Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Who Won "E3" So Far? - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 27

Episode Date: July 2, 2020

Tim, Greg, Blessing, and Imran come together to talk Smash Bros, Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, and more. Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:05:00 - Ghost of Tsushima and Iron Man Update 00:07:00 - Super Smash Bros. Min Min 00:14:28 - Star Wars Episode 1 Racer 00:23:10 - Cyberpunk 2077 00:30:10 - Game of the year so far 00:34:30 - Who Won “E3” So Far? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Up guys, welcome to the kind of funny games cast as always. I'm Tim Geddy's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg, Greg, Maka Waka. Waka, Waka, you know what I mean? I do know what you mean, Greg. Waka Waka Waka. Remember Fazi Bear, everybody.

A lot of people want to forget about him because the Muppets are terrible, but that's a conversation for a different day. Pac-Man also makes that sound. Wong-Wong-Wong-Wong-Wong. That's great. We also have a blessing at AAU-J Jr. The new face of the game. Waka-flaka-flaka.

That's all I got. That's the thing, too, with the Waka-Waka. I jump to that bless. Greg goes in his Fossey Bear. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Exactly, exactly. And making his return to the show for the first time in a decade, Imron,

Khan, the former and former. I noticed saying like the intro for a games cast, a blessing in the Sonic costume, Sonic still has the eyes, which means that in that like costume, Blessing's face is Sonic's mouth. Oh yeah.

Which is modeled. It's modeled after the Cascad Bancu. Jesus, what does that mean? I don't even know what that reference means. I wasn't going to say it, but there's a thing called VOR, and let me tell you, there's a community for it. Ew, Fles! Should I Google it?

I mean, the Sony community, it's fine. Are you cake shaming right now, Kevin? Well, I mean... V-O-R-E. I mean, I've watched a lot of it, I'm being honest. No. It's where snake... Well, I mean, snakes is the most popular thing in there, right?

What is Vore being in slag? Vore means a rare sexual fetish where someone experiences sexual arousal from imagining swallowing or devouring people whole or from being swallowed or devoured whole. Go to Pornhub and put in Vore and then. Oh, yeah. I mean, I say that too bad CG videos of snakes like giant anaconda-sized snakes eating. My anaconda don't. Wow. Kevin, do you notice off the top?

God, why did you tell me to do this? This is the kind of funny games cast each every week right here on YouTube. I'm just trying to express that. I'm not kingshaming. I'm just saying like, you know, maybe I've did. Well, obviously this is the thing you're into because you know, I'm not, I'm not into it. I know what just, I know of it. I know what we come together.

You know what happens when you search for on porn porn. Oh my God. Just saying we come together. Like odd wording for right now. You're right. You're right. We talk about video games here. Video games are cool.

Sometimes things get a little. freaky, but hey, that's just the way we like it here, it kind of funny. You can get this show with the exclusive post show and ad free by going to Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. You can also watch it live as we record it, or you can watch it later for free on YouTube.com slash kind of funny or roostatee.com. You can also listen to it by searching for Kind of Funny Gamescast on your favorite podcast service.

The people getting the show ad free could also be Patreon producers like Mohammed Mohammed, Connor Nolan, James Hastings, Sancho West Gaming, Julian the Gluten Free Gamer, Delany Twinning, Aaron Bonilla, Jeffrey Long, and Jesus Barrio, aka Bent Fork, PR. Thank you all very much for that. I was saying earlier, this is Imran's return to the show. This is also like the return of the normal games cast. It's been a while since we've had just a topic. It's been a lot of reviews.

It's been a lot of spoiler cast. Excellent content. If you guys are interested at all in Loader the Rings, Last of Us, we've been doing so much of that. There's also some great Lord of the Rings content over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny that you can check out. But today we're talking about video games. We're talking about bug snacks. We're talking about kind of funny games.

What we've been playing. That's what I want to start off with. Now, to start it off, we're going to talk about things that we can't actually talk about, Greg. Yeah, that's right. So here's the thing. The Vore stuff led me, you know, there's a lot of,

there's, you know, Mass Effect from Miranda. Mass Effect from, it's all over this thing. There's a lot of mass effect stuff on porn. Like, like, there's, there's, there's alien species in that game that, like, actually eat people. Why Miranda? I know I gotta wait. Yeah. Well, you know what? I'll tell you off air about the thing I just saw Miranda

do it. You don't want to know. You don't want to know, Imron. All right? This is V-O-R-E? Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. I'm shocked. All you did. Yeah, no, I really surprised. There's like a lot of videos that aren't animals and that's disturbing, which kind of then goes and turns into a different time.

See this one of this pelican to eat a person? Jesus Christ. You know what I mean? Somebody who's recently been venturing into VR. There's a lot of VR. There's interesting intersection between VR and VOR and what that means for the porn hub community. And so, like, there, and listen, this isn't me speaking from experience. This isn't me telling you what I'm into. Follow your star.

Hey, first off again, this is a safe spot. I just learned about VOR. I'm not judging you. If you're right now driving your veinful and nuns around. Oh, my God. All right. It's true thing. I can hear it.

I didn't have the sound turned up. I'm just saying, oh, my God. This is crazy. I'm just saying there are videos you can find if you're searching porn hub VR where you are tiny and you're looking up at gigantic women who are like wanting to divide. See, why is that called Vora not like Mario? Like, why is that not just the name of the fetish? Just Mario Fetit. Wait, is that VOR or is that just VR porn?

We're starting to mix up term. No, like VOR. Like you could be the small person in, I guess you could do this in really important. But in the, in VR, you're like looking up and the scene from dude where's my car. Remember when I mentioned that scene from Dude Where's My Car, Tim? I do. You remember? Yeah, so Tim, to bring you up to speed.

Yeah, you sat down. Of course, you have your topic of the show, tots, tots, tots. But you want to know what we've all been playing. And the problem is a lot of us are playing embargoed things right now because we have hit that part where it's an embarrassment of riches where there are just a gazillion games out to play, let alone unreleased games. So right now we're recording this on July 1st in the afternoon. That means I am currently playing Iron Man VR.

The Embarger for that lifts tomorrow, morning at 5 a.m. That's a July 2nd, 5 a Pacific time, of course. What we're going to do with that is interesting. I think I'm going to prep some tweets just to give my initial thoughts because I'm still playing through it right now. It's a very tight embargo. I'm going to press some tweets to put it up there and I would imagine me and Bless are going to have a bigger discussion on PSI Love you on Tuesday. Does that make sense? Plus. Yeah, that probably works. Because you're working on it too, right? Yeah, I'm trying. There's a lot of stuff that I'm playing and doing. It's my birthday weekend, too and so you know got to celebrate

for them. Don't get crazy. Nothing crazier than just playing Iron Man by yourself. You know what I mean? Just do that. See, I think we'll do that for that. So look for tweets from me if you're watching this whenever in the timeline or watch PSI Love You Exo XO next weekend. And then on top of that, I think all of us are,

Tim, I don't think you've started yet, but we all have, we all have Ghost of Sashima. And the embargo for that is Tuesday the 14th at 7am. So we're all playing through that as well. So hands are tied for me on what I've been playing because I was already working through Ghost. I've been playing Predator. Now there's new Samurai Predator at too. We're doing streams.

You can catch on Twitch.com. com slash kind of funny games for that Thursday and Friday. So there's a bunch of Predator I've been playing, but you've heard me talk about Predator. And then it's just I've been playing after coming off last of us into this stuff. A little bit of Minecraft Dungeons is still going to platinum that one day. But I've been playing Iron Man VR and Ghosts of Seumia. And I can't say anything about it. There's other embargo games too, but we can't talk about them.

So it's just how things go. You know, fun stuff. It is fun stuff. It's great. It's a crazy time right now. Yeah, totally. What I can talk about, though, is the Super Smash Bros. 8.0 update. Minmin came out yesterday. Oh.

I'm going to Google Min Min. See what that is. The second round of DLC characters. Min min min min's from arms, Greg. Oh, okay. I remember that. Don't do it in porn. God damn.

Don't bring everything back to Pornhub, Kevin. I played through, got all the new spirits that they added. Did all the DLC spirit battles, did the classic mode. Imron, you know what I'm talking about. These DLCs drop and all of a sudden it's just like, I know what I'm doing. I'm going straight to the DLC Spirit Board. Then I'm going to classic mode. Boom.

Get in them all. So the total spirit tally right now, I think, is 1420. So it's a lot of spirits. I've missed a few events. I know I at least missed the trials of mana one. So I have to wait for them to go like put those things back in the Denny. I will get to them all. And they did not put them all back in this, which is weird because they used to do it when

there's a new DLC character. they'd add them all and they just didn't. So I'm missing out on the We fit adventure, wait, ring fit adventure. Yeah. And the Animal Crossing ones that they just added. So there's seven that I'm missing,

which is, I don't know how I can sleep at night. But I did get all the rest of the stuff. I will say this is one of the weaker spirit DLC boards where it's like the themes were fun and stuff. And at the end of the day, the greatest edition that, This DLC update gave Super Smash Brothers was the Arms theme song, which has been a slap, is currently a slap and will continue to be a slab till the end of time. But yeah, it's great that there's like every remix possible of it for all the different arms characters that you face off against.

The classic mode was cool, though. I actually liked how they kind of implemented it all. I always have fun playing through as the new DLC characters for the first time, like in classic to kind of just, you know, get my bearings of the character. And Minman's fun. It continues the tradition of the DLC characters, and I guess even just the new characters for Smash Ultimate, of being a lot more unique and gimmick based than some of the other characters, where it's like, it's very rare that there'll be a new character that's just a Smash Brothers character. There's always like some meter that is unique to this or like some weird changeups that other characters haven't seen before, like Joker or eventually turning into persona Joker or whatever the fuck is. Yeah, the closest is like Banjo and Banjo still like has a meter that can. Exactly.

Yeah. And you know, Terry having kind of the unique inputs that are featured in in the King of Fighters and all that stuff. Or Fidel Fury. But with Min Min, her whole thing is instead of having unique B special attacks, it's A and B is punching left and right. And it's a totally different gameplay style than what we're used to, specifically because you can kind of use smash attacks in the air and like charge them up. and stuff and that was super fun and the down bead changes out what your left arm is um there's three different types of arms that you can attach to yourself and i love it because it like it kind of has that Pokemon trainer elements um uh being able to switch out on the fly but it's super fast so it's like

you can combo and like uh trip people up definitely a long range fighter obviously um but i'm having a lot of fun with her and i kind of when me and blessed reacted for the first time uh to the reveal uh she looked fun but I was like I don't think that she's necessarily going to be my cup of tea but like checking it out I was like oh shit like she's she's really fun and unique but in a way that it just makes sense even though it's using the smash brothers archetype of you know control scheme like adding the arms elements of it like feels natural and I felt like I was totally in control totally dominated the classic mode I ended up with like 9.8 or whatever and then but then I played uh against three or I played three matches um

just against level nine computers, got my ass fucking gay. Totally gay. Yeah, so I'm definitely not like battle ready with her yet. It is kind of funny that like with Baileth, they said, okay,

this is a distance character where this character's whole thing is they reach farther than anyone else. And literally the next character, they're like, no, this character now reaches further. This is now the big reach guy character.

And the reach is insane. Like with one of her moves, especially in the air, just her normal A move. She throws her arm out and then the little dragon like opens its mouth and shoots out a fireball.

And like it is final, it like reaches across final destination plus more. Like it's just utterly ridiculous. And you can curve it down and stuff. It's cool. I can't wait to see some like actual pros play as midman because they're going to, they're going to fuck some people up. But yeah,

if you get knocked off the stage, you, you were pretty limited on your options on getting back. Like if you're vertically, you're super good. You could be further down than probably anyone else and get back up. But it's the horizontal that's a little bit more trouble. some. Yeah. You excited for this, Emma?

Yeah, I did to get around to do it. I don't think I found I bought the season pass yet, which I probably should at some point. It just usually, like, if not for Ghost Sashima, I would be probably streaming this out and playing some matches with the community. But right now, I'm a little busy, but I maybe tonight or tomorrow, dive in. Exciting stuff. I'm in the same place. Yeah, because I realize, I don't think I bought the second battle pass or the expansion pass, whatever is called for Super Smash Brothers, Ultimate and she looks really cool. Like I'm really excited to actually try it out and see what that's about.

I'm, do you have any predictions on what they are on who they might announce next? Because I know the big question is like, are they Nintendo characters now since the last battle pass is all third party? Well, it wasn't because we had Baileth. Never forget. Oh yeah. That's a good point that we did get Bail.

I think that like if there's one thing that we should have learned from Smash Ultimate at this point, it's that there's no pattern. Like there's no, nothing we can look at as for whatever. Who's going to be next? but it does seem pretty clear to me at least that they're all decided and that they are being worked on because even the video we watched blast like that was pre-recorded from the beginning of May. Yeah.

So it's like in Saccharize dope-ass baller house. Greg, you know how Nick always wants like always asked like, is that his real house? Is that his couch? Yeah. Now it is for the first time because of quarantine. It's nice with his office. Honestly. Saccharize like literally doing a house tour.

It's the best. It's the absolute best. I love it. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, Amon, do you have any predictions on? I do think it will be probably mostly Nintendo, just speculation. But if I had to guess who I would want in a next one, I think Captain Toad would be the, like, for me, I think it would be the one of the core ones to put in.

Yeah, that would be fun, especially if you can't jump. Yeah. I'd have to get creative with that. Just him tethering to everything. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah, that could be cool. Moving on from Smash Brothers, bless just for a while.

I want to just let you talk about Star Wars episode one racer. So I'm like, I don't know if I want to wax poetic because I'm going to talk about on PSLOU XOXL because it's one of our 104 games that we're ranking. But this game more so than any other game we've done for that segment, I found myself just obsessed with on another level. Really? Yeah, because it's Star Wars episode one racer from the N64. And I played this game as a kid.

I didn't own it. And so I played it at a friend's house. A dude lived in my neighborhood who I was friends with, and I'd go over to his house all the time to play it. And so I never actually got to experience it as my own game, only as a two-player game. And so getting the game for our PSW segment and actually sitting down and playing through it,

and then looking at the trophies and going like, that seems attainable. And then me starting to play it and getting further and further and further into it and then realizing that this game has aged surprisingly well for an N-64 game, It is really fun. It has that it has the elements of Star Wars

that I think matters most, especially for the prequels. The soundtrack of the game is incredible because it is dual of the fates and basically a bunch of Star Wars songs playing over these tracks. The sense of speed you get in the game is actually really impressive, again, for an

an 64 game. It almost reminds me of playing burnout. You get that similar sense of speed. While at the same time, The treks are designed in a way to where you can crash and stuff in the same way they would crash in burnout. But the tracks are designed for you to hopefully not feel like you're crashing on the first time. Like, if you're good enough at the game, you should be able to get through a track, get through a new track without crashing because that's how good the map design is or the track design is. And so playing through it, it's been just this experience of, oh man, yeah, this is an old game, but still really fun.

and yeah, like I'm, I'm really enjoying it. The actual mechanics in the game as far as boosting and repairing your speeder as you're racing also pretty good. Like in order to boost, you have to hold up and you have like a meter. So once you get to a certain speed, you hold up and then that meter will then fill and then you click X and then that'll boost. Or not X, you click Go, so that's R2. And then that'll, or maybe it's X and Go. You click a combination of buttons and then that'll boost you. It feels cool in the way that you really do feel like you are putting in like the maneuvers to boost if that makes sense.

Like you feel like you're actually there like trying to make this thing work. Plus, did you ever play back in the day in the arcade? Oh, was this game in the arcade? There's an arcade version where you're actually in a pod racer. I did not know that. The N64 version, you could play single player with two N64 controllers. like it's a pod racer which is awesome.

But yeah, like, and this game would make sense for arcade. It is still in Santa Cruz. Beach Boardwalk. We can go. We can go.

I'm honestly down to go. I'm honestly down to go because at this point I'm kind of obsessed with the track design in the game. I want to come in school people show how fucking like you're stuck, you know every curve of this place because of this game. Yeah. Can you bring up the box art of the original N64 version? And while you do that,

Greg, like have you ever played this game? Oh, geez. Yeah. way back in the day, I played the N64 version at like Michael Bryan's house. I think we might have rented it. Do you remember the cover of the game? No. Well,

I want to say it was the two like engines ripping off to the side right and the red bar. It's not. What am I thinking of? Or maybe I'm thinking of the cartridge. Oh no, this is what I'm thinking of. Yeah, this is what I remember of the cover. No, okay, so this was like, this is like the new one, it's that, it's the M64

box of the bottom left. Oh. This weird black placeholder box? It's not placeholder. Greg. No, no, I know. The fact that you're calling it up, I assume it's not, yeah, but definitely,

that, that is like when you, like right now, that's the meme of my passion is graphic design. What is even, is it, is it, is that Wado in the background? Who's in the background? It is?

It's a giant Wado. That's awesome. Giant Wado. That's awesome. Holy shit. I, out of any

that was a good deal of mother out of all the fucking Wado shit I've been given since that him and I are so intrinsically tied together I cannot believe I have not gotten this box and I will search

for it at every packs from here on out they're making it look like a Sith Lord and they could not make him look more medicine than they do in that box it's so funny

God like Wado is like a main character in the game he is the sure but what a boring ass box I mean, yeah, the boring as box.

I'm tweeting this out in no context. But yeah, I've been enjoying the game. The platinum also seems to be very easy. The problem is I'm pretty sure I've fulfilled all the things I need in order to get the last trophies of the platinum. And for some reason, they're not popping. And I think that might be tied to cheat codes because there are cheat codes that you can input for the game.

And I've been inputting cheat codes because I think that's how I got mirror mode. and that's how I unlocked a couple of the characters to get the trophies. But at a certain point, I guess that might have fucked things up. And so I don't know if I need to go back and redo some things or what. For example, one of the trophies, actually

quite a few of the trophies. I think like three of the trophies I need to get the last remaining ones are I need to unlock Subalba, who's a character. I need to unlock a couple of other characters. And then I need to get first place in every single race. I've gotten first place in every single race.

and I've done the races, I've gotten first place in the races that should unlock those last characters. Those characters are unlocked for me because I inputed sheets toward the beginning of my playthrough, but the trophies are now not popping for them as I'm fulfilling the actual tasks.

And so I might have messed up my own trophy. You hate to see it. You can have to reset the whole game. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bummer. I was convinced Bobba was going to have a part in attack of the clones.

like while they were on Tatouin the entire time it was like okay so yeah Saboba was the one who kept her at his mom right because like there had to been some like they wouldn't put Wado in if they weren't also going to bring back the fact that Anakin screwed over Subbo like it's a lot of Hold on I love this I mean he kicked his ass yeah but like that's not he's grew in him fairly Subboba actually cheated remember he broke off the thing on the side of Anakin Speeder are there really laws on Tatooine like it's fun

Well, I mean, there's no laws, but there's like mutual respect for the game. True. I don't know. I'm with Imron. I want to see Imron's version of Star Wars upset too. Make a new Star Wars spinoff that's like the Mandalorian, but about Subalba. Mm-hmm. Called the pod race.

I dig it. Make it better than the Mandalorian. I dug it. Pod racer nation. Called that. Pod racer nation. Yeah. I want another racer.

There was another racer. I want another racer. I want another racer because I know there was a race for revenge. for PS2, right? Yeah, I didn't be them testing the water seeing, man, seeing what's out there.

Just seeing. People want this. If they put out another, like a modern racer, at this point, I'm going to be very excited after playing episode one racer because that game's fantastic.

Re-skin need for speed, whatever, and just put pot-ritches in it. So can I ask you a question, bus? Are you going to platinum this because it's an easy platinum or because you're just addicted to it

and you love it that much? Both. I mean, when I first started it, I think for this game as a racing game that doesn't have a plot or anything to it, I think,

you know, looking at the trophies, that was kind of the motivating factor for me. I was like, okay, well, it's not really a way to beat this game unless I complete all the races. But, you know, as I'm doing that, I might as well just chase out of the trophies and make that my main goal. And so, yeah, I got to that point

where I got first place in all the races. And I would have gotten the platinum as a thing to do or as like that final goal of mine. Before we move on to the next thing, Greg brought to my attention. We have new Patreon producers for this month, Delani 20, long skin tight salmon

game jumper X and Mohammed Mohammed I'll remember if I've repeated any of those a shout out to the Central West Gaming and James Hastings yeah and Julian the gluten for you know yeah it's a shout out to the one only game jumper X in the YouTube chat who I caught so you miss me Tim and then I looked at the date and I was like fuck it's July

and I looked at when we don't have Patreon producers yet shout out to join a well for pulling them together so quickly I'll love to see it now bless before we move on to the topic of the show I did want at least for a little bit talk about cyberpunk 2077 because you did get to play it you can watch our full first impressions over on youtube.com slash kind of funny games now but i want to ask you like what did you not talk about there that you kind of now that you've reflected i know you've done a couple podcasts with a couple other people about it what are your new thoughts on the game i don't know to have that that many

new thoughts um i think the more and more and more i've kind of sat on it and more and more kind of thought about it the more and more excited for the game i am uh to come out is more so like and a reiteration of what I was feeling before. Like the places they're going as far as the RPG elements of it and the ownership that you're taking over the story and what path you go down as your V. V being the main character. That stuff really excites me still.

That stuff I think is going to be, I think that is going to be the big takeaway from this game. And yeah, like I just reiterate, like this game is going to be incredible. Like then that's that's really the main thing for me. Greg Miller. Uh, yes,

hi, I'm Greg Miller from kind of funny. com. Uh, I noticed as a fan of you blessing at a u. junior that on, uh, PIS I love you recently,

you stated that Final Fantasy 7 was still your game of the year. Uh, do you foresee cyberpunk giving a cloud a run for his money? Thank you. Oh, that's a really good question. I, I think by the end of the year,

it's going to be a big race between those three. Um, those three being Final Faces and remake last as part two. and cyrpunk. I think the thing that cyberpunk will need to do in order to overtake those other two for me is just have a really good story, honestly. Like if they're able to have a story that I connect with

and characters that I find memorable, alongside doing these things that I think move the envelope in terms of ambition and scope with the different branches you can take and the different customization elements and the different upgrade trees. and dialogue trees and all those things, if they can do that and at the same time

create a memorable experience for me, I think I can see that happening. Especially because for me, I think out of all these games, cyberpunk is the one that is most set up to really vibe with me. I mentioned on shows before that like some of my favorite games are Granthado games, both GTA, San Andreas,

and GTA 5 are two of my favorite games. You know, the DAS, series is really up there for me. I really like this type of game, being the open world city game, being the RPG that is also drenched in this sci-fi cyropunk aesthetic. And so in a lot of ways, cyropunk is kind of set up to succeed with me in that way. But yeah, it's kind of a will-see thing with the story and how well they actually execute. So does it feel more like Deus-X or does it feel like a GTA kind of game?

because watching the trailer, it looked real actiony, and it's not something I expected from the people who made The Witcher. Like, I expected a more, like, RPG kind of thing. You've said RPG a couple of times. I just, I still remain unconvinced that that is an RPG first and foremost, and then an action game part of that. It is, I think when you watch a trailer or when you just watch gameplay, you get open-world action game vibes.

But in the actual experience, it is like 100% RPG. I mean, it is 100% RPG with action elements that are very good, with action elements that work in the same way that you would think of Far Cry works. And so you get a lot of the RPG out of the dialogue branches and the quest system and the leveling up. The skill trees are super, super, super, super in depth. And so I talked about this in the first impressions, but you have essentially like your cool factor, your tech ability, your strength. I forget the exact words from them,

but they have like cyberpunky turns for all these things. Dong size. Yeah, dong size. No, don't size is legit, just the aesthetic thing. But you have those different branches that you can put points into and then go into them and then expand out from there. And that like, I mean, Horizon Zero Dawn has that as well. But the way in which Cympunk, I think, is doubling down on making that

experience kind of core to the whole game and making that that ownership of the of the exact route you want to take within this game making that a core feature of this game I think is going to really drill down the RPG elements of this game like it is this game is way more of an RPG than it is an open world action game even though at the same time it is an open world action game so to what you're saying right like the the in terms of how it feels it I would say the shooting is better than day's X because this day's X has had like the cover system and stuff they did to... I've never fired a gun on that game in my life.

In Deus X? Like the original ones or the new ones? Both. Really? Yes. So I've only played the newer DeusX games being Human Revolution and Mankind divided. And I can't remember the exact route I took in Mankind divided. I know in Human Revolution I tried to go stealth and I started to find out I was like, fuck it. I'm killing everybody. That's usually how it goes. Those games have cover systems and different things they do to commissate for

the shooting because the shooting isn't incredible and in in those games they want you to do stealth more so than even shooting um in cyropunk you know stealth is an option you know going loud is an option hacking is an option um and all them feel kind of equally valuable or not valuable equally valid to me like they all feel like if you want to go loud you're not necessarily going to be super punished for going loud. They don't really encourage you to go one way over another. They want you to really find the way you want to play and go about it. And so in that way, I think it breaks away from that day's X nature like that. But it's also, when you want to compare it to GTA, like the driving in the GTA feels better. And it's hard for me to compare the shooting because, again, I was playing

via Nvidia G-Force now with game streaming. And so there was some hiccup. of the shooting there and in some of the action there. But for the most part, like, the shooting felt fine. I don't know if I'd compare the shooting to actual first-vership shooter games that just do that. Like, I wouldn't compare it to Wolfenstein or Doom or anything like that. But would you compare it to fall out? I'd say it's better than fall out. I'd say I'd compare it maybe to Far Cry even.

And so, like, shooting is good. The shooting worked for me. But it seems to be this kind of jack of all trades. And we'll see which ones it's a master of. that's kind of where I'm at. Yeah, I kind of want to go to that game also not shooting a gun and seeing what happens. Like, because that's a more enjoyable thing to me. I remember like talking to CD Project Red a couple of a threes ago, be like,

can you kill or just not kill anyone in this game? He said, no, no, you're going to have to kill people. Then the next year it's like, no, no, actually we can do it without killing people. So I don't know if they were just bullshitting me before, but I'm curious to how that game actually unfolds that way. Yeah, I get the impression that you might be able to get through it without killing people. Greg, you bring up the game of the year. so far conversation is interesting to me now.

So blessed, like you, even after Last of Us, you're sticking on Final Fantasy 7. Greg, I assume, based on the way you've been talking about Last of Us. Predator. Animal Crossing was your former game of the year. The two extremes of gaming last of us.

Yeah, no, it's firmly in Last It was Part 2 camp. And as much as I'm excited for cyberpunk and ghosts and everything else, like I can't imagine anything dethroning it. Yeah. I hope it does. I hope everything. Throne of course. Yeah.

For me, I also, like, I'm surprised that I'm putting Last of Us over Fall Fantasy 7 because I loved Fallenst C7 so much. But I do think that by a pretty wide margin, it would be my game in the year so far. And, um, cyberpunk would be the one that I'm, I'm very open to changing my mind on that. But like this preview and seeing this kind of round of the game made me a lot less hype for it than I happened before. And I think it was the focus on the brain dance and all that stuff where I was just like, Like, oh man, there's going to be a lot of stuff I don't like in this game.

But the thing is maybe I don't need to do that stuff. Like maybe it's just there's so much offerings in the game that I can just play it the way I want to. And that's going to be an amazing experience. And that's what I'm hoping for. But yeah, this is the least hyped I've been for cyberpunk. I think it functions better as an abstract concept of like, oh, here's a really ambitious game for the people who made The Witcher 3. It's like, that sounds very cool. And I am down to play that game.

But the more details you give me, I'm like, all right, this sounds cool. I'm still down to play this. but you're showing me a reality that might not necessarily jive with the way I want to play a game. Yeah, we'll see. I am still very optimistic about it. Imron, we haven't had you on the show for a while. I don't know what your, have you played Last of Us yet? Not yet.

I just got the code last week. So that was like, I think the same day we got Tsushima codes. So I immediately just started playing that. I will get to, if I finish Tsushima fast enough, I will be able to play last time before then, compare the two. But I'm very, very excited to hear your thoughts on a, on last one. of us too, especially giving you, like, not being the number one fan of Nadi Dog games traditionally in the conversations we've been having about the first Last of Us, right? And especially now, I feel everyone is kind of funny. I'm pretty sure I can say that, actually. Every single person

that's played it so far has been completely in love with it, different degrees of love. But I know Nick and Andy just beat it. He absolutely loves it. Nick's making his way through. And so far, he absolutely loves it. Barrett beat it, same thing. Yeah, I'm very eager to see it. Nick played three hours of Last of Us one before he figured out he was playing the wrong game. Wait, what? Nick, Nick started Last of Us One again thinking it was last of his part. Did he really? No, but you could believe it.

Oh, I know. He's an idiot. Nick sucks. He ain't. Much. Oh, my God. He was so stupid. He really does suck.

It does say, like, how people, how well people hear and know Nick that's like, oh, that's got to be a joke. It seems like, I take that seriously. Wait a second. That's possible. Way too serious. He's like, why am I having this flashback? Oh, my.

I am now looking at a list of games that are coming out that I've been putting together for myself of games that are coming out this year that I'm excited for that I'm still looking forward to. And I'm trying to like parse together. Like can anything else really jump out as a game of the year contender? And it's looking like, like I don't know, man. I think we might have our three here because what? Fast and Furious Crossroads comes out August 7th. And I don't necessarily think that's going to be the one. I mean, we still have two like a three shows minimum.

That's true. Yeah. And that's a big thing. Like Valhalla. But yeah, West of Dead, sports story, Marvel's Avengers, Star Wars Squadrons,

Fall Guys, RPG time, 12 minutes. Tony Hawk, Crash Bandicoot, Cranic, No More Heroes 3, which is supposed to come out this year,

but now I'm getting more doubtful. Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Bugsnacks, um, Death Loop. Like, there's a lot of exciting games coming out this year.

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Now back to the show. E3 is not happening this year. But it kind of is anyways. Summer game fest. summer game mess the summer of play the gaming things are here whatever the fuck you want that's what you call yeah it's happening now man it's been happening it's going to continue to happen i kind of want to ask you guys what are your thoughts so far what are the successes what are the failures who's winning it's a kind of just a big open conversation imron i kind of want to start with you on this so who's winning

is not as hard a question as you'd think because honestly the answer is sony and And that's not I quit. As Microsoft came into the summer carrying so much momentum, especially because we were all there for the game awards and like, oh, this is super cool that they revealed the console ahead of when they were. We usually thought they were supposed to. They've been so open about it.

They've been talking up its features. And then there was that May event where they went, okay, we're going to show you a gameplay from next gen games. And it kind of floundered. Nothing against Microsoft. They just made a mistake there. That was not the way that should have gone. And Sony used that to kind of,

whether they were considering a direct competition or not, they use that opportunity to say, okay, here's what you can actually expect from next 10 games and did a much better job of it. They also stumbled here and there, but it was overall, like, I would put them ahead of it. I don't think Nintendo's really even the running

because they kind of just took the summer off, which is fine. That is their prerogative. I understand why they're doing that because they're so worried about like COVID delays, but this is not a summer where they wanted to compete. And, but seeing how Microsoft kind of got, bounced a little bit,

I think that might be one of the better calls to make. Man, the Nintendo thing makes me so sad because it's not all right and it sucks. I think specifically the three of us, bless Imran and me, have talked for so many different ways, different times on Games Daily, about Nintendo's strategy this year,

or the last year and a half or whatever, and how weird it is that, so they have Animal Crossing. We have Paper Mario coming out, in a couple weeks now. And that was announced not too long ago. Yeah. In a very bizarre way,

just here it is on Twitter, right? And like, in some ways, that was very exciting. Like, I like the Nintendo was like, hey,

we don't even need a direct right now. We can't just announce a game. I just feel like we need more of that, though, on a semi more consistent basis for it to keep up that kind of like relevance of announcements. And because there needs to be this a cadence of, okay,

cool, but what am I going to get to play? And I've been waiting for a new Nintendo game for a very long time. this point. They announced Pokemon Snap, but they didn't say when Pokemon Snap is coming. The last schedule Nintendo game, I think even announced Nintendo game, is Paper Mario. Like, I guess Metroid Prime and stuff like that, like, those will come someday. But right now, Paper Mario is it, and they haven't announced what's coming after that. And it's like, there's all the rumors of Mario games and stuff. And like, that's great. But like, right now they don't exist.

Right now I have nothing to look forward to in the fall for my Switch. And being somebody that wasn't into Animal Crossing, it's like, cool, then I haven't really, like, I just picked up my switch for the first time in months to play the Min Min Smash Brother stuff. I'm like, that sucks. I want more, you know? Yeah. Like Bravely default, it's supposed to be 2020,

but honestly, they haven't said to that demo. And I watched my girlfriend play that demo. That demo seems real bad. Oh, really? I would not be shocked if they took the feedback as like, okay, we got to push this back a little bit. Just kind of quietly working on it.

So with Nintendo, like, what do you guys think? What are they going to do? Like, because right now, like, the only thing we have is, Jeff Grubb's summer game mess where it used to say August Nintendo question mark and now it's straight up wild card Nintendo who knows what it'll do I feel like they have to say something

either the week of or the week after Paper Mario because I think we were having the same conversation leading up to Animal Crossing and they had the issue of oh yeah so what are the Nintendo games for the year you know after Animal Crossing where are we going to get it's been forever since we got a Nintendo Direct and Animal Crossing came through

and you can kind of tell that that was their big focus leading up to its release in like April, I think, times a flat circle. End of March. Once we got Animal Crossing. It did work out great for them. They sold more copies of that game than they genuinely expected to do.

So it's hard to say that they made a mistake. But like Nintendo's always been weird about having a relationship with customers and this is kind of like the zenith of that of them being scared to even announce anything. think. And maybe there's something there because I assume that that's what they're doing with Paper Mario. After Paper Mario, maybe that's when we get the 3D Mario games that are announced as the Fall Nintendo game. I don't necessarily like that strategy because I like to know it's coming

out in the immediate future. I like to know what I can look forward to because as Tim was saying that like, oh yeah, the last year we'd not really gotten a big Nintendo title unless you are an Animal Crossing person. I'm like looking through my Nintendo Switch library right now. Like my home screen to see what's actually there. And it's a Pokemon Cafe Mix, which was that Pokemon game that they dropped. That was, it's kind of, it's very much a mobile game, like a puzzle mobile game that has like a really

cool style, but it's kind of whenever. And then I have Namco Museums, Volume 1 and 2. Yeah. What a year? Paradise and Jump Rope Challenge. And so, and 51 Class of games. There you go. Yeah. So there's that and there is

which I need a shout out because every time I have this conversation, people bring up like, they do have a big game. It's like, honestly guys, you know what I mean. Like, come on.

Zina Chronicles, deluxe or whatever, is not going to push the envelope for this at all. And even if you do, like a game a month is still a pretty low bar. And they aren't actually even hitting that. Like their content for this month was Minmin. That's kind of it.

Yeah, I came in at the last day. Jump rope, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's a, it's a very interesting time for Nintendo.

And I assume a big part of it. is to what Emron was saying, COVID. You imagine that they're like, all right, let's slow down. We got COVID. We got E3 being canceled. Let's just pump the brakes and just go with the flow and see what happens. But at the same time, when everybody else is at the point where they're speaking loudly, when we're looking around and seeing that Ubisoft Ford is about to happen and we got that PlayStation event and all these different events,

it almost feels like their silence is kind of weird. Yeah. But it's that double-edged sword, right? of like what I mean if they don't feel like they have anything to announce do they force an announcement and then get told no you lost D3 and you look bad to compare everybody else it is a summer where Xbox and PlayStation are going head to head right and fighting as they get ready to launch these new consoles Nintendo isn't Nintendo is able to coast off of Animal Crossing put out paper Mario put out these Mario bundles or whatever you want to call them and then the you

know the other game that you just Zeno Blade and be like cool that's you know what we're doing it's not the normal year it's not the year they wanted they've talked about you know how how COVID and everything else has affected them. Maybe it is a year to take your foot off the gas. I know that doesn't inspire people to go buy a switch, but that's difficult to go do right now, period. And there's still on switches. That's the inferiority.

Anything about it is like, we can clown on Nintendo for having a poor library or release schedule, but at the end of the day, they're still selling everything out, and they're still selling millions and millions of copies of games. Animal Crossing numbers are numbers that even the biggest games in the industry would be jealous of. and it's infuriating because

like I want to criticize you so badly for fucking this up but you're doing so well it's like that scene of the Simpsons where Homer's yelling you just lost yourself a customer to Mo while everyone's giving him money like that is this right now like totally like please release more games and it's like

we don't need to yeah and that's what bums me out the most of this is that it just as a Nintendo fan that has seen the good and seen the bad like this just reminds me of GameCube times and certain parts the Wii era and the N64 where it's like there's such gold, but it's so few and far between. It's like the switch like had such a great first couple of years that I thought that forever

we were going to have this cadence of, okay, we're moving on from having the 3DS and the Wii U. Now it's all focused on one thing. There's always going to be at least, I mean, I'd love something once a month. And I feel like back in the day there was that cadence. So it's like sad to not see that anymore. But I would even take like once a quarter having it made. your game that speaks to you, you know, and like having at least two games a quarter that,

cool, you're either going to be this person or that person, whether it's Zeno Blight or whether it's Luigi's Mansion or other titles like that. I just feel like this year doesn't even have the Luigi's Mansion 3 type thing. And it's July. Like, it's like, cool, they might come up with something later, but it's like, we'll see. Paper Mario is going to be the one that I'm really, I'm really hoping into being great, but I'm not that optimistic it's going to get nines. Yeah, and I'm going to love Pokemon Snap, but like Pokemon Snap is not going to set the world on fire. Yeah. Greg, moving on.

They said it on fire with Animal Crossing, right? Like, I just feel like they're in such a different boat this year. And every time they, I mean, they fucking put out a thing of like, now you can swim and we all flip out. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it is, I don't even wrong. I know, you know, there's a lot of different ways to slice this. And I understand that from the hardcore Nintendo or just the video game fans, we want the new shiny thing. We want the next big thing.

But I think in a weird 2020 as it is for everybody. in the 2020 that's going to be dominated by what the bells and whistles of next gen are. Nintendo is playing the cards the best they can. Yeah, but I think it's just a weird thing where Nintendo doesn't play the same game, everyone else does, and that's frustrating if you like Nintendo stuff.

Sure, no, totally, totally. We want you to compete, Nintendo's just kind of like kicking the soccer ball outside of the game. But for years, they said they weren't going to compete. They haven't competed in so long, right? Yes. But I think that's what's frustrating is, like, comparing it to themselves.

it's like all right cool so down all the COVID stuff's happening everything you just said it's totally valid Greg but it's like cool then what about the last half of last year you know yeah yeah like we had like this problem existed I was bitching about Nintendo not having games leading into Animal Crossing and that was pre-COVID you know yeah so it's like and I get that all kind of like goes on top of each other and whatever not to belabor this but great who do you think is winning so far it's gonna sound like a joke but hear me out and you can laugh and then you get but bugs next idea. Okay.

I think I think bug snacks is hands down one E3. Like in this being a weird not E3, yada, yada, yada. I think Imron's point, obviously, of, you know, PlayStation, it's the boring answer that they've won or whatever. They have, but I think they've won in a weird way of like, sure, it's, it's just not this monumental win. I think on the heels of Animal Crossing and what we're talking about of like seeing all of the video game industry, love this game, play this game, Gary make a weird talk

show about it that has shaggy on it tonight. Like there's all this different stuff. But for the PlayStation 5 event to come out and be like, we're going to talk about the PlayStation 5. We're going to show a Horizon game. We're going to show a new Miles Morales game. We're going to talk, you know, actually give you what next gen is. Here's this weird indie.

For full disclosure, of course, my pop agenda does my wife's company, does brand marketing and all that jazz on it. This does not influence my opinion of I don't know what the fuck bugs next is or if I'll ever play bugs next. But the fact that everyone is going to win a dice award. Don't worry. that was part of the agreement for my wife to work on it. The fact that people are still talking about Bugsnacks and singing the Bugsnack songs,

and it's getting referenced still to this day so often. And I mean like the fact that IGN is still tweeting about it nonstop and putting out all sorts of stuff. The fact that Shueh Yoshita, you know, today weeks later in his PlayStation Indies thing, mentions the he still has the Bugsnack song in his head. Like that's a weird thing from the guys who made Octodad, which was another weird, quirky, cool song game that like we all were humming or knew about or whatever you knew it was this weird game like this is just a weird trailer that I feel like has had such legs on it that I don't think anybody would have expected not to mention that when the PlayStation 5 event did end people were pissed off there were so many indies and a weird bugs snacks some people were pissed off about bucks next but it seems universally now that this game that nobody knows what fuck it is where you eat a strawberry and it becomes your hand is now what everybody's talking about still there's a there's a game to this really like meet up thing over zoom with like media and developers and stuff like that's that. And a couple of weeks ago, literally, there's like 500 people in a Zoom call just all singing the

bug snack song because it's gotten that infectious for people. Like, I don't want, it's not a cultural phenomenon maybe overstating it quite a bit. But, you're really, like, honestly, like, from a PR perspective, me being your game is one of the better things you can do, especially if it's not going to get that much attention next to a horizon or something like that. Sure. Next to a mild morale. Yeah.

And that's the thing about it where I know this is a, this is a, this is a, weird year and that's why it's fun to sit here and be like all right cool on this crazy ass whatever the fuck e3 not e3 month long there's a digital showcase every other day kind of thing it's harder to pick the winner and i think that the fact that out of the blue this weird indie game about eating bug or i don't know eating food and becoming them or eating bugs that are the snack or i don't don't know the fuck it is like that that it's had this kind of residence and it is still talked about fondly to this day and people are still singing the song and making memes about it and making things and changing their names to, I think Jeff Grubbs is still about bug snacks, isn't it?

Like, yeah, talking about Grub snacks is still his thing. It's like, it's got this weird lasting effect that I think it's a weird year. So you have to look at a weird winner in a way that I don't think anybody would have expected this. It's also just nice and pleasant. It's not it like, no offense to Last of Us too, but the Last of Us too is not nice and pleasant. Bug Snacks is a good thing to be like, okay, we're all kind of, we're not past Animal Crossing, but, you know, Ammo Crossing kind of had its cultural effect on us. And now we needed something that's like still nice cute yeah bug snacks is the most games media ass bullshit i have ever seen in my life and i don't mean that in a bad way i'm part of it for sure as well like i fucking sing

that shit all the time but gee it does not like it but uh yeah it's it's funny i was referencing dice earlier so Greg i don't think you got caught what i was saying is that it's like it reminds me of untitled goose game sure where it's like like let's see what this gets because people are are super into it for whatever reason it's the weirdest thing blessing and i've talked about the shows, right? And it's like, when it got announced and we watched the trailer and we talked about it, it was very much like, yeah, this is a funny song and it's a cute idea, I guess, or whatever, but it's going to be a six when it comes out. It's going to be, what are you doing in this game? And I still have no fucking idea what you're doing this game. But the more you talk about it,

the more people celebrate it, and the more bug snacks they release that people get excited for. Like, I, is it going the animal crossing route of just being this weird thing? Like, I don't know. What are you doing? I'm going to call it now. It won't. I almost don't want them to release gameplay for it. Like, I feel like that's, I just want to come out. We're playing the game right now, dude. It's a Cujima's experience.

I feel like the moment they release gameplay for it is the moment where that mystique kind of dissipates. And we're all just like, oh, that's what bus next is. Oh, it's a video game. Yeah. I don't necessarily think it's because I have my own ideas of what it might be. And I could be completely wrong. But I don't think it's going to be like an untitled abuse game. I think it's going to be an actual game with actual mechanics.

No offense to the entitled of use game because they have. mechanics. But like, I think this might be more so a, um, like a full-fledged. You're not a full-fledged, but an actual game with like a gameplay loop and like, when you look at the, hold on, hold on. Untitled Goose game had mechanics. It was a puzzle game. Yeah, but it was, I though. It was eye. But this feels like a thing designed to get Chrissy Teakin to like say, what's a bug snacks on Twitter? Oh, she'll know. I can see that. But I also so.

The reason why I make the argument that I think this is going to be more so a gamey game is seeing the tweets from the devs being like, all right, this is our inspiration for Bucks and it's stuff like DarkCloud and stuff like Viva Penaata. I legitimately thought you're going to say Tosholl. No, not Dark Coo. But they did say Bioshock, I'm pretty sure. And so I don't know what that means. But I, with the dark cloud and Viva Penaenaenaena thing in particular and with the screenshots

that me and Greg were perusing through as we're doing an episode of PSL-W, it seems if I had to guess it seems to me like there's going to be some some sort of collection aspect to it it seems to me that there's going to be some sort of mixture of oh yeah you go into dungeons or whatever you go into the forest and you find different kinds of bucks snacks and you collect them and you bring them back to the village

and you do something with them I have no idea you can only find this wall with banana hands yeah you can only do you can only do this with this I think there will be some sort of gameplay progression and possibly an interesting loop there that works and makes it interesting. That's where I'm coming out with it. I hope that is that,

because I'm actually very much looking forward to it if it's that. I'll probably not ever actually play the game. Like, maybe I will. Maybe it's fine. I've been enjoying it on this level before I actually find out what it is. Yeah. Bless, what about you?

It's like it's trading it that way. I don't. Exactly. This is Kojima, ask, I'm telling you. I don't know if there is a winner so far. I mean, if I had to choose one, I would say PlayStation easily because they've had the best showcase so far. They're really good.

And, but that's the only, that's the other thing, too, is I feel like PlayStation is really, really the other one, or really the only ones who have had their own showcase. Like, there's grill collective, there's future game showcase, there's the PC game show, there's upload VR, there's the Microsoft thing that they did with the next gen stuff. But none of that has felt as big or as, I guess, purposeful is the wrong word, but there's, like, there's a reason why that PlayStation 5 event was as good as it was, because they have. had a goal. They need to sell you on the PS5. They had to make this their coming out party. They have to, um, you know, show you why this group of games is worth being excited for. And so getting Miles Morales and getting Horizon Forbidden West and getting bugs. Show some love to ratchet. Okay, guys. I've heard that boy's name once. Um, I mean, there, there's no way to do all that and not have the best showcase. Um, but that's also kind

of what we want from a place, what and expect from a PlayStation showcase. I think it's going to be easier to judge by the end of August when we see what Xbox does next month and we see what this EBS sought for. And I'll also forget that we got E.A. play also. Which shout out to E.A. play. That event was great. And not just because Greg Miller was hosting it,

but because the actual content was great. Or the actual content was more so interesting than previous EA players. I said skate. Like, that's all everyone really wanted. All I had to do. That's true. That's right. That quadrants looked dope. Yes, it's it. But yeah, the reason why

for me, it's even harder to even say that anyone has won so far is that I think as an event overall as the quote summer games fest or summer of gaming or whatever you want to call it I feel like overall it's been kind of messy um it I've not necessarily found myself being able to take everything in in the same way that e3 has kind of helped us take everything in because everything is is locked to a week for the most part having everything spread out over the course of what four months oh no wait was that Kevin that left not with me. I'm back. Oh, it's great. Okay, cool.

You know, having things spread out in a way where it's from May to August and we're in the thick of it for four months straight, I'm exhausted. Like, the UBistoff thing is coming up soon and I want to be excited for it, but at the same time, I'm just like, I've been through so much already. You know? We're talking about that today. It's coming up, yeah, and it's on the 12th, which is a Sunday. And it's like, what the fuck? Like, that's, no, it's not E3 anymore. Like, you don't have to condense this all into an eight-day piece.

period. Why you, you have every weekday in the world to work with. Why is this happening at noon on a Sunday? Like, fuck. And that's where we're at. Like, I think that's a separate conversation to some extent. But yeah, the, when, when, when E3, when we're all like, Ethan he's going to die, I remember talking and being like, I hope that they, everybody gets on the same page and we still keep it contained to one week. Like one week of here we fucking go. And I think COVID fucked that up on top of it, and everything else. But yes, the fact that like, as Jeff Grub puts it, as the summer game mess sprawls out into August. It is a marathon that on one hand is exciting and in one hand is cool. And it's awesome that if you are a dreams fan, there was DreamsCom this past week.

And you could see everything that they're doing. I think that's a great move and yada yada. The problem is that E3 used to be the one week where you felt like you could kind of be up on the entire video game industry, at least the press conference days where you could literally watch all of it and be like, awesome. I have a great feel on what's going on. Now it's that thing of okay cool we did the guerrilla collective the pc gamer show followed that uh then there was the other thing that happened that week that was one of them and then you get all the way down to today you know on the playstation blog they're like here all these games that are getting announced on this thing that's we're giving out nine indie games on the PlayStation blog but not all at once and

not all on one video and not all linking them in the same article at the same time so you're going through and it's like recompile pops up and i'm like okay this i think is one of their announcements today and I know that I've seen it, I think, in our showcase and in the PC gamers showcase. So I think the news is that it's on place. It's like, come on. Like, it's just, yeah. Your attention span and your bandwidth to remember all this and keep it going at once, it's kind of ridiculous.

Like they announced the Ublitz early access date today. And I typically remember like two previous shows where Ublitz was in the last month. And they didn't announce the date either one of those. So like, why today and why like, I, for me, it's just confused. it's a confusing mess. And I understand why publishers like it because they think you'll get more of the information and let it sink in.

But it's the exact opposite is happening because I'm literally forgetting shows and just seeing stuff on Twitter. Oh, cool. It's the problem that nobody's playing by the same rules. When we did the game, kind of funny game showcases, not the guerrilla collective.

The folks over the mix were in charge of going through the games and picking exactly what got on. When we did the showcases, I was always like, cool, this needs to be our exclusive asset. This needs to be our thing. Like, we need,

it's just how we're doing this. So, you know, because I didn't want it to be watered down that, oh, you've already seen this game elsewhere. And so I imagine if you're the Ublitz team and they come to you and like, hey, do you want to be in these other two showcases, you're like, sure, hell yeah, just put our footage in there and show us in the thing and yada, yada, yada. And then there's still that moment, though, of, but we want to own our own beat. We want to have our own moment, which is that we're going to end out our early access

today on, you know, July 1st or whatever. And that's where you get into this thing of it's just getting diluted because there's, how many times you see the games and, like, if, if, I guess it doesn't work exactly, but if somebody had said to me today, oh, yeah, Ublitz early access, I'm like, oh, didn't we know that already? Like, the fact that I saw the tweet and had a press release, I'm like, okay, this is clearly news, but you start getting it's like, oh yeah, I've seen it's multiple times this summer. Like, that's got to be the thing, right? But then it's this weird push and pull argument of, like, I was, I'm never going to be excited for Ublis, right? So does the Ublitz audience,

are they watching everything and seeing every piece of footage and that they want to and then also getting excited for this announcement? Like, I just feel like it's not, it feels, for us, the people who react to it and talk about it and do all this stuff, unwieldy. There's just so much going on. And I've seen a MCFixer. Obviously, kind of funny best friend runs a much of his own stuff, Twitch.combe, slash MCFixer. I've seen him on Twitter being like, hey, there are just too many of these shows.

Like, I just can't. Like, why is this happening? But with that, though, go go. I'm kind of like, sorry, go finish. No, no, I mean, I, but I wonder if that's a content creator, a feeling. It is. And that's my thing with this is like, I am totally the opposite of you, Greg, where when E3 was canceled or whatever.

God, what funny. Canceled. That makes it sound like it's actually harassed. But whatever. I mean, there are a huge about show still coming up. So we can't use that phrase. Here we go. But when the E3

died, at least for this year. When it was wounded. I remember that, you know, we all were like trying to theorize like what we thought was going to happen in terms of are they going to stick to one week or they're going to spread out. And I thought they were going to spread out. And that's what I wanted to.

And I think that at the end of it, like, I love this and I prefer this over the one week E3 thing. That stuff was great. It's my childhood. Everything about that was so awesome of having Christmas every week in the year. Or you know what I mean?

Once a year, having a video game Christmas. And I just think that like the industry's changed so much in the way that all this stuff happens has changed so much. And I think expectations have gotten so much higher because the production value, the presentation value, all that stuff has increased for these shows and the expectations of the fact that the PlayStation 5 reveal event that we just saw disappointed people is a testament to

people's standards are just. completely unwieldly where it's like they announced so many games that people are looking forward to and just because people expected them to be there it was it was oh well there's nothing mind blowing and it's just like okay cool but we still got ratchet and horizon and grand urismo and what it was like that's freaking crazy right apply that to literally any of the other things EA play it's like you can have your issues with EA play for whatever reason because at the end of the day no new game was announced and shown in a super exciting way But it's like squadrons look pretty dope.

They did say skate four. That's exciting. Best EA play show they've ever done. But it's like it's easier to kind of criticize it because there's expectations for all of these shows. The point that I'm trying to get to here is back when it was E3, where it was one week with a bunch of shows, kind of funny, IGN, whoever it was. They weren't doing content for the, like we never covered the PC game show. We never covered the random indie press conferences that would pop up unless we had some insider. knowledge that something might happen or, you know, had some kind of poke or push to do it.

The fact that we're covering all these things that we're like live reacting on Twitch to the New Game Plus Expo and all that stuff, like that's on us. And it's like, I think that we're only doing that because A, why not? B, we are interested. And just the fact that they're all on different days at different times, we can in a way that we couldn't do that when it was E3. And it's like, fuck, we already know we have a 12 hour a day because we're doing the Ubisoft conference and the Microsoft conference and the Bethesda conference in one day.

So I don't know if you're catching my drift here, but it's like, I do think that I want to see, I feel like this year wasn't the best implementation of it all. I think that Jeff's summer game fest thing with the calendar didn't work, but I think that it could work. But it needs to be more defined on tiers of importance of here are the big ones that everyone, you should watch these. and then maybe a color-coded thing or something. I'm like, here's some stuff.

Hey, it's going to be cool. There's going to be announcements and it's going to be great. But like, it's the kind of funny game showcase. It's not, you know, something that is like drop everything you're doing to watch. It is like, hey, this is going to be a pretty neat thing if you have nothing else to do or if you're interested in these type of games. But like there's part of the thing is that again, to your point. And again, it being a weird year. And so it's like there's so many different things here where this was a fire drill, I feel like to get to this point.

that a normal year, let's say there was no pandemic and they were like, E3's not happening, then it would have been a different ball of wax. I think it's how to handle it. Because it's what you're talking about. If like, okay, Xbox did their thing early on with third party,

which they didn't message exactly correctly, and so people were pissed. Then PlayStation did their thing and we're still waiting on Ubisoft, right? EA play just happened. Okay, cool. That was different too. Bethes is not in the race. Nintendo's out of the thing.

It is that I think if all the big players were there in their normal capacities, it would, we would already have that structure a bit more of like, all right, you know what's AAA, you know what's double A, you know what's the indie scene. And imagine next year, and it does kind of suck that because of the COVID stuff, we're all thrown into just a tizzy here. But it's like, I love the idea that, cool, July 12th is Ubisoft's thing. Yeah. Next July, we should expect a Ubisoft press conference, you know? And it's like, okay, cool, late July, it's going to be Xbox. Late June is going to be, or mid-June, whatever, is going to be PlayStation. Like, kind of having these different tempo times that you expect from them in the same way that we expect a PSX

in December. We expect game awards in December. It's like just choose your own time and have some type of consistency there. I think it's the lack of consistency and knowledge of like Nintendo to me is just like, it's stressful when things happen because we just have no idea. There's no way for us to react to it to like expect it. And that's all on top of like looking at this thing now. It's like cool. Jeff Grubb summer game mess right now, the upcoming stuff, July 7th, Nacon Connect, July 8th. Wow, Shadowlands Blizzard stream. Oh, let's go.

DeVolver. July 11th or 12th, Ubisoft. July 14th, another Google Stadia Connect. July 15th, Unreal Fest Online. July 20th, Dev Showcase. July 22nd, Bandai Namco, play anime live. Just what, everything that I just said right there, how many of those would we actually cover if we didn't feel a weird pressure right now because of it?

That bandai Namco thing would be a half hour appointment where I go to their booth and be like, okay, cool, you got Dragon Ball. I'll play that. Yeah. And it's like, I do think that that is a, the bad side of this of like, we're seeing equal importance to this as all these other things where it's like it would have just been an E3 appointment. But the good side of it is seeing things like the few, um,

announcements that Keely's made purely using summer game fest. And so far it's only been Activision things. But Tony Hawks Pro Skater 1 and 2 and Crash Band of Group 4 both awesome things that you wouldn't necessarily see at a major press conference, but they kind of had their own moment, I thought they were appropriately hyped up for what they ended up being. It's also a weird thing because this year's a console launched year. So everyone gets like half secretive and half enthusiastic about all their stuff. So like, for example, Ubisoft stuff had to be in July because they had to wait for the console

manufacturers to go first. And then the console manufacturers kind of went first and then didn't really. And like there have been so many societal things that are happening that stuff got pushed back. Like even people who were doing IGN had their days of play or whatever it was called. but that had to be pushed back because Sony stuff was pushed back and they were talking to talk about Sony stuff. It ended up being much more of a mess than it needed to be

because let's say Ubisoft did want it just not have in July. They wanted to have it in December. They can't this year because they're going to talk about Assassin's Creed that's going to come out in November or alongside new consoles or whatever. So we kind of ended up in a very self-imposed mess. Like the industry as a whole did. And I don't think that's a thing that will, that will apply next year, but maybe we'll just,

like you said, maybe we will use so close to tradition that we'll still have the same kind of, not necessarily problem, but I think we have to get used to. Yeah. I think the biggest thing that hurt this is everyone was playing chicken and afraid to commit to just working together to make this better for everybody. Like,

look, like, so GameSpot had their summer play thing. Like, there weren't announcements there, right? Play for all. Play for all. Yeah.

Sorry, we're just done Monday. Otherwise, I'd be there too. of like, I don't remember IGN's name. And yes, IGN was the summer of gaming, right? And it's just like, they did a great job. So much awesome content there.

But it's just kind of like, okay, well, at the end of the day, what was that? Like compared to what we kind of expected it to be or would want it to be of major blowouts of different games. Whereas summer game fest, the Jeff thing, it's like, we do have gamescom opening night live that's coming up. Like we do, there's expectations there of what that's going to be. And I think that we're just seeing this weird thing where when you look at the schedule for the IGN, uh, summer of gaming, it's like,

cool, a ton of awesome stuff there. We didn't react to any of it. You know? And like, not that that's the end all of like, is this worth doing? But I do think that it's like,

if everyone was on the same page and there was one calendar that was tiered in some way, it's like, then it would be like, all right, cool. This wouldn't feel as overbearing and ridiculous because Greg, you brought up the PlayStation blog post games today. Like this isn't the first time PlayStation's done the

We're announcing a bunch of indie games throughout the The day they've done this morning That was in like January I think right Like it was earlier this year was a wild out there yeah Yeah and it just like we're the ones That are conflating that with this summer fucking game fest You get what I'm saying? Whereas really it's just it's just an announcement on a blog

And it's like I'm with you where it's like I would have much rather to see that as a state of play As a like this is worth watching because we do have an awesome slate of games and we want to push them in front of you. Instead, it just all starts feeling like noise because there is so much noise. Yeah, and that's the thing I think this year.

There's just so much going on. There's just so much happening. And that is why I think it's a weird year to try to pick who won fake E3 or who won dead E3 or whatever you want to call it, non-E3 who won it. I think it is who rises above that noise. And I'm surprised honestly to sit here and not say Keeley. If you would ask me coming like,

hey, E3 is dead. Who do you think is going to win? fake ether out of my Jeff Geely. And I think that yeah, you know, summer game fest isn't exactly what it needs to be. And I'm sure, I'm totally projecting here, I'm sure he has a million different ways and things he's thinking

about for next year and how he wants to do this. And I would imagine too of going to everybody and being like, listen, you trust me every December to be able to hold your biggest games. Let's trust me to be the not a calendar man of this fucking thing where I get to lay it all out

and we get to promote it as one unified here it is here's what we're doing bless he also has like two other shows to do too like he has games common games awards so like there even if he did have announcements it behooves him to like hold some stuff back for those shows well and he's been pimping that out as the season finale of all this and it's like that's cool you know i like that and that is very exciting um but bless i was going to ask you what do you think happens next year that was the question i was actually thinking about asking you guys because for me i imagine that I guess it all depends on what the move is for E3.

Do we see E3 back next year? And to that, I have no idea. I don't know, I don't know if E3 returns or how E3 even returns. We'll see a thing called E3 next year, for sure. Especially now that like everybody is doing their own thing. Everybody has had to find a way to do their own thing and have had varying levels of success. I don't think, I don't think E3 at least returns in the same way where we have people in they're scheduled spots. We have Ubisoft going on

Monday after PlayStation or however, like in Microsoft going on Monday and Bethes is going at Sunday night and all this different things. I don't think you have the same layout for E3 next year. And so I think I'm, to what I'm saying, I think we have,

we probably have a thing called E3 but I do think we kind of get a repeat of this summer in some sort of way and whether that is people have figured things out and because I can't predict the future. And so assuming that there's no protests going on in June, maybe everything is condensed back into June

and people find their own dates and their own spots within that same month because there's success in not necessarily spreading things out over the course of a whole season. And, you know, us not having console reveals and all these different things that are going on at the same time in COVID. I think we get back to some sort of normalcy with that stuff,

But I think things will look way different than they have looked over the last few generations with E3 and everything being in the same week. I remember before E3 was officially canceled, people were jumping off that chip. A lot of people were going like, we're not going to be. Jeff Keely said he's not going to be an E3. We still had no like judge week plans or anything like that. It just, I don't, whatever they bring back next year, I think it's going to be a return of whatever they were going to do this year. And I'm excited to see what that is because I'm pretty sure it's going to be a big fucking mess. I think I definitely think you're going to force some kind of E3 thing next year.

I think the ESA will, if they're still around, you know, who knows, everything changes in fucking two days now. If they're still around, there's going to be some kind of thing and they'll try to force some kind of thing. And I think it will be, it'll pale in comparison to what it's been before. And I think that this is the kind of stuff, these showcases and online demos. And it's also like, you know, yeah, you try to balance out, you know, our optimism to get back to something that's a normal life versus the pessimism.

mystic like we're a country that can't get this fucking shit together at all on this and it's like you know I remember that doctor that I've quoted a million times or yeah yeah doctor from Penn State I think it was or University of Pennsylvania who was like you know he thinks fall 2021 would be the earliest actual events come back into being a real thing and so even let's say that's too far and that's pushing it out like if you're in another country right now and we get to this you know less than a year now to what E3 would normally be. Are you going to be down to send somebody here? What are the international travel restrictions going to be like?

Where is any of this at? We're still so far away from being able to do a traditional show that I can't even fathom it. And I think when you do come back, we're going to have reverberations of this for years to come, let alone less than a year removed from the zenith of it, which it isn't because now we're still going crazy. Yeah. Very interesting points. ladies and gentlemen we're about to do a post show for this here kind of funny games cast if you are a patreon.com slash kind of funny games supporter for everyone else we love you we appreciate

you we will return next week with this show um and like great said earlier we got the the ps i love you iron man vr review going up we got the ghost of sushima review coming here to the games cast in a couple weeks gregg miller from kind of funny what's up yeah i was going to do a joke but then you actually got into serious stuff so yeah great stuff so get us your ironman vr questions for a ps i love you Patreon.com slash kind of funny games. And then also, I was thinking since our review of Ghosts to Sashima will drop on a Tuesday as well, where a PSI Love You will post as well. Review on Gamescast and then also for PSI Love You, writing with games,

Ghosts of Sishma questions we could answer post-review, so non-spoiler stuff. But we'll talk obviously as a games cast crew and then me and Blessing can answer any questions we can the same day as well as like a companion piece. Cool. And then my joke was going to be, of course, I'm offended because I didn't want to say it and look conceited. but clearly I won E3. I host a DA Play,

hosted the Grilla Collective, popped up on the PC Gamer show to tell those dorks about persona. Come on. That's right. Come on. Blessing, always disappointed me.

Ban from E3 for winning E3 in just one year. I know, right. Fuck them. Damn. Damn. Until next time. Love you guys.