Tech Over Tea - An Old Linux Friend Has Returned | Rogue Ren

Episode Date: July 4, 2025

It's been a very long time since Rogue Ren was last on the show and today he's back once again to talk Linux, Linux gaming and just generally rant about what's in the news.==========Support The Channel==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson==========Guest Links==========Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RogueRenTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/itsroguerenBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rogueren.netWebsite: https://rogueren.net/==========Support The Show==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson=========Video Platforms==========🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBq5p-xOla8xhnrbhu8AIAg=========Audio Release=========🎵 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/149fd51c/podcast/rss🎵 Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-over-tea/id1501727953🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IfFpfzlLo7OPsEnl4gbdM🎵 Google Podcast: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xNDlmZDUxYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==🎵 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/tech-over-tea==========Social Media==========🎤 Discord:https://discord.gg/PkMRVn9🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechOverTeaShow📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techovertea/🌐 Mastodon:https://mastodon.social/web/accounts/1093345==========Credits==========🎨 Channel Art:All my art has was created by Supercozmanhttps://twitter.com/Supercozmanhttps://www.instagram.com/supercozman_draws/DISCLOSURE: Wherever possible I use referral links, which means if you click one of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation.

Good morning, good day, good evening. Hello everyone, my name is always Brody Robertson. Welcome back to Tech of a T. The last time Wren was on the show I want to say... Actually no, no. Do you want to know a good, a good marker to know when you were last on the show? I don't delete my notes for like the prior episodes, so I saw what the topics were. one of the topics was about NFTs. That's how long ago you were on. Oh, wow. That was a good while ago. Let's see what number was. I want to say it was like 120 something maybe. Ransan looked it up and mentioned it in my chat the other night.

It was like 160 something. 143. 143 is what I have here. Unless there was another one that I missed. Yeah, and this one is apparently going to be like 270 something. Uh, yeah, it might be 280 by the time it comes out. I'm not sure about the numbering. Okay. Like, I'm looking back here.

I think the first episode, the first episode is 83 you still had the You still had the like the the really old model back then the one of the um Just like a shirt and tie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly Then the last time was on I think it was the last iteration of this model. I reckon no It's the last iteration of I think the two. I think it was still too deep. I think it was my last iteration of this model, I reckon. Yeah, it was, no, it's the last iteration of, I think the 2D, I think it was still 2D, but I think it was my updated 2D. Oh, right, right. It's the same, like, same art style, or like same design.

Yeah, it was, it wasn't the same art style. The art from that model is what was used for the textures for this model. Oh, okay, okay. Okay, because this is my original first ever model which was made in V-roid That I then had someone Edit it a bit and use the textures from the 2d model to retexture and change the shape a little Then had it edited again to have the proportions change to match the world ends with you art style

Okay, yeah right you did Right. I completely forgot about that No, the model does look really good nowadays. I this is by far like yeah, she forgot I go back and I look at my first video I post and I thought why did I think this looked good? To be fair like everyone kind of thinks that with any like rather speak of VTuber like People think that or should think that with their early content if you don't think that you Really have not improved especially with a couple of years The part that really gets you though is that you look at original iron mouse and current iron mouse and there's still a distinct Style to it. Well, no original first month. No original iron mouse is like a whole different model

You mean like original like the Iron Mouse Original Iron Mouse original design. Yeah, yeah, yeah pre-designed model There was still a distinct style to it. My first model was an original design and I looked like guy You look like um, what's a good way to put it? I Looked like generic anime background character number seven. I would say it's just like

You're a bouncer at a cheap rock concert That's better than I gave it It's not exactly a high bar though I set the bar very low So how's uh how's I don't know the past two years I guess we've been talking off stream. As if we've never talked before. Yeah but for anyone who may not I don't know maybe not have seen anything you've done in the past two years. I mean they haven't seen anything I've done in the past year because I haven't posted a video in a year. That's fair. That's I did have a I did have a look at your channel. What was the last one? It was

it was about the open source VJ per projects shutting down and stuff. Ah, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, the one on A few people were shutting down and I also did a kind of a call out to Enochii2D about it at the time. Cause this was prior all the drama that happened with it. And then I've gone, I've recorded like four or five other videos and I just never edited them. Not found the time for them, not happy with the recording for them.

Just forgot. Fair enough. Fair enough. I have ADHD and I started a new job like two years ago. So I'm just like a lot more- Two years ago! A job that went from my old job was retail and I got to just sit on my ass most of the day and do nothing.

Right, right, I get it. This job, I'm actually working. Yeah, no. So now I get home and it was like, oh, I'm actually exhausted now. Right, no, I get it, I get it. Well, I don't get it because I don't work a serious job, but I get it. I have worked a serious job before. As much people meme on fast food as a job

Holy shit working in a kitchen fucking sucks It does I did it. It's awful. Yeah. Yeah, I did it for not quite a year I think was like eight months. Mm-hmm, and after I left the drivers like I am never doing that again. Yeah. Yeah, no like if Absolutely terrible. Yeah, like I'm more than happy to... There's so many other things I would rather do. It's just like... I like what I'm doing right now. I have like, if anyone who doesn't know, I have a part-time job working in a supermarket. It's chill, it's nice, it's like... It's great. But like working in a kitchen,

especially working in a kitchen where there is not air conditioning and there's open oil vats, yeah, it's not pleasant. Yeah, I was working at a burger place and at least we had a freezer full of the fries I could walk into when I got too hot. Yeah, well, the problem with my store is it was like a really small one.

So most of the time I was the person in the kitchen. There was nobody else. So I was mainly doing orders, fries, which is why I was able to walk through the freezer all the time. And then shakes and stuff. And then also cleaning the floor when people came in, because we also had a sit down area. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Um, before we get like randomly sidetracked and never talk about anything that anyone actually cares about, uh, which is very possible.

Um, did you see the announcement for the, what is it called? The Asus ROG Xbox ally X I think is the name not the official announcement, but I've seen like Muda Har's video and Well, it's his video someone else made a video on it. Mm-hmm. I watched that. I can't remember basically every tech channel made one Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like the big news of the possible a days. I Don't think I watched LTT's video on it. I watched someone else's mmm. I wish I could remember who Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like the big news of the past couple of days. I don't think I watched LTT's video on it. I watched someone else's. Wish I could remember who.

I am very... I don't really care about the device, right? Like, it's it's another gaming handheld. Like, it's it's a 900 USD handheld. It's not going to sell exceptionally well. I didn't know it was that much. Sorry? Didn't know it was that much. handheld it's not gonna sell exceptionally well I know was sorry didn't know it was that much yeah we don't know the official pricing of the Xbox branded version but the original version is $900 so I would imagine it's

at least the same amount maybe Microsoft is doing some sort of like Sub. We're going to move subsidizing. That's the you know what I'm trying to say. Maybe they're doing that, but if not, it'd probably be at 900 USD. So I don't really care about the device. I imagine they would because they don't own the stores. Right, right, right. They do on Windows. It is like a direct partnership between the two.

That's why it's like an Xbox brand advice. Might be a little cheaper, but it's probably still at least 700. If they subsidize it that much, look, that would be crazy. But yeah, I mean, I'm well, no, it'd probably be 800 because say they just subsidized the Windows license, the Windows license, like what? 120. So in that range, yeah. Probably like 850.

What I think will be a lot more interesting with the device isn't the hardware itself, it's what they're doing with Windows. Because it's still really early days, we don't really know entirely the details there. But it's like a stripped down version of Windows. Not just stripped down like what a regular person can do, but Microsoft has gone in and just cut out tons of nonsense. I know that, uh, didn't they let the Xbox team do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which Microsoft remembered they own Xbox.

Every so often they remember it. It's like, why can't we do a gaming focused UI? And Xbox just in the corner like, Boss, you know I've been here for like 10, 15 years, right? Well the Xbox has always run like a modified version of Windows anyway. Like there was no reason they couldn't have done it earlier. Or at least it used the same kernel. I don't know if it was actually Windows. Depends on the version. It's not the Windows shell obviously, but it definitely is using a lot of

that like core Windows. It's using a Windows kernel and some Windows tooling around it. Yeah, I knew it was using Windows kernel and I knew it was using, at least some of them were using like modified direct X. Mm-hmm If I remember right like the Xbox 360 was running a version of direct X 10 that had some stuff from 11 So it's like a direct X 10.5. I want to say the Xbox Series whatever the current generation school. I'm pretty sure it's just running DX 12 Probably I could be mistaken there, but that sounds right to me. I even wouldn't be surprised if it was using Vulcan Yeah, that would be fun

What do you think of this? Maybe that the Xbox series like we don't want to fuck with this less work We have to do to maintain it have someone else do it just throw it in there. That's true. What do you think of this? This new version of Windows assuming obviously we can't really be sure until it's like in the hands of people but Assuming that the things they're claiming are true, which is far less battery usage far less system resource usage Just generally considerably lighter Like I'm personally interested in I'm going to run it on like a main machine, but as like a a home theater pc thing or on a secondary hand, like some other device where I don't really care about it. I can see that being like really compelling to people. I never thought about it for a home theater pc. Yeah, that would fix a lot of issues with using like linux on a home theater pc as uh apparently the biggest issue with using uh linux as your home theater pc

is uh level one widevine it doesn't work on on uh linux you get level two and level three yeah isn't level two what like kind of control and stuff like that does Yeah, crunchy roll. I think crunch one might use level three as well Yeah, it's no use is either two or three but it doesn't use level one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah I've never been able to find like a good explanation on why this is the case As far as I know it has to be tied to hardware as well And it has to be implemented in the OS levels default browser. Oh Okay, it doesn't have that

Right ships with whatever browser they feel like. I could imagine maybe there being like a partnership then with like major distros, like a, hey, we're gonna do a thing where in the Firefox on Fedora it works. No, it would be Google Chrome because Google made Widevine. That's, okay, yeah. Maybe it'll never happen. Yeah. That's Google controls so much online.

Yeah. Google's great. We love them. They also control the other major browser, which is also great. But like, okay. Ignoring the other like the HTPC stuff, but like the gaming stuff, have you seen the reports of games running better on Linux than they are on Windows? Like it's not because there's something magical about Linux, it's because Windows is so goddamn slow that like it makes up for the difference. I watched the Dave2D video about it. That is so someone's kind of response video to it. That was a little concerned with how he tested it because he didn't post like what settings he ran stuff at.

Just a valid thing to ask. Fair, fair. I have seen like I did see like that big one, but there have been people reporting stuff like this for a long time. Like I remember years ago with... I think it was the first of the Tomb Raider reboot. There was like a 5 FPS delta. It looked slightly better on Linux, but like that's depend- Like that might be depending on the card you're using, driver version might be a bit funky.

Sorry? That's not the case anymore. But I do think a really stripped down gaming focused version of Windows, it's sort of... it gives me some concern with how like Linux adoption for things like AnteCheat are gonna go right? Because if like the Steam Deck... Yeah that is something I'm really concerned with Mm-hmm like when it was the only game in town like it made a lot of sense like and you were starting to see devs sort of adopt Anti-cheat on Linux

But if people are just running a gaming focus version of Windows and it sort of eats into that already fairly small market share like Yeah, I don't know That's definitely something I've seen I've seen some people trying to claim I don't know this turn out is maybe total conspiracy of uh that Microsoft is only doing this because they're concerned about Linux growing Mmm, they're just like oh Linux is growing in all the handheld PCs. Fuck that, we're cutting that down right now. I do think there's definitely, in my video, I definitely did raise part of that

as a concern. Microsoft has seen these numbers, they know that, once the anti-jeep problem is dealt with, for a lot of people, Windows really isn't gonna be necessary for them anymore. Like they might have a Windows PC for their job, but as like a gaming system, as their main system, if you can do all of the gaming stuff you want, and then most of the other stuff you use is in a browser anyway, like your Discord there's a client for, or it's in your browser, and pretty much every- most of the time you spend in a browser on websites

anyway, for a lot of people If it's not a work machine like Linux is gonna do everything they want right, and that is the case for a lot more people than they realize they just Don't try it or don't know it exists Yeah, it's I understand the entity problem, right? Like I specifically choose games where this is just not a problem But I get it for people who they play one game right like there are there are League of Legends player They're a CS go player that like all the all the VTubers who are like Valorant girlies

Right right plays just they stream Valorant six hours a day, which Mm-hmm. I don't know how that doesn't drive people insane. I hours a day, which I don't know how that doesn't drive people insane. I can't do shooters anymore. Like, like, Marvory was the only one that I kinda get into, but it's, it's already gotten to that, like, it's already gotten to the problem that Overwatch had where people know the characters way too well now and lobbies are an absolute chaos, especially with the, with the high movement characters. Like you see a Spider-Man or a Black Panther just fucking zoom across the screen.

I can't even move my mouse that quickly. I don't know what to do with you. Oh, that's why you can't play competitive games because the amount of dedication, the amount of just luck with your genetics of having that reaction time and the amount of time, the amount of just luck with your genetics of having that reaction time, and the amount of time you have to put in to learn the game, is insane. I'm just like, that's not fun.

Yeah, no, I used to do it as a kid. Like, you know, when you have, you know, 27 hours a day, you know, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. My brother got really into competitive Smash Brothers in the Brawl era. OK. Yeah. So far that he went and modded our Wii to where he replaced Brawl with Project M, which makes Brawl like Melee. Because Melee is like the best Smash game ever made.

And nothing will ever beat it, apparently. I didn't know that. And I tried to play it. Mm-hmm because melee is like the best smash game ever made and right right repeated apparently I didn't know that and I tried to play it with him one day and It turned into me just sitting there waiting to die because he was just juggling me. Uh-huh. Uh-huh Yeah, you see I've never played smash again since like you see people that like Especially Nintendo games the Nintendo games are very deceptive where you are you see people that like, especially Nintendo games. The Nintendo games are very deceptive

where you are, you have people that own the game and then either bring it out for parties or they play it every day. And there's no in between. Yeah, yeah. It's like, we're either gonna have the best time ever and have total chaos or I'm just gonna sit here as you kill me over and over again for the next two hours.

Yeah, yeah. I feel the same way about Mario Kart as well. Like, people who grind out Mario Kart, like I... Good for you, but like, I don't know. I feel like it takes away the fun for everyone else at the party. Oh, I did figure out what I watched about it it was LTD but it was a clip from WAN show okay okay I think I like scrubbed through their I scrubbed

through their video a couple other people's videos just to see like you know the Xbox rep also I say, but it was 25 minutes long. Well, that's a clip. It's a bit of a long one. The Wants Show goes for like six hours. Does it now? Sometimes it does. I don't know if it always does or not. Okay, I haven't watched The Wants Show in a long time.

They're really long now. I remember when it was like a pretty short and succinct show, but sure. Yeah, no, they're going like three, four hours apiece now. Okay. Sure, mate. Look, I guess it must be pulling in some good money then if they can justify that. Yeah, it has to. What I was saying before is I scrubbed through a bunch of people's videos just in case the Xbox reps like said different things about the control

or about the thing to like different people and like got sort of like different bits of information that weren't being recorded elsewhere. I tried to consolidate all the info. Right, right, right, exactly, yeah. I think it's an interesting concept. The people who buy it, I hope they have a good experience, but also I'm kind of hoping Microsoft pulls a Microsoft and fucks it up at the last second. Well, I saw someone in my comments say, well, Microsoft is just going to inshittify it, like as votes come out.

Probably will happen. Yeah. I don't think they'll stop Linux from taking over the gaming space, but they may significantly delay it. Mm. Mm. Yeah. Because again, if this comes out super stripped down,

oh, we're just gonna use this until Microsoft starts realizing, oh, we need to monetize this one too. And it gradually gets worse and worse and worse. And now we're just gonna be right back to, and Linux is starting to look like the better option again. It just took an extra five, 10 years. Mm-hmm.

The one thing that I've not seen commented on is whether or not it's going to have, like Steam OS has, where it has the KDE desktop, if this is going to have like a proper Windows desktop mode as well. That... I don't know if they could if they wanted to. It's a, look, it's a thing that Microsoft is working on themselves. I'm sure they can work it out. I would just be curious to see if that's what they're planning to do or if they do I'm sure they could do it. Hmm The question is what they want to put in the effort, right?

I don't think Windows was designed to be modular the same way like KDE and stuff work. That's true It would take a lot more work. Mm-hmm Yeah, of course So it would take a lot more work. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Of course, they also are really good with virtual machines, because they use hypervisors for everything in Xbox. They may throw a Windows desktop in a hypervisor and just be like, boom, done. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I'm actually curious about that as well,

because that's the way they do it on the Xbox. I wonder if they're going to be chucking games in VMs for this I Know they're gonna that's gonna be compatible with steam so I don't think every game will be like that But they might do it for Xbox games Hmm I could see them doing it for Xbox games. I don't know for certain they will or not. Again, they may just want to just keep everything as low effort as possible and just be like, hey, Xbox team, make this run better and that's all we care about. That's true.

That's true. That does seem on brand for Microsoft. Also they would have to then, if they wanted to do that, they would have to change how it works for the Windows Store. And I don't know if they'd want to do that across their desktop as well. Right. Mmm. One thing that did annoy me about the announcement is... So, the one... I stayed up for the State of Play trailers, I stayed up for Summer Game Fest, I skipped the Xbox Showcase, I was like, I was gonna do nothing in the Xbox Showcase, it's fine.

And then in the fucking- the Xbox handheld bullshit, we see a trailer for Silksong. Like, what- how? Why? Why is this the way you're doing it? Ugh. Honestly, I wouldn't have, I would not have been surprised at this point if somewhere else in the trailer they're just like, Hey, you know what? Here, have Kingdom Hearts 4. Why not? So I'd be able to just like, I would keep, we're getting trailers for Silksong. Silksong's still not out. Oh, by the way, it's now going to be coming with this ROG Xbox Pre-bundled. Mm-hmm. I did see some like confused weird. I

Saw a lot of confusion about that people like oh, it's a launch title for this device like no, it's it's a comps. It's a computer. It's It's a I mean they could try to do it. They could make it Xbox exclusive and it partners with that. That would be so insane if they did. Well, okay, it's confirmed to be on Game Pass. They showed a little Game Pass logo in their trailer. I mean it makes sense to be on Game Pass. But if they released it on Game Pass, the Windows Store, and not Steam, that would be so fucked. It would also just be a complete 180 for Microsoft, because they're now going all in on,

hey, we're going to make our exclusive no longer exclusive. We're going to release them on PlayStation and on Steam. No, except for this one. This one we're going to keep. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of hope they go back through some of their backlog and release those games on Steam. Because there's some good racing games in... There's some older Forza games that are actually pretty good. That are locked to the Xbox and locked to the Windows Store.

Because they've gone and released Horizon 5 and... The latest Forza Motorsport which is on Steam but the rest of them good luck have fun enjoy I have not played a racing game since PS2 game Oh, did my discord die for a second? We good? Oh no. Okay, I can hear you now. Okay. I was saying that I haven't played a racing game since the PS2 Gamecube era, which was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2.

That's of the Need for Speed games. That is a random one to go with, sure. It's the one that came with it. Fair enough. I got it used with a bunch of games, that was the one it came with. Apparently, the PS2 version is the only good version of that game. Every other platform's version sucks. Like they are just almost completely different games. I look at Hoppsuit 2, the first post is why do people say Hoppsuit 2 on PC is bad? Yeah, that makes sense. Apparently the PC version, it has input delay and the controls are like really floaty.

That's sure. I love the days of not having steam input. That was great. Yeah. And then also Need for Speed underground. Was it one or two on the GameCube? I think it was underground one. I want to say. Oh, so a really good game.

I did not get very far in that because my brother and I were idiots and couldn't figure out how to progress. So we just did split screen and raced each other with just the default cars all the time. Which does not help your progression at all. No. Oh man, I've not played Underground 1 in so long. I've played a lot more of Underground 2, but one I kind of want to go back to. Yeah, those were fun. I had a lot of fun memories with those, but never played another racing game since then. I kind of gotten back into racing games recently when I played Tokyo Extreme Racer, and I kind of want to go back and play some of the older games that people have said are really good,

like Forza Motorsport 4, like Horizon 1. I've never finished Gran Turismo 4. I had it on PS2. When I was a kid, I couldn't finish the license exams. So I couldn't really progress very far. My thing with racing games is that I don't like the simulator style. I like the arcadey ones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you're doing stuff that's just like, it's kinda unrealistic, but also it's a video game. So why the fuck ones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, where you're doing stuff. They're just like it's kind of unrealistic But also it's a video game. So why the fuck not? Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that I get that I do feel like that's a problem with like modern racing games where a lot of them Do seem to be like there's a at least in the triple a space. There's not really any good Arcade races a lot of the arcades are all about racing games the racing simulators yeah yeah I'll there are there are some like a lot of the racing YouTube's are starting to call this like the the era of indie races because there's a lot of

really good indie racing games coming out that are going back to that route of like arcade or more sim arcade where it's still like partially simulation but like you know you can do stupid shit as well I know I like the simcade where it's still like partially simulation but like you know you can do stupid shit as well I know I like the simcade as well I just don't want it to try to be like as accurately realistic as possible right I don't wanted to drive a real car I'd go drive a real car right right right no I get it I get it I get it no I I don't know I feel I've talked about this plenty of times on stream I kind of feel the same way about like just general games looking like real life

And this is a real problem you're starting to see especially more so with the UE 5 stuff where like There is a UE 5 I see a I see a trailer for a game And you know do you remember back in like the early 2010s when you saw an indie game made in unity and you're like that's a unity game just like you don't even see anything else like one frame that's unity game i feel the exact same way about ue5 games now yeah uh the difference now is that all those early unity games had the same sort of cartoony style to them and now all the ue5 games is like a certain type of realistic that you just immediately tell. Yeah, there's something about their lighting engine. There's something about the way they handle geometry. That's just...

The look is very cinematic, even if like the camera work is not cinematic, but like the color grading and lighting looks very cinematic at all times. Color grading and lighting looks very cinematic at all times. It's not to say that every UE5 game is bad. It's just a lot of Look the same is the problem. Yeah, that's not a bad thing It's just they look the same and I want variety now what there are games that do look different like black myth Wukong I'm pretty sure was UE5 game Maybe is you maybe actually hold up. I know there's that it doesn't look different enough. You can still hell at a glance. Oh, it's you. Just without

even a second thought. Let's see. Engine. Oh, you know, that was UE5. Yeah. OK. I thought it was. I thought it was in development long enough to be UE4. I think the main problem now is that games have a choice of art style when they're being made. And photorealism is an art style. It is. They all keep using the exact same photorealistic art style. It's like, change it up some. Take everything you've done, keep it exactly the same, but like exaggerate some proportions.

Change the shader from the realistic one. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. What I do think is the case is, now that there's not really limitations on, like, you know, on the PS2, you could not make a game that was photo-realistic. You had to work with those limitations.

I would say, I would say probably late PS3, 360 is when we started seeing games that were truly photo-realistic. And then obviously in the PS4. Especially, especially late PS3. Cause like when The Last of Us came out, you compare that game to the first PS3 game, it's like there was a generational leap

by the end of the PS3's lifespan. Yeah, that is actually a fantastic example. I still stand by to this day that both of The Last of Us remasters look exactly the same as the first one on ps3 Slightly different lighting and slightly different textures and that's it. Uh, I think you should go back and have a look at it there is a It's it's a little bit more noticeable than you would think it's not super noticeable, but it's just

You know, there's like a bit more It's that the improvement is not worth the change. Sure. Sure. I I do think the The ps3 and the ps4 version do look basically identical the ps5 one They were okay part of the problem with the ps5 one Not problem part of the improvement with the ps5 one is they did also change some models around so Like they they redid some of the face models, so they kind of look different even if they're not Even if they're not higher quality like there's there's more of a difference there yeah, I'm looking at a screenshot of PS3 PS4 and PC and

PS4 and PC. And, uh... PS3 and PS4 basically look the same with slightly higher resolution textures. PC, it's like, oh, it's a different model. Yeah, yeah. That's the PS5 version. That doesn't look better, it just looks slightly different. Yeah, that's the PS5 version as well then. Honestly, I'm surprised we didn't see an announcement for another remake of The Last of Us.

I really am surprised. Didn't we have an announcement for The Last of Us Part 2 remaster? I don't know. Maybe, maybe that's a thing. Was that a while ago? Yeah, no. The Last of Us just played the fucking PS3 or PS4 version. They really want you to care about their remasters. Yeah, no, the last of us just played the fucking PS3 or PS4 version.

They really want you to care about their remasters. It's just like, they hit gold once. They keep remaking games, remastering games that don't need it. It's like, hey, you've got some great old games that you should remaster. Alright, so we're going to make a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn. That I think is the worst. The game came out like four years ago. Yeah, that is by far the worst example

it was it wasn't a ps4 game originally like i see like i get okay it was already on pc i get having a ps5 release and have like updated textures but calling it a remaster like no stop just actually we made the game from the ground up like I get a final result early looks different yeah I get taking the PC release and then putting that on PS5 that makes sense that doesn't yeah it's just like why why did you do this mm-hmm so speak looked at them side by side it's just like the lighting's better mm-hmm great about it speaking of our

speaking of remasters how long until we get an announcement for a p5 remaster at the current rate it'll still be before Persona 6. Because they seem to be doing every single thing except announcing Persona 6. We have a P3 remake, we had Meta 4, we now have the P4 remake. Um, oh there's like a remaster of some game from 20 years ago. No, no, no, there's more. There's more. OK, remade Persona 3. Uh-huh.

They remade Persona 4 fighting, the Persona 4 fighting game. Did they? Yeah, they at least they ported it to PC. OK, OK. I can't remember if it was a re- I'm pretty sure it was like a remaster or something. Hmm. Could be mistaken about that.

When I look, sorry, everything when I look up P4 is just being taken up by the reveal of the new remake. It's hard to find anything else related to P4 right now. P4 Arena. Okay, P4 Arena Steam. Arena... Steam. Is P4 Arena Ultramax a remaster or a sequel? Is that what it was called? Ultramax? Ultimax?

Uh, it might just be... Or is... It might just be a PC release of it? Maybe with updated textures? I don't know. Might be. Oh wait, no, no, hold up. So no, it actually might be a remaster. See, this is the problem, right? Because like I remember when... The whole mess of remake and remaster, it's been a problem for a while. Like I remember back on the PS3, back when you would get like, here is the, do you remember the um, the the Kingdom Hearts collection on the PS3?

Where it's like the same game, but slightly, they upscaled the textures, nothing else changed. But now we're actually seeing like real remakes with like the Oblivion remake, and Ninja Gaiden 2, uh, you know, the Persona 4 remake that got announced recently. What do you- Uh, let's see, let's see. You still looking for the thing? Are you still looking for the thing? Yeah, here it is, here it is.

Presota 4 Arena Ultimix. 2013, 2014, 2014, 2014, 2014. And yeah, it is just an updated port that was released in 2022. It's not a full remake. What do you, uh, what do you, what do you think on the, on there being a persona for remake? Why? Cause you played a golden, haven't you?

Yes. I played the Vita version. Did you finish the game? Yeah, I played all the way through on stream. Oh, okay. Hilariously. Wait, you played the... When you played it, wasn't that still when the game was kind of funky on Linux?

Yeah, that's why I played it on my Vita. Ah, okay, okay. I have a modded Vita that could do video output. Ah Okay, right, right, right Yeah I played it through that way because I couldn't get any of the cutscenes or stuff to work right on Linux Mm-hmm, then by the time I finished the game it ran perfectly on Linux. I Didn't get around

full There's a great segue into talking about Denuvo because they added Denuvo to it. To... It originally did not have it. To which one? Persona 4 Golden. What? Originally when it released on PC, it did not have Denuvo. They added it in.

When did they add it? I want to say when they released Persona 3 Port released on PC, it did not have Denuvo. They added it in when they released. When did they add it? I want to say when they released Persona 3 Portable on PC. It was before the reload mirror make. Golden came out like 13 years ago. Yeah, when would... Let's see. PC... Actually, wait, no.

Hold up. When did the... No, okay. No. The Windows release is a lot more recent than that. Wait, 2020? It didn't come out in 2020 on PC, did it? Uh, it was released on Steam in 2020. Oh, okay, okay. That makes sense. Okay. No, it did have to do about the start. Okay. On Steam at least we love to do. Yeah. So the new vote. Yeah.

Fuck it. I hate to do. I hate Denuvo. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Denuvo is single-handedly why I still not have finished Persona 3 Reload. Uh-huh. Um, because when I was really into it, my internet went out for a couple days, and I couldn't play the game anymore, and I just didn't want to pick it back up after that, because I had a thing telling me, it's like, yeah, you can't play the game you paid 70 dollars for. I know you weren't why bother weren't you also weren't you also doing early testing for p5 strikers like when that game first came out or

am i thinking of another uh royal not not Strikers. Royal, yes. When it first released I was one of the few people who owned the game that had both a Linux desktop and a Steam Deck. So I put a couple logs in there in the GitHub list for it to help try to figure it out. I didn't contribute a whole lot but it was just like here's a couple things. Yeah. I remember- That's how we found out, Danuvo's activations count different proton versions

as new activations. Yep, yep. People are running through this problem with, was it the new Doom game? I think, yeah, yeah, it was the new Doom game. So there was a- Was it Doom or one other, and I think one other game that came out

around the same time. With Doom, there was a- Was Doom or one other- And I think one other game that came out around the same time. Uh, with Doom, there was a Mesa bug where the opening cutscene would either crash the game or would lock up and not continue. You could get past by just adding a thing to skip the cutscene, but um... For that first couple of days, people were getting temporarily banned from their single player game yep that's always fun and oh I have words do you know what our do you know what game is to blame for the introduction of de novo I would not be shocked if it was like a JRPG you are very very far from it. It's a it's a much worse. It's a it's a it's a very obvious company that people don't like.

People don't like, obviously. I don't know, Treyarch. No, it is out FIFA 15. Wow. So it was EA. Yep. Yep. Yeah, because oh, that's right. Because Ubisoft used to have their own DRM system that is even worse than Denuvo, which

I didn't even know that was possible Their DRM system, which was for games way back for like Assassin's Creed 2 mood of hard made a video about this You had to be online the entire time It was not gonna generate a token that had to re verify every so often No, if you lost your internet mid game, you were kicked out of the game. I know people complained about this when Diablo 3 came out. I didn't know there was games back during AC2 era that had this problem.

AC2 on the PC, which was later than when AC2 first released. Right, right. When, let's see, when was the PC release of that one? Not that much later, only a year later. It's popping up now, as the servers shut down. You can't. Ubisoft is still selling these games on Steam and you just flat out cannot play them. Surely not. Way that.

As of like a couple days ago. Recent. Oh, yeah, I just had a look at recent reviews. As of the 6th of June, I think is the earliest one. Yeah, looks like 6th of June when they shut the servers down. That's at least the the the earliest I can see. Ubisoft broke the game, do not buy this game. Game is unplayable, won't start up in story mode, Ubisoft broke the game with an update, what the fuck? Yeah, and there is nothing legal stopping them from doing this. Well surely they can't keep selling the game like that, like that's kind of crazy. At least in the US, basically if you put something in a EULA, it is legally binding.

You can break basically any law you want. Okay, better question. Like usually Valve is gonna pull something like this down. Like that's, like you're selling something where you literally can't play it. I hope so, but nothing's happened yet. Jesus Christ. Okay. Um. Well. Yeah. This is exactly the situation I tell people about when I talk about like, Genuvo and stuff of this exact thing happening. And people are just like, oh what, you just never have internet it's like that's not the fucking point

Yeah, no it's not the point like right it's okay as an example right I What what's a random game I want to go back and play the first Drakengard game the that was the series that started dear It's a PS2 game. Or I want to go back and play like Onimusha. I can do that. Like there's no servers they can shut down that will brick that game. It just, it exists. It's a single player game. Like I totally get bricking online stuff. Sure, whatever. I don't care. care brick your achievement system. I don't care but like The story mode of a game that doesn't even have online Features in the game, right?

Like it's it's one thing if it's a game where like it's it's like that pseudo Online single-player like a Souls game where people can invade the world. Yeah. Yeah It don't need it But I kind of get it if the game's written fucking stupidly But for something where that there's nothing there like Woody what? There's no reason to do this other than greed Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and yet there are people on reddit who will go and defend it So I was having a look at AC one reddit. I like I

Was just having look AC two is bricked. I don't know if AC one is Brick it's only two. That's only that's the one I know about I think the rest of the games are fine Okay, AC one is bricked because the game is just broken on PC. That's a different problem That's just broken on PC. That's a different problem. Oh. Okay. That's just a shitty port. Yeah. Um...

That said, Oh, Splinter Cell's also affected. Ubisoft's DRM, though, has been cracked. So, you can still play the game with alternative methods. Mm-hmm. The fact that you can go to Steam, pay money for this game, and the game just doesn't work. There's like, I know what you're saying about US law, but like there's no... Well, they're not a...

Ubisoft isn't a US company. Like that's the thing, right? No, but Steam is. That's true. I don't know. I... No, it's this weird situation of... I feel like France can fuck him and force them to do something. They have to. Like, as far as I know, the European Union has better consumer protection laws than the US.

Mm-hmm. So something should the US. Mm-hmm. So something should be done. Mm-hmm. But also, I don't know if they can enforce it onto a US platform. Well, they could force Ubisoft to stop selling it through the platform. That would be the only thing I could- That would effectively do the same thing. Yeah.

Like, I don't see any reason why valve would keep trying to sell the game if If like the EU's like hey Take the game down like that. There's never been a situation where they've been like tried to fight the EU about keeping a game up right but that also raises the question of just Hey, you can't play Assassin's Creed 2 anymore the question of just, hey, you can't play Assassin's Creed 2 anymore. Yeah.

Well, if you ask me, is the best Assassin's Creed game? Ooh, I don't know. I like, I like, uh, I like Brotherhood. Two is really good, but Brotherhood, I feel like is just an improvement upon two. That's fair. That's fair. Brotherhood is really good. I just liked the story of two a little more. Fair. Just cause it was introducing all of the aspects for the whole series

that everyone grew to really like. Right, right, right. No, I get that. The Assassin's Creed one, set up the introduction and then two introduced all the like big world-building stuff that everyone loved mmm don't you love um don't you love the American during the third crusade it's my favorite part I also had one of the best video game jokes at the time, which was introducing his uncle Mario. Oh, he came in.

Ezio, it's a me, Mario! That is, to this day, still hilarious. I, I, like, yes. But I love that, I love that in AC1, I don't don't know what like what Ubisoft was doing at the time But like every single other person has like has an accent like makes sense except Altair I don't know why how or why that happened And it's never happened with any of their other games For this carrot for that this world. Mm-hmm except for the main character who lives in the exact same area as all these other people.

I think they fixed it in. So in Revelations, you like little bits where you go back and play as Altair. I believe young Altair still had the voice, but the second they aged him, they just gave him a whole different accent. Any new lines were done with an accent and we're just going to pretend like the non-accent parts just didn't happen. Ace, like, I'm kind of sad what's happened with a lot of these like really long running series. Whether it be Assassin's Creed, whether it be Call of Duty, whether, you know, any of like Need for Speed, right? Like I grew up with a lot of these series and to see Just how big the companies have become but like just how

How watered down the games are right and how just slop they are Pretty much because it's when you were a kid. You're just like wow I want everyone to buy this I want them to make lots of money So they'll keep making this game and then you see what they become and you're like oh god what have I done yeah yeah there's there's few studios that are still pretty solid like I don't think anyone really has much of a complaint about team ninja yet like they've been going pretty strong for a long while they do ninja Gaiden are the new games. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

But like they're not giant like the Ninja Gaiden games, but I know of them. Mm-hmm Like from software right like from software they beat like from softening around since like the 90s and What do you like currently the only complaint with from soft is that all their new games are just Elden ring DLC instead of a new game yeah, I I Pete I know people who've been playing night rain and there's people that have been enjoying it, but I Just it just doesn't appeal to me in any way. I just have no I've zero interest in playing night rain in any way. I just have no, I have zero interest in playing Night Reign.

Yeah, I got a buddy in my D&D group who's been really into it and he's been liking it a lot. That's really the only complaint that I found for people is that they love the game. They're just sick of it being tied to Elden Ring. They want new, they just want it to be a new name essentially. Right. Well, that's what Duskbloods is and maybe that'll be something but it's the same style of game as Nightraider. Maybe they're gonna take one. Yeah, maybe they're gonna take what they've learned from Nightraider because like a lot of people are complaining that it has no communication system in the game, basically very minimal communication system. So if you're not playing with friends, it's literally unplayable. That game concerns me as the beginning of the end for FromSoft because it is an online only live service game. Which every single time a big company has done that, they've just gotten worse and worse and worse. Yeah, well hey at least we have the older games, right? Like, you know, you can

go, I played the Kingsfield games. I don't want to because From Software was fucking evil back then. So you know how, like, in Dark Souls, there's like mimics, right? All this, all this fun stuff. In, I think it's the first King's Sealed game, in the opening section, you walk through this hallway and the ground just falls out from you. There's like no visual indication of it happening. You just die. Oh, it's like those unfair platformer games

where it's like, you better learn where stuff kills you or you'll keep dying. Yeah, yeah. And that sort of sets up how unfair the game is as you go through it. They legitimately made a rage game. Yeah, yeah. So I'm not going to touch that with a 20-foot pole. Probably for the best. Oh, speaking of games that I do reject, but I finished now, so it's good.

E33. I mean, I really enjoyed it. I really, really enjoyed it. Yeah, yeah, I finished it. I beat the super bosses, did everything. I have not yet. I'm still in Act 2. So I really, really like it. This will be big E33 spoiler segment. So if anyone who doesn't want to hear that, uh, skip, I don't know how long ahead. Work it out.

We'll put a time code at some point. Maybe, if I remember. And this is just going to be for act one. You're not going to spoil it for me, are you? No, no. So where in act two are you up to? Just so I don't say anything. Still in that same starting area. Mostly because I can't figure out where the fuck I'm supposed to go. Still in that same starting area.

Where you learn to do the gradient counters. Oh, umaco station. Yeah. Oh, no, that's not the salary that's further ahead then. Where's. Oh, wait, it's where you first learn to do gradient counters. Right, I feel like I've explored that entire area and I can't find where the fuck I'm supposed to know. I did just find it. I found it the other night when I was playing it. I finally found where I was supposed to go. I missed an arm that acts as a bridge and I just kept overlooking it.

Oh, okay. Okay. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. That's right. No, it wasn't last night. I found that last time I played, because I messaged you, because I found one of those secret bosses that just wrecks your shit. Which one? Romatic something. It's the thing with like the naive arms and hands that glow red. Okay, okay. If you are not perfect with your parries,

it just attacks like seven times in a row and wipes you out. Right, right, right, right, right I thought at once had that happen and immediately turn around just went nope Well by the end of the game you'll be doing millions of damage so it's not a concern then I Really I really need to look up best equipment for Mael, because apparently she can do the really, really big damage. I will say she doesn't really matter until you have the damage cap broken.

Because by the end of Act 2, everyone's going to be just hitting damage cap all the time. So what you kind of want to be doing is using whoever does the most hits per attack. Gotcha, so DPS. Yeah, yeah. Cause like, most of my old attacks, like her big attacks are one really big hit. But if you have a damage cap of 9999, like, it's doing nothing.

Right, you wanna do multiple of those, not just one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think Verso has a move, Stealed Strike, where if you don't get hit, the next attack will do 13 hits in a row. Verso, I don't like playing with him. Even though he's my main in my party because of his perfection system. Right. As I'll go and I'll be building it up and then I'll fuck up once at the very end and it just Ruins the whole thing. I'm just like god damn it I'll go through and it's like alright

I'm fighting like three enemies and it's like Perry Perry Perry next time to be Perry Perry Perry next very Perry miss There is a weapon you can get from later on where you start in s-rank which does create Could not remember where you get it, but they you'll probably run across it somewhere because I keep fucking up parries and stuff even with the timing modified slightly because I have the mod to make the Slightly easier timings because I don't play reaction based games. I play turn based games. Mm-hmm I still get my shit wrecked So I went and I think I text you about this Well, I was like, I can't fucking get the tiny because the pause right before they hit

This I went I undid everyone stats Uh-huh and respect them all in vitality and defense. And that's it. I just have a party of tanks. So at least when I fuck up, I don't immediately die. Yeah, with Mael's big hits, they actually had to nerf it because they made it too easy to one-shot everything. So she has a move, which... So on Myel's tree, there's some moves that are like blocked out right now. Later on, before nerf, she could do 600 million. And the boss with the highest health in the game on expert has about 18

so it's such as two shots and it's dead no 600 million oh one shot sir oh one shot's the hardest boss in the game how did you screw that up uh that's what ithhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uhhhhhhhhhhhhh is what it is you can still one-shot him, but now you're gonna now you're gonna have like every Illumina like every damage Lumina equipped even like one that does like random damage and you like luck roll. They wanted to make it a bit harder to one- shot him. With your- It's not possible. It's just like, all right, now you have to put an actual effort to do this. Yeah, exactly. Because before it, there was no effort. Just a couple of damage Lumina and the game just broke. With your issues with parrying,

I really want to see your reaction to two separate bosses They're both optional bosses so you can completely skip them if you want to What's really funny is that I've also lately been playing nice day for fishing Which is the indie fishing RPG from Viva La Dirt League. Nice day for fishing Oh, I didn't know oh Okay sure Nice day for fishing. Oh, I didn't know. Oh. OK, yeah, sure. YouTube sketch comedy channel, I like made a video game and it's actually good. OK, OK. So you said you said fishing game, I think there's like 100 games

that came to mind for a second. It's a fishing action RPG. Right. OK, you go to fish, you hook a fish and then you are pressing the attack button and then you have to block and parry the fish's turn attack to attack. I'm actually pretty good at their parry system because they don't have like a slowdown thing to warn you that fucks with your timing.

Yeah. That's my thing on a expedition 33. If I can get the timing for the first attack in the sequence, I'm usually able to do the whole sequence and be fine. Because once I get that first one, I get the timing. It's just a county of just one, two, three, four, one and two and three and four and or one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. It's just timing, which I'm a singer, so I've done that for a bunch of stuff.

I can get that. Uh huh. But when it started off, it's like, all right, do it now. The slowdown's a bit, like for some attacks it makes sense, other attacks it's way too long. It's just, I don't really know what they were thinking with those. Yeah, it's too inconsistent. If it was the same windup time for all of them, I'd be getting perfect.

I get the nodding that to be varied because you don't want every fight to feel the same. Some of the wind up times are so long. I'm just like, I don't know what the actual attack is. With gradient parries, the window is a lot bigger that I have noticed. Yes. Yes, I can do gradient parries pretty much every single time. Yeah. And that one isn't modded by my thing. The mod only affects like normal parries and that's it. There is a separate mod for gradient.

Okay, we're starting the recording back up. I ran out of disk space. I should have checked that before. It is what it is. So, okay. Both professionals. Very, very professional. Anyway, so gradient parries we were talking about. I don't know what else you said after that. Whereas I talk about the timing for them? Yeah, we talked about that.

Okay, so yeah, so like, gradient periods, the timing is bigger, I can get those basically perfectly. I have a mod for the normal parries to make the window just a little bit bigger. But I there's a separate mod you can get for gradient parries and jumps, they're the same mod. I don't have that installed, because I've never had a problem with the timing for that. I don't have that installed because I've never had a problem with the timing for that. Jump window is massive. The jump window feels way too big, actually. Which luckily that same mod can also make the windows even harder.

Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah, no, there are people who they'll make the parry windows like three times smaller. Uh-huh. I don't know what's wrong with those people, but something is wrong with those people. There's um, I would say there's three bosses that can be kind of problematic. I'm not going to say the name of one of them because that's a giant spoiler just saying the name of one of them because that's a giant spoiler just saying the name. There's a game boss of some kind. No, it's like an important character related to

related to Verso's background. Oh, okay. I'm about to start learning about that because we're on our way to meet one of his friends. I'm about to start learning about that because we're on our way to meet one of his friends. I imagine that we'll be learning a lot more about him in that time span. Oh, sorry. I was thinking of gradient attacks. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I got confused. You're going to Monoko Station. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. You don't have another party member yet, do you? No, I've got Okay. Erso, Lune, Mael, and Cecile, is that how you say it? Uh, Cecile? Cecile, that's how you say it. Right, okay, yes, Monoko Station is your next location. That's where you learn gradient attacks. Okay.

We can do the gradient attack too? Oh, that's awesome. Um, I will say Monoko is my favorite, is probably my favorite character in the game. His name's Minoko. Oh, okay. That is all I will say about Minoko because he is a lad. I'm literally about to beat him so but yeah so the big like the big super boss in the game Simon do you

like attacks and attacks and attacks and attacks and attacks no you're not gonna beat Simon no it's not gonna happen like I I'm a required boss or is it not a complete optional entire Unless you want to get every journal Because there's a journal sitting right behind him The journals have story and I like story yeah story yeah um but base form simon's fine but in second and then third form third form basically what he does is he does the regular attack then a a green magical sword comes down and then a red magical sword so every attack turns into triple the same attack oh which means for his big combo he's like five hit combo turns into like a 15 hit combo

Are they the same timing yeah the green and red swords? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like I might be able to Donk bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk Okay, so it's one two three and one two three and one two three and yeah Another boss Another super and 123 and yeah um another boss um another super boss sorry that's what was that just try to do that timing just tapping on my controller oh oh um here's some other fun moves though that'll uh, that'll create problems for you. Even if you work that out, there is plenty more to problems. As long as I can get the timing right at the start, I'm usually fine. One of the Super Bosses is kind of has a bit of visual clutter, where you will die a couple

of times because you just don't see. Because it's like- I turned off camera shake on my game because of that sort of stuff. Right. Because I was like, I can't fucking see shit. One that I think you might. It was for.

Boss was it? The lantern boss. Right, but major spoilers. Major spoilers. Yeah. Right before Gustav dies. The other one, the one I think you actually Spoilers major spoilers. Yeah right before Gustav dies. Mm-hmm The other one the one I think you actually might not have problem with then is a gross titty

because it's it's it's just it is just timing but it's just a lot of timing just a Lot a lot of Rock turtle guy took me like three attempts to finally get down the timing for his stupid insta-kill beam. Right. So- I'm just like, this is fucking stupid. So from what you've seen so far, Prologue,

let's start from the Prologue. What did you think of the opening to the game? It was really interesting. I did not think of the opening to the game? It was really interesting. I did not think the tone would change to be as dark as it has. I thought it would be a lot... I definitely knew it was going to be a darker theme, but I thought it would be a lot more somber, not as... Oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah.

I thought it was going to be a lot more of, we're going on a quest that we know we're gonna fail. I did not expect them to land and then everyone dies. I'm so happy I got to play the opening to the game with no spoilers, because holy shit. Like. It's so good. I have not played a game that like grabbed my attention that quickly in a long time. Yeah, no, I think this has been the first time that a game's really captured me in a similar way that like persona five did when I first played it.

Yeah, the opening segment of Sona five is really good. And then you go into the, um. Is that what they were called? Yeah, Palace. Yeah, the first Palace and it's just like, okay, okay. This is really good. Yeah, granted Persona 5's opening is significantly longer. It's like the first two or three hours of the game.

Versus Exhibition 33 where it's like the first 15 minutes. So there's some stuff in the opening area that you very possibly missed. They're not important, but there's some fun little Easter eggs there. So did you ever interact with any of the trash cans? I don't remember. I don't think I did. So there's like 20 trash cans. I did interact with a couple of them and all of them were empty. One of the- so there's a bunch of trash cans and one of them there's just a guy in there waiting to be gammaged.

I missed that. Yep, that's for sure. And I think he just gives you like a color of lumina. He's like, here have this go away. Um, did you find the couple that was having sex? No, no, I did not. So there's as you walk past, I think it's one of the buildings on the left. There's a couple in like a hotel room. They're just having sex there. And because you know, they they they they're having sex till they get gmage right makes sense now I thought this was a fucking joke until I saw someone actually do it if you interact with them 33 times They will have different dialogue I think it's something like, hey, have you had-

I think multiple save files, because I want to go to the beginning and do this. You can actually load your previous save files. Oh, nice. I don't know if it'll override where you're at though, so... Ooh. Yeah. I can probably back up the files. Yeah, I can probably back up the files. Yeah. Yeah

Also, there is a mime in the prologue as well Log is in like the first area once you land Yeah, no, no, no in like in no in in like the prologue like the actual part the Lou in Lumiere in Lumiere Oh, I did not know about that. Uh, you can so It's really easy there, but you can find it again right at the end of the game. OK. What about the first mime from when you land? You find that one again. In the forest area? Yeah.

Well, you can just go back to it whenever you want oh you know walked out of that area no no you're not looked out of the area okay yeah cuz I need to go back and do that one mm-hmm as I tried to do it initially and got my shit wrecked I was like oh I'm gonna go grind before I fight this thing again and then I just proceeded with the story and never went back. Well, it's less of a grind thing. It's more of a you need to break the enemy and then you can actually do damage to it. Yeah. But again, JRPG brain.

I'm just like, oh, I'm losing. It must be because my numbers are too small. Right, right, right, right. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair Um, and I realized oh wait, no, this is like a fucking souls like RPG. I need to just block better Don't let that confuse you cuz there's um, there's an area you can get to very soon where you can do it Things will die. It's just they have like 800,000 health and you will be there for a while. You're supposed to go back to there later in the game with

like better gear, better stats, but you can do it. I like that idea. My only issue is that I play an RPG. I expect to have a downtime after my turn. I did go there earlier than I should have. They give you 500,000 experience, so you will shoot up in levels very quickly. That's one of those like, well, if I only fight two of these, I get like seven levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I've walked out of that area. I went in there at level like 35, walked out around 60. Holy shit. And that was without even beating the boss of the area. So.

Because the boss was just the boss was not going to happen at the time. Way too much help, too much of a mess. Oh, God, no. So speaking about about grinding though, back to games, if we want to move on from Expedition 33 so we stop spoiling it. I did want to ask you about your thoughts on the ending and then start of Act 2.

Or ending of Act 1 and starting of Act 2. Fucking made me cry. I really liked Gustav. I get it. I get it. I mean, as a big emotional moment, congratulations. You did it. Yeah. Good story writing.

I'm upset. And I was supposed to be. Yeah, that was a... It will get so much worse later on when you learn more about Verso. I'm not going to explain... I'm not going to explain it, but you're going to feel so much worse about that scene. It's like, I hated that. His death was awful.

Oh, don't worry. It gets worse. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what do you think of Verso? Uh, I like him initially, but I'm still don't know anything about his motivations or anything. So I'm still a bit skeptical. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. I'm hoping that there's a reason why he's acting the way he does.

Acting the way he does in what way? Just being kind of standoffish, not really revealing much of anything about his past. I'm hoping there's a good reason, given the tone of this game. There's probably a reason. It's just whether or not it's good or bad is going to be. Yeah, in case it wasn't clear Verso and Mael are the main characters. The other ones are kind of just there to be like supporting members. Ah, I knew Mael was going to be the main character after Gustav died. I didn't know Verso was going to be the main character after Gustav died. I didn't know Verso was going to be as well. Have you seen...

Has there been one of Mayel, like one of the scenes in like black and white yet for Mayel? There's been one. Okay, so you have seen the first nightmare. Okay, cool. Yeah, um, yeah. So that's where it is like Mayel is either a main character or so important that she may as well be a main character. Yeah. Yeah. Um... They're both very- they're both very important. Fair.

So, you were saying you wanted to shift directions to something. Yeah, so still talking about RPGs, but moving on to different gameplay stuff, talking about the gameplay styles with metaphor versus others. I recently saw a video that I didn't finish watching, but it was comparing the two now branching paths for turn-based combat, One being Metaphors new interactive system, or not Metaphors, being Existion 33 with their interactive system, and one being Metaphors with their huge branching prep system. I've not played Metaphors.

Can you just explain how that one works? Imagine Persona, but everyone can swap to any Persona. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So you know how in Persona only the main character can change Personas? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Imagine if your entire party has that ability. So it's...

I guess it's more akin to like SMT there where like your party is made up of the demons that you recruit. Right, but instead it's like your party is every version of a Persona protagonist. Imagine if they made a giant Persona crossover with a protagonist from Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5, all on the same team at the same time. Okay, okay. Everyone could swap Personas at any time. Well, not at any time.

You can't do it mid-fight. Right. They essentially make Personas, which are called archetypes in this, your class or your job. Everyone could have access to all of them. Okay, okay. Which is really cool because it gives you so much variety. Honestly, a little too much variety.

Because there are flowcharts for how to unlock certain archetypes in order to get certain builds. Ew. Okay, I don't like the sound of flow charts. It's not like a huge flow chart, but it's like, all right, you got to get these three to get these two to get these three to get this one. Right. Right.

Right. Which is in the grand scheme of things, not a very long flow chart, but it's still a flow chart. It's not a very long flowchart, but it's still a flowchart. Mm-hmm. Huh. OK, OK. Yeah, I'm seeing... I'm seeing a random one here.

Unlocking Warlord. After completing the dungeon in Martyrra, speak to Bardon in Thorfair Square, and then you can unlock... That gets you commander, and then Bardon ring gets you general, and then... Okay, this is actually one of the more simpler ones. Okay. Yeah. But I really like it because it means that you can adapt your entire party to fit what you want. It doesn't matter who feels what role. If you want the main character, your hero, mage, if you want your side

characters to be the mage, if you want the main character to be a glass cannon, you can choose one that's like that. If you want everyone to be a tank, you can do that because everyone can also use the same one. Oh, wait, here's a really bad one. Royal thief, where it's like you need ranked 20 ninja, rank 15 dragoon, rank 15 tycoon And part of the tree to unlock that is only ninja. So then dragoon is something else and dragoon Dragoon you need to unlock sniper and then you'd be ranked 10 magic knight and then magic knight is I don't even know where it is

on here. I see, okay, I see what you're saying. Towards the bottom on the like big grid of all of them. Because I just got Magic Knight. I'm looking on IGN's website. I don't know then. And then Magic Knight you need Knight rank 20 and Mage rank 10. And then Mage I would assume is like a base one. Yeah, so okay.

Mage is like the first non-standard one that you unlock. I see, I see, I see. Alright, everyone when they join your party, they unlock their archetype and they have a default archetype. Mage is the first one you unlock that you can swap to. Right, right. So I guess it's kind of a kid- I don't know, have you played FF12? Not 12, right. So I guess it's kind of a kid. I don't have you played um Have you played FF 12?

not 12 no so 12 has a Free-flowing job system where you can make like characters have stats that make sense for different jobs But if you want to make the the white mage character a knight like you can do that Okay. Yeah, so it's a little bit like that then it's just a lot less ridiculous unlock criteria yeah uh metaphor is a system that i like more than expedition 33 even though i do really like exhibition 33 because i like that traditional turn based stuff i pick my move i let them have their move and i don't need to worry about reacting to it, right? It's a lot more of your prep work is more important than the actual fight mmm

but you want to make sure you have a balanced team that has Good move sets for what you're going up against and then as long as you know what things to choose when you will eventually win What do you think also about interactions on the player turn where like you have the perfect system from exhibition 33? I think it's fine. I don't care one way or the other on that one. Okay. As they have that in a Yakuza like a dragon.

You can attack something and in your next turn, if you attack that same person fast enough before they get up, you get bonus damage. Sure. OK, it's a bit different, but I always think it's like an interaction. It's more of, hey, if you're fast enough, you can get better time. Right, right, right, right. OK, that makes sense. But X-Wish 33's, the video is explaining how it breaks the standard loop of attack, heal, attack, heal in a turn-based game because since every character can be anything, you can build out whatever kind of party lineup to where you don't need to heal.

So you can break it up. Normally you attack something, your player character's the mage, she's going to be healing, and everyone else is like your damage hitters or your tank. Except because different archetypes can be swapped around, you can make it to where, hey, this character Hulkenberg, you can have her use a spell that has every enemy attack her and she's your buffed out tank And you can have your other teammates stroll. He's your big damage dealer So now you just do that and uh, oh, hey your main characters at 7 HP But all the attacks are going to Hulkenberg who has ten thousand and you don't have to worry about it

So you don't have to heal just keep attacking and look fights over you didn't need to heal Right. Okay. Okay about it so you don't have to heal just keep attacking and look fights over you didn't need to heal. Right okay okay like I do like the expedition system but I feel like it does start to suffer as you once you really learn the parry system for me there is zero downside in any of the lumina that like make me take more damage Like I I'm at the point now where every enemy one shots me. So if I Take some I never put a single point into defense or health. So That's right, you're one of those people yeah my my my my my stat spread is 99, my 99 agility, 99 luck. The only time I lower luck is when I go past 100 percent crit rate, which you can do.

You if you stack things, even not even well, if you just stack things a kind of sensible way, you can hit 100 percent crit rate on every attack, which is very fun. So your entire party is just glass cannons Yes, I I'm an end game and I have about 1500 health. Oh My god and enemies are doing about 30,000 because I'm also running things where I take more damage. So it's like You start in this special effect, we do more damage, but you take double damage. And then I have another thing where it's

like, you take double damage and you take damage in this system because you can parry everything. It's just like, images actually zero. As long as I hit the button. Yep. Yep. It's either zero or look, I, I, there is even a thing where I can start at one health and I get buffs from that, but I have one health anyway, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, the risk reward goes out the window because like, cause I can just block the damage and now there is no more risk.

Yeah, yeah, I feel like- The risk is can I hit the button that I've been doing for the last 30, 40 hours? Yeah, I think the way a lot of games get around this is having attacks where you have to use a different system because I don't press dodge either right like the dodge button I only used on a single boss just because the timing is fucked But everything else dodge against aoe attacks. I can't seem to figure out the timing for those well enough So I'm just like I'll just fucking dodge it

But like my point is there's not really a real like if you learn the parry system There's not really a reason to use the other systems besides gradient because you kind of have to And jump because you kind of have to sure yeah but like my point is that Usually a game will have some sort of drawback It's like oh if you you can parry it Usually a game will have some sort of drawback. It's like, oh, if you you can parry it But you might have some sort of like maybe you take a bit of damage from it or stamina damage or maybe some attack Yeah, you can uh, parry this attack into a counter attack, but you only reduce the damage not block it. Yeah. Yeah, I

Think going too hard down the full parry system I never even unlocked the healing abilities because i just they're just not useful in my case like i i feel like they went for me well you're going more tanky it makes sense um but like it sort of takes away from that aspect i i like the idea that you can play like this but at the same time i i do feel it takes something away from the from the like the idea that you can play like this, but at the same time I I do feel it takes something away from the From the like the combat system It it really reduces the strategy down to block and kill especially especially late game where you have

Crazy AP generation where it's like I get I get double AP generation per turn I get double AP for per AP I generate I get double AP generation per turn, I get double AP for per AP I generate, I get AP when I get more AP when I parry. It's like every turn I'm at max AP so it's just spam the highest cost ability. That's so much. Yeah. Metaphors I think I really do like, but also it's really easy to abuse it into a... Did you ever in Persona 5 do like one day runs of a palace? No, I didn't know there's nothing you could really do that. You can beat every palace in a single in-game day. Uh-huh

Provided you have enough like items to heal yourself. Sure. Sure. Sure But you can essentially guarantee that every single time in metaphor, if you have the mage unlocked. And an archetype that can heal people. Right, right. Because the mage has an ability where if you can kill stuff outside of turn-based combat, just using the real-time combat system,

you heal a little bit of your spell points. Aha! Aha! And so you can just go to an area where there's a bunch of enemies, kill everything to get some SP, leave, come back, and just grind them until your SP's back full, and then heal everyone with the other archetype that heals HP. Okay. I'll keep that in mind. And congratulations, everyone's back to full health at SP again. I'll have to keep that one in mind.

So what is- I figured it out in like the third or fourth dungeon and I was like, oh, there's never a reason to ever leave these places again. So what is the, what is the like purpose of the day system in this game? Like what, what like function to the story does it have? It's similar to persona where it's counting down to a goal, but the goal is different. The goal is not like, oh, this person's going to leave the country

or something. It's like I go to jail. You're in a race to become the next king and the next vote happens on this day. If you don't finish all this stuff, you don't have enough votes and you're kicked out of the contest. I see. Someone's enchanted someone and they're going to die if you don't do this by this time and it's going to kick you out of the contest. And you're trying to win because the guy is the most popular

is secretly killing at people behind his back. Okay, okay. And actually, after the intro, not so much behind people's back. It's one of those things that just like, you're clearly the bad guy, but you have a lot of people supporting you because I guess they're just also bad people mm-hmm or I think it's taking the approach it's been a second since I played it now because I started playing exposition 33 it's like the people are just like yeah he does kill people but he's getting stuff done oh okay. Yeah, even though, um, kind of minor spoilers, uh, Crown Prince who should have taken over everyone thinks is dead because this guy put a curse on him that poisoned him. I need to be stuck in a stasis while they're trying and the only way to break it is to

kill the guy who cast the spell. So they have to assassinate this guy, but they can't get close enough to him because by being in the King's game, it nullifies your ability to directly kill anyone else involved in the King race. If you try to attack someone who is a potential winner of the race, magic stops you from attacking entirely. I see, I see. So what they're trying to do is convince him that they're on his side, trying to prove that they want to have an ally ship with him so that they can get up to the number two spot and then turn on him and win the race and then kill him so that they can pass the legs onto the rifle air.

They're essentially running in his place because no one else knows he's alive. Right. Okay, okay. I do have to get around to that one at some point. I really do. I think I'm so good. It is so good. I love it.

If you buy it on Steam, it has to new whoo, which pisses me They also made a bit of a fuck-up that I'm actually happy about Did a demo of the game and the demo of the game is just the game But it cuts you off after a certain day and you can't play past that in-game date, right? So you're only able to play the beginning section of the game. I see, I see. Someone figured out how to mod the entire game into that demo by removing the limit.

They released the demo without Denuvo. It's not the case anymore, but they initially released it without Denuvo. Well it is the case now because people definitely saved the binary. Yup. So uh, you gotta hunt the seven seas, but you can play this game without Denuvo. So at least Piracy has preserved this game. Some intern has lost their job. Uh, I think it was a little higher up than an intern if it was the person posting the game to Steam.

Yeah, well, you know. Jesus Christ. If they had access to the back end of the store page, Christ if they had access to the back end of the store page Hey, they had some power the couple some in there programming the the lock-off point for the demo and like Not doing something sensible. The real fuck-up was them not releasing it with de novo from the start Yeah, well Because it's Sega. Mm-hmm. That list is owned by Sega.

Sega has a special deal with Danuvo to where their Danuvo license never expires. That's great. I love that. Yeah, so, uh, literally any game they release on Steam with Danuvo, it will never be removed. They have to have some sort of deal because otherwise they're paying tens of thousands of dollars a month to keep it running. My hope is at some point, Genuvo goes out of business and they have to remove it. That's the best thing we can get. Either they have to remove it or the games are just dead. It's a nuclear option, but it would either solve it or prove us right of why this is such a bad idea

Mm-hmm. Well Let's talk something that doesn't have de novo something that's actually good. Where is it? We have her we have an 8-bit dough controlling a bit dough That is actually the my 8-bit. Oh is the control I used Metaphor. Mmm. I actually, I've been really enjoying, I've been, I've got the, the, the, what do you call it? The trigger stop things enabled. And being able to- Mine does not have that. Oh, okay, okay. That was something they introduced in the Ultimate series and I have the Pro 2.

Mmm, mmm, mmm. I, um, I really like it. I don't care about the back paddles. I've just never really been a back paddle person. But, everything else. I don't care about the back paddles. I've just never really been a back paddle person, but everything else. I like having the option. I mainly use it for just, I set the one on the left side to A, so I can like progress whatever dialogue options with just one hand. That's fair. That's fair. I just find myself-

Like say I want to, especially when I'm streaming, so like I have my mouse clicked over to OBS messing with something, but I'm still reading the dialogue so I can progress the dialogue while I'm doing that. That's a good point. Assuming the game isn't one that immediately freezes when it's unfocused. Yep, yep, yep. Okay, okay. That's all I use it for.

I find myself accidentally pressing the button. So I just I Just I just I've actually changed how I hold the controller because of doing that. I now do it with my middle fingers Hold up just below the triggers so that I don't press it by accident Then my middle fingers are what would rest on them. I use my pointer fingers for both the top and bottom The my middle fingers are what would rest on them. I use my pointer fingers for both the top and bottom Rear buttons. Mm-hmm, not two fingers. I use one to do both. Oh Okay, okay, I Kind of got into the habit of using two fingers with um playing racing games

Yes, cuz if I was doing stuff that had a lot more intensive stuff with the back triggers and stuff I probably would start using to most of what I play is RPGs and it's like a Spartum trigger is to run. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's it Yeah, like if you're playing a racing game and you're playing with a manual gearbox like oh Yeah, then you kind of have to cuz that's your clutch and pedal, isn't it? Yeah Yeah, so you've been enjoying it I have been you have the we have the newer version I have one model older Which is the pro 2 mmm. It's only because I like symmetrical sticks Yeah, I get it. I get it.

I, uh, I've gotten used to the Xbox layout. I, if I have to be honest, I prefer the PlayStation layout, but I looked at the way the controller is shaped. I'm not really a big fan of the shape of the symmetrical sticks they do. Like the controller itself. The shape looks weird. It feels like it's a PS4 controller, honestly. Okay.

Okay. It feels very similar. Which is good for me because the PS4 controller was my absolute favorite controller for years and years. Have you ever tried the PlayStation 5 controller? Yeah, it's what I use in Expedition 33 and in Persona 3. The PlayStation 5 controller? Yeah, the DualSense. Okay. Yeah, that's usually my, like, it's been my go-to. It's been growing on me. It's definitely more comfortable now than it was when I first got it. I still think it's a little too big. I get it. Yeah, that's fair.

That is still my one complaint is I wish it was just a little bit smaller. My one complaint is I do know of a way to disable the trackpad on PC. Yeah, at least on KDE. Hmm, like is there a way, like can you do it in like Steam input or anything? Cause I don't, I'm not using KDE right now. I don't know about Steam input, I just go to the KDE settings, go to trackpad,

you uncheck a checkbox, it stops working. Hmm, okay. I'll see if I can find something. Cause that's my biggest problem. Cause a lot of games use it as the start button for some reason. That you can remap the click to your actual select button. And I do do that. Okay, okay.

Cause that is really annoying to like, what's the point of the select button if you're never gonna use it as a select button? Yeah. You're just gonna make me click the track pad. And when you click the track pad, it like moves the mouse just a tiny little bit. If you have the trackpad enabled. That's why I disabled the touch pad thing in my KDE settings because games kept doing that.

And some games when you swap to mouse, they don't swap back. Which is fun. Oh, shit, that's right. Yeah, some games are really bad about that. Yeah, especially older games where they- Speaking of controllers, uh Existion 33's controller detection is very weird Yeah, I It seems to work consistently with xbox layouts, but if I plug in a playstation controller

Post the game being launched. It's like a 50 50 if it's gonna work Uh, if I have steam Input turned off. Mm-hmm. The game will not see my controller at all Regardless. All right. I Have to have on steam input. Mm-hmm And if I have on steam input the game will always think it's an Xbox controller regardless of what it is will always think it's an Xbox controller, regardless of what it is. So I edited an I and I file to tell it, hey, always show PlayStation.

That works. Well, you can do that. That's something. But it has made me appreciate the DualSense a bit more. Hmm. It's just it's just slightly too big. I wish it was a little bit smaller. If you hold it the proper way of like using two fingers on the triggers your hands slightly higher up then This is exactly how it's supposed to feel Like it was shaped for this

Because I use one finger I hold stuff slightly lower. It feels just a little bit too big. I slightly lower it feels just a little bit too big I get it like I haven't touched this in like I would say about two weeks or so but like I I would say the best I get a feel for how I hold the controller hold the controller the way it's intended with two fingers on the triggers and your thumbs just resting on the sticks mmm on the dual sense on the dual sense on the dual on the DualSense. On the DualSense. Oh, on the DualSense like this? Yeah. Yeah. Now take one finger off of the your middle fingers off the triggers.

Uh huh. And slide your hands down like just a little bit to where the edges or the pads of your pointer fingers are resting on top of of L1R1. Okay. Oh, I see. That's how I hold controllers. And it feels just slightly too big. I see. I don't know. I've kind of... If you grip it a little higher, it's perfectly fine. Yeah, that's what I tend to do.

So for me, I usually will use a single finger on this. Unless I'm playing like a racing game. So it's a lot more comfortable for me to do this. Yeah, I also I do a weird thing where because of how I hold it, I grip sticks by the bottom edge. What? The ridge on the bottom of the stick. I put my thumb on top of that ridge ridge and that's where I grip the stick. Uh huh. Because I'm usually pressing it up, down, left, right with that and then I swirl it

around. Oh. I wish I had a good way to just show you. Yeah. Because it's very unusual but I've been doing that since like the ps2 I didn't realize always grip stuff I did not realize the size difference of these controllers until I went and held the dual sense like this is actually considerably smaller Yeah

Hmm again my dream controller, which I've ordered and it still hasn't arrived like a month and a half later I've ordered and it still hasn't arrived like a month and a half later Um is an Xbox controller with symmetrical sticks and clicky buttons I do have a picture of that readily available Yeah, so it's the ZD o plus Okay, let's see Images There's one this is the blue one. Let's see. There's also a can opener with the same name.

Copy image, discord. So I didn't get this color, I got the black one. So that's its default configuration. Oh, right. Like it was a modular thing as well, wasn't it? Yeah, so I want here is a copy image. This way you can see how it is. That is the is modular.

That D-pad they have there is the default one. The default one's weird. You can put a normal D-pad on it. Yeah. Okay. I see. The little kit to flip the stick comes with a normal D-pad as well. Okay.

That, right. So you can replace the module with the left stick and D pad and also the button module. Wait, can you replace on its own? Am I other stick module can be replaced on its own. Am I like imagining this wrong? Can you flip the other side, the face buttons and the stick? No, they're different shapes. The stick is a round module. The buttons are a square module.

So they won't fit. Okay. Okay. I just, it kind of looks like it. And I was thinking that's insane. Left side with the D-pad and stick, you can't just flip it around. It's not perfectly symmetrical. You have to actually put in a different module. They didn't think this through very well did they? No they should have just made it perfectly symmetrical so you can flip it around and then just invert the d-pad and stick. I guess that would require more software. I guess yeah. I guess that would require more software. I guess, yeah.

Which I guess I'm kind of glad about because you don't need any software to use it. You can get an app on your phone, but you don't have to have it. It's also got four backpedals. It's got like the Xbox Elite style. Ah, yes, yes, yes. Little metal trigger things. I'm actually really happy with what's been happening with the third party controller space, because for a long time, like you remember. trigger things. I'm actually really happy with what's been happening with the third party controller space because for a long time like you remember garbage for the longest time you remember third

party controllers on the ps2 right like it's mad cats i never had a mad cats but i did have this i did i had one i think it was i want to say it was the size of a Dull Sense actually but it wasn't shaped as nicely it was like very hard rigid edges it was awful we had was mad cats my favorite was from a company called afterglow it was a PS 3 controller but it was wired it was smaller it was I smaller than a normal PS3 controller. I feel like those... I want to say those controllers were very common here as well. It was a clear controller with blue LEDs inside.

Wait, there's still... It was like a smaller DualShock 3. Apparently they've got them for the Xbox Series X, they're still going. No way. They've been renamed to PDP now by the looks of it. Yeah! Okay, no I do remember the Afterglow PS3 controllers. Yeah we had them at EB Games here. Yeah there it is.

Oh, that is. I love that thing. That is horrendous. I don't remember it having asymmetrical sticks. Are there versions? There's a version with. Yeah, they've got Xbox and PlayStation versions. version with yeah they've got Xbox and PlayStation versions

yeah yeah they've got like here it is here it oh oh yeah they've got Xbox layouts on PlayStation PlayStation layouts on Xbox but whatever you want this is it this is the exact controller oh, yep. That's the one I had an image of before. Okay. I wish I could remember the one that I had. That was my childhood PS3 controller and I loved that thing. That is... that thing is disgusting. I love clear electronics. That's true. So much. I will give it that that is kind of cool

Also, it was smaller than a normal ps3 controller which I'm always gonna prefer slightly smaller controllers that cuz I have not small hands, but smaller than you would think Small the ps3 controller was already tiny than you would think. Small, the PS3 controller was already tiny. It wasn't tiny. PS3 controller is what I would consider like an average size controller.

Okay. I guess what's kind of happened in the industry is as gamers have just like generally aged up, controllers have tended towards the bigger side. Yeah. Which is a problem for me because I do not have super big hands you also can hold a controller properly that would also help it's not a problem on the 8-bit though that's true that is

that is definitely true it's never been a problem for me up until the dual sense controller Yep. Yep. Yeah. No, I get it. The dual sense is like noticeably larger I think it's bigger than the xbox control. Where is my xbox controller? It's either bigger or about the same size because the xbox controller Is one that is on the larger side, but I don't mind it because its shape works really well for that size. That's actually a good point. I, it curve like it's sort of like, it's a lot skinnier at the top.

And I think the profile angle on the Xbox is also a little bit wider. Yeah. So I think what makes the Playstations kind of starts to curve back in on itself mmm, I yeah, no, it's definitely the Dilsons is definitely bigger but also the the Face but like the the the actual like component a set further separated apart Yeah

Mmm, that's why on this ZD zero plus it's basically the same shape as an Xbox controller, but with every feature I could possibly want. So I've got back paddles, I can have symmetrical sticks, I've got clicky face buttons. It also has the trigger stop thing where you can turn the L2R2 into digital. It also has additional buttons on the back trigger. You've got like an L3 and R3 on the back. Okay.

Which are just reprogrammable macros, the same as the back paddles. You know what, actually that's probably what I should use the back paddles for. Yeah, that's actually, yeah. Is what? As L3 and R3 Honestly, yeah Cuz always I've always found that kind of awkward like having to push the stick in the stick. Yeah

It's definitely not the most intuitive design if you know Especially if you're a new gamer and you don't know they exist I have seen videos of people is like showing my girlfriend video games I grew up with she's never played video games before and it's like where is the R3? Yeah I don't know how I figured that out as a kid actually now that I think about it. There was probably like a diagram of a stick and it said R3 on it. And you just like-

There was, I can't remember what game was. There was a game that showed a stick with an L and it like an animation of it going down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're definitely a demo in a game for sure. Nowadays you see it as like, all right, press L3 and it's just L3 in a circle and you're like fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think It's kind of interesting right like a lot of games the tutorials have gotten a lot bigger, but at the same time there's a lot of stuff that's kind of

That's kind of You're expected to know as someone who's playing a game, right? Like, if you're- It's the same problem Linux has. It's a lot of people telling you stuff with an expectation of knowledge that you just don't have. Right, right, right, right. Like, if you talk about the idea of proton and environment variables, like, there's a

lot of assumed knowledge there. Yeah, exactly. You can run all these games on Linux You just act turn on proton and steam The fuck's a proton. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Actually one that did trip me up was setting environment variables in steam before like I the first time I did I didn't realize you'd like include the the percent command percent thing at the end Yeah, I did that trip me up to you as well which still doesn't make any sense why that's not something that's just like

injected into it, but Yeah, it is weird that you have to do it. But at the same time There are some that don't need it. Hmm Not many but there's a handful that don't need it. It is what it is. Yeah, I mean it works. So yeah, yeah. It is nice that you can set those launch options though. Well, yeah, especially for games like Marvel Rivals, where it seems like every season they

just add a new option you need to make the game actually run on Linux. It's like, all right, add this. Now add this one.. Now add this one. Now also add this one. Oh, oh. So remember the whole thing about Infinity Nicky not working on regular Linux? Oh yeah. Yeah, it does now.

Congratulations. Everyone hates the game now. Yep. Oh, one thing I think is actually kind of interesting is we're seeing a lot of these like big gacha games come to steam, like Hoyo versus games are on steam, a lot of the other companies coming to steam. I'm kind of curious like what that's going to mean long term for things like the steam deck.

Your first games are on steam. I thought they just had their own launcher. No, isn't like, isn't like ZZZ on steam? I feel like it is. Maybe, maybe I'm, No. Maybe I'll think of another one. Sorry, maybe the Hoyoverse games are not on steam. Hoyoverse now has their own launcher for all of their games, instead of you needing a separate one for each game. No, wait wait hold up uh no no i was thinking blue archive yeah that's what i was thinking oh sorry my bad a blue archive is now on steam

wait apparently wait is it hold up i'm actually Oh, no, ZZZ is on the Epic Store. Yeah. Yeah. OK, that's my confusion. That makes sense. But yeah, like Blue Archives on Steam, a bunch of these other games coming to Steam as well. I'm just think another big one now is Wuthering Waves, which I had never heard of until like a couple of months. No one has. And apparently, like, I keep hearing. I've all of a sudden heard never heard of until like a couple months. I know and has

And apparently like I keep hearing I've all of a sudden heard bunch of people like I can't use Linux is I want to Play again shit and we're there in waves like what the fuck's we're there in waves. Yeah. Yeah people are I I just I don't like I don't like CB, so I'm not gonna play a gacha game. It took me a second to just like CBT... Oh, wait. I just don't want to spend... I don't want to play a game where I know that the only way to progress without wasting a shitload of time is spending money. It's just that games that are designed to get you to want to spend money. And that is their sole mechanic. Gotcha games, like all of these anime games,

like Genshin, Wuthering Waves, all of these games are just, they're just FIFA for weebs. Yeah, what really sucks is games like Zendas Zone Zero where there is an actually fun game in it. But you have to buy all the skins in order to be able to progress part of the game. Where it's like, God fucking... Why did you also have to make it good? Yeah, well. Not only do I...

Now not only do I not want to pay it because it's a Gotcha game and have to waste money, but also now I'm pissed off because of that. Yeah, because it's actually a fun game Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now I get it. I get it We probably should be wrapping this up at some point soon Cuz I think good luck with that. I think we passed the two hour mark now, I reckon. I. Or close to it. I think we just passed it if we hadn't already.

OK, well, I guess we can wrap up then, because I got to I got to go see my sister afterwards anyway. Um, did you get to get through all the points you wanted to? Anything left? We didn't talk about Apple's liquid glass. Well, you can do that real quick. Or as their original thumbnail said, liquid ass. They had to move the text for that one.

I don't have a whole lot to say on it so it shouldn't take too long. But generally my thoughts on it are that it looks fine. It has the same complaint that I have with material you and stuff that Google's latest Android designs do. Fine minus the clear theme. The clear theme is not fine. I don't haven't seen specifically. See, I'm going to show you the thick with glass.

Here you go. Enjoy your enjoy whatever this abomination is. You. There's no contrast in anything. I don't know why they thought this was a good idea. Gross. I mean, it looks cool if you have like a minimalist background. Then as soon as you throw something with detail behind it, it all falls apart. Yep.

Well, they will know it's less detail more a really bright color the demo that they showed a demo where they were using like a yellow background You don't put white on top of yellow Jesus Christ it did not work at all Okay, this image is kind of low res, but I I do think the dark version looks considerably better. People have been complaining about it and there's issues with like motion, but I think the dark and light theme still looks perfectly fine. Yeah, again, it has the same complaint that I have with modern Android's material design,

which is just the lack of contrast in everything. Fair. Especially early material U apps where it's like our apps color is blue and blue and blue and a really light blue. It's like that is disgusting. This looks like it was drawn by a four-year-old who just goes, I like blue. Uh-huh, yeah.

I don't know, I do think we're gonna see a lot more companies trying to adopt this style of vibe to it. Apple's gonna try to copy well everyone try to copy it especially if Google does a redesign in a similar vein yeah Google's material you design is what part of what made me go back to rooting my phone I hadn't rooted in years but as soon as I was required to use that I was like, alright, fuck it

I'm getting a phone that I can root because that is the only way I can stand to keep using this I use my phone to such a minimal extent that I just Any change just doesn't even I don't even realize it's happened. Like ah, okay That's most of them. I did all the way Android like What was it uh marshmallow all the way through like Android 11 I basically didn't care about any changes yeah it was only like 12 or 13 whichever one they introduced material you design in that was like, Oh, this is horrible. This actively makes my phone worse to use. Oh, wow. I forgot about, you know, I'm looking back at Marshmello right now.

Have you ever like seen or used like KDE on a mobile? Not on a mobile device now. Have you ever seen it? Yes, I've seen some screenshots. Marshmallow... I'm 99% sure Katie is basically just copying Marshmallow. I actually really liked Android Marshmallow's design, especially HTC's version of it. Because that was when I had an HTC, I had the HTC N. One before the phone that killed the company in the phone market.

Where they were talking about like potentially making it have no buttons and everything was capacitive on the side. Which is a terrible idea. I'm surprised Apple hasn't done that. I think they tried and they failed. Well, give them a try then. I'm pretty sure there were rumors about them doing that and then it just never released. Imagine if the touch bar went even, like it went a lot better than it did and then just replaced the entire keyboard with it.

Eww. No. It went a lot better than it did and then it just replaced the entire keyboard with it. Oh no. I could see them doing it. Yeah I could too. That's the worst part. But yeah, I root my phone now because by default in material you design, you have four items in your wipe down menu. And then expand it and you get six. Right.

That's awful. With it rooted, I have changed that to where on my swipe down menu, the half open, I have nine. And at a full swipe down. I have 12 Okay Oh granted. I don't use most of the ones in the 12 But I use every single one of the initial nine right right right that makes sense stuff like internet mobile Bluetooth So I've been separated out because initially Android had your internet and your mobile in the same quick tile

So you had to click on the quick tile and then click another menu in the quick tile Which one you actually wanted? Mm-hmm Just everything just took more clicks right right right face it was just terrible. I got internet wireless Bluetooth my VPN quick connect, my location services, rotate, and my clipboard to send my clipboard from KD Connect from my phone to my PC. Cause I use that all the time cause my two factors on my phone.

Ah, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, so I'll copy the code on here, send the clipboard, paste it on my PC. Constantly use that, it's fantastic. Okay. And then like airplane mode, and I have a button for screencast, I don't know why, but I just need to fill out the space,

and I don't have anything at my place that I use that for, but occasionally I'll use it at a friend's house. Those I use constantly, so I have those in my little top one, and then the rest are stuff like, I can turn on or off do not disturb I can turn on or off or hotspot battery saver those sort of things. I don't even know what my phone has. I don't have that memorized I have my phone on me right now looking at it that's how I know. Right right right right right now looking at it. That's how I know. Right, right, right, right, right. No, I get it. But those things, being able to change that, also setting material you to actually use a color I choose rather than auto selecting off my background and choosing the ugliest thing possible.

We love auto contrast. It works. It's like, like all right I'll set a picture of my background is the picture of tie from persona 5 because waifu and By default when I was like, ah, you want the ugly brown color from the background, right? That's what we're gonna make your tile icons. It's like no you fucking idiot make it blue like her hair It's like, no, you fucking idiot make it blue like her hair. Yep. Anyway, we probably should be wrapping this up now.

I actually do have to wrap it up soon. Yeah, the LDR glass thing is gross, but lacks contrast. Google. Colors are cool. They lack contrast. Stop getting rid of contrast. I need to be able to actually read the text. Okay, um, let people know where they can find your stuff. My main channel is at Rogren. I'm gonna be trying to post there again. Uh, the stream channels though for video game streams

are Rogue Ren Live and Twitch. It's Rogue Ren. You have a separate channel for streaming. I didn't realize that. Yeah, for the YouTube side because DMCA stuff. It makes sense. Okay. And that is the sole reason why I split it up.

You can follow me on bluesky at rogueren.net or you can go to my website rogueren dot net and see all my other social platforms. I still have Twitter listed on there. I haven't posted on Twitter in years now. So last post was just it was a repost from December twenty twenty four. But you have an actual post. I have no idea when an actual post happened. Um, no, I did comment one thing, uh, like a month or so ago because of Stellarblade adding Danuvo into their game, and I had to explain to someone how Danuvo requires you to re-verify. People still think that it's just a one-time thing to install.

Uh, yay, I love having to explain the same thing over and over again to people and they never learn. Just make a video on it and link them to it. Just don't explain it. I should just grab Moodar's video and just link it to them. Yeah, that works. That works as well. Uh, that should be everything.

So yeah, Rogren.net has all my socials. Both the normal channel and the stream channel and my Twitch and Blue Sky and my Mastodon. Though I'm mostly on Blue Sky. Awesome. My main channel is Brody Robertson. I do Linux videos there six days a week. Sometimes streaming there as well. I'll check that out, see what's over there. I've got the gaming channel Brody on Games. right now I'm playing through Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Kazan the first Berserker and at some point we need to do another collab stream Ren. I don't know like- We really do. Apparently Split Fiction is

really good and we played the other games already so maybe we should do that. That's been the thought of just I should grab that we should do that. I've got the react channel, brilliant opposite reacts. I upload clips from the stream there and I've got the this channel. If you're watching the audio version of this, you can find the video version on YouTube at tech over tea. If you'd like to find the audio version, it's on Spotify. It's on every podcast platform.

Spotify has video, which is cool. And there's an RSS feed as well. So, uh, Ren, how do you want to end off the show? What do you want to say? Stop buying games with Danuvo. But Stellar Blade. Buy it on console, just don't buy the Danuvo version. Fair point, fair point.