Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Thanks For The Support! Run of Show - - Start - FrostPunk 2 & Ara History Untold - Housekeeping - Halo Having No Battle Royale - Parris’ STALKER 2 Preview! - Ads - Questions for STALKER - Xbox Questions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

what's up everybody and welcome to your kind of funny games cast for Wednesday October 16th, 2024. Roger said Snowbike Mike you won't do the intro standing up and I said Roger watch me. That's exactly what I said. I dared you. I dared you. And this all stood with you asking Mike how do I intro the show because I don't want to do the basic Greg Miller thing. And then I did the basic Greg Miller thing. Which you basically just did standing up. Good morning. Good afternoon and hello everyone. Welcome to your game. games cast for this lovely Wednesday, October 16, 2024. I'm one of your show host, Snowmike Mike.

And today, I'm joined by two incredible gentlemen. Let's start off with who's in the room, Roger Pekorney. Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody. I don't want to stand. I don't want to stand. I feel like it's too distracting. You're the standard.

Don't stand. Of course, Roger, I will point out that you have an incredible Halo 3 vintage t-shirt on that I'm extremely jealous of every time you wear it. Thank you so much. I'm going to lose 60 pounds and steal that t-shirt from you. Mark it down 2025. That's my goal.

Let's talk about who our other guests is. Of course, he is the topic of the show. He went out and previewed Stalker 2. So we're going to be talking all things, Xbox and Stalker 2, with one, Paris Lily.

Hi, Paris. How are you? I'm doing great. Doing great. I'm definitely excited to talk about this game. And we're having a little mini-X-cast reunion. And Gary, what's your thought? Oh, wait.

He's not here. Oh, Gary. This is a beer for the episode. Paris, how have you been? It's nice to see you. It's always good to collab with you on the shows and talk all things. Video games. How have you been?

What's the latest and greatest? What are you playing right now? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. And as far as what I've been playing, you know, I've been playing Aura History Untold, kind of on the down low. And Frost Punk 2.

Oh. That game is brutal, man. That game is no joke. Tell me about Frost Punk 2. I'm very, I just know it's a game that exists that people like. give me the pitch both you guys it's essentially like you wouldn't would you call this an rts you call an rts yes you call an rts yes a little bit of an rts yes city builder survival i put survival in all capital letters yeah yeah survival in all caps i mean because again like it's literally in the name

frost punk so you're like in this this cold environment and you have to deal with the demands of everyone in the city that you're building out and it's brutal in the way that You got politics, you got religion, you got all the resource, you got to manage everything, and you F up one single thing and it is game over. It's crazy. But for people that are into the genre, if you're into the Sibs of the worlds and the auras and all that, and obviously the Sim Cities of the World, the city builder types, it's a fun challenge to have. It's unique in that way. And again, 11 bit studios. They freaking kill it, man.

All the games that they've been coming, that have come out and what's about to come out. have been really good from that publisher. Roger, this is the game for you. Oh, real? You know, now that you got me and Paris talking about it and I think about my experience with this, Roger, this is a game that you would enjoy because it has a lot of tough decisions.

It has consequences and actions for those decisions. But there's also like a mind game going on because you start off in this frozen world, but you kind of have to like flatten out and chip away at the ice to then be able to build on it. So like you've got to be really strategic of, okay, where do I send out my crew to go kind of flatten this zone?

own out and then build off of it. And so you've got to kind of see, hey, the resources array up here. So I need to start moving my city up towards that. Then we're going to build on that. Oh, wait, down there, they have the expedition outpost and you'll work towards that. Well, then you'll send an expedition team

out to further reaches of the frostlands, where then they'll get more resources. So you start building out. And it's real tough because sometimes you'll go right and then you'll go, shit. I shouldn't have done that. Or you'll mine up all the resources where now you have to like deconstruct that, take everything

away, put it into something else. It's a really fun time. And like Paris says, it had me thinking. I like that. Yeah. And to be clear, because I even see in the chat, that's why I even like question marks at RTF. No, this is not an RTS. It's not a 4X like you would play on SIV like that. But it is

definitely more city builder. But it's about managing all those resources. Again, very similar to something that you would do in like a SIV game. And to Mike's point, man, it's one, mistake and you can just F up your entire game. So it's one. It sounds hell of hardcore, but how is it picking it up, right?

Like, I'm not somebody who has ever played a city builder to that extravagant of an idea, right? I thought the opening, the tutorial was fine. I think it'll ease you into it, but then once it lets go, let's go. It'll have your head scratching it sometimes. If you give it your full energy and like, all right, I'm focusing in on this. This is going to be it. then you'll knock it out and you'll get a hold of it and then it becomes fun. Then when they take the training wheels off and they send you out there and they're like,

all right, figure it out. It's fun of like, what do I want to put in here? How do I do this? And then they hit you with the tough questions like we talked about, right? Like there is sickness is going around and they're like, do we need to, you know, quarantine these people? Do we not want to quarantine them? Do we need to keep the workforce up? And you're like, I don't know what you want me to do.

And then you go with your choice. You're like, well, we got to keep the sick people safe. We got to get them back and healthy. So we're going to quarantine. and then it's like, well, you're not producing enough and you're like, oh my God, what am I doing? Wild situation. Andy's so right.

I don't want to hear your choice to see any of these things. Wild situation, dude. It's a whole lot of fun. I'm going to definitely check it out. That's on my list right now. That's awesome. Okay, Paris. I like that you're playing some Frost Punk too.

Some are a history untold you slid in there as well? Yeah, tell me about that too. Yeah, now that is a 4X game. That is definitely like literally Oxi games, people that have made some of the old Civ games are on that team. And I got to interview them. This is about two, three weeks ago. It was right before the game came out officially.

And I was playing a little early for review. And it's a lot of fun. Again, when you dive into the weeds of going through these thousands of years of building up your civilization, then there are historical characters, leaders from other nations that will come into it as well. And like you said, trying to manage all that, the politics of it, the religion of it, going out getting resources, getting into wards, trying to have peaceful trade. Like there's all these different aspects to it that can be a lot of fun. I haven't even jumped into the multiplayer stuff on it.

There's a multiplayer aspect to it as well that I know people are enjoying. But like, again, if you love the SIV games, you'll like RRA history untold. It's really good. I'm mad at myself for this one. I have not played the latest Xbox stuff with Aura and Towerborn. And like, I went on a big Siv six kick when Greg went to go host a Pax panel. You saw me for like three weeks. I was playing nothing but Siv.

to get ready for Greg's big panel and, like, to really wrap my head around it. And I was riding this high where I was like, oh, I'm going to jump into ARA. And I have not touched either one of those games. And I'm like, man, am I missing out on the fun? Because Aura's got my name on it plus Towerborn, which like, you know, I love Castle Crashers. And I love the idea. Oh, is that kind of co-op vibe of the side's going to beat them up. And it's like, I would like to play that.

So, you know what? Both those games are my back pocket. I haven't got to them yet. So, Mike, speaking on that, and again, it's just, I've not had time. Age of mythology is also out right now. So that's another one that people can jump into. And then like you mentioned,

Towerborn, that is something I've been playing a little bit on and off during the early access stuff that's on Steam right now. Again, a lot of fun. I think that's something once it comes out of early access and it does come to Xbox and opens up to a wider audience. I think people will enjoy that too. Your boys play a lot of age of mythology,

Paris. First time ever played age mythology? I have. I even jumped into the campaign because people were encouraged me to, check out the campaign, had a blast with it. I love Warcraft. I love Age of Empires, melding

these two with like the fun mythology side of it with like the ancient Greek gods and all of a sudden they're like hero units too. Roger, it's a blast. That's a good game right there. That's a fun time. So a couple of good little shining stars from Xbox and not a lot of people are talking about right now.

All of that is like are all like dark spots in my gaming history, right? So I mean these seem like interesting ways to start it up. So I might try it, are. My try it. Keep an eye. on it. But of course, we're not here to talk about any of those. We're here to talk about a different game coming to Xbox and on Game Pass, and Paris already got to play it. That is Stalker 2, Heart of Chernobyl, which we're going to be talking about in just a little bit, because

Paris has got your preview covered for you to tell you all about this upcoming game. But first, I got to tell you that this is the kind of funny games cast each and every weekday. We get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics of discussion in the video game World Live on YouTube, Twitch, and on podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please consider supporting us with that brand new kind of funny membership available on Patreon and on YouTube for just $10. You can get the very best of Kind of Funny. You'll get all of our shows ad free.

You'll be able to watch them live as we record them. And you'll get your daily dose of Greg Miller. And who doesn't love seeing Greg each and every day? I know I do. Of course, you'll get that exclusive content with the Daily Greg Way with that membership. of course for a chance to be part of the show. Submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats. As we go, I'll be reading those off throughout today's show.

Of course, some housekeeping news for you. Roger, in space, no one can hear Nick scream. Unless you're streaming alien isolation on Twitch.com. com slash kind of funny games, then everyone can hear Nick scream. Join Mike, Nick and Andy this Wednesday, a.k.a. today, if you're watching live, for a special, spooky stream

as they attempt to survive, alien isolation. come out in support and we'll go late Wednesday, October 16th, noon Western time right after Gamescast so make sure to keep an eye off of that one. That is an insane one. Surprisingly, his idea. Whoa!

Yeah, Andy, Andy's growing, you know what I mean? His idea and then he's approached me, let's play Silent Hill too. What? I'm like, okay, where... Do I even know him? Who lit this fire under Andy's butt? I don't know.

Tim hating the month of Halloween, all of the stuff. Like, we don't know. these people anymore. That's insane. It's messed up. I love that. I love that. Of course, we have some other big news for you.

Blessing is going to New York Comic-Con this weekend and hosting the secret level panel with Tim Miller and Dave Wilson. The panel is Saturday at 630 Eastern. Keep an eye out for that one. That's awesome. That's so cool. Congratulations, Blessing. Gonna go kill that.

I've got to see Blessing hosts some panels before at a Pax East. He's awesome. And then, come on. Teaming him up with the Secret Level. team, watch out. That's going to be a must see. So go out there and support him if you're at New York Comic-Con. Of course, we are an 11-person small business

all about live talk shows. Today, you had Kind of Funny Games Daily talking about Halo and the BR that never was. Sadface, Paris, because we talked a lot about it on this set with the Kind of Funny Xcast. Yeah, remember they were like the only BR and Halo's a battle rifle. And then it was like,

oh, snap, Halo Infinite. Could have used a, could have used the BR, y'all. Can we talk about it for just a second before we're going to talk about it. Let's talk about it. To your point, we talked about this a lot on X-CAS over the years, just speculating what it could be. And to now have it semi-confirmed that that was a thing that could have happened and they shelved it. I am disappointed. I wanted it.

I wanted that mode to happen. I think that was their perfect opportunity to reintroduce the ODSTs. That was their opportunity to create a play style that was. was different than just being a Spartan, right? But it's set in the Halo universe. You could have customized weapons in it. Obviously, the monetization point of it from a business aspect, you think all the different skins and crazy stuff that they could have done with that as well.

You could have introduced the flood into this. Imagine the flood being in this battle royale as basically a PVP enemy or PVE enemy, you know, in the battle royale that you have to deal with all the different halo vehicles that you could have done from the UN, SCN from the Covenant as well. I get it. They're obviously moving to Unreal 5 and they've shaken up things and you know, you and I, Mike, we already talked about this. I get probably why they canceled it, but damn, I hope they revisit it.

I do. I think it's something that could work. It's got to be revisited. Like this is just such a slam dunk idea. I don't think we see this go away forever. I think it's just, hey, Halo Infinite was, it was a rough launch and it was just like, let's just reboot it. Let's just reboot it.

Let's start off fresh. Let's have the Goodwill. of Halo Studios turned over from 343. We got to see this. We got to see this in the near future. Yeah. I mean, Paris, when do you think we see the next Halo? Like, let's be real.

You and I spoke recently, and you're like, what if during the celebration next year, we celebrate that with Halo C, E, maybe a big remake? When is like the next proper Halo, though? Okay. I'm of two minds of this, and we talk about this a little bit. November 15th, 2026 is the 25th anniversary.

It just makes sense to have something Halo related there. So it all depends on how long whatever they're currently working on has been in development. If they can meet that, that seems like the perfect time. But if you kind of go by the announcement, it sounds like they're still very early in development. Maybe 2028, right? But that seems like a long as time to not have Halo. So I don't I'm going to say 2026.

I'm going to stick with that. I think they have something ready for the 25th anniversary. And what is it though? Right? Like is it the remake? Is it a full, do we need to start off with a full blown new Halo game? Or can we do a side story?

Like, what is the bare minimum standard? You know what I mean that we need to start off for this new era? I'm glad you brought that up because again, and I can't take credit for the second thing because I did see this on a stream. I want to be clear on that because I tweeted about it. But I think it's, combat evolved. I think they just, I think it's a remake of combat evolved with a twist where they're not going to just one v.1 tell the story. I think it's going to pivot off into something

else, which I think they also might do with Gears of War E Day, by the way, but we'll see. But the second idea, and I saw it on the stream, so I can't take credit for it. What if you're getting the ODS, what if you had a Halo game that was the ODS set on a planet that the Covenant glassed and it's filled with flood. Survivor horror game. I would love that. I would love that if they did something like that. Harris is cooking.

Again, not my idea. It's a great idea. But I saw it and I thought it was great. A duck on quack in the chat says a Halo 3 remaster would be nice. To me, like that's my generation, right? That's my generation of Halo. So a full remake of Halo 3, we didn't do that one.

That to me would be extremely exciting. I think that would set off a new generation of Halo for people my age. A little late in the story. story, though. I know, but I mean, hey, it is, it is, it is you guys, the way you guys talk about Halo 2 is the way that people my age talk about Halo 3. Like, Halo 3 changed a lot of things for us. Okay.

Let's keep it going. Longhouse gaming rights in with the Super Chat. Don't forget, we want you to get involved with your super chats. Don't read it. Don't read it. Shout to Longhouse game. Take his money and don't read it. Looking for Paris to start a 30-hour metaphor stream one day.

Man, we got to get Paris full-on streamer mode. Do it. It's right. I love that. I love that. Paris is this. Another game that you're jukeing and hiding from? Is this what you're doing?

Are you hiding from this right now, Bears? See, a text will be coming your way, sir. Oh. But I'm not hiding from it. I have the game on Xbox, and I have started it. But again, it's not my thing. So there's all these other things that I want to play. It's kind of on the shelf, but I know it's good.

I know it is. I just need, I got to find time in it, which is going to be impossible. I don't know when I'm going to have a chance to play it. I just don't know. Too many games. Too many games. You got to pick and choose. You got to pick and choose.

And to answer your stream question. Yeah. Black Op 6 is out. When the war zones out, I'm coming up to the studio, and we're going to play it all effing day. Yes. That's what we're going to do. Mountain dude Doritos only.

That's all we're eating, Paris. Yes. Yeah. Did you see the controller and the rap that they promoted? I want the rap. I want the rap. The rap looks good. I want that rap.

The rap looks good. looks good, y'all. Gary owes me his rap. Because I gave Gary my Starfield rap. So, like, if Gary gets this, he owes me this rap, just so Gary knows. I'm putting it out there. And the elite controller looks good, too. I like that elite controller.

Great job. Great job right there. And, of course, they also sent out the preload times and the date launch. 24th, 9 p.m. Get ready. We're playing. We're going Thursday. We should start the stream, us just watching the preload start, and then just sitting there.

Just sitting there for 24. I cannot wait. Of course. some fun stuff that I can't wait to get into, so let's do that. We want to thank our Patreon producers who support us, just like Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs, thank you for your support. Today we were brought to you by New World Eternal, but we'll tell you all about that later.

Let's jump in to the show. It's all about Paris. It's all about Xbox, and it's all about Stalker 2 with the preview. That's right. It's your topic of the show. Paris got to play Stalker 2, part of Chernobyl, of course, developed by GSC or GSC Game World from the Ukraine. The release date is set for November 20th, 2004, right around the corner for you.

So just a quick rundown before Paris gets into it. If you don't know what stalker is, it's a unique blend of first-person shooter, immersive sim and horror with a really thick atmosphere. One of the biggest open worlds to date is yours to explore along with an epic brancing story with multiple endings is what they promote on their websites. Paris, you got to play it for a long time coming. Tell me all about it.

So I went to a preview event out here in Los Angeles a few weeks back. It was actually right around the time that they released the documentary that Xbox had about GSC game world and just everything that they've had to go through with the Ukraine war. So at the preview event, they gave us a preview of that. So I got to see that. And then right after I got to sit down with Igor, he's the Cinematics Team Lead over at GFC Game World. And even that was like literally, if you go to my YouTube channel, you can see the interview I did with him. It was a great conversation with him.

But that was the first question I had for him was about, you know, how are you doing? How is the team doing with everything that's been going on the past few years with the Ukraine war? And he kind of detailed that, you know, they've moved a lot of people to Prague, you know, to continue. you to develop the game, but some people have stayed in Ukraine because obviously it's their country. They want to defend their country. And he talked a lot about how it's just the new norm now that the entire team checks up on each other to make sure everybody's doing okay and all of that. And they're under the circumstances, they're holding up well. So I wanted to make sure to address that first and foremost, because this is just a freaking video game. But this is real life

stuff that's happening. But for the game itself. I got to play about two and a half, three hours of it at the event. And they even warned me when I first, when we first started to play, they're like, you're going to die a lot. And I did. I died a lot because this is an open world survival game first and foremost. And I've never played any of the stalker games before. So this was kind of my entry into it.

So I didn't know what to expect. And everything in that world is trying to kill you. And I'm saying that literally. It's like from the opening mission to later on by the end of my session, everything is trying to kill you in that game. Now, I love what I got to play. It's in Unreal 5. Visually, it looks fantastic.

Being open world, sure, there's missions that you can go on, quest, side missions, things like that. But because it's open world, there's a lot of dynamic things that happen in there. So the great example that I use, and I'll dive more into specifics here, but there was a mission that I took, a side mission where there's a, there's these bandits that are harassing this guy that's locked in these locked himself, barricaded himself in this building, right? You talk to the bandits and they basically are like, we want that dude stash. So you talk to the dude. He tells you where the stash is. You go up, again, I don't want to spoil anything.

You go up there to where the stash is. And then you come back down and I'm talking to the band. leader and I'm thinking I'm doing the right thing and it wasn't good enough and the bandit dude turned on me and it turns into this all up freaking chaos gunfight right and I'm trying to survive and again the thing about Starker 2 is being a survival game limited weapons limited ammo get the gear that you have you know it's very scarce again when you get shot you bleed you got to have bandages you got to have the health packs all these things right so I can kept, I was being super stubborn because I didn't have a lot of bandages with me or health packs.

And I kept dying over and over. But I was effing determined to get past this one part. I was like, screw this. I'm not doing anything else I want to get past this. And then sure enough, I finally think I got it right. Now what's happening? Dynamic world. I got mutant dogs coming out of nowhere, freaking attacking me.

And I'm dying over that. So fine, I get past the mutant dogs. Now I actually take out the people. I got shot. I got no bandages. I'm bleeding out. and I die anyways. That my friends is stalker two.

It's just one thing I did for like 30 minutes in stalker two. Just complete chaos. And it was a side mission. It wasn't even the main thing that was in there. But the whole details of stalker two is, and again, veterans, please don't yell at me because again, I'm new at this. But you go to what is the zone. Again, Harder Chernobyl is what this is called, obviously based off of the real events that

that happened with Chernobyl, right? But you go to the zone. Radiated zone, you go in there, there's all these crazy anomalies, but the prize in the zone are these artifacts that you have to find. And the artifacts have different perks to them. Like, as an example, you could find an artifact that could help you reduce radiation effects on you, right? But at the same time, a negative to it, it makes you super thirsty and hungry. So you constantly have to find water and food or whatever, again, to survive while you're in there. but you're looking for these artifacts while you're in there.

But like I said, there's these mutant, the mutant creatures, the dogs and all these other things that are trying to kill you. There's the bandits that are in there. They're trying to kill you. Obviously, you can negotiate with some of them. Some might want to help you. Some might want to instantly try and kill you. You obviously have some other NPCs. You can go to these different factions and these towns where you can take on missions and do things like that.

But your head is constantly on a swivel when you're in this world. And you're a new character coming in here for Stalker 2 compared, I guess, to the old games. But it was a lot of fun. I feel like I'm talking all over the place. So please ask me questions if I'm missing something. But the weapons will deteriorate over time. So you've got to manage your weapons. They can get damage.

There's things like that. Again, you're constantly scavenging for new gear, for ammo, things like this. There's a lot to it. And I know this might seem overwhelming. And I think the best way I describe it is this is difficult fun. While I found it to be difficult, it was fun at the same time because I felt like there was a true challenge while you're in here. And again, taking on some of these missions and interacting with the NPCs, you can find that everything isn't just linear as far as your mission structure. It can be dynamic.

And depending on helping this NPC might piss off this other one, but helping this one might branch out and open up a whole other mission line to you. Again, there's different endings, things like that that are going to be in there. And this is just what I encountered in two and a half, three hours. I mean, just talking with Igor, we were talking about stuff that you'll encounter at hour 30 in that game. I can't wait to play it. I will say right now, I knew I wanted to play Starker 2. I was anticipating Starker 2. But just in the little slice that I got to play, this is shaping up to be one of the best games of 2024.

And I did not think that going in. but walking away from it, I can't wait for November 20 have to play this again. Okay, some high praise there, Paris. Yeah, that's wild. Very high praise, okay. Everything you're saying, I didn't even know about, right? Like, I just assumed this.

I didn't either. I thought this was just going to be a linear, you know, metro-type deal where you're going through. And the fact that this is an open world survival game that seems so deep is wild to me. My question to you is the story, right? You say that it is branching, it is in-depth. How engaging was it?

I know you only played three and a half hours and he spent 30 minutes of dying in a side quest. But like how engaging was the story itself? Because I feel like to me, that is the only, if the story isn't good, I'm not going to finish it. I'm not going to get to that 30 hours. Yeah, I mean, and that's what I mean. Lightly touched on the story because I did get to one of the,

I guess, main villages for lack of a better term, right? And that's where you'll meet a lot of NPCs. And that's where you can start taking on some of these main missions and side missions and things like that. So I obviously wanted to see as much as I could. So I kind of really skipped over a lot of, stuff because I wanted to get into the actual meat of the gameplay. But again, talking with Igor in an interview, there's definitely a story there. It is branching. Like I said, you

were playing a new character that's coming into the zone. So there's that aspect of it. And the one thing that he brought up, again, for people like myself and other people that might be watching this that have never played a stalker game, there's a lot of lore that they buried inside the game and essentially like these notebooks that you can pick up. I can't remember exactly if there was audio logs. I don't think there were, but there were things that you can find to kind of get the backstory of stalker while you're in there playing. So for newcomers like myself, you're going to be encouraged to want to find these things and kind of understand the backstory. And obviously, for veterans, it will be optional to you because you already know this. But you are entering an

established universe of stalker with this. So there's obviously new story that you're going to experience that you'll see obviously just in a little bit that I did play. And then there's going be this whole backstory that veterans will already be aware of, but they're going to try and help you along the way to understand that too. Okay. All right. I like the story. I want to talk a little bit about the open world.

They're saying it's one of their largest games they've ever made a giant open world. Is this like a far cry open world situation here where the map is as big as the eye can see? There's icons all over the places. It's going to be, I guess, to quote, Ubisoft open world that we're so accustomed to. No, this isn't a wish. your three far cry map moment where you just got a thousand icons all over the place as you take on missions inside missions and things you can open up points of interest you'll see like a question mark on

something of some place you haven't explored and again i don't want to over oversell the map size but they promise that this is a very big open world there's going to be a lot to explore different areas and zones that you'll be going into again the various factions because he was even talking we're we're talking about hitting like hour 30 stuff like weapon wise like there'll be weapons that'll be that you'll find in in further off places in the open open world that you won't be able to find you know early on in the game things like that so um from what i played and again it wasn't a lot it was only a few hours um it it felt dynamic i even saw a couple different biomes while i was in there as far as you know map diversity goes so it seemed pretty expansive and like i said it

It's so dynamic in that I ran into scenarios like I was bringing up that dog scenario with the tower thing. But there were other times where, and again, I died a lot where I would go out into one area and all of a sudden I got these dogs and you might see these bandits and they're killing me. And then I would respond and come back to the same area. It would either play out completely different with different type of enemies or there'd be no enemies at all. So I like that as well, that you never know what you're going to get when you're out there, you know, in the open world. trying to explore and look for these anomalies and these artifacts. Okay. Yeah, that's what I'm interested in.

When we talk about this big open world, that dynamic moments of something different happening each time or running into something new and fresh or is it stale? Is it repeated? Have we seen this too many times? It's like, I've been there, done that. Why do I keep getting the same 10 things happening? Did you feel like you're going to see that? I didn't.

I didn't. And again, we're talking small sample size here. But just in my, I never, I didn't feel like in just my two and a half. hours like I was just on repeat with the same things as far as what what was going on. Another aspect of this is with the weapons. Like I was telling you before, they degrade. They can break. They can get damage.

Like your weapons could literally jam on you in a firefight. Jesus. Right? Whereas because I had this happen where I went into a firefight one time and, you know, my weapons were fine. I still died. But then I went into it the second time and that same exact weapon jammed on me. So there's that kind of dynamic aspect to it as well.

So I thought that was pretty cool too. Again, you never know what you're going to get when you're going into these encounters. And the one thing that I didn't mention is what I like about it, there's being difficulty to this is in it being survival, you got to think. You got to think when you're going to these encounters. You need to make sure, is my load out ready? Am I going to be prepared for this? Do I have enough ammo? Do I have the right weapons?

Do I have enough bandages? Do I have enough health? Is the artifact that I'm carrying right now? Is this the right one that I'll need going into this? stuff like that. So I thought that was pretty cool too. And I could definitely see that getting a lot more complex as you get later on into the game. Yeah. As you talk about, you know, the randomization of enemies, the jamming of a weapon that didn't jam before. I just go into, is this game going to be, did it feel like frustrating? Was there a moment where you're playing this and you're like,

oh, why did that happen? That just felt random. Like, why is there, why is there 10 enemies? There wasn't any enemy before. What was their vibes there? No, and see, and I'm glad you brought that up because that's why I mentioned the story about I was being super stubborn on this one part and I just kept doing it for 30 minutes because it was like I had a dumb smile on my face. Oh man, that got me this time. F that. I'm going back and doing it. I'm going to get it this time. I had that mentality while I was doing it. It was funny because a couple of the reps from GSC Game World that were there obviously helping us play the game. I attracted a crowd at one point because the one guy even comes to me and he goes, do you know you need bandages?

And you can go back to the camp and go find this stuff. And I looked at them like, I know, but I have to beat this the way I want to. Right. You know what I mean? But so no, I didn't have frustration. And I understood that if I was just banging my head against the wall, okay, I don't have to do this right now. I can stop doing this. Go do something else.

Restock. Go back to the village. Find another lack of a better term, a loot crate that might have some items and resources that I may need. So I like that flexibility too, where again, like you were talking about being linear, where it wasn't linear, where I have to do this one thing

or that just completely stops my progress in the game. We're talking about traversal and stuff going back to the hub area. Are you walking around everywhere? Are you just fast traveling everywhere? No vehicles that I use. Again, I'm a newbie, so I don't even know if there are

usable vehicles in the game. I don't think there are. But yeah, everything was on foot. No, didn't fast travel at all. I was going from point A to point B for everything. Okay, so it never felt too big where you had to fast travel. It was very much, I can just walk back and forth, no problem. Yeah, but again, I'm only seeing a slice of the map, so who knows if that's something that I would need to do later in the game.

And I didn't ask when I had a chance to ask if there was fast travel, so I don't know. So I do apologize for that. You bring back up a lot of, you bring up ammo, bandages. is you talk about your inventory. We saw on the feed here during the B-roll. Looks like a grid-based inventory system that we've seen before. Are you packing too much?

Are you crafting items to then have your own bandages or ammo? What did it look like moment to moment when it comes to inventory management? Do you have a way? Yeah, I believe you can craft. I'm pretty sure you can. And I'm doing this off the top of my head to when I should be looking at my notes.

But I'm pretty sure you can craft in the game. So, again, you can gather resources to create some of this stuff if you need to. But to your point about the grid style, think PubG, if you ever play PubG where you're just slotting things

back and forth, you're able to do that. Is there a weight? Do you have like a weight system here? Like, I'm carrying in too much stuff. I have to drop stuff. Or is it just how you got to fit?

It didn't seem like you did, but if you notice on there, you have a limited amount of slots. I am unsure if as you level up, you can increase that. So maybe you can, but you can obviously see how much you can hold at any one time.

Yeah. Of course, it's a first person shooter. the gunplay field pairs. Felt good. Felt good. Definitely felt good. Different wide range of weapons and guns as well.

I got to use what I think was like in AK-47. I'm pretty sure. And I had a few different pistols that I was able to get a hold of. And again, the damage quality of them as they degrade, they're not as reliable. So you have to keep that in mind as well. So I thought that was a pretty cool perk. But part of it is you are out in the world scavenging for these resources, for these weapons.

you can, I guess, like in these villages, go buy some of these things, you know, with some of the currency that you can accumulate, which I believe, again, is the stuff that you're finding out in the world to basically barter for. Oh, that was, that was another thing. So there was a scenario where I, I looted an NPC's body and it pissed off, it pissed off that faction because that was their guy. Oh, wow. So they didn't want to work with me. Okay. Did they see you do that? or they just kind of sense it.

Yes. Yes, they were there. Yeah. I've done that a couple times in games. Oh, I think I'm saying real life. Wrong dude. My bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My question is,

it seems like there's a lot of enemy encounters. And is there, is there any stealth? Is there any ways to kind of go at this different ways? Or you're just kind of, hey, I'm just shooting these people and I'm hiding behind bushes and just kind of doing it the same way. Yeah, there definitely was a stealth aspect to it because I remember there was one scenario.

Again, you had these, and this is something I don't know what the hell I'm doing. So the anomalies where you even see it in some of the B-roll footage where you're looking at this area and you can tell it's like all fuzzy and off and you can pick up items to throw into it because you have to find these anomalies to get their artifacts, right? So I mean like a dummy, I'm walking into the art. I'm like, why are getting all this damage? And I had to figure that out how to avoid that and how to detect those. But there was a scenario where there were these bandits and they were out scavenging, obviously, right? And I had to. and I could have engaged them. And the first time I did, and I died, of course. But the next time, I was like, well, maybe I can just sneak around these guys and avoid this firefight altogether. And that's exactly what I did. So you do have that diversity there where you can pick the approach that you want to take in those scenarios. Like a day night cycle.

And I'll say this. I'll say this. To me, it seems the best approach, if you don't have to fight, don't do it. If you can avoid getting in a firefight, don't because you're just putting yourself at risk every time. Okay. Yeah. Is there a day night cycle pick and choose? Are there silences for your weapons where we can't go in?

I want to see if the stealth or is it going to no matter what blow up my case. It does seem like as you get higher up, you're going to be able to upgrade some of these weapons and pick up different things. So it looks like you're, you will be able to do some of that in there as well. As far as like a specific day night cycle, I don't remember exactly where it was daytime. and as I was in it, it turned tonight, but I, or maybe it did.

See, and it's been a few weeks I've played it. Yeah, some of the gameplay is nighttime, so. But, you know, but there was definitely times it was at night and at day for sure. Okay. They highlighted a thick atmosphere. Pairs, how did that feel playing it, right? Did it seem very samey in the world that you saw, where they're very unique points of interest that you were part of the music?

How did that build into certain situations? Is there music? It's just ambient noise? it feel like moment to moment. It was ambient noise and it was very suspenseful if I'm saying that correctly. Again, you're by yourself and you rolling up like think if you ever watch the Walking Dead or something like that, right, where you roll up on these people you've never encountered before. You don't know if they're going to be friendly. You don't know if they're going to attack you on the spot. You always have to assume everything that you see out in that

world is going to try and kill you. You have to because if you don't, then they're probably going to kill you. You're kind of selling me on this game. This sounds, this sounds really cool and this is, I'm a little scared to the 30 hours, right? But like, especially there's so many games going on there, but this, this sounds really interesting. Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, just again

on a more real life aspect of this, to know what that team has gone through over the past few years with everything that's happening in the Ukraine, splitting up families, people having to leave the country, some people staying, and they still worked on

this game and they're driving it to completion and they got into a place now where they're actually going to be able to deliver it here on November 20th. It's quite a feat for them. I remember seeing this when I did the Xbox Showcase in 2021. I remember that was the first time I got to see it. And I remember even then thinking, oh, this looks really neat. And here we are in 2024 because of everything that's happening in the real world that they've had to deal with over the past few years to now be able to get this game out. It's quite an accomplishment. And it's good.

It is good. I, again, veterans of stalker obviously already know this, but me coming in as a newbie, I was very impressed with what I got to see. And I can see the potential in this. And I can see as you dive further into it and experience some of the crazy stuff that's in this open world right on my alley. But I'm with you, Roger. It all comes back to time.

It's like, man, will I have enough time to actually. invest in this, but I feel like this is a game I'm going to want to find the time to play. If you're excited and you want to learn more, of course, that documentary is now out available on YouTube, War Game, the making of Stocker 2 documentary. So go check that out and watch the first 30 minutes before the show, had a really good time. Very interesting stuff and some really intense stuff. So go check that out. But Paris, we're going to ask you more about Stocker 2 and beyond right after a word from our

sponsors. This episode is brought to you by New World Eternalum. World Eternum is a thrilling action RPG experience for console and PC players with a vibrant world, vast and beautiful setting, dynamic real-time action combat and the freedom for players to choose how to forge their destiny. Combat is skill-based and dynamic, incorporating swords, guns, and sorcery so that you can build one character to rule them all as you explore Eternum and unravel the mysteries of the supernatural island that you can't leave. You love playing RPGs alone? You can in New World Eternum or play cooperatively with your friends as you complete quests, get better gear,

and level up. Greg played this at Summer Game Fest on PlayStation 5 and was caught off guard by how much he enjoyed it and how many hours he said he could see himself sinking into the final product. There's boss fights, cool enemies, crossplay, resource gathering, and crafting. So yeah, this sounds like a Greg game. New World Eternum is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X&S and PC. Paris, I want to ask, it seems like the gameplay that we were watching earlier was on PC. You played this on PC, I'm assuming.

How did it run? How did it look? Oh, big question. Actually, I played it on Xbox. Oh, I did not play it. Check that out for a preview. This is like an Xbox dev kit. Oh, okay.

Okay, so I saw a mouse cursor. So is that just in the game? That was provided me. Oh, my bad. That's not my gameplay. We weren't allowed to capture. But there was a mix of Xbox stations and PC stations that were there. purposely chose Xbox because when I

played it briefly at Summer Game Fest that was on PC so I was like let me see what it's like on Xbox. Look great played great. No issues. I know on Series X it will be 60 frames for second and I believe they said on Series S right now it's 30 but they are working to see if they can get a performance

mode to get it to 60 on the S. I need an X you know what I mean? Like I just need to play this game at 60 FPS or just on PC but yeah that seems like the way to play about it but that's cool I'm glad that it so is stable 60 FPS because I remember there was an interview somewhat recently where someone accidentally said 20 fps, but they meant 30 fbs. So there was some Hubble Blue out there.

So I'm glad that. Yeah. Was that stalk or was that a vote? I can't remember. But to your point, yeah. Yeah. Cool. But yeah, it was stable.

Fine. No issues at all while I was playing. Awesome. And is it always going to be solo pairs? Will I recruit other members out there from factions and beyond to join me and run around this wasteland or no? It seems like you're solo. Again, I played very. early on. And you, that's a question. Again, I apologize because I did not ask. I know you obviously

can talk to NPCs and you can go on missions for them and work with them. But I don't think you could like specifically have a companion that's going with you on these missions. How about the enemies? Were they scary? Were they unique? Did they keep you on your toes with the difficulty? What was that like? Definitely kept me on my toes. Those like, I think you even see one in the B-roll, but those dogs are a pain in the ass. Just such a pain of the ass because you'll hear them off in the distance and the next thing you know, it's like a pack of them and they're just rushing you. And again, you're limited on ammo.

So, you know, you got to try and take them out quickly because if they hit you and attack you now, you're bleeding. And if you're bleeding, you got a bandage and all these things that are going on. But the most deadly enemies are the humans are the other humans that are in the zone with you. Oh, okay. Because I mean, they obviously have weapons. they can shoot at you from range.

Some of them are going to rush you, stuff like that. They could surround you because like even that tower scenario I was bringing up. There were like four bandits I had to take out. And you could hear them making callouts, each other, stuff like that. So yeah, they're probably the most deadly enemies of all. One clarification question I want to ask. So you're saying it's hard. You die a lot of times.

Are you dropping everything? Is it like a rogulight situation? Or are you just booting up from the last safe point? Yeah, you're respawning back. Okay. Well, that's good. Oh, okay. That's a great question there, Rogers, right? Okay. What about the zone? We refer to that.

What kind of weird, freaky stuff is going on within the zone that we will see or maybe get teased that you can tease us with, Paris? But see, that's like the whole mystery part of it that I was only early into the game that you're trying to understand and you're new to the zone. But there's these weird anomalies, if I could say it correctly. You know, time distortion, obviously all these weird effects that are happening. And like we're looking at one of them right now. But then you have to, there's these other anomalies where you're trying to find an artifact and you have this device and you're looking for a specific one and you have to put it down. And then, you know, you have to get close to the anomaly, which could kill you to try and find the artifact. And there's a whole mystery stuff that's going on with that in this zone.

So that's part of the story aspect that I'm actually still wanting to go back so I can understand better. Like we're looking at one now with the fire stuff. So you're pulling out that scanner and then you're eventually going to drop this device in there because if there's if there's an artifact in there, you have to go into the anomaly to get it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I want to bring in the live chat, of course, all ups over on the Twitch sides says, are there level ups, a skill tree? What does this look like?

Yeah, progression wise, Paris. I believe there wasn't a skill tree. Definitely was not that. But I believe you are kind of quote unquote. leveling up your character in a way and I'm apologizing here because I don't remember seeing that specifically like what it looked like and what it was doing as far as your perks go on that but I think also part of it is you're finding these artifacts and then you get to use these different artifacts which give you different perks and abilities that that you can use in the world like I bring it up

the radiation one so that you're not so susceptible to radiation but then that the negative aspect of that was now you need to eat more, you need to drink water more, you know, to offset it. So you have some survival aspects of this? How much is that in play with the hunger and thirst system? Oh, it's definitely in play because again, if you don't pay attention to that stuff and you could literally just die on the, on the, you know, in the world without an enemy attacking you if you're bleeding. Because that happened to me a couple times where, sure, I killed all the enemies and I got rid of them, but because I was bleeding and I didn't have a bandage, I die. And if you don't drink enough water, I believe you can, you can die of the

starvation or thirst and things like that or it slows you down. There's, there's effects to that that that will eventually hurt you in the world. That's awesome. No, I mean, how, how hard was it to find? I mean, you said bandages, but like water and food, like, did you find any, any, any, any, water and food in your play through? Yeah, that's what I mean. You scavenge. You scavenge in some of the places that go to. So you want to look for different things, scavenge bodies, and there's stashes that you can see on the map

that you can go to that potentially could have some of those resources that you're looking for as well. Then you can obviously go into town. There's vendors and stuff that you can purchase some of this stuff from as well. Oh, okay.

I like that. Parrish, I want to go back to the grid inventory system one more time because we're talking about now adding a bunch of stuff into my bag. I've been playing a lot of Resident Evil 4 and I really enjoy their grid inventory system because, of course, I can get a little Tetris effect within getting wild,

or I can just have an auto sort button. Was there an auto sort button on this to make it faster and easier of just grab all this stuff, put it in my bag, or am I clicking one by one rotating, trying to fit it in like Tetris blocks? No, you can have the option to like, hey, just grab all kind of thing. So that was definitely there. Okay. Well, Paris, you got me pretty excited.

I think the audience out there watching live on Twitch and on YouTube have been pretty excited as well. Paris, give me the quick rundown. Do you remember what's the release date? Is it coming to Game Pass? Your final impressions before we move on to our final segment of the day. Yeah, November 20th, 2024 is when it's coming out. It will be

day one on Game Pass and it'll be available obviously on Xbox and PC. Yeah. PC Game Pass as well, right, Paris, I believe. So it's both. That's a big deal right there. I'm going to try it out. All right. Well, hopefully you're excited by that. Let us know in the comments down below. If you're jumping into Stalker 2 when that releases,

next month. Thank you, Paris, for the big preview on that. Paris and Roger, I thought, you know what, to end today's show, why don't we go ask the audience for some fun questions? A little best friend mailbag section. I love it. And so we've gotten in some

write-ins all about Xbox, of course, Paris. And we've gotten the generic Xbox questions like Atoe, 2020 says, when is Wow coming to Xbox? Paris, that's a great question. I second that question. When is Xbox going to get World of Warcraft. Can we just jump right into it?

I think it's still a few years away. If it happens. If it happens? It happens? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's going to happen. Two years. Two years. Batch talks right, said, and says, will we ever see Everwild? That is the billion dollar question. I was convinced we were going to see it this year. I thought we were going to see it at the showcase. And the fact that we've still not seen it,

knock on wood if we don't see it by the next June showcase then I have to seriously question if this game ever comes out yeah I don't think it's a question of if it ever comes out it's just like how deep are we gonna get I think we're gonna see it in the next year

but I think we're gonna see this game you think we're gonna see ever wild in the next year like see it just like a pre I think you see it yeah like a teaser trailer yeah wow I'm gonna see one more time wow that's crazy I like that shutter paw writes in says a lot is writing on Black

Op 6's addition to GamePass. What do you think success looks like for Xbox? If the sales slash GP aka GamePass subscription numbers are low but player engagement is high, is that enough, Paris? That's a great

question. I want to say yes because we're talking about this individual game. If they get, they're going to have high engagement sales numbers on Blackop 6 because it's called duty. Of course they are. But it'll be interesting to see if that drives people to say, well, hey, I can just subscribe to Game Pass. And we know now with the changes to Game Pass,

you need to get an ultimate if you want Blackop Six. So now you're asking people to spend $20 a month. And I think part of that is if I'm a consumer, you got to look at it this way. Like I always take my neighbor as example. This is my neighbor gets Madden. He gets in NBA 2K and he gets call of duty every year, right? That's all he gets. All American. So you have to weigh for him, he would have to weigh is the, what am I spending? Bad math, $210.10 a year I'm spending on these three games.

Is that, is it worth me to just spend that? Or I spend the 20 a month, which adds up to whatever bad math with game pass. And now I still have to go buy Madden and I still have to go buy NBA. you see what I mean? For him it may make more sense to just stick with what he's already been doing and I don't get Game Pass because I'm not playing all these other games that Game Pass has

but on the flip side the way you convince people to want to invest in the game pass and stay a monthly subscriber to it are the Stalker 2s of the world. Are the auras and the age of mythologies and

the active is a back log? Yeah exactly in the South of Middney you got to have a steady cadence of games coming into that service that's going to be appealing across a wide breadth of genres, right? Because not everything's going to appeal to everybody. But there needs to be enough there that I feel like I'm getting my money's worth every month. Yeah. I think that the Game Pass, Call of Duty, Blackop, 6, I don't think it's going to be the massive

success that Xbox wants it to be. They're going to put out a number that's going to be like, oh, look at us. We get X amount of new subscribers or whatever. how many hundreds of millions of hours people played Call of Duty on Game Pass, I don't think it's going to move that needle, because I don't think they have the education, right, for the casual gamer. I think there's a lot of people that just

truly do not understand Game Pass. They don't understand that Black Ops is on Game Pass. They don't understand what that means, where they can play those things at. I think they need a lot of education. They need a lot of commercials on primetime TV explaining what Game Pass is for the casual

audience to understand it. So yeah, I don't think it's going to be a failure. I do, I do think this is going to be the first year of many years of them trying to claw this back. This is not going to be the overnight success that people have been thinking about it for Game Pass. I think you bring up a great point. I mean to cut you off, Mike, but I think you just brought up a great point, Roger. I feel, this is my personal opinion, I feel like we know about Game Pass.

People that are watching this right now, people that are in the chat, we know what Game Pass is. We're not the people that they need to talk to. Again, they need to talk to my neighbor. to educate my neighbor you need to do more to educate that audience about what game pass is what you get for your money because unless i go walk across the street and explain it to him you don't know yeah he and here's the other thing and for whatever reasons when i do see these game you know commercials on tv for games especially Xbox games i feel like i rarely see them actually

highlight game pass and what it does on on the NFL right like when people are watching watching the baseball playoffs are going on right now. Where are those advertisements to that audience and explain what game pass is? I don't think they do it enough. They need full on like almost game fly advertisements, right? Like they need to be like, hey, I'm a celebrity or whatever it is. You can buy, you can have Call of Duty and all of these hundreds of games right now on game.

They don't have that. And it's, I think it's, that is the biggest marketing bungal of it's all. Because of course, Call of Duty has a lot of advertisements. I see them everywhere. And they say Game Pass at the ending. But again, if you don't have that audience understanding of what game pass is, it's useless. Yeah, but that audience is still spending money. They're still buying the game, right?

So, like, it is a weird one of like, do we need to convert that person that might not know what game pass is when they're still going to spend $70 on any X, Y, and Z title release? Like, that's my catch is they got us, the true gamers, which is like the person now going, well, there's four games coming on and I'm trying to save money and I don't want to buy X, Y, and Z. So I'll only buy this. Well, they get you with the game pass. And also, like, Rudy down the street who only plays on his console with those games is getting hit with GamePass ads on their Xbox home device.

Like, no matter what, when you turn on the homepage, you are getting hit with Game Pass. But do I really need to convert every single person when I know he's going to spend $70 on this game? Right? Like, I mean, my metric for success is, of course, yeah, we want to see Game Pass rise. But you know what? I want to see Rise, micro-transactions. I want to see the storefront being hit four times, five times, ten times harder. and I think that's where we'll see the really success is like that number that was like they made a billion dollars in a year off of micro transactions is now going to go through the roof and go much higher.

And where is that from you're saying? Like is that from just people that have game? More people playing now. Thanks to game pass, you're jumping in because maybe you were on the fence about call duty or maybe you're a laps fan that's jumping back. Now you're buying that skin because you just said, oh, I save $70. I don't have to do that. I totally get that.

I understand that logic. I just don't know how many those people exist, right? Like, I really don't know, right? Like, the hardcore gamer are the people that usually have GamePass, right? Like, it's not too many casuals. Of course, we don't have those numbers, but I can only assume, right? How many of those people are like, oh, I've never played a Call of Duty before and I'm gonna pick up this one and now I'm addicted to it, right?

Like, Warzone exists already. Like, Warzone is free to play. Well, I'm trying to get the Fortnite audience. Sure. I'm trying to get kids that only play Fortnite and wouldn't jump to Call of Duty, right? Like, there's a large... Do those kids even have game pass right now? That's what I'm saying, right?

Like, I don't even know. I don't think so. So I don't think they're even going to have that boost. I think this is going to be about the same. I think it's going to be a very successful call of duty. If you get the kids in the lunchroom talking about Call of Duty, then they will get game pass. If they come into school and they start saying,

just like they've seen, we've seen it on the rise of streamer culture, right? Jynxie starts playing Rainbow Six Seeds. The kids are talking about Rainbow Six Seed. Ninja plays Fortnite. They play Fortnite. Like if all of a sudden it's Call of Duty talk nonstop in the lunchroom, that's where it's going to go.

I think they might just buy the game. Like I don't think they're getting games. That's, hey, then that's still a win now. Sure. Here's how I think one way to look at with Blackop six. I think people that are already subscribed to Game Pass, Black Op 6 will be part of the reason to keep them subscribe to Game Pass. Yeah.

If that makes sense. You may not necessarily grow your audience by a significant amount because of Black Op 6, but I don't think you're going to lose your audience because of Black Op 6. I think you'll keep people retained in the service. And then part of that retention is going to be. be ongoing with avowed south of midnight, fable, all these things that are coming in

2025 and beyond where I know I'm getting this stuff and then you look at the third party games that they're adding in there as well. Well let's go take it to Mr. Prime who writes it and says in 2025 hits for Xbox with games like fable, doom, avowed, south of midnight,

meaning they all, meaning they're all good great 80s or above. Is that enough to turn around public perception? Maybe not turn people but entice them to get into the Xbox ecosystem. Next year, if everything hits 80 or above, Paris, is that enough to get the positivity back on their side? One of the, I know that we're many X-Cas here,

but they need an astrobot. And when I say that, I'm not saying they need a platformer. What I'm saying is they need something that is universally praised across the industry, 95. plus. Yeah, that isn't for it. They need something like that. So that's fable. Because when you look at it, Doom, a vouched out to midnight, are those three games

that? I mean, Doom's not, doesn't count even, like in my mind, right? So it's like it has to be fable. Is that fable? Yeah, Fable's probably the one that everyone's going to be talking about it. Everyone's excited to play it. And then they can say the only place you can play that is on

X bet on Xbox or day one on game pass. I agree with that. I mean, I think when I look at Fable, Fable is the only one. Like, Doom, you know, is great already, but it's not shaking the industry wide. South of Midnight and Avowed, I think people are kind of already made their judgment on Avowed, but they're waiting for it. South of Midnight definitely has a chance to wow for sure.

But Fable is that, hey, you're reviving a franchise we all know in love, and if you do it very well, then it's going to rock the world right there. I think the real answer here, which I don't think this game is coming out in 2025. I know there's rumors about it, but I don't believe it is Gears of War. But if years of war were to come out in 2020, that's the game. That's the game that really is going to bring a lot of people that are like, oh shit, I remember playing that game. And I remember Dom.

I remember Marcus. I missed that crew. I miss my friends. Oh man, I should probably hit up my Xbox friends. We should play some Xbox games together. Like, that would connect the dots.

Okay. In my opinion, unless just for argument's sake, say that Gears is a part of this current console generation, it probably would be the biggest game that Xbox would have. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Final one, overloaded penguin writes in and says with the deal closed over a year now, why are there not more Activision games on Game Pass? Paris, what's up with that? Why did they only give me a couple? I had a very wise person tell me that when you think something should be available for a game and it's not licensing. It always goes back to licensing. Licensing and previous agreements.

I was told that a few years ago, and I think we're seeing that play out right now. There's probably a lot of legacy contracts that Activision has had, things like that, that may be preventing that. That's my guess. Especially with Activision games. Exactly. Primarily the ones that we love, having a lot of license music, and that is like where a big complication comes in. Yeah. I mean, think of it this way.

You're even seeing that with, I don't know they haven't officially said it yet, but the games that are coming, the games that you own coming to cloud, right? They already told you certain games won't be there because of licensing. Yeah. I also think it's, even if it is licensed, I think some of them like what Starcraft just came, is coming on to GamePass soon. Like I don't think that's a licensing thing.

I think that's just, hey, what are the, they got to look at the next 12 months, next five years and be like, how do we balance this all out, right? Like how do we have drops every single month? And they can probably see out, oh, September is going to be a light month. Let's put StarCraft there, I don't know. Let's put this here.

So I think it's also a little bit of balance there. Yeah. Let's get you to the super chats to round out the show. Morris W. writes it and says, first super chat just to say thanks, y'all, for making my work day feel less like work. Currently listening while prepping my bar. Hey, have a wonderful shift out there.

Thanks for the support. And then my main man, Thorntid Juke writes it, or Thornton writes in and says, Mike, wait till Towerborn releases. It'll be free to play and progression isn't going to get wiped. I'm going to New York. and unfortunately all the panels are sold out.

We'll have a fun time. Look for blessing out in the hallways. Make sure you tweet a blessed. Tell him to have a little meat in great where he says that hi to everybody. We made him do that at Pax East. He had a blast. So make sure to holler at him and have fun. Be safe out there.

And for all of you watching and listening, thank you so much for tuning into our Stocker 2 preview. Thank you to Paris. Paris, I would also love, I didn't get to, remember, plug what you did because you had an interview go up on your YouTube channel as well. Yes. on my YouTube channel, I put up

about 25 minute interview and just kind of a mini preview of Stalker 2. But I got to talk to the Cinematics team lead over at GSC Game World. And we just talked about Stalker 2. We just talked about obviously everything, real life that studio has been going through with the Ukraine War. It's a great conversation.

Really enjoyed it. Go check that out. Support Paris. He's got a great YouTube channel. You can always catch him there. And of course, you can catch him here on kind of funny content. When Paris, you're so jacked. Oh, my God.

So jacked. That you're just Busted out of that t-shirt. Holy shit. About the ripped that t-shirt and half. Looking great, Harris.

Looking great. Pairs, you're the best. Thanks for joining us to everyone watching and listening out there. Thank you for tuning into another kind of funny games cast. Of course,

we'd love having fun video game topics of conversations with all of you. Don't forget later this afternoon, starting right after this, over on Twitch exclusively on YouTube later. The boys will be playing alien isolation

for the first time as long as you want it. And then we'll be back tomorrow with more kind of funny content. Thank you, everyone. Take care.