Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - What is the Game of the Year So Far? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 228

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

To receive 20% off your first subscription box, go to http://boxofawesome.com and enter code KINDA at checkout. Get started with the Hims complete hair kit for just $5 today right now while supplies last at http://ForHims.com/KINDA Tim, Andrea, and Greg talk about what they think game of the year might be and Tim gives his Crash Team Racing impressions. Time Stamps - 00:00:04 - Start 00:03:07 - Count Down Box 00:09:28 - Super Mario Maker 2 00:24:08 - Crash Team Racing 00:37:09 - Ads 00:39:57 - Listener Questions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 228 of The Kind of Funny Games cast as always. I'm Tim Geddes joined by one of the coolest dudes and video games. Greg Miller. It's a full-eyed fiesta. Oh my god. We're all wearing glasses looking good. There's many glasses. You have new glasses there. I do have new glasses. I don't think I've ever seen you in your glasses. I don't wear I don't wear glasses. These are the same glasses I've had for over 10 years. You can tell by the stylish Oakley symbol on the side. You know what I mean? At one point these were cool. And here we are now.

You know, so because like when I'm... Space Dad. You'll move every so often and, like, you can look inside the lenses and see there's, like, weird deformations in them. Yeah, it's, uh, the, like, oil. Coding's bad. My essential oils have destroyed. Oh, yeah, the coating's coming off. That's what happens when you don't clean them often.

Why don't you just get new glasses, Tim? Oh, I need to. About four months ago, he looked at a Warby Parker box and then nothing ever came in. That sounds right. I didn't like them. So set it back. They sent me another round. Didn't like those.

Send them back. We're working on round three. And he's at the optometrist right now. You go there. Damn, I know. He's at the dentist. I was hoping I could get you. Dude, I was going to my dentist.

My dentist is right by my optometrist, so it's kind of the same thing. Wow. Wow, it is kind of the same thing. I like how we ask you like, great, do you think they know you by name? And you're like, no, they don't. The dentist? Like, I go on there usually once every six months, let alone the fact now I haven't been in there like 18 months. Because guess what? Huh?

Oh, sorry. Where you asked me why haven't been back? Great question, Kevin. I'll tell you why. Dentists? I understand back in the day, right? I'm Orville Redenbacher. I'm Abraham Lincoln.

and I need fucking dental stuff. I get it. There's fluoride in the water now. The way brushing technology with the quip.com slash kind of funny things have come all this way. You know, it's fine. Dennis are now there for emergencies only, all right?

And the busiest lady in the business, Andrea Renee herself. What's good, Tim? Joining us on the kind of funny games guys. God, it feels good. Friends out doing something. He's a guardian con. Yeah, yeah.

He's in an upgraded suite. He had to put up a photo of it. Shut up. Shut up. Well, at least he's not here to interrupt us all show. Bam. Damn. Damn, damn.

We need to put him and Nick on a one-on-on-one podcast, and none of them can finish it off. I'm me. Damn. Oh, I love it. I loved a little too hard of that joke, but we love Nick and Fran most of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but, you know, facts are facts there.

Patreon supporters at the Silver Membership or Above. Get to watch this show live as we record it. You get the show three days early and the full exclusive pre and post show, so you can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games to do that, just like our Patreon producers this month did. Tom Bach and James Hastings. Tom back back. Tom back. Tom back. Tom back is back. Tom back is Bach is back. Is he going RtX? Do we have confirmation or deep confirmation?

He bought a ticket, but he's not going. That sounds like a time back. Classic Tommy B. Support the the crew, but if he can't make it, he can't make it. He's a busy man. He's a busy man or you can just watch on Mondays at YouTube.com slash kind of funny games.com or on podcast services around the globe. Just search for a kind of funny games cast. This episode is brought to you by Bespoke Post and Hymns, but we'll get to that later. Let's just start it off. What you got there, Greg? This package was delivered to the office under my name.

Kitchen safe. Mystery lady, it says. Oh, you know what they use these for, Greg? Before you read that. They use these that, so in your kitchen, if you are on a diet and you're like, oh, there's sweets there that I can't have until X amount of time of day, you can put like the candies or the sugary foods or whatever inside, like the cookies, and then it's set to unlock at a specific time.

Interesting, yeah, because it's got a countdown clock on it. This is some saw level shit. The paper that came with that says, Monsters will ravage. Demons will prowl. Bullets will ricochet. Blue armor will gleam. Streets will rumble.

Warriors will embrace darkness. One will rise. 07, period 0.4, period 2019. 9.15 a.m. Pacific time rise to the top on Twitch and this says automatically opens on July 4th at 915 a.m. Pacific time. I got that fucking.

Oh wait look at I can just turn the timer down. Turn it to know. Well, no, you're turning up. That's going, you added a date. Wait, wait, hold on. Can we just cheat it? Well, I saw Tom Marks that I put up a tweet about it and Tom Marks sent back the smashed one

that he smashed the shit out his. So Kevin, you might need to smash this at simple. Was it something good in there? Oh, no, I, oh yeah. Okay, so we turned it down to Z. Zero days now, 18 hours. Oh, it won't go any lower. So you can turn the timer up, but you can't turn it down.

But there's, I mean, yeah, like, I saw somebody just smash it. Give me a flat-hand screwdriver. I'll get in there. What could it be? Here's the thing. I saw you post this, and I told Joey, go, all you guys have to do is hold it over the side, send people down to the spot. That's what I thought about, too.

And then just drop it. Drop it off the side of the building. What if there's a hamster in it? Hamster. Damn. That would be very solid. I hope there's not a live creature in there. You never know.

Oh, oh, I'm feeling good about this, Greg. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. We got plastic breaking. Get in there, Kevin. This is good. Keep it away from my fluids. Oh, yeah, it's broken.

I can see the inside. Here we go. I can see the inside. Here we go. Wait, let's, let's read this. Let's read this again. Okay, and we're going to unbox us now. It says, Monster

will ravage, demons will prow. It sounds like it's going to be some throwback. Bullets will ricochet. Oh. There's pins. It seems like some shit we need Jared Petty for. Well, I guess shoot, too, like, now they didn't say we're...

One will rise. I should have known the rise up was... Well, a quick before we say anything, like, is that an official embargo? You can't imagine it is, right? It can be a plastic thing. This is another one of those situations. We didn't sign any NDA.

I don't know who the fuck these people are. Capcom. So I guess before we tell you what's in here, this is a spoiler warning that literally only for the people who are watching it for patrons who are watching live, because this episode won't go live until Friday.

It's a T-shirt with some street fighter characters on it. Wait a minute. What the fuck? Is this just a Capcom versus Capcom game? Capcom cross Gung Ho. It says Tepin. I don't know what any of this is. Gung-ho, no.

Gun-ho is a publisher. Yeah, remember the, the gung-ho logo, we all are like, oh, that looks like a vibrator. Like that, that's, I remember what is it then? Is this? Cap-Cron cross-a-vibrator. All right. Let me do some digging here. This looks like it could be a Cap-com cross-capcom game, which would be amazing.

Also, why would they do this with these safes knowing that everyone was just going to break them? I don't know, man. I mean, we didn't have to. We could have waited. Let's just see. I don't know, man. You know who they, I don't. Here's what I'll tell you right now.

If it turned out this was embargoed, oops. I mean, because this is a bad embargo. This doesn't count as an embargo. When you send me a plastic thing, you know, I'm going to smash. Gungho. It's Gungo Media, right? What do they have? They've made puzzles and dragons.

Mm-hmm. That explains the dragons, maybe. No, that's actually like near Gonté from Mothriner. I don't know, man. Rise to the top on the 4th. Go to Tepinthagame.com. T-E-P-P-E-N-the-game.com. Well, we're about to find out.

No, 4-4s. Four-a-R-R-R-R-T-E. Every rise to the top. Every rise to the top. What a brilliant idea, too. Let's throw an event on a national holiday. Come on a national holiday. Let's see what Teppin means, just the word teppin.

The first thing on Google, Teppin Ramen. Oh, that sounds good. I need that. I'm in. I love me, Robin. It's a horrible name if this is something actually cool. It's a fine name if it ends up being some puzzle fighter, like, knockoff thing. You know?

Yeah. Because we get some monster hunter. We got some Street Fighter. We got Mega Man X. We got Dark Siders. We got Devil May Cry. We got Resonie. Right, darksiders.

Darkstalkers. Oh, dark stalkers. Sorry. I fucked up myself. That's all right. You're wronged me. Tepin at gungho online.com. Hmm.

Play teppin. Is the Twitter and the Twitch. Play tippin. Let's go to Twitter. So the game is Tepin from Capcom cross gungom. And they're presenting Tepin. We're going to rise at the top on July 4th. No tweets yet.

Huh. What do you think it is? Stupid. I mean, I know. Let's be honest, it's probably not going to be as good as this promotion is making it have to be. Totally out of, yeah, gung-ho, I just don't know. I mean, it's a gung-ho game, all right? Let me see you.

We broke the shit out of that box, though, right? You could destroy the box, great, Jack. Monsters will ravage, so that's monster hunter. Demons will prowl, so that's... Domsie. Do you cry, probably. Maybe, yeah. Bullets will ricochet.

That could be, it could be Resident Evil. with a Wesker Warriors will I don't get it Streets will rumble Street fighter Blue armor will gleam

That's Mega Man Yes yes One will rise Huh I don't know I'd be interested If it was a Capcom fighting game Because that'd be really cool

Because they messed up With all the Marvel stuff And I feel like a lot of that Had to do with the licensing Of the movies And Marvel games Not being up to snuff yet Yeah

So Interesting Tepin It is But again, horrible goddamn name. Let's talk about Mario Maker 2, baby. Super Mario Maker 2. Barrett, thank you for joining us for this right now.

Because you've been building a little bit. You've been making in Mario Maker. You want to talk just a little bit about that? Yeah, the last couple. When I picked it up, I was playing like the 100, like the story mode stuff. And then I tried the never stopping like course where you get like random courses from people. And then I got in the itch the other day to start making a level. Really because I've been enjoying hearing Andy suffer in the other room.

So I'm trying to design a level to really fuck with him. And it's been a weird learning how to like the mindset of like how to design a level of like do you just do like the world itself first and then think about enemy placement and all that stuff. So I've been really getting into it and I like it a lot. How are you liking the controls and stuff for the making? itself. It's interesting this time around because I did some building when it was out for Wii U. And since there's no like pen this time around

There's no stylus, right? Yeah, there's So it's just like with your finger and it is weird for like, I'd say like a couple hours But you eventually get used to it but yeah, I did have that in my mind Or I was like I want the fucking stylus. So besides that it's it's been really fun There's some like little things that have changed that I've noticed Because I remember last time you could like shake a

Character's like change them up and like some some ways and there are some non-super intuitive like things that you have to like look into to like oh this is how I want this enemy to drop and stuff like that so there's like little things like that I wish could be a little more straightforward but besides that I'm enjoying it what a style are you making your levels oh super Mario world no fucking doubt hell yeah the best the best style um and I'm doing like a Bowser's castle type of style levels have you guys have you guys been playing at all? Nope.

Moonlighter, baby. Sorry. I see, I see on the dashboard there, Mario Maker, I can't touch you. Yeah, just like MC Hammer. Yeah, I'm gonna dive into it

eventually. Yeah, but. And he's been playing a lot and I've been like popping out of his streams. That stuff looks hilarious. Dude, his clips are hilarious.

Yeah, but it also for me just drives home like, you know, I seems I was a smart person I didn't play this Wii U stuff. You know, I don't, I'm not going to touch it.

I'm not going to plug that crap in. I'm not going to deal with it. So I didn't play much of Mario Maker, number one. Our audio listeners can't hear or see Tim and I rolling your eyes.

They can hear the idols. They can hear it. So my main Mario Maker exposure obviously is watching Patrick Cleppick be bested over and over again by Dan Ricketts. And so now that this one's here and so many people are playing it because again Nintendo returned to forum

actually made a good system. People are excited to use it and play. I'm seeing these clips and it's just man like I'm excited to play the Nintendo levels. I'm not excited to ever download anybody's levels and get the shit kicked out of me for people's making them

as intense and as painful as possible. Oh, I love it. See, I feel like you just got to find the right ones. Because I feel like a lot of the guys that you're talking about, they're designing it where it's not just like getting the shit kicked out. It's not something like Kaisu shit where it's like just everywhere you go is death. It's like there is a rhythm to it of learning the level and learning what to do, what to avoid.

Then there's the good ones have the rules built into it where you understand like the advanced techniques. And that's what I love about the story mode so much is that it teaches you, it makes you start thinking about Mario in a different way. And you're seeing a lot of these advanced creators kind of taking those elements and ideas and being like, how far can we push just a 2D platformer? And I'm loving seeing. Like, Rikert's levels are insane. Yeah.

Andre Seagher's from Game Explain. He made a level that was super Meat Boy inspired. I can't wait to play that. It looks horribly grueling, but like in the best way. I saw what I want. No, I have no desire to play any of that. But using the rules of Meat Boy, where it's like it's not just cheap. It's like it's a well-designed level that is challenging.

Love that. Do they make creators pass their own level before they'll publish it? Yeah, that's the whole thing. As a creator, you have to be able to beat it once to put it up. Yeah, which is super cool. I'm not a maker type, so I'm just going to avoid that. Can't wait to download a bunch of levels before my fight tomorrow for RtX. I'm excited to play some of these ones that I've seen, Andy, been doing.

I made a lot more progress on the story mode last time. I guess it was two weeks ago on Gamescast. Yeah, that was a preview of it, right? Yeah, and at that point it was like 50% done, I want to say. out of the 100 levels there are three left for me and I haven't played in the last like five days or so but I'm just completely and utterly stumped on them they're all like puzzles that I'm just like

Yeah how's that possible If somebody who hasn't picked it up like how do you get stumped in a Mario level So there's a lot of modes where or a lot of levels that are totally designed around Like getting keys or like causing different things to happen So one level that I'm stuck on right now is And I talked about this a little on Games Daily at some point But it's Mario One style and you start the level.

It's essentially room-based. It's very Zelda. So your first screen, there's a set of blocks above you that kind of separate you from what's going on above there. So you can't actually get up there. You just need to interact with it with bouncing and hitting things

to like bounce them on to other stuff. Yeah. And there's a cupa shell or a cupa comes out. And if you jump and hit it, the shell will come off. You got to make it hit a spring that'll bounce it and set it to go. And you need to make it hit a switch.

That switch gives you a key. Then you get through the next door and it's the same idea, but it's a much more complicated setup. And there's a much on and off switches. So if you jump into the little blue on or the red off and doing that causes different blue or red blocks to pop up in places. So the turtle will start walking. And then you turn the blue on and walk through that door, turn the red on. And then it becomes kind of rhythm of just like on, on, on, like making sure that as he's walking, like the right things are going underneath him for him to walk on. There was levels like this in Odyssey, wasn't there?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this one, it's really cool, but I'm stuck on like the fourth room where there's this giant cupa, like to make him big. And he comes out and then it looks like a very complicated set of on and off that you need to get him to go. And there's like the escalator floor type shit that's moving.

Conveyor belt. Conveyor belt. Yes. And I can't figure out how to get the shell onto the thing to go to fall through the hole. It's just that finally I'm just like and it has a 400 second timer because a lot of the puzzle based ones have the longer time and I died like four times now letting the time go all the way out trying to figure out what to do in this one room and what's crazy is it's Mario One style so blatantly obvious because it's only I think uh because they rate the levels on difficulty out of I think five I think this is only a two or a three and for some reason I'm just missing the one thing I have to do um and it's Mario one style which means you can't pick hold items you can't you know doing it's really just move and jump and so it's just the physics of

hitting the block above you so I don't know what I'm messing up there another one I'm messing up or I haven't beat yet is I there's like one of the course objectives to to beat the level is you need to push this stone like it's a really heavy stone that if you're holding the stone you like can't jump as high and like you're slower and like just kind of messes you up um it's like encumbrance yeah and you need to get the stone across like to the end of the level and I just like can't figure out like certain parts of making the stone because this one you've been doing the stone stuff throughout the all the challenges so at this point this is like the final gauntlet challenge of it's combining stone stuff with puzzle mechanics of opening doors and putting things on springboards to like

bounce him into stuff and I'm just like at total loss I don't even remember what the last one was how do you feel about walkthroughs oh I have no shame with that stuff okay I'm gonna keep trying like on the plane tomorrow, I'm going to give him a couple more shots and see if I have that. Aha, moment. And if I don't, I'm like, yeah. That's probably the MOSality you can do, right? A step away the way you did.

That's how it always is in games, right? When you get to a room, you don't know how to fuck. What am I supposed to do this dungeon? You put it down after hours of trying. And the next day, you pick it up and it's like, oh, there. So there's clearly. This cup a level that I keep talking about. I've come back to a three separate days and still have the same issue.

Yeah. But again, it must be something so ridiculously simple. I saw that Altono beat all 100 levels. So someone can do it. If he can do it, yeah, exactly. So,

but I've been loving it, man. Like some of the more challenging Nintendo created levels are just brilliant. I thought that the story mode was so well done. There's a lot of fun surprise.

There's a lot of cute stuff that happens in the later half of it of different characters that you meet and just like the things that they do and say, I think the writing's funny enough. What do you think for you personally, the legs on this are going to be? I think it has like crazy potential.

Like, when it first was revealed at the direct, I was just like, you were texting me like, what do you think of the direct as you didn't get to see it yet? And I was like, this could just be one of my favorite games of all time. Like, it just could last forever. It's unlimited Mario levels.

Sure. And I feel like because it's on the Switch, it's going to have a much more dedicated fan base than the last one did. And I can see people, like, I can see the Dan Reikert to the world not stopping because people are going to keep playing. And I think Twitch is in a different place than it was a couple years ago where I feel like that also gives it such a big boon and incentive for people to make bubbles. Well, that's the interesting thing about it for me, right, is like I don't find myself, man. I have to play this. I'm dying to play it. I really want to think I'm enjoying moonlighter and just continue to play on through that. I'm excited to eventually get to induce a Mario great. I'm more excited, I think, to watch what comes from this, to watch people play, to watch

Andy stream. And for us to do like, let's just do a streamer all we do is play, you know, best friend levels and stuff like that. Yeah. See that part of it where I'm watching you guys do it. I know I know how much you love Mario. I obviously see Andy playing it all the time. And I know how much he loves it and how much he's loving this challenge of it right now. Like that's the entertainment value of the game, I think, for me. Yeah. I love the story mode. I feel such a good balance of levels in each of the different styles.

And jumping through each one, it's like as much as I hate the look of new Super Mario Bros. I love the physics and abilities that the game has. And like being able to wall jump totally changes how levels can be designed and the type of challenges they can add there compared to World, which I agree with Barrett. Like I like the moveset in that game the most overall and the limitations that you have there. playing Mario 1 levels is my least favorite I don't like being so limited and there's just something about the physics of it that like

I mean the weight the weight you feel The weight is just different right Yeah And Mario 3 is interesting Because I feel like there's not too many levels Like off the top of my head It feels like if it's more nostalgia led than anything Like the yeah the mechanics in that game

Are pretty subpar compared to what came later I mean I would say it's a 10 out of 10 It's just compared to World. When it comes to Maker and just the music and the style of everything, I prefer the look of World. No, don't get it twisted. That game was great for what it was when it was. But my point was that the Mario franchise has evolved so substantially in the decades to follow

that when you put them all together on the same platform, I just don't think the mechanics of those, some of those older games really stack up next to the mechanics of the newer games. I think just one is true there. Three, I think. Does, but I ask people for questions. Thomas Adam Burton wrote and says, What level creator world do you want to add to Mario Maker as DLC?

I would love to see Mario 2 like done in the same way that Mario 3D world was done in this game, where it is its own separate style thing where it's not compatible with everything because it needs to be a different type of game. He's not Peach to have her time. And I love Peach too, man. I love that little hover. Let's go. The biggest thing I'd want is a world creator. Like I wish that they'd allow people to kind of make games.

And I wonder why they can have your own overworld map and link all your levels together. Yeah, and even if it's not overworld map because I get that that Like I am a little bit surprised they didn't add that to Mario Maker 2 I mean you can make it really basic right and just link them yeah A little big planet out of that for a little bit planet too Like make the system of like okay world one to one one two one three one four two two two two two four like being able to make like a playlist Of like here's a game that has a steady Growth and challenge or whatever I just don't know why they they wouldn't add that functionality? Like there must be some reason. I don't think the reason.

Yeah, I mean, I hope. I hope that that's the case. I hope it's not like a Mario Maker 3 type thing because I wanted this to be like the end all be all. This is the version of this for Switch. My question for you is somebody who wants to think it could be your favorite game of all time, something you'll play indefinitely. How do

you plan to find levels going forward? I mean, totally just asking around for people and there's going to be websites and like archive, like Have you looked into it? Have they evolved that system? Are you bookmarking creators you love?

Are you getting notifications about creating? I haven't done much of that yet. I was fine. I do that going into RTX. And honestly, from what I've seen of using it, it's a nightmare. It is not intuitive. It does not seem easy to do.

It sounds like an online service from Nintendo. Yeah, that's something that is very disappointing. I feel like it should be a lot easier. And people should be able to upload things and share. You should be able to share a lot easier. Of course. Yeah, it is. I saw someone tweeting about how this is one of the few Nintendo online games that doesn't really have functionality on the phone. On the phone.

On the app. And it's like, this is the one that should. Like, that would totally make things easier being able to, like, find cool ones and then save them for download. Brows on your download. Yeah. So it's pretty disappointing. Makes too much sense, though, Tim. It does.

It does. And that's the biggest problem. But again, I think that this game is worth it just for the Nintendo created levels alone because they're so, so good. How many hours have you put into those 100? levels of? I don't know. I have no idea. More than eight? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maybe not more than eight. Maybe like six.

Okay. Overall. But like going back and like there was a bunch that I replayed just because I liked them so much. And like being such a fan of Mario games to the point like I know differences between like little things. I love seeing enemies that were never in the other designs and like hearing music that was never like there was no airship theme in the original Super Mario brothers. So hearing them do an airship theme that sounds in the style of Mario 1, but it's a brand new composition. It's like that type of stuff is really cool to me. It's like so many Easter eggs in this game of random things where it's like effects will come up and it's say like N64 and then it's like the slide theme song for Mario 64 or you can add the galaxy music and then

it changes the gravity of the level. And things like that are just like really cool and it's like I feel like I'm constantly surprised by the game. There's always just something that I'm like I'm never going to get to the end of everything this game has to offer. So really cool stuff. The next game I want to talk about that I haven't been able to yet on the show is Crash Team Racing. Oh yeah, right. Wow. Finally, it's out.

It's amazing. People are loving it. The UK especially is buying it up. As usual, they love that crash stuff. Dude, no, I'm so impressed with what they did with this game. It is a fantastic remaster. It feels perfect. It is content filled.

So they took an original PlayStation game and put it out here with all the original tracks, but then they also remastered all the tracks from Crash Nitro Kart, which was a PS2 game, not made by Naughty Dog, the original made by Naughty Dog. And I remember really disliking Crash Nitro Kart. It just didn't feel right. It was way too slow. CTR, the original, like one of the things people like most about it was that it was fast compared to Mario Kart and Didi Kong racing at the time. And for Nitro Kart to come out kind of feel slower, the levels.

didn't seem like well designed or inspired at least. This, all the remastered levels for Nitro Kart, they changed the size, they made it feel good for CTR. They adapted things for the speed. They adapted things for the drift mechanics and everything. And it's like playing through these levels, it feels like playing through a bunch of levels that I'm not intimately familiar with for the first time. So it kind of feels like a whole new crash team racing game to me. So that stuff's fantastic. You have a question for me? No. I was just looking at the Metacritory. And is it a very respectable 84.

It's insane. You know, but again, well deserved. Not a perfect game. Criticisms I have. I cannot believe the loading times. Really? I'm playing on Switch. Okay.

But I loaded it. Yeah, the switch score, to be clear, is 80 versus the PS4 score is 84. So that must be factoring in for some other people as well. I played on PlayStation 4 as well. And same problem. Yeah. To the exact. Oh, no.

It's bad on both? To the same extent, I would say. I'm seeing very similar things. And it's not just the length of the loading, it's the amount of times it happens. Anytime you're loading up a new map, a course, you get this loading screen that's like 40 seconds, honestly. That's painfully long.

Think about that. Think about doing a Grand Prix where that's four courses, back to back to back. That's 40 seconds in between each three minutes of racing. Sure. You know? And it starts to add up, and it really sucks. It doesn't incentivize you to want to like play modes that have you switching between courses that often.

Once you load a level once, restarting that and getting back into the same level is not bad. Which is going to happen a lot because let me tell you, this game is tough as males. It is completely unforgiving and it is a real skill-based cart racer. There's no rubber-bending bullshit of items like Mario Kart has. This is not a party. Do you think it's bullshit? It makes it a different type of game. It makes it a, that is a fun party cart racer.

This is not a fun party cart racer. I love Mario Kart. This is a skilled cart racer. This is not the game that it looks like. This is a real skill-based racing game where the items are, you're not going to get better items because you're behind or anything. You get better items when you collect all the wamper fruits or essentially coins. When you get 10 of the coins, quote unquote, you get nitro boosted versions of the weapons.

And it's very strategic of how you can use them and when or whatever. There's very few items that like fuck over everybody or fuck over first place. There are a couple of them, but I feel like it's fairly balanced in terms of everybody that's in the race gets affected. Do you like that more or is it just different? Oh, it's very much just different. I mean, I love Mario Kart, but like Crash Team Racing has always been my favorite. And replaying this, I'm just like, that still stands. Yeah.

I think that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is undeniably a more complete. Well-rounded game, but that's because it was a new game made in 2013 at this point right just things were just different then I feel like the gravity and the the way that the the graphical presentation of that game is just on such a high Nintendo polished level that this even though it looks great and everything I was saying about them changing the nitro cart levels Makes it feel new and fresh. It's still based on old stuff. Do you think that or maybe I should rephrase this question differently? What do you think is the balance between your love for Crash Bandicoot and it being a skill-based, you know, good-feeling cart racer?

What's the balance of that contributing to your love of this game or your, you know, opinion of your feeling of having a good time playing this game? Let me put it this way. My love for Crash Bandicoot actually stems from this game. Like I loved the Crash Platform games, but Crash Team Racing was the one. I'm like, oh, my God, it's amazing. This is an amazing video game. And so that still stands now. The Crash characters, the Crash World and all that stuff.

I feel like, honestly, a lot of the charm of Crash Bandicoot was ripped from this. A lot of, there's, like, a lot of animations that aren't in this game anymore. A lot of things that, like, maybe don't hold up politically in this climate anymore. But, like, I feel like a lot of the... What the hell is in Crash Team? What's in... I don't know. I'm not...

You guys can look for yourself. Really? Yeah. Is it, like, being me... Well, you're just a woman. There's no way you'll beat me. me in this race. Scantly clad like like just deviant. Remember

like cruising USA where it's like it ends is just girls and bikinis at the end like baby's legs and shit. The bikini and bandicoots are gone. Got it's stuff like that which like does that make this a lesser game? Not at all. Who gives who gives a shit? But it's like there was that 90s like yeah. The extreme

that like frosted tips I'm a cool gamer bro kind of vibe. Whereas this is way more cartoony. Okay. You know? I gotcha. And so I feel like someone just like that's gone. It's not like Crash has this ensemble of characters that are beloved. Well, he's got him.

He's got the female manicude. He's got Ditty Kong. He's got the mask. Exactly. So you're saying that if this was Sonic, for example, the, you know Sonic Team Racing is a clear competitor to this, that you would feel the same way if the mechanics were identical. If the skin was just different?

Yeah. Like, take Crash out of this. Like, Crash has nothing to do with my love for this game. Like, that's the thing is like, it doesn't. This is your gateway to crash. I mean, I was already in love with Crash before this, but it's just like... Oh, so it's hard to say then.

No, but I mean, like this game is good. Ladies and gentlemen, I just might be a small town care game lawyer. Crash doesn't add to this game. The crash aesthetic does not add to this game. Sure. The Crash amusing... There's nothing about this game that is special because of the Crash Bandicoot IP. It's because of the gameplay and how good it feels.

And once you get your hands on under your head wrapped around the boost mechanic, It's just so satisfying. And it's like I can understand people that come from Mario Kart playing this and be like, I hate this. This does not feel as good as Mario Kart. It's like, you're just trying to play the same game and it's not that. Yeah. So, I mean, I have like literally one race in me of this where it was like, you got me the code. You talked it up.

I've never played Crash Team Racing before. You know that I love Kart. And I've been obsessed with Kart since a sophomore year of college with Double Dash. Right. And so jumping into this, it was first off, number one, they dropped into that overworld. And I was like, oh my God, it's like that bear cart racing game we played. Remember when we did that thing?

And they were like, we're inspired by crash, but I don't know what that means is not having ever played crash. And jumping in, I was like, oh, my God, I hate this as much as I hated it in the bear car racer. Found the race, jumped into the race. And then it was just like, what am I, you know what? I don't feel like learning a new car racer closed and went and played something else. Yeah, you made a mistake. And I feel like to answer your question, really, it's like, look, the Metacritic score is like the review.

The review scores are speaking for people don't like Crash. So it's like the fact that this game is being reviewed well, it's like there is a good game there in spite of Crash Fanticode. To be clear, I wasn't writing it off. I do, yeah, I should learn it and do all these different things. It was just the thing of I was on a flight and I was like, I don't feel like learning a new game right now. And again, going back to it, like, it's a difficult game and it's unrelentless in its difficulty of the story mode even, right? So the adventure mode that you're talking about where you're in this Hubworld. It's like that's something that sets it apart from Mario Kart where it's like,

Like there's, they tried to build a world where you're doing stuff that's not just going from race to race. Like there's a bunch of, like you do like battle mode style things in the adventure mode. You do, like there's cut scenes and there's boss fights and stuff. And those boss fights do have rubber banding to the point, which is you versus the enemy. And it's like, but that's the point of it is they're always going to be in front of you dropping their signature weapon at you. And it's like you need to play the game differently. And I just had such a great time with it. But you are going to lose.

Like you're not going to get, you need to get first to. to move on to the next. If you're not first, level, your last. And this game proves that. But even playing on normal, I started on hard

because I was like, I know this shit. And I was getting my ass kicked. It went down to normal. Still getting my ass kicked. And I'm like, okay, let's go. You rose to the challenge.

I did. And it took me a while. I've been playing so much Mario Card 8 on Switch over the years. They're like, I'm used to the way that that game's drift mechanics work. And for this one,

it took me about an hour or so to like reacclamine and be like, oh, I'm getting back into the, the, just of this. Like, The idea of crash team racing with the drifting is you have your little spedometer thing at the bottom and it goes from red to eventually, or from green and eventually hit the red.

Once it hits the red, so when you start drifting, same as Mario Kart, you jump and it starts to drift, that thing starts going. Once it hits the end of it, you need to hit the other shoulder button to be able to boost. While holding the one while holding the other one. So it's just like you're kind of. So it's setting you up for claw hand. No, it's shoulder buttons. But you're still holding the gas then, or is the gas on the trigger?

you can change it however you want. Okay. So I changed my controls so that the R2 is accelerate and then X would be jump and then L1 would be the boost or whatever. Another criticism I have is there's only two control schemes and neither one of them is how I want to play. But I wrap my head around it and I could live with it. But I just hate when video games just don't let you just do whatever you want. Seems like a super fixable thing in 2019.

I hope. I really hope. But the drift mechanic is you essentially. you're just alternating between the drifts and you can drift anywhere. It's like you don't need this like giant curve to be able to do it But if you mess it up you like overblow it and then you get kind of get like slow again. You have to Overblowing it being that you let it go too far with into the red into the boot yeah the around and then you get all messed up and you lose your your turbos But you can link the turbos up to three times and go and like if you watch people like speed run this game It's unlike anything you'll ever see in Mario car it's just the entire level they're going and just turbo boosting through it

And it's the shortcuts in this are so much better set up than Mario Kart. It's like you really need to hit this stuff with a perfect level of skill of knowing exactly where you're going for it to work. And I just love it, man. I recommend it to everybody to give it a shot and to push through it because it is very difficult. And you need to just teach yourself a new style of cart racer that's not Mario Kart that's not going to kind of baby you through the experience. And I think it's super rewarding at the end of the day. But the load times are obnoxious and absolutely unacceptable. But otherwise, it is a fantastic game.

Interesting. Sounds like he's got some Mod Nation racers loading problems. It does. It does. And so that's a big problem I have with the game is that... Oh, I thought we were done. I wish it was exclusive. To one platform, so it was like optimized?

Yeah. I feel like all these problems would be gone, but just like that's the magic of Mario Kart with Nintendo. It's like they have a polish that they're going to hit, you know, if this was... I don't know. I'm going to not let them off the hook for this. Activision Finance. No, I'm not either.

Activision Finance this, you know, who has a lot. of money. Activision. It just, that stuff makes this feel like a lesser than game. It really makes it feel like, like, oh, it's a Crash Bandicoot game as opposed to like, holy shit, this is the definitive cart racer. Like, I could never say that this is better than Mario Kart 8. Yeah.

I like it more. But it's not better than because of things like that. Hopefully they will look at feedback from their community. And it seems to me like loading is something they could potentially fix down the road with a patch or what have you, optimize it. but you only get to launch your game once. Yep. And another shout to them in a positive way, though.

The DLC plan's ridiculous. There's so much stuff and it's all free. And they're just given a lot. So I got a DLC drop plan on my variant spirals coming. Let's go. Have they made any statement about the load times? Like they are going to try to pass them? Because they have that kind of roadmap and they're still working on the game.

I want to put it past them. Did not see that. Um, where are we with this? Give me one second. You can have all the time you want in the world. I appreciate that. I can cover it why you do. Hey, everybody.

This is the Kind of Funny Gamescast. I'm Greg. That's Andrew. That's Tim. Yeah. We like your glasses. Hey, thanks. They're new.

Yeah. We just got him. Ooh, we're all Ariana grounded there. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you about our sponsors real quick. This episode of the Kind of Funny Gamescast is brought to you by bespoke post. Kevin, this one is definitely for you. When you're constantly on the go grinding away at the office or hanging out with friends,

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That's F-O-R-H-I-M-S dot com slash kinda. Forhims.com slash kinda. And now that we're back from that, we're going to do some listener questions. Let's do it. Let's do it. What do I want to start? They returned last week in force. And then people were so happy that we brought them back.

We wanted to bring back even more to him. It works out because we haven't really played too much. Yeah, if you're, we're recording, what, two days in advance from where we normally do. so there's a little, and I've just been obsessed with Moonlighter so I can't play anything else. Into the second dungeon though, Tim, just putting that out there for you. And I'm taking my time with it, milking it, if you will.

I can go fight the next, you know, the level three boss, whatever, I don't want to. Let's just keep getting stuff. Upgrading the shop. Making the shop better. I got all these motherfuckers in there trying to steal from me. I'm not my watch buddy. I'm dodger rolling right into them and stopping him. Andrew's getting ready to pop out and scare people. I just had to like, needed

to get closer and I had to adjust the feet up. No, I had to adjust the feet because the one foot was out too hard, far, and you couldn't push. Anyway, it was bothering. Christopher Laid says, what feature is going to be the big push for the next generation of hardware? Streaming, instant loads, something else? What is quick? Can you read it one more time? What feature is going to be the big push for next gen?

Well, I mean, obviously streaming, for sure. And that's all we keep talking about is game streaming. Cloud saves. Here's my question. Stick with me. Okay. What is, or was, the big feature of this gen? and then what I want to compare it to is was that what we were thinking was going to be the first thing, right?

Xbox 1, it was all about we're going to connect, we're going to talk to it, we're going to do this thing, integration of TV in this, right? PlayStation at launch was maybe they talked about Guy Kai, which was streaming stuff, the touchpad, uh, yeah, touchpad and

Guy Kai were the big things, voxels. I think you draw all these voxels from the sky. A lot of boxes. I think like digital downloads were the biggest thing of this generation when you think back to the launch of Xbox one, and PS4 versus what really defined PS3 and Xbox 360. Which was HD. Yeah, like transitioning from, like that generation was the transition from SD to HD.

This generation also was the transition from HD to 4K with the later iterations of the consoles. But really, I think, like, the digital marketplace exploded in this generation in a really impressive way. I would lean digital too, but rather than just the marketplace, I would talk about games to service, right? And I granted that's not a feature of, but it's a, it's a, it's not a feature of the consoles, but it is a byproduct of the connectivity and being online and what the network functions of it were, right? I don't think it's one you can predict. That's why when I, you know, whenever we get a question that is, where do you see games at 5, 10, 15, 50 years?

Like, who the hell knows? I feel like it doesn't change on exactly a dime, but it is that whatever the plan is right now, it will not be the plan at 30 years. Yeah. And that's, I love this question looking back at what. it is now because right now yeah you jump to it's going to be streaming right it's got to be that's what seems like everybody's trying to figure and then the load times i mean like it's there's a reason that both xbox and playstation have talked about the load times and how fast

everything's going to be in the focus on that to talk shit on crash team racer uh oh god that's throw shade that's what they're doing yeah exactly uh they i feel like the low times are going to be significantly better but like that's only a selling point at for a small group of people i think PlayStation 5. That's what they're saying. They're only targeting the hardcore gamer. I don't think so. I think you're underestimating people's attention span in a modern era. I even think back a couple of years ago, our patience has gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. Like we're in this constant, stimulated in a society where we want something and we want it immediately.

And we get mad when our phones don't boot up and when the apps don't load right away or when you start up your computer and you have to wait. You know, imagine having to wait 30 seconds for your computer. computers will load up. It feels like it's a thing of the past. And so I think you may be underselling how important that much quicker loading time for the new consoles is going to be for consumers at large. What I'm saying is I totally agree. I feel like that's, it's going to happen. Like we're going to get those super fast loading times. Oh, absolutely. I don't think there's an easy way to sell that to the consumers though. Because I feel like that's an experience that you need to see for yourself. And once you see it, you don't notice it is a good thing. You only notice when

things are bad. It's like video editing where it's like you don't notice. when something's wrong or good. You only notice when something's bad. You know what you mean? Sure. But I think demonstrating the loading, the improved loading times over the old hardware is a very easy thing to do, both in a virtual setting and in a brick and mortar retail store.

I like to have them side by side and go look at, let's boot up the PlayStation 4 and then let's boot up the PlayStation 5 right next to each other and see just how, what the difference is, right? Yeah. I just think that speaks to a much slimmer part of the pie than, Look at this SD game. Look at this HD game.

But there's no games in SD anymore. Yeah. In the same way the games are going to load faster. Wait, are we on the same side here? I feel like we're talking about the same thing. I'm just saying that I don't think that them having that being the big push is going to be what ends up being the big talk. Oh, that we're on the same page. Sure.

I don't think it's going to be the big thing. I think it's cloud streaming. It's definitely going to be the talking point of the next generation. Yeah. But what if it doesn't work? It's not going to work. It's going to work. It's 100%

It'll work eventually I bet you it'll work Like year three of the next generation It'll be solid In the same way that the games The service and online this time did Exactly I feel like that'll be the interesting thing about it though If that ends up being the conversation of the generation

Or the feature If they launch and they are such a work in progress That it's not exciting And it's just something that they can do And everybody starts talking about Whatever it is Whether it be even better connectivity Whether it be

Better loads Whether it is just It's gaming on steroids It's your PlayStation 4 on steroids now. It's so much faster. It's so much better. That's great. If it's just the fidelity of the games and the quality of the games, while they try to spin up both Xbox.

Well, not both. Everyone spins up. Stadia, Xbox, you know, Gai-Ki PlayStation now, all that jazz. It's going to be interesting to see if that can, if it takes three years, if it's still the biggest thing of this generation, or if something's coming to usurp it and make it better. My answer to this to get away from the streaming and the load times

is I think next gen is going to be about exclusives. I think it's going to go back to an older style of games where it's like the exclusives really were the thing that made people choose one console over the other in terms of the way that they're marketing the way that they're presenting things we got spider man here right on playstation it's like this generation's like that's what slow has been ramping up we've been talking about this a lot where PS4's early years didn't have the bangers after bangers that they do in their last couple years yeah and I think that we're now seeing the small little kind of gap where we're not getting as many PS4 exclusives

back to back um but I think that they're being worked on for the launch for five. I don't know. I guess I just disagree with you. I think to me, the launch of PS4 is so definitively the launch of Bloodborn and how that game as a PlayStation 4 exclusive helped that, helps solidify PlayStation's lead in the new generation of cycles, like really definitively. That one game, I think, was so pivotal.

pivotal for Sony being ahead of Xbox in this generation. I look at Xbox's launch and I think Rise and how much of a flop that game was. Despite the fact that it was- Not Launch, though. I mean, it was spring 2014, which was in the launch window of a holiday 2013 launch, right? So that's considered launch window.

And I just think that I would do that. I mean, it is though. I was granted, I remember when Nintendo was trying to convince us the launch window was like 18 months. Like, shut the fuck up. 18 months is a stretch. Six months is not.

a stretch for a launch for a new piece of hardware. I think it's different though than a launch. Like it's very definitively different. You mean it needed to be like in the box? Yeah. I think I think the day one is what your launch titles. Launch window is like whatever. But even then like I don't know what point you're just we're not in that area anymore.

Even within the previous generation like I just don't maybe we're just are going to have a fundamental disagreement about what a launch title technically means. But I just think that exclusives have always remained. core to the success or failure of a system, and that's not changing with the next generation. It might be more important. What I'm thinking is, I think it's going to be the most important next generation. I think that is going to be the real defining thing of what makes Xbox or PlayStation the more important one.

I think that we've got a taste of it this generation. And I think that what I'm saying is we're going to get a punch of it right out the get-go with the PS5. See, I think another way to frame the argument, and what I would think it's going to come down to is more that the feature. What? At Xbox one with Halo. The feature of this next generation, right, that's going to matter the most.

It's going to be value. And that can be exclusive, but I think it's also programs. And I think it is Xbox Game Pass. And I think it is whatever they do with PlayStation now. And it is PlayStation now teaming up with Plus or, you know, games with Xbox Gold being teamed up with, as it already is an ultimate game pass and all that jazz. But really, I don't know if it'll be exclusives are winning the day as much as services. And again, a real return to ecosystem where I feel like, and granted, I'm on the quote unquote winning side this. time around right being a PlayStation guy having covered PlayStation through

PS3 seeing it be such a success with PlayStation 4 I remember when it was PS3 Xbox 360 and there was this hardcore ardent not beaten down Xbox fan base similar to how PlayStation 3 at the time fan bases were beaten down and like this like I know it's the thing about trading but I feel like if Xbox has a lot to cheer about Xbox fans have a lot to cheer about suddenly it becomes then well I want to go not only where my friends are but where my money is being valued most, the ecosystem and audience that represents my values the most. And if, you know, Phil Spencer and team are continuing to put gamers first and say they're putting gamers first and

be the cool people now with cool exclusives and a cool machine and a cool $10 program that gets you everything, I think that could go a long way to turning the tides in a way of like, cool, yeah, I still have my PlayStation 5 for whatever Kajima is going to do next, whatever Noddy Dog does next, but I'm back in the camp of feeling like I'm an Xbox person. But what about your trophies, Greg? Well, I mean, hey, if Stadia works, fuck it all. Burn it all to the ground. Real quick, I thought that there was something wrong here. Bloodborn came out the next year,

2015. Are you sure? Yeah. March 24th, 2015, and the PS3 came out in November 2013. When we had rolled on, I always remember it is this, where Bloodbourne was the first exclusive that mattered. Because infamous was the one before that. And Second Sun, it was like, all right, cool, right, yeah.

And kills on Shadowfall or whatever, right? Exactly, yeah. Kills and Shadowfall was launched. Right, yeah. But I knew where you were coming from in the way that Bloodworm was the first one. By the 18 month mark, then I'm still in the launch window. Get out of here, Reggie! No one's listening to you.

No, it was the thing that Blood War was the first excuse that I remember that turned heads, but I don't think it like put it on the mark is or put it on the map as much as things that would come later or whatever. Yeah. I'm talking about the clip of release that we saw starting with, I would say, Horizon. And that's what you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. Our Horizon wasn't until 2017, though. That's my point.

Is that I think Earlier this next generation We're going to get into the horizon Unshortive form Boom boom boom Yeah And that's going to define things And I think that

Xbox launching with a halo title Is already showing That we're going to go in that course Do you think they're going to have The Xbox and have something To follow it up though right away Or is it going to be Halo launches And then it is

And then only does Halo launch Halo launches and is Kills on Shadowfall And then we have 18 months till we get to the next exclusive That'll be the downfall of Xbox If they do We need to see

Halo Infinite launch with the Xbox and then exclusive, exclusive, exclusive. What are you 13 first-party titles? What are they doing? They need to be. Like games is an Xbox GamePass and stuff. That's all cute and stuff, but if people don't have games they want to play,

they're not going to transition over. I think we've seen, though, that Microsoft is addressing that, right? With their deep bench of studios that they've acquired over the last 24 months, they are preparing themselves for follow-ups beyond Halo Infinite, because we know that those games

aren't going to be ready for launch. of 2020. We have to assume that's when it's coming, right? So they announced that, right? Yeah, yeah. Fall 2020. And so you think spring 2021 is maybe when we'll see something from one of their new studios, fall 2021,

but really I would say spring and fall 2022 is when their new studios will really start producing. I feel like bare minimum for them to be a success. They're going to need to hit Halo and Fall and then have a spring and a fall for 2021. and then 2020, they need three. I think that it needs to be at three a year. I think you're overestimating how important the exclusives are for PlayStation and for Sony because they have built their businesses on their partnerships. I think it's very clear definitively that the PlayStation 4 was as successful as it was

worldwide because of their third party partnerships, not because of their exclusives. I think that the third party partnerships were as. The sales numbers back that up. I think the third party games were as successful as they were because of the first party games were so good. So it was a chicken and the egg situation. Yeah. But I think that people bought the PlayStation instead of the Xbox, not for the third party games, but because of the first party ones. And then because of that, that's where they bought the third party games.

Like, Xbox lost them because they didn't have the first party titles that they did the last generation. You're not wrong. Yeah. So interesting stuff. Also messaging. Yeah. Just that PlayStation was so much better at messaging. Yeah.

In terms of this is where we are. Very true. Before we move on, I want next generation and Xbox in particular, do you think that, and stick with me, I'm not really, I'm not doing the Greg throwing shade as a joke. Do you think that in the same way Wii U was under adopted and then the games were thus underplayed and then could be repackaged to put out there? Do you think for Xbox 2, whatever they call it, there's legs to, hey everybody, the big thing we're putting out for you, you know, wanting exclusive in three or six months after Halo, right, is Sea of Thieves, definitive. edition. We've done all this crazy shit. You thought it was content. Barrett launch. Look at all this shit. Look at

all this. There's some crazy visual upgrade. There's that and the other. Because the fact that and then granted, again, the bench is shallow right now in terms of what they're, but like it had a big presence at E3 at the Xbox thing. And looking over people's shoulder, it was like, oh man, I really do need to play that. And the rare guys came over and talked to us about like,

hey, we know we're big kind of funny fans. We'd love for you guys to give it a shot. It's so much different. I could see that. I could see state of decay, which of course I'd jump back into at E3, they launched the new content of like, hey, not definitive editions, not repackaging, not even reselling them, but like making a bigger deal about them and maybe reselling them, I guess if you've never touched them or you don't have GamePass. I think it's different and I think that that can't be the case because of GamePass.

Yeah. Because those games already got their second chance and are continuing to be promoted like constantly as get game pass so you can get all these, right? Whereas the Wii U games was kind of just like, oh, they came out, got great reviews. And that was another difference is they get great reviews on the Wii U. And then now it's like, oh, that game that like you always wanted to play or at least heard about like Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze that everyone's like, oh, it's one of the best 2D platformers ever. It's like, now I got to actually play it. Yeah, yeah. Because I own the system.

Sure. You know, with C of These, I don't see that being the case or crackdown three or. I just wonder, yeah, if it's enough of a new influx of audience to get people to care about those things and play those. I don't think in a critical mass way. I think there absolutely will be people who are like, hey, I never tried state of decay. And I heard somebody talk about or stream it or whatever, and now it's included in my subscription, so why not try it out? It's a whole idea that Microsoft is doing a very good job of added value

for a pretty slim lineup for GamePass at launch. But now the GamePass library is so much more robust. And it's really hard to argue that it's not worth the $10 every month. So, I mean, if you are at all curious, you know, jump in and try it out. Jump in. William Brewer says if you could take any existing IP video game movie or book and give it a battle royale what would it be?

I was excited for a second. My answer is still Halo. I love the gunplay in Halo and I feel like that would that be the only battle royal I'm competitive in at all. Okay. I got you. I would want to do it differently. I guess it's asymmetrical more than the battle rail

but it can be 100 people, right? So stick with me. Let's go. Take me on the ride. What I'm doing is I'm walking in with some multiplayer team that knows what they're doing, right? Or whatever. I can flip a switch and people who traditionally make single player games are suddenly making multiplayer games. What I'm doing, damn, it's Kevin over there.

What I'm doing? Barrett would flip out for this. What I'm doing is bat versus 99. And it's one player plays as Batman and the other 99 players play as the thugs in Arkham City or Arkham whatever. Interesting. And like before you get in, you get to pick your load out or depending maybe on, where you start in the map, you have guns, you have whatever, but like the idea is that

the criminals are trying to take out Batman. Batman's trying to take out all the criminals, right? And so that it is this thing, Batman has the same moves we all know from Batman Arkham City and everything else. And the ability then obviously to KO people way faster, but the villains themselves are having a shot at getting it down

and actually taking them out. It reminds me of a game. I like that. Right? That's cool. And maybe it could even be that it's you're shrinking the circle. Maybe you have to pull off crimes, me have to do whatever. Is it like a Gotham City Impostors vibe? Sure, it's not a shooter though. It's not a first-person shooter.

One person is Batman with all the Batman gadgets and it's third person in my head. Yeah, third person in my head. And then everybody else is all the crooks running up on them. The thing I would be able to do is I don't know how you slow down time. I guess the crooks movements are just slower in general. Batman gets to do all his crazy ninja skills and flip people around and stuff like that. But it is one person is legitimately the rock steady arc on Batman and everybody else. The 99 people are there.

They don't have to all be in the area, right? Batman's got to be picking people off as they try to do whatever crimes they're doing, I guess, or whatever they're trying to do to further the plot. And then eventually, you get it down as the cone shrinks that suddenly Batman is surrounded by the 15 people still around. And they're maybe still hiding from him or they are trying to all come out and fight him. I have two concepts that first came to my mind. First one, imagine Mario Card Battle mode, but 100 people. Chaos, love it.

Chaos, right? It would be amazing. protect your balloons at all costs. That could be super fun and super silly and stupid. But the one that I think could be really cool but would never happen is if they did a portal-inspired battle royale where you can teleport with the portals around the map.

That would be amazing. It could make for some really awesome play of the game types of things, clips and things like that. You think about like a streaming culture and people who tune in and having people set up these really crazy assassinations using the portals to surprise people. could be really awesome even though portal isn't a violent game well it's

similar to what a split gate right with like the halo one meets portal yeah so dope Alex what's here did you pick one did you what'd you say what you said I forgot oh hello he did say halo yeah that's just lame that's a cop out he says that all the time they have they have one it's called King of the Hill I don't know if you ever played it yeah it's good but like you know what I mean there's a difference what games do you think nail the balance of challenge and difficulty Celeste yeah I really feel like that is the shiny example of a game that is never, it's not frustrating.

It's well designed. I don't know. It was definitely frustrating. But I think the thing that's great about Celeste is that it constantly reminds you that it's okay to be frustrated and it's okay to die. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to take a break and come back. And I think it speaks to the larger narrative about battling your inner demons and struggling

with mental health or mental illness and depression that makes that balance of gameplay so exemplary because they tied it so artfully into the underlying narrative of the game and the mechanics were pixel perfect in that game. Got to love it. I'm scrolling through my trophies here trying to find one of recent memory. Because it's a good question that I thought is going on. I guess I think I've talked about it before, but Doom, right? Where like when I didn't understand what Doom was, it was frustrating.

And then once I understood that I'm supposed to die and I'm supposed to learn. I'm supposed to speed run it or understand how that combat flow, that rhythm of combat. Once I wrap my head around it that way and play it through it, I was like, oh, right, this is the right thing of. I don't go into a room and like, how the fuck I'm going to do this? What am I going to do here, right? Or there's too many things. It is just, okay, I'm not doing the right order. Yeah.

I need to take out that guy, then get health, then get the armor, then do this thing. Another one, perfect balance of challenge and difficulty, I would say, is the early guitar hero games. Mm. Yeah. One, two and three specifically, where I feel like, if you were playing on medium versus hard versus experts, like there was an actual skill necessary to go up. And I feel like the note charts were so perfect and well-tuned to the understanding of,

are you going to play where it's just the first four or are we going to add that, that fifth one to really, you know, up the ante with stuff and she did a great job. Oh, Guitar Hero 3. One of the best games of all time. I love that you go 3 because most people say 2. People hate on 3 because it was never soft. Sure. Had the great guitar, though.

Best guitar. The Gibson, yeah. It bought it, took the guitar, put the game down, put in rock band. It was like whatever. Rockman 2, right? Guitar Hero 3 was so perfect. Guitar Hero 3, and it pains me to say,

please don't hate me, John, and the rest of the team at Harmonix, but Guitar Hero 3 was superior to Rock Band 2. Oh, period. Was it rock band 2 or Rockman 1? Am I screwing it up? I feel like I screwed it. I mean, Rock Band 1 was amazing.

That I'm talking about. Rock Man 2 was better than Rock Band 1. Guitar Hero 3 was the best of them all. Facts. Bold, bold. Let's see. Ethan Brannon says, when do you think we'll see

Breath of the Wild 2? 2020? Maybe? Yeah, to play? Maybe 2023? Hmm. I think it'll be earlier than that. You think it'll be 2021?

I'm sorry, what have we heard about Metroid 4? Well, that's different. Hey, man, we saw any new footage at least at this one. What's different about it? What's different about it is that we heard that that is completely being scrapped and started from the beginning and like we're screwed and that game's not coming for a long time and nothing of that game ever existed that we saw this is based

on an existing engine with an existing world existing characters art assets and all that stuff I don't think 2021 is outrageous I don't think either I can see them I actually I think it's 2021 like I think 2020 towards the end of the year might be their goal that's not going to happen I can see March 2021 would be my I think it's spring 2022 I think they target March or excuse me they target 20 to 21 and then they delay to 22. God damn. This isn't going to be a good one. Private Corner says rank your most fuckable Super Mario 64 bosses in order.

No, but it's like hard pass. I also just love how specific this is because the bosses in March, okay, there's King of a Bomb, there's Bowser. Isn't there a Big Penguin? There's the penguin if you want to consider it. Big Penguin number one. Big Penguin number one, baby. Big Pig? Oh, man.

That is so funny. Andrew Reynolds says, what's the game you started and then stopped because you didn't enjoy but then tried again and loved it? Monster Hunter for me. Mass Effect 2.

Wow. I went on to become my favorite game of all time. Wow. Rage quit. True story. Where did you stop? What happened? So it was in the very early part of the game.

I remember I was tasked with playing the game because I was on a judging panel for a game of the year thing for Spike TV. And I hadn't played it yet. And I was like, oh, and I hadn't played the original Mass Effect. And one of the guys at Mahalo was Jovenshire, actually, he was like, oh, my God, I can't believe you haven't played Mass Effect too yet. And I was like, I don't know, I've been busy doing other stuff.

And he's like, you've got to play it. And so I picked it up. And it was the, I don't know if it was the immediate section after. So, you know, you go through the whole cut scene about, you know, Shepard's been reborn in his body or whatever the elusive man did. And then you have to like shoot all these droids in this first sequence. And I don't know if something was a, something about like the cover based shooting system. It was stiff.

With the powers, I just could not get a grasp on. And I just kept dying in that opening sequence. And I was like, this game is dumb. And I rage quit. And then didn't come back. And then I came back. And I was like, okay, I have to actually play this game now. I had a deadline for the shoot.

And I was like, okay, I need to get through at least half of this game in order to be able to talk about. competently. And then I pushed myself through after watching a walkthrough on how to get through the very first level. And then after I'm crest of that hill, it was like, it's like the heavens parted and the sun came down

and the angels started singing and I was like, this game is fucking amazing. That's awesome. And then I fell in love and played it seven times. Jesus. I don't know. I don't have a good answer to that. I'm sure I've said it on a podcast, but you know how I am. I just immediately forget everything I say. Doom I've come back to right, which I guess is that. But again, it's like my third

doom response there just because it's the most recent game. Well, I don't. Somebody asked a good question too that got on the games daily docket a couple weeks or days ago, but I didn't put out because I didn't have an answer. It was just like, what's the game you were tasked to review and you weren't excited for it and you ended up loving it? And I'm like, I don't even have a great answer for that because I'm, of course, the guy who's on the R shows where I'm like, oh man, I don't remember who reviewed that

and then people bring up my review of him. I'm like, oh, fuck yeah, I guess I reviewed that. Like, I don't even know. Final Fantasy 10 for me, which is my. favorite Final Fantasy, my first Final Fantasy. But first getting into it, I was so excited for it to come out because like EGM was talking about like, this is going to be the showcase game for the PlayStation 2. Sure. The first it was Grand Charisma 3 where it's like, you got it. You got to play Grand Turismo.

Right. It's going to be this graphical, like, behemoth. I remember renting Grand Tourism and being like, I don't like this realistic stuff at all. But Final Fantasy 10, I'm like, everything about this seems really cool. Final Fantasy beloved franchise. I've never played unfamiliar with it. Let's go. I remember playing about an hour and a half of it and just being. like this is not for me. Oh my God, this. Like, I'm really upset that I don't like this game. And then I came back to maybe a month later. I'm like, I was a fucking idiot.

It's so, so damn good. The other one would be Zelda, the Legend Zelda won. When me and Kevin are growing up, we got our garage sale hall of getting our NES and like 28 games. And it was just like the greatest thing ever. We could just, first time. It was like our first video game experiences, really. Yeah.

And being able to just pop game after game, just like figure it out. I'll never forget playing Zelda. And of course, Zelda was the coolest of all of them because it was a gold card. So we're like, what the fuck's up with this? And we were just like, what the hell is this game? This is going to be awesome. It was just so like, we're just walking around the overall. We're like, what the fuck's going on?

I don't like this. And we stopped. How silly I was. That's still how I feel about Zelda. Really? Yeah. Even though I did go, I forced myself to get through the opening sequences of a link between world.

And it went on to be one of my favorite games on the 3DS. So I was really impressed. But link between World and Breath of the Wild are the only two Zelda games I've ever finished. I talked a lot of shit. This might be one, I guess. I talked a lot of shit about Ocarina Time when my friends were playing on in CC4 because we thought, you know, that was like the fun machine. We're in high school.

We'd all go to Mike O'Brien's house from my house and play all the WWF games at the time or WCW games at the time, right, and play cart and do all that jazz, Golden Eye. And I remember when Zelda dropped them playing it and having to come over and wait for them to finish whatever they were doing to actually play the multiplayer games. Like, this game's dumb. Is it Gandor for Gondor? Flah,

just making fun. And it was, and finally, like, long after Mike had beaten it, he just gave it to me with the strategy guide. He's like, dude, just play it.

You just need to sit down and you need to play it. And I remember talking shit probably to myself while playing it. And then staying up to like two in the morning, never using the god, right, but playing through it. And the night of, the night before I was supposed to take my ACT,

like a terrible idea. I just played through. And I was obsessed with it from there on out. Hell yeah. Qualia Freak Wreak wants to know What are our Game of the Year So far six months into the year?

Oh interesting that you should ask Because What's Good Games Did our Game of the Year So far episode this week You can find that at YouTube.com slash What's Good Games We actually polled our community To get some of their

Their thoughts and their opinions Because you know We always have gaps And games that we haven't played But definitively Game of the Year so far Without question Resident Evil 2 remake

Me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too. So far, there are no other contenders. Really? I mean, yeah, I agree. If we had to vote today, that game would win without question in my mind. It's a really good question.

Because, yeah, the first thing I jumped to my mind is Division 2. But again, that's like a Greg game. That's my favorite game, probably, right? It's probably my game of the year so far as well. I really loved what massive and Restore did with the Division 2. Certainly in the top five. Yeah. Absolutely.

But you had to sit here and be like objective about it And like how I would vote and with a list of games in front of me For like what is the definitive game And like yeah, Resident Evil 2 Yeah That's been stuff for it's one of it's the normal thing with the early Early games right where it doesn't even feel like that was this year It feels like it was forever ago

End of January though Yeah I feel like Outer Wilds would be another one Yeah outer wilds is definitely about a lot of people ballot Again like we talked about it last week And it's just the intro three times has not grabbed me But it seems like it's one of those games that I was like You have to play

So I need to just push through similar to everything we just talked about I think it's a nominated game. I don't think that's a winning game. What else is still? What do you think is on the ballot the rest of the year out to argue with it? But that's easy. I mean, Borderlands 3 is going to be on there for sure. I think Call of Duty Modern Warfare has a chance at being nominated this year.

The Outer World is a huge contender for Game of the Year this year. There's the big question mark of Death Stranding. Yeah. It's either going to be the game of the year or it's not going to. Well, you know, the thing that's interesting about you saying that is I 100% agree with what you just said. But I think it's kind of in this potential Red Dead Redemption Two pool where everyone is thinking it might be this really amazing piece of art, but it might not grab people the way people think it might. The thing there is like even though that was true

for a lot of people, I still think Red Dead 2 was right up there with God of War in terms of nominations and going into any of the award shows. I don't think it was ever clear who was going to win. Like looking back on it now, it's like, oh, God, one, won everything. It's like, okay, Cool, but like, at the moment, it was like, Red Dead could get it. I remember the game, it was Red Dead won, like, everything until towards the end. And then God of War, like, kind of took over the rest of the categories, yeah. So you think, you think Death Stranding goes toe to toe with Resident Evil 2? I think it could.

I think that Death Stranding has the potential to eclipse Resident Evil 2. Do you think Pokemon is in this race? No. No, not this one. Let me see. I want to look up game release dates. Oh, I have these written down. Let me pull them up for you.

What is coming? What are the big happy hitters? Because I feel like we didn't have much going into E3 and then E3 kind of laid out a ton of stuff. So some big games else that are coming in Gears of War 5. Star Wars Jedi Fall in Order I think is a big wild card here. Oh, it is. Yeah.

Because it could potentially be phenomenal, but that they just, you know, with their showing at E3, but that what respawn is doing is really incredible, especially if they lean into this idea of like a third person, Metroidvania set in the Star Wars universe with really fantastic deep RPG progression based off of a combat system. Like if all of that comes together, it could be chef's kiss amazing,

especially set in Star Wars, but it's a big what if. Doom Eternal, I think, is also a huge contender for Game of the Year. It's coming out in November. Some other games that came out earlier this year that may make some people, People's Lift, Sekiro is a big one that people are talking about as a contender for Game of the Year. DMC 5, Days Gone, Mario Maker 2, Mortal Kombat 11, Metro Exodus, Katana Zero, Kingdom Hearts 3, Far Cry, New Dawn.

And I also have on this as a potential Apex Legends, but I mean, they are kind of definitely going to be nominated in the online game in multiplayer categories and potentially in action or combat. But I think that there's just too many other contenders for them to actually make game of the year. Playing Jedi Fallen Order impressed me so much more than just seeing the demo that they did and the trailer and stuff. So I think that that does have a good chance of being a very, at least nominated. I don't think it has the potential to win it, but I think nominated for sure. Yeah. We got Gears 5 coming. I doubt it.

If they bring the intensity from a narrative perspective that we saw in that, narrative trailer that they released after the press conference, which for the love of God, I don't know why they didn't put that in the press conference. It was cooler to have the weird morphing head. I think if they can really up the ante with their narrative storytelling and do some reinvention in the Gears

third person shooter formula, it could be a contender, but they just have not shown enough of that game for me to believe that it's going to stand toe to toe with a doom eternal. I mean, that's the problem is, I think the fact that it is gears again and not reinventing the wheel from what we've seen right.

It's not going to have God of War. It's not going to have that kind of God of War the momentum movement behind it that would actually change it. I mean, based on everything we listed here, I think Outer Wild still is a really good shot. Because so many people talk about it right now just like it could be their game of games. Like they're so blown away about it.

You mean the Outer World or the Outer Wilds? I think Outer Worlds, we know what it is. I don't think Outer Worlds will make Game of the Year list, short lists. I think you are 100% wrong. You could not be more wrong. I think it's going to be awesome. It's one of my most into spit a game in the year,

but I don't think it's going to catch people and blow them off course like that. I think out of wild is going to end up on list. Worlds, I think we'll be on some of the lesser list. I don't think it has the potential. You think Wilds has a better chance than worlds. Correct. I think you both are crazy.

I think you both are out of your goddamn minds. Let's pick three sites right now. We can each pick one. And then that where if you, what's the argument, I guess? If Worlds or Wilds is on there? Is on the Game of the Year nominee. list.

It has to be the game of the year category. Right, yeah, exactly. Not independent of the year, not action adventure of the year. It has to be game of the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dice, game awards, and IGN. Okay.

I think those are the. Sure, that's fun. Most important. Okay. You just throw the GDC awards away. Who needs them? That's true. Dice is better.

Damn. Better host. Oh, medieval. Yeah, sure. Get out of here. Kevin Coelah's Game of the Year. Yeah, looking at this list. Luigi's Mansion 3.

Got to hope. Yeah, that's it. Interesting stuff. Interesting stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been the kind of funny games cast. Thank you very much for joining us. We are about to do the post show. This is exclusive to Patreon supporters.

So if you're one of those people, hey, stay tuned. We're about to talk to you. If you're not, you're missing out. Be one of those people. You're missing out. You could be one of those people. Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Love you.