Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - What We've Been Playing* - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/kindafunny to get 10% off your first month. Go to http://joinbilt.com/kindafunny to start earning points on your rent payments today. The boys talk about their impressions of Eternal Strands, First Berserker, Ender Magnolia Bloom in the Mist, and more! *Nick claims Andy has been juicin’. Run of Show - - Start - Housekeeping - Cryptical Path - The First Berserker: Khazan - AI Limit - Eternal Strands - Ads - What’s Mike Been Playing? - Ender Magnolia - Silent Hill 2 - Black Mesa - Morgan Freeman - Mika and the Witch’s Mountain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the kind of funny games cast for Monday, January 27th, 2025. Mike? Three months to my birthday. Three months to his birthday. To the day, Andy. Put on your calendar right now. April 27th.

Or we could be shouting out the person who's birthday that actually is today, you know. Oh my God. Yeah, but it's three months to the day for Greg's birthday. Write it down in your minds. Do me a favor, Andy. Bust out your fucking satellite phone to call Roger in Trinidad. and wish him a happy birthday. He doesn't want to spend it with us.

We don't want to spend it with him. Exactly. You know what I mean? He has WhatsApp. We can never want to text him on WhatsApp. Probably just call him too. I'm not texting him. I'm not texting.

Jesus fucking Christ, I'll text him right now. Oh my God, Rod. Add me on that. Just saying it from Mike too. Well, I can. Can you add me also.

Mike. You guys are best. You guys are best. You guys are at a time zone. I don't know what time zone is. Oh, Chinidad's not that far away. He's a far away. that must be if I had a guess

like less must be the same as New York probably yeah you a happy birthday takes a vacation oh watcher chat says oh watch and chess

add me too and Waffle Place does add me on that too let's just all make sure we get on that okay it's in there now it's in there now don't tell them I say I'm working on that game show down thumb

from last Friday that I forgot to make okay hold on Andy isn't wishing you uh I'm gonna hey I'm gonna say HBD

HBD, yeah. And I'm going to say BC for the heartbreak dick. He's working on the thumb. He forgot. It's a funny reaction. The thumbnail's got spoilers for everybody for the thumbnail who already watched. I mean, come on, you got to watch game show. What a show.

It's the reaction to the Halo moment. It was so mad. And you can play it now. You can't play it on Reddit. They made it? Yeah, insane. I mean. Somebody, they tweeted at me on Blue Sky. Let me look it up now for like the exact name of it, but there's a thing where you can play along to Game Showdown.

And I don't know exactly how it works, but it seems like it records your answers and your score. Let me see. It's called React. So it's R-E-A-C-T React V-T. Reactivists.com slash play-along. So you go to it. Now is it a virus. Oh, fuck.

Got them. Ah, shit, my computer shut down. You go to it, though, and, like, it opens up. It's not just kind of funny either. Like, it has dirty laundry from, from Dropout here. It has Arcade Pit. It has, like, I assume it has probably game changers and stuff like that. It has the McElroy stuff, too.

Trivia Tower from In MacLoy. Can anybody say that name right here at this company? Wait, did I say McElroy? Everybody says McElroy. Hey, hey. You do it, too. Call it like you fucking see it. All right?

I don't look at McDonald's and go, oh, Stevens. It says McFucking Donald's, all right? Stevens? A lot of people got a problem where there's like, oh, that's how you pronounce it. That's how you fucking wrote it. You could have said McDonald's. So different.

A lot of people got a problem. You still get the view for this? I mean, you must. Right? Yeah, because it's a honey situation where they are. Might be double checking. This is a honey situation where they take the ad, right? That got me good.

Send them an email real quick. Everybody, of course, this is the kind of funny. Gamescast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for coming to hang out with us today. Each and every weekday, we run you through the biggest topics in video games, whether they be previews, reviews, or just topics we need to discuss with you. If you want to hang out with us and discuss those topics, it's quite simple. You should be YouTube super chatting. Of course, we are an 11 person small business is all about live talk shows. I blew out my lungs laughing. He's been coughing all day and like record for the show. Maybe on the show. He was

telling us about how like Ben is sick. And also you had you dropped that and also Jen is sick. Yeah, I said they have the toddler thing. Come up in here, just coughing everywhere. I think about that one street where Greg is just copying like a maniac. He's not sick, though, it's okay? And then he ended up missing the next week. Fucking, Kevin, go see you doctor, go see doctor. I'm not going to see a doctor.

I'm not going to see a doctor. It's just a cold. And then what I get the doctor charged me $100. It's just a cold. Go home. Okay, great. Thanks, guys. Anyways, that's not what this is.

Don't worry. It's just he made me laugh real hard. Then I got, you know, I guess. Of course, what they always say. See, he's trying to butter me up. I look. I left every donut out there for you. And you're the one going

hanging out of parties. People fucking texting you 10 hours later. Everybody's dead. About one kid threw up. It's fine. I got a cough. I got a cough. How to get it out.

God damn, everybody, all right? We're not going back to sitting in the goddamn Discord windows. It's not worth it. We're not going back. We're not going back. Anyways, kind of funny games, guys. Topics, you know that. Support us.

We're 11 person small business. Of course, you can super chat. Like I said, to be part of the show. More importantly, you can pick up a membership on YouTube. YouTube.com slash kind of funny games, Patreon.com slash kind of funny, Apple and Spotify podcast. It would get you all of our shows ad free. That's more than 20 a week. It would get you the ability to watch the afternoon podcast like today's Kind of Funny podcast. And it would get your daily dose of me, Greg, in a series we call Greg Way. No books toss away, no big deal.

Like, subscribe, tell your friends, shout it out, all the jazz you're used to. How it's keeping for you? We just did Kind of Funny Games Daily where we ran through the Phil Spencer interviews and all the amazing Xbox nuggets that are coming. Mike, how excited are you about the future right now. Pretty excited. I got some feelings. I'm never going to be able to talk this entire show. He tried to be like usual Mike.

Mike couldn't even be Mike about it. There wasn't the weirdest noise I've ever heard come out of it. It was in the fraud positivity there. Mike's excited to meet people who's like never met before on the street. Greg last month. You couldn't fake it for this one time. God damn, dude. Barrett's wearing a mask.

He's just crazy. No, he's been wearing a mask. We're all sick, man. No, I've never seen you. I mean, being very proactive. You know what I mean? I appreciate that. Where his partner's sick?

And then he's like, I didn't feel great. Oh, I thought just because of you thing. Oh, no, no, no. Because I'm like, what info does Barrett have that we don't? He's getting the live updates from table. Guys, it's bad. I puked out everything when you weren't looking. Anyways, that's the Games Daily.

and it's up right now, of course. And of course, the stream after this is going to be Mike and Nick playing house flipper two. Yeah, we want to renovate houses good enough. So Andy will let us come in and redecorate his stream room. So that is the goal is two up and coming, you know, house decor, enthusiasts. Sure. Come to your house. I heard Nick say, you know how they have that middle room in their apartment?

I was like, Nick, that's the room that I sleep in. I don't know when you didn't hear about this info, but I've been sleeping in that room for over a year now. That's not just an empty room anymore, you know. But tell what we want to do with it. Wait, so did your bedroom become your streaming room? Yeah. Yeah. Where the bedroom and the stream room was just one together throughout the pandemic.

I moved into the middle bedroom that nobody was occupying. Okay. Where our older room at used to live. See, I've heard you say you have a streaming room now. Yeah. But it's not your bedroom anymore. No. Okay.

So now you sleep in the middle room. Oh, I don't need to give him info. but he won't let me decorate the stream I don't need to give Greg info for any. Hey, hey, hey, hey, it's not about you anymore. I got stars in the bank. That's what I'm worried about him. Tim's house. It's not about you.

I just want everyone to understand that this podcast should have an asterisk next to it. Because Andy, Andy's juicing. Do you want to tell him what you're doing, Andy? I don't want to point it out, but Andy has a sugar-free monster can here, and I saw him pouring some sugary

Mountain Dew into it before before this podcast happened. and this game should not count. To remind myself, well, first off, this isn't game show. I know I appreciate it. I have added the asterix to the temporary headline on my document and I will add it to the final headline, whatever we end up with here. Because we're going to go on a journey here.

Tell him what he did. Tell him what he did. Because he's juicing. That's why. Okay, he's P.E.D. He comes on this podcast and he's got his brains working better than all of us because we're all natty and he's not natty. Yeah.

That's the problem. Yeah. He's peed. We're natty over here. Performance to Hansi drugs. We're nadie. Yeah. All right.

Well, I don't know if there's anybody who knows our calendar less than me than Nick. Like, I thought I. No buzzers out. Blessing isn't hosting. It's fucking Monday. You got to appreciate it, though. You know what I'm here?

These people's boss. Of course then, if you're a kind of funny member, like I said, you can get today's Gregway, which is about the crazy universe we live in and its signs, especially when they come to online gaming. That was a lot. You can also get the kind of funny podcast this afternoon where Joey Nuel is, winning us and I'm very excited about it. Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by better help and built. We'll tell you about that later. For now, let's start the show with what

is and forever will be. Topic of the show. It's been a while. All right? Since I could say, nobody's going to join me. Okay, fine. I was stained. I was giving you stained. It's been a while. It's been a while. Nobody's our hair. your face. I remember he played one time in the RGV.

It was just like super racist apparently. He was? Yeah, it was real bad Aaron. Yeah, Aaron something. Oh, I don't like that. Don't tell me that. Yeah,

this is real bad thing. Let me tell me, I need to know. But it just sucks that you can't mention anybody. Literally, I could be like, oh, like the Empire Carpet man.

He'd be like, oh, he fucking murdered a bunch of kids. Did he? Ah, fuck, not the Empire Carpard man. It's all good. It's all going to change. We got a new president.

What are you talking about? Why did you engage with that? I don't know. reviews, we're doing reviews, we knew to make topics, we're doing game of the year, we've been doing, it's just meant nonstop. But I know we've all been playing games. And so Tim's dead, he's buried. Neurona virus killed him apparently. Norona. Is that what they call it? I said, neurona virus. I said, neurona. I said, no-ro virus. I love it when he's not here. We have so much more fun, you know? I want to talk about games then and what we've been playing. You guys have listed a bunch of stuff. I've listed a bunch of stuff. And I want to start. because you come off a game of the year, you come out of this thing, all these great games,

some of which I didn't play. Things, it's impossible to keep up with everything. It's a haze. It's the normal thing where you start up the new year, you're hungry for new games, and I'm like, I want to give more chances. You know, I'm very busy,

we're all very busy, but I'm very busy, right? And so it's like, you know, you're holding off for these big games, these next big reviews, these little things. I have a bunch of games here, just three, I guess,

that are smaller games that I've played, that I've touched, that I have something to say about, all right? And I want to start with my pick of the litter, all right? My pick of the litter, Mike. My favorite game that I've been playing since I got back is cryptical path.

Have you heard about cryptical path, Mike? No, laid on me. All right, so Barrett's going to toss up a trailer here for you. The Steam description would tell you, of course, that this is from old skull games, and it goes, Cryptical Path is an action rogue light that pushes the boundaries of the genre.

Play the architect, build your own rooms, entainment ever-changing labyrinth, you've been summoned in. So the ideas you see here, maybe you're an audio listener who aren't seeing it, rogue light, right? Running along, side-scrolling back and forth, kind of looks like the Prince of Persia,

Tim loved so much last time around, right? You go in there, you fight the enemies, you get the currency, right? And then, of course, since it's rogue, you're opening up chests on every run, getting new things. But what's really interesting about it is when you start it,

you have to create your path. And as you play, you create your path. So you have a bunch of different rooms you unlock that you can put in there and they can be filled with enemies they can be filled with treasure they can be filled with hearts if you need that or whatever they cost you a certain currency that you're getting as you run through right and then you make your path to the boss every time or to the other things to get it does what i love in a good rogue like where you know when you fail you come out you're back in the overworld right and there's all a manner of things to do of cool i'm i've got

these coins there and i'm going to come in here and invest in this perk right so i'll have more health for the next run. Oh, I've been enjoying that, so I'll go to this section up here, where now I can go and it's got special rules to it that'll give me a better reward for playing that way. And then the entire time, just trying to go through, kill all these guys, take back over your world or whatever. What I think so nifty about it, right, is Mike, you might be saying, nifty. Hey, you're going through and you've got to spend this currency to put down rooms. What if you run out of currency to get to the, you can't connect to anything, right? The idea is there, you can spend without having it and get negative.

like going to negative money but when you do that that then is what gives you curses so suddenly you're here you can't hear in the game everything's got no color you're taking more damage stuff like that so they really tweak and play with

the things I love so much about like Rogue Legacy where it was okay cool like you know you come back as this character what's the pro what's the con of them how are you doing it so you can get stronger you can stick to it you can put down just the enemy rooms to get the currency to do the thing but what I found with mine

of course is like oh man I'm taking hits and I want to have as many hearts, so I need to put down heart rooms real quick before I go to the boss. There's also in the skill trees you go through and unlock all the stuff, the normal stuff, more health, whatever, but you also can unlock configurations of rooms. So it's like, all right, if you put down tiles in a way that makes like a plus sign, the middle will fill in with a free heart square. And so it's like they got a lot of really neat stuff they're doing with tweaking it.

It's not a 10 out of 10 by anything. It's a smaller game, obviously, a small developer. But I'm really enjoying my time with it. It has been one of those that even when I'm doing something else, I'll be like, all right, before bed, one run. Watching TV, watching wrestling. All right, let's jump in there. Go through another run of this and see how many I can do. What can I push?

How far can I get? And you guys know that I'm not the Dodge, Perry, Prince of Persia kind of guy. I guess Perry isn't correct for this one. But, you know, this is about, oh, it's these candlestick guys that are coming at me. So I know that I need to, you know, do my dash through them when I'm invulnerable to get on the other side to hit them. I need to jump at here to do this. They've got bombs in the world that you can knock out on them. And I don't know if you saw it there in the video.

Again, cryptical path. It's playing on a whole bunch of different things like critical path, but it's also playing on, I think, critical role to quite a degree. The weapon you're using is a dice. It's a D&D die that you're throwing out. So there's like, you know, you'll unlock these different, you know, things for your run. And one of them can be that when you kill an enemy,

then they spawn another die in the world in that spot. So you can be out there and throwing it back and just shooting die all over the place new the stuff. It's really cool in terms of like a very basic idea that I have come back, I think I'm like on seven hours of it now, according to Steam, just playing it over and over again, really finding new things in it, interesting things. Downsides

to what I would say of course is like it's a lot of, it's repeat which of course you'd expect I think to a degree but it's even the thing of like when you beat that initial boss for act one to unlock act two with the new area, next time you play you have to play through act one again and beat that boss again to get back to act two. I think there's just three acts according

to achievements, I have not finished it, right? So it's like, I get that you do that to keep it going, but I would have rather been, I finish Act 1, I finish that first map, here's a new map I can just jump to, I can start with or whatever. But outside of that, no real complaints, having a lot of fun with it. A simple game, a fun game, I'm enjoying it.

And I would recommend it for you guys. Because I do think this is something I, I look at this, I'm like, oh, man, again, Tim loved Prince so much. Yeah, yeah. I look at these two of like, are you guys impressed with this? I'm blown away that Greg is recommending this game. This is not a great game that I would put on you, Greg. So nice job.

Way to step out there. You got to get out there. You know, you get this whole thing. I want to be out there. I want to play some stuff. Yeah, at what point does the main character talk about his dead daughter or something? I mean, that's my biggest downside to it. No divorce.

My biggest downside of this guy is. No generational trauma. The architect comes back to his place and somebody's taken over. I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, yeah, can it be his long-lost brother who his mother loved more and made him cry? You know, but no. Instead, it's just this dude. And that's the thing where it's like the characters are whatever.

But again, I don't think they need to be anything special as you just go and fight candlestick people. Do you find yourself in any of these runs in the middle of a run or at the start of a run, discovering, like, one of my favorite thing in Rogue Lights is once you're kind of starting your run and you get those first couple upgrades, you go, oh, this is going to be a this sort of run. Oh, yeah, of course. This is going to be a fire run. This is going to be a lightning and a whatever run.

Like, I love knowing, kind of going into runs that like, hey, maybe this one is going to be successful, but I can make a lot of money and we can just have this run be a, uh, let's make money. So then when we get back, we can then kind of prepare for the following one. Yes. Sadly, there isn't, I don't think that big of a differentiator between like, oh, a fire or a freezing or whatever. It's more of like, ooh, the room layouts here is going to be a, I'm going to clear every room rather than trying to mainland boss. Or I'm building to whatever, you know, bonus I want on the main screen.

So I'm just going to try to get the gold and put those down and do this. Or, you know, I'm doing this now. So I've unlocked that, you know, there's going to be more chests spawning with more X, Y, and Z. So I'm going to try to do that here and there. There's that level to it, but not so much of like my gameplay is switched dramatically. What are your thoughts on it visually? Because I think here you talk about it, right? I'm like, I'm very intrigued.

I like a rogue light. I like the idea, the concept of building the world out as you go and like being able to make those choices like that. But then I look at the gameplay of it and for some reason it's not doing it for me, right? That doesn't look like a world that I want to be in. Yeah, 100%. I think that's a great point. I think it's a valid one where I would say, yeah, a takeaway I would have again for

the repetition is that then I think it also makes a good. makes it feel generic. Where it is like, again, who is the architect exactly? I don't need his whole backstory and his family tree or whatever, but just a guy with these horns or whatever. Like, I'm sure there's some reference they're making to a D&D kind of thing based on how the game is, but it just doesn't do anything for me. So yeah, it is like when I started playing it in those,

I think the first couple runs, it was like, oh, okay, just fighting candlestick men here. That's weird. The idea, of course, is that this is your old mansion, right? While you were gone, this guy came in and kind of possessed everything and added new enemies and stuff like that. So it's your world come to life to attack you kind of thing. But you're seeing so much of the same people that I do think it does borderline generic.

But it is the actual gameplay that actually keeps me engaged. Like, okay, well, I want to come back and I want to do more and I want to unlock as much as possible. I like the building out your own map on how you want to go. That entices me. That interests me of like, so what does that look like? So I could hypothetically just build straight to the boss and just roll it right there? How many turns does that take? you saw in some of it there's like rocks there that are like blocking your way so you can't get through those or at least i can't get through those yet you do have a way to blow up rooms that exist already but not the rocks so you do have to go around them okay and so it becomes the thing of like if you want to go straight to it you're probably going to take that penalty and the curses are random so you don't know what you're going to get to get

whereas if you want to do more of it you can usually link up and then as you go have enough currency to get around but there's a different cost every room you're putting down so like you know if you wanted to get the hearts it's going to cost more than the enemies kind of thing okay Okay. But yeah, I recommend it. I'm enjoying my time. Thank you for showing it. I like that. Thank you. Yeah, it's out for everybody.

You can go pick it up right now. Blessing, what have you been playing? Ooh. Where to start? Where to start? I thought you're going to talk about everything. Oh, no. I mean, I can go through the rest of my season.

Yeah, I like it. Nobody wants to make a monologue that long. Well, I want to talk about two of mine in conjunction with each other because I think my thoughts on both kind of have to kind of play off of each other. Sure. So over the weekend, I played two video game demos. I stream through them. The first berserker Kazan

was the first demo I played through which I picked up because I think Andy was the one who kept telling me like you gotta pick up first berserker you gotta check it out and then this other game

called AI Limit which I'll get to in a second the first berserker Kazan picking it up let me tell you this game has the sauce fuck yes dude this game has the sauce

and like we'll get to that in a second because I think I have a lot of really great things to say about this game and that is also I also have quite a few

critiques to it as well. But if I'm starting off with the good, as I was streaming, I was talking about, you know, I think the first Preserker Kazan is one of those games that does a really great job

of looking at what from software has done with its combat and like picking and choosing the elements that are going to uplift the game the most, right? I could maybe call this game

a soul's like, but I think maybe Sekiro-like might be a bit more apt for the kind of game the kind of combat they were getting into here. It is like a lot of deflecting. It is a lot of like timing with those hits to then like build up the stagger meter on an enemy or a boss and like getting those heavy hits to build down that stagger meter more

and get that like finish or move on them to take them down that way. I really like the art style of this game. I like the presentation of this game. I think this game has like a vibe and feel to it that is really cool and really dope. And the combat is very fun. I like the weapons they're giving you. I like the pace at which they're giving you loot. Like it feels very fine-tuned.

And when I talked about kind of like how well it adapts those things from things like Souls Games to Sekiro or like a little from software thing, there was a new term that was coined from somebody in my chat that I think condensed it all into Miyazaki University. This is breaking news. So Miyazaki University is the new one that I'm going to introduce into the lexicon of kind of funny. I like it. Right? Where in the last, I mean in the last decade, but I think especially in the last few years, Every year we get multiple games that feel like they attend Miyazaki University.

And I think usually we come out with one valedictorian every year, right? A couple years ago, I would have said it was Liza P. I think last year, maybe up for debate between Black Myth and Stellar Blade. I wouldn't count Ertree because Ertri is like an actual from software game, but I would give it last year to maybe a Stellar Blade. I think this year, so far, first berserker Kazan might be my Miyazaki University valedictorian contender. of, man, y'all learned all the right shit

from that developer. Like, man, y'all are doing all the right things to translate this game. Like, it plays well. The, like, the, you know, presentation is good. I like some of the pathing. I like a lot what you're doing here. And after playing the demo,

my excitement for this game skyrocketed. No shit. Yeah. Like, I am going to be there, hopefully day one, like, playing this game and hopefully, like, probably talking to Andy and doing a review and all that stuff, right? All that said, like, there's still,

I think my biggest thing, coming out of the demo as far as like critique or trepidation or whatever is I the way I felt finishing this demo reminded me of how I felt finishing the Wollong demo the Wollong Fallen Dynasty demo where upon finishing that one I remember being like damn that was such a fun time like that that combat was so good I love the deflections like this is doing everything for me but I then go on to play more of Wollong and kind of realize that it is like a lot more of what I experienced in that first hour more of the same more of the same Right, which kind of brought it down because I think I needed that game to do more dynamic things.

I need that world to be more interesting. I need to be more invested in the story. The combat had it. Like the combat had the stuff. But the more I played it, the more I'm like, okay, this is maybe a little bit more one note that I imagine. I think for me, so far playing the first berserkerker is on, the story isn't grabbing me necessarily. Right? Like I think they're doing a good job presenting it.

Like I like hearing Ben Starr voice acting. There's like a demon that you're essentially possessed with. And like there's kind of this confrontation that you're having as you're going. It's a venom situation. Yeah. There's like a venom situation going on. It's like a blade. It's a blade demon that kind of goes inside of Ben Starr's

body and Ben Starr's like, you know, I don't want to, I don't want you here and the blade demon's like Eddie, you know, and they're just fighting to it. They're just fighting against each other. They don't like each other for a while, but they'll come around. You can tell they're going to come around in act two, act three. And I'm hoping that stuff grabs me more because in the first, I played, the demo

took me about three and a half hours. In that three and a half hours, I came out of it being like, all right, I don't really care about anything. Oh, this going on in the story, yeah. But I think that that nugget there could evolve and maybe, you know, get something out of me. And then I think my other thing, too, is, man, I hope to see, like, the world get more interesting. Like, the environments get a bit more dynamic. Even, like, the pathing, I think after the beginning became a bit more straightforward.

And that might be because the demo takes place in a more, like, foresty area. So there's only so much that you can do with pathing. In the very beginning of the demo, there was, like, a cool part where you kind of drop down. and you have to look down to see where the next ledge is to drop off to then continue. I thought that was good level design, but after that, it felt like that stuff kind of got a bit stale in terms of like, all right, now we're flat and now we're kind of just going. I want to see that stuff uplifted more in terms of like getting me invested in the path, and the level design and like bringing that part of it too.

My one other thing too is like in any of these games, when you get down the stagger, you have like your finisher or like a visceral move or whatever you want to call it. I'm not, it's not hitting for me. Like that specific move. Like there's like a... What about it? It doesn't look good. It isn't fun to perform.

It's not satisfying. You know, like the way I was comparing it when I was playing on stream is like, you get to a glory kill in doom and you want to like rip and tear. Like I want to like, you know, grab, like reach into like somebody and, you know, rip out their head or rip out their tongue or like rip them in half or some shit. And even if it's not violent, I think at the very least like a like an inward motion motion or something that feels like it has more umph to it. The stellar blade kills were fantastic because there was always some cool short cut scene that had her jumping up and doing something crazy.

And it was always kind of enemy specific. So yeah, during boss fights, that was a lot more appreciated, I would say. Yeah. So like here it is more, you'll do like a harder hit or whatever and you'll knock the enemy away. But I kind of wanted a bit more out of that. That's a small critique. But that was one that I think stood out to me the most of like, oh man, I wish this was more satisfying. That's a fun-ass game.

Yeah. I'm glad you played it and I'm glad we're talking about it because I It's one of those that I played the demo whenever it came out I previewed it a couple months ago and it was like Pretty fun but for whatever reason when this recent demo came out It just felt awesome the locomotion feels great Running around the game feels great

The combat is great and the responsiveness of all the paris and stuff Just felt super satisfying very fine-tuned And the boss fight You know not only from a presentation sort of angle, but also just what the boss is doing and how you're having to survive in those moments. I thought it was a lot of fun. Super engaging. I really, really had a lot of fun with this demo.

And I agree that, like, yeah, I think when Liza P came out, I was like, these, they went to a fucking class and learned how to make a from software game. And so far, I feel like this is lesser than Liza P. But way more, because, you know, these games are diamonded up. or a dime a dozen nowadays, and they come out and you expect that same sort of feeling, and it's rare whenever it hits. For whatever reason, this game just feels good enough to where it's hitting, and I'm excited for the final product. So the other game I'll talk about in conjunction with this is AI Limit.

Oh, great. I'm glad you're going to talk about it because I downloaded the demo and didn't get a chance to hop in. This is one that somebody brought to my attention as I was playing the first berserker Kazan. And it was in the middle of the Miyazaki University conversation, where they were like, oh, there's another demo for this game called AI Limit that you should check out. And so the very next day, I booted it up. I played through it. It took me, I think,

maybe like an hour and a half to play through this one. To give context, this is a game that is part of PlayStation's China Hero Project. To pull from the PlayStation website, the China Hero Project is a PlayStation mentoring and support initiative for China-based developers, helping them create incredible games that reach a global audience. There's also like the PlayStation, I believe they have the India Hero Project, and like PlayStation does this a lot in recent years where they're trying to find games globally and support the developers to kind of like, you know, help give a push for more game development happening in more countries. And so this is one coming out of the China Hero Project.

To read the Steam description of this game, or actually this is from the PlayStation website of this game, AI Limit is an action RPG set in a distant future where civilization is on the brink of extinction. A strange substance known as mud is spreading and monsters are appearing across the land. You'll play as regenerating warrior, ERISA, exploring the, the ruins of monster-infested cities in search of the truth behind the apocalypse. This game has a release date for March 27th, 2025, which... Very soon.

Very soon, but also the same day as the first berserker Kazan. Oh, yeah. Which feeds into this conversation a little bit of, I played through this demo. I have, again, a lot of good things to say about this game. It feels like more of a Souls game than even the first berserker Kazan does. Playing this game reminds me of how it felt playing Bloodbourne of, you know, First Berserker Kazan had it where the... Easy.

I mean, you're invoking a very powerful name right now. Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't get too excited. But, like, you know, in First Preserker, Kazan, the default control scheme is like, you know, square light attack, triangle heavy attack. Like, it's, it almost feels like it tries to weave between being action and sacri-like or souls-like. This one is straight up, no, this is what you expect.

Like, this feels like you're picking up a Blood-Born game in gameplay, right? of you're pressing R1, the attacks move like a from software Souls game, like the combos, the animation on the character, their movements, look and feel like a Souls game. Even like the finishers, right? Like, there is the

crunchiness that I kind of wanted out of the first berserker in it. Yeah, like, it has that. I think for me, though, playing through this game, this, I think suffers from the same thing that it benefits from, which is going back to the

Xbox developer underscore direct. One of the things that I'd mention is that like, we're in the best time to play an action game. Action games are everywhere. Like, if you want a fast action game, guess what? Ninja Guidon 4 is coming out later this year, and you got Ninja Guide and 2 Black. That was out last week, right? You got First Resurker Kazan.

There's Elen Rine Night Rain. We got Liza PDLC coming out just this year. You know, like action games are coming out left and right. And I think that is given rise to, yeah, more of the First Preserker Kazan's, which are these games that are really quality. and really viable in terms of, oh, this actually plays really well, just like so many other games lately that play really well for this genre of game.

And AI limit, I think, plays well, but it also, I think, is missing the it factor. Like, this one is one where as I finish the demo, I don't foresee myself going back to it because these games are now a dime a dozen, where I'm like, why would I pick up AI limit when I got first berser Kazan, right? Why would I pick up AI limit when I could replay a Bloodborn or X, X, Y, Z? thing. And I think the thing that emphasizes that for me is that the gameplay feels very familiar

but then the world is not grabbing me. This is one that has an anime art style. I'll say it's probably similar to a code vein in that way. I don't really like how the main character looks. Like they look more generic. What are

the streamers that have like the anime V-tubers? V-tubers. The main character when I look at the main character model, it reminds me of a V-tuber. I wish they got more inspired for a world that seems way more dark and grim and it's like post-apocalyptic and stuff. I feel like they could have gotten a bit more inspired with the character design. And there are times where like I have my main character standing next to an MPC. And the MPC looks like they're in a different art style.

Oh, damn. Yeah. Like the main character, colorful anime. MPC, fucking dark. Like, brutal. Like you ripped this out of a blood-born type thing. And I didn't really like how that looked. Do you feel like you'd feel this way if you play the demos in a reverse order?

I think so also. Yeah. Like I think even if I played this at first, I still have that feeling of like, I don't necessarily love like, you know, how this world looks and feels, right? Like, again, it's supposed to be dark. It's supposed to be grim because it is, again, post-pocalyptic wasteland. But there is something that feels also bland about some of its like world presentation. I think the setting that is going for, I'm always down for some kind of futuristic tech type

shit. But yeah, like a lot of it just wasn't speaking to me. I wasn't looking at it and going, oh, damn, that's a cool vista. Oh, damn, that's a cool visual. I think the one part of the demo that I did get that is like when they take you to a different kind of setting toward the end of the demo where I'm like, oh, that's interesting. I was expecting this. But as I was moving through the demo, I was kind of like, oh, this ain't really doing it for me. Story wasn't doing it for me either, right? Like, it was a lot of jargon being thrown at me.

And, like, that's a very regular thing in these types of games. But it didn't, I wasn't feeling the substance of the jargon either. Like, they're talking about the fucking, um, I don't know,

they're saying words. The mud. The mud. Yeah, the mud is a great one. Yeah. Where I'm like, I don't really,

I don't know what the mud is. I don't care about the mud. Would you, now if this game was not coming out the same day as first Preserker, would you be a bit more higher on it? if it was coming out and like a time where nothing else is coming out

I think I would be like okay I got time I'll play through this game I think the way I'll put it is after the first berserker I did this thing where I was doing the blessed forecast of where I could see this game landing

in terms of like a review score oh yes tell me the blessed forecast so for the first berserker Kazan I was seeing it at like maybe an eight or eight point five wow okay yeah 87 no no Like not higher than Liza P

For AI limit I was feeling more of a 7 At a 10 A game that is not bad by any Totally worth your time still Totally worth your time still If this is your jam Of a type of game

I think there is There's a feel there There is combat there There's expiration there That's gonna work for you But I don't think it does anything To bring it up to that Oh this is great

Right First berserker Kazan coming out of it Immediately I was like Oh that is great That was a great experience This, I am like, okay, this is good. This is good, but like, it doesn't feel special. It doesn't feel standout.

So I want to jump into one of my other games because I think I want to see if you, a lot of what you're expressing is exactly how I feel about Eternal Strands. Oh, Eternal Strands turned head last week when the demo dropped. You can play through it. Your progress carries over. Yellow Brick games. Mike Laidlaw is over there formerly of Bio, where everything else. Steam description reads,

Fight epic towering creatures while blending magical. abilities with an arsenal of powerful weapons to keep the world from crumbling in this third person action adventure game. When I meet somebody, tell them what I do. They say, oh man, what games do you love or whatever? I usually say third person action adventure, right? I like a story and I like, I like dodge rolling, and I like stabbing and I like questing and all that jazz. You were streaming it last week, bless, Eternal Strands, and I walked in because I was playing it out at my desk. And I sat down with you and I was like, what's going on? Because, you, Because this is a game I want to love, and I feel like I'm just liking.

And even liking isn't being generous. I enjoy a lot about it. But like none of it is so compelling that I need to go back to it. And I played well beyond what you played in the demo. I did not roll credits. This is not a full-blown review or anything. But I kept playing. I unlocked more stuff.

Yeah, the chat points out right now. It's a 71 on Metacritic right now for the PlayStation. Oh, the reviews are out. Yeah, the bar goes up. I played more, I did all this stuff, and it's like, I just can't get into a groove of loving it. And I was really ready to love it. I wanted to love it. I was playing on my portal, and I'm like, I think the combat is fun.

I like how it feels. You know, you're dodge rolling. You're using sword and shield. You're using bone arrow. It, of course, is from a lot of people who worked on Immortals Phoenix Rising. You got the ability to climb everything like Zelda in Immortals. I was like, there's so much in here and the powers. And I'm like, ah, this is going to be so great.

And I just can't vibe with it. Bless, you played it. Am I crazy? No, I felt all the same things that you felt, right? And I think this is, I think my initial impression of it of what we played it for two or three hours, maybe like two hours, because I think we switched to dreams. But my initial impressions was it felt like it was trying to throw too much into the pot. Like, it felt like it was trying to do too much for the type of game that it wanted to be.

because when this game was initially revealed, I got excited because it reminded me of games that I love. 100% shadow. Shadow Colossus, right? Like they have the giant beast that you climb and fight against. And I'm like, oh, they're making their own shadow colossus style game. But then I look at other elements of it.

And there's this really cool, like, you know, like element thing of there's fire, there's ice, like the way in which these forces of nature will play with each other, you know, interact with each other. And like it reminds me a lot of something like Zelda, Breath of the Wild, right? And like you even see the climbing in the game in the video that we're showing right now. Like so much of it reminded me a breath of the wild in terms of those things.

But I think once I picked up the preview, right, the demo that I played through on the stream, as I played, it felt like it was just trying to do too much and almost punch above its weight of like, all right, we're getting into this dialogue. You're building this bigger world. I'm playing as this character, Bryn. And like you're introducing this party of characters now. And if I can jump in here. One of the things when I came in to sit there with you and try to figure this out, wax about it, wax on and on.

Somebody in the chat was like, Greg, or maybe it was even on Games Daily, but it came up there too, someone who was like, Greg, you should love this. It's like Kingdoms of Amelor reckoning. And I was like, I adore Amelor, and I don't get those vibes here. And on the stream with you, I was like,

I guess maybe a little bit of the combat, but Amelor you could switch everything up on. And then it wasn't until I was at home playing on Portal where I was like, oh, it's like, King and Ommala Reckoning where it is beating me over the head with so much fucking lore and terminology and jargon that I'm like

skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. I just don't care anymore. Just let me go fight the things. You have a fun combat system. Let me get out in the world and stop inundating me with all this. And it's like stuff that is cool and the voice acting is good and like they're trying to give you all this stuff but it's just too much. I don't care. And that's my thing is there's so much, there's so much

to it that I don't care about. Right? Picking up the game I cared about fighting giants and I cared about like, oh, maybe some of the adventure stuff that might, you know, be invoking Zelda with the environment or the element stuff and, you know, some other things, the climbing and stuff, right? But as I get into it, you introduce, yeah, these characters and like this deep lore, it feels like they're trying, they're, uh, they're trying to hit you with, right? As I'm going, I'm picking up all these things and it, like, early on, I was like, is this more survival crafting? Because I'm picking up, like, a lot of resources.

And you're limited on how much you can carry. So it's like, I got to go back and drop the stuff off. And then I hit, I maxed everything fucking out. And it's like, well, now you got to wait to get to level two. I'm like when or level three. I'm like when how I have no progression bar. I just want to be level three already. Early quests are like, hey, go talk to this person and combine these things and learn how to like craft. And I'm like, what is this game? Like in the first two hours of playing, I still don't know what I'm playing. Like I still don't know what the meat of the game is. And I'll ask you like what do you feel like the meat of the game is. Is there a gameplay loop where you're like, oh, this is what the game is and this is why I say it's.

It's go back to HQ, get the next quest, go out and do that thing. Come back to HQ. you go out to the next quest, you know, and you're unlocking new things. Like, you know, and it's a weird game of like, a great example is I'm playing the prolog to it at the opening the intro. And it's like, damn, I'm playing. I'm like, I could really go for a lock on.

It's crazy. I can't lock on to enemies. Finish the intro mic, jump into the main world. The first thing, like, if you want to lock on to enemies, click right? I'm like, okay, why would you delay that? It's the same thing. Then the game is like, cool, go from home base out to do these missions,

then come back and you're like, so you're just running back and forth. Like, this kind of sucks. Why don't we have fast? Finally you unlock fast travel to these points. Like, all right, like, it's the same thing It's so Zelda, it's so Immortals where I'm like, when am I getting the glider?

Like I'm up on top of these things, just give me a fucking glider. I mean, that's what I was telling Mike when we were playing of like, I'm like on top of a big thing and I'm like, I'd be nice if I can just glide down right now because guess what? There's a lot of fall damage. Like the fall damage is going to destroy me. Also, the art style didn't speak to me. I don't, and I didn't like the immortal art style really either.

They describe it as painterly, I believe. And like, I don't know. I've seen a lot of games I look like this and none of them really like hit for me. know if that's a me thing. I don't know if that's a universal thing, but like, I can tell that there's detail and, like, talent put into it, but it's just the style just feels too familiar, I guess. Like, it doesn't feel like it stands out to me. I thought it was a bad demo because as I'm streaming it, I'm just like, all right, let me get back to it because I'm having to speed through all these conversations that I don't really care about yet, right? Sell me on

the gameplay first instead of what the world is. And I really vibe with the combat in the world in terms of how everything interacts with each other. I loved the idea of... If you're an audio listener, you can use fire and you have ice spells and you can you essentially have like a telekinesis power where there's a certain type of flower in the world that explodes on impact. So you can use your sort of psychic grab to pull that off of where it's sort of planted into and toss it at somebody and it'll turn into fire and that fire will eventually spread to other places. And I loved being somewhere high up and trying to get across somewhere and going, oh, I can make my little ice bridge from here to there.

This is really cool. And I love that as a concept. It just wasn't lending itself to the gameplay a whole lot, like in ways that I really wanted. Although when I was fighting that big-ass giant, I did find it cool that there's a lot of different ways to sort of take this on, not only by climbing it and hitting the weak spots or whatever, but I kept on trying to, like, skillfully grab with my telekinesis powers, a rock and try to hit it to like direct hit those little weak points to where when you hit those weak points those are holding together the giant's armor so if you hit the weak points it'll eventually

break off and suddenly the enemy is exposed in those spots i found fun in that i just like it was just going back to the home base and then experiencing a whole lot of lore and the fact that my fire was also hurting me so i need i need an elemental armor i was getting i was like finding these things there's so many of them and i'm like okay cool i'm into the flow And then it's like, ice, I'll freeze you with ice. And then I run over and hit you. I'm like, this is cool. And then I start getting hurt by the ice that they're leaving on the ground from my ice.

I'm like, that fucking sucks. Yeah. Yeah. But I did enjoy a lot of the way that those elemental things sort of work together. I want more of that. I just, it wasn't enough to make me want to go back. Anytime I would, you know, I'm in bed and night, I'm looking at my steam deck. I'm like, what am I going to play?

And I would see it there. And it's like, and it runs great on Steam deck. It runs awesome on Steam deck. But I just could not bring myself to wanting to go back. which is kind of a bummer because I've had this one sort of marked on my get excited for this sort of game because I know it's Mike Laidlaw formerly of BioWare and I know it's a lot of really talented devs putting together something that looks interesting to me and it's just it wasn't quite hitting and maybe it will if I go back to it at a later date but nothing that I felt like I needed a run back to and give a shot. Yeah, sadly that's where I'm at too, where it's like, I was hoping this would tide me over before avowed getting into some other stuff we're waiting on for review codes. And I'm just like, I'm going to play other stuff and jump around. And Mike, I want to hear what you've been jumping into after I talk about the fact you should be supporting us with the kind of funny membership.

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Help us out please Michael Howard. Hello and welcome to the Gamescast. Hi, Greg, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure to listen to all of your awesome game recommendations so far. I'd love to hear what you've been playing and enjoying. Greg, I've been all over the place. You know, I've had a strong start to the year.

I've been playing a lot of games. I've been tracking all the games I play in my notebook here. I like that. But, you know, Greg, I took a trip to Silent Hill. I believe I saw the Blue Sky or tweet from you that said, it changed me and I'll never be the same. Yeah, you know, there's still. things in Silent Hill that you can't unsee, Greg.

And unfortunately, now I can never go back. But I had a really good time with that. I've also met Gordon Freeman. Of course. And I visited the Black Mesa. And that was a very special moment there as well. Of course, me and my friends opened up a fast food restaurant. And I've been in just deep competition.

Yeah, I missed my shift there. Yeah, we have a write-up for you on the desk. We'll call you about that. So, Greg, I've played four games that I would like to talk about. Okay. League of Legends, Fast Food Simulator, Silent Hill 2, and Half-Life 1. I'm going to start off with the two small ones, which is League of Legends and Fast Food Simulator. Of course, Greg, I am always in the mood for some intense competition.

I love a good competitive video game. And this year, this year, for some reason, I got bit by the bug and I wanted to return to League of Legends. I think it was coming off the high of Arcane Season 2. It, of course, was the Incredible Riot Games trailer with the Arcane, team that they did to kick off the brand new season for the new year, seven minutes of awesome League of Legends lore in a video that you definitely want to see. And, you know, there's also some streamers like Ludwig, who was trying to compete to get his highest ranking ever in League of Legends.

Got me excited to go back. The Path to Platte. The Path to Platte. And so I've been jumping back into League of Legends. I've been playing two games of ranked a night by myself. And I've been having a ton of fun with it. I've always loved League of Legends since about 2012. to 13 when I was first introduced to it.

As Andy knows, I have three different accounts with a whole lot of money involved in each one, but I'm back to the right account. Three that we know of. I'll never forget that Xbox SGFE3 presentation where they announced the combination. He's going to save me a lot of money. A lot of money is saved. Right. And so I've been

having a lot of fun, Greg, going back to League of Legends. The 5V5 Ultimate Moba. I'm a kid who grew up on Warcraft 3 and the custom games of Dota where it all really started. and having fun moments like that. And so I've always chased that high. And it's been a blast to jump back in. There's over 160 plus characters, aka champions now.

And so every time I play, there's usually someone new in the mix. You can kind of tell what the meta is after a couple of weeks of playing. But it's always fun of like, oh, who's that character? I've never seen them. Or, oh, I can't believe that you chose to go poppy support down in the bottom lane, which I really love seeing different people throw some of them off. I'm pretty basic. I'm still using Blitzcrank.

Leona, you know what I mean? A little sorocca sometimes, but I'm pretty basic in my support role, but there is something that gets me every time. It's a top five feeling, a top five snow bike Mike feeling. Wow. Teamwork. When the team clicks

and everything works, when you are fighting bot lane and you're playing a little cat and mouse with your opponents and you let them come a little bit closer onto your side of the lane and you see that jungle coming down for the gank and it just clicks of like, oh, snap, they just hit the flash. They've now jumped in on that.

The fish just bit the bait. And it's like, here's the collision. And you get the two bot lane and you get the gank from jungle. There's this feeling that I love. It's a top five snow bike, Mike feeling of like, that's a team success. That's a team win right there. And, you know, I've muted all comm,

so I have no idea what anyone's saying. But I say to myself, great job, team. Do you only talk to us? Do you only talk to your teammates whenever you're doing content? No, when I play, well, this doesn't have voice chat. And I don't like to type while playing at the same time. That's a smart card. It's a very intense game.

It's a very scary game. I can't be type. I'm not a fast enough typeer to be typing while needing the buttons. And so if it had voice chat, I would definitely be uplifting my team like I've done numerous times in other ones. Thank you, Greg. I don't know if we can uplift the League of Legends. Oh, I can. Andy, did I uplift those kids in Valerant?

But Valner just different. Yeah, that team did. I'm saying League of Legends. Well, I mean, I've been in those lobbies before. Deadlock. I've uplifted. And so, yeah, I've had a ton of fun with League of Legends.

I just want to give that a shout out. I'm back on my League of Legends run right now, which has been a blast. I'm still in Cardboard Division, aka Iron. I'm Iron 3. Got out of Iron 4. I'm just climbing. You know what I mean? Will I hit bronze, maybe silver or gold?

Gold to get to gold. If I could get to gold, that's a massive win for the year. We'll see what happens. Moving forward, fast food sim. Greg, I've given you a bunch of fun sim games throughout the years that you and I have been together. And some of them are bad. Some of them are just good. Others rise to the ranks of great.

Oh, my God. TCG card shop sim, great. Gas station sim, great. Hey, this year, we kicked off the year with fast food simulator. It's up to six friends. You and your friends open up a fast food restaurant. Think McDonald's or Burger King. You got burgers, fries, ice cream, sodas.

It's a really fun experience getting to share it with six of your friends and the mayhem and the hilarity that ensues of just trying to organize orders, trying to pick up and clean, trying to put in actual food delivery orders and make it all run day to day. This is one of those good to great simulator games that you probably want to pick up with your friends, especially because you can share this experience with six of your friends. done this 101%.

And so, you know, of course, as you can imagine, you're opening up your own McDonald's with six of your friends, and it's a blast from prepping the orders in the back to then having to serve them, organizing tickets at the cash register, dropping off food at different tables, cleaning up the restaurant, ending the day with your friends just laughing

and the overwhelming nature of it all of. We had three people in the back, one cooking burgers, two, making the burgers actual with buns, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, mustard was all mayhem. Then up in the front, we had one person working the drive-through. We had Chris Anka trying to organize drinks, ice cream, putting orders on the trays and getting them out.

You can actually hire NPCs, so that really helps because six people isn't even enough. And so just to have more NPCs doing a number of tasks for us really helped out. But this is the game. If you're looking for a fun game night with your, friends, it's a must play. Can I ask you something? Yeah. I had sent you a link about a week or two ago to a new sim game that's coming out.

And I want to get your like in me a gauge. I want to get your, yeah, the gauge, like Mike gauge, right? It's called sports renovations. It's a first person renovation simulation game. It's coming from the publisher, Dear Villagers and developer goat games, right? Here's an overview. Restore the glory of sports and a relaxing renovator sim. How do you save your beloved team's court from being torn down by a real estate developer?

you do what you do best. Renovate dilapidated sports facilities to collect the money you need to help out. I saw this and immediately I was like this seems like the most snow bike Mike thing ever. It comes out March 27th, the same day as first Rizker and AI limit, big day. Wonderful. I guess I know where I'll be playing.

Yeah, is this like a you thing? Is this going to hit for you do you think? Yeah, definitely blessing. You know, you sent this to me. I've definitely put this on my wish list. This is going to be high on my, give it a try, right? It's been fun to see all the SIM games that we've seen over the past couple of months

years. And like I said, there's bad, there's good, there's great. And I'm always looking for the great ones that you can play alone or with friends. And yeah, anytime you can put me in a rock climbing gym and I get to renovate that, I'm all in. It seems insane. I'm going to make the prediction that this will be on Mike's top 10 at the end of the year. This seems insane,

dude. Could be. I kind of want to play this. We need a kind of funny best friend developer to make a fix your finances sim. So Mike can play it and it's really just connected to his bank account. I like that. We should find one way. If you game a fine, he'll be in. Exactly. And So yeah, keep an eye out for those.

I'll let Andy talk, but I can go on with Silent Hill, too, and half-life. Half-life. You ever play Half-Life? What a game. What a game. Go, Andy. Jesus Christ.

What a game. Let's see. You all ever heard of this game called Minecraft? Man, Minecraft's pretty cool, Greg. You're playing Minecraft? I mean, here's the thing with Minecraft. It's a game that we play, that I've played a total of maybe five hours in my whole life. We play two hours on a stream in 2022, and then we played another hour

in 2024. And so where I hop into Minecraft, I don't know a goddamn thing about it, because I've played, you know, a handful of hours over a collective five years of my life. And I just, it's a pretty cool video game. So anyway, that's all I got to say about Minecraft. A lot of fun. Yeah, Minecraft Mondays. Yeah, we're going to beat Minecraft Mondays. Yeah, we're going to beat Minecraft Mondays. tune in everybody. Because the issue with Minecraft we've always jumped in and we have the once a year

you get a week in your life where you're like, I just want to play Minecraft. I want to devote myself to Minecraft. So that's where we're at right now. But every time we play, all we do is build dope mansions. Washie will go,

you know, go get a bunch of sheep. Mike tells everybody to get wood. It's always Mike just saying, who's on wood duty? Mike just becomes the delegator. And so this time around, we've decided we're going to beat Minecraft.

So we have the goal of, of we are going to fight the Ender Dragons. Oh, wow. We will go to the nether. We will fight the Ender Dragons. That is the rule. So keep an eye on us trying to do that. It sounds exciting.

The year is 2025. We're talking about legal legends in Minecraft and half-life. Kind of funny. It only plays the hottest games. We are playing right on the pulse of everything. But this weekend, I also started a game called Ender Magnolia Bloom in the Mist. And I sent it to Tim, and I was like, Tim, I know this title sounds dorky as all fuck. But Ender Magnolia.

as a sequel to Ender Lillies, a very, very popular and highly rated Metroidvania that came out in 2022, I believe, and it's a game I bought and wanted to play on a flight and then fell asleep on the flight, so I never got to play it. But the sequel came out this past week. It had a lot of good ratings.

So far, open critic, and everybody's getting like it's nines in high eights and stuff. I'm so mad that like this one wasn't even picked up for the fancied critic. Yeah. Because yeah, this debuted, I think, at like 87 or some shit. Yeah, one that just kind of,

like popped out. And even my replies, people are like, oh, shit, the sequel's out already. And so I decided to start it over the weekend on my Steam deck. And I'm having a good time with it. It's a pretty neat sort of combat concept where you are this little girl who's like an attuner, I believe. And every ability that you set is like the spirit slash ghost of one of these sort of creatures called the homunculi or whatever the fight. It's just real nerdy shit, Greg. But like the melee person, you could set that to your whatever ability. And then that's like your main melee attack. So you're never attacking as a girl.

You're always just summoning these creatures to attack for you. And then you have a parry as one of the abilities. Or you have a range punch. But each one of these spirits that you are summoning has three different versions of their abilities. So you can kind of be like, all right, well, now I want my melee person to do the super heavy axe swing as opposed to the fast sort of sword swinging. The combat feels great. super responsive

and I'm just sort of enjoying the world and actually enjoying what the story and what the lore is, finding these little lore bits around the world and talking to different NPCs but as far as Metroidvania goes it kind of immediately opens up fast travel and double jump and air dash and all that stuff and it's just really fun to play so far

in addition to when you're walking it's not just one of these Metrovanians it's only like I mean it's always 2D side to side scroller but then you'll walk upon one area where you're looking at it and there's a hallway that kind of runs deep that way. So then you can walk through there

and then it becomes another area. So like there are walkway entries that are kind of like north and south. Yeah. You know, and so it'll open up new spots and then you'll find a bunch of cool secrets and things to upgrade your abilities

and your, you're constantly finding little bits around the world that will upgrade your health by 5%. And they, I've found maybe, about 12 of them so far. So you're kind of constantly upgrading your health. But then you will use money to buy like, I don't know, I always go with the word talisman because Eldon Rings kind of the most recent version. And you could buy talisman slots and some talismans will cost three slots. And the three slot talisman might be like get health back on every kill or

whatever. So right now I think I have like nine talisman slots that I've bought and upgraded. So I have nine slots that kind of fit either four talismans or three depending if they're super expensive and those will be you know your sort of passive stuff where it's like oh now your combat is 15 percent stronger when you're in the air or you have 15 percent more defense when you're on the ground see that's how you kind of make your character stronger but it's it's super enjoyable so far i'm having a really good time i that's the game where i was like i could go play eternal strands i'm really digging this though let me go back to um uh ender magnolia blue in the mist. So some context for you.

This has a 90 on Open Critic. Damn. And I went and checked because like the release date says March 25th, 2024. And I was like, what? And then I did a lot of Googling. Turns out it released an early access last year. Oh. And this was like the final release. So it wouldn't have been

eligible anyway for Fantasy Critic. But it is a win for early access. Like another game that came out and like seemed like it had a year to, you know, iron things out, figure out like, you know, all right, are you a lot digging this and then fully release? Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And the art style, it's one of those art styles that can kind of turn me off sometimes whenever I just see it in trailers where I always talk about how if you're using 2D art, that's the puppet tool, where it's like a character enemy that's drawn out, where it's like they draw their arms separately and their torso separately and the body moves kind of like a ventriloquises controlling it.

but a lot of these enemies and characters are all 3D models that are just, it looks so 2D, but the characters are 3D models that rotate and have like depth and dimension to them. I just, I'm really digging it so far. So shout out to that team for, yeah, I didn't even know what came out in early access.

That's awesome. Because I feel like I've seen a lot of versions of these games come out because the homie Adam Cole baby loves the, uh, loves Ender as the franchise. Like I always see him streaming it. I'm like, okay, I need to give this game a shot someday. Yeah.

But now I'm finally happy to be playing this one. And hopefully I'll finish it and then eventually go back to Ender Lillies, which is kind of what started it all and started up all the hype. Oh yeah. Good game, yeah. I also started a recent game, Greg, called Citizen Sleeper. I don't know if you heard of this one. Oh, Citizen Sleeper 2.

It's coming up soon. Yeah. We'll be reviewing it soon. But I decided to, I did beat it at Citizen Sleeper 2. And then I decided to start up Citizen Sleeper 1 again on Steam. because I beat the first one on Xbox. And I just wanted to start up Citizen-Sieper 1 again. So for no reason in particular, to play Citizen-Seper 1,

because what a good fucking game that is. And also maybe get ready for the sequel whenever that game comes down. Review soon. Review very soon. Okay, good enough for that. Didn't Super 1 kick so much ass, good Lord. Mike, tell us about Half-Life. Oh, you know what? I want to take a moment really quick because Greg,

and a lot of people in the chat, I know, and the audience out here, we'll get on them for this one, because Greg, you're talking about taking chances on games. I'd love for you to take a chance again on Silent Hill 2. Oh, Greg, this game is real good. Man, this remake from Bluebird Team, Greg, you know, I didn't love the medium. And I didn't really, I don't know. But this team, they crushed this.

This was really, really good. You and Roger. Roger tell me to do it. Took me about 14 hours. Yeah. And it was my first ever Silent Hill experience besides watching the movie. That gave me a lot of nightmares. And so I didn't really know much about Silent Hill.

To me, if you ask me Silent Hill beforehand, I would just say, man, hopefully it's like Resident Evil. I just run around slay zombies. And thankfully, the combat and the moment-to-moment gameplay felt like Resident Evil, which is what I really appreciate, I think, as a casual fan that drew me in, was like the moment-to-moment gameplay felt like I was playing a normal Resident Evil action game.

But the story has a lot of themes going on. Okay? He's looking for a dead wife, Greg. You know how much I love a good life? I love that theme. He's drawn to a small. silent, foggy town because his dead wife rode him a postcard

and said, come find me at our spots. And I mean media literacy. The story has themes of dead wife. It was crazy, bless. Here's the issue. It's like, can I just spoil it? No, I don't want to. You want me to play it.

It's like, I'll give people the little touches, but I could get deep into the themes because we had a whole breakdown session afterward. Because there are a few games, Greg, I finished and I go, man, that was powerful. That was pretty impactful. Silent Hill, too, was there. for me.

I was really impressed by like how I sat there and felt at the end of it all. It's like, damn, I'm a mix of emotions right here. There's some things that hit and I have some question marks that I want to learn more of and I'm really interested in it. But I think Silent Hill, so Silent Hill at the end of it was like so cool because of the sound design. Every single moment there's creepy sounds going on all around you that really draw you in. The character designs are horrific.

There are things that I will never unsee and forget. Those nurses will stick with me for the rest of my life. The scary spitter monsters, those are definitely sticking with you. Pyramidhead? Oh, yeah. Found out about pyramid head, ladies the gentleman. Mike walked in today and said, you know there's, uh, Kojima guy was going to make a sign Hill game?

Yeah. A lot of people said, Mike, you got to ask Greg a lot of questions about that. I'll tell you what. A lot of conversations. Did you ever play PT? We played PT. And then, yeah, pretty exciting stuff. Yeah, that would have been wild to see what he could have done in this universe, of course.

Yeah. Now we'll get OD and we'll see what he does with that. that's going to be exciting as he collects all the scary horror people and makes something good. Collects them like Pokemon. This guy had an Xbox podcast. Themes of dead life. Oh my God. Yeah.

Themes are just plot moments. I could spoil it all. Don't spoil anything. If you want me to get into it, I'll do it. Greg, play the game. It's fantastic. I don't know. I know your complaint was like it starts slow.

Greg, it's going. It's going to keep moving at all times. I never felt it's slowed down at all. I really enjoyed that every puzzle took you to the next spot and you just kept moving forward. It never felt like I couldn't solve anything. It always felt like I was moving and progressing the store and forward

the way I want. Roger, I don't trust. Mike, I trust. Mike says to go back. This is it. I would go back to this one. I mean, the whole internet's been on you for this guy. Yeah, well, they're on me about a bunch of stuff. If I goes back and plays it, and I go back and play it. Do we redo our game with year last year? No. this is a this was a five to eight range for me like I kicked I kicked one off damn it's on my top

email barrett you got to let him know I'll let him know no it's too late let him no update there I'm not again no we're not yeah so good I want to tell you you you're playing half life too you said yeah you've been playing half life as well and you enjoy half life I finished half life first ever time playing it would you give that on the score oh half life yeah what did you score of that one shit Gordon Freeman if I can go into another dimension man That's crazy. A good theme. That's probably nine.

That's a nine. That's probably nine. He had one bad day, Andy. Showed up late to work. Shit. You don't play Half-Life? Been there. No.

Oh, you got to play this game. So, fantastic first-person shooter. Andy, play Half-Life with me. Didn't grow up with a PC. And so I've always seen the orange box on Xbox. I thought, you know what? I'll give it a try. I wrote Gary Witta.

I said, do you want me to play the... I wrote Gary Witta. I said, do you want me to play the original? Or should I play Black. Mesa, the fan-made remake. And he said, Mike, just play Black Mesa. It's real good. You're going to enjoy it.

And the visual stood up to the test of time. Of course, it's recent fan-made remake, so it looks really, really good as well. The music slaps at all times. The progression from going from a possible top eight starting weapon of all-time, Crowbar, into an arsenal of weapons that Gordon Freeman has to take on. It is really, really good. I liked this. I loved this.

I was impressed that Half Life at 2025 can still stand the test of time and you can jump in and have a good time with this first-person shooter. So, yeah, mark me down as excited for number two as I'll get ready to go play that one next. And I can't wait to see where Gordon goes because I've had an offer at the end.

You have to take an offer. And Gordon gets to decide what he really wants to do. And how will this number two play out the sequel? I don't know. It's really exciting stuff. You didn't have a computer growing up? No. We didn't have a computer until late when we started playing World of Warcraft.

So we're on the later side, right? Kyle Frescas had Doom, Wolfenstein, Unreal Tournament, Baldersgate 2. At that house, we were playing old-school PC games like that. Did you call him Kyle Fresca as like a nickname? Cuez was his name, Quess. Oh, okay. A lot of ques. I didn't expect that.

Yeah. I just want to give you a quick, fun one. back in the day, right? You know, early, early days of IGN. And, you know, we didn't have Slack. That didn't exist. So you sent your emails into tops at IGN.com, right?

And then they would send back the thing to everybody, all the different thumbnails. Because you had to make the giant cover, and then the little ones, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think it was game of the year, but maybe it was looking forward to it or whatever. I don't know what it was. But every channel submitted, hey, we need our top.

We need, you know, PlayStation. Yeah. You know, we're talking about uncharted or whatever the hell else. So put all these, you have to tell the designers who to put in the top because they're just designers. And one day we're all sitting at our desks and the email comes in to tops and every burst out laughing. And you open up and it was PC games of the year a year in advance. And it was all these PC characters from games. And then Dead Center was Morgan Freeman because they wrote Gordon Freeman and the developer designer did not know.

They gave no context to Gordon, Freeman was. They just put Morgan Freeman in with all these things. It was amazing. Before we get out of here, the last game, I want to shout out that I've been playing with. And this one I've just been tinkering with, but I'm enjoying myself and we'll be back, is Mika and the Witch Mountain. This is, you know, I'm sorry, Mika and the Witches Mountain. I knew something's wrong with what I was saying. You want to talk about a game I normally wouldn't be all about or whatever, but this one came through and I was like, all right, little anime, I'm a witch, whatever. imagine a short hike but you're a witch right Mika shows up to witch's school at the top of the mountain

she gets kicked all the way back down her broom breaks so she has to take a part-time job delivering packages to earn enough money to increase her broom's ability to fly back up oh this looks adorable so it is as you're watching right now but if you're a listener it is third person 3D spin the stick around you

you have your broom to fly around you are dropping off packages so it's almost like lake mixed with a short hike. You're obviously mixed into these people's lives. You know, I got to give this fisherman this package, but he's going to tell me a yarn about his strange son. You might be his daughter, who knows?

I'm having a great time with it. It's super cute. You've got to get the packages there and you know, you're judged on how fast you do it, the condition they arrive in, etc. So you can't be bumping into stuff. You got to fly carefully. There's different outfits to unlock. Very cute.

I would put it into that, you know, cozy game category as I work my way back up mountain by delivering packages and picking up fish. So I'm having a lot of fun with Mika. Yeah. Oh, this isn't about this. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so out now, obviously.

I wanted to give like a quick, fun, famous critic update. Oh, sure. A lot happened on Saturday. A lot happened on Saturday. Oh, damn. Okay, cool. I didn't know about this. I have opened up the history of the league so far, which details every piece of

movement, right? Bear, don't spoil anything. Shut it down, Bear, shut it down, Bear. It's public knowledge. It happens about it over the weekend. Boyle anything. Everybody watches that. Everybody knows that. This is everything that happened on January 25th. I'm going to go piece by piece. On January 25th, Barrett Courtney, Boss Baby Productions, dropped Earthblade. Of course, they canceled that game, so they were able to drop it. Heartbreaking. I'm going to get it. I'm going to come back around to some things that happen with particular game, but skipping forward. ALo reach games, who is Roger McCornie acquired Unannounced Elder Scrolls, Oblivion remake, with a bid of $15. Nighter Rifle Games acquired Liza P, Untitled First DLC, with a bid of $10. Nitro Rifle games.

I'll come back to that. Okay, actually, no, I can go. I can do this, actually. Oh, Nitro Rifle also acquired a Ragebound with a bid of $15. Now, here's where things get very fun. Nice. Godin, RageBound.

Boss Baby Productions tried to acquire a game, Ninja Guideon 4 with a bid of $15. They failed because publisher was outbid. Oh. Let Tim published. Let Tim published.

Try to acquire game, Ninja Guidon 4 with a bid of $21. They failed. Publisher was outbid. Kim Tendo, who's me, tried to acquire a game, Ninja Guidon 4 with a bid of $21. Damn, y'all gotta get your money up.

They failed, publisher was outbid. A nitre rifle game, tried to acquire Ninja Guide and 4 with bid of $20. They failed. Publisher was outbid. Shouldn't we know what the bids are? Like an auction? No.

That's a guessing game. Yeah, guessing. A low-reach games, who is Roger Bricorney, acquired game, Ninja Guideon 4, with a bid of $56. Fuck, yeah, Roger. That's way to play the game.

No, it's not. No, it's not. For a game that possibly might not even hit this year? No, no. Because take a look at his team right now. What does he have? Loaded. One open slots.

How much money does he really need for one final game that could be anything? Could be predicted any time. Guess what he did? Stiff armed all of you away from one possible great game. Roger. There's four games on his list that might not come out this year. Congratulations, Roger. birthday, Roger. Happy birthday, Roger.

With $23 looks. One of those might not come out. Yeah, that's true. At least Ninja Garden Four has a 2025 attached to it. I think Roger's going to win. I think Roger's going to win, too. I'm picking games that only Andy Cortez speaks highly of. Expedition 33 is going to fuck Roger, though. You're getting real fucked that Hyperline breaker, huh?

That's my new strategy. So if I lose, I can blame it on the Andy. But what if it goes the other way, you know? What if Expedition actually hits? That's what I'm saying, because he has it has a counterpick. Oh, sorry. I was in looking. Yeah, if he, if that hits And then, like, if the oblivion thing is a remaster, does that really count for that pickup? It's going to be a remake.

E day, you know? The question is, how much money does Roger have left? $23. Oh, that's plenty of do. Here's a thing. Look, Barrett's watching everybody's wallets right now. Like, I need Barrett's pocket watching. Don't look at my pocket.

Not hockey watching, Barry. Public knowledge. We need to know what we have so we can think about, like, how much do I realistically need to bid on somebody. The same guy who's listening to a podcast so he could cheat and get metaphors. That's true. I drafted metaphor around. You know what? It doesn't matter.

Nancy Pelosi out here. Inside a trading. God forbid I listen to better content than ours. That's another episode of the kind of funny games cast in the bank. Remember, you can check us out each and every weekday with live talk shows all about video games and hanging out. Up next, Mike is hanging out with Nick Scarpeen or to play house flippers. too. Yeah, we're going to earn the trust and love of Andy Cortez because we're going to break into his

room and we're going to update his stream. That's not how you... And then in the afternoon we will be streaming the Kind of Funny podcast live as we recorded for Kind of Funny members. So pick up your membership on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny games, Apple and Spotify. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.