The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #26 – Sci-Fi Video Games Ranked/Starfinder 2E Sneak Peek/Death Stranding 2

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Guest host Mary Lou joins Joe this week as the pair rank the best sci-fi video games of all time! Plus, best performances by an actor as a comic book character, Mary Lou starts building a Starfinder 2E character, and would you rather play a Ranger or a Rogue? 0:00 Intro 5:40 Three Questions 27:00 My Offense Is Rank 1:24:50 Starfinder 2E 1:55:30 World of Warcraft 1:59:15 Fantastic Success? Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/8fZfQHehFO4 Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit wagovi.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Network. This is Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Oh, what's going on everybody?

Welcome to Glass Cannon Radio, my first chance to kick the show off myself. Jared Logan is on vacation, he's out of here today, and I'm taking over and I am so happy and excited to bring on a spectacular guest host The only other guest host to ever appear on glass cannon radio because she's the best we bring her back whenever we get a chance Mary Lou is here with me today all day for the hang. What's up mer Lou? here with me today all day for the hang. What's up Mer? Lou? Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. I love it. Did you ever think of yourself as a potential drive time radio host? Like you're like a morning drive radio host right now. That is exactly what I am. And I never thought of myself as that.

However, I have, one time in in high school I had to like host some events for our like choir camp and choir had like like 300 400 kids in it and Holy crap, and I was I was in the zone man. I was in my element I'm 18 years old 17 years old, just on fire, just crushing the crowd, organizing these events, running these games. And afterwards someone was like, you should be, good morning, pieces. You could be like a host like Kat Dehli. Do you remember the reality show show So You Think You Can Dance? Yes.

Great show. Kat Deeley was the host. And someone was like, you should be Kat Deeley. And I was like, well, that would be my wildest dream now. Just somebody lets you talk. Yeah.

Just chat and chat and chat. Just chat and. Bring up people, talk to them. I mean, it's just the best. Welcome back to Glass Cannon. My wildest dream. Radio, it's it's just the best welcome back to glass cannon Radio our weekly hang here on the GCN where we talk all things under the nerdosphere the geeko planet and

We bring up callers callers can come up talk to us throughout the show if you want to join All you got to do is go to join the nation calm get onto our discord and just raise your hand It's as simple as that. We bring you up to chat, to weigh in your thoughts, your opinions on the topics of the day. And just a reminder that while we normally are live here every Wednesday at noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, next week there's a slight shift in the schedule because next week is Gen Con week. Mary Lou, are you ready?

Are you ready? Slight shift in the schedule for the slight case of Gen Con. I'm not ready. I'm never ready. I'm so excited. Oh, several people say my sound is dropping in and out and that scares me. Where? On Twitch or on Discord?

On Discord, I think, which probably means my sensitivities to yeah That's probably your sensitivity How's this baby Should I just put it at like a hundred percent there we go Are you getting full-blown fire hose Mary Lou to the face? Are you getting all of it? Okay good Well done told you guys hot boyfriend changes my settings and he doesn't mean to and he thinks it's only for him, but it's also for me. It is.

Clearly we have proof. Now it's been recorded. Anyway, as I was saying, next week, just be aware, and I'll mention this again a little later as a reminder, next week is Gen Con week. We're going to go live with Glass Cannon Radio on Tuesday next week instead of Wednesday. Wednesday is a travel day for Jared and I to head to Gen Con and so we're not able to do it Wednesday so we're gonna just do it Tuesday and the podcast will release at the regular time on Thursday first thing in the morning, midnight Thursday.

Alright so let's talk about today's show, Mary Lou. We got a really exciting one lined up. I chatted with you about some topics we could possibly discuss and man, I'm pumped to jump in. So today, going through, we're going to start off with three questions. I like to sometimes give these to Jared, unprepared questions that you can kind of answer on the fly. I'm going to shoot questions at you. Next, we're going to do My Offenses Rank. Today, we're going to rank science fiction video games, the best science fiction video games of all time. We will do our personal rankings. Then we'd love you to call and weigh in. What did we miss? What did we get wrong in our order? Then we're going to do, we're

going to talk a little Starfinder second edition. This is a big release at Gen Con, the full 1.0 player core coming out at Gen Con, the full 1.0 player core coming out at Gen Con. Mary Lou and I have been working together on a potential show that's going to happen during Gen Con. So a YouTube pre-recorded show that'll come out during Gen Con where I run Starfinder and Mary Lou's going to play in it. And so we're going to make her character today on Class 10 radio. At least start it, at least start it. So we'll see. Then we're going to dabble a little bit into World of Warcraft.

There's some big World of Warcraft news coming and you're a big WoW player. So let's chat about that for a minute. And we'll finish it up talking about the big, another big comic book, Marvel released this weekend, Fantastic Four. So excited to get into the show. Let's start it right off at the jump with three questions and get right down into it All right, here we go. Question number one. Actually, I might end up with more than three questions for you I just have so much I want to ask question number one

And I'm honestly asking you this is death stranding a must-play video game I've never played it. I really don't know much about it. And I'm seeing all this stuff about Death Stranding too. And I know you've mentioned in the past that you played Death Stranding. So is Death Stranding a must play video game? For you, yes.

Oh, okay. Interesting. Please expound. For you, Joe O'Brien. I'm not gonna say that Death Stranding is a must play for everyone because it is so weird that it is not... I could see people who wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't want to make them sit through it. Subject them to that? To subject them to it.

It's not everybody's thing. Um, for you, this is, this would be your cup of John, or it would be at least like something that you would never forget and you would want to talk about and, and like experience. Yeah. For you, it's a must play. Um, Is that how you feel? Do you feel like you wanted to talk about it with people? Like you need it to be like, you have to discuss this game? Yes, absolutely. Because I think what I think Kojima is so good at is much like like a really good book. It's not clear. Like there, there, there are things that happen and things that people say and characters actions and like visuals that you're like, what was that? What does that mean? Where does that come from? That there's just no way to know. There's lots of evidence like in the game, but There's lots of evidence in the game, but it's just fun to talk about

and have theories and lore and implications, and it's literary in that way. Well, Dark Souls is like that. Elden Ring is like that. Yes. And that's one of the things that I grew to love. At first, when I first played it, I was like, this doesn't make any sense.

There's no story, what's happening here? And then over the years, you go to appreciate that art style, which is like, you need to figure it out, or just fill in the gaps, or part of the fun is debating with your friends, what is the story you're actually playing? Yeah.

What was happening there? Have you played any Death Stranding 2? Have you dabbled? No, not yet. I'm really excited for it because, yeah, K--Rob said I've heard some people who didn't like one that liked the second game. I've heard the second game solves a lot of quality of life issues and just like streamlines the like gameplay loop. What is I think most controversial about Death Stranding 1 is I mean the pacing of the game, it's kind of the point, is that you're literally walking from one side of

America to the other side. You're walking from the East Coast to the West Coast to connect this post-apocalyptic world into a network and reconnect a increasingly isolated society. That pacing, I think, is fantastic, but there will be these cut scenes that are 20 minutes long. And- Clancy in Discord says, it felt a little like a UPS simulator.

That is absolutely what it is. little like a UPS simulator. That is absolutely what it is. It's a mailman simulator. You are literally, oh no, is my volume strange? Here, let me turn up some volume. There we go. That might help. But you are literally like a male courier. That's what the entire game is.

But I heard that two is much- I have heard some of those things loosely. Two is much more- So you're looking forward to play the second one. Colin, let us know if you played Death Stranding, if you're into it. If you're going to play the second one, we'll talk about it throughout the day, call in whenever. Skid is in chat, in Twitch chat, and he says he did play Death Stranding and loved it. So that's always high praise.

High praise coming from Skid. He'll tell me if a game is garbage and I shouldn't play it. So that's good to know. All right, question number two. Superman is out now. It hit theaters. Fantastic Four is coming out this weekend. And I am actually going to go see Fantastic Four. I'm looking forward to that.

I want to see Superman just about trying to find the time. But I'm making some time for Fantastic Four right before Gen Con. We talked about this a little bit last week on Glass Canna Radio, but it was kind of ancillary. I want to give you the direct question, have your direct answer to this. What is the best film performance of a comic book character? What's your favorite comic book character performance in movie form? Oh, that's tough. Okay, hold on. I'm going through them all in my mind.

Oh there's so there's some there's moments I'm thinking of. Okay talk it out and give us a couple of your top five. I don't need to know the number number one. Yeah in Endgame a little spider spider--Man, Spider-Man boy, the British boy. You know him. Yes. What's his name? Oh, Tom, uh, Tom. Mr. Zendaya. Tom Holland.

Holland, yes. Mr. Zendaya. Um, uh, his moment, him dying, um, in Tony Stark's arms, that is heartbreaking. The way he like holds on so hard and is like so shocked and confused. Beautiful moment there, okay. That's a great answer. And look, I'm not looking for a particular moment or a particular film, just the overall character.

You mean in general. The portrayal of a character, yeah. But I think Tom Holland as Spider-Man is a great answer and not one that I thought of. I thought he was a spectacular Spider-Man. He's really good. I love him as Spider-Man. He's a really good Spider-Man. He's very boyish in the way that Spider-Man is.

He's very kiddish, but he has those moments of like, I step up, I stand up, and I do it. But he's still like, I think at his heart, like really young and playful. And I think that's Spider-Man for sure. Okay, I love, I think Chris Evans as Captain America is pretty good. Pretty good. It's kind of vanilla, but like that's Captain America. That's Steve. He really is very Steve.

Yeah. Okay, I had another one. I had another one in my mind. T'Challa, Chadwick Boseman, so good, legendary, incredible. Josh Brolin is Thanos, hilarious. I don't like Chris Pratt, but I do think he was an incredible Star Lord. He's funny.

Oh gosh, I feel like I had another one right on the tip of my tongue, but. If you have to pick a winner real quick out of those, out of who you mentioned, what's the best performance of a character? Okay. It's actually, I think, Thor. I think he, okay.

And let me talk about, it's his arc. He like starts off as such like a dumb doofus like jous jock. I don't like the fat suit they put him in. That was really weird and dumb. That was weird. I agree. But I think his acting of those moments, of his lowest points and then back to being a superhero, I thought he was incredibly human. He gets both most improved and I think best. Yeah, comes with it.

Most improved. Comes with it, yeah, for sure. I just think that arc is like maybe the best out of all of them. Awesome, awesome. And then, yeah, and that's what Glass County Radio is for. Please call in, let us know who your favorite performance was that we missed.

All right, last question for you today, and then we're going to keep it moving here. Who, so I've done these a couple of times with Jared. I give him, well, I'm not going to give you any background. This is Pathfinder, second edition related. We got a new, the theoretical, right? Hypothetical. We got a new, the theoretical, right? Hypothetical. We got a new campaign coming up. You're going to play a new character and you have to decide between two classes that are somewhat similar, that have somewhat crossover. What would be your go-to in playing a Pathfinder game? Rogue or Ranger?

Ooh, go-to would be Ranger. Go-to, Ranger. All right I talked to me about that. Why? Why Ranger? I don't know. I just listened to my heart and that's what my heart said. I don't tend towards a sneaky character when I'm performing. In video games, all I ever want to do is sneak around. And so in a video game, I would go rogue a thousand percent of the time.

In a TTRPG or in a performance, I tend towards a more in-your-face character instead of the sneaky sneaker. Which I think then maybe would be a good challenge for me then to be a rogue type and what kind of character I would make as a rogue. Oh, I had a dream. Oh, I'm just now remembering my dream. You, me and Paula were doing a new campaign and it was set like in the desert.

It was in like a desert city. And I was playing a, you know, do you know this class? The shadow priest in Pathfinder. I was playing a, you know, do you know this class, the shadow priest? In Pathfinder? I was playing a shadow priest. Shadow priest enters the Pathfinder arena. Okay. I think that's, I think that's why, because my boyfriend plays shadow priest in World of Warcraft.

But we were doing a new, we were starting a new campaign and it was in the desert and I was playing a shadow priest. Fascinating. Just remembered that. Um. That is amazing. I wonder if that is predictive of the future. I mean, just recently in a Blood of the Wild recording out of nowhere, Paula was like, what are we going to do next? What are we going to play next? Yeah.

And we were like, it's going to be a year and a half minimum. At least. Like before we even talk about this. And she's like, well, I want to talk about it. What are we going to do next? Yeah. What are we going to do next? So maybe some desert city setting adventure path. Yes. I want everybody wearing hoods and summoning gins and fighting through sand storms and good shit like that.

You know what I mean? That's awesome. That's awesome. I dreamt of that. All right, let's go to callers. Let's see if anybody wants to weigh in here so far on our on our three questions. And then pretty soon, Mary Lou and I are going to start ranking our all time all timers in terms of science or sci fi, video games. So if you want to

hop on the show, just raise your hand on discord. If you're not already in there, you can go to Hop on the show. Just raise your hand on discord. If you're not already in there, you can go to join the nation.com and Use the code GCN 30 to join for free for 30 days their day free trial You can come and hang out on the show with us. All right, let's see what squid wants to say squid is here Good to have you back squid. What's going on, buddy? Just unmute that mic. It's it is still muted Hello, can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. We got you. What's up, man? Hey, y'all. Good to see. Good to hear from you guys.

I can't wait to see you next week at Gen Con. Yes, Gen Con. We'll see you next week. It's got my fully loaded schedule with all the GCN shows just about. Awesome. Awesome. And I'm playing in the car with Jared, so I'm looking forward to that. Oh, nice. Oh, that's amazing. Give him hell.

Give him hell. Yeah. I will do. I will do. Just make his life miserable. I was thinking I might play Yelka. There you go. That's awesome.

Good fun. Dark Yelka. So questions. The questions were, we were talking about comic book performances, right? Comic book performances, Death Stranding, and then Roger Ranger. If you have to choose between those two classes, what's your go-to? Anyway, what do you want to weigh in on here? Okay. So I'm going to just real briefly, I got to go front door on the comic performance and say, Heath Ledger is Joker

because- Oh, yeah. Oh, Mary Lou. I can't, how could I forget that? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with me? I agree. Oh, that's a great one, Squid.

Great performance. You're absolutely right, Squid. Thank you. Yeah, and then on the the Rogue Ranger, I've played a lot of both. They're two of my favorite classes. I think I've probably a lot of both. They're two of my favorite classes. I think I've probably played more Rogues. But to me, there is no better introductory class for people than Ranger. And so whenever I play a new system, I tend to build a Ranger first to get my feet in because they

data a little bit of everything, right? They've got martial elements, they've got spellcaster elements, they got a pet option, you've got you've got all the stuff in there. You can do melee or ranged. Right. So by looking at ranger. Yeah, they have a little bit of druid in them, they have a little bit of, yeah, cleric in them. Yeah. It's interesting. Right. So ranger to me is whenever I take on a new system, I build a ranger because it sort of gives me a look at all the different sort of subsystems. And then once I'm more comfortable with it, I want to build out a rogue to rec face.

That's, that's my, that's kind of my progression. Gotcha. Have you played multiple rogues in pathfinder second edition? I have actually. Yes. Okay. And you, and so you like it, pardon me. It plays well.

I haven't played a rogue yet in 2e and I really want to. Yeah. One of the interesting things about rogue in 2e is that there are so many things that class can do, depending on your subclass you pick. You can really have a whole party of just rogues and be completely functional. It's kind of nuts.

My favorite rogue that I've built, though, is one of my Pathfinder Society characters, which is a rogue, a scoundrel rogue that is a multi-class champion. So they're mostly walking around like a paladin. Nobody knows they're a rogue. It's really fun. Oh, that's cool. What a clever idea.

All right, Squid. Thank you. Thanks for kicking us off, man. Good start. Good start to the show from the callers, courtesy of Squid. Let's get to psychosis up here. Where are you, psychosis? You were here a second ago.

Psychosis shot a hand up early. I thought it might've been about Death Stranding. Am I right on that? Bam! All right! Mm-hmm. In the sequel, yesterday. Oh, wow!

Amazing timing. It's fresh. And the sequel yesterday. Oh wow, amazing timing. It's fresh. It is fresh. And I will say this, don't let the delivery thing like get you down. I don't super enjoy delivery thing either. It's all about the story.

So you can absolutely speed run the deliveries and just have an amazing time with the story. Yeah, yes. That's cool. Totally. time with the story. Yeah, yes. That's cool. Totally. It's the story, it's stunning. So I was interested because it was Kojima and I love Metal Gear Solid and I played multiple of those games

and I was interested but then I heard, I just kept hearing it's really weird and so I didn't try it yet. It's weird. Yeah, it's weird. I'm not gonna say it's not that weird. I cannot say like, oh, it's not that weird. No, it's really weird.

But it's, that's like what's great about it, I think. It's fearless in its weirdness. And that I think is really cool. It's not weird just to be weird. It's like, I don't know. Psychosis, did you- I'll shut up. Psychosis. When you say you played the director's cut, did you replay it and play the director's cut,

or was that your first playthrough? No, I played it on a PS4 originally. Like, it was the only pre-order I ever did in my whole life. Wow. After, like, it was announced, because of, like, Hideo Kojima. But I replayed the director's cut just recently. I got in a, you know, Hummelbundle or something years ago. I just never got around to it. And the director's cut just recently. I got in a Hummel bundle or something years ago. I just never got around to it.

And the director's cut is, it makes things much easier for the delivery aspect and a lot of quality of life improvement for them. That's the only one I've ever played. And so I didn't, I think maybe I just never understood why people were like, it's so tedious because I was like, I was having a great time. I only ever played this. Skid, uh, skid, as I, as we said, is on Twitch and he said the delivery thing is my

favorite part of it. Yeah, I kind of love it. I played it a lot during the pandemic. And so there was, it was, there's something very comforting about like just walking through these gorgeous, it's really beautiful. Um, these gorgeous landscapes that look like America and you're connecting isolated people, which felt very thematic during the pandemic.

People that are stuck in their bunkers and you have to go out and put yourself on the line and put yourself in danger, your body and soul to connect people. And it's, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. That's awesome. You got anything else, psychosis? What do you think about too?

Well, I just started too, and I will say this. It looks amazingly beautiful, but I haven't gotten too deep into it. Okay. Okay. So, but it is a a different different experience for sure Well, maybe call us back in a few weeks and and report in on to let us know what you think Will do. All right, man. Thanks for calling and appreciate you. Let's do one more and then we're gonna start ranking some games This is gonna be awesome. Ad Astra, what do you got?

Ad Astra, I can't read the rest of your name. Hey. Primerda. Ad Astra, Primerda. What's up, Ad Astra? Good to have you back, how you doing? I'm doing great. I actually, I really wanted to get in

on the great casting listener award. Many people went to the superhero well. Not enough supervillains, I think. Okay, let's talk villain. Please. And I really wanted to throw out Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborn. Oh, yeah. That one scene, that one scene.

With the mirror? With the mirror and when he, oh, I'm thinking, I think I'm thinking in No Way Home, where Spider-Man gets, Peter gets the Spidey sense and he's like, something is wrong. And everybody's like, oh no, what could it be? And then he catches Norman trying to sabotage something and Green Goblin is like taken over again.

Oh, it's so good, sorry. Did they bring back Defoe for that? Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, he's really good. When they talk about actors chewing up the scenery, that's the role that I picture. That one meme of him like, yeah, that's a good one.

And they brought him back in the second one when Harry goes nuts. Yeah. I loved that role so much. I love Willem Dafoe. Willem Dafoe's so good. And it's just in so much. There's so many movies like, Willem Dafoe's in this too?

And I never mind. No, 100%. We talked about fearless. He's in so much. There's so many movies, like, Wom to Fo's in this too? And I never mind. No, 100%. And I never feel like he's billed or talked about as an actor that's in everything, right? But he certainly feels like he's all over the place. He is. And he has such a crazy range,

like Lighthouse to Norman Oswald. Like, what? He's crazy. Yeah. Awesome. Is that all you had? You just wanted to get an answer in there? I really just wanted to do that and I got to jump off and go to a meeting, sadly. All right, cool. Have a good meeting. Thanks for calling in. Thank you for your service. Yeah. So, I mean, we've gotten into a rhythm here on the show. Whenever I have something to give away or we have something to give away, we'll do a listener award for the best answer on these

things. That isn't what was happening today. I don't have an award to give away or we have something to give away, we'll do a listener award for the best answer on these things. That isn't what was happening today. I don't have an award to give away, but when he said listener award, I'll tell you what. If you guys want to call in and give us the best performance, we'll pick the best idea, the best answer by the end of the show and we'll give you bragging rights. I'll tell you that much. I'll start jotting these things down. Who did Psychosis say?

I don't remember. He said somebody. Psychosis, just put it in chat. Anyway, let's talk sci-fi video games and then we'll come back to some more callers. Callers may want to weigh in on sci-fi video games as well. So the idea here was, let's talk about, you know, we've both played a decent amount of science fiction video games in our time. Let's take a look at the whole scope and try to, try to whittle down a top five. This was extremely difficult for me. So I'll be mentioning multiple honorable mentions, but I do have a top five and there was one

rule that I emailed Mary Lou about, which was to make things a little bit cleaner and to get more ideas out there. We are going to any franchises are going to take up one spot on the list. So if you love even just one game out of a franchise and you don't like the others, that's fine that takes up one. But if you like multiples, it also just takes up one and we can chat. We can chat all about it. So the best way I think to go about this is, why don't we both start with five,

the number five on our list, and we'll go up from there. If what I say or what you say is higher on someone else's list, we will table it and then talk about it when we get higher in the list. So I'll kick it off to you first, Mary Lou. Give me your fifth place all time science fiction. Fifth place all time. Okay fiction. Fifth place all time. Okay.

I will say just as an umbrella, remember I'm a gamer girl, but I only became a gamer girl in 2020. So I don't have a deep, deep catalog of games that I've played. I did not know that. I know that you became a tabletop gamer girl in 2020. I didn't know that that extended to video games too. Yeah, I only played like Pokemon. I played thousands of hours of Pokemon growing up,

but I was really scared that I would be bad at it. So I just watched my friends play. And so I have like a knowledge of all of the storylines and plot elements of every video game. Cause I would like go home and read about them. So I would like, I know how to play Half-Life and Portal, but I've never actually played them. And I know the like lore of Killzone. Why? I don't know. But I've never actually played them. So, okay, please. But okay, number five.

So our lists I think are going to be very different. Probably. Yeah, that's great five on my list. So our lists, I think, are gonna be very different. Probably. Yeah, that's great, that's great. My list is top five, five, Destiny 2. Destiny 2 on my honorable mentions list. Didn't make the top five, but just barely, just barely. Destiny 2, okay, so I read this book a while back. It's been around for a while. I don't know if you've ever read it. You should read it. It's called... Oh, what's it called, chat? It's

the pixels... Oh my God. Oh, not of... Ready Player One. No. I'm thinking of a D&D book now, and I can't get over it. What is the book by the... Oh, this makes me sound so stupid. Now I can't even remember the guy's name, the author. Anyway, it's a nonfiction book about video game development, Blood, Sweat and Pixels. That's it. So look that up and treat yourself to an awesome read. It's called Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. It is just a nonfiction book by a journalist that just goes into detail on the development

of several different games. And each chapter is a game. So you get its whole development story beginning to end. And you get great interviews from executives that were involved in all the business. And it's some games that made it, games that failed it's really interesting book and there is a whole chapter on Destiny and if you've played a lot of destiny you should read this because it's

Fascinating it tells the whole story about the you know about bungee sort of letting go of halo and how challenging that was from a business perspective and then you know trying to not make a Halo remake and try to make something different and then like first versions not going very well and then having to you know update and change and improve and now I know Destiny I played a decent amount of Destiny 2 and it's awesome so yeah great choice so have you done a lot of rating in Destiny 2? Do you still play Destiny 2 with friends? No. What did you do? You just played like kind of on your own?

That's probably the game that I've played the least in my top because I think that game really sings when you have like a rating group. And I had a friend, Clint Trucks' wife, Megan, plays Destiny and has a raiding crew that they raid all the time. And she brought me in and I did a couple with them and they were so nice and so cool. But I played it mostly solo. And I just, I love the depth of lore. I loved the voice acting and the three classes I thought were really creative and weird and I loved just the vibes of it and the player base was surprisingly

nice and friendly. So not only do I think like the game itself is so cool because of the world and the mechanics are fun and cool, like the player base that it has captivated and cultivated is really nice and like friendly. And so just that game has left only like positive feelings in my life and world. And I just loved, I loved sitting and just reading like the lore elements, you know, and like clicking through all the different like items and like our characters and just reading all the lore. That's just awesome. So deep. There's so much there to work with. I love that. I'm actually going to go to a call here real quick because this guy, if I'm not mistaken,

is a massive Destiny 2 player. So I think we gotta bring up K-Rob. Friend of the show, K-Rob. K-Rob! Moderator of the Discord, K-Rob. You're a massive Destiny 2 player, right? Oh yeah, I have, last time I checked, like 2,500 hours in the game. Dang!

That is legit. Let's go. Yeah. So were you happy to hear Mary Lou kick her list off with that? Oh, you know it. I will say that right now, Destiny 2 is in kind of a okay spot. They just released an expansion. And it's like the lowest numbers they've put up at the beginning of an expansion.

So, but they just had their big like last year they had their big like finale to the big saga that they've been leading up to for 10 years. So I think a lot of people are like, all right, I think I'm done. So I think a lot of people just moved on to other games. Yeah. And honestly, the best time to play, since it's a live service game, there's like different eras of the game. And the best time to play was in, I think it was right during the pandemic, because they made all of the old stuff free. Yes, that's when I was playing. And then you can go and play the new stuff. And then they did that whole, like, putting stuff in the vault, which was kind of, I think, lost a lot of people. So, yeah, there's like different areas that are like of different qualities. So like that time was like my favorite time to play the game.

Then I got really lucky because, yeah, I came in at a great time. There was tons of free content. I was having such a great time. There was tons of free content. I was having such a great time. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I wouldn't even get down on them, honestly, like even though the numbers are a little low. I mean, how spectacular to have a game in a community that's consistently running live for 10 years. I mean, even that alone, I mean, it's extremely impressive. Yeah, people were saying like, oh, destiny's dead. But I'm like, they've been doing this for so long. Like, it's... Yeah.

Right. It can't all be hits, right? You've got to have a little dip here and there. I'm sure they'll be back. Exponential growth is a myth and a lie perpetuated by capitalism. So... Yeah. And I thought the final story was fantastic. Like to like finish it off. They just, it was, it was so good. Didn't they have, like, they had a really moving tribute to, oh gosh, what's his name? Um, to Lance Reddick, who was a major, major character in destiny. And they handled his, he played the game.

Like he legitimately played the game all the time. And so like they, they did like, He played the game. Like, he legitimately, like, played the game all the time. And so, like, they... they did, like... Yeah. It's... And that's just beautiful to me. Like, that speaks to the community and the care by the developers and the game devs. Like, that... It's hard... There's heart to it. There's heart to Destiny that I really like.

Yes. I agree. It's not just killing aliens, even though I fucking love killing aliens. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. And fun fact, I represented Lance Reddick for many years. He was a voiceover client of mine.

Oh my God. And he was an awesome dude. I couldn't, could not be less surprised. Yeah, exactly. I'm so glad to hear it, but I'm not surprised. He seems like the coolest guy. And he's played some super intimidating characters

and stuff too, so you could sort of maybe think like, maybe he's a little rough around the edges, like in real life, whatever, like, nope, like couldn't have been nicer, and just a hustler too, which is also great to see if somebody who's had success is just like willing to work, ready to work, what do you got for me, what can I do who's, you know, had success, it's just like willing to work, ready to work. What do you got for me? What can I do?

What, you know what I mean? Instead of just like laying around saying no to everything. I just love that. That was, he was awesome. Yeah. You got anything else? K Rob, I wanted to bring you up for Destiny 2, but I don't know if you wanted to chat about anything else.

You got a super, you got a comic book performance or anything like that? Performance? I mean, I think the obvious answer is RDJ as Iron Man. Yeah, that is the obvious answer. It's spectacular, so great answer. I mean, Iron Man, the first Iron Man movie literally changed the cinematic world.

Like, that was the turning point, and I truly think it's because of his performance. The movie is good, but it wouldn't have changed the world like it did without his Tony Stark. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it needed all of those elements, but without him, none of it works. I mean, it was just, or none of it becomes that big.

That big. It's just awesome. All right, cool. thanks, K-Rob. We're gonna get back to this list. I appreciate you calling in, buddy. Let's go to my number five. Let's see, number five I went with Dead Space. Dead Space number five.

Now, did you ever get a chance to play the remastered Dead Space? No, because I'm too scared. But I do, I am, I love the lore of Dead Space. I know. What's the famous one, the one on the door? No dead, like, come here or something like that. Do you remember this meme? Yeah. Somebody in the chat remind me what the doors say, the famous meme. I love all the memes from Dead Space and it seems so scary that I would poop my pants in my own house. So I do not like horror video games. I never have. I don't like horror as a genre. I'm

starting to come around on that for various reasons. I've made a lot of horror friends, Jared being one of them, and he's constantly talking about the positives of horror. Obviously, started getting into horror role playing between Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green kind of stuff. And then at this time, people start talking about the Dead Space remaster. I never played the original. So I was like, all right, I'll play the remaster

and I'll stream it. And I could stream it. It was less scary if I felt like I would like with stream. I just, you know what I mean? With chat, things feel less scary. I would stream. I would stream a horror game because then at least I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm going through it with someone and for someone. Exactly. Like you're not alone. You don't feel like you're alone, right? Yes, exactly. So Dead Space makes this list to me, which by the way, it's a very tough list to make.

It was a very tough decision, what gets that fifth spot. And I did it because I feel like it's pretty undeniable that it is one of the best science fiction game experiences in terms of story and execution of a sci-fi horror situation. Like I'll take Dead Space 100 times out of 100 over Alien Isolation. And Alien Isolation is great, but like the way the Dead Space story captures science fiction horror and particularly space horror

is so well done. And yes, there's a lot of jump scares and stuff, but there's also a lot of jump scares and stuff, but there's also a lot of fascinating story, really fascinating, like mystery solving and stuff like that. Mm hmm. But then on top of it all, there's- I love the classic thing of, that's the classic game where you're like finding a voice note from a scientist, right? Yes. Or like you get a log. Yeah. And then the hologram comes up and it's like, and it's like in the corner.

Yeah. And it cuts off. you can keep walking while it's playing and just keep experiencing the game. And then, yeah, so ClorpDunk just said it in Twitch chat. And then the last element is that the gameplay is so fun. Like the arcadeness of how you play, what you get to do, you get zero G combats and flying outside and then the sounds in space and stuff when you're in your helmet and everything you know like manning a gun on the outside of a starship I mean it's just so much

really fun variety in the gameplay so yeah anyway was awesome. That's awesome. What is your number four? My number four was Bioshock. Ah, yes. Okay. I'm so glad you played Bioshock, please. Yeah. And almost too scary for me. Almost too scary because they jump out at you. And they're scary. But the story's just so good. I love the slow drip, right, of finding out who you are, where you are, what you're doing there. The Adam and Eve choices of what to do with the Little Sisters.

Come on, the Little Sister Big Daddy duo iconic. I just think, yeah, they really like set the standard for this kind of sci-fi video game. Okay, Princess, really? Let's relax. It's one of the best out there. Yeah, yeah, it's just iconic it is it is iconic it didn't make my list for Various reasons, but I do I did love playing that game Talk about in all The immersion in that game is incredible. It truly takes you to another place so deeply and so Yeah, you can't stop thinking about it I mean, it's an attention is really really high you feel like you're Underwater and like things can crack and explode at any moment. You're in a powder egg

yeah, yeah, cuz it already has things have already gone to shit and You're trapped like what how you, what do you do? Yeah. Really cool. Really tense. Number four for me, this got bumped up my list pretty far because when I started to think about like, what was one of my most enjoyable experiences, gaming experiences recently, that was not high pressure

and was almost relaxing. And it came at a time when my life where I was experiencing new, new kinds of games. And this one, uh, at first I was like, I don't get it. And then it totally like clicked and I spent, uh, for me a lot, which is like dozens and dozens and dozens of hours, uh, uh, in this game. And that is no man's sky. I was really hoping you were gonna say that.

Okay, great, tell me all about it. I have a feeling I would like love it. You know, when you come from a dead space, right? The constant palm sweating horror of opening every door and figuring out the puzzles and all that kind of stuff to some of the other games you'll see on my list here, which are intense and moment to moment and or great stories, et cetera, et cetera. Like No Man's Sky has almost none of that, but

it it's exploration. It's sheer feel like you are actually in a far, far, far science future where you can do that faster than light travel, where you can just burn your engines between planets, land on any planet and it's procedurally generates what's there. All the animals are unique. All the plants are unique and they're, they're all procedurally generated. So you feel like you, and then you have your scanner, you're discovering things for the first time, you're cataloging your, and then for me, what, what really, once things started to click, I started to get into the ship

building and ship like ship buying and Trading and so you would have this fleet of ships and you'd be I would for hours. I would just sit in a spaceport Watching people fly in and they're all randomized and I'd watch them fly and be like, I love that ship I'm gonna go buy it and then you you negotiate with the owner and buy a ship. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's so cool. And then when you get tired of it, you can just sell it off, maybe at a profit because you upgraded it or whatever.

I mean, so much fun. I highly recommend it. It's an exploration game. I love exploration. I love exploration games. OK, so that's probably top of my list. Gratuitous D says, hunting space pirates was fun. That's also true. You could just like go for hours and hours and hours

just be like, I'm just gonna go kill space pirates, like hunt them down, improve my ships and weapons so I can fight better. I mean, so much fun. I'm literally opening up Steam to put it on my wish list so that I can get notifications when it goes on sale. Yeah, you should experience it. You really should. Okay, let's break this up with a quick caller. Let's bring in Bad Syntax, see what Bad Syntax has to say. Don't mention any games

we haven't mentioned yet, just in case, but if you've got any comments on what we've said so far in the show, we're happy to talk to you about it. Well, I missed the beginning of the episode, so I'm a little nervous about telling you my pick for a favorite sci-fi game. Oh, okay. Yeah, you know what? Hold off. We'll come back to you in a little bit. Whisper. We'll come back to you because let's get through our list and then if it's not on our list, we'll bring you up and you can tell us why we're stupid. If it is on our list, we'll let you expound upon it. All right. Go ahead to number three. Mary Lou.

Number three for me. What did I, what did I put for number three? Yes. Cyberpunk 2077. Easy. Ah, Cyberpunk 2077. So couldn't make my list just out of sheer game time. I've only probably put about 20 hours into Cyberpunk 2077.

I'd love to get more in. Wow. What a build of Night City. Holy shit. Yeah. I will say that I waited, I think, a year to play 2077 because people who played it at launch, I mean, it was just hilarious, all the different glitches. at launch. I mean it was just hilarious all the different like glitches and and it it came out too soon right like it was it was not ready and that was sad but after like a year they they really worked they were cranking out those updates they were cranking out those patches and by then it was one of the best running games I've ever played. It was fast. It was looked Incredible. Yeah stories insane the for for it being so like, you know

cold and in future dystopia the the pathos and stuff with Johnny and with Oh Your friend your guy, your dude, your bro, your... chat don't get me. Um, it's Jackie, thank you, yes. It's just so good and all of the different ways that you can customize your character. The character building is so awesome and the different quests are great and the characters are awesome. My only criticism is the difference between V. Like if you choose a male V or a female V, there's like some really weird changes in like, uh, in like

costume or even like some story elements, but, um, it's just insanely good from beginning to end, just a whole universe. So great. So did you beat it? I mean, is there a beating of cyberpunk 2077? There is. There's like, well, there's like a last- You can finish the main quest storyline. The main story quest with Johnny Silverhand. I have a disease where when I know that I'm about to finish a game, I like instantly can't

play it anymore. And it's like, it truly is, like I hate when you get that pop-up that's like, are you sure you want to do this quest? You can't turn back. Then I know it's the final questup that's like, are you sure you wanna do this quest? You can't turn back. Then I know it's the final quest and I'm like, nope. And I get disgusted by the game and can't play it anymore. And I think it's because it's like, you can't break up with me,

I'm breaking up with you sort of thing. Where I'm too emotional and I can't have it be done. And so I'm like, so get away from me. I'm ending it, I'm ending it. You can't end it. I'm choosing this. That's great. That's so great. It's truly a disease and I hate it. That's why I try to do side quests before the main story because otherwise I will prematurely ejaculate myself from a game. I meant to evacuate,

but ejaculate was funnier. I think you meant something else. But it was funnier. I'm glad it's on your list. It didn't make my list just out of sheer gameplay time, but I think it deserves a spot amongst our collective top 10 because it is, I know many people that think it's one of the best games ever made. Okay, number three on my list. I don't know if this might surprise some people. It might be a little too far down for some.

Number three, I'm going Mass Effect. Mass Effect number three for me. Is it on your list? Have you played it yet? It's not because I haven't personally played it myself and so I didn't, I felt like that would be stolen valor. I did watch my high school boyfriend play it for dozens of hours and it's another one that I like read all of the like stories and and and

plot elements so I like know a lot about it, but I haven't personally played it and yeah legend Mass Effect, Mass Effect 3 legend. Yeah, so Mass Effect 2 was the best. I wasn't as into Mass Effect 3. I think maybe that's why it fell down my list a little bit. I get a little soured on some of the titles, but yeah, 2 was great. And then, you know, for me, it's just about, again, immersion. It immerses you into that world, into its politics,

into its factions, into its people, and alien races and all that kind of stuff. And then like, you know, just the great bio-ware sort of the relationship development and, and personal character developments, choosing your story and your path and everything. Yeah. But then add on to that. It had, it had more limited elements of what No Man's Sky had, but it had it like the exploration, find a planet, scan it, what's down there, go down, get some

resources, build stuff with the resources. Mind blowing. And then it had like the third person shooter element stuff, which was so much fun. So yeah, just all around a fantastic property. And I'm, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't been like a movie or a, a TV series. I'm surprised too. It seems like it would make a great like a great IP to do more stuff off of. But yeah, that as somebody in the industry then that makes me suspect that somebody's made it difficult in the world. You know, somebody bought the rights of it or somebody's making that difficult because

yeah, that feels like a slam dunk. Feels easy. Yeah. Gratuitous in Twitch and K-Rob in Discord both say that Amazon is currently working on a show. Nice. Yeah. K-Rob linked in Discord chat if you want to go in there. Mass Effect TV series is now officially in development an article on IGN awesome And then elf barf and discord said sadly EA horribly mismanaged the IP like they do with many of their products Isn't that what I just said? Yeah, somebody was making that difficult in the IP world So yeah elf barf that elf barf says three turned a lot of people off off and drama turned out disappointing and it's been years of nothing since and I feel

like I might be unfairly judging it by that maybe back in the day it would have been no it still wouldn't Mass Effect 2 would still not top my list back when I was just finishing Mass Effect 2 so I'll say that I got two I got two big ones coming up for me number Number two on your list. Huge for me. I don't even know if it's going to be on your list at all, but changed my life, Horizon Zero Dawn. Oh, man.

One of the best. I never finished it. I never finished it, but- Well, Joe, and that's why it's not on your list because the story and the development of the story is, I think, maybe the greatest story ever told in video games. Horizon Zero Dawn from beginning to end, I think, is a perfect package. Then also, you're fighting robot dinosaurs. Give me a break! You're fighting robot dinosaurs with a bow and arrow! That is awesome! It's awesome. And so just like on the surface, from a very surface level, it looks like, so like kick ass, hot redhead,

shoots a bow and arrow at robot dinosaurs, huh? And you're like, nice. And then you play the game and it's like this deep, investigation into humanity and what it means to be a person and a society and time and motherhood and growth and life and death. And it's so, so good. Lance Reddick in it, fantastic. The sequel, pfft.

Some very, very cool and interesting fun stuff in the sequel, as well as some like deeply insane shark jumping nonsense that I thought was really, really fun, but so dumb. And so disappointing in that way, because I think Horizon Zero Dawn is like a good book. And the second one was Forbidden West was pretty schlocky. I'm looking forward to the third one. I hope it gets a little-

Did the first one have an ending? Did it end or did it feel like they were just setting up for a sequel? Did they know they were going to make a sequel at that time or does it come to a satisfying conclusion? They knew they were going to make a sequel. It feels like in a book, it does come to a very satisfying conclusion for that story, but much like in the first book of a trilogy, it ends on a, oh no, things are much bigger than it seems.

We solved this problem, but surprise, there is an even bigger threat looming that we don't know how to deal with, which is what the second one is about, which I think the second one, the threat of the second one is just so, I don't know how, I don't know. Maybe other people could talk about it. They go, in improv, we talk about heightening, right? So when you do a scene, you want to heighten, right? And so the first thing, whatever's funny about it, when you do a scene, you wanna heighten, right? And so the first thing, whatever's funny about it,

when you do it again, you want it to be a little bigger and funnier, it makes it funnier. And then the last one, you want it to be the biggest. But if you heighten, if you go to heaven, we call those in beats, right? First beat, then you heighten to the second beat, and then you heighten to the third beat. If you go to heaven in the second beat, right?

And you're talking to God and the devil in the second beat, where are you gonna go in the third beat? And that's what I think Forbidden West did. They just heightened way too fast, way too quickly. What are we gonna do? You know what I mean? Sweet Threat says, time for mega heaven. And yeah, I guess we're gonna have to go to mega heaven.

All right, cool. What I will say about Horizon Zero Dawn, always take with a grain of salt me saying I didn't finish anything, because I don't finish most things. I just get busy and distracted, and then I just, I grab the next new shiny thing. I have no commitment to these things,

so it's not a testament to the game at all. I just sort of like, that's how I consume things, in small doses. I will say that Horizon Zero Dawn, probably the reason I stopped playing it is I found something, I must have found something slightly dissatisfying in the gameplay loop. I'm not sure exactly what it was because I will say without question and I say this to this day, if you had me make a list of the best prologues of any video game I've ever played. Horizon Zero Dawn would be number one. It was

the best prologue I've ever played. I don't know, it takes an hour or two to play. The story is so intense and so beautiful and so dramatic. And at the end of it, you're like emotionally wracked. And it's like, it's like Horizon Zero Dawn. Like the game is just beginning and you're like emotionally drained. Uh, what a spectacular, uh, what a spectacular, yeah. And, and her dad character. Oh yeah. Okay. Number two on my list.

I've got a feeling you haven't played this one. And if you want to talk about Horizon Zero Dawn being the best story ever written in video games, I would say you got to try this out and see how it stacks up. Number two, Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic. Coder. I know that one. I have to.

I know that one's on my list. I know I'm going to love that. Everybody has always told me that. I wish that they would just completely remake it for a new generation and redo the, and redo, like redo the whole thing like they did for Dead Space. I just remember playing that game and being so enamored and immersed with it for every moment through, you know, 100, 200 hours of gameplay. And then at the end of it, just thinking for years that it was the best game I ever played. So, yeah, it's just a phenomenal science fiction gaming experience.

And just like, it was such, it was such an example of how you could make things in an expanded Star Wars universe that have nothing to do with Luke Skywalker, and they could be phenomenal adult level stories. You know, you could have Jedi and you could have Sith and have it not be a cartoon goofy nonsense. Like it was so interesting, the characters are so great

and your choices actually matter. I mean, to put that together and have that, you can actually become the Lord of the Sith or you can actually become the most powerful Jedi throughout the story of the game. And it's a million little choices along the way. I mean, just so cool. They never asked you, do you want to be a Jedi

or do you want to be Sith? Like, it just happens. And it's just spectacular. I mean, it's pretty obvious a lot of the moral choices. But then there are like power choices, like force power choice, like talent trees. Love that. And they make all the dark side stuff so powerful.

Yeah. That like if you're power gaming, you're like so tempted. It was really well designed. Really, really offensively speaking, right? Like the offensive powers were just so good. Which I think is a great choice. I really like that in video games, when you can choose to be evil or good, but choosing to be evil,

legitimately makes you stronger. And I actually don't like in video games, and I think Bioshock actually suffers from this, is when you choose to be bad, there are consequences, right? And when you choose to be bad, there are consequences, right? And when you choose to be good, you're rewarded for it. Right. That, I think, is like, I don't know, it's a little weenie.

Yeah, it's weenie. It's stupid. It's stupid. It's kind of, it's more interesting, I think. It's more interesting, I think. It's more tense. It gives you, I think, a cooler experience to have to like, because I think in real life, you know, sometimes it's harder to be good and it would be easier to just be bad. Yes. And that, I think, is fascinating.

You have to play this game. You have to play this game. Okay. What was I going to say? Oh, and I don't know if you know this. Do you know that the game, it plays like tabletop? Like that's the engine. So like you walk around the world, you interact with people and you make choices in dialogue.

But when combat breaks out, everything freezes and you do move action, standard actions kind of stuff. I wish baby Mary Lou had this. I'm going to have this guy throw a grenade. I'm going to have this guy shoot that guy with a laser. I'm going to have this guy shoot that guy. And then, and then this guy shoot that guy with a laser. I'm going to have this guy shoot that guy. And then you hit play and it just all starts to play out in front of you. I mean so much fun.

That's awesome. I wish Baby Mary Lou had some of the Final Fantasies and Coder growing up because I was scared of the time element. I would freeze, right? I didn't like being in an active battle battle because I would be like what if I mess Up what if I miss anything and they get me so I liked things like Pokemon that were time-based that I could like Like breathe that kind of I would get like physically ill, you know And so I needed to like have that time and I wish I had that baby

Spitfire said it's real time with pause. That's what it is. It's not turn-based necessarily. Like you, it is turn-based, but like it doesn't always freeze everything. You can automate a lot of the procedure so that you're like your party, you can have them, oh, they always do X and then they just keep shooting pew, pew. Yeah. Pew, pew on their turn.

Or you can freeze everything and make everybody be super strategic. It's your level of play. It's so fun. Love that. Whatchamacallit said in Discord chat, who said it? Mr. E. Knight said it's, I didn't realize this, I didn't remember. It's a modified 3.5 D&D system.

So it's really close to D&D too and how it operates. Okay, number one, this is it. And then we go to the callers. We see what we missed. We see more heaping praise for what we've picked. What do you got? So Joe made the rule that we couldn't do multiple games in one list or in our list because I think he knew what I was going to do, which was make all of my choices be Xenoblades.

I think I would have done like maybe Horizon Zero Dawn five and then four would be Xenoblades one and then three would be Xenoblade two and then two would be Xenoblade X and then one would be Xenoblade X. And then one would be Xenoblade III. So yeah, the Xenoblade Chronicles is my number one. Wow, so I played a little of the first one and I didn't finish it.

It seemed great. I just didn't, but again, I didn't finish it. But you're telling me III is the best of the best? III made me cry and weep, like actually like weeping, sobbing in my bed. Because it's like a love story actually. Like what's crazy is like a good sci-fi franchise. Like, so the thing about the Xenoblade Chronicles is that Xenoblade 1 takes place in this world, crazy sci-fi fantasy, very fantasy. It's definitely maybe more fantasy

than sci-fi, but there's still absolutely sci-fi elements, especially if you beat the game. And then the second one takes place in a completely different world. There's some weird elements that are shared, kind of like in a Final Fantasy way where there are like some monsters that are the same and some terms are the same but like none of the characters are and it's like what how do they connect and then the third game tells you through hours and hours and hours of exploration and character development how they connect and then the DLC for the third game goes deeper into it. And you get to see the stories of some of the characters

that you miss from Xenoblade 1 and Xenoblade 2 come back in three. And it explains their stories and what happened to them. And there's like, oh, there's just stuff about children and parents. And Xenoblade, the whole crux of it is like is is time and and you're and growing as a person and and Souls and like oh, I don't know man. It's just it's endless. It's so big

It's so epic, but then it's also so personal, just between the relationships between two characters, friendships, romance, brotherhood and sibling, a teammate. It is, it's really, really amazing. And then I just started playing Xenoblade X, and that is very different from the Xenoblades 1 through 3 which are very narrative. Xenoblade X is much more exploration based and I love it! It's so good! You're on this alien planet and you have to, it's like a hex crawl kind of and you're crawling through all of these hexes trying to discover them and I just think it's so interesting the way they replay the same themes over and over

and over again in different ways. I think it's so creative and interesting. What's the ballpark hour investment for one of these games? For the average person? Yeah, like for the main story. I think people say like, if you're not a completionist. If you're not a completionist, maybe like 50 hours each. Okay, that's a lot.

It's a lot. I've spent over a hundred hours, I think, on each of them. And it's probably more than 200 on some of them, but it's worth it. It's all of the story elements and oh, oh, and then in X what I'm doing right now, if you like ships, you each get your own mech suit. Like you have a party, you have a party of four and each one gets their own mech suit. You have a party of four and each one gets their own mech suit and you can customize them with different weapons and armor and you can do different color schemes and you can buy different models, base models and then tinker with them and then you can fly

around. So half of the game you're just a guy on the planet and then half of the game you have this mech suit That can fly around through and it's freaking awesome. That's great Awesome. All right I will round it out with my number one and then we're going to the callers to see you guys want to say so My number one all-time I gotta go halo and this is the reason that we did the This is the primary reason that we did the let's split up the franchise's thing because I could have had halo and halo 3

As part of my top five, but yeah, it's it's halo k-rob is right on it kind of had to be now look There's positives negatives to the whole thing but and obviously similar to Mass Effect in recent years, sort of a fall off, but like, man, what Halo 1 did for video games is like what Robert Downey Jr. did as Iron Man to the Marvel Universe. Yes, 100%. It changed the way people play shooters. It changed that it was a new generation of consoles that introduced this shocking new American made, you know,

Microsoft console. And it was just like, and when I first played it, I was like, I don't like this. This doesn't play like games. I know it doesn't play like Bond, like 007, right? It was different. But then when you feel like the physics and you feel how like real it feels as you're playing it, and then you add on the story, which by the way, is just stolen from a bunch of other things, a bunch of brilliant things,

and then just like put together in one neat little package and it's so simple. Just like a conglomerate of alien races that have joined together are just trying to exterminate humanity. And you have to have space Marines go fight them. I mean, it can't be simpler than that, but the way that they display the story in part one

is amazing. It makes perfect military sense. It's a great military story. Oh, we're stranded, we're alone, and we have to regroup. We have to mount a defense. We have to find our people, our leaders and whatever. And then like in two, as you get into the Arbiter and there's an alien who becomes an ally

and you play an alien for part of it, so fun. And then I can't remember a more hyped video game released for me than Halo 3. Like at that point in my life, it was like when I saw the trailer, I still get chills when I watch that trailer. Yeah, that was an event. It was that trailer. That was an event. Yeah. It was an event. It was an event.

In me and my friends' lives. Yeah. The trailer, if you haven't watched it in a long time or you've never watched it, just go watch the YouTube teaser trailer of Halo 3. Just phenomenal music and then Cortana, I can't remember, I don't remember the woman who played her voice, but Cortana just saying all she says in it is, or no, she says a few other things, but then finishes it with this is how the world ends. And you just see the end of the world in the trailer. And it's like, what? I mean, it's just, I got, I just got chills again. So phenomenal stuff. Um, yeah, I love Halo. So, uh, yeah, I had to put it up there as number one because of the sheer amount. I played it. I replayed Halo 1

20 times probably I Co-op played it at the highest difficulty levels over and over I played Halo 3 multiplayer for like six straight months Every day like it was just I loved it so much. So anyway, love Halo. Alright, let's go to the calls now Here's what I want to see. I want to see if you guys want to Now here's what I wanna see. I wanna see if you guys wanna weigh in on anything we mentioned. I also wanna see if you can name my five honorable mentions. I did 10 games.

They're not ranked. The next five are not ranked, but they're all in there. One of them has already been mentioned by you, Destiny 2. So Destiny 2 was in there, but now there's four more left. One of which I think is- I have an honorable mention too, yeah. Okay, all right, great. So let's see if they can guess yours. So destiny 2 was in there, but now there's four more left one of which I think is mentioned to ya Okay. All right. Great. Yeah, so let's see if they can guess yours

All right. Let's go back to where's bad bad was here Where'd you go bad? I want to bring you there you are bed syntax. Come on back up. Did we say your game? Or do you want to add it in here now? Are you still there buddy? I Am here All right, great. Great. So what did you want to add in for best now? Are you still there, buddy? I am here. All right, great. Great. So what did you want to add in for best game, best sci fi? So I felt a little better when you said Star Wars Cotor because it's a little bit of a classic game. But I went back even farther to Star Wars High Fighter.

farther to Star Wars TIE Fighter. Ah! You agree with me? Yeah, you know, it's so funny. X-Wing fell, I mean, just out of my top 10. So like, it's so funny. I actually didn't write it down, but X-Wing was one of my all-time favorites. You know I never played TIE Fighter?

I don't know why I finished X-Wing and I knew it was out and I just never got around to buying it, I think. I never bought it. And I hear it was out and I just never got around to buying it, I think. I never bought it. Uh, and I hear it's phenomenal. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's this X-wing was great, but High Fighter just took everything that was great about X-wing and multiplied it by like five because you're, you're just, it's a, for those who don't know, it's a star fighter simulator.

You're just, for those who don't know, it's a starfighter simulator. There's no like, it really added a story element to it, and you can join the Empire's secret cult as an agent when you're going on your missions, and it gives you like alternate goals when you're flying your missions. And it's so cool because you just kind of, you're able to create the story in your mind through the missions that they give you. And, you know, there's no force powers or anything like that, but it's such a great game. It's so cool. Awesome. Thanks, Bad. Appreciate the call. What do you call it? I remember from X-wing just the, the amazingness of the capital ships

along with the small fighters. Like as you flew around, you'd be fighting these Thai fighters and you're flying up along the side of like a Corellian core veteran frigate and just the scope and the size of it was all like to scale so well done. So you'd be, you'd be fighting over a star destroyer and it would be the whole bottom of your screen would be flat and that would but that was just the Star Destroyer you were so close to it that it was like you were over land. I mean it's just crazy. That game was so awesome. Alright let's get

Lucas up here. Lucas you want to weigh in on sci-fi games or any of the other many things that we talked about today? Lucas can can you hear us? Oh yeah, McD, we did play a lot of that. Lucas, we can't hear you, buddy, so I'm going to put you back, but just raise your hand again if you get your mic situated. McD just dropped in chat. Star Control 2. We played a lot of that. Two player on a single keyboard. God, that game was so great. Wait, that's crazy. Yeah, two player on a single keyboard. Butterbiscuit. Butterbiscuit, why don't you join us? Hello, hello. Hey, how's it going? Looks good. What's up, guys? Not much. What do you got? What do you want to talk about? Okay, so there's this game. It's called Prey by all of Cain.

The creators have dishonored. You heard of this? I have it. I own it. I've never played it, but I bought it on a sale once on Steam because I heard it was good. Yeah, it goes on sale for like five dollars. It's one of the great underrated games of our lifetimes, I think. OK, I'm getting on my wish list. It's all about exploration and story choices. So it's this immersive space station environment where every NPC can be killed

and every problem can be solved in 10 different ways. So you're trying to get in a room. You could hack the door, blow it open, turn into a cup and roll between the door and the floor. All different kinds of things. Really good game. Yeah.

So everyone should try it. Awesome. All right. Now I'm a little bit more excited about it. Yeah. Because I just, like you said, it's underrated. I never heard much about it, but it always looked cool to me. So I bought it on a sale.

It's sitting in my steam right now. I should check that out because it made me think- It showed up in the chat a lot today. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it and I've been thinking, Oh, pray. Yeah. You made me think of a great, uh, I'm going to let you go here, Butterbiscuit. I'm going to try to get to as many people as possible. You made me think of a great, uh, uh, game back in the Xbox days, uh, mercenaries. I don't know if anybody ever played mercenaries, but that game was so phenomenal and one of its largest aspects that I loved was like, you truly you got a mission and it was just like, you know You could drive a van into the middle of their camp

and just blow it up. You could snipe everybody from afar and then go in. You could pose as an officer and walk through and try to pass checks. I mean, it was just so phenomenal. That's awesome. Elfbar, if you've been very active in chat, so why don't you get up here and let us hear your voice?

Talk to us. I'm here to speak about Fallout New Vegas. Oh, yeah. I don't know how that has been made. Yeah, this is one that's very upset. Yeah, you should be. It's probably one that's criminally not on this list. I just have to never play it. It's not what you think of when you think of sci-fi. There are spaceships, but you're not flying out in space. There aren't aliens and things. But it's definitely sci-fi and it's truly one of the

greatest games of our time, I think. Yeah, I've heard that for many people. There's not much you can say about it. You can talk endlessly about New Vegas. Everybody knows if they've played it, the writing, the companions, the quests, just the fun setting, the million different ways you can do basically anything. You can piss off everyone or be friends with certain people. You can be a really terrible person or be a nice person. It's really up to you. It's your world. So that's awesome. That I'm a big defender of the dead money DLC, which I think is one of my favorite bits of any game. If anyone hasn't played it, definitely recommend it.

I always wonder, yeah, which DLCs are worth it and which ones are like shameless money grubs. Dead money is love or hate because it takes you out of your comfort zone. You're dropped into this DLC, you don't have any of your gear, and a lot of people really don't like that. Oh, boy. Then you have a bomb collar on, so that's always, you know, people don't like that. They're a bit uncomfortable, but I love it.

It's stressful in the best way. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for the call, Alfbarf. Appreciate it. Yeah. I'm glad somebody came up here and said New Vegas. Still haven't mentioned the four remaining on my list.

Pacifist Jedi, come on up here and weigh in. Can you hear us? What's good? We heard you bump into a table or something and then we didn't hear anything else. Was that Jedi exploding? I hope not. I hope they didn't get him. Can you hear?

Yeah, we got you. So I wouldn't necessarily put this game in my top five, but I think it's one that we'd recommend to people who are into side-by-names. And also, Joe, I think you might have sprung this one, Returnal. Ah, yes. Returnal. Yes, Returnal.

Sorry, Pespis, I have to let you go. Your mic is real bad. We can barely hear you, but I did hear you say Returnal. Returnal. Returnal. Ah! Actually not on the list. It was on my pre-list, but is not one of my final ones here. But can I guess what one what was one of your honorable mentions?

Take a guess. I don't know if you'll guess any of these. Let's see. Control. It is on the list. Look at you. Wow. So control, I felt is a little debatable. Is it science fiction or not? That's why it didn't make my top five. What a game. Hell of a game. I'm going to I'm going to take it back to the callers.

But yeah, control was an awesome gaming experience. Talk about just a really, really fun one to play. Rima, Rima, what do you got? Add to this combo So my my number one was Mickey and everybody else look at it that's when and I fighter X-wing tie fighter. Yep, actually versus type Early 90s game syndicate Syndicate Syndicate Oh

Syndicate um I don't know that one feel like I've heard of that Was that a was that a sub of another like game franchise? Oh, it's it's its own thing syndicate. It's the only thing starting those there's a couple of things going on after it, but Bold frog Peter milling you made it before he started's a couple of things going on after it, but Bulls Frog, Peter Mill and you made it before he started making a lot of money. It's like a three-quarters isometric turn-based cyberpunk kind of game. Very interesting. Okay.

Reema, also having a little trouble with your mic. It's a little low, but yeah, cool. Thank you. I hadn't heard it. It sounds familiar, but I think I'm thinking of something else. But yeah, a lot of people are shouting out in chat that they remember it. Wedgley, why don't you come up and see if you want to add a game into the mix here? Doesn't have to be your favorite, but what's a great game we forgot to mention?

Yeah, I'm wondering if you guys have heard of a game called Outer Wilds. Yes! Oh, yeah. That was one of my honorable mentions. It was on my pre-list. I think you guys have heard of a game called Outer Wilds. Yes! Oh yeah. That was one of my honorable mentions. It was on my pre-list. Oh, so it was one of your honorable mentions. Yeah, what a game.

Go ahead, tell us what you love about Outer Wilds. Just really good exploration, puzzle game, great gameplay loop. It has a Groundhog Day element to it. And the company that produced it was founded by the guy who played hero on Heroes. Oh, cool. Oh, really? I love that guy.

I didn't realize. That's really cool. Also, before I drop, I want to mention XCOM. Yeah. Oh, good one. Good one. All right. Thanks, Bridget. Thanks for calling in. I got all the XCOMs in a humble bundle and they're just sitting on my switch and I'll play them someday. Yeah, I love that turn-based XCOM stuff.

I played XCOM 2 courtesy of Skid who was like, you got to play XCOM. And so I played XCOM 2 and it was great. Professor Jester, we're going to do one more call here and then I got to move on to Starfinder, but we'll keep taking as many as we can through the show Professor Jester, if you're there hop on join us. Otherwise, we're gonna we're gonna keep it moving here and get one One other person in. All right, we're gonna keep it moving. Headhunter, do you want to weigh in on a game here? Yeah, Titanfall 2 here? Yeah, Titanfall 2. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, so I talked during my dead space portion

about just a really fun. It was it was fun to play the game like the actual gameplay of it was so much fun. And I just, I mean, Titanfall 2 is so fun. It's crazy. Um, it didn't follow my list because I don't remember caring that much, like story wise. Did it have a good story? No, I don't think so. The single player is just okay, But the multiplayer experience is amazing. Sum up the gameplay really quick. Sum up the gameplay really quick. Tell them what it's like to play. Basically, you start as a soldier or class. You can play as a grenadier or a machine gunner.

And eventually you're gonna get your mech suit. Your giant mech and go to war. I love a mech suit, your giant mech and go to war. I love a mech suit. And it's just so satisfying to call that mech down, Envry Kavik, and get the fifth mech. Comes down from orbit, right? Like doesn't it come from orbit? Yeah, it drops from orbit. And that's how the game starts.

Like hell divers. Yeah, you drop from a helicopter basically. That's sick and you and you there's all kinds of like running on walls and shit, right and like yeah Yeah, like the apple movement is incredible. Yeah, you slide off of walls. You can have a grappling hook you know you can you can sort of phase shift through through stuff and the movement in that game was so satisfying. Kind of reminded me of like the Spider-Man 2 web slinging, like how satisfying that movement system is.

Just incredible. Wow, ClorpDunk and Skinny are saying that the Titanfall 2 single player campaign is one of the best ever made. Really? Some people really love it. I thought it was okay, but I didn't get that far into the single player. You were mainly doing the multiplayer. Yeah, Sharkey says that the multiplayer is probably the best multiplayer I've ever played. I think so. That's awesome. Yeah, I think so. That's awesome. Thanks, guys. My pleasure.

Thanks for calling in, buddy. Thank you. And then McDermott said, McD said, I've never cared more for a mech. So I think that he got into it too and loved his mech. We're going to move on here just for time concerns, but we'll come back to you guys shortly. I got to shout Ukinnychan out in Twitch chat who nailed one of my honorable mentions. In fact, I call this sixth place because it just got beat out by Dead Space Subnautica. Subnautica,

one of my all time, all time, all time favorite video games of any genre. But Dead Space beat it out because of its intense sci-fi themes and its awesome sci-fi horror aspect that I wanted to get into that top five. I'm surprised none of us have said, and the chat even, it came up only once, Last of Us. Yeah, I never played Last of Us. I mean, I played it for a very little bit of time and I was like, oh, I don't like this at all. I didn't realize what it was. And it was like, press square to pick up your towel.

Towel yourself off. I was like, this game's stupid. And then obviously it became a phenomenon and I love the series, but yeah. All right, let's move on to talk a little Starfighter. As we keep it in the sci-fi realm, Starfighter 2e releasing, the player core releasing at Gen Con this year,

just next week, it's gonna be out. And we're so excited. We're actually gonna play a little little bit of Starfinder 2e. I'm going to run Mary Lou through a game with some more of our friends, and we're going to premiere that on YouTube during GenCon. So keep an eye out for that. But Mary Lou has to make a character first. So we thought, why not bring it on Glass Cannon Radio and chip away at it live?

So we're going to get started. And yeah, so talk us through this. You did a little bit of pre prep for this so that we weren't too in the weeds. And I think I'd love to start with Ancestry, which is obviously a fascinating thing in Starfinder because there's so many options. Talk to me about Ancestry. How do you sort of decide this and what are you looking at? Ancestry is my favorite thing to start with too, even before class usually because it's so visual that it's like sort of how I get into my character, right? Is like sort of designing them from the outside in.

And the races or the ancestries in Starfinder are so cool. So cool. And I'm shocked honestly, that I didn't go straight for the kitty cat characters, but I think it's because I play a tabaxi in a different campaign and I love just trying different things, new things. And so at the Vegas retreat, at the Glass Cannon Vegas retreat, we got, or some people

got the Starfinder Galaxy Guide. Ah, yes! And there happened to be one extra floating around and I snagged this puppy. And because I've always wanted to play Starfinder and I think this was before, or no, it wasn't before, we knew that I was going to do the one at Gen Con, but I've always wanted to play Starfinder because I love Pathfinder and I love sci-fi. So I was like, it just feels like a no-brainer, I really want to play Starfinder because I love Pathfinder and I love sci-fi So I was like just feels like a no-brainer I really want to play Starfinder and so I snagged this galaxy guide and it came with some new

ancestries And I was just reading I love the galaxy guide because it gives a really neat Synopsis of the world of like what? The you know, what's it called, our station. Absalom Station. Absalom Station. Yeah, the packed worlds. It gives a really neat description and timeline run through of the packed worlds and what

happened and what Absalom Station is and the gap and all of that exposition. And I love lore. That was awesome. It just gives some new cool stuff, new factions and new ancestries. I became obsessed with one of these ancestries. Okay. Hit me. one of these ancestries. Though I will say, there was a, and I'll tell you my honorable mention, ancestry. Actually, there's a couple. So the first one that is so funny is the contemplative,

which is just a giant floating brain. Giant brain with a vestigial body that just sort of like, it floats with its telekinesis powers through the world. That's so funny. I love that. Obsessed. I thought about playing a contemplative because that's just hilarious. They're giant brains. That's literally what they are. So cool with telekinetic powers and they have guns and stuff and they're really smart and cool. Then, this is not exactly new, but it's kind of an update, is the Starfinder Dragonkin.

They're kind of like Dragonborn. They're evolved from Dragonborn, but they're a little smaller and they talk about how living in space has changed them. And you still get the dragon bond. So since they are descended from dragons, they have this special thing where you get a dragon bond and you are bonded to another character. Another maybe player character, maybe NPC, I don't know. And you can like You share thoughts with them. It's not always romantic. It's like usually

Platonic like more often than not but can be romantic and it's just like this special incredible bonds that like you Have to work with which I think is really cool and I thought about making a I just want to hop in here real quick. This is a timed show and you still haven't told us what Ancestry you're playing yet, right? Yeah. Well, it sounds like this book is very exciting. And look, we have a lot to get in here. Paula Deming is in Twitch chat. Paula Deming wants more of the show dedicated

to Hamburger Head. So there's just, there's so much that has to happen here. Fat Boy is, I don't know where Fat Boy is. Fat Boy, come here. Come here and let me do something horrible to your head. Let me torture you. Princess is here, but I don't know how she'll handle Hamburger Head.

She'll probably love it, how she'll handle hamburger head. She'll probably love it, because she's obsessed with me, and she thinks everything we're doing is fun and pets. She will love it. Okay, there was one dragonkin I wanted to make, but I'm not doing it. I became obsessed with this one, the Sarcesians. So you can kind of see them in there.

Sarcesian. Or Sarcesian. Sarcesian, Sarces. Or Sarcesian. Yeah, I'm not sure. Sarcissian, Sarcisen, Sarcissian. I don't really know. Sarcissian is a very common Armenian last name. But it's spelled with a, okay. And you can kind of tell, I'll find a better one. But they are just like a classic alien, like the Grays,

right, when we talk about the Grays of like classic sci-fi aliens, they are tall, spindly, gray guys with big black eyes. But then when they're in a vacuum. Oh, sorry, hold on, let me put you on for a second here. When they're in the void of space, they have these, they manifest these energy wings like butterflies that are just made of pure light. Yeah, I can actually see it on the book here.

So yeah. Yeah. And they literally float through space. So they're like, this is them like floating through space. They can fly in the, oh, there we go. They can fly in the void with these wings. That's so cool. Yeah.

Yeah. Wings? That's so cool! Yeah, yeah, their their home world is an asteroid belt made of two broken planets that like collided And they travel through the asteroid belts just raw on their wings of light Raw, baby And isn't that so cool? So I just thought that they were like a really interesting twist on a classic And I also love that. Oh, didn't I tell you I would call him. I called him and he came. Oh my gosh. Oh Okay, let's see if we can do backwards hamburger head I told you he freezes. This is why you got to tune in if you listen to the podcast Wednesdays at noon Eastern 9 a.m

Pacific you got you got to watch it live hamburger head live. He loves it. He loves it Don't let his eyes or his his eyes are the way his body goes completely still like please let this in so I can Describe that I was like he goes limp. It's so funny and he goes Yeah, because he's being held in the grip of a predator. And he's freezing as a safety measure. And then this is what I call scary bear hands. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do All right, let's get back to it here. We have... Thanks, my boy. See ya. Yeah, we have... Sarcesian? Yeah. How would you pronounce it? I would pronounce it Sarcesian, but it could be Sarcesian. Okay. And... So I love that. All right. What about a heritage?

I'm going to bring up a character sheet here. I've actually got a character sheet. So I liked- I just typed in Sarsesian. Sarsesian. I liked, so I wanted to play a magic. I wanted to play a caster. And so there's a couple that would be like really useful. Like there's this compact Sarcesian who, because they're large, they're large characters and a compact Sarcesian can be a medium creature.

So that would probably be like useful for game mechanics, but there's one called the stellar Sarsesian. So stellar Sarsesian has an intrinsic connection to the cosmos and can channel stellar forces into magic. And I get a cantrip that has either dark, light, vital or void traits. And I can cast it at will. Awesome. Is that what you want to go with? Got it. And I can cast it at will. Awesome. Is that what you want to go with?

Yeah, that's the one I want to do because I just think it's cool that they live in space and they have these energy wings. And to me, that's very magical. And so I think, I think that works. Yeah. Okay. I want to go, I want to go magic. What about, okay, magic. So what about a background?

Have you, did you choose a background? Did you choose a background? You thought about background yet? Yeah, I did. I don't remember what I chose for background. Sorry, Princess. Let me, I took some notes and I forgot to open them up. Come back to background. Okay, how about when we can go to class easily enough. Yeah. Okay, so I

Wanted to be one of the magic casting classes, right? Yes, and so that's between mystic and witch warp Mystic and witch warper. Yep. Yeah witch warper. Yes, and I think with the vibes that I'm feeling, I think Mystic goes better than Witch Warp. To me, Mystic feels more like Wizard or Sorcerer, and Witch Warp feels like Warlock, kind of. And I think with just the intrinsic magic I'm seeing from this character, I think Mystic. Which I'm really excited about.

All right. Well, if you're choosing Mystic, why don't you choose, we could go down to like a class feat. That's going to be like one of the essential elements. What class feat are you going to take for your mystic? OK, OK, OK, my class feet. Right, right, right, right, right, right. I have to look at them. Hold on. I'm finding. Give me a second, give me a second. I mean, this is a very realistic character creation process.

This is how it goes. GM sit down with players. You talk back and forth. You chat through the options. Yeah, this, yeah, this, so we have, we have the book and it's so big and beautiful and amazing, but it takes a long time to load. Okay. So yeah, my skill. Almost 500 pages, I believe the Starfighter 2e polar core. Yes. Oh, I just took, I just took a, I want to take Reach spell. I think. I think, I think she's gonna be squishy.

And so I think it would be, and our Starfinder I know already is like pretty ranged combat is really important, like maybe even more important than in Pathfinder because we're in like space. Yeah, most and a lot of people have laser guns and stuff like that, which is not usually the norm. Exactly, guns and lasers and things. So I'm, I think there, none of them are really that interesting. There was one that was a Divine Bond, but I don't really see her as being divine.

I think she's more cosmic. So I didn't want to take Divine Bond. And then it was either Xeno Druid, so I can do Primal Spellcasting, or Widen Spell, or Reach Spell. And I thought Reach was probably the most useful. So not very colorful, but useful reach. Yeah.

All right. One I missed before we left ancestry is ancestry feat. I believe that first thing you talked about was a heritage ability. I don't think that was an ancestry feat. I don't think. Ancestry feet. I think you probably get both if you just look under Sarcission. Oh Yes. Yes

It's called I think I called it or I took embrace the magic which Embrace the magic embrace the magicace the magic, which where is it? Ancestry feat, here it is. Yes, embrace the magic. I can cast Detect Magic at will. Oh, cool. So that's it, period.

Yeah, you can just always cast Detect Magic. I can always cast Detect Magic and I get a plus one circumstance bonus to skill checks to identify magic. Oh okay. Identify magic is a very important skill. So I thought that one was pretty useful. Okay, awesome. Yeah, a lot of them are really cool. There's something about like flying maneuvers, there's like a solar energy attack, melee attack, there's no falling damage. Then there's like lore stuff and breath control. There's really cool stuff,

but just none of it seemed really useful. Oh, okay, actually I was really tempted, Joe. Maybe you can talk me out of this. Cause I already talked myself out of it. I'm very good at that. But I would love for you actually to talk me into it. I can do that as well.

Okay. So let's go. Listen to this feat. Sarcesian weapon familiarity. I'm accustomed to fighting from afar, really afar. I gain access to weapons in the sniper group and all uncommon weapons with a Sarcesian trait. Um, I have familiarity and for proficiency, all martial weapons are simple weapons and all

advanced weapons are martial weapons. So it knocks it all down. Yeah. Sarcissian weapon familiarity. So I could- So you could be a sniper mystic? Is that what you're telling me? I could be a sniper mystic? I could be a sniper mystic. Any sniper gun I can take.

Here's why I was scared. All of the sniper guns have the kickback trait, which means I get a minus two if I don't have the strength bonus on Bon Bon Joniomi. Oh, that's fair. And I'm definitely not going to have the strength because I'm dumping strength. Strength is going to be like her worst probably. Right.

So is it worth it? Or you can like buy a really expensive bipod, like a little stand for it. But then that takes actions to set up and to move and stuff. And also I'm scared of the equipment list because there's a lot of words on it. Everybody's always scared of the equipment list. Don't let that intimidate you. If we were going to do a campaign, I would take this feat and I would spend the time to really bust it out and make you and me and Professor Eric sit down and really figure this out and squeeze the points into it.

But since we're doing a two shot, I'm not sure it's like the most efficient course of action. But isn't that freaking awesome? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I reread because people like that. What should we call it? Rima was like, that's an OP ancestry feat. To be clear, it does not make all martial weapons simple weapons. Oh, no, no, no, no, sorry, sorry, just for snipers. Sniper rifles. Just for sniper rifles. You treat them as simple weapons.

Sorry, I thought that in my head. I said it in my head and not out loud. Yeah. So, sorry, you guys didn't read my mind? Yeah, it comes off that first sentence. You're accustomed to fighting from afar. Really far. Really far.

So yeah, because of your ability to kind of like fly in open space and stuff like that, you could be a sniper. Dude, that's pretty cool. Wait, this would be instead of embrace the magic. Which is detect magic at will. Instead of casting detect magic as a cantrip at will. And a plus one circumstance bonus to skill checks to identify magic. I mean, to me that that's a no brainer. I'd take the sniper rifle, but it becomes a brainer when you say that you're going to take a minus two on all attacks if you don't have the requisite strength. Very interesting. I mean, the other option is, well, see, then it becomes, then you become too

multi, what we call multi attribute dependent, right? Cause you got to have, you need to have a high- Cause I need to have high wisdom. What, wisdom? You need to have a high wisdom, you need to have a high strength and a high dex cause that's your to hit. Yeah. So, so it's like, you can't do it all. You could dump intelligence, dump charisma, be stupid and uninteresting, but be able to shoot us. Well, let's take a quick, did you look at backgrounds at all? I did. I did. I did. I did look at backgrounds.

Where, I wrote down the ones that I was looking at. Come on. Just because I wonder, we only have a few minutes left here and I wonder if we could get like a couple ability scores in here just to see how this would shake out. So I wrote one down but now I don't see it in the book. So I'm like, where did I get that from? Hmm. Um, yeah, I literally, I have no idea where I, where I got that.

Maybe I got it in the big book. Um, uh, but I wrote down crush born. Is that in the big book because there's a crush crush raised Sarcission, uh, oh I think I'm meeting made it up. What interest background? So you get sorry we haven't talked about your attribute bonuses based on your about your attribute bonuses based on your ancestry. So you actually get a plus one to Charisma and a plus one to Dex, but then you get a minus one to Strength. Exactly!

To start. It's a flaw. Yeah. It's a flaw. And then from your Mystic class, you're going to take wisdom, right? So you get a plus one to wisdom. But then that leaves, sorry, let me show you the sheet that I'm working off of here. So then you would have two boosts from your background and then four free boosts. So your background, even if you went wisdom and strength, now your strength is at zero. And then if you went, um, and then if you gave strength of free boost, you'd end up at plus one strength. Can you wield some of these weapons with a plus one strength or do you have to have like

plus two to start on some of these snipers? Do you know? Um, you, I can use them, but it is, I'm pretty sure I have to have a plus two or I get the penalty on all snipers. Plus two or the penalty. Oh no. With the kickback. Any weapon with the kickback trait and all snipers have kickback. Okay. So it's just called the kickback trait. I'm trying to figure out where this is in the book. Do you know where it is? Like

a rough page number? It's in the equipment. I'm having a hard time bringing up too because of the size of it. It's just not loading fast enough. Yeah, it's picked a big boy. You can pick plus one plus one instead of your normal boosts. Yeah, I think sweet thread, I think you're right. So you could forego the charisma boost and take the strength back and you can make the strength plus one.

Right? Yeah. Plus one and then wisdom plus one for mystic. No, I think you still need to do whatever. I don't know. You can pick plus one slash plus one instead of your normal boosts. So what does that mean? Plus one to anything? Plus one to anything? Like a human? Yeah, you can take, yeah. So instead of the ones, instead of the plus two and a free,

so you get a plus three and a minus one, instead of that, you can just wipe it and just get plus two. Plus one, plus one. Yeah. So you're saying you would just do a Sarcesian and do plus one wisdom, plus one strength. Okay. I could, I could, yeah. All right, well now you gotta get something in decks

and then you could get to plus two strength then, if you wanted to. Okay. Unfortunately, we're out of time. So this is something you're gonna have to think about off air, if you wanted to. Okay, if I wanted to. It just sounds hard. Unfortunately, we're out of time. So this is something you're gonna have to think about off air, but I mean, it's a good start, good start. Very interesting. I want people to see this character,

if and when we get this done and you play I think she's gonna be fun. a Sarcesian, a Sarcesian mystic. Sounds very, very cool. And I'm excited to see it. I think I wanna go like healer vibes. We'll see. I don't know. Healer vibe.

Oh, so more cleric-y than wizard-y sort of. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely am gonna take some damage. Well, I guess going wisdom is definitely more cleric-y to start with, yeah. Or druid-y, yeah. I think mystic, I think it is a wisdom class instead of intelligence.

I think you can choose your key ability modifier, can't you? Really? Witch Warper's intelligence and that's how that works? Perhaps you are right. Well, it's a new game to all of us. We're going to be learning it here at Gen Con. We'll see how it all shakes out. But for now, we have to move on.

Before we do, though, I'm going to try to take a couple quick callers. People have been waiting around, have things to say, whether it's video games or Starfinder or earlier stuff. Dr. Billy is in the house. Hello, hello, hello. Dr. Zinn. Hi, Dr. Billy. How are you, Dr. Billy?

Hi, how are we all doing? I'm doing great. We're doing great, buddy. What do you got for us? Good. Man, I am still fixated on XCOM, honestly. I'm excited to play some Starfinder 2-E at some point soon, but I'm just thinking about having played XCOM.

Got it. Got gotta recommend it. I played so much of that in high school. It really speaks directly towards my neurodivergence where I love spreadsheets and managing spreadsheets and looking at things changing incrementally over time. And then I also get to have little guys on a table shooting aliens. That's just tremendous.

It's got everything for Dr. Billy. It's funny, You mentioned contemplatives the first time or the next time I get to play starfinder. I'm playing a contemplative. They are just so funny. Just the coolest little brain guys floating around. I don't know. It's a tremendous pick. I though the, um, the one you picked is so funny. Um, yeah, no, I don't, I don't, I just coming up to just got it just got a single praise of XCOM. Fallout New Vegas, XCOM. I'm real excited to see y'all next week. Look forward to I just finished the newest

newest little little little fan art so have that to look forward to. Let's just say it's gonna be a little wild. Awesome. All right. Thank you, Dr. Billy. All right. We've got two more games on my honorable mentions list that have not been guessed. I'll tell you this, one of them is a, I don't wanna say it's a new game. I'll say it's a game that is actively updated still today. And the other game is an old school game from the 90s, a franchise that produced many games. Let's bring some more people up here

and see if anybody can guess. Infinite Diversity. Join us, infinite. You've been so patient and now you've stepped away to use the restroom. You missed your chance to be on the show. Sorry. Gray Wolf, are you there Gray Wolf? Are you there? Gray? Oh no, I think it's us. Is it us? Is it me? Am I the problem? Are you there? Gray? Oh, now I think it's up. Is it us? Is it me? Am I the problem? That's a conspiracy. Gray Wolf hopped in, but your mic is not working. Double check your mic. Let's go to Sweet Threat. Sweet Threat knows the rules for Starfinder 2E, I guess a little better than us.

Sweet Threat! What's up, Sweet? Oh my god. Oh my god, is it us? What is happening. Oh my god, is it us? What is happening? Oh my god, is it us? Can everybody hear them except us on Discord? Nobody's mic works.

I don't know what's going on. Dr. Billy worked though. Okay. Yeah. Dr. Billy worked. Infinite diversity stepped away. Yeah, Harry. Harry's here. That's all you got to do is type

in chat. My mic works. There we go. It's going great. It's going great. What do you got for us? Did we miss a game here? Yeah, I had three games in the chamber and two of them got mentioned. I had Outer Wilds and Titanfall 2. So I got my third Portal series. Portal series, yes. Not on my list, but just outside of it. I actually probably, it would be on my list probably if I played Portal 2, which I never played. And I hear it's phenomenal, but I played all of Portal, which is crazy. That game used to, one of the reasons I didn't play Portal 2, not a knock on the game, Portal actually used to one of the reasons I didn't play portal to not a knock on the game portal Actually used to trigger my motion sickness It would make me like sweaty palmed and nauseous playing it because of how often you like you're flipping the room and stuff And I'd just be like, huh, but it's a great game. What a great game

That's one of the games that I like read all about and like watched a lot of people play but never actually played myself Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Great addition, Harry. I appreciate the idea. You got any guesses? We got two science fiction games, both are big properties, one from the 90s, a franchise, another modern.

I cannot, for the life of me, think of a guess for any of the games, but I do have something to say on one of your other games that you mentioned. Please. No Man's Sky. Which is No Man's Sky was the first and last game I pre-ordered. It was that thing back on PlayStation Network thing where you could like pre-download it when you pre-ordered it so that on midnight you could start the game. And so I pre-downloaded it, had it ready to go, midnight came and I played for two hours and I was like, this is awful. I've wasted it.

Like unplayable. Unplayable, terrible. And then I stopped and then I never touched it again. And then they fixed it and I just can't go back to it because it was such a bad experience the first time that it just ruined it. You were betrayed. But I know they fixed it.

I know they are updating it constantly and it's so much better now, but I just can it. You were betrayed. But I know they fixed it. I know they are updating it constantly and it's so much better now, but I just can't bring myself back because the initial experience was just so bad. That's amazing. Just they burned you. They burned you. They burned you too bad.

It happens. All right, let's give Sweet Threat one more chance here. Sweet Threat, did you fix your mic situation? No, you did not. And you've been on the show plenty of times. So I'm not sure what's going on. A little technical hiccup there. We'll try Grey Wolf one more time,

but then we gotta do a few minutes on another topic. Grey Wolf. Hello? There we go. Yeah! Hey, how's it going? Hey, what do you wanna add here, Grey Wolf? Yeah, I just wanted to talk about the sci-fi games real quick. There didn't seem to be much love for Horizon Zero Dawn, but I wanted to let Mary Lou that

I love Horizon Zero Dawn. Let's go! Yes, and like Joe, I actually put it down for a while, about 30-ish hours in, and some of it was that gameplay problem. Like I felt like it got a little fixed, you know, like you reach a certain power level and you just sort of play it exactly the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like the traps. And finished it. It was amazing. I never used the traps. Yeah. I got really good with like sneak and I never used to the traps. Yeah, I got really good with like sneak and yeah.

Yeah. I picked it back up. Yeah, I picked it back up after hearing about the DLC, the Frozen Wilds, and I love that DLC. Yeah, really good. It's basically like, it's kind of like the quest for the Frozen flame. It's kind of like, you know, blow the world.

Totally. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, I'm just now realizing that totally. Yeah. Yes. So and it's, you know, it's very much got like the tribal elements. You're she's meeting, you know, these, these, the people that live up north for like the first time and is seen as this outsider. But meanwhile, she's like dealing with like, you know, the signs, the dinosaur

threat stuff. It's great. And then one other game science sci-fi game I wanted to add is FTL, Faster Than Light. I don't know if any of you have heard of it. Oh, yeah. I have heard of it, but not yet. I'm familiar with this one. I think I played like two hours of that game on mobile

and I wanna get back to it one day. People love it. People love FTL. It's incredible. I don't need to say a whole lot about it. I think, yeah, a lot of people love it. People love FTL. It's incredible. I don't need to say a whole lot about it. I think, yeah, a lot of people love it. It's a very simple game and concept, but it's well executed and it's got an amazing soundtrack. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Skid is in here. I want to see if I can get Skid up here. Skidly. Skid, is there any chance you have a hot mic or could come up

and join us? No worries if not, just ignore the prompt because one of my honorable mentions is one of Skid's all-time favorites. So I thought that he could probably guess it. But in the meantime, let's talk for a few minutes before we wrap up here on World of Warcraft. Now we obviously wanted to dedicate more time to this, but man, I was having so much fun talking about sci-fi video games. It took up a big chunk of it. And we'll come back, you know,

there'll be more Marylou time to dive more into World of Warcraft. But tell me about World of Warcraft. You're playing it again, and because you guys are playing it in preparation of a new release, right? There's a new- Missists of Pandaria is... Mists of Pandaria. I think it just launched maybe like two nights

ago. It was really glitchy and buggy. So I haven't dived in yet, but yeah, me and my hometown crew, we're leveling up for Pandas now. It's been really fun. I'm really liking it. But I just wanna give a shout out to Hot Boyfriend because he raids in vanilla and his guild just got a Scarab Lord. So his raiding team severed in the dream side server Musha is now scarab lord and if you know, you know, that's a big deal and I watched it happen. It was amazing. Oh

What happened they what they beat a world boss Kind of it's over a hundred hours long of a quest and you need like 40 people to invest their time and effort into getting all of these materials, all of these mats to create this thing and then also beat all these bosses. And then it's server wide, so there's this huge gong and as soon as somebody gets all those things and is able to ring the gong, you have 24 hours or less, I think, 24 hours for other people to ring the gong and become Scarab Lords. And then it's closed and nobody can do it. So it's like a race to like who can do it first. Because if you don't get

the stuff that you need to do it by that windows up, like you're out and all of that time that you invested is. Oh my God. Is nothing. Scheme is so evil sometimes. It's literally like 40 people investing 80 to 100 hours in like getting one person. Wow. One thing, being scarab lord.

Of the 40, not to skew negative, but of the 40, how many would you guess are going to get divorced or break up in their relationships because of this? I think 60% already are. Got it. And the other ones, it's only a matter of time. And now it's just time to... Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But it's crazy and I'm very proud of Hot Boyfriend.

That's great. And just to clarify, Miss is not a new expansion coming to World War Yeah, absolutely. But it's crazy and I'm very proud of Hot Boyfriend. That's great. And just to clarify, Myst is not a new expansion coming to World of Warcraft. No, no, it's an old, but they're re-releasing. They're re-releasing these from, since they did the vanilla, what did they call it? The release of the original game.

Yeah, we do, we do they call it. Oh my God. I played it for so long. What did they call it? Yeah Anniversary or yeah, it was the anniversary. Yeah, and and obviously it's a stripped down to the base game No, it's classic. That's right. Just classic anniversary. So World of Warcraft classic, but they're still but they're releasing those expansions again right, so they did Burning Crusade and they did Cataclysm and And now and now mists, now Pandaria.

And now Mists of Pandaria, which I never played. I was out of it back then by the time Mists came out. So yeah, very cool. That's awesome. And then wrapping it up is... We wanted to talk briefly about the Fantastic Four, really only to say, reminder it's coming out this weekend, it's being released. I'm excited for it, I'm gonna go see it. We've got some Marvel multiverse role playing stuff coming up soon and there might be some Fantastic Four stuff, wink wink.

I'm not very familiar with the Fantastic Four because I never really read it and I didn't see the movies because each one when it came out, I just heard that they were bad or were not great. And if it's not great, I don't go see it. So, yeah. I think this movie is going to break the Fantastic Four curse.

You think so? I think it's gonna be good. I have faith that this one is gonna be good. I could be wrong. It could be bad again. It could be, but I love the cast. I'll say that much. I love the cast. I love be, but I love the cast. I'll say that much. I love the cast.

I love Vanessa Kirby. I love Pedro Pascal. I think it's going to be fun. It looks colorful. And I've missed, I've missed like superhero and comic book movies being like colorful and fun. And that's what I think we're seeing with Fantastic Four and with the new super hero, Superman, is that it's like fun and bright again instead of like gritty and

dark and like boring. So I'm excited. Snore. Yeah, so we'll report on this soon after we've seen the movie. We'll come back in, we'll talk about it. Hopefully I'll be able to draw about it a little bit next week when we're on. So just a reminder, next week we are not live on Twitch on Wednesday or on Discord. We are live on Tuesday at 12 noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. So remember, next week the show's going to be on Tuesday because of Gen Con. We got to travel for Gen Con. So we'll do a little Gen Con show. We'll talk all about Gen Con.

Jared will be back. It'll be great. And of course, we'll see more Mary Lou soon. Final chance to get in on my honorable mentions here. I'm not gonna take any callers except one, my good buddy McD. McD, can you guess a franchise from the 90s, video game franchise that is one of my favorite

all time science fiction video games? Are you there? Oh, sorry buddy, I'm here. Maybe somebody just said it in the chat. I'm spinning some plates, sorry buddy, I'm here. Maybe somebody just said it in the chat. I'm spinning some plates, but yes, I'm here, and I have an answer, I believe. Please. And this can go up in Twitch as well.

I believe the franchise you're talking about is Wing Commander. That is correct, I knew you would know it. I knew you would know it. The Wing Commander franchise. Holy crap. Was that so much fun? I could still picture those ships and the ship designs and stuff. It was all like ship combat, but then they added in this story stuff and a

Wing Commander, was it Wing Commander three, where they did the live action stuff or was it two? Mark Hamill plays the main character. And it was like the CD-ROMs back in the day, Mary Lou, where like the actual actors are in it, but they're against these like animated backgrounds. And they had these scenes, there was these big cat people

were like one of the big alien races. And the Kilrathi, that's right, the Kilrathi. Yeah, I did, I did Clorp Donk. I accidentally said it when I was about to say World of Warcraft, I had Wing Commander on the mind. So, Wing Commander had a whole bunch. Oh yeah, Privateer was great. Did you play Privateer? Privateer was great. And it had four in the main thing, right? There was Wing Commander, Wing Commander 2, 3, and 4. They were great. FMV, that's what it was, Paula. Yeah, Paula's in

Twitch chat. It was a great FMV game from back in the day. You know, you'd be like standing, it had all that classic like Battlestar Galactica stuff too, where like the big capital ship, you'd have to walk down to like the engine, like the, you know, where like the engineers work and stuff like that, and they're working on the ships. And it's like in the place where they all take off. And it was all FMV actors and stuff working on these ships

with their blow torches and whatever. And then you take off from there and fly out into space and start space combat was super fun. Oh yeah and then they made a movie with uh what that's right i forgot is that freddy prince jr freddy prince jr and our good buddy matthew lillard i forgot oh my god they made wing commander a movie with matthillard. Totally forgot. Awesome. Yeah, I think it was pretty terrible. That's hysterical. I was there on opening night.

You might have been there too. I might have been. I don't remember it. Incredible. But good times. And then the modern one that Skid loves is Stellaris. Stellaris made my list, my honorable mention list. Love Stellaris.

Obviously, it's a little more of just a RTS style 4X game. People usually don't think of that when they think of sci-fi, but man, meeting the different aliens, the exploration, the politics, all that stuff, great game, great game. That's awesome. Awesome. All right, we're going to wrap it up there. Thanks everybody. And Mary Lou, thank you so much for being on the show.

It is such a pleasure and an honor to have you here when our good buddy Jared can't make it. So thank you for coming by and we'll definitely see you again soon. All right, everybody. We're prepping for Gen Con. Get ready. One week from today. It's going to be one week from one week from tomorrow, Thursday, one week from tomorrow.

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