Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Really Like Gears of War E-Day - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Forever Ago, a heartfelt road trip story, is launching October 8, 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.Wishlist today: https://annapurnainteractive.c...om/games/forever-agoHead to https://factormeals.com/kindafunny50off and use code kindafunny50off to get 50 percent off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026.The complete gaming experience, distilled into one iconic machine. Visit Alienware.com/15   today. Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:04:48 - Topic of the Show: Gears of War E-Day Review00:08:50 -  Roger’s score00:09:45 - Parris’ score00:12:55 - Mike’s Score00:27:44 - Ad00:30:40 - Andy’s thoughts00:38:30 - General thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:01 Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,
Starting point is 00:00:22 free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Are you the kind of person who cries over a commercial? Well, we've teamed up with Forever Ago, a heartfelt narrative game about a man on a reminiscent road trip. It's out October 8th for PC and consoles. Go to Kindoffony.com slash forever ago to wishlist today. Kind of Funny's top 100 games of all time,
Starting point is 00:00:46 five-day event is happening all next week. Watch live at 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Clear your schedules. It's going to be worth watching live. Hello, gamers. Welcome to the Kind of. Funny Games cast for Tuesday, October 6th, 2026th. I'm one of your host, Andy Cortez,
Starting point is 00:01:12 and I'm joined by Roger the Lockpicorni. G.T. Freakin' easy. Snowbike Mike. Freaking easy. And the voice that makes you moist, Paris Lily. Wow. Wow. You like that?
Starting point is 00:01:26 Did you say that on the box? I sure did. It's too late. You can say that, actually. It's all legal. Hi, Paris. How you doing, Andy? I'm doing great, man.
Starting point is 00:01:34 good to see. It's good to see you. It figures I come the week before top 100. I know. Perfect timing on your part. Yeah, perfect timing. Crazy. Absolutely. We're in the lab. Yeah, mayhem is happening at all the time. This is the one that you could have stayed at home, it would have looked the same. It's so true. So true.
Starting point is 00:01:52 Welcome in gamers. For those y'all wondering, the thumbnail for this podcast, I almost put, we're sorry about gears. I almost like really, really dug in and just like, you know. But here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:02:08 Roger. Fucking Roger got sick. That was almost on the thumbnail as well. Yeah, fucking... I almost just put fucking Roger got sick. Paris was in New York playing all sorts of cool stuff. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:18 All sorts of cool stuff. And I hadn't played the game yet, but I played it that day. Have I beat it yet? No. I'm right there, though. Oh, wow. But Roger beat it. Beat it last night, baby! Paris beat Gears of War E-Day. Yeah. And I'm like in Chapter 5.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Or like, I'm in the mission before chapter five. So I'm right there, dude. Act five. I'm right there. A lot of chapters. A lot of chapters. A lot of chapters. A lot of chapters, act five.
Starting point is 00:02:41 You're right. But like, are you proud of me, Andy? What's up? Because Roger tried to get me sick last week. And I shook that shit off. I don't think that works. Because the time line doesn't work out. It doesn't work out because you were sick before that.
Starting point is 00:02:53 And then I got sick. And then I was like, hey, I'm not going to be able to do this. Here's a War E-Day review. I'm not feeling good. You're like, oh, good. And then I hear the stories two days later when I do feel better and I'm on antibiotics and I'm feeling good where everyone's like, oh, Mike was on death store. Mike came into the office. He was sick.
Starting point is 00:03:08 He was honking up a lung. He wasn't good. And it's like, why did you come to work? I'm going to go with the story that Roger got me sick, but there's a high chance that I was the one that got everyone's thinking. It's just so sad that you've had to carry this company in your back. Thank you. You've had to really, you know, feel the brunt of all of this pressure. Put me on death's door.
Starting point is 00:03:27 Yeah. You all put me at the door. It's unbelievable. Yeah, poor Mike. It's unbelievable what we've put you through. I got a text message from Mike on Wednesday, 209 p.m. When I was working from home, and he said, and I knew he had a trip that weekend this past weekend. This was Wednesday.
Starting point is 00:03:44 Slappy. I'm out here dying. Fucking Roger got me sick. And I said, fucking Roger, what's wrong? Mewkus of throat. I do know COVID's having a moment. And he said, it was the burger door dash that did me in Monday afternoon. I felt it.
Starting point is 00:03:56 sore throat Tuesday, stuffy nose, kick the sore throat, just stuff he knows. I'd say right now about 35% stuff he knows. Should be 100% by tomorrow. Not sure how the math works there. And then so I get all that. I'm like, damn, he's not feeling good. That's unfortunate. And I dial into our meeting where everybody's here at the studio.
Starting point is 00:04:15 Well, I'm hoping not everybody's here at the studio. And then it's, all right, my kick us off. Hey, what's up? Welcome to the meeting. I'm like, and I text up, like, why are you there? Go home. You know it's bad when he breaks out the percentages? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:28 When it's like 35% I'm going to be at 25, I'll be 100% soon. It's like, okay, this is, you're at 0%. You're dying. Are you freaking moonshine? You know, this is a, these are the glassware. It's the hat that's bringing it all together. Yeah. The GTA 6th hat.
Starting point is 00:04:42 It really puts you in the vibe. Yeah, I got my box too. I was going to wear the pink t-shirt. No, the GTA box. Welcome in, gamers. If you're watching live, be a part of the show by super chatting on YouTube. forward slash kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com
Starting point is 00:04:59 forward slash kind of funny. So thank you to Omega Buster, Delaney the Somm-Twine, and Michael Pesavento. For now, let's begin with topic of the show. Gears of War E-Day review for the people that weren't able to be there. Redux. Redux. The remix of it all. The 2.0.
Starting point is 00:05:23 This is like when Anthem comes out with like Anthem 2.0. Or, you know, when the games come back and in a games as a service and they're like, hey, guys, we're putting out a new version out there. Go download it. I hope you all. It's the free to play version. Yeah. Yeah. We need more players of the server.
Starting point is 00:05:39 The money run didn't work. Here's a more E-Day, guys. Paris is fucked up. He's fucked up. He's fucked up. What's happened? Paris almost fell in the chair. I'm like, I'm feeling low, and then I got a little...
Starting point is 00:05:54 He adjusted himself. I was fell back in the whole seat. Gears more Ede, guys. Hi. Roger, you were playing it before even the review happened, right? And unfortunately, you know, you got Mike sick. I know. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:10 But I heard you singing its praise is the blessing throughout the studio and talking to Mike about it. So, Roger, I would like you to give me kind of just an overview, top level thoughts of what you think about Gears of War, E-Day, and hit us with that review score. What did you play it on? How long did it take you to beat? Also, take us on your journey, because you did have a journey with this game. Yeah, and a little bit of a journey.
Starting point is 00:06:32 Yeah, some ups and downs. Played it on Series S, ran fine. Ran fine. On the S? On the S. Wow. Nice. It had some moments of, like, in the open world where it's, like, dropping down pretty severely, but it was pretty rock-solid by the ending. Once you get into those linear portions of it. But my story here is that I
Starting point is 00:06:50 grew up playing Gears of War. You know, I was one of my formative experiences. So playing it with my brother. My younger brother was always the experience. So I'm like, hey, I'm going to do it. I'm going to pull my one card. I'm going to talk to Xbox PR. We're going to get my brother a code.
Starting point is 00:07:03 I'm going to review it with my brother. Oh, I love that. I'm going to do this. Of course, I get him the code. I'm busy that night. No. You put it on the calendar. I put it on the calendar.
Starting point is 00:07:12 Oh, I got a date. This beautiful woman, I'm going to take her on a date. I can't be hanging out with you. And I said, you got a stay gaming. Don't focus on no girls. And I looked at him and I was like, you know what? You're done. Out of here.
Starting point is 00:07:25 This is how dedicated I was to the review, everybody. I was like, you know what? Fuck you, bro. You're done. You're out. I'm not going to my wedding, dude. Yeah, this is not happening. Okay, you're out, okay?
Starting point is 00:07:35 So I start playing the game, and I'm deep in the game. And then, of course, I get sick. I'm act five. I'm act five. And then I can't be on the review. But yeah, my quick review here is that I, I think this is a very, not just solid gears of war game. I think this is a really great Gears of War game.
Starting point is 00:07:52 But I think that what it tries to do outside of like the main bread and butter of Gears of War, it like approaches being amazing. But then it just dips its toe and it doesn't fully commit. When it comes to the story, when it comes to the open world, when it comes to a lot of the characters.
Starting point is 00:08:09 But as a core Gears of War experience, I think this is like fucking fantastic. Like the moment to moment gameplay, I had a moment last night where I was fighting a big boss and it just all clicked, right? Where you're running around and the locusts are coming in, they're pushing you back, you're running out of ammo,
Starting point is 00:08:25 like you feel the desperate energy when you're in this, and it feels exactly the way I remember when I was a kid, like the way that all the weapons feel, the heft, the energy, like something that I haven't felt since the original trilogy. I think Gears War 4 and 5 just never felt right to me. Gears E-Day feels perfect. I think there's a lot of issues when it comes to, like, the way that they kind of frame the story.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I think the prequel elements of it don't really work for me. And we can get into that. And I think this is going to be one of those reviews where it's going to feel a lot more negative than I actually feel. Because this game, it's a great Gears of War game. I'm giving it an eight out of ten. I think it is a solid experience. I think this is a great way to continue the franchise. But I do want more out of this.
Starting point is 00:09:07 I do want more out of this experience. I think the coalition should be looking at this as a first starter. But I also think that they should really be looking to expand this universe. a way that is not just, hey, it's another Gears of War game. Hey, it's an easy recommendation for the nostalgia. Because I think this franchise has a lot of depth here. It just, it isn't going, it starts to get in there, but then it just stops. And that's what my experience was, finishing it last night.
Starting point is 00:09:32 It just, oh, we're almost there. Oh, we're just done with the game now, right? So, again, 8 out of 10, I think this is a easy recommendation for all Gears to War fans, but not as easy of a recommendation for, like, the Tim Gettys out there, who casually played this franchise. I don't think it's like a hey, run out and go get this game. Paris Lilly. Yes, Andy.
Starting point is 00:09:51 What platform did you play on? How long did it take you to beat? And what would you give it on the kind of funny score? So I played this on two platforms. I played it primarily on PC. And then I also checked it out on Xbox Series X. It took me about 12 hours to complete. We did this all on co-op the entire way.
Starting point is 00:10:11 And I would give this an 8.5. Similar to Roger, I feel like there was a lot of good here, obviously. I highly recommend it to anyone that's a Gears of War fan to go play this. I think from a visual standpoint, especially playing this on PC. Hey, shout out to NVIDIA, DLS, is 4.5. All that stuff, just the ray tracing. This is one of, if not the most visually impressive game that I've seen come from Xbox. 100%.
Starting point is 00:10:41 I mean, it's just an eye candy, right? my nitpicks I'll get those out the way my nitpicks are there was a little too much repetition in there started to get repetitive in some things um I will call out specifically I think the aerial section you could have done that once and that was it I think once the second time I'm like really we're doing this again kind of thing um but even sections like the bridge I thought we revisited those a little too much in my personal opinion, but when you're in the actual city of Colonna, which you will go back to certain places, but that works a lot better because you're watching the real-time destruction of this of Sarah, of the planet, right? It's emergency day. This is what's happening
Starting point is 00:11:26 over 72-hour period. So I like that because because of the destruction, some of the cover, things like that strategically would change when you get into those combat engagements. And that's the highlight of gears for me. I thought when you're actually engaging with the locust, having to get into cover, you're making callouts to your teammates. And like you said, the boss battles as well, those were a lot of fun. I have no issue with that. And I think Roger hit it perfectly. And real quick, can we get some more volume on Paris? It feels like some people in chat are saying I'm a loud guy. He might be a little too quiet in the chat. Bank him up. Cranky. No, but I think Roger hit on the point that when credits were,
Starting point is 00:12:07 old, I go, oh, they're doing another one of these. Oh, yeah. They're not going to gear six. Yeah, we're never going back. We're staying in the E-Day part of this because, like I said, this was only the first 72 hours that this happened over. So there's so many more stories that could happen. And I got a chance to talk to a couple of devs, the creative director at the coalition, and he even said himself, there's so much negative space that they have to work with here. I mean, obviously, they're going to announce E-Day 2 now, but it's pretty clear we're going to get more
Starting point is 00:12:36 E-Day. And then I think the final thing I will say on this is what I realize with going back in time with Marcus and Dom, because we haven't seen Dom since Gears 3. It's all about Marcus and Dom. That is Gears of War. It's about those two where we're, we
Starting point is 00:12:55 come into this, they're already friends, they know each other, but you're watching that friendship and that brotherhood start to emerge over just these three-day period. So again, there's so many more stories they can tell with Markets and Dom leading up to Marcus going to jail. I think that's where you kind of cap it right there. Now he goes to jail.
Starting point is 00:13:12 That's where you pick it back up with the original Gives of War. I love it. Mike, you gave this an 8 out of 10? Give it an 8.5 out of 10. I echo a lot of what these guys said. And I really enjoyed my time with it. I'm still thinking about this game a week plus later after completing it. I still want to play this game, whether it be multiplayer or hoard.
Starting point is 00:13:33 I would be even more excited to jump in with a co-op campaign experience because I had that much fun playing by myself. And yeah, this is one of those that will go down for me as like a great years of war entry as Roger brought up. It's probably my favorite since the OG3. I really, really liked what they did mixing the linear slash open zone storytelling slash gameplay. I mean, Paris hit it on the head, right?
Starting point is 00:13:57 It's like, we're just at the beginning of Dom and Marcus's story, right, where they become real like brothers. here. And we only scratched the surface on that. And I actually do like the supporting cast. I thought Max Carter and Lucas Reyes all had their shining moments, right? Like, you are jumped into a world where we kind of have baggage, right? Like, I'm a cold trained guy, right? We love those OG4 and I'm forward through the trilogy. And so it's hard to be like, hey, here's new characters. And I think these two, they start off and you're like, who are these guys going to be? They're going to be cannon farted. They'll be dead halfway through the game. And they shine by the end of it,
Starting point is 00:14:31 where I'm like, yo, I like these two characters a lot, going next to, of course, the big dogs, Marcus and Dom, where it's like, that's tough shoes to fill. On top of that, I think the world of Colonna looks beautiful. The environments everywhere are stunning. It is something, Andy, I don't know if you remember you, I brought up, but I looked him in the eyes and I said, I think the coalition is a team that does deserve a lot more respect.
Starting point is 00:14:53 It is a great team. They really know how to utilize the engine that they do. And, like, the gameplay mixed with the look of the world, that they build are stunning and beautiful. And it plays so well. And so I think they deserve a lot more credit than maybe the world thinks of them as. But like for me, the coalition is a top tier studio.
Starting point is 00:15:12 And they know what they're doing. And so the gameplay and look were so much fun. The subtle changes of the gameplay feel on the controller really hit. When you start to play it, you go, well, this is a little awkward, a little different. But then by hour one, you're like, wow, this all feels right. This is exactly what it should be.
Starting point is 00:15:29 And the new weapons that they add are are so much fun. I mean, you get that breach shot the first time, the four bullet rifle, and you're like, is this my new long shot sniper rifle? Like, this thing rocks. Or you get the incinerator shotgun with the emulsion tech behind that.
Starting point is 00:15:45 You're like, oh, this is awesome. And then you start adding into the next layer of the mods that you are getting and earning, and it's like every single weapon can be utilized totally different and changed up where it feels great. And I like that. It's like, hey, we have this cool, unique,
Starting point is 00:15:58 like, ultimate ability that you'll use, and you'll fall in love with, I use the stim a lot, and I fell in love with what that was doing with the armor mods. And then finally, I agree with Roger. I think we scratched the surface of trying something new in the open world with these side objectives, where, yeah, I really liked that.
Starting point is 00:16:15 It finally took me out of the linear, Andy will know this, of like, I went silent during our gears one through three, play through when Andy was playing with Ray and I joined them for a little bit of like, the linear storytelling of gears sometimes gets me bored, right? And I want to break out of the walls and kind of run somewhere else and do something else. And I really think Colonna and the open activities had that,
Starting point is 00:16:37 but a lot of them are very samey and they are very basic, right? And I think that's where you build off of that of like, hey, I think the audience likes that. They do like being able to get off the track and go somewhere, smell the roses and hang, or skip it completely. But how do you make those side objectives a little bit more? It was cool to see the world living and breathing. It was fun to hear gunshots run over and it'd be like,
Starting point is 00:16:59 hey, there's a group over here. need help. Awesome. I'll spend a little time with that, but each one was very similar. Stay in there, shoot 20, locust, horde members, leave. That's fine. Yeah. Let's build off of that. So for me, I still stay in an 8.5. I have a lot more multiplayer and hoard to jump into, but this game was a ton of fun. And this is a hit. This is a really big hit that they needed. Yeah, I think it seems like we're all kind of on the same page here, because I think the largest spot for opportunity would be those open zone areas. I found myself largely kind of getting disinterested because it felt like we were,
Starting point is 00:17:39 I felt like the momentum was being kind of killed in a way where I think the story and the momentum and the rhythm of the story is like so strong and getting those big story beats and having that one character die because that villain decided to do this and that. Like I think they do an awesome job with that. And then I've been doing the co-op stream with Ray. And every time we're in the open world zone, it's just, I just feel like I'm kind of losing interest. And this has gone on a bit too long. And it needs something.
Starting point is 00:18:15 It's missing like. Maybe a traversal thing. Like it's missing something where it's like I look back and not to compare these two franchises, but we have to. I mean it reminds me a little bit like of like the Halo Infinite open world where it's like, it's just there and that was fun for me because it was grapple hook, right? Grapple hook moment. There was not really much to do, but I really look back at that fondly. For this,
Starting point is 00:18:35 I, once I did a few of the side missions, I'm like, oh, this is what it's going to be. There's not really too much depth to it. I just, I was searching for that depth in like this moment of like, hey, it's fucking E-Day. Like this is, there's so many different side stories you can tell with not even just cogs, like human beings. And I just don't think that open
Starting point is 00:18:51 world does that as much. I mean, you've done it all, so like correct me if I'm wrong. But like I just wasn't able to find too many of those moments of like, hey, this is a human being that's like hurting and I need to help them and what can I do to help them? And that's what is missing as far as some of the side stuff goes. Now I'm going to give you a
Starting point is 00:19:07 very extreme example that Andy will appreciate. They're missing their bloody barren moment where it's optional. It's not something you have to do, but you're encouraged to go down the story path that isn't the main story and you have this
Starting point is 00:19:23 emotional beat and all that. And I get it's gears so it's not like Gears has ever been known for this dramatic storytelling or anything like that. But I think they still kill it this game, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree on that. Because another thing that I think going back, they're kind of limited by what they've previously done is, sure, they've added a lot of verticality into this with the jumping and all that.
Starting point is 00:19:48 All that's great. But there's only so many things that you can do gameplay-wise that, well, why weren't they doing that in the first game? but they could do that here. The hair their knees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think they did a great job. I mean, to the point of, hey, this is kind of an opening, for lack of a better term,
Starting point is 00:20:08 this is chapter one of what probably seems like a trilogy, I would imagine. And they can take lessons learned from this with the open world and improve upon that going into the next one. Like I said, my biggest complaint was there was just too much repetition. Yeah. I thought there was an opportunity to branch out and do something a little different throughout the acts.
Starting point is 00:20:26 It's not an exact one-to-one, but when you, I had the most questions going into Control Residence Open World before I actually played the game. And before you'd experience an amazing, you know, main story beat. And then at the end of that control preview, they're like, oh, and you can also just kind of run around these zones. And I'm like, okay, well, it seems like it might be kind of a basic experience. I don't really know what I'm getting out of this, aside from just getting some XP, maybe finding some unlockables. but then those open areas I think were filled with some of the most intriguing side quests and
Starting point is 00:21:01 NPCs and things like that these open zones here remind me a lot more of of areas in like this feels a lot more shared world shooter destiny to me where you have your story beats with cut scenes and you're going through
Starting point is 00:21:16 the linear path of what the devs want you to do and then once you're led into the open world open zones like I'm expecting to see other cogs online, like running around and, you know, completing that little world event or that little random thing that happens in the world. And, oh, you got to like, you know, let's go join that team over there for whatever. It feels like, like almost a different video game.
Starting point is 00:21:42 But yeah, I think these open zones, like, that's the largest spot for opportunity. And but on the flip side, I think, I think this game has done way more narratively and has done way more emotionally than I was expecting. And I think, like Mike was mentioning with Lucas and Mags, I wasn't expecting to have, like, those really poignant moments narratively. I thought they were super strong and really nicely performed. And I think the coalition is cooking at its most fiercest when it is doing big story beats with big, huge boss fights and awesome cut scenes.
Starting point is 00:22:22 That's where it's like, whoa. you know, as somebody who has played pretty much all the gears games, except for five over the last year and a half, this game, I think, has blown me away the most when it comes to just scale and spectacle. These cutscenes have blown me away. I am, like, shocked whenever something happens. They are going for, like, that extreme, be like,
Starting point is 00:22:44 whoa, holy shit, I can't believe that person just had their head squished in or whatever. Like, they do a lot for the shock factor. And I think that goes really, really far to evoke an emotion. out of the player. I think they kill it with that. Yeah, I was just going to say, like, I think the, for me, the moment that it clicked was Act 3. Because I don't, I didn't love
Starting point is 00:23:04 the very beginning of the game because it goes for like the, I would say more horror, like zombie, like, hey, like, it's emergency, so then all, like the people are, yeah, like the opening, opening of the game is somebody walking up and finding the locust and being like, well, and then getting murdered, right? I just, that to me
Starting point is 00:23:20 is not the horror of Gears of War that I really appreciate. I like, the more, hey, World War II, right? Like, this is the scale of the battle, the horror of war, right? Like, it is so big and so scary, and you can be murdered at any moment. So once we get into Act 3,
Starting point is 00:23:35 where it really gets out of Colonna and it becomes a little bit more, hey, we are in the woods and things get scary, but it is more of, like, this big... Once you see the first big, like, landscape of, like, oh, fuck, we're outside of the city
Starting point is 00:23:47 and everything's sideways, and you see everything's red. Like, that to me is where the game really comes together. And I was a little bit worried weary in the beginning of the game of like, is this just going to be them trying to do like a resin, you'll rip off? And I hear you on that.
Starting point is 00:24:00 And I think this is where, again, they're clearly going to do more. Because to your point, that's where it starts to really ramp up. But it is literally emergency day. They're sitting in a bar just hanging out. And all of a sudden, these monsters are coming out of the ground. And I love that we got it from Marcus and Dom's perspective
Starting point is 00:24:17 and Bravo Squad's perspective, because everything that's happening is the first time it's happening. So they don't know anything. And like the military, obviously they're coming off of, I'm blanking on the war. Pendium, pendulum wars, right? They're coming off of that. They're trying to scale back down. And now all of a sudden you got to ramp back up because these monsters are literally,
Starting point is 00:24:37 because what is it in the original voiceover gears of war, I think billions of people die. And at one point, I don't know if it was Mags or who said it, but they even go, is this happening any? Like, they don't know. Like, is this happening anywhere else or is it just happening here? So that's where this is kind of the opening salvo to set all that up. And I would imagine, I'll look directly in the camera, E-Day 2, you're going to get the big scale of what you're talking about
Starting point is 00:25:02 because at that point now they know. They know what's happening and how to prepare for it. I mean, you've got 15 years to work with, right? I believe the first years of war is 15 years after E-Day. So you have a lot of room to play. You know, me and Roger were talking about how do you write the prequel? How do you play with certain things that we already know and are accustomed to, right? And I brought up how, like, they introduced weapons again into this.
Starting point is 00:25:24 I thought they did a really good job, as along with the Locust Horde, right, of like starting with the little creepy crawlers going to the basic. And they got further and farther. It felt like, yeah, you're being invaded, right? Here's the first wave. Here's the next wave. But, yeah, storytelling, that is tough, right? Because we know all of this lore already.
Starting point is 00:25:40 We are expecting so much. And you kind of, like, are almost into a hole of, like, well, we have to kind of lean this way. And I thought they did well of, like, at least branching out a little bit with our two side characters and the starting the story of Marcus and Dom, right? If we ever get to a spoiler cast, there's a lot to talk about with those two and how they wrote that story there that I really appreciate and enjoy because it's hard when you have all this baggage already. Yeah, no, and I think they did a pretty good job. I did feel like the game was kind of split into two, right, where the beginning of it, it's like, hey, okay, we're clearly focused on Marcus and Dom, right?
Starting point is 00:26:15 And then we kind of get lost a little bit in just focusing on the locust as you have to. And then we take, we're like, hey, now we're focused on, like, the side characters, right? Like, that's, like, kind of the beginning half of the game is, like, they have their big moments. And I was, honestly, I think Lucas had a great moment, but, like, Mags, I was, like, waiting for more. Because I think our character has a lot of depth, and I'm like, oh, where's the, of course, the sequels, yada, yada, yada. But, like, you see that character, you're like, oh, there's a lot more to that character, so I was waiting for that. And then it becomes Marcus Saddam again, right? So it's, like, it's like a little bit, like, fragmented for me. She's got TB Dutch.
Starting point is 00:26:47 Literally, yeah, yeah. Well, what's the Azel starts? I was like, oh, man, this ain't good, this ain't good. But, like, it just, I don't know, when you see the initial teaser for, of course, you have to do it, right? Here's where you do it. You got to fucking have Marcus and Dom doing the,
Starting point is 00:26:59 picking each other up and, you know, mad rolled in the background. You have to do it, but it didn't feel cohesively the entire time. Like, that was the main crux of the story, right? Like, it just kind of became a little bit broken and fragmented until the very end for me. And I think that, like,
Starting point is 00:27:15 yeah, I wish we could pop the top on it because, yeah, me too. It's a very interesting story they're telling, right? Like, there is the broship of these two. But where we're at on this is, like, they aren't just two do-or-die-bros quite yet, right? They are brought together from something else. And that relationship is only just blossoming, right?
Starting point is 00:27:32 And it's actually, like, at this point, when you're playing it, it's like these aren't just two best friends. These are just kind of two dudes that have a shared common interest, and they do need to start growing. And I felt like they really take their time to let that happen. And there's a couple of good moments with some side characters that are like, hey, we got to kind of build this bond
Starting point is 00:27:49 and you see them start thinking about it. And yeah, it is an interesting story of how much they hold back and wait and wait and wait and then get into it. And I agree with you, parents. It's like, well, it's because there's 15 more years to build that bond here. I can't wait to dive deeper into the things
Starting point is 00:28:05 that we like, the things we don't like, and everything in between for Gears of War, Eday. But we'll have to do that after a word from our sponsors. And forever ago, you'll play as Alfred, who, after a tragic stroke of fate, embarks on a journey north in search of redemption. In this single-player road trip adventure, you'll travel to beautiful places,
Starting point is 00:28:23 capture memories with your camera, meet interesting characters, and even make some new friends. Experience a nuanced and heartfelt story about broken dreams, loss, and regret, but also courage, hope, and true friendship. Explore beautiful environments ranging from serene forest trails
Starting point is 00:28:39 to dusty barren sweltering in the desert sun. Take pictures with Alfred's good-all-instant camera to document your journey and solve small environmental puzzles. Play through a lifetime of love between Alfred and his sweetheart Audrey, experiencing true love that transcends time. Forever Go is available October 8th, 2026 on Nintendo Switch 2, Steam, Epic Game Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X&S.
Starting point is 00:29:01 Wish list today. This episode's brought you by Factor. This gaming review season has been the busiest yet, and sometimes hunger strikes and you're just way too exhausted to set up and prepare the whole meal you thought you'd have time for. That's why so many of us here. it kind of funny love factor. Factor makes it easy with fully prepared meals
Starting point is 00:29:19 designed by dieticians and crafted by chefs so you can eat well without shopping or cooking. On many occasions, Factor has completely saved Greg and Jen when they needed it most. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods, and healthy fats. Every week, you'll find over 100 nutrient-dense menu items
Starting point is 00:29:40 to choose from and new options like salmon burgers, shredded pork, collared greens, and more. Let's Eat Real. Head to Factory Meals.com slash Kind of Funny 50 off and use code Kind of Funny 50 off to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until October 31st, 2026. That's code Kind of Funny 50 off at Factory Meals.com slash Kind of Funny 50 off at Factory Meals.com. See website for more details. This episode is brought to you by Alienware. Start your Alienware journey with the streamlined Alienware 15. They designed this machine to refine the essentials, creating a more focused gaming laptop for players who demand quality without the clutter.
Starting point is 00:30:23 They engineered a brilliant 15.3-inch 16-hhertz display seamlessly into a portable 15-inch body. You get a larger immersive window into your game that still travels easily wherever your mission takes you. Step into the future of gaming with up to Nvidia-GForce RTX-60 laptop GPUs. Designed to push boundaries, the RTX-50 series with NVIDIA Max Q, delivers jaw-dropping graphics while optimizing battery life. This is the Alienware experience distilled into one iconic machine. Visit alienware.com slash 15 today. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.
Starting point is 00:31:03 The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario.
Starting point is 00:31:29 And we are back, everybody. Kevin brought up like, Andy, you didn't score this, right? I was like, well, I haven't beat it yet. But I'm hovering around an eight as well. And I think that would be a lot higher if these open zones felt a bit more engaging. And if the activities that we were doing in the open zones didn't feel a bit more repetitive. But everything aside from that is just so, so damn high quality. This game looks amazing at every turn.
Starting point is 00:32:01 Playing on PC with all of the rays being traced and the full visuals and all that, it's amazing. I'm playing on PC. I'm playing keyboard mouse, which is very, very odd for people. It feels so damn good to play on keyboard mouse, and I feel so much more competent than I did playing all the other gears games on controller. I am like, dude, it is snip time. Just a freak. Dude, the long shot in this game, oh my God, the feedback from the head shots, everything
Starting point is 00:32:30 is just so fucking great. The combat for me, moment to moment, getting that sliding shotgun, you know, going from cover to cover. All of that stuff is just so damn good and I think it's the best it's ever felt mainly because I am playing on keyboard now. Andy, have you done the slide under the car yet? No! You got to do that. There's no way these dudes get fit
Starting point is 00:32:51 under a car. They do. I'm excited for you to play Gears 5 and see what that open world activities were like because this is a large step up from that very barren zone riding the skiff around and being extremely bored with that. That's even more empty? Is that the ice? Yeah. Oh, dude, I've never beaten Gears War 5 because
Starting point is 00:33:09 Oh, Jesus, sorry, my watch is going off. It's 1159, everybody. I would boot up Gears of War 5, and I would just be in that fucking ice zone, and then I would just turn it off, and then maybe a week later, I would turn it back on. I'd be like, fuck this game. I'm never going back to them. I'm excited for you to experience that way. I do think along that point, because that was the biggest problem with Gears 5.
Starting point is 00:33:28 There was just so much empty space if you weren't doing anything between moment to moment. And I think that's what they tried to solve here with the open zones of, yeah, There's always some little monster running around or civilian screaming, they're trying to keep you engaged by the time you get to the next interaction. Yeah, they feel smaller. The zones, they feel way more detailed and polished, of course. There is, like, people just running around. There is small locusts running side to side.
Starting point is 00:33:54 And I just think, like, the, we talk about how basic these side activities are, and they are very basic, and they'll build off of that. But, man, what you were doing in five, I would rather do this stuff. Yeah, yeah, 100%. I do wish. I liked the fact that you have all those crates to open up and you have those mods because I do, I think that that was actually very helpful when I figured out how much I loved the mods, right? So it is exciting to pick up something, but oh shit, finally something for my Nashor. Oh my God, it's a fully automatic Nashir.
Starting point is 00:34:20 Like, that changes everything, right? So cool. I'm such an easy mark for that rogue light. This ability is not going to do this. Oh, that is so exciting. And I'm such a sucker for that, Roger. And I'm glad you brought that up because, like, I, one thing I do. don't love is that you need to find mods to get mod slots. Yeah. I wish the mod slots were gained
Starting point is 00:34:43 through just using the weapon. The more and more you got, um, I'm playing a game right now that I can't say, I can't talk about it, but one of the features is, um, you have a, you have a weapon, right? And the, the, the mod slots that you are going to edit are attainable through doing different things. So like, If the long shot said, get five headshots in a row and you unlock a mod slot, that would be awesome. Sure. Or if it said, you know, get 20 headshots without dying or without taking damage, that would be another Mott slot challenge. And then once you do that, bam, now you have another Motslot. Let me equip something in there.
Starting point is 00:35:23 The fact that you can only find the Motslots through exploring, not the most fun places to explore is like not awesome to me. But it's not the end of the world. It's just like something I think could be improved a little bit. But yes, you're right, Roger. Getting that mod slot and, you know, and finding, just seeing the pop up because Ray went off somewhere else and got something. And I see, oh, I can now add something else to my stim or now I can add something else to the breach shot, which is another gun that I fell in love with. Really, really, really fun. Yeah, and going off of that, I think that for the sequel, I think they just need to trust themselves a little bit more when it comes to these zones.
Starting point is 00:36:01 I think that they, as you were mentioning, I think they probably had trauma from Gears 5 where they're like, oh, fuck, and everyone hates this, but we're going to try it again. We're going to make it very linear to a certain extent, right? Where you're going through these areas, we're going to show you exactly where these mod boxes are. Every single time you walk past it,
Starting point is 00:36:15 we're going to be like, beep, beep, beep, there's the mod box nearby. Just find the one open door. We'll give it to you. I wish that they trusted us as gamers and their level design team a little bit more to hide them. And also to give us a little bit more of like, hey, just do the thing.
Starting point is 00:36:29 I know they had a few, they have a few areas where you can find like a letter or whatever. Just it's E-Day. Do the thing. Let me find a letter so I can read the story so I can see some type of side story of like, oh, this family was going through something and then they had to drop their kid off and now it became a locust or whatever it is. Like just give me something that I can kind of be like, okay, this is a fully fledged world
Starting point is 00:36:48 that just broke down. Did you read a lot of the collectible stuff? Yes, I was reading some of it. I wanted to more. Of all of them. And there's over a hundred collectibles in this, right? But not all have text, though. A lot of them is just like picking up like a, like,
Starting point is 00:37:00 a magazine. It came like somebody on it. Yeah. I did like that one dude who was just kind of like solo out there on a ledge somewhere and he was sniping. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was one of those where I go, oh, give me more of these.
Starting point is 00:37:14 Give me more of these characters that stand out a bit more amongst just like the, hey, we're a family in a corner store. Save us. And then you save them and then like, and that's kind of it. You know, like I did enjoy that guy having kind of a, you know, the tiniest of story arc. in what felt, you know, it was like a five-minute side activity, but it was cool, and it felt good. It felt like substance, there was substance there, you know.
Starting point is 00:37:37 Yeah, so going back to what Roger just mentioned, a key word, talking about trusting, you know, in the sequel. I think another thing they really need to trust us with is don't put the collectibles into hard cases on the map. I don't let me find them. I don't need you to guide me to them, let it be an actual exploration thing that I'm finding those in the world. Make it like a, like a Fortnite lude box. or you do the directionally. I felt like collecting the mod boxes.
Starting point is 00:38:02 That was the reason why I did so many side activities because I knew I was going to get rewarded with those mod boxes. So that was my main drive. But the collectibles, I don't know, man. Like, I needed the map every time, Paris, because it would click.
Starting point is 00:38:14 And since the collectibles were so unique, every single one of them was something different, then I'd have to go into the gears view, which gives you the static, like, gray and bright filter, and you'd be looking for a small gold outline. It's like, I'd know. never had a fun time looking for the collective. No, but that's my actual point.
Starting point is 00:38:32 Everything you just described, you had to set up the system to even find them that way. Make them more accessible in the world, but I don't need a marker on the map to go find. That's what I'm saying. If I were to pitch what E-Day 2 would look like, it would be a mixture of
Starting point is 00:38:48 in the world you have collectibles that you're picking up basically currency, right? Something like that that I can then use to then upgrade things, upgrade the weapons I'm using, and also a mixture of what Andy saying of, hey, if I'm using a weapon, let me actually feel like, hey, I had a whole long shot run. Mike had a Nashir run, like, so then we can all kind of compare and contrast and have a little
Starting point is 00:39:07 bit of replayability. But, yeah, having, I love the mods themselves, but having them around the world and that being the only way, it got really frustrating of like, I would, I would, I think I'm finding everything. And then by the ending of the game, the one weapon I'm using, like, the most is I don't have any mods for it. Even though I'm looking, I'm like, where the fuck are these mods? You don't have a system to, like, they're clearly encouraging.
Starting point is 00:39:28 us to have builds in the right? But you're not giving us a way that if I want to be that sniper king that I can focus all my energy on that to build to that, whereas I'm going to have to go search everything in the world and hopefully I get it by the end. So, I mean, those are obviously feedback things they can tweak going into the next one. Let's talk loadouts. Paris, what was your like load out of choice? I'm talking to the two main weapons, the side weapon, and then the whatever, like the gadget
Starting point is 00:39:58 it was. So I was definitely using that Nashir that was setting them on fire. That was... Oh, nice. Okay. And other than that, I have to admit, I don't feel like I had a specific build beyond that other than the game also kind of hinted towards
Starting point is 00:40:14 you getting a certain... Huh, you might want a long-range weapon here. You know what I mean? Oh, sure. Yeah. I would kind of go with that. So I didn't really have a main that I ran with, and I will admit, I didn't use a side pistol, I think, maybe once. Wow. I was shotgun
Starting point is 00:40:28 and like crazy Oh you're missing out on that The striga The striga Yeah I hate Ooh I hated that one too You hate it But then you use it on a boomer
Starting point is 00:40:37 You can blow off that That motherfuckerbacker's head Oh really In like three rounds Yeah yeah That's actually really power The I mean
Starting point is 00:40:44 The boomer's head Just the skull Of that son of a bitch Yeah Was like the most I want a headshot that guy And it reminds me of The I'm blinking on the one
Starting point is 00:40:57 alien race Paris in Destiny 1 and Destiny 2, the big dudes. The cabal. Yeah, the cabal. Thank you, Mike. You have a turtle dudes. Like how satisfying it was to headshot those guys to get that big burst or whatever. That's how I felt about the boomers. And
Starting point is 00:41:12 my load out of choice was definitely long shot. And I had one of the mods that like every time I would get a kill from cover, I would get health back, which is fantastic. And there was also a run where I didn't have to reload in between shots, and I'm not sure what I did or what mod was on there.
Starting point is 00:41:34 But I wasn't having to, like, shoot and then chik-ch-ch-reload the thing and then get ready to shoot again. I was able to shoot like eight times in a row without doing that, and it was awesome. Was that if you, because if that was an armor mod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay. Because I was realizing, Mike, I was like, I don't know. There's nothing on my gun that has this mod.
Starting point is 00:41:52 So, okay, that makes sense that it was on my armor then. The second weapon, I love just like the standard Lancer and the the mod that I had on it was it gets more accurate the longer you shoot. That shit rocked because you would see the crosshair being really, really large and that crosser gets tighter and tighter. And you're shooting like just lasering dudes. It was awesome. I like the snub pistol. I wasn't a fan of the Striga only because I don't always love charge weapons, the ones that you. You have to like,
Starting point is 00:42:25 Z, poof. I don't, I don't mind them when the shot goes off when you let go of the shoot button, but when it just goes off
Starting point is 00:42:33 by itself and you're having to kind of find that rhythm, I'm not the hugest fan of that. And then my, I really, really love the razor wire, like, oh yeah,
Starting point is 00:42:43 I was doing that a lot. Those were cool. Like, just seeing all of the, uh, the barbed wire shoot out of those was awesome whenever they'd get activated. And then that,
Starting point is 00:42:52 uh, that other trap that shoots out, all those like spikes everywhere was super cool. They got so creative with that shit. And I, anytime we, anytime we were met with one of those, you know,
Starting point is 00:43:04 protective zone moments, I loved that shit. I found like a really like cheeky spot to put one of the mortars on. And it was like behind a truck that was so hard for an enemy to try to get to. And these mortars were just destroying all of these, like locusts running around the map. It was, it was a great time.
Starting point is 00:43:22 And then armor mod, kind of forgot what I was running, but I guess Mike pointed out that I had that one that you could just kind of shoot without reloading, and that was fantastic. Mike, what was your kind of load out of choice? I went with the long shot, but I took the sniper scope off of it, so it was more just a DMR rifle. It was giving me more better damage, and then I did mix that with the armor mod that said critical hits don't have to reload, so every time I got a headshot with that, I never
Starting point is 00:43:47 reloaded the gun. So I'd go like eight to 12 bullets just in a row. It was really awesome. I'll always lean towards the torque bow as my number two, but that does. From Act 4 on, I was really leaning on. The moment they introduced that, like I said, they introduced the weapons so well.
Starting point is 00:44:02 And they start you off with a new one, right? That gut puncher grenade launcher is different, right? It mixes what you know from previous gears weapons into something new, and I really did enjoy that so, so much. And so, yeah, I would go with long shot Torqubow, but I was never afraid to try most of all of them, you know. But that breach shot, I thought, was great. The incinerator shotgun, when the enemy had that, it was a major problem.
Starting point is 00:44:27 They would push up on you and it was nasty. I can't wait to see that in multiplayer. It's a problem in multiplayer. Yeah, I don't wait. That's a bad deal. Yeah, we've been playing on hardcore only and these boomers are the most accurate sons of guns. Holy shit. Like, they shoot to where you're running.
Starting point is 00:44:47 They hit you in the most, like, you think you're safe in a window and they will find that one spot to boom and it is I'm having a freaking blast on hardcore mode it's like a perfect amount of difficulty what's the oh my god I'm blanking on the name the enemy the ones that come out it looks like little shopper horrors dude the new frog toad
Starting point is 00:45:06 all the crowd oh yeah the frog guys that guy's crazy you can stop him if you hit him on the tongue in time but like half the guns didn't do enough damage to cause him to stop so he'd still spit on you like this is insane don't even get me start on the gore hook guy
Starting point is 00:45:21 fucking hate that. It says because this motherfucker's accurate as shit. I kill him, I pick up his gun. I'm like, the gun sucks. I'm not even doing this shit to me. I love it. That thing is awesome, is right. Yeah, it's so violent.
Starting point is 00:45:34 I love that. But yeah, I was using the long shot, but mine, I had a really cool situation there where I I figured out if it's a mod on the weapon or the thing. But basically what it was is that I would shoot a critical, I would get a perfect reload every time I get a critical. But then I also had it where every time I get a perfect reload, I get a health. And so it was just like this perfect symbiotic relationship where I was just bang, bang, bang, and I was just having such a good time with that.
Starting point is 00:45:57 Yeah, I noticed every time I had another one, every close combat kill gave me health back. But it was like just a little bit. So I was always stimming up. I really liked that stim. Yeah, yeah. I didn't care for the drone. Like the drone's showing me where opponents are. I didn't need to see that.
Starting point is 00:46:13 I'm fighting the AI. They're not that crazy, you know? So I wonder what that will be like in multiplayer or in a horde, but I didn't use that one at all. I, you know, I felt the same way, Mike, when we did the Horde mode preview, or I was like, this drone's kind of useless, like, whatever. But something about it being on hardcore mode and with how similar these locusts can look to humans with just their stature and like the shape of them. And the amount of them out there, the drone ended up being pretty clutch.
Starting point is 00:46:45 Because I wasn't using it, but Ray was. And to be able to see all the red outlines, especially if you're me, the, like, just trying to snipe from afar. It was perfect to just go like, all right, next target, next target, next target. I had a lot of fun with the drone. Yeah, I'm trying. Is it, is it Act 4 or it might be Act 5, but it was, you're back in the city again, and it's kind of like the outside arena area.
Starting point is 00:47:07 It comes in really handy because they're sniping the shit out of you in that. Wow, I can't remember the exact era. I think it's like at the end of Act 4, I think. And they can blend into the environment pretty well, too. It's, like, kind of hard to, like, I think, the, like, I think the, environments can get noisy at times because it's a lot of destruction of you know in a very valid justifiable way this whole city is just gone to shit so it's a it's a little tough to kind of lose the enemies in the noise but yeah i think that the drone helped me out quite a bit there um yeah i i
Starting point is 00:47:38 feel like they mike nailed it where it's like they introduced these weapons at the exact perfect time to kind of give you that tutorial of like well these this next next section is going to require close range. So let's give you this. This next section requires a bit more long range. We're going to give you a torque bow. We're going to give you the long shot. I think all of those linear sequences where you are fighting
Starting point is 00:48:04 hordes of them is so much damn fun. I love setting down traps. I love like, all right, let's put a choke point here with the turrets. Let's do, you know, all of that stuff is just so much fun for me. So much so that, like, I wish it was like, I I'm about to say the most like, you know, the thing that's probably going to get me flame the most,
Starting point is 00:48:25 but as somebody who just loves third-person shooters and just shooters in general on PC, keyboard mouse, I really wish this was like they had a division like for this. Just like, I just want to fight big bosses. I love the big bosses and like learning the patterns and finding out like if you shoot them here, they're going to hit that pillar and that pillars gonna knock him down. Like all that stuff is just so much
Starting point is 00:48:49 fun. And I wish there was like just this constant let's keep on climbing with gear. Let's keep on finding new mods. All that stuff is just a freaking blast for me. It'll be interesting to see what you think of Horde mode. Yeah, I was gonna bring it up. Yeah. Horde mode siege, right? Like they're dipping their toe into that. It's not quite destiny, but they are very much dipping their toe into like,
Starting point is 00:49:09 hey, we know you love Horde mode. What if we mix that now with these weapon mods where we encourage you and other squads to be like, hey, there is one point we want you to hold down, but we're going to tempt you. Go run over to this part of the map. Do a side objective. Get a weapon mod so you become stronger, change up your build, and come back. Like, it will be interesting to see if you vibe with that. Yeah, I definitely want to give it some time because it's, it is a lot of fun to just do the,
Starting point is 00:49:35 you know, you know, tower defense sort of thing. I think this game does it really, really well. And found, I fell in love with it in the gears that everybody hates the most gears of war judgment. like I fell in love with that shit I loved like you were singing its praises you were telling me all about it I was like damn I loved years award judgment mainly because it was just so
Starting point is 00:49:54 arcady and it was every round like I loved seeing the scores and how many resists you had and how many kills you had and I don't mean any criticals or whatever all that stuff was a lot of fun so actually I got a question for all of us I'll point at you first Andy do you because we've all done the
Starting point is 00:50:10 Horde siege preview so we've all played it I'll admit right now I'm not really going to being multiplayer that much because it just becomes a Nashafest and that's just not my thing. Do we think Horde Siege is going to have enough? Because I know they're doing seasons that to the point where they are going to be adding new areas, new content, potentially new mods, things like that. Do we think we're still talking about a year from now?
Starting point is 00:50:35 Siege? Yeah. Siege, more specifically than multiplayer. I mean, I want to just lean no just because of the general way the industry works. Yeah. And I, you know, if, if, if it, like, it being a self-contained mode in a game, in my mind kind of puts, like, less importance on it. And that's just me from the outside going, oh, that's a, that's a mode within a game that has a single player story. But I just think the way the industry works right now, it's like, unless you catch fire randomly, it's hard for a lot of these games to continue.
Starting point is 00:51:14 you with that, you know, player account. I think the multiplayer would be way more healthy than whatever the siege mode is. Yeah, I would assume so, but as we're already seeing, they're definitely going to have to do some tweaks, or it's just you know, it's just going to become one play
Starting point is 00:51:30 style, this is using a variety of weapons. Yeah, I also don't think that like Horde Siege has had like the marketing push to the outside Normies. Like in the way that like even I, like somebody that's in the shit like kind of get it. You know what I mean? like it doesn't it doesn't read to me as like this is new like this is fresh like this is
Starting point is 00:51:48 something to get people in and to keep them there i mean the hardcore the hardcore is going to be happy with it but uh i mean honestly i Andy i think you ruined my fucking life because the way that you just explained like a division like gears of war game i'm like oh that's secretly something that i really really want now and now i think about it a lot so now i that that that i think if that was pushed as like hey or or even if horde siege was pushed as like this is something outside of gears if iidae right this is something that is special But yeah, I don't see this, this and even the multiplayer living outside of the hardcore. You know, I do know that there's like such a big dedicated audience for, for called duty zombies.
Starting point is 00:52:27 And if I just siege and modes like that, I don't think really have that built in fan base yet. Could this be the start of something? And that's what I'm kind of alluding to. Could this be the start that they get that? I think if they had a full games as a service team dedicated to trying to make it something, but I don't really know if that's even the intention, right? Yeah, maybe not. I mean, I guess we'll see because I know they, like I said, they announced the seasons,
Starting point is 00:52:56 but I will be curious how long they'll. Oh, shit, see, I didn't even know that. I didn't know that they were doing season stuff with Horde Siege. So that already tells me that they... I'm not wrong, right? No, I'm excited for it. Yeah. That already tells me more than I knew.
Starting point is 00:53:10 before, like, I didn't really know that they were even putting that level of effort into into Horde Siege. No, I think it's a big deal, Paris. I'm really excited to see what they do with Horde Seeds because we know gears, very similar to Call of Duty as Andy brought up. It's like, there is the pillar system, and it is, Horde mode is one of them, right? And you either love the 50 levels, you're in this one area, or you want something new. And I think they're bringing something new with this larger open zone.
Starting point is 00:53:33 Yeah, that's what I mean. I think they're really going to try something else. And I'll be interested in by the end of next year and for the next gears, if this is the way people want to see a new Hort mode played, right? I don't think they'll ever get rid of the 50 levels, but I do think this is a new, exciting way to play Horde in a smaller, faster way of like, hey, we don't have to do three hours for 50 levels.
Starting point is 00:53:53 We can do a 20 minute, a 40 minute. We're in. We get to see other people very similar to what Andy brought up of, like, it is division, it is destiny of like, well, there's other people on the map as well helping us, and we still get that intensity of, we've got to bunker down, we've got to hold this. I think they're on the right track with this,
Starting point is 00:54:10 Give us some really more, give us even more inventive gadgets and you'll have that Splatoon Raiders hook for me. That's what I mean. Hopefully you'll continue to see more stuff come out, you know, as far as that goes, to keep people engaged. Give me just like a saw, a flying saw that I throw out that gets bigger with other modifiers.
Starting point is 00:54:30 Like that's the shit that I love. Well, you're out of, just throw, have to throw a paint out, you know what I mean? Like, Vegas Spaltoon Ritch. Give us some shitty music too. Got that game's suck. That game's music was so ass. One thing before we wrap up and everything,
Starting point is 00:54:42 I want to bring up, which I think is actually my core complaint of the E-Day conceit and storyline and what they're going for. I don't think they did a great job of framing the world before E-Day, right? Because to me, it just felt like as I'm running around, like, this is just gears of war.
Starting point is 00:55:00 You know what I mean? Like, of course it's levels of destruction and they do the thing throughout the game of like, oh, you go back to the same bridge, the same area that has now even more destroyed. And there's still civilians. running. Yeah, but yeah, there's still civilians, right? But it's also like, it goes from destroyed to a little bit more destroyed to a little bit more destroyed, right? Like, you barely,
Starting point is 00:55:17 you don't really see the pristine, Sarah, you don't really see what this place was. Like, I just, I don't know what that looks like. I don't know if that is a little extended intro. I don't know if that is a cutscene. I don't know what it is, but like, or maybe even just interacting with more families and more people on the street. It just, it feels like, again, what I remember from Gears of War I, right? Like this world is kind of dark and gray and destroyed already. And it didn't necessarily feel like this, like last of us, right? Like, again, not to say that this, that's what it needs to be. But like, I think about that intro of like, you see the world being destroyed.
Starting point is 00:55:51 Like literally the like the fucking planes coming out of the sky and like people running for their lives. And like this, there's a, this is the moment where everything changes in this world. And it didn't necessarily feel like that. I think part of that. I know what you mean with that, but I think part of it is, and obviously we've done E-Day now, so it's probably too late to go back and do it, but they were coming off of essentially what was a world war. So how pristine was the world prior, and how far back do you really want to go to try and tell that story since the lore was already set up? They just had
Starting point is 00:56:21 human-on-human world war that finally ended. We're at peace, and then the locusts were like, no, you're not. And then they came out of the world. Yeah, for sure. I think they did a really great job, especially because this is only 72 hours right off the bat, right? That world is pristine. I think there's so many moments in this game when you're in the helicopter and you see the giant Kelowna Hotel and all the bright lights. It's like when you see the giant golden statues, the TV's on and the grocery store, all of these buildings, it's like, I'm not used to that. Here's one to three. It's a lot of gray. It's a lot of beat down areas. And it's like it's nice to be in a vibrant city that still has electricity. It still has all the things that I think.
Starting point is 00:57:01 And I think they did a good job showing it from the start where it is kind of pristine. It isn't beat up. And then onward, I know you wanted to live a little bit more. Yeah, it just didn't feel, it's less of like, hey, there's TVs on, right? It's more of like it didn't feel alive, right? It just felt like a bunch of, hey, we have the scattered people running around to show you that we have people, but it never felt like this is a place that actually people lived in. Well, I mean, like it won't feel alive because the moment it goes, right?
Starting point is 00:57:24 It's E-Day. People are hunkering down and hiding, right? They're going into evacuation stations. And the only people out there are going to be the soldiers, right? That should be running around. But, like, the train running out there, jumping on that train. was awesome, running around the city streets, hearing gunshots. I really
Starting point is 00:57:40 liked the world building in this one. We have a super chat here from Axi who says, hope you all use the incinerator. It shreds enemies. It felt like, yeah. Is that the one with the emulsion? Yeah, that's the emotion one? That's crazy. That gun just sounded cool. The sound design in this game is fantastic. Our design is
Starting point is 00:57:56 just, I think I think this game has some of the best-looking characters. The character, our team, killed it and the level of visual quality is insane. We got MC Platypus with a super chat who asks, did Xbox get their console seller with Gears of War E-Day? I'm going to say no.
Starting point is 00:58:16 No. I'm going to say no, too. But it's an awesome game. It's a start. Yeah. But I don't think this is the, oh my God, I got to go buy an Xbox game. I think if I have to think of what we know of, that's probably overscroll 6. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:30 I don't think, well, it's on PlayStation. So that's like me. I mean, it's a different conversation. Fable will probably be that one. I can't wait for Fable. To start. Holy shit. I mean, this is a solid, if I had to put it, it's like this is my high B-tier game right here.
Starting point is 00:58:45 Like if I had a system seller alongside this in the same year, yeah, we'd be talking about it. I mean, I mean, when you think about this calendar year, I think this really highlights that the coalition along with playground games are the two premier studios inside of Xbox right now for, what they were able to do with Forge Horizon 6 and obviously this. Because again, from a technical standpoint, I don't know if I've seen another Unreal 5 game come close to this. It's crazy. You know, I'm sure CD Project Red has gone, wait to see what before?
Starting point is 00:59:16 Yeah. But nothing's come close to this with Unreal 5. I mean, if you move the calendar year, right, and we look at it, you still are in a 12-month span. You have Fort's Horizon, Halo campaign evolved, into gears, then into fable. We also don't talk about the compliments of a Minecraft Dungeons, a World of Warcraft, a Diablo, right?
Starting point is 00:59:36 There are so many games already here that it's like, is the console seller the games or is it just one premiere? Yeah, but also all those games you mentioned are different consoles. Yeah, well, I don't think that's a different exclusive thing, but this Xbox team is putting out seven different gigantic, very good experience. But I think the question is like, is this the console seller, right? This is the first exclusive? and it's just like, I don't, I personally don't see E-Day doing that.
Starting point is 01:00:01 I don't think it has that audience. Yeah, I think it, like I said, I think it's a start. Because I think in reality, I don't think one single game is the one that gets you to buy a box, right? I think it's being consistently having enough quality titles I can only get on that box that, oh, shit, I got to buy that box to play those games. And I think between everything you just listed, I think on what they've already delivered with Forza, now this, Fable is the hit that we think it's probably, going to be continued clockwork revolution
Starting point is 01:00:30 on down the line maybe. I mean, these are all the prices are crazy so I don't know who can afford this stuff but
Starting point is 01:00:36 seeing like almost $500 series S like at a game stop is insane. Yeah. And then what was it today? The PS5 Pro
Starting point is 01:00:44 1300, yeah. Oh, God, that's crazy. We have a super chat here from the co-op pros who says love the game. Only draw back to us is not getting any cool co-op set pieces
Starting point is 01:00:53 like the OG gears had had, i.e. the spotlight secrets with the krill. I agree with that, Yeah, I do think that those moments felt more like you were taking advantage of co-op, and that is a bit tougher to do in single player because you are essentially just, you're just one character, and those set pieces felt more like it takes two kind of, like the, you know,
Starting point is 01:01:16 to have one person shine the light and protect you, and then we'll have one person hide behind this cover here. Like I wish there was a bit more creativity there, but you also have to count for, well, What happens for the other two if they're playing four-player co-op, like all that sort of stuff kind of like comes into play, and it can probably be a pain in the ass to try to deal with. And it's also just fun to just shoot enemies and get in cover and roll. Yeah, it felt like there wasn't that many times where it felt like the group split apart.
Starting point is 01:01:43 Yeah. Like in the first three, it felt like there was a lot of like, constantly, they were splitting here. This one felt like maybe there was like two times I can remember. Yeah. Oh, I guess we're splitting here, but it never felt like that's for sure. We got Chocolate Fox, who says, Me and my wife are excited for E-Day.
Starting point is 01:01:58 We met Plain Gear's 3. My Gruzman were the rest of my team and have a son named after the character J. Stam! That's awesome. I think you guys are going to love it. That's awesome for you. We have Volk Dasher with a super chat, and I believe this super chat is in reference to the name of this episode, which we never changed, I don't think, which is supposed to be the
Starting point is 01:02:20 goady in progress. But Volk Dasher commented, it's still sorrows for me. Hope it doesn't get forgotten. It's as good as... Action gaming gets this year. Dude, 100%. That's a great review of Gears, Warrita. Soros is definitely going to be in my top 10. We got Black Mamba saying, I am so thankful.
Starting point is 01:02:39 I finally have a new 4-V-4 arena shooter again. I love a good single player, but competitive arena shooters are my forever games. Lord Fush with a $2 supertrial says, I shed nostalgia tears 10 minutes in. Great Gears. And we have Dylan Miller, who's saying what all of us are thinking. every review where someone wanted a poo-poo on a game Mike has been there holding it down carrying this company on his back
Starting point is 01:03:00 70 hours of Fire Emblem fortunes weave Go play it Sick as a dog Star Wars Zcom go play it How dare anybody Gears play it Yeah Where's the rest
Starting point is 01:03:12 Where's Andy? Okay, where the fuck is Andy bid I need him on my side He won't come over to my house and play games with me Oh man Z-com we got to do a spoiler cast for Z-com dude freaking awesome. That's a game where when I beat it, the credits hit and I was just like, in my room just alone
Starting point is 01:03:30 like, fuck it, dude. A good ass game. Now you play Fire Anbum? It's just real long. It's just real long, like. By the way, Andy, since I'm in the studio, I get to actually say this to you directly. Thank you for mentioning Welldweller. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:03:47 I literally hadn't heard of it, knew anything about it until I heard you say it. I go, oh, wait, let me go check this out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really cool. That developer, single dude. Yeah. And also made an awesome game a couple years ago called Crypt Custodian, which is also
Starting point is 01:04:06 very good. Top-down, like, more Zelda-like. Yeah, I think that dude's putting out a game like every two and a half to three years or something. Really, really cool stuff. We have Rony Ramos with the final Super Chat, who says, does E-Day have to fail money-wise for Xbox to release on PlayStation, or is it staying exclusive no matter what?
Starting point is 01:04:27 I think it's no matter what. I think because at some point, you have to start somewhere. If you want to sell consoles, you've got to start. You can't panic and go, well, E-Day didn't sell the way we thought. All right, screw it, we're going to revert it, because then people are never going to believe in Xbox. They have to do this. If you're selling consoles and the subscription of Game Pass, it's time to start drawing the hard line of these are exceptions.
Starting point is 01:04:50 exclusive, we have to do this and take the hits and understand that there will be losses and do that. Or just become the biggest publisher in the world and put them everywhere, right? They're going to commit to hardware. This has to be the starting point to commit to hardware. And what a dance they've been doing, you know what I mean? It's a delicate dance and it sucks. Yep. You have to pick a lane, though, if you want this to be real.
Starting point is 01:05:11 Well, that's our Gears of War E-Day review with everybody who wasn't here that day, sitting at an 87 on Metacritic and sitting on, I believe, an 86 on Open Critic. Let me just double check. Yeah, both 87s on Metacritic and Open Critic. Fantastic scores for E-Day. I do have one final Super Chat that I want to read. I said the last one was the last one, and that wasn't true.
Starting point is 01:05:36 The final one says, from Alex plays with a $5 super chat says, threw up at work and got set home. Finally getting to catch live again. Way to get said. Yeah. Hey boss, I fool up. Standing in the boss's doorway.
Starting point is 01:05:53 Gears has been an beers, gears has been a game. My brother and I have amazing memories with. I love it. Well, shout out Alex plays. We hope you get better.
Starting point is 01:06:01 Take some pepto. You know, just drink some water and just try to get better. All right. We're just stay at work if you're sick. Like Mike. Or just stay at work.
Starting point is 01:06:09 Shake that shit off. Yeah. Walk it off. Go walk outside. You'll walk outside. You can't get a hamburger in your belly. What?
Starting point is 01:06:15 And then blame your co-worker Roger for all of your... Your Roger got me to sit. For all of your heels. Chat, thanks for watching and hanging out with us here on the Kind of Funny Games cast. Reminder, you can get all of our content. Each and every weekday
Starting point is 01:06:28 we get together, talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you want to go listen to Paris's full review of Gears of War E-Day, where could they go, Paris? You could go to my YouTube channel, YouTube.com,
Starting point is 01:06:45 4 slash Paris NL. Can we give him some love? He's been doing some live streams lately too. Very good, Paris. He's finally, he's clicking it. You know why I do it? Because I miss you guys.
Starting point is 01:06:57 I want to be here, man. If you love what we do, please support us with a kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple, or Spotify to get all of our shows ad-free, and get a daily exclusive show. Up next is the kind of funny podcast, and Paris is also going to be on that. And I hear Andy's on it, too. He's going to have so much fun on it. I am.
Starting point is 01:07:14 I am. I'd rather be playing. gears forward, honestly. Until next time, take care of yourself. Take care of each other gamers. We'll see you all next time.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.