring out his brother. But if you gave us a membership of $10, maybe we could afford to fly Andy's brother here and surprise them. Of course, you get each and every episode of all of our shows.

Add free. You'd get the ability to watch us record the afternoon podcast, like the kind of funny podcast this afternoon, live as we record them. And you'd get the day. Daily, multimedia experience known as Greg Way. For a chance to be part of this episode of the Gamescast live as you record it, make sure you are using the YouTube Super chats.

Some housekeeping for you. Today you've already gotten Square Annex bailing on console exclusives over on Kind of Funny Games Daily. It's up on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services. Up next is Nick Locke Pokemon. It continues. Are you guys ever going to finish this? We're going to try. Look, great momentum was made.

Great progress was made. And a couple of untimely deaths Really set us back I don't do it for sure It was a fan that I went to lunch I feel like on Friday Just Life happened

Yeah I mean it took us over an hour And 15 minutes to decide Who would replace our fallen soldiers And so you know That's the kind of speed we're working at Fair enough They continue

And it'll go on forever YouTube Twitch Get it when you can Like I said If you're kind of funny membership There's a new Greg way On your it's way to you It's me talking about

My favorite places in San Francisco and Japan based on two people looking for travel recommendations. So there you go. You've been to Japan? Twice. How does that? Man, that's two for two.

Somebody's asked you that. Right? Even blessed us. This is as bad as what my wife said I was handsome. And you said you? And of course, you get the kind of funny podcast this afternoon where we're tackling which celebrity we pledge allegiance to. Of course, it'll be up tomorrow YouTube and podcast services.

Thanks for making our dreams of reality. Patreon producers, Delaney Twining, Kieran Hovesapien. and Carl Jacobs. Today, we're brought to you by the kind of funny membership, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start with topic of the show. Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots. It's time for what you've been playing, ladies and gentlemen.

As you know, the games cast can be anything. It can be us freaking out about Xbox, reviewing the biggest game, reviewing an old game as we did with Hellblade 1 last week, but it can also just be us shooting the shit and talking about what we've been playing. So I have amassed a list of games here from all of us that we have been actively in.

And I'm going to go back and forth between old and new. Andy, hey, I want to start with you. You hate Super Mario Sunshine and I couldn't be prouder than you. Look at you out there. You're doing it,

getting these Nintendo kids riled up and declaring it the worst Mario of all time. Yeah, I like playing up a character on stream, you know. You fake the outrage, you know, you rage bait, you get the clicks. You get clicks, you get people in there. But this is the most, like, sincere, I feel.

about it. Wow. Okay. For real. This is the most sincere I feel. I've echoed this statement so many times. I keep on saying it. So you're playing this. This is the Switch version.

You're playing this. This is the Switch 3D collection. And I've said so many times in the stream that this really feels like all of the core Nintendo minds went on vacation for two months and said somebody else make a game. Nice. It is it the worst video game ever? Of course. There are some fun challenging levels, but it just feels, it really doesn't feel like the minds that we know that have made Odyssey and Galaxy and 64.

It doesn't feel like those same people worked on this game. There's so much, there are so many annoying things in this video game that really just feel like they, like I don't understand how so many things went through testing. and people play that and said that's a good idea we should keep that in the video game when it comes to just What are some of those? What are some of those examples?

Like having to feed the Yoshi the only fruit that he wants You see a little egg Wiggling and the Yoshi wants It wants a pineapple, Greg. You're like shit, I gotta get this fucker a pineapple. He's a picky eater. It's the only way that I could get this Yoshi currently.

So you gotta go out, you venture, you look for it, you find the pineapple. Maybe on the way back, you fall into the water, pineapple disintegrates. Pineapples don't like water, right? I hate it. And then you're like, shit,

I go get another pineapple. Get another pineapple. You come back. Or maybe you killed Yoshi on the way after you gave him the pineapple. So you go out to seek you for another pineapple. You come back, this fucking Yoshi wants a papaya.

I thought you, why aren't you a pineapple, Yoshi? Why are you now changing what you want? Yeah. There's just a lot of like really, really dumb things in this video game. This section in particular for video watchers, Um, I, the most recent episode, I'm not sure this, this is the one. Yeah. Uh, that Yoshi down there wants a fruit, but it's not a fruit you can pick up. It's the only one fruit that you can't pick up because it's spiky. It hurts your body. Oh, sure.

Mario, yeah, it hurts his chest when you hold the spiky fruit. Um, he's having heart palpitations or a heart attack. Mario, can you feel your left arm? It hurts his chest. And the only way to get the fruit is, of course, you go to the fruit dispensers. But how do you get the fruits? You got a ground pound, you got a butt pound on each one of the fruit dispensers. But you can't just keep doing the same one. You got to switch out.

And it randomly gives you a random fruit. So, like, hopefully you get the right one. But sometimes you just keep flying back and forth and getting different fruits. Oh no, and they fucking just kick in the worst way. And I forgot that you had to pick those up, granted,

because I haven't had to pick up one of those spiky fruits. So when I hurt Mario's chest, I haven't had to pick one of those up in like, you know, 20 hours of gameplay or whatever. So then chat was reminding me, Andy, you can't pick those up.

You have to kick those to them. Great, fantastic. And if you keep on watching here, Barrett, and keep the video going, you have to keep on ground pounding and alternating. But again, it's random.

they're going to give you a random fruit every time. Can't just keep grandpounding the same one. You've got to go butt pound the other pipe, which is a mechanic that's never ever been in the game before. So it's just going to give you random fruits. Your fucking face. It's never going to give you the right one. But sometimes with the physics in the game,

if you butt pound and the ball falls out at the wrong way, it landed there correctly. But sometimes it'll just roll off anyway. And then you're fucked. You can't pick up the fruit, right? But you've got to kick it to him. There's just a lot of, like really, really awful design choices

in this game. And then when you give the Yoshi the right fruit and that's the me not realizing that you have to pick it up. But it also just launches like, I think there are some issues with the you know, I keep giving this game a lot of leeway. I give this game a lot of slag.

You want to. It's Mario. You all like it. Because everybody keeps on saying like, Andy, you're not playing the GameCube version though. You need to play with the GameCube controller. because the switch controller has digital inputs and the GameCube controller was analog. The switch, and it's true,

the pro controller on the switch, it's a click. It's on or off. The GameCube one, you had levels to it, which kind of helps out with a little waters, with your little water supporting thing or whatever. Sure, okay. And also, like, maybe the ROM, I know that this is just, like,

kind of a ROM on this, like, 3D collection. It's not, there wasn't a whole lot of level put into it, which I kind of hate even more because Nintendo, you're a quadrillion dollar company. Yeah. Put some fucking work into this wrong. Why is it still running at 30 frames per second? Like that seems absolutely insane to me that you wouldn't, you updated the resolution,

I think. You made it widescreen, right? To make it feel 69. Come on. Like, let's update the frame rate. Let's upgrade something here. I think this is the funniest coming up here, I think is the funniest part. because I'm still struggling trying to get the right fruit.

And by this point, I know... Could you not kill your Yoshi to get like a watermelon Yoshi or something? Easier? No, no, because this Yoshi only wants this thing. And by the way, when you feed him the thing, when you feed him the spiky fruit there hurts Mario's chest, you spit out as Yoshi. You spit...

I'm trying to get to a certain place in the fucking game across the water. And I need to get there as Yoshi. I can only get there as Yoshi. because Yoshi spits out acidic liquids out of his mouth. Stomach bile. And the stomach bile can burns a certain part of the game that I have to like get to, right? Sure. And I'm like, how do I get over there?

And they're like, spit on the fish. So the fish jumping from the ground. When you spit on them, the fish turn into a platform. Okay. And then the platform starts moving, right? Yeah. And so I'm like, oh, that's how you do it. But only purple Yoshi makes the platforms move horizontally.

Okay. If an orange yoshi spits on the fish that turns into a platform, the platform just stays static. And the pink yoshi, when you spit on the fish, it turns into a vertical moving platform. All of this is like obviously stuff that you should know if you're like so these are the platforms that are moving correctly. There's just like a lot of like just absolutely brain dead fucking design choices in this video game. It's not fun. No, this sounds fun. I've heard so many people, I've had so many people to be like, this is actually my favorite.

Mario game. And I, you need help. You need to, you need to see. I was Ernie Cooper in the chest is chat. You can't be telling me this looks good. LMAO. It's, it's, it's a fucking joke. It's an awful and it's just a bad experience. Um, I think if you, yeah, if you just maybe fast forward like a minute. Really quick. I want to pull up a decree that nobody's allowed to make fun of me anymore from chat about liking DK64 if you like this game. It's, it's, we look the same. I, I defend DK. 64 and you all defend this game. I want to give this game as much leeway as possible,

because there are moments where they take away the flood device. Yeah. The pool of water backpack if you're not going to be. Yeah, they take away your level. And that's like, those are the really, really challenging kind of levels where you're having to do like crazy platforming. And those levels are frustrating because they're tough,

but they're not like super unfair. I don't think, I think because maybe this game is a ROM, there are a lot of broken physics elements. Maybe like when they transported it to, become a switch game. Some things got lost of translation. Maybe some numbers got fudged here and there. And I've experienced a lot

of moments where I'm like, why am I, why is my character not jumping correctly here? Why is it not colliding correctly with this geometry or whatever? And that'll happen every now and then. But those levels are like still kind of fun and I kind of enjoy those. But for the most part,

just kind of like getting around the, what I fucking hate about the jump man is that this jump man Mario cannot turn in 3D space. If I jump forward, you can only go one direction. I can only strafe.

I can only face the same direction, Greg. I can't jump and turn Mario in midair, which is like kind of absolutely wild to me. And here I am still trying to get more fruit. I think this is the one where the right fruit comes out, but it bounces and rolls the wrong way and rolls off. And it's just like the angriest I've possibly ever been. This was always my problem with.

fit. So Mario Sunshine, I played maybe passingly in college on my friend Kyle's GameCube because Kyle was the only human being I knew who went and bought the GameCube at launch and then I were able to go over there. And I was so excited as someone who loved Mario at 64 for a new Mario. And to jump in and play a little bit of him being like, I don't know. And then watch him play. I felt, oh God, is that it? That was a close one. I felt like it was a fucking fever dream of watching this thing. me like, you've been here for six hours.

How does this game look the same every time you glance at it, right? It's like, even right now, watching you struggle with this fruit is giving me like, Vietnam flashbacks to that at Missouri, of watching this. How does this island, Delphino Island, always look like this? Yeah, I think the, I, you know, you can get a little bit over exaggerate in some moments. I get a little extreme with some of my statements, but I'm less like, I don't know how Nintendo didn't shut down after this one. I don't know how this one wasn't the one that just created the whole.

In another universe, this cratered Nintendo in a lot of different moments. I think that, like, there are some frustrating moments with the game because of the 3D look of it and the fact that it is a bit less, you know, advanced in terms of visuals. So with some of the shading, you can lose your, a lot of moments when I'm dying. I'm like, I don't know where I am in, like, the three-dimensional space right now because I'm losing depth with some of the visuals. A lot of that is I get good and I understand that.

It's good though. You're good at somebody's games. But there's just like so many frustrating level and mission designs in this game that it felt like every level I'd always get somebody in chat go, oh man, this fucking level. And I was like, chat, I've heard that statement

of like, oh my God, this mission, no way. here we fucking go. I've heard you all say that at least 15 to 20 times in this play through. You cannot call your game good when you have that many moments of, oh my God.

You're gonna hate this. There we go. And I just, I kept on encountering that moment every, like, you know, it felt like every hour or so. I have not gotten, I got to the lily pad level,

which, the lily pad levels, that and the Pachinko machine. Yeah, which are the ones that I kept on, oh man, wait till I get to the Pachinko machine. Well,

until you get to the, Lily pad level. Plinko, not Pachinko. My bad. Oh, be dropping? That level was an absolute disaster. And I did the lily pad level for a little bit. And in order to get there, it's the most frustrating thing in the world. And then you get into the level. And that mission was just like, I don't have it in me right now.

I got to turn this off. I got to wonder. Maybe a more stubborn, younger, more energized Andy would have sought this through to the end. I was like, I can't do this right now. I still want to beat every level. I think I only have, like, I think I only have the lily pad left and the final missions.

Okay. Which I've heard are also kind of a disaster. Yeah, I think this game largely sucks. And I'm still interested in like, what if I played it on GameCube? How much more would it improve? I don't think by a whole lot because like I still want to give

the benefit of the doubt, but I still feel like I'd be largely frustrated with a lot of what the game asks. of you anyway. This is like far in a way the worst main line entry Mario game that I've experienced. It's a fucking terrible game. Right here in the chat,

kebabs pops in with a super chat and says, I'm sorry, I want to go to a demon hacker actually first. Super chat and says, Andy's nuts, Mario's missing and Yoshi story still exist, saying that they're the worst Mario games I don't even consider those Mario games. You're talking about main line, like a real deal. Oh yeah, I rented Mario's missing

at least three times being like, what am I missing? Like obviously I'm missing something here. I'm the problem. Yeah, I've played through the old Mario games a whole lot. I enjoy those. What,

what's the problem here? And we just could never, we could never crack that nut, Mike. Like, me and my brother, like, what is happening in this video game? I don't get it.

I don't want to be the odd man out. We have to figure out why people love this. Yeah, I don't, I don't really consider those, like, mainline Mario games, obviously.

But yeah, I would put, I would put this, like, easily the worst. And I don't even know what would come close to it. it. God damn. It's just, it's in a different league. I don't think it's like a game that is a

complete disaster, but I don't know how you can look at this and say that Mario Sunshine is better than Mario Galaxy or Mario 64 or Odyssey or Mario World or three or whatever. Like, it's, you just can't do that. You need help if you, if you feel that way. A clarification from kebabs in the super chats was that 3D All-Star Sunshine is 1080P widescreen. Game Cube was 480P, 4x3. Still, AllStars is a port, not a remaster. Yeah. As we jump through hoops of what this is. I would have loved to have seen, again, some more effort from the quadillion billion dollar company. Sure, yeah, of course. Of, let's get some 60 frames in there. You do, you, I feel so much of, like, if this were in 60 frames, I'd, I know right in here, I'm jumping on time. And because it's not 60 frames,

there's a little bit more of a delay so I'm like here we go I gotta make this jump I gotta jump and I just run off I'm like I fucking swear to Christ I hit jump right there and that like adds to the frustration yeah there's

the game has a lot of like just baffling moments in it and and I don't apologize for any of this like I don't apologize for how I feel so give me the big one then on the new kind of funny wow 20 point scale one through 10 you have the point fives

where you, what do you do? Do you mean to break it down? I know I'm putting you in the spot. 10 is a masterpiece. A 10 on the kind of funny scale is a masterpiece. Nine is amazing. Eight is great. Seven is good.

Six is okay. Five is mediocre. Four is meh. Three is bad. Two is awful. And one is Golm. Okay. So Fran Mirabella gave this a 9.7 out of 10.

What a fucking idiot. He gave a 7.9 to double dash. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And he came into my chat and he was like, look, of course I gave this game a 9.7, it's incredible.

And I was like, yeah, but back then you were watching, you know, fucking the daredevil movie Ben Affling were like, wow, superhumanism. That's the way you all felt back then. I would give this a, I would give this a three out of ten bad. Wow. Yeah. No, you know what? A four out of ten bad because the floodless levels.

Well, four is met. Yeah, the four. Or you're right. Yeah, a four out of ten, meh, because the floodless levels I find challenging and fun, even though they can be frustrating, I still enjoy the challenge there. It doesn't feel like the most unfair shit there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But even the parts where Mario Sunshine isn't being unfair, it's still doing just completely illogical things that are like, hey, game design is when you put a little crumb out there to teach the player, oh, this is something I could possibly remember. And like, the game's language is telling me to do this. and then, you know, you got to stomp on a fucking thing to knock a fruit out, and that's never, why is this being introduced right now?

It's a terrible video game. It's a meth video game according to you. Yeah, floodless, yeah, floodless are fun. Okay, cool. I appreciate, I appreciate you can still find something in it. Don't, don't, yeah. I would say skip it if you've never played it. Like, it's, if you have access to an old GameCube,

maybe try that one. I hear that one's a 9.7 out of 10. I hear that one's a 10 out of 10. That's some people's favorite Mario games, but those people largely probably weren't loved growing up. Sure, of course, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. They didn't have people watching over them, giving them hugs.

Yeah, it's teaching them what a good game is, that a bad game is. They just had to take whatever they could get in Juliet, Illinois. It's like when you're throwing fucking rocks at a wall, like, of course, Marginal Sunshine seems amazing. Sure, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Joey?

Yes. Tell me, does little kiddie big city seem amazing? It's really fun. Yeah? Yeah. I'm not quite done with. it's a little bit longer than I thought. I feel like... Oh yeah? I had heard two hours from somebody.

Yeah, I think I'm like an hour and a half. Okay. So I still have a little bit to go. But I'm also... I got the completionist side of me that's like, I want all the little trinkets. I want to get all the little hats. But it's so cute. So it starts off. You're this really cute kitty. And you essentially just like kind of fall off of your apartment balcony. And the whole point is to get back to your apartment. You start off with like no climbing abilities and through all of the fun little things.

you get fish, which increases your stamina for climbing up buildings and stuff like that, which obviously unlocks new places and stuff to go. And then you have to get all the fish to be able to get back to your apartment, I assume. It's so cute. It's really fun. You meet all of these different animals. There's like a little raccoon that teaches you how to like fast travel, other cats that teach you how to catch birds, which you need to fast travel.

And then you have all of these humans. So as you're walking around, you can swipe at humans, which, causes them to trip. Sometimes they have phones that you can steal and, like, hide in little areas that they can't get that you will need for stuff. A lot of times, they'll have, like, a sandwich or a donut that you can use to, like, get the birds to land so you can catch them and get the feathers that you need for fast traveling and stuff.

And then you have, like, all of these fun. The crow is so fun. You bring him, like, all your little silver trinkets that you find. That's how you get all the new hats. And then you have, like, all of these little other characters that you can go find there was like a duck goose. I don't really know how how those work, but you have to go find his little ducklings. There are evolutions of each other. I was like, I don't know which words are correct for which form it is. So you have to like, one of the ducklings is like hanging out in like a

dryer and just like tumbling around. So you have to like try and figure out how to get into the laundromat to stop the thing to get all to collect all the ducks. It's super fun. It's like the perfect amount of like puzzly stuff that I like. Yeah, that was my question for you, right? So, of course, this came out on May 9th is one of the influx of indie games that dropped there. This is from Double Dagger Studios. They have announced over the weekend, right? Yeah, this is May 3rd or today.

I'm reading game developer who has a report from Chris Kerr that says, Little Kitty, Big City Tops 100,000 sales in two days. So he's doing quite well on that front. I played it at, I think it was SGF last year. And they were here. Oh, yeah, they've been. through here, but I don't think I led those demos. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

When I played at SGF, I had fun. It was, I think the first section I fell out, I deal with the crow. I had to figure out how to get the pigeons to land and do the thing. Like, there's all the, and then, but Mike, are they keeping it varied enough in your hour and a half where you're doing different things or I feel like you're doing the same thing or does it all feel very much like boutique and custom made? There's a couple things that are like through the whole game, which is like finding the little shinies.

a lot of them are like hidden so you kind of have to platform up to get them and those are the things that you turn into the crow to get the hats that's kind of always happening that's kind of like the background thing as you unlock all the different areas the other fun thing is like you there's all this trash like around the thing and you like deposit in the recycling and they kick out some of those shinies and stuff too so I'm like ooh this is like part of all my like little cleaning chore games the right itch for that and then yeah when you meet all of like the more like objective kind of characters.

You're all doing different things. Like the search and rescue for the little ducklings is fun. Right now I'm, there's a cute Shiba who wants me to collect all the tennis balls for this giant hole that they've made in their backyard. But I can't figure out where I found him on the map again. So I need to like, that's the one that I'm trying to hunt for. There's some fun ones of like getting into people's apartments and it feels kind of

an untitled goose game where you're like, I got to get the, steal the lunch. lunch, but the ladies bring me with the hose, and then how do I sneak into all the things? It's, they're very different. Like, it doesn't feel too samey where I'm like, oh, I have to catch like my 700th bird. Sure, that's great. Okay. And, like, those you only need if you want a fast travel.

So if you don't care about that, you could just, like, run around as a cute ass cat. Oh, the Shiba's back where you started the game. Thank you, Abram. I've been, like, all over the place. There's, the other thing that I like about it, too, which I was watching their Twitter account over the last week, talking about like there's really no way to hurt the cat in the game. So I feel like it's like very nice because I feel like I'm always stressed about the animals and the games getting hurt in some way.

Only if you don't play it. Oh, that is true. And they're just lonely and waiting for you to log back in. But yeah, like there are the way that they siphon off areas that you're not supposed to go into is by having dogs that'll bark at you that'll like scare the cat backwards. Love it. Or there being water that if you like touch it, it'll jump backwards and stuff like that. So I think it's like a very fun and cute way to.

like make it feel like you are. This has been the poster child for the cozy game for a while. We've seen a lot of that stuff. Obviously see people running to be the cat or whatever. Did you find any of the challenges? Like true noodle scratchers? I know Animal Well is torturing people in the best way possible right now. Were these all like, oh, okay, this, then that kind of thing?

Yeah, I'm also like historically not good at figuring out puzzling things. And I'm not feeling like particularly frustrated by it. Okay. I can see how if this was a longer game, you might kind of get over some of the stuff really quick, but because it's like a relatively short experience, I don't think that anything like overstays it's welcome. Okay.

And it all keeps moving. How many hats you got unlocked? I remember when we were doing the demo here, me and Nick were really into the whole hat unlocking. Yeah, I have cleared out probably four or five of the hat machines. So I probably have like 23 or 24, which honestly seems like maybe half of the hats. I feel like I saw kind of a lot to go.

But right now I have like a cute little orange hat on. It's very fun. Are there any hats that, this is all hat focused now? Are any of the hats like pop culture focused or like, oh, this is a VHS of season three of Seinfeld or something like that? No, it's a lot of fruits and food type ones. Like I got like a little like salmon sushi hat. I think I have like a maybe like an astronaut or like some sort of fishbowley thing.

Nothing super pop culturey. Yeah. But I will, I haven't really been playing. that mindset, but I will keep that in mind. Maybe some of the higher level hats, because some of them are more expensive, so maybe the, like, mega expensive ones will be something crazy.

That makes sense. Gotcha. Okay. Well, Joey on the scale, what would you give it right now? I haven't finished it yet, so, like, bearing everything. I think it's like a solid 8 out of 10. Okay. Great. That's a great game. Oh, yeah. Joey gives us a 7.5 or 10.

It's pretty close. I was, like, kind of debating between the two, but I'm having so much fun. And the cat is so cute, like the mechanics of the way that the cat moves and like falls and stuff like that is just yeah the animation's really well done yeah yeah of course i've thought that from what i saw at the demo or whatever yeah just like when they pod thing i love that i can just trip people all the time and they get so mad enough to drop their phone but then you like rub yourself on their legs and they're like oh i'm not that mad at you anymore but it's so cute uh of course available now on uh pc switch Xbox

and it's on xbox game pass which is even more remarkable of course that it's old 100,000 units in two days when you technically could just pick it up for free with the best value in gaming. Michael, it's your time to shine. And what you wrote on the dock was a number of new games you'd want to talk about that I want to get to, but you also put Dark Souls 1 and 2. I'm gaming, baby. I'm all over the place.

Of course, as many of you know, I've been on a Dark Souls journey, Greg Miller. I have to prove to the world that I can beat these games by myself without the hard carry of of Andy Cortez, Kevin A. Sacks, and my boy, sad boy, Sean. And so I've been on a journey. I've been on a journey. I don't know what the world's a card called. You know what I mean? We're going to call them the lands between.

You know what I mean? I don't know what it's called. But yeah, Greg, I have now beaten Dark Souls 1 and 2 all by myself. I think they're in Denver. Thank you. You know, I say by myself with a whole lot of wings at you because the chat is carrying me through all of this experience. And we're having so much fun.

You know, Dark Souls 1, what a treat to go back to the OG, the classic, and experience that all over again. What are you playing them on? Um, PC. Okay. Jumping back on PC, playing the remastered versions. Of course, Scholar of the First Sin. And as Andy knows and the chat knows, I've always yelled that Dark Souls 2 has been my favorite

Dark Souls because it's my first. And I think a lot of the conversations around Dark Souls are usually your first is your favorite, or now Eldon Ring probably. But a lot of it is like, hey, this is my first one. I love this kind of moment of me remembering these things. It's like Nick with Iron Man one and Nick with Fast and Furious one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Going back and remembering that.

The first thing he sees is what he likes the most. And so I've now completed Dark Souls 1 and 2, including all the DLCs. They have some pretty meaty DLCs with a lot of bosses. And, you know, I'm happy to report. How are you working on this? I didn't know you're doing this. Oh, my God, a long time. Probably the past couple, two months, three months now.

We've been playing nonstop. And I, I mean, Darcles 1 was a wild bag. Darcles 2 was more recent. Well, they flowed right into each other. I just kept playing. Same disc. Exactly. Press the button, next one.

And it's pretty amazing. You know, they got magic in these games. You know, back in the day, I'd never used. magic because it was always said by Sadd Boy Sean a little more difficult to find the items and be able to do it like that. Sad boy Sean you're so wrong. You know what I mean? Magic Pebble is in all of these games and

Pebble is just so freaking good. It's unbelievable. And so I made Steve the source, Greg. And I've been dodging, I've been dipping. I've been casting spells on all these bosses. The source of all things. And so I thought I'd take it to the big board. Barrett-Courtney, please bring up Snowbike Mike's PowerPoint

presentation on. Snowmike Mike's top, Dark Souls top five's. I want to give you my top five bosses. That I started laughing at. Audio listeners, it's a PowerPoint. He made a PowerPoint. It's a power point of my top fives. He texted me like,

you can't just say top five. I mean, we're top five. It's top five. He texted me at two in the morning. He texted me two in the morning asking me for a photo. Yeah. And I was asleep. And you'll see the photo.

You'll see the photo. Okay. I mean, it's not the photo I wanted, but it's a photo for you. Let's go over to outside looking in. Of course, the O-L-I's. The boss is looking in. What does that mean? Of course, they want to be on the top five, but they're not on the top five.

So they're the honorable metric. Joe, you got to listen to the L-I's. Yeah, yeah, it's the O-L-I. Let's start off with the... I can work for work now? Capra Demon. A lot of Jibonis in the chat said, Snowbike Mike. This might be one of the hardest bosses. Get ready.

One-timed it. Okay. Steen-sores? One-timed it. Did I climb up some stairs? Freak him out? Yeah, I did. broke that guy.

My least favorite boss. I hate this dude. Yes, Joe. I notice that this is top fives, but there's four things. No, no, this outside looking. These are the outsides. We haven't gotten to the top five. Yeah, this is honorable man. He's just six through nine, Joe. Thank you. Up next, smelter demon. Oh, wait.

That's his guard. Smelter demon comes back twice. Just so you know, he's a red version and a blue version. Great closing the gap speed. Actually, sneaky athletic, if you ask me. I got to be honest with you. The guy has got a lot of game. but I defeated him, no problem. Up next, the Royal Cat Vanguard,

because it taught me about crowd control. And I love games when you go to... Royal Cat or Royal Rat? Royal Rat. But when you go to baseball games and you look up at the big mega screen and they do the hat and they say, which one has the baseball?

This one, you have to find the king rat amongst 50 other rats to get the damage down. And then you pledge your allegiance to the Rat King. Shout to the Royal Rat out there. What a fun time. He's watching. It's tough. It's real close quarters.

It's a whole lot of fun. And then finally, give a shout out to this Medusa lady, Mithra, the Bainful Queen. She's got a sick arena I want to give her shoutouts to because the arena is a big circle, but outside the circle is a puddle full of acid that will heal her and, of course, beat you down. But due to world design,

if you do the extra side task beforehand, you could limit the amount of acid that is in the arena. Cut it all off. Power washing simulator, Joe. Those are my outsides looking in. to my top five right now for Dark Souls 1 and two. Top five bosses. Of course number five, the iconic

gargoyles. Check out the font. Check out the font. Yes, the gargoyles. Gargoyle's fine. Of course, you can't have... You didn't really like delete the red. Yeah, you didn't delete the rest of the background. I'm learning. Yeah, he's learning.

Of course, you can't have a top five list without the iconic bell tower gargoyles. I mean, you take on one, then his second homie shows up, then a third, and you think to yourself, man, I got this. No, you don't. You don't got this. It's just a battle for your life.

But if you're smart enough and good enough, you can chop off one of its tails, it becomes a weapon. Did I need that? I didn't know that. Absolutely not, Joe, because I'm a magic user. Like a weapon you can use it or weapon. It's like a giant axe, I believe.

You know, he's just tails an axe and he whipped you with it. You got to be mindful of it. Let's go to number four on the big board. Number four on my list. I've watched multiple YouTube videos. They all say this man's name differently. So please, excuse me. Sir alone.

Yeah, there's... Mike, I don't know if you've ever worried about pronouncing anything correctly. Thank you. Pronunciation's never been your priority. I want to give a big shout out to this guy. Okay, tippy top of the tower, a beautiful set piece of just you and him, one-on-one against the samurai. And this guy has got a giant samurai katana, and he's going to stick you with it, okay? He pokes me and he got me a couple of times, which I will say.

Well, which I will say, okay, a couple of BS moments. I was definitely to the left. He somehow got me and stuck me. I don't want to give him credit. I beat him, though. And also, collusion's broken. Kudos to him. If you beat him without getting hit,

hey now, a special moment for you. Pretty cool stuff. That's a little teaser if you beat. Oh, that's, I've heard about this. He's got a second one. If you beat him without getting hit, there's a cool moment. Up next, number three, check out the font.

Check out the font. Just make sure you check out the font. Of course, want to give a love to those hearts? Manus, father. of the abyss. You have to embrace the darkness on this one. And this one is pretty special because you go into a giant dark pit. You can't see him at all.

He's jumping around this giant beast. And this one made me feel a type of way because when I finally beat him, I embraced the darkness. Embrace the darkness, Mike. And I like this fight. He's big. He's hulking. He's all over the place. Check that guy out one day if you haven't played this.

Alex J. Sullivanval asked how much- You know, check these people down when you get there? Alex J. Sanelvald asked, how much money is Mike spending on font? he's clearly like being paid to use these because I don't know who would want to use these funds That's beautiful Valentine's Day font All right, I thought it was Hello Kitty

Mike you gotta take the stroke off of that It doesn't need to be that much of a stroke I'm learning I'm learning okay Number two, I'm a big list Number two, everybody loves this guy Okay, Artorious the Abyss Walker I mean you can't go a dark soul's video Without some gibboning like Andy

Saying this guy's the goat He's the goat and I will say He'd be somersaulted. He'd be flipping. He'd be stabbing you. It's pretty sick, Greg. Okay? And then it was great.

He embraces the darkness as well. And he takes out a new form and he tries to kill you. Guess what? Steeses his source. He don't mess around like that. I'm pretty sure. The guy we just saw Manis broke Artoris' left arm. Wow.

I think that's the lore. Correct me from him. I think they, I think it broke. That's why he's got that broken left arm and he used his right arm pair. Yeah. It's so badass. Does he turn into a wolf? No.

Oh, Joe. His wolf. Tiff. You walk up to Siff and Artorius is dead. And Siff is guarding his grave and you have to kill Sip. Big ass dog carries a sword in his mouth. That's so cool. And then whenever you kill, I think Arturius, you hear like that,

ooh, maybe I'm making that up. Maybe that's my own neck. I think so. I think so. Also, this makes a lot of sense. New somebody with an Artorius in their username and I had no idea what it was. There is. And of course, you're probably saying to yourself,

Snowmike, Mike, you have ventured now through the lands between, in Dark Souls 1 and 2. Who could be the number one snow bike Mike, Dark Souls boss on the big top five? It is the King's Cats. Ludd and Zalen. The yellow on this is hideous. The yellow on the white is so hard to read it.

It hurts my eyes. I didn't know what color I wanted. I wanted to make it gold for them. Why did you put a stroke around that? No, I think it has a yellow stroke on it. A yellow stroke on the yellow text? Yeah, I'm pretty sweet. I'm not happy with that one.

But let me tell you about the King's, Cats, of course, the King's cat are special because you have to go through a nightmare to just get to this boss instance. That many Dark Souls bosses, they figured it out where they kind of put the bonfire or the site of grace right next to the bonfire or next to the door. So you can go in there. Not this one. This one, you have to run through a five-minute gauntlet of hell in the frigid outskirts,

which is a foggy, icecape, landscape with no points of interest at all. You just run for your life. and then these reindeer will spawn every single time a snowstorm comes in. And these reindeer, god damn it, they got closing speed you wouldn't believe. I mean, they're running 4-440s on you. Safety is just, Paul-A-L. They proceed to run you over. Then you have to make a choice of, am I going to sit and fight these guys,

wasting all of my health, wasting all of my magic skills, to then get to the boss and be super short, or am I going to run it out? And when I say you have to run the gauntlet, ladies and gentlemen, you have to absolutely run the gauntlet. probably spawn about eight of these by the time you get to these get to the boss door. So good luck. But I beat them and I'm a champion. The King's Cats.

Kings Cats. And of course, I just wanted to make sure everybody in the office knew our final slide, Barrett Courtney, the number one Souls player in the office. Now that I've completed Dark Souls 2, I'm the only one in this office to do so. So I now own the title of number one Souls player in the office. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I worked hard for that one.

worked hard for that one. This is the photo you asked before. I wanted the one where I was shirtless in the parking lots. Oh. The first week of us working here. Me driving in, Mike's shirtless with his chest up to the sun. That's what I wanted.

That's what I wanted. Well, Mike, you had already beaten Dark Souls 2 before you did it recently. So you were always the number one in the office. Yeah, but now I've been by myself. Oh, got you. You know what I mean? So if you want any sort of souls born.

content, you come to me, okay? Until Andy beats it, I'm number one, ladies and gentlemen. And so that's my journey. It's been a great journey. Dark Souls 2. Not as bad as people talk about. I still think it is my favorite out of one and two if we put that combo up right there. I really like the worlds. I love the healing

pebbles as opposed to just only having the flask. Yeah, the flask. You have these healing pebbles, which is nice to be able to shoot off and they heal over time, which I think is really good for a player like me who's maybe not that good and needs a little more resources to help out.

I love the levels of how funky and weird it gets from you start off in this crazy like Nebraska cornfield that's just full of acid and the giant windmill. And then you'll go up to... Nebraska with their acid pools.

Well note. They're well known for that. You're way to Curry. You're going to hit a lot of it. You go to the top of the windmill and then you take an elevator above it, which goes into the sky. Guess what? You're in some sort of

magma volcano giant iron forge, right? And you're like, how does, this doesn't even make sense. And then you get past that. You go to another elevator all the way to the top. And it ends up

in a beautiful dragon like vista with a giant dragon cage. It's sick. So yeah, I really like Dark Souls 2. Watch my first H-bomber guy because of it. Oh, really?

I was trying to find out like, why do people hate Dark Souls 2? What's the deal? H-bomber guy? This is the first one I've ever sat in like, actually watched. You know what I mean? Like I've clicked on him a couple times. We're watching the Tommy Tala Rico one. Oh, so good. And so, here's the first one. I highly recommend you. Check out that guy. He's pretty good.

You know what I mean? He's pretty good guy. Also pizza. Pretty good food. If that's a gateway for you, I'm going to send you mega-64 or the Dark Souls of News journalism. So there you go. Come full circle. I got your merch. I got your merch. I got your merch. Come full circle. So yeah, that's my Dark Souls 1 and 2 impressions and gameplay so far. It's a ton of fun. A ton of fun. You want to score? Um, Dark Souls 1 and 2. 10s and tens.

I mean, they're both fantastic. I'm going to give them nines and nines because we live in an Eldon Ring world now where Eldon Ring is key, king, and, uh, you know, they're great games. They're fantastic games. It's funny you bring up that it's an Eldon Ring world because I want to talk to Andy about Eldon Ring. But first I'll tell you about the kind of funny membership. Of course, the kind of funny membership, you get good karma because you're keeping a small

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What's up, everybody? I'm Greg Miller with a Kind of Funny programming update for you. From now on, the Gamescast is going to be on Friday. And Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday. That's right. We're making the Kind of Funny Games. cast live and daily. Why? Well, as you already know, 2024 is about doubling down on what we do best, our core content.

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with more varied discussions, a streamlined YouTube channel, and a highlight channel to help you watch the moments you're most interested in. That's a lot for an independent 11 person operation, but your support and feedback mean everything to us and help us set Kind of Funny up to have an incredible 10-year anniversary next year. And a special thank you for supporting us with the Kind of Funny membership.

Members get ad-free recording and audio of our content, the ability to watch us record the afternoon podcast live as we record them, and the exclusive multi-media experience, Greg Way, my daily vlog series. Hey! We're not a fucking drive you, piece of... Thank you, and as always, it's been my pleasure to serve you. Andy Cortez. Hey, Greg.

For years, all I've heard about is how you're the best gamer in the office and how not enough of us played Eldon Ring. And that should have been game in the year that year and yada, yada, yada, yada. I think we're like the only outlet. And then I open up my Twitter feed over the weekend and I see Andy Cortez plays Eldon Ring for the first time. The jig is up. How can we ever trust you again if you're going to lie like this?

If you're going to lie like this. No, I'm redoing a play-through. I'm getting ready for the DLC. I wanted to start a new character. I already beat the game with another character, but I'm like, I didn't want to go into it with a new game plus for the DLC. Something weird about that. So Shadow the Urtree imminent, so close, coming in June.

But there's Ben, there was a moment where Barrett thought he had screwed it up on games daily because if you go in a new game plus, you have to then beat New Game Plus so then actually do it. If you do New Game Plus, you can't just, you're going to have to play the DLC on New Game Plus. So the rule is you always want to have a save. either right before you beat the game. Eldon Ring is one of those cases where when you beat the game, it doesn't just complete it for you and throw you in automatically. You can still like obviously run around and collect things.

And so like I remember the first time playing Bloodborn and people being like, ooh, maybe don't beat the game automatically because you might want to hop into the DLC. And back then when I was scared, I was like, I'm never going to play this game ever again. Right. But the situation is you always want to at least have a save right before you beat the game or just don't start New Game Plus automatically because the DLC will be tougher

by nature, that's the From Soft way. The DLC is always tougher, but then you're playing with the added difficulty of this new game plus, the enemies are harder. Got it, got it, got, got to, got it, got to get. Barrett. Yeah, so I decided to stick with the New Game Plus play through.

Oh, wow. Yeah, which I had started a year and a half ago and didn't really want to start from scratch all over again. So I ran through New Game Plus, and have done everything. But now you're saying, is there a possibility that I'm locked out of the DLC

because I beat the game on New Game Plus as well? No. No, no, no. No, gotcha, got you. No, no, no. So I'm, I'm dedicated to the New Game Plus attempt

for the DLC, which I'll see how that goes. Yeah. But getting through New Game Plus also was easy as shit. I beat Millennia in like an hour. Yeah. And that's kind of the, you know,

that's always kind of the allure of new game plus is like hopping in and being like, oh, this is going to be, uh, I'm all ultra powered now. I have like some of these cool ass weapons that I didn't have at the beginning. And on my first play through, I'd gone through and, you know, like one tried, all the bosses like, all right, this is like, this is awesome. This is like that power feel that everybody wants. But I wanted to start a new play through.

And I wanted to give myself an added challenge because I never do Souls games with summons. I never like, we'll call in somebody from the internet or, you know, usually if, there are some NPC story characters that'll be waiting for you at the beginning of a boss fight that you can summon in and it's like this person has a beef with this boss and if you want to further their storylines

maybe you summon them in and then you talk to them afterwards they'll be like oh that guy sucked and you have like a cool little back-upor And I rarely do that unless it's like really important for the story but this time Eldon Rings gameplay was so much about like having these little spirit ashes

and these spirit ashes, you collect a bazillion of them throughout the game, and they become like your little friend helper that you can use during boss fights. One of the things that kept on being used by everybody was the mimic tier. You summon this little mimic tier, and it's a dude that just takes on your form with your weapons, with your stats, with your whatever, you know. And it becomes really, really OP at a lot of times. So you can take on bosses. Now, whenever you summon somebody in, it does make the boss a little bit stronger,

but you can always have the benefit of the boss being aggrat on the dude, you go in for a couple of free shots, right? Got it. But I wanted to, like, do the extra challenge for, because I always felt that was like a normal, completely, like, viable way to play Elbin Ring. They have a lot of spirits in the game. They want you to be summoning these dudes.

But I was like, what, I want to do one without them. Because I don't feel like I ever fully got the 1V1 vibe in this video game. Gotcha. Because I'm constantly playing. it like when me and Mike and Nick are doing the seamless co-op play-through or when me, Mike and our friend Kevin ASEX are doing our other co-op playthrough where you're kind of just playing the take agro from each other game, right? And I never felt like I was getting the one-vue one vibe like the way from soft is so good about having these bosses and you're learning their

movesets and you're getting better every time. And so I've been challenging myself this week and to do that. So I did like a 15-hour stream and it was a freaking blast man. It was tough in a lot of spots. Are you on a good vibe with it now? Like you feel like you got a handle on it of being a solo dula? Yeah, for now until I eventually come across a really, really tough boss

that I'm not looking forward to. I'm not looking forward to General Rodon, which is somebody I'm really worried about. He's a dude that you can summon like, it feels like a million different NPC characters that are there on the battlefield to kind of help you out. Are you not going to let yourself do that? I don't think I'm gonna do that. No, I'm gonna try it without it.

But I also don't, but the thing is I need to just like, I need to just fight that dude designed for that. I need to fight that dude one v1 just to see what the hell the moves even are. Because I don't know what the hell that guy does. He's so high up there, he's gigantic. The camera doesn't even like fully see him a lot of the time. I don't know

what moves he's pulling off. I'd like to actually get a glimpse of like, oh, when he does this, he does this sort of charge move or whatever. So I kind of I want to do this one v1. I'm having a freaking blast. I two tried like two pretty difficult bosses and then I like 30 tried some really easy bosses that I shouldn't have spent that long on

I'm going for a different build this time a lot about the allora souls games is like going for trying something new right and Mike was very very like Andy you got to go with magic brand you got to try the magic get yourself a wand I was like I just don't find that fun I love the one V1 tactical nature of like I'm going to get up in that gooch and I'm going to try to figure out how to get behind you you know, the cooter. Yeah. Yeah.

If you will. They have magic swords. Just so you know, I don't know. Oh, no. Yeah. No. I mean, that's part of me.

It's like I'm, I'm totally enjoying why everybody loves the bleed build. A bleed build. You're hacking away. And eventually, the enemy's build is building up and you don't see their bleed building up. Yeah.

But eventually you hit them enough and gigantic chunk of damage. You're like, oh my God, I get it now. I understand why everybody loves this bleed shit. So I'm kind of like leaning towards that. I have two daggers that are really fun. I always have.

a gigantic sword that would not fit in an SUV if you try to drive it anywhere. Like, I always go for that gigantic build. I love the big heavy swipes. But when I played Dark Souls 3 last year, I went with a bit of a smaller, faster sword, and I really enjoyed the feel of it. So I think I'm going towards a dexterity build a bit quicker. And I'm just, man, I'm just loving the journey. There's so many moments I'm just playing this game and being like, God damn,

what a time. What an experience. Like, some of the best experiences or best moments I'll never forget. I'm having a blast with it. I'm getting ready and hopefully I will be done. Hopefully I'll be ready for the DLC about the time it comes out. Awesome. And I know that we're going to get back to our big seamless co-op thing.

So then are you guys both going to do like a solo run and then do your co-op together? Well, those are different characters. Because when you play seamless co-op, it requires it to be a different character because it's a different build of the game. When you double-click that. You're not loading up your old characters. You're loading up like this is a seamless co-op character. and when the DLC comes out,

you got to assume the model takes some time to kind of be prepared, whoever's working on that. So, yeah, I can't wait to get back to that, Mike. Yeah, it's been an Eldon Ring weekend between Andy doing 15 hours and Kaisenat doing his 100 plus hours. It's like everyone is talking about Eldon Ring again,

and it's all I can think about now. I cannot wait to play with you and Nick and then to go back on our Xbox save with Kevin. You need to beat it. We still haven't beat me. We have like two bosses left on your play-through. Yeah, and we did the hard part, Joey, Like, when we play with Nick, it's just one and done.

When it was me and Kevin, you had to beat them three times in a row. For everybody. Every single person. So when- Which is why everybody chooses seamless co-op. Yeah, the seamless co-op mob is, uh, mod is fantastic because you, you beat it once and it's progress for everybody. But yeah, like Mike was just mentioning,

Mike has to summon me and Kevin into his game for us to beat the boss. And then when we're doing that, we're like, all right, great. Now, I'll summon both of you all into my world and do that. It's a freaking blast. It's truly amazing. It's such a great time. And it's awesome to watch the game and see you play it and see everybody else play it like, Kai for the first time.

It's like, man, the game is so much fun. And coming off of Dark Souls 1 and 2 to see the evolution of where they're at now with the jump button there and the sprint and how fluid everything looks and the options of gameplay between all the weapons. Like you said, this is a good time. It's a great game. June 21st is coming up very quickly. But even more imminently, as in right now, is Homeworld 3, Snowbike, Mike.

Bring it the PowerPoint. Jeff Grubb just retweeted Steam releases. It's Homeworld 3, Space, Strategy, RTSS, story rich, sci-fi, single player, rogue, like, tactical, co-op, multi. That's a lot of shit in this game. What the fuck is Ro-OVoWorld 3? Let's get the ultimate nerds out here.

If you're a nerd like me and you love a good RTS, Homeworld 3 is that game. And, of course, I put up a fun tweet today with the Shaq meme. I want to shout out to Blackbird Interactive and the Homeworld 3 dev team. I owe you an apology. I wasn't really familiar with your game. Wow. Because your game freaking rocks.

So shout out to y'all. Homeworld 3 is that ultimate super nerdy RTS game. And if you're into RTS games, like I am where I grew up with, Warcraft, of course, StarCraft, Lord of the Rings battle for Middle Earth, Halo Wars, that is what this RTS is. It is a ton of fun.

It is deep sci-fi. And I've played through the campaign. I am not going to play multiplayer because this one's a little more intimidating than my normal StarCraft or Warcraft. How long did it take? About 10 hours there. Okay.

Yeah. So you can you. I love that Mike loves RTS. 13, 13 missions in the campaign. And they're really cool. So I want to start off with when I say sci-fi, it gives you vibes of Ender's Game,

the expanse. Like the campaign, this world that they created over there is really cool. Like the world that they have, the story that's going on, sure it might be generic to some, but like it is very cool. And the cut scenes that are pre-rendered and in-game are all super dope.

And the way that it goes from each level and kind of bringing you along in the story is super awesome. And it's amazing to see like the kind of level of this. When I think about Warcraft 3 way back in the day, it didn't feel like that in the campaign. But they nailed the campaign on this. And each scenario is really testing my skills as that kind of navigator looking over the battlefield. and when you first jump into this, it will blow your mind because you're in space. So it's a full

3D space of where you can move these ships and kind of navigate and coming from... Oh, it's not just like a top down. No, it, no. I mean, it feels like top down, but the way you can move the camera and navigate the ships, it is fully 3D in space, right? And the cool part is, like, I've never

played a game where when you have your RTS, it's normally like a home base. Your home base is a giant mother ship that can move. Sure, it's slowly. So, like, you're not moving the home base super far, but that home base can move and adapt to the battlefield that you see. And so it's really, really dope of when you go into these scenarios,

each one will test you differently, right? The first one is, hey, go out there and probe far away, and let's see where the enemy is at. And so you'll use different infantry and different ships to kind of feel that out. Then the next one will be, hey, like, we just went through a jump gate, and now all of a sudden we're in an asteroid field. I need you to move your home base, and navigate through this asteroid field

without it blowing up. And I'm like, man, that's super badass and really cool of like the play on the RTS world itself. And so yeah, for me, this is fun. I'm a little intimidated the idea of doing multiplayer because I just, my mind doesn't wrap around the movement of the home

and like this space world. But it's cool. It's really, if you're looking for a competent RTS that gives you vibes of StarCraft and Halo Wars and of course Warcraft 3 this is it this nails it and the campaign is a ton of fun

it has a good multiplayer offering I read in some other people's reviews it's kind of bare bones but like it has skirmices it has online against other people it also has a rogue light mode where you and a friend can play through that so that's kind of exciting but for me the campaign was worth it enough

to jump in and like scratch that itch and be challenged in different scenarios eight out of ten on the kind of funny scale That's insane. Look at that. Homeworld 3. I'm truly impressed.

Like, I mean it, if you are into RTSs, you should check this one out because they did a great job with it. And like I said, my mind is still blown playing in space. It's really fun. It's awesome. Joey, it's rare that we get you on a games cast. It is getting less rare, which I like. But it's even more rare to have you talk about two games.

Tell me about Botany Manor. Botany Manor. This was one that I think I saw Janet talking about. Makes sense. And I was like, this looks cute. my alley. So it's like the 1800s, 1900s, and you're a botanist, which I took a botany class in college, which I swear my professor just passed me out of pity. I was like, I need take a science class, and he's like, you're a senior, you need to graduate. So I was like,

oh, plants and flowers, like this will be fun. So it's like kind of like an old school like croft manner. It's like all abandoned and there's like lots of, oh yeah, 1890, lots of cobwebs and stuff like that. So you're going because you're a retired botanist and you're writing a book. So as you go through these different rooms in here. Each one kind of has like a different plant in your book that you're writing about. So the first little bit of it kind of starts as you find the seeds, you plant it, and they all, all of these plants have different environments and factors that make them grow. So you're walking around the manner, looking for all of these like puzzle pieces.

Sometimes it's a postcard, it's a poster, it's a recipe for something. And then you slot it into your like journal book. Got it. And then you have the, then you make the flower grow based on all of the clues you've picked up. As you go through the manor, you unlock more rooms. So instead of doing one plant at a time you're doing three or four, and then you're trying to piece together like, oh, I have 30 different clues, which ones go with which plant? Which one needs the, which one do I need to unlock the wind tower to grow? Got it, got it.

Which one do I need to have the flash lightning? Which one is this like water, ivy pollution thing that I'm trying to solve? there's all of these, yeah, secret tunnels and all of this stuff. It's really fun. I, like I said earlier, well, you communicate with Morse code to people? You talk to the plate? Yeah, you have like all of these like scales and weights that you need to balance,

unlock the thing to get to the thing. It's really fun. I am not a puzzle girl necessarily. I was going to say, how hard are the puzzles? It's definitely one where I have to like sit through and like sometimes I'm like taking notes. I'm like, I think it's this one. But then you're like swapping them all out. the thing that I do appreciate is like there's very easy things like in your little journal book thing that you're creating like to clear all the puzzles so it's pretty easy to slot things back in and out. I put probably four hours into it. I have no idea how far I am. Sure. Are you going to go back to you? Is this something you're going to roll credit for? Yeah. This is something that I've been playing. I kind of like pick it up every like a couple times a week. I've been playing for like the last two weeks. Sure. But this is one where I'm like I need a break for this because I'm just not good at these games. Yeah. I mean I don't want to use the guy. I look at it. Exactly. I look at it and I feel like it would grind my years. They're just.

getting that point of trying to figure that puzzle out and be like, I only have this much time to play the night and I'm pissed off that I'm not making progress. Totally. This is one where I walked in and I was like, blessing, have you played this? Because being the puzzle poppy, it feels like a blessing game. And it's really cool like all of the, there's like some kind of like supernaturally kind of seemingly elements and stuff like that.

It's really fun. Is there a collecting aspect to it? It's just like the pieces that you need like to grow the plants like all of those factors. Other than that, like you have a lot of stuff like, have to like make sure that you make the right apple juice thing to with a thing but I saw them doing some juice in there yeah pretty cool no collecting anything freaky it gives me some missed vibes or the fire watch vibes of like is there something out see for me it looks like escape academy oh I like that yeah I think it's probably closer to that nothing freaky the only thing so far is

that there's like secret tunnels and stuff like that it could just be that I'm also like not far enough through to get to the like the creepy things okay but it is also the fact that you're walking through this abandoned manner that's like oh anything could could happen. Sure. Cobwebs and scary things. Witness action. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, something just about a single person walking through this empty space. I would probably say, right now I'm like a 7-5 on it, but maybe once I get through more of it, that could change. That's for fun. Keep us update on that show. For now, though, Michael, I'm going to ask you to close us out with rapid fire. Because you have some games in here that I'm interested in it about like, Pokea Rogue.

Pokey Rogue, yeah. Pokey Rogue, Manor Lords, and, surmount. Yeah, let's rapid fire through some of these. Let me give you the hot one, which is Pokeyrog. Pokeyrog is a fan-made Pokemon Battler Rogue lights. That's a lot of words in there.

All you need to know is Pokemon battles. I don't want to call it it's waves, so like you'll fight one and then you'll go to wave two and then three, right? And it's just one-on-one or two-on-two Pokemon battles. You'll also have trainer battles inside of that, but it is the ultimate

Pokemon battling experience. If you are looking, if you have the Pokemon, it's like we do right now, you probably want to play a lot of Pokemon. And if you're looking for like a challenge, this is it, right? And so you start off every single run with up to 10 points to pick from. And there's all the gens, a number of Pokemon in each gen. It's not every Pokemon known to man, but you will choose from all of the starters at first,

and you'll be able to add up the points to get to 10 points. So some starters are three, some are four, some are two. And you add that up to have your starting lineup. And you'll jump right into wave one. You can battle for the XP. You can catch Pokemon to add to your group or put them back in the box for later runs down the road as you continue to progress.

Are they respecting like Venusaur and Ivisaur and Bolvasor? They have love for all your people. Okay, good, good, good. The Pokemon do evolve. And I will say it is free to play. It's web-based. So the cool one is you can get it on your phone. You can get it on your computer.

It has controller inputs. It has touch screen inputs as well. So the team really did a great job. ripped down already. That's what people were saying to me. I'm playing it while it's good. You know, get it while it's good because it's a ton of fun. I mean, maybe, you know, people haven't been talking about it on podcasts yet.

Oh, oh, maybe. You know, maybe if we talk about it on podcast, maybe people. Let me call Nintendo. I got to share the hype. Nintendo, I got to let you know, like, this is good. So, like, let them be, you know what I mean? But if you're looking for this, Mike signs off on it. The first run is up to 200 waves, and then after that, you unlock the endless runner mode.

And so I got to 1.45. It took me nine hours to get to level 145. La Nasty, I'm so sorry I failed you. The whole chat so it's so cool. You get the chat involved, they all help you with the different Pokemon matchups. And the cool part about this game is, when a Pokemon comes out, it shows

you what types it is. So there's no guessing games. You don't know if it's fairy dragon. It would help me grow a lot right there. Okay, poison, ground. Nice. Boom, baby. I made it. And so it's really cool of you have all these matchups and you're going,

And you'll at five, every five, you'll probably get some sort of boss. Similar to like Call of Duty zombies, it's like at five, there's like a mini boss. And at 10, at 10, there's another checkpoint where if you beat that Pokemon boss and or trainer, you'll heal all of your Pokemon. So after every single wave that you do, the like one battle, you'll go to a buy screen where you'll have money and you can buy full heels. You can buy elixirs to up your PP. You can buy revives if you need to.

And then there's four free items every single time. So you're playing this game of what do I need? How much money do I have? Can I res this Pokemon and get it back into the party right now for level 7, 8, 9? And I will tell you what, wow, this game is a ton of fun. This is a must play. It will suck your night away. And like I said, it took me nine hours to get to 1.45.

I'm broken that my rival Ivy beat me. She threw out some insane mods. She had a shiny Ray Quaza. She had a bunch of mons I wasn't ready for. Real Pokemon? Apparently. He's the goat. So please check that out, ladies and gentlemen.

That's Pokey Rogue. Up next, I got to give a love to surmount, which I like to call Shurmounts, because you got to be sure on your handle. You know what? I'll be up. Greg, I don't know how much you've played to this because I know you played a little bit.

Oh, really? I've seen it a lot. I think we showed it. It was on one of the streets. Yeah, uh-huh. Yo, this game is a lot of fun. If you're looking for that mountain rock climbing experience, like we played a hard game of climbing.

and Benefotti's, you know, getting over it. This is like that, but in a fun kind of vibe for more family-friendly approach. I like this game a lot. I like the climbing mechanics of the two hands and kind of the spinning to get yourself propelled up to a certain area. I like the double jump a lot. There's fun, little useful tools that you can get inside mission.

So really, the game is a rogue light, I want to say, because it changes every time. but like you're climbing up a mountain, right? Like the goals are to climb up this mountain. But you'll get side activities which will unlock like kind of climbing tools. So there's a rocket backpack that you can get. You can get an extra carabiner you can throw up and then you can climb straight up if you need help with that on a belay. And it's cool because every single time you're trying to get up further and further.

I don't like that there is a health system essentially. And if you fall too many times, you will die and it will be a game over. So it kind of it takes the air out of me of like I'm having so much fun with it. this and I'm clearly progressing. And then I'll hit a point where it's like, oh, mega drop and I'll die. And it's like,

oh, I didn't want to restart this. I just want to play this game. And I did go into the settings. It looks like there's like a special health bar where like you won't take damage, but you'll still get a game over, which is weird.

So like, if you get hurt, it will lower your endurance circle, right? And so like you'll have half or a quarter, but no matter what, you'll die eventually. So it was odd that I was like,

oh, infinite life. And then I died still. I didn't like that. But this game is fun. a ton of a good time, especially because you can play with two people. So that's kind of cool. You know, you and I think about it. You're not your best friends? I won't think about it.

I want Andy and Nick to race me and Roger. Oh. You play. And then finally, I do want to give a shout out to Man O' Lords. I'm always looking for a dope city builder. You know, light RTS. It doesn't really feel like Age of Empires, but it is that cool

city builder that I get from Age of Empires in Sim City. that like a weekend. This game is very hot. It was on game pass as well for PC, so you can get it with that service. For me, this is a game.

If you want to jump in, I hope you give it a lot of time in like a full afternoon because it's the game that does not hold your hands. Unfortunately, when it comes to a tutorial or guiding you in the beginning

because it is early access. So they're still building it out as you go. But this is a game of if you want to learn how to get the mechanics and really grow in this, you have to click every single thing and get the small little blurb and understand.

So it's hard to like, how am I getting villagers in here? How am I getting food when I'm putting these things down? It doesn't do a good job of like, yo, here's the tutorial. Let us help you. And that's what this game needs because it is super dope. Like the city building aspect of it, the world that they creative is really, really awesome. But if you're not down to say, I'll click every single button and read this blurb for like

six plus hours, you're just not going to understand it off the rip like I would like to have. So I hope later on when we come to 1.0, it has a really good tutorial of like, this is it. This is how you do this because it doesn't have that. It looks super cool. It's cool. Especially when you posted up in that tree there was like, you know, the giant circle where you're going all these different ways for what you've got

and lock and stuff. I like that. It's really good. It reminds me of a, what's the game Washburn always makes to play ANO 1440 or something like that. It's got that city building vibe, but it's just not quite there yet. So I would say hold off,

but it's on Game Pass if you have a full afternoon to really spend. Well, thank you all for your video. video game reviews and impressions today. I hope you've enjoyed it, Andy. You're welcome, great. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you've enjoyed this episode

of the Kind of Funny Games cast. Remember each and every day, live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. We run you through reviews, previews, video games, and so much more. If you like that and watching me and Andy hang out all the time, every day,

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vlog series. It's also a podcast. Greg Way for you're listening and viewing pleasure. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, update, update. From last month, Sports Center anchored John Anderson to leave ESPN this spring. Oh, wow. We're clairvoyant. He survived the layoffs. He's like, oh, man, I can't do this.

The job, Johnny. I can't support this. Great career. Great career, Johnny Anderson. Of course, we're all about live talk shows here on Kind of Funny Games. That means up next, you are about to get another stream of Nicklock, the Pokemon stream that'll never end, except one day it probably will. Enjoy it while it's here.

One day it will end. Because one day they will hold me at gunpoint and be like, Andy, add just a million rare candies to the game. Ladies and gentlemen, until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.