Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Watch Dogs 2 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Impressions - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 94

Episode Date: November 17, 2016

We talk about Watch Dogs 2, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the NES Classic, the 10th anniversary of the PS3, and our first consoles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of The Kind of Funny Gamescast is brought to you by the Dollar Shave Club. Guys, you don't need to choose between price and quality to get an amazing and affordable shave. Dollar ShaveClub.com's the answer. To prove how amazing the shave really is, right now they're going to give you your first month for you to join the club. Dollar Shave Club.com delivers amazing razors right to your door for third of the price with the greedy razor corporation's charge. You need to join the club like I did. I've been looking damn good. Gia's been feeling up on my face and she's like, damn, Tim.

Why are you so smooth? I'm like, Dollar Shave Club, baby. That's how it works. Go to Dollar Shave Club and pick a razor from their lineup of amazing blades. I've been using the executive blade with their Dr. Carver shave butter. And man, if you've never used shave butter, I'll tell you what, you got to try it. It's fantastic. The blade just gently glides for the smoothest shave I've ever had.

Here is what you need to do. See why over 3 million members like me love the Dollar Shave Club. They're so confident in the quality of all their products. You can get your first month the club for free. You just pay shipping. No big deal. After that, just a few bucks a month. No long-term commitment.

No hidden fees. go to Dollar Shaveclub.com slash gamescast. That's Dollar Shaveclub.com slash gamescast. What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever, episode 94 of the kind of funny games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddies. Join by the coolest dudes of video games, Con Moriarty and Greg Miller. Hello, Tim. How you doing?

Good. Good. Good to see you in a Vans shirt. Van's shirt. I like this. I've never noticed. It was a Vans shirt before. You thought they only did choose.

Not no more, sir. They got shirts. They got shirts. They make them shirts. I like it. Or is it a low? Half red, half blue. Looks purple.

That's how that works. Smart. That's a good point. I never thought that through. Waring an undershirt or no undershirt? Is it low undershirt? Usually I can see the undershirt. Here you're giving me a lot of skin.

I like that skin. You want that skin? Do you like that skin? Kevin, give him the one shot there. Give him that skin. Give him the skin and the one shot. There it is. Look at that, Tim.

Kind of funny games cast. Everyday YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. You don't have to rub it like that. That's not sexy. That's like you have like, that's like you have snot on you, we'll say. No, stop it. Stop doing that face.

Definitely don't do that. That's definitely not what you wanted to do. How are you doing, Colin? I'm fine. Thank you. Good. Yeah, I'm good. I'm good.

I'm good. You guys been playing a lot of video games? Uh, yes. I sure have. Good. I got two of the hardest fought platinum trophies the other night. What did you get? Uh,

my name is Mayo. And then my name is Mayo again. PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, separate trophy list. So what is this? My name is Mayo business. This is an easy way to make money from trophy horrors like myself. Or people who care at all by trophies. you just want simple trophies.

99 cents. Cross by, you get this game, two different trophy lists, and then you tap X, or you tap the touchpad on the PlayStation 4. Colin, do you have anything to do with this game?

No, I don't believe it or not. I actually have struggled, because apparently you can get this platinum in 45 minutes, you can get it on both platforms. I don't think I'm going to play it on principle. You're not a trophy horror anymore.

You're a trophy chaser. Yeah, I was saying that, like, I mean, I can easily pad my trophies and, and do that, but it just doesn't feel right.

It's going down a bad path. Yeah, I just, I mean, you came back from that. Yeah, it's like, what's the point? I never came back from the bender of going for the easy platinum's doing the stuff out of the work. I know. But you made a big deal one day where you're like, I'm not going to do that anymore. No, no.

I want to get platinum. I respect you. Thank you. Yes. I, I, uh, decisions. Thank you. So I, uh, played a lot of Titanfall 2, beat it on, uh, master difficulty.

I wasn't done talking about my name is Mayo. So you put it into bikinis. Sometimes whipped cream bikini. Well, you put the mayo in the bikini. Yes. You put it in a banana suit at one point. and then just tap tap tap-o tapping it non-stop tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap it's just a jar or meo Tim you put a cost of money it's ridiculous that it even exists like I just refused to play it is it is

it is ridiculous I agree 100% with that like if you thought taco master was bad let me tell you about this other game that isn't even a game that's just tapping tap tap tap tap taparoo it's made for you guys it is cool well okay so so calling Titanfall Titan fall I beat it on Master difficulty got all the collectibles and you agree with Greg Miller right uh yeah I think that the, I think it's fine. I think it's a good game, a very good game. I just think that it's the people saying that this is like an amazing tour to force. I'm like, I don't think so. But I'm glad that if people like it, I also can't speak to the multiplayer component of it. I played one multiplayer match, pilots versus pilots. So I don't have a lot of perspective on that.

I didn't play the original game, so I'm not going to speak to that either, as we said on PSI I love you. But I have like 95 or 96% of the trophies. There's one trophy in there that's like really, really hard that I just don't think I'm going to get. So I think I'm just going to kind of let that go. But it was, I'm glad I played it. I enjoyed playing it. I just think the, uh, I think the gun play is good. I think being in Titans a drag, which I know is weird because of the whole thing is about that. Uh, or at least that's the hallmark of the game. I think that the pilot combat is great. I think it's fluid. I think it feels good. I think I never wanted to be in a Titan. Every time I got in a Titan, I was bummed that I was in it. Um, so perhaps it's just not the game for me.

And as I started call of duty, um, and I play that for, you know, three hours or so, it's just a far superior game. So, um, at least in my perspective. So, um, um, at least in my perspective. for a multitude of reasons, actually. So I really think that Titanfall, as far as the three shooters are concerned, having beaten both two of them on the hardest difficulty, and then playing one of them on veteran, which is the third to hardest difficulty.

There's two difficulty levels that aren't even unlocked at the beginning. I don't know what they are, but... You get that YOLO mode, aren't you? Yeah, I think YOLO mode's one, which is... Is it called YOLO mode? Yeah, you only live once in.

Wow. So I feel like that the trend has Call of Duty trending far ahead of Titanfall. Yeah, we're going to talk about Call it duty coming up, right? Yeah, I think to say about that too. Second topic. Second topic.

So, yeah, yeah. So I think that, you know, good time for shooters. You're like shooters, your multiplayer shooters, I'm sure I can't really speak to that again. But from the single party campaign perspective, I think Titanfall is the least, you know, interesting. And then I think Battlefield one obviously is there. And I think Call of Duty is, someone said it, so I don't want to, it's not a unique thought necessarily.

I don't know where I read it, but it doesn't even really feel like Call of Duty. That's what makes it so interesting. Hmm. Hmm. You also played a bit of that NES classic. over the extra live stream. Yeah, played quite a bit of it. It's great.

Controllers, cord is very... It's an issue. It's actually, like, absurd. I don't even know what they were... I don't even know what they were thinking with it. Why not even just make it wireless? But I think NICO is doing third-party wireless controllers, which is cool. It's a nice little setup.

I'm really especially excited for people that just don't have experience playing these old games to have an easy and nice way to play them as they are meant to be played. I play the role of Mega Man 2, for instance, it feels... Fantastic. I played Super Mario 3 for a while, played Super Mario 1 for a while, played Castle Castle played the legend of Zelda and Zelda 2 played Are there games in this machine that aren't available on virtual console? Well, I think the important thing is that they are recreated more faithfully than they are in virtual console Virtual console is really dull and the colors are just it's the it's like the brightness is turned down On a lot of the things. So it's like these are like how they're supposed to be. Okay, so but yeah, I mean it is kind of just I don't get the appeal from getting to play these games again

standpoint, but having them all in one place with the original controller and all that stuff. Especially like we were talking during the unboxing, having a controller that isn't all gross and yellow and isn't worn out as all shit. Like that's cool. And I understand the form factor's cool. But yeah, just the excitement surrounding as an outsider who has no nostalgia for the NAS and was like, have you been able to play these games for a while. Yeah, but I think it's, it is having all of them in one place that's not the Wii or the

Wii. You know, I think that it goes a long way for Nintendo to distance themselves from those systems because people hate them so much. So it's like this just being a, hey, here's the stuff you like. Just take it. It's definitely a way more easy entry point. I understand for people who are lapsed gamers who have great memories of these and want it for just 60 bucks.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's awesome. I disagree with you guys. I think it's in terms of like I understand exactly why people want it. There's no collaboration, like a combination of better, more important games anywhere than what's on this particular piece of hardware. Like if you look at the top 25 or even 50 games all the time, like more than about half of them are on that thing.

It's pretty significant, actually. Mario 3 is on there. Original Mario, two Castlevania games, a Mega Man game, Ninja Guidon. I mean, there's really two Zelda games. For people that, that's what I was saying, like, for people that have these games or have access, I guess you don't really need it unless you want to have some kind of cheap. I mean, it's cheap.

It's not really going to break the bank. But for newer gamers or for younger gamers or for less experienced gamers, I think that this is like an amazing purchase. I can't think of a better deal, actually, than the amount of, you know, the original Final Fantasy is on this thing. It's a lot of bang for your buck here. I think it makes perfect sense, and I hope it does really well.

I hope we get more of them. I don't say it doesn't make sense. I don't know what you're disagreeing with. I was asking what just be explained why it's important. I just think that, yeah, all the games are available in other places, but they are better on this than they are there. But yeah, the core thing is a really weird mist up for Nintendo. That, and I think that they're going to have a lot of issues with keeping up with demand of it.

But that's a classic Nintendo. What do they care? Yeah. They have a hot toy for Christmas. Yep. it out and call it a day. Yeah. Also,

other things that happened Mass Effect Day. There was a cinematic trailer and they announced the trilogy backwards compatibility on the Xbox one. What did you guys think of the trailer?

Fine. It's fine. I don't even really want to see anything else, to be honest. I'm good. I was alarmed. There wasn't more to it.

I thought there would be more gameplay in it. I thought there'd be a release date. I'm not confident that they're going to hit this spring thing. I think that they're letting the bad news sit for as long as possible.

But we'll see. I heard rumors from, you know, in the chat or whatever people talking about. Obviously, there's the whole game informer layout, but then there's supposed to be more, I guess, a game awards, the chat was telling me.

So remains to be seen. I mean, it's mass effect. I'm excited. The storyline sounds cool. You know what I mean? That, hey, we got sent out there and like you're the, you know, the child of these people and you're a pathfinder now. That's you.

You got to go out there and, you know, continue humanity, continue this mission. That sounds really cool. I'm excited to see what that's about. The trailer did end saying spring 2017. Do you think that they would have not had that if they didn't think they'd hit it? Yeah. I mean, companies lie to you all the time. All the time.

They put out release dates and release windows. they know they're not going to hit, but they continue on. This is like the fucking persona argument, right? Where I was like, there's no way persona, oh no, but they say, the website says this year. I'm like, all right, hold your breath, see what happens. We'll see. We'll see. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast.

Each year every week, we get together, talk about video games, all things we love about them. If you want to get it early, you can go to Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. If not, you can just get it later on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Either way, we love you and support you and your decisions in life. Greg. Yeah. You've been playing a little bit of that.

Watch dogs too. Watch dogs too. How many hours you put into it? I would say two hours. Two hours. It has been logged so far. You got it this morning? No, I got.

Well, I got it last night. And then internet was running like garbage at home. So it took forever to download by still put in 45 minutes an hour. And then I got in early to work today. I'm been playing whenever I have the time. I want to hear everything. You are going to love this game. Me?

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. This is a Tim Getty's ass game in terms of everything that's happening in it. I was just playing it a second ago. And what I was thinking about is, I'm this going to sound weird. So stick with me.

In terms of, and I'm talking about probably PS3 on, GTA jumped out, right, and started trying to be grounded in real. Like when you think of NICO and you think of GTA 4, right, and I'm not talking about the DLC, which I guess is a little bit different. But those worlds they were trying to make feel real. And then when they come out with GTA 5, it's bright, but it's not, it's, you know, still dealing. And it's got the GTA funniness and the commentary on society, but it's all over. Like it's like this for some reason what I'm playing with watchdogs right now reminds me of the PS2 GTAs on a current console in terms of it is a bright fun story you have like you know my problem with watchdogs one right was we're aiden and we have some horrible I think was it was his nephew was killed or whatever so there's this like dark cloud of like why you're out doing all this shit whereas here you're this hacker right you're retro you're you join up with this other group of hackers and the grant that the story is just getting started where we're out. having fun and we're out doing this and the worlds are colorful.

Immediately it tells you to go to the store and buy clothes. There's all these cool outfits to get and not cool. Like, I'm in a chicken suit. Like, holy shit, this is a really nice suit or that's a really cool thing. All the outfits look like Tim Getty's outfits in this one store. I was like these are all fucking straight up. Tim Geddies. This is what he would wear.

It's fun to jump around and have fun and be encouraged to have fun in the game if that makes sense. Where, like, I was telling you when you got here today, like one of the things is they send me out of, you know, dead sec headquarters. I go on my first thing. And they're explaining the game to you.

And like, you know, what's happening right now in the stories I've been, you know, initiated into this hacker group dead sec, uh, in a bunch of quick cut scenes or whatever. Like,

okay, cool. I have a one night stand that doesn't matter at all. That's just like setting it up to get us to the watchdogs graphic and we go into the story. But like, I'm hanging out with these other groups of hackers. There's other group hackers.

They're cool people. They send me out. The whole thing we're doing is we need to get the dead sec app on as many people's phones as possible. Uh, and that will give us their computing. power so we become stronger and we can do more and expand out our thing. We're not doing against their will. People understand when they, like dead sex like, you know, this renegade organization,

people know what they're doing when they download it. But it's about getting followers. So there's this weird social media commentary on it of like, you know, there's the crazy thing is to go out there to get dead sex name and the press of, you know, doing this goofy thing or taking this thing down. But then there is, you know, okay, cool. There's these different spots around San Francisco that, you know, you go up and you take a photo of or you take a photo of yourself with and then you post them on to the social media thing there and then you expand out that way. The whole thing, I always thought in both GTA 4 and GTA 5, the phone was clunky. It didn't feel like a real phone. The phone I'm using in this game feels real and it's like when it vibrates, it sounds perfect and it's giving

the actual information I need to do. I go into, you pull up your maps when you're driving right, like you have your own MP3 player on there. An app you buy right away for like three bucks or whatever, not real money in game money. You're driving around, but as you drive around right, Like you'll hear a new song and your phone will vibrate and tell you it's new things. So you stop and you pull out your Shazam app and then that adds it to your things. Like you're collecting songs throughout the world and shit. But then there is the just social media aspect of it. Okay, cool.

I'm going to do this and running around and doing that. It feels like not the farcical, you know, Los Santos world of GTA, but a more colorful San Francisco, at least for where I am right now. Again, this is all based on two hours. Maybe it gets super crazy and all these different things. But running around doing all these different things, it's fun. you know, for me with Watchdogs one, the hacking never

felt natural, it never felt fun. Like, turning on the lights, turning off the lights, whatever the hell that is, right? I'm surprised by how much I am enjoying moment to moment mission gameplay right now because like when we went and did the let's play, we talk about all the time, right? And by the way, that let's play was sponsored.

This is not sponsored. Nebosoft just, you know, gave us the game to talk about and like we review games. And when we did that, let's play though, we just fucked around. We just drove around San Francisco. What does San Francisco look like?

How do we interact with different people? people and do all these different things. What happens to them? Now that I'm actually going through it, I'm surprised at how much fun it is to be this character of retro and come into a thing and be like, all right, cool, go up in the camera, see how many people there are, see what I can interact with, you know, fuck it up, come back in after getting shot, or figure out, okay, well, if I set both of these traps to explode and I call one guy here and set this one to proximity when it comes through that stupid little robot car we had that like jumps around. Yeah, and like they dropped us, you know, whatever, it was five hours in the game. We had everything. We know how to

use anything using that now like you know we had 15 minutes before the show and I finished a mission so so then it was okay well I'm gonna go find these research things I need to start cleaning the map that way and going over there and getting there and it's like that it's one of those good video game mechanics of it's a three-dimensional puzzle where I pull up and inside that building is what I need but how the hell do I get up there if I hack that I can go up there but I go up there and that door's lock so now I got to follow the line back over there back down drop the robot in go in there he hacks something Like, I'm, it's scratching something that I needed scratched. I, you know what I mean?

Like, that's the thing with, like, all the shooters I've been playing. I'm not the shooter guy, but I'm just anxious to play something. I want to play stuff, obviously. I want to see what people are talking about. But here we are in a game that I already love the world. I already love the characters. I already love how much fun it is in its third person, which is like what I want on my games, obviously, usually.

Yeah, I mean, you're always really big on kind of the open world, the third person games, which is like a lot of things to collect, the Ubisoft games. Yeah, totally. And I think that Watchdogs, too, has a lot. writing on it in terms of people talk about Assassin's Creed one to two and watchdogs one to two there's a lot of expectations there so it's scratching that it's for you but do you think that it's going to satisfy the people that are looking for it to fix the problems of the I mean I'm hard to say two hours in I think it has a shot at it and I think part of that is that I feel and correct me if

I'm wrong Colin Tim that expectations are if not if not non-existent lower for this I don't think people are looking at this the way they looked at Assassin's Creed to. I think that it's actually been one of those games that we kept forgetting about. What are the big games coming out? Oh, Gears and I'll call it, dude, and then somebody be like, oh, fuck, watch stocks too. Oh, yeah, watch Dogs 2. Why haven't we seen? What's going on with that? Where is it? Why aren't we getting more from that? And so I didn't, I kept saying, you know, after we got burned with Mafia, that I was like really looking forward to Washawks 2. We played enough that I was interested mechanically in it in the world of it. Was it going to pan out as a game? I don't know. But yeah,

after two hours with it, I want to, you know, I mean, I brought my console from home today rather than risk having bad internet here and not being able to download it. Like, I want to play this game when I have all the free time. And it is that thing of like, it's just something, it sounds so stupid to keep saying, but it's fun. It's an open, it's a third person open world fun thing where it's not bogged down in, I'm Michael and I'm dealing with my shitty kids or Trevor's crazy and having sex. It might have raped that person or a Nico and everything that's going on in Nico's life, right? It is very much like, well, we have. blah, blah, blah, and we're talking.

Like, I think I brought up and then immediately got off of it. But the first thing I told you was the fact that, like, they got there. I went out on a mission. I started doing it. And then I got the next mission popped up. And it was, hey, guys, the new trailer for this movie we all love just dropped. Do you want to come watch it? Yeah, and that became mission.

And you drive back there and you get there and you get a little fun cut scene of them being like, all right, show me on the laptop. No, no, no, laptop. Come sit down. We need good lights. We need good speakers, blah, blah, blah. And you sit down. They all make fun of the trailer.

I love it. Then they're like, well, I want to go do this. And that leads into a mission about that. But it's not stupid, but it's not super serious, if that makes sense. And, like, you know, I just put up the post not too long ago. They got good traction on Twitter right about the whole, like, if you're going to fucking do audio logs in a video game to round out your world, make them play as I go. Game nails that. In the fun, the way of, like, I'm walking and like, you know, I can hack, you can hack anybody you want.

And so I'm just hacking strangers and like, all right, yeah, let me read your text message. You're listening in your phone call, right? And it pops up in a little, like, dead space three different. mention a window that would be my phone or whatever down here and I can just let go of L1 and keep walking and the whole conversation plays out or you know I was downstairs and I hacked an iPad and then it brought up a news video about what's happening in the world and talking about how you know this person I think congresswoman or whatever just had all of a sudden you know got on the bad side of somebody else and they leaked her her records about being transgender or whatever and

it was this like huge but it's just playing as I walk around and explore the environment and like it's not stopping me it's especially in an open world game where I'm sealing a car and I'm doing this and I'm hacking a light and I'm going there and I'm shazaming the fucking song as I drive. Like so far it's all been really, really seamless. And I'm excited to explore the skill tree. That's one of those ones where you know, you get the research points that I was farming before I came in here. Jumping in and like, do I want to put them into combat or hacking or this?

Like something about the hacking in Watchdogs 1 just wasn't fun to me. And maybe, and I gave that, I mean, I give that more time than where I am right now with Watchdogs too. I want to say I gave it like four or five hours where I was just like this game. I see where you're going, but it's not fully cooked. Right now it seems like I got a really good idea. they have a really good cast of characters, and I'm excited to see what happens with it. And I'm enjoying playing it.

So there's going to be a lot of comparisons to GTA, obviously, with this game. But for me, GTA, I've always enjoyed just kind of running around and having fun a lot more in the world than doing the actual missions. But even then, GTA does a really good job, I think, of having its campaign, like, guide me in a way that is fun and teaches you all the different mechanics and stuff. But then every once in a while, a mission would come up where I'm like, I don't want to do this. I just don't want to do this mission. And Watch Dogs 2 from a lot of the E3 demo.

that we've seen, like specifically last year's E3. I know exactly what you're talking about. There's like the hover thingy. Exactly. You jump off the like the you're on a crane at one point, but then you come down and it's like a glass in like campaign office or something shit. There's like the drone that you go in with all that. I was looking at it and it was just like this is boring.

I don't want like this is a mission I don't want to do. Playing through it. Are those moments more fun than they seemed? Well, from what I'm getting out of it and this is early like we keep saying. Because I'm sure by the time this will post, obviously, but then PSI Love You X O X O next week on the Tuesday episode. I'm sure I'll be hours into this and have more to say.

It really comes off right now as far as how do you want to tackle it? Because for me in that demo, it was always weird to see him slinking around in the campaign office with his gun drawn, right, and popping up and shooting after doing the whole drone thing. And I was like, that doesn't fit what this is. And so without the game beating me over the head with it, I'm not playing that way, right? Like there was a thing where I got in there and, you know, I'm setting off all the traps and I'm setting off my little drone guy. and like I'm doing it without it being like, you know, thief or dishonored.

I'm doing the stealth play through and I'm doing it because I, that's that character to me. And so it's really foreign for me to pull out my gun and like that, you know, I shoot somebody. I'm like, oh, fuck, right? I just killed somebody. I'm like, did I fail the mission? Oh, no. And that world, this, or this world is fine. It's just, that's not how I'm playing it.

So like, I think a good example of it, right, is like I went there. I scoped out this entire area, right? I bopped around the security cams. I set some traps. And then I, you know, went up and dropped the drone, not the drone, the robot car guy because that's all I have right now and I drove that around right and when it was I done I got in there I hack the thing I needed and he can pick stuff up so if you're collecting something the guy picks it up and then I you know hit the button to come back and what for me defines the character

so far is he's sitting there Indian style on his laptop you know what I mean like that's how I went through I didn't go through guns blazing I didn't go through choking people out like I distracted them the you know the first thing I put my research points into was being able to distract them on their phone so that when I do want to get deeper in I can get through there you can electrocute them, stun gun if like in the worst case scenario, but even that so far seems super foreign. I'm sure as we get in, it's going to be here's this place with 17 people, but even the first real mission of like proving yourself to them, I was doing the stealth route of it. I wasn't going in guns blazing. The biggest criticism I had when we played that hour or two,

whatever last time was that it was really overwhelming in terms of controls. Yeah. The like there was so much in terms of hacking being hacking a car is different than hacking a phone's different than hacking these electrical lines or whatever. In addition to that, there's driving and then there's running and the shooting and then there's the car mechanics and there's there was just a lot and yeah they dropped us in five hours in so yeah and that was the problem so far that's not the thing and it's like it's for me it is that moment of like oh this is how we should have done that when we didn't know what was going on and i remember the guy giving me the demo i think the director was in there talking to me while i was doing i kept confusing if i need to hit l1 or r one right

so i was like fucking everything up and like throwing drones out when i shouldn't be doing that right now they're starting you off so simply where it is like all right cool you can hack it but you only can steal their money or you can you know read their text it's not like I can get in really nitty gritty yet but I've you know now they start unlocking the tree right like I didn't have any kind of grenades or anything or I think you know but now I have these ones that distract you and then I upgraded that again so I could throw it out and like send up you know set off like a pulse that knocks everybody out and stuff like that so far it's gonna be good and by the time we get to where we're five hours in and I'm sure even then we were souped up theoretically I should know what I'm

doing but no I haven't right now I haven't been driving through the city totally fucking up like we were all the time. You know what I mean? Like it is that thing where I don't even have the ability, you know, yet to shoot the poles out of the ground to like stop cars. Like that's the thing. Like I think right now I can, uh, change the lights and I can set off like steam explosions and stuff. If I go past one of those steam grates or whatever in the car. So it is that very much training wheels. Let's get you going and get you off and then figure it out. Always down to get off. Oh, come on. Any thoughts on the game at all? I haven't played it. I'm I can't bring myself to really be too interested in it. I've so somewhat ebbed and flowed. I honestly think that watchdogs too has

missed its window to even be relevant. We'll see if I'm right or wrong, but I think that it's not even necessarily the time in which it's being released, which is November, I think, is a safe time to release a game like this. I just think the original watchdogs was such a letdown for a lot of people, I think, because it was this, again, game that was overhyped by a lot of media, and people were just excited to see what it was all about, and it just didn't deliver for a lot of people. I mean, I know some people love it, but most people don't. I think that there's just too much other stuff to play. So I'd be really shocked at this game had any sort of resonance at all and did very well. But, you know, like any other game,

I hope it does well and I hope people do enjoy it. But I do think it's going to be, it's going to suffer because of not necessarily what's surrounding it, but again, because I think it's just, I just don't think watchdogs is a thing, you know, but I, but maybe I'm wrong. I think what it's got going for it is that it's different. It isn't another shooter. You know what I mean? I'm the third person action guy, right? And it's like, what do I have? this fall. I have Batman, which I've played before. I have Tomb Raider, which I've played before. Uncharted is out for the holiday. But if you're looking for that third person, here's this game set, and I mean, I guess last guardian down there, but even that's not what this is, right? This open-worldly

thing. I think this has a chance in a very interesting, different way to kind of have that Dead Island vibe to it where it's like, oh, hey, this is something, it's not, you know, based on what I'm playing, I'm like, this is a fucking 10, right? But it is, oh, this is a really great third-person, action game. Well, I didn't expect this right now. This is fun. And if that's what you're looking for, that's what you come for.

Very cool. Next topic of the day, brought to you by you over on Patreon. And of course, Steven Insler. Shout out to Steven Insler, Patreon producer for month 9,302. But also,

thank you all for supporting us at the $20 and above level. To get your name in the bar? Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, whatever. Thank you for being awesome. Your names will be there. Thanks to Kevin's amazing editor.

All your October support. Yes, all of your October support. But Colin, you mentioned earlier that it's been a really good year for shooters. It's been a great year for shooters. Single player campaigns and multiplayer for a lot of people out there. And even you guys are talking about Tyne Fall, not necessarily being your guys as Cup of Tea, but it's like people seem to really enjoy it. It's also a good game.

Titan Falls is even a great game, but it's just not as good as people are saying it, which is right, we keep getting hung up on. That's great. So I'm almost done with the Battlefield One, or, yeah, Battlefield One campaign and it's fantastic, hearing nothing but good things about the call of duty campaign. It's very good. So Colin, that's what I want to talk about. Call of Duty.

So infinite warfare. So I, um, I, um, I booted it up yesterday. I was waiting for the, we're recording this day after, uh, the election. I was watching, waiting for the results to come in. Obviously, this happens a little bit earlier in California because of the timing. So I had woken up. I was going to email doing a little bit of work. And then I was like, you know, I'm just going to pop this in.

Uh, I had installed it. And, um, so I put about three hours into it or so. So not enough time to have a comprehensive review of the game yet, but playing it on veteran as well, so I'm moving somewhat slowly. Because I do like to play my games, my shooters on harder difficulties. Just because I think it's, I think people say it ruins the pacing. I actually think it makes the pacing more realistic. So my thoughts on the game are great story and premise. The idea is very cool.

It's about Earth, basically, humans leaving Earth. kind of exploring the solar system, similar to mass effect. But in this respect, they're searching for goods or precious minerals, whatever, gases that they need to survive. The Earth is just too swamped with people. There's not enough there for everyone. So what ends up happening is that they go to places like Europa. They really go to all the planets, all the systems, all the like the planets. All the like the planets.

And there's a rogue part of this group that basically splinters. off and wants nothing to do with Earth anymore. And basically it's like this spaceborn kind of group. And they launch an attack on Earth during a fleet week like thing where they're showing off all their equipment and having a good time in one place, yeah. Similar to Battlestar Galactica, actually. And although they're not using AI, they're basically doing it overtly with attacks. And I like the, so I liked the way it starts.

I like what it's all about. it. I think it's a very interesting game from a plot perspective. I think in this respect, it destroys Titanfall. And I think Greg might agree. Like, Titanfall 2's story, I wasn't playing it for the story. In fact, I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't care about what was happening. We discussed on PS, I Love You, that Titanfall 2 had this very peculiar thing it was doing where I would introduce these pretty cool bad guys, a very Metal Gear solid-like cast of characters that each had their own unique, titan and their quirks, and they were all, it was like a group but it was like Metal Gear Solid one or two, really,

in that respect. But there was no reason for them to be there. You didn't know who they were. You would just fight them. They'd be dead. They'd show up out of nowhere. There was no context. By the time I got to the end of the game,

I had no idea who the person I was even fighting was. Now, that could be on me, I'm sure, in some respect as well. But it just goes to show you the looseness and really the non-importance of the plot. I think that you play Titanfall, too, because the game feels good. And I think with Call of Dude, you play the game because it feels good with infinite warfare. You play the game because it feels good. And because there's an interesting story. And there's an interesting hook.

I think that, you know, I don't know how Greg feels about this, but I think that Titanfall 2 goes too far into parkour. I think that parkour and kind of sudden movements in platforming and first person is difficult. And not necessarily in terms of mechanics, but in terms of just understanding, you don't have the proper perspective to know where you are. And I don't think the games work like that. And so infinite warfare takes some of what Titanfall does, but not all of it. It is 25% of that, as opposed to Titanfall is kind of more willy-nilly, fast movement. And so double jumping and stuff like that feels good in the game, but I don't have to like run along walls necessarily or do all these kinds of things all the time. And there's not these long stretches

of platforming to show it off. So I like that particular component of the game. I think the AI is somewhat intelligent on veteran. There are different kinds of enemies. The game feels a lot actually like Titanfall in some ways in terms of the enemy variety that you're receiving that you're kind of dealing with and all this. The one cool thing about it, and I said it earlier in the first topic, Again, not a unique thought, which I remember where I read it. I think it was just on Twitter and a comment somewhere where they're saying like this is not, this doesn't feel like call of duty and it doesn't. Mechanically, gunplay feels great.

It feels like call duty, a diverse array of guns, all these kinds of things, very smooth gameplay. I've said it before. I'll say it again, every shooter should strive to feel like this. But the structure of the quest, the non-linearity of the game is very unique for call of duty. You go to your ship and you can basically have a mass effect like map of the system. and I don't know if you got this far or whatever where you can choose different missions and do them in certain orders

and there are people of consequence I forget what they call them like it's like a most wanted list and you're going after these different people and you're finding weapon upgrades along the way there's no there's no intel to find just randomly now you're finding armories that things that matter for the game of the story you're playing that make your character stronger in something give you better defense

or better buffs or whatever it might be grenades are stronger whatever whatever happens to be I just feel like the game is more fleshed out it's more fully realized it it reminds reminds me that because I didn't play a call of duty too deeply in black ops three I think was last year That was the first one I didn't play the campaign for for many years actually I can't even remember the last time I didn't play a call of duty campaign I played zombies on that one, but we just moved on there was a lot of things happening in November last year October So I just didn't get to it so I can't quite compare it to that but there seems to be

Deeper systems at work in this particular call of duty than I had ever seen in a call of duty game before and I think You know we talked about stagnation Activision itself has said that they expect this game to sell less than black ops three because of the residents of the black ops sub franchise within Call of Duty, also the fact that, you know, Trey Arc is now the favorite child suddenly with Call of Duty fans, as opposed to IW, which puts out this particular game. And so they expect the sales drop off. The game sold 50% as well in the UK the first week, but still is the second biggest selling launched in the year behind FIFA. So people are still playing it at Destroyed Titanfall, for instance, at Beat Battlefield.

So the game's trajectory is good. I think what's here is something that's going to surprise people. Now, I don't know if the game falls off. I don't know how long it is. I don't have any of that information yet. But based on what I've played so far, I really, really like it. And I was actually,

I knew I was going to like it, but I was shocked about how good it is. And truth be told, how superior it is to Titanfall. That's the big takeaway from me. And that's, that's it. I mean,

we had talked about Titanfall on this show. We talked about it on PSI love you. And I was just like, I don't get what people see in this campaign, why they think it's amazing. It's good. Don't get me wrong.

I disagree. I like the wall running and jumping. I love it in Titanfall. And I think it's fine. it's used well in Call of Duty as well, not nearly as much, obviously. But when I started Call of Duty, the first day we got it and then dropped off. And when I came back to Call of Duty, it was immediately, right, that's Omar. This is this guy.

My guy's dead or whatever over there. So now I'm doing this. This robot. Oh, how are they going to enter? I was like immediately like, this story is still awesome. This world's still awesome. I remember what's happening where Titan Fall was always just like, all right, BD and I are running around.

He's, okay, whatever. Why are we? Okay, the mask woman's here. Let's fight her. Okay, whatever. Yeah, like we don't really know why. like what this game sets up, that was the thing with Titanfall

that really frustrating me was that they, the ball was like right over the plate with the story and they just missed. And with this, just the way it's set up, you know, Taylor from Nottie Dog wrote this story or helped write the story and you can tell that there's just more care and more love put into this story.

I mean, even the environments, right? Like that's what I was telling you when I was a bit ahead of you of just like in Titanfall, the environments were beautiful and I ran through but there wasn't that environmental storytelling. And like in this one when you get to, when you first off,

I mean, like the whole opening section, right, from the fleet wheat thing to the battle on the ground to into your jackal to onto the thing, then off the ship and then onto the moon. Like that's an awesome fucking sequence that's never, that's all fucking gas, you know what I mean? And when you get to the moon and you get in and you get to the interplanetary port that's like a visitor center and you get in there, I was, I stopped, like, they all ran ahead and I just stopped and like walked through this exhibit of like, the, you know, the history of space travel on the moon. And it's like there's the lander there and the original suits and then you go. And then there's this like video wall that has like the timeline, the fictionalized timeline of space travel that would got them there. And it's like to go from every like World War I, World War I, World War II into the Apollo program. But I'm just reading it.

It's like, this is fucking awesome. Like what a great fleshed out environment this is. What this world is to make you make me care so much about what's happening already. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. I think that the, it's an impressive kind of thing. I like the customization. I like the.

it's just not mission to mission. It's not, there's, there's a, like Greg was saying, there's a, there's a tether that pulls all of this together that gives it a great scale. And obviously you're going to have a bigger scale in a game like this that you might have had in a game like, well, World of War had scale or Black Ops had scale where it was like, you know, you're going from different times or different locations, different beachheads and all those kinds of things. But here you're, you're exploring the totality of the solar system, which I think is really

cool. But also the idea, it really, the mass effect influence here can't be overstated. I think the, not only because of the thematics of going to space and discovering fucked up things, which is what Mass Effect basically was about, but with the Proteins and all this, it's not quite that deep. But when you go to that galactic map or that solar map, that solar system map in the game, I'm like this, and you go over a planet and it's giving you little write-ups and stuff like that. It's, it's, it's mass effect. And I thought that was really interesting.

I also like walking around this, you can go into that. You have like your own chambers similar to Mass Effect where you can go on a computer and read about people and listen to voice recordings and all this kind of stuff. You can go to the armory and customize your loadout. So the game's not just putting you into missions. And these are the weapons you have, these weapons you find. Now you can be like, I want this pistol. I need this scope.

I need all of these kinds of things. And the game will tell you like that doesn't necessarily make any sense. Like you need laser weapons here, but they're like, no, so you can override that, which I think is really cool. The collectible aspect of the game, in addition to the armories and finding these new loadouts is you find weapons that enemies drop and they glow. The first time you see them before you pick them up. And when you pick them up, you scan the weapon, which I think is really cool.

Then the weapon is sent for, like, digital printing basically to your ship, and you can just use that gun whenever you want. So if you're very thorough and you see a gun in the corner that some some droid or whatever had dropped, and you pick it up, and then that game, that's automatically or learned. You might not use it ever again. You may use it again. I don't know. But I really do dig that particular aspect of it. And, you know, I give Infinity Award a lot of credit because I think that this is a, I don't want to say a quantum leap forward because I just don't have the knowledge base of last year's quality to say that. again, that wasn't their game, of course.

That was Traarch's game. But I feel like call of duty is, doesn't seem as stagnant as people would say it is. And I don't think we need one of these games every year. I think it would be very bold of Activision to one day be like, we're just going to make a call of duty platform or at least a new campaign year or whatever. We'll release new maps. We just have this kind of static thing, call of duty. And then there's different things. I like to see them do that.

I think it would be very pro consumer. But I really like what they've done. and I hope the game is in the middle in the end as good as it has been these first few hours because you know it's it's astonishingly good now how does it compare to Doom

they're different kinds of games I think I think that on a mechanical level call of duty and Doom are clearly the superior shooters of the year they're just very different doom is fucking fast way faster than Call of Duty and call of Duty's fast while Battlefield's a little more realistic and plotting I think Titanfall obviously is more parkour base and also kind of more dynamic with Titan

combat as well to the point of flying in your ship, whatever, because you're basically flying a fighter jet for, you know, like a ship. That reminds me a lot of the Titans in Titanfall II. When I'm on nothing, I don't want to be in it. I wish that studios would learn to focus on what is good about the game, that we don't need some sort of diverse perspective in terms of gameplay experiences to make the game dynamic or good. I'd rather have 12 hours of solid on foot play than ever being a Titan in Titanfall 2. I'd rather have 10 or 12 hours of solid on foot gameplay than ever being in one of those ships. in Call of Duty.

So I wish that they would just focus on what's good. And you can still put you in space and do all these. There's a lot of zero G fighting. There's cool weapons like grenades that remove gravity and stuff. There's a lot of cool things in there. But I wish that they would just kind of focus a little bit more instead of trying to be broad. This isn't a,

I'm not trying to play a flight sim. You know what I mean? And so it's a little bit obnoxious in that sense. Not nearly as annoying as the Titan fights for me. But certainly, you know, a problem. So I'm sure like Greg said, well, and PS I love you next week. We'll both have beaten it, I'm sure.

and we could talk about it a more thorough way. Have you guys come across Kid Harrington's character yet? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's introduced super early. Is it cool or is it? I think it looks like him. Yeah, exactly.

It's like, oh, he's at, you know, John Snow is the villain. Okay, cool. Snew. Jansne. But it's not like, it didn't pull me out of it, but I mean, you know, Call of Duties are in these giant, you know,

action movies, right? These, so I expect to see movie stars in them or whatever. So far as his performance is good. I like the motivation of his character. Cool. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, it's all about separate. The story is not unique maybe, but, but certainly there.

And I really just don't feel like it was there in Titanfall. You know, no, I agree with that 100%. Tyneful 2. That is. I didn't play Titanfall 1. Well, there wasn't a strong Titanfall 1. Next topic. On November 11th, 2006 in Japan, and November 17th, 2006 in North America, the PlayStation 3 launched.

similar to what we did with the N65. $599 US dollars. A couple months back, I wanted to kind of, you know, reminisce about our memories of the PlayStation 3 and the last 10 years of it,

I feel like specifically for you guys. Yeah. It meant a lot. Well, sure. In a very weird, interesting way, right? I mean, my PS3 memory starts with them

announcing that at that E3 and me'd be like, no fucking way. I had a PS2. I loved my PS2. I was a PlayStation 2 gamer, and I was just like, are you fucking kidding me? That much money for this?

No, there's no way I'm buying that at launch. And then the, for me, unheard of happened in like Nintendo and this is their console. And I'm like, oh, it's SD. It doesn't really, it just uses Wi-Fi if you have it or whatever because I didn't, I didn't have Ethernet and I didn't have an HD TV back then. I was like, yeah, that sounds really cool. It's how much money? Oh, sure.

It's turning, it's this new way to play games. It's all these cool things. I can play all these old NES games. I never got the chance to play when I was a Sega kid. Yeah, I'm going to buy that. And I'll never, I went to, you know, the game stop in Columbia, Missouri, camped out in line to pre-order. And so, and then just, you know, I would then get to come pick it up, right?

And so I did that, you know, months in advance. And then for the Columbia Daily Tribune, I came back and I covered the PlayStation 3 line at Best Buy. And then when that went up at midnight or whatever it was, I went over and bought my weed, you know, from the game stop across the street where there was like just people who who had camped out before walking and walking out. And I remember what threw me and I, what was my first. sign of like, oh oh is that for PlayStation 2 right like bought it at launch camped out.

It was my first major purchase that entire line we were also into it. We were, you know, we were so excited to get this system. But as I'm sure you guys recall, that was for me and maybe it'll be different for you guys. That was the first time I remember when you bought it and you took it home and opened it up how, what a hot item it was and then when the the not black market but the scalper market really started to take hold right. And when we were in line for the PS3 and I was interviewing all these people because I wasn't buying one.

I'm interviewing on these people. I went on the line. I'm talking to all these people. And none of them were there to have a PS3. They were all there to buy the PS3 to flip it and sell it. Whereas the Nintendo line I had been in, you know, a month prior was all people who were excited about it. Then you jump into to pre-order the Nintendo line.

Then the PS3 line here, there was one kid in there who was buying it for himself. And I was like, that seems like a huge fucking problem. Why would that be the case? And so when it, you know, came out and then nobody liked it, it was too much money. Like, you know, I had one friend who bought it in Columbia, Missouri that was like buying the PS3 for the PS3 and I was excited about the PS3. And so for me, it went that comes out in November, January, I get the email from Jeremy Dunham or whatever saying, hey, do you want to, you know, have an interview tomorrow for

the PlayStation team. And I was like, oh, sure. And I remember sending off and I said it all up and whatever. And my girlfriend at the time, she was like, cool. Have you played the PS3 yet? And I was like, oh, fuck. And I called that one friend and in a blizzard or a snowstorm drove over there. And my Mustang was like skidding out all over the place and played a whole bunch of crappy ass

PS3 launch games with a shitty ass controller. So that's the thing is I wrote down all the launch titles. We got Call of Duty 3, Genji Days of the Blade, Mad in 2007, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Mobile Suit Gundam Crossfire, NBA 07, NBA 2K7, resistance fall of man, Ridge racerer 7, Tiger Woods, 07, Tony Hawk's Project 8, and Untold Legends Dark Kingdom. And that was with the six-axis controller. We don't need Rumble anymore. Which was a disaster.

Motion's way too light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But was a big step up from what we expected to get from the boomerang controller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was like, I remember that E3 seeing when they first were talking about, I'm just like, Sony, what the hell are you doing? Yeah, you got it right with the PS2 and the PS1. Like, just don't give us this bullshit.

And then they didn't. Yeah. And then eventually it took them a while to bring them back the dual shotgun. like three. The lawsuit got settled. Yeah. Yeah. There was a bunch of issues there. But yeah, the price point and all that stuff. Like I remember being like, all right, I'm not getting this for as much as I want it. Yep. And that was the thing. It's like, I, you know, I, am I been burned, of course, being a fan boy when I was the Sega fan boy. So I was trying not to do that. But that always happens, right? Of like, where I was like, PlayStation 2 so much superior to Xbox. You

know what I mean? And then they released Xbox 316. It was a similar thing of like, I don't have an HD TV and I don't have really good internet. So now I'm like, or, you know, plug it. You know, plug internet at the time and I wasn't gonna buy the adapter for it. Yeah, it's like, no, I'm not gonna do that either. I mean, that's the other thing. The Xbox 360 had a year on this too. So it's just like, I remember that coming out and me being a clear Sony guy. I was just like, I'm not getting a 360.

Like there's no way in hell. Yeah. I remember I borrowed Curran's 360 just to be able to play Tony Hawk's American Wasteland because I'm like, well, I want to play the best version of it. Um, but besides that, I was like, whatever. Like I can wait. I want an HD TV to experience this right. Like I don't want to just like, you know, do some weird makeshift bullshit.

Yeah, but I was like, I'm going to get a PS3. eventually. Then they announced the price, the controller and all this stuff. And I was like, until I have a reason, I'm not getting a PS3. And then that reason came. And it was Final Fantasy versus 13. And I should be playing that game in about two weeks, hopefully. On your PS3, on my PS3. Yeah, on my PS3. But then, no, I've told the story many times, but I, you know, traded in a whole bunch of shit to be able to get, and I schemed real hard to get a PS4 when Middle Year Solid 4 came out, which to me was the first like must play title.

Yeah. I'm like, this is worth the system. Uncharted had been out already and I played it at a game stop and I was like, okay, okay. I want this for sure, but I was like,

I can wait. Because like looking at that launch lineup, like many launch lineups, it was fine. You know, it did have resistance. It had a real solid game to it. But yeah,

most of them are the sports titles and just the iterative annualized stuff. But where were you out with it on launch? I was in college. I couldn't afford it. the price was ridiculous. The PlayStation 3 to me is a story of redemption. I think that,

first of all, I've said it before, PlayStation 3 is my favorite PlayStation console. And I had a PS1 since, or mid-97, I had a PS2 the day it came out, PS4 a day came out, PSP very early, Vita Day came out,

before I came out. So I have experienced with all of Sony six kind of pieces of hardware, and PS3 is my favorite. And I feel like this is a, it's a, it's a,

it's a harrowing kind of story that I think will has taught lessons to people in the industry about bravado about expectations about um consistency about momentum about how fickle the consumer is and the fickle and the consumer should be fickle because it's their money and it's their time and it's their energy that they're kind of putting into this ecosystem um when they announced this console um and they revealed the price and we're saying what they're saying about and i'm like these guys are fucking crazy i remember i remember i remember being like a two just what you're saying doesn't make any sense. $600 to me when I was in college was

more money than I ever had in my bank account. $600 for me now is not that much money comparatively, but it's still an enormous amount of money. I wouldn't pay $600 for a fucking video game console ever. And in fact, I didn't buy my own PS3 until 2009 because I remember saying on Podcast Beyond, first of all, I was lucky enough to have access to PS3. I basically just had a PS3 at my house anyway.

But when Slim came out and it was $300, I'm like, this isn't worth any more than $300 to me. And I will not pay more than $300 for this console. In the old beyond days, they asked us, and I mean, I mean, the original cast, but even before Colin, right? They asked, they had asked us, and I put in quotes me, to stop saying that I wouldn't buy the PS3. Because every episode, I was like, I haven't bought a PS3 yet.

I mean, this went on for a year and a half, two years. It was that motor storm bundle they put out or whatever where I finally bought a PS3. And it was just like, the library did not justify this price in any way, shape, or form. And it was, yeah, I mean, I was taking it home for reviews, but like, taking home and enjoying was like calling all cars. and it was like, this is not worth buying for calling. So me and Micah can sit around by calling all cars at home. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think that the specific angle that Sony took with this console was disastrous, which I think you saw direct reflection in how they rolled out, PS4, how they priced PS4, how they think they rolled out and priced PSVita, or VR rather, which was very careful. Vita even was appropriately priced. I think that they learned those particular lessons that bravado is a killer. PS2 is the best-selling gaming hardware of all time, but whether it's console or handheld, it's never going to be passed.

No one's ever going to sell them any consoles or piece of hardware ever again, not even close. So they had a lot to be proud of, but they also didn't look at why they sold so many units. I'm very convinced that 50, 60, 70 million of those were sold as DVD players. And a lot of them were sold on the back end when they were very cheap. Remember that there were three iterations of the PS2. The super slim PS2 was very late in emerging markets. Brazil was buying it late. Eastern Europe was buying it late.

Southeast Asia was buying it late. There was a lot of places where PS2 just kept burning. So I think that the numbers were inflated and gave. them a false sense of security and I think the PlayStation 2 is a great system. The PlayStation 2 is actually my least favorite PlayStation console and so going into going in and I know that's crazy to a lot of people but it's just it is I mean I think GameCube shit on PS2 in terms of games but the in from that particular perspective it's it's interesting to study the history of it and figure out well how do they get to this point and how do

they rectify and I think what's really impressive with Sony is that they that Sony as a corporation started falling apart around PlayStation 3 because they had put so many eggs that basket. The TV division was failing. They were losing money, hand over fist with Vio and all that kind of stuff. They just weren't doing a very good job. And they still managed to really borrow down and fix it to the point where PlayStation 3 sold it parity, if not a little bit better, than Xbox 360 with one less year on the market. That's a really impressive thing. I think it netted about 82 and a half for 83 million units. That's a lot of units for context. NES, I think, is that 60. you know, so.

That's also because they had the three different iterations at the right times. Right, exactly. I think that 2009 introducing, you know, the new one in the 19, 2012 with the George Forman Grow, like they were, they were smart. And I think that the way they nailed it was to kind of withdraw and add components and new interesting things to the console that I think were needed. They re-uped, they got the PlayStation store of a browser and put it on, made it native on the console.

They updated cross-media bar and made it. the OS quicker. They also did some anti-consumer things. They removed Linux, which really bothered a lot of people. They got rid of the SD-reader. They got rid of the USB-4. It's the backwards compatibility. They did a lot of things to stifle consumers as well.

And I think that they did that for component reasons. I think that they were probably paying licensing on Linux. I think they were probably being like, if we can get rid of the SD reader, it's like going to save us $2 on every console. This is millions of dollars when you're, you know, producing consoles at scale. So I think they did these things for a reason. By 2009, 2010, remember 2009. was when we got uncharted among thieves.

And I think that that's when the console became real to a lot of people. And I also think that by 2010, 2011, 2011, 2012, the momentum was all with Sony. I think that the Xbox 360 was very front-loaded. It was very impressive console. I remember my roommate Doug in college, got it today, came out, I remember playing.

I'm like, this is really, I never seen anything like this. A console you can turn on and kind of interact with it without playing a game. And apart from just like putting a CD in and we're looking at memory card management. So I saw that Sony had a lot to compete with, but by the end of it,

By 2013, 2014, the PS3 was definitely the superior console. And I really remain as a student of the industry super impressed with this. This is one of the all-time comebacks of a console that really looked like it was fucking dead. Like I remember late 2006, 2007, even 2008. I'm like, this thing's fucked. Like, I can't believe this. That this thing is actually going to... I remember for about a year or so, I was like, this thing's going to fail.

Like PlayStation 3 is. dead. It's just, it's just, Xbox you're just trouncing it. And we, obviously, we have to remember we was a concurrent launch. We came out weeks away from P. Isn't it three days before? Yeah, something like, it was like right in that window. I mean, these were, and we

was all the rage. This weak little, really this weak little piece of shit compared to the PS3, but it didn't matter because the price was right. The games were there. The interest was there. And they just, they turned it around. It reminds me a lot of Super Nintendo battling Genesis, it reminds me a lot of, you know, the Wii itself, the Blue Ocean strategy and the idea to permeate and saturate the market.

Well, Sony did a really good job with PS3, and those lessons were learned with PS4 and the focus on games, to focus on exclusives to get, you know, those kinds of things going and operating all as they should in sync. So that's my memory of PlayStation 3, and I think that the library on PS3 is phenomenal. Well, that's the lesson, right. If a console ever surpasses, if PlayStation 4 has a library, half as good as PS3's. it's in great show. That was the thing though,

is like, and I think that's the lesson you see what Microsoft failed with Xbox one was having a vision and sticking to it. And maybe even the Xbox 360 to an extent, right? We talked about when Greg was here, we talked about Xbox Live Arcade and then him leaving and how that's gone off

and done its own thing. But that was the thing with PlayStation where the library is what it was and that would define that console. And part of that definition is the hardcore fan base that so many of our fans are part of. And that's, you know, part and parcel with podcast beyond. and being the people on the block who bought this machine and were invested in PlayStation,

and you peeled back all the mainstream hangers on, all these people who just got it because it was successful or whatever. They went to Xbox. They went and did their thing. And you had this audience that really fucking cared about video games. And so Sony was able to sit there and the seeds they had planted with first parties with worldwide studios start to pay off and they start to build this library that is moving units, is, you know, in gendering this fan base.

is enabling them to care about PlayStation and wanting to be a part of it and go on this different tear with it and have this ground swell of support so that there can be something like Journey one day because we had super rub it up one day. You know what I mean? You have this thing where people are there buying these games

on chart it comes out and we buy that. I'll never forget seeing uncharted the first time being told about in chart of the first time. And that's so weird now. And I think you look at, granted, last generation overall, but especially how Sony handled their first parties and you see that thing we talked about, where I always talk about the last of us, that last of us was this game proving the fact that you

don't need a number at the end of your game. We do have consumers educated enough to understand that much like Martin Scorsesey directs this film, I want to see his next film. They can understand that Noddy Dog made this game. I want to see their next game. And that was that thing of you see that groundwork and you see those studios step it up, whether it is Noddy Dog, whether it is sucker punch. You see these people taking that insomniac, taking that next step into, we are going to make games that are bigger than just games. You know what I mean? This is naughty dog.

They had made Jack and Daxter, which was awesome. But I don't think you could have asked most Jack and Daxter players at Jack of the Daxter 3 who had made this and what their lineage was and they would know it for heart. Whereas like when I was on that bus with Jeremy Dunham and Jeff Haynes and Chris Roper and we were going to the Sony event and they were like, all right,

you're going to cover the Noddy Dog game. Who are they? And they made Jack and Xter. Oh, I love Jack and Daxter. What's this one? It's kind of this Indiana Jones game. It doesn't have a title yet. I was like, oh, okay.

And I went and played. this game where the water made his jeans look wet. And I was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. No, I mean, we've come so far. Like, looking back, I was watching a Jeremy Parrish video a couple days ago about the Super Nintendo's launch. And it's crazy that, you know, when you look at the launch window of games, like,

we're at a point now where video games are so synonymous with just mainstream, like, people play games, that launch lineups are no longer two games, three games, five games, six games. It's like, even a not successful launch is 13 games. and with a little bit of everything. And for the console to keep going on, and it's crazy because although then it, to me, was like not worth it. It did immediately hit a point once Metal Gear came out.

I'm like, oh, cool, worth it. And by the end of it, it's like, yeah, entirely worth it. There's experiences on this system. And I feel the same way about even something like the Wii U where it's just like, all right, in the beginning, I don't care. But all it took was three experiences to make the console worth it to me. But with PlayStation 3, like that was so long of a,

a console run where those games spoke to me. You know, I like, I love Journey. I love Uncharted. I love Last of Us. And those games, as well as all the third party games, multi-platforms, like it made it totally worth it.

And I've never been and will never be an online shooter guy, which if I was, I would have been on 360, like all my friends were. You know, like Alfredo and Currant, they lived on that thing and they loved that thing because it gave them Halo.

And that was what gave them called. And that was what I'm talking about with a vision and being able to pivot, that PlayStation got their teeth kicked in and was, they were able to pivot and be like, all right, Microsoft's running away with these multiplayer shooters. And we're going to try here and there,

but we are story-based games. We are indie's without saying we're indies. We are these smaller games that you can get here, that you can't get anywhere else. We want you to understand that, especially when we are competing with Xbox Live, who is putting out these arcade titles, but they're putting out arcade games in a way that is a AAA strategy,

if that makes sense, where they're making a big deal about a few of them, where Sony seems like they pepper it out all these different little things like The Last Guy or whatever weird ass PSN game you want to talk about that they tossed out there that you knew you're gonna get something quirky

at least every month, if not every week. Yeah, no man, it's definitely, it's crazy to look at the library now and I feel like an important thing to know it about last gen was the amount of new IPs that came out of it. Like when you were talking about Uncharted little big planet, infamous.

PlayStation Home. And PlayStation Home. It's impressive, especially when you look at PS4 now It's going to online. What new franchises has it brought to the table? You know? Yeah.

No. And granted, it's still early-ish, but it's getting the point that it's not. Well, this is what we just talked about on PSI-Love you, right? The identity crisis PlayStation's in,

in the way that it is very much, it isn't. Here's this new thing. We're not doing the PS3 model of like, here's a million different reasons like we're doing crazy cool shit here. They're doing cool shit, but it's not, it is a new god of war.

Okay, cool. We're still doing that. All right, whatever, you know what I mean? And then it's like, Noddy Dog's next game, we assume it's going to be last of us two. And then, you know, where does it go? What is Sucker

Punch working on? Yeah. I mean, in a lot of ways, it reminds me of the PS1 to PS2, where it was just kind of like, here's games and here's maturing those games. And then PS3, you know, it's here's maturing those games. Is this the end of the line or will there be something later? Who knows? But it's really impressive to look back at the boomerang controller and the Killzone 2 trailer and being like, this is too good to be true. And it was, but to be at a point now where it's like, oh, no, that's what we have now. Like with the PS4, we're finally getting the things. that we were promising with that Agent 8 trailer. Remember that? I remember looking at that and being like, holy crap,

video games can do this and it's like now they can. So anyway, shout out to you PS3. What up, Heavenly Sword. You did good. Heavenly Sword was very good. I liked Heavenly Sword a lot. That was the first like great exclusive. Patch it with trophies.

Yeah, I was surprised that they never did that. It was disappointing. The next topic, as always brought to you by you over at the kind of funny forums. You can go to kind of funny.com slash gamescast topic. Just like my boy, Doug Chin, aka Dugzer did. What up big dugs. He's from San Francisco. I went to high school with him.

Oh, really? No big deal. Is this the Doug you lived with? No. Okay. My first system was a Sega game gear. My uncle bought it for my seventh birthday. I remember playing a ninja game on it for a few days.

My parents really didn't like anything about it. In fact that it was mobile, bad quality games and graphics. So they returned it and bought me a Sega Genesis instead. Now I'm currently using a PS4 to play the majority of my games. My question is, do you think that the original console you grew up with playing as a child influences what side of the console wars you'll be on? What was each of your first systems? My first system that I owned myself was a Super Nintendo,

but in my house, my dad had a Commodore 64. So that's like the first thing I grew up playing. But Kevin had the NES and like that was like the first game system that I really got into playing. So like from pretty early on, I was an Nintendo guy and that really did stick. And then the PlayStation thing came along like once Crash Bandico came into my life.

And it was pretty much, right, cool. I like this stuff. And Xbox just never hit. And it's like when it came to the Nintendo versus Sega, I liked Sonic. So I didn't have anything. I wasn't so like fanboy where I was like, fuck you, this is better than yours. But it was so clear to me that Mario was better that I'm just like, all right, cool.

I like both, but I like Mario more. Like I couldn't imagine anyone liking Sonic more. I mean, that's what it was. That's what you had. That's how fanboyism works. And that's how schoolyard shit works where it's like, yeah, I got, you know, my first system was a Sega master system. and that put into me, me ignoring Nintendo for until N64. That was my first Nintendo console.

It's the Game Boy, but do we count the Game Boy? I loved my Game Boy, but I don't know if that works. My first Nintendo console was the N64, and it was one of those things of, you know, I got, you know, video games to me were the introduction of I saw Ghostbusters, asked what that was, got it for my birthday, went off to the races with Master's system, and then, yeah, one day went to Travis's house in our neighborhood, and he was playing Martin. his brother was playing Martin.

I'm like, what is this? Like, it's Nintendo. I'm like, what is that? And this thing, it's my. And then they came over like, what is this? I'm like, it's Sega. It's, you know, blah, blah. And they're like, I've never heard of this thing.

And then it's, they insult you and you insult them. And then right there, that's how it is. You know what I mean? There's no room for me as like, whatever, five or six to have objectivity here. Like, what's, let me see this Mario game. Run me through why this is better. Oh, shit.

You're right. This is way better. That to me is what's surprising. So when I was younger, it was kind of just like, the right side of that. Yeah. But it wasn't until later with the, the Xbox PS2 GameCube generation where I,

I was lucky enough to have all three just over time. Like eventually it happened. Loved the hell out of my GameCube. The first party games were fantastic. My PS2 was my multi-platform system of choice. And in addition to the Ratcheting Clanks and the first party and second party games that they had. But the Xbox, like,

I couldn't deny that I loved Halo. Like Halo 1 and 2 were awesome. And I was so into those. For some reason, I played the Prince of Persia games on those systems and Splinter Cell was great and Knights of the Old Republic. But besides that, I'm like,

how could anyone defend the Xbox? Yeah. It's like... Stub's the zombie. You left Stubbs as a zombie. I left it off for a reason. No, because you just didn't play you with him. You didn't understand.

Oh, I played Stubbs and zombie. You didn't understand the high level concept here of him going after his girlfriend. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. But no, the Xbox was one of those things where I'm like, I get it.

I get why it's great. But there's no argument to be made that it's better than the PS2. or the GameCube. Like, are you crazy? And I'll never freaking forget. This guy Bruce that used to work with Alfredo at Gus by. We did a road trip down to LA one time,

and we got into this heated discussion. What he's trying to tell me that the Xbox was better. I'm like, and that's when I realized that like this shit was real. Because like he was just trying to defend the Xbox's library is being so superior that there's not even any way you could look at it that the PS2 or GameCube were better. And I'm like, bro, we got Jade Empire 9.9 IGN.com.

No, that was when, though, I realized, like, I do have my fanboyism because I was just like, fuck that. No, as much as I like your shit, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're fucking. Yeah. Well, that's just how it was. I remember that's just how you reacted to being challenged or new things, at least in my, you know, thing. Whereas, like, Po and I are friendships based on video game football, right? Maddens and such college footballs. And I remember the first time we went to Patrick Fenella's house and he had just bought the PlayStation and they had a, whatever game day it was.

And it was playing. and like when X triangle circle pops up and that's like another language. Like what the fuck is this shit? What are you doing? You know what is this? What is this? How this works?

Like immediately be like ha ha ha. Like poo pooed it. You know what I mean? Like well this thing sucks clearly. Look at how boxing their heads are. When you're playing on the Xbox but used to playing on PS2 is like press X and like that ain't my X. Yeah.

That ain't my ex. Get out of here. It's garbage. What are you call? I mean, Nintendo flows through my veins forever because of starting. NES was my first console that I owned. We had an Atari 26002.

That was my brothers. Yeah, I mean, I'm always going to, I call myself a reformed Nintendo fan now, but I mean, that's, that's where I started. I was a fucking massive Nintendo fanboy for a very long time, long after I joined the PlayStation ecosystem too, because I joined the, I had a PS1, PS2, everything, had a PSP, everything, you know, go on and on, but I really loved Nintendo. So I think that, I have a soft spot for them, and I, I think that's because of the way I began. I knew the guys next door to me that I grew up with had a master's system, had a Genesis. So I got to, and they had a shit ton of games, too. I remember playing a lot of those games, but it just wasn't, uh,

it wasn't for me. I thought the Genesis was strange. I remember there was a few games on there that I was really into with like fantasy star and so like that but I was just like this is a weird console. I feel like this isn't even a real thing. Like that's kind of how I really felt about it. I was like, what is this? A master system,

I never saw a master's with my don't two eyes after that ever again except for it until I was an adult. Like that might as well been like the only master's in existence. I never heard anyone ever talk about that thing except for the guy that owned didn't even like it. You know, it was like in his room because he was the young. and the Genesis was in like another room and the N.S. was in another room.

So, yeah, so I, you know, one thing I know for sure is that I just, I always kind of looked at Sega a little skeptically. I owned a Dreamcast. I had a Genesis too, but I owned a Dreamcast and that was the only console of theirs that was like, really, like, I really loved it. The Genesis was like fine.

It was, it was a kind of a poor man super Nintendo to me. Mr. Bushito says, Hey, kind of funny dudes. My question is about gameplay. To me, the only two really perfected gameplay types and genres are platformers and shooters. Why is that?

I'm a big fan of fantasy games, but oftentimes the gameplay is subpar. I really love the world of Dragon Age Inquisition, but kept getting bored because of the simplistic, repetitive gameplay. Even a game like Skyrim, which is amazing, and I love that game, it was despite the simple, clunky combat and more because of exploration in the world itself. Am I crazy? Do you think other genres could ever be as tight or entertaining with the moment-to-moment gameplay like shooters and platformers? Will it take perfect VR and motion control to ever achieve my dream of perfect fantasy gameplay? where are your star where are the star wars lightsaber simulators come on guys we can't toss that i mean

like when he's talking with these fantasy games he's talking about these giant open world RPGs right the reason that falls apart moment to moment is because you have to get from place to place you can't be teleported around that is immersion breaking right when you're geralt and you're running around you're fucking witchering it up you want to witcher it up and part of it is the journey of like oh like think of it like with a uh uh Zelda summer breeze where they're talking about anything you see you can go to you can go up the fucking mountain over there that's got a goofy ass name. Part of that is that when you get to the top of the mountain, you look back, like, man, I did all that.

I went all that way. And like when you're playing Witcher, even if it is, you're fast traveling around. You got to those points. So there is that moment of like, fuck, I've unlocked all this. This is how big this world is. And those games, you know, when you talk about a Witcher, when you talk about a Fallout, when you talk about a Skyrim, you are talking about the world you're in and how alive it feels and what's happening in

and the overarching plot. When you talk about Mega Man, you're talking about how great the, the gameplay is and how awesome it is to jump from this to do that and how great it feels. And same thing with a shooter, right? Colin talks about Call of Duty and why he loves Call of Duty. He talks about how it feels that every game should play this way because you're being funneled around and you're going to where you need to go. Even now it's a cool thing of getting to select the mission.

But once you're in the mission, like the mission is the mission. And that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to go through because they want you in this action game going, going, going. And like you can stop like I do. And like I was talking about earlier and, you know, go and explore the moon visitors bureau here or whatever. You're still moving through this thing where they can make things happen to make it go to make you go.

Holy shit. What a great explosion. Oh my God. This robot's crashing through the wall. Whereas with The Witcher, that's impossible. You can't be. It's not impossible, but it's way harder to be like, all right. If he comes all the way over here, we'll have something explode out of this wall.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's an interesting thing to think about. I think that because shooters and platform games are so kind of intrinsically gameplay oriented, where it's just like every single thing you do is led by inputs that you're doing whereas a lot of the other genres are kind of just story driven

or it's like when you look at the genres what's the most important thing about it? When you look at the ones that we're talking about it is the gameplay. When you look at those, it is the story. You look at uncharted. It's like what's the most important thing about it? The gameplay or the experience.

I think the clear easy answer is the experience. But I think other genres like rhythm games, they're pretty much there with the gameplay. like that, but that's the thing is it's like it's a genre by genre, uh, kind of question. I don't think fantasy games or RPGs or any of that will ever do that because those are about the experience, not about the gameplay. Interesting. Yeah.

I would say even too with like the rhythm games too, you, I think people would be quick to say, well, they're not perfected right because of X, they're, they can get frustrating. I think it is one of those things that you can memorize a song in rock band or whatever. You can memorize a DDR move, but that takes, that is such a different scale level where in a shooter, there is more leniency. Even in Mega Man, there is more right. You can get hit a few times

before it's all fucked up. Whereas with like a rock band there might be some bridge I fuck up three times in the song as it comes through over and over and over again. And that's on me, but it feels way more frustrating and not perfected.

I think two D platforms specifically are pure gameplay and I think that they're never going to be vested from that perspective. But I think that you're seeing obviously shoot, there's shooters that feel great as we were saying.

It always kind of astounds me when I play a two-d platform or a shooter that doesn't feel right because I'm like, there's so many examples of how to do this, and I don't understand what you don't get about that. As far as, I think that there's some great gameplay being found in third-person games, too. Even in RPGs, I think Kingdoms of Omelor is a great example of an open world, a very nerdy role-playing game that is about combat. It isn't about the story, and it isn't about anything else except for playing it.

Even though there's plenty of to do in the game, that's a broken clocks for right twice a day situation, but they do exist. So don't write them off completely. I also think Infamous is another example of a third-person game that feels awesome. So I think that vanquish, I mean, they exist. So I think it goes out of those two spheres. But I do agree that the 2D platformers specifically, 3D platforms to an extent, but not really. 2D platformers and shooters, first-person shooters are the king, kings, king and queen, let's say, of genres. Fighting games.

Fighting games, yeah. Put them in that category as well. Absolutely, absolutely right. That's another great example. And some games get it right and some games get it wrong. And they're similar to Call Duty versus Battlefield, similar to all these kinds of things. there's different feels to arc systems games as opposed to Capcom games etc.

Let's see. Get ready to go. Hip-hot Winnow. Jake says, Hey, guys, I was just thinking about YouTube gaming and would like to hear you guys do a retrospective now that if you can believe it, it launched over a year ago on August 26, 2015.

It was kind of exciting to see how the launch would play out and what it would mean for Twitch a year later and I don't know if it really changed things all that much. Do you guys ever use it personally or visit the site slash content regularly? Would be interested to hear your thoughts. So here's something that I've been spewing for a long time. Spue, spew.

I think people's understanding of what YouTube gaming is from the beginning has been wrong. Before they announced it, I was wrong myself. I thought it was going to be a Twitch competitor. Yeah. But it became very clear talking to Fizz over at YouTube and talking to all of the YouTube people and seeing how they're using it, that it is just their live platform and their gaming YouTube content in a different rapper. Sure. It is for people that live and breathe YouTube, which are people, YouTube gaming let's play videos, which are people that are 13 to 20 and that just grow up watching Minecraft videos, you know?

And to them, it's awesome. And YouTube gaming is used. If you look at the stats, it's used a lot. People just assume it's not because they don't use it because you guys are using Twitch or using YouTube or you're playing games yourself and not doing these things. But you can, that kind of funny, it's on YouTube gaming. Any YouTube channel you can think of it's YouTube gaming You just need to I forgot what it was but type in gaming. Dot YouTube.com slash kind of funny or slash kind of funny games

It just makes it look different and it makes it a little bit more accessible For the type of content that you'd be consuming if you make a lot of less play videos In terms of is it a success or not? I mean it it's made their lot YouTube's live platform a lot better Does it rival Twitch? No, not at all. It's taking them really long to kind of add a lot of functions that are necessary like the moderation shit that they just just recently added for comments and stuff. And does that work? No, people hate it. It's stupid.

It's totally getting in the way and not working the way it's supposed to. And it's getting in the way of getting the right content to be promoted. But YouTube gaming, it is what it is. I don't think that they could have beat Twitch as much as I wish that they would. But there's a lot of success to be had there. And I like that now they're finally putting a lot of effort towards premium content with the Jeff Keeley. Oh, sure.

YouTube Prime thing or whatever. I forgot what it's called. I don't know. Yeah, YouTube gaming. The show that's on every Thursday. I forget what it's going. And they're actually picking different YouTube creators and focusing on promoting them. It's just YouTube gaming is important whether or not you realize or care about it because it is taking gaming content and giving it focus on YouTube.

YouTube is about lifestyle stuff. Gaming is a huge vertical there. And it is giving people like us the ability to get on the front page and to be featured. by YouTube themselves. And that's, that's huge. So that's my thoughts. Yeah. I thought it was going to be a bigger deal for sure when it came out.

And at the very least, I thought it would be a huge kick in Twitch's ass to really shake things up and really step up their game and really take that Amazon money they got and invest and go and do this. And granted, it's a better experience on Twitch than it was, you know, a year ago.

But it's not leaps and bounds better. You know what I mean? Yep. Dub Chaos says, Hey, guys. I'm an indie dev. And while I've listened to the shows before, I recently picked up the habit of listening to them while working. I tend to easily get distracted, so your shows not only help me focus, but also keep my mindset in the game industry.

So thank you for that. My question is, how do I get my game noticed by people, by the media specifically? I thought you two have a lot to kind of say to this because you've dealt with PR people for so long. Sure. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I think that the conundrum that indie devs have, I'm not in media anymore, so I don't get the, emails I used to get is you have to kind of thoughtfully do it without spamming people without like you know reach out to the right people the guys at yacht club for instance had talked openly about how

they identified me very early on in development of the game as a person that they wanted to go to with it and they did because they understood my roots and that the game would resonate with me and therefore I would talk about it and it worked you know exacted to their plan because I fell in love with that game very quickly I am of the mind and I know that this is a harsh thing to say but it is the reality good games don't stay hidden there's no hidden gem out there that no one knows about. Like, if your game's good, someone's probably going to notice it. And I know that's not the case in like maybe the phone space and maybe not even wholly in the PC space, but certainly in the console space. Hidden games, there are no hidden games on PSN

that no one knows about. Like these things spread around. And so I think, you know, I know that, I know that indie developers and games generally live and die on these first week, first 10 days, first two weeks sales. But I do also believe that there are games on the back end that once things organically spread around. If your game's really good and it gets on PSN or it gets on Xbox Live and maybe even gets on Steam,

people are going to notice it. It's important to get preview coverage if you really want to. It's important to get people to notice the game, but I don't think that's necessarily the be all end all. Make a great game and someone's going to find it. I mean, it's just totally inevitable.

And that happens time and time again on PSN, specifically where games come out and what the fuck is this game? And then someone's like, no, the game's actually really great. And you go back and you're like, oh, it is really great. So I know that that's not a catch-all.

I know that there are games that have slipped through the cracks, but generally speaking, I've never heard of anyone find a game five years later. I'm like, well, I didn't want to talk about this game five years ago. I'm like, because it's not good. And people would have figured that out already. So I think it's a little easier than you might think, a little more intuitive. Yeah.

I mean, the answer I think for an indie developer in particular is, and no, this isn't what you want to hear. But you go to go small. You are a small game. Target the small audiences and go from there. So many people, I've made this game, which is a, you know, a success amongst itself that you finish a game. That's awesome. you work two years on it. So you want it on IGN.

You want it on GameSpot. You want it on all these different things. And those are the ones that get 14,000 emails a day and it's so hard. So unless you're going to investigate and know that there's a Colin there or a Marty there and they love these kind of games and then you know them or you're able to hit them up, that's a struggle, right? Like in the reverse is the fact of like, you know, the Vita Lounge. You know, I mean, there is a magazine and website about the Vita.

Like there is like no matter what you are into, no matter what type of game you're is there is an audience for it and there is a passionate fan base for that. Similar with what we have with our best friends, right? Of like, we're not the biggest site or YouTube channel by any stretch of the imagination, but our audience is so powerful and so into it that that that's how it happens. And that's the thing where it's like, you know, I sent you that code yesterday for that adventure game that they're calling a weird one for Vita. Thanks, voice control. That's exactly what I want. Of course, a piece of fucking garbage. I can't ever print. I don't even know how to, you're supposed to pronounce it. Have a good name for your game, but Demitras, Demetra's or whatever. This is a quirky

adventure game for Vita, right? Where the guy was complaining openly on Twitter. That is so how do I, I'm an indie dev, I put this on a Vita and nobody wants to cover it from the big sites. And somebody's like, well, what about it? You know, he's a big fan. He's like, I didn't know. And it's like, oh, I didn't know. And it's like, that was enough that I got it and I got the coves and gave him to Colin and I to play and screw around with. I don't know if we'll ever talk about the game. I don't know if it's good. I haven't had a chance. Yeah. But like that's how it goes, right? That you start smaller. And then if it was that, we loved it and we started beating the drum and it was a great game. Of course, we would then tell Marty not to cover it, but in conversation at a

thing and then IGN's interested, but it's the same way of like, if you're making a game like Gone Home, you know Marty Sleeve would love those kind of games. You'd hit him up. And it's always hit somebody up personally. Don't send out the form letter with the screenshots embedded and all that other bullshit then because you just get tossed out the side unless you look through them and think they're cool. Yeah. I mean, I'm on the other side of it where not for games, but for making videos, like I have a lot of experience trying to, uh, pre-IGM even like when I was nothing. It was just like, okay, cool, how do I get, how do I get people, how do it become something? You know, how do I get people, the big guys to care about me. And it was really spending a lot of time thinking about what your plan

is, who are you sending it to and why and what's the messaging there. Even to this day, I still have to do this type of stuff. But I'll never forget, even at IGN, like with the Avengers Boy Band video, I was like, all right, cool. I made this. Who is my audience for this? I'm not just going to send it to literally everybody because that's annoying and that's spam and people don't like that. I'm going to target the places that I've no posted things similar before. And I'm going to write them a message that, Yeah, the bulk of it might be copy and pasted, but at least some of the message is directed to a person with a direct call to action based on that person. So then reaching out to you about Shovel Night, that makes so much sense. For me, I knew the Kotaku would when I did the Maclemore GameShop video, they do, they post fun things like this.

So I'm like, cool. I need to target the people that post the fun things, send it to them. And once Kotaku posts it, IGN will see it. IGN looks at Kotaku. You know what I mean? Like that you got to think that way where it really does snowball. And once one person talks about it, it's all everyone else is going to start. And the most important thing is to condense your message as much as possible.

Don't write a whole press release that's boring as fuck that nobody cares about of just like why your game's awesome. Show them why your game is awesome. Have a gif. One gif that's just showing a cool mechanic in the game. Because when people open that email, it'll catch their attention. They'll be like, oh, that does look cool. That's all you need to do. Yeah, that's what happened with the, you know, on PSI, I love you X-OXO, so last week, I guess, by the time this post, right?

Like, it was, I, a guy hit me up right over the show about, hey, my game's coming to PSX. And he had two screenshots and I was like, holy shit, this game looks awesome. And I read the little description he gave and I'm like, oh, fuck, yeah, I'll talk about this in the show. And we should actually, we should do this every time. Everybody who's like, we should pick a game every week that's at PSX that you don't know about that looks cool. Yep. And then that goes such a long way. It's just like, make the message simple, always have a call to action and really double down on that shit.

ladies and gentlemen this has been episode 94 the kind of funny games cast thank you very much for your adventures with us until next time i love you