The Ringer-Verse - 'Indiana Jones and the Great Circle,' 'Secret Level,' and the Game Awards | Button Mash

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

Ben, Jomi, and Arjuna begin by discussing the success of the free-to-play hero shooter ‘Marvel Rivals.’ Then they whip through a discussion of ‘Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’ (2:40), touching on Indy’s checkered history in gaming and how his new adventure improves upon past titles and nails the tone of the franchise. After that, they provide their impressions of Prime Video’s new video game adaptation anthology series, ‘Secret Level’ (48:40), before reconvening to talk about the biggest news and announcements at the Game Awards (1:09:00). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Jomi Adeniran and Arjuna Ramgopal Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about.

We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight, which streamer is on the brink of collapse, and which executive is on the hot seat. Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again? Follow the town on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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You're wondering if maybe you should have built yourself a life of meaning. instead of ending up here. Hello and welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus speed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor for the Ringer, and like the Grail Knight from The Last Crusade, I can confirm that you have chosen wisely by joining me on Buttonmash. Also here today are two top men, top men. First, a junior mint and midnight boy, Indiana Jones.

Jomey, a deneron. That's great. I've actually only been to Indiana once, and it was snowy. And I would, would I go again? Probably not. But it was still, it was still fun. It was still a great time. Am I the first one to ever call you Indiana Jones?

Indiana Jones is good. I don't know if that's going to stick, though. I've never been, I've never been too fond of a whip. No. Okay. I don't need to know about what goes on in your bedroom, Jomey. Also with us is the Marcus Brody of the Ringervers. the man who makes sure those midterms get graded when the rest of us go gallivanting around the world.

Ringer senior podcast manager, don't call me Rjrjuna. Randall Powell. Ben, they're firing you from the university. They said you're gallivanting too much. Completely fair. Honestly, I don't know how Indy ever held that job down, let alone kept it for years. Unlike Indy, we are not making this up as we go because we have a ton to get to today. we have played one of the last major releases of the year, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.

That's the reason for all my Indiana Jones puns in case anyone was wondering. That wasn't just the off the dome. And we're here to tell you in a spoiler-free way whether the developers were digging in the wrong place or whether it's an important artifact that belongs in a museum. I got more indie quotes. Just stay tuned. We'll also be discussing Secret Level, the new video game adaptation anthology series on Prime Video. And finally, we'll be hopping back on late night, Ring orverse button mash after dark to give you our rapid reactions to the biggest news from the Game Awards. But we would be remiss if we didn't devote a few minutes up top to another new arrival, no pun intended, in the Ring orverse wheelhouse, Marvel rivals.

This is a third person, team-based player versus player hero shooter from Nettys that launched last week with 33 playable characters from Marvel lore. It's free to play on Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows. It's had a hot start with 10 million players in its first few days and a peak of almost half a million concurrence on Steam alone. Arjuna and I have not really had a chance to check it out yet. We have been busy with Indy. But Jomey, you are one of the millions who have. What have we been missing?

How good is this game? You remember the first days of Overwatch, you know, like summer 2016. Those heady days. Everything was so bright. Life was so good. That's exactly what this game feels like, man. We're back. We're back.

That's good. I've had such a fun time. I'll be very clear. I'm going to be very clear. I am terrible to this game. Just completely awful. Absolutely horrendous. I'm a moon night main.

You know what I mean? And I do what I can. And that's not doing much. But to just be like shooting and having, like it's just, again, it's so insurious. Everybody's trying to have a good time. I don't feel bad when I'm. like my KD ratio is, you know, negative 1,000. I'm just having a good time.

It's just a blast to play. I think everybody should not tap in. It's just, it's so, so much fun. It's nice at first before everyone else gets good at the game when you all sort of suck. I know that there was an alpha and there were people playing this a little bit beforehand. But before there's a real difference between the casuals and the pros. And you feel like you can kind of hold your own, maybe not in your case, it sounds like. Well, here's the thing.

You know, the game lets you know who's on PC, who's on a Xbox or whatever. And so I'm playing on Xbox. And I see a lot of people on PC. I'm like, oh, you guys are for real locked in. I'm just here trying to have a good time. You know, spend time with my friends do all this stuff. You guys, yeah, you guys know what you're doing. It's always a good excuse.

If you're the one playing on console and everyone else is on PC, it's, oh, it's that mouse and keyboard controls, you know, there's just no way to compete. But crossplay enabled, that's always nice. And it's apt that you brought up Overwatch immediately, because the standard take on this game is what if Overwatch, but make it Marvel, which is a pretty compelling pitch,

at least for a lot of people in the Riververse. Not a very original one maybe, but there's still an appetite for that. And there certainly seem to be a bunch of similarities, but it's not a complete clone, right? What would you say are the differentiating factors other than the fact that these are Marvel heroes,

not Blizzard heroes? I would say that, like, well, yeah, the game are like kind of the same and honestly come in like kind of like the strategies like you know you're throwing people off the map like with Jeff like people would with Zah with Overwatch way back when

you know but I think the main difference is that the like the characters I feel like maybe it's just my affinity for the Marvel characters but it feels like there's just like a tad bit more like personality playing this game than it was

like Overwatch maybe because you're watching Overwatch You don't know these guys. You have to find out the lore, you know, throughout, like, just listening to sound bites in the game. But this one, it's kind of funny seeing Wolverine and Spider-Man's crap, you know, what I'm saying, for 20 seconds. And watching Iron Man fly above the sky and having a Spider-Man come and swing and kick him, whatever. And Squirrel Girl just destroying your entire team with her old. You know what I mean?

It's just like, just a little bit more like, huh, that's really funny. Notice. But, yeah, they're extremely, extremely, extremely. similar, but it just feels like this harkens back to the first two weeks of Overwatch when everybody was just having a good time before I got really toxic and he had to be like, hey, put the controller down, brother. It's not what you want.

Before the league starts. Before the league starts. Before the professional e-gaming stands. Yeah, yeah. This is, it's just, you know, just saying it feels like your home having a good time, you know, wrapped in a warm blanket. I'm saying, nobody's yelling at you about homework or about school or something. You know what I mean? Just like, I'm having a good

time enjoying myself. Nobody else is bothering. What's yelling at me? You know what I mean? It's just nice and comfortable. You said your main is moon night, right? Moon night, yeah. Who else have you played us? Oh, man.

So you can go into the training ground. You can, like, test out all the characters. Terrible with Spider-Man. Just completely awful. It's not good with Iron Man. I tried to, like, give Hawkeye an honest try, but it reminded me too much of Hanza, and I can't do it. That's the bottom line.

I can't do it. What else? Okay. What's, I dried squirrel girl, not good. I'm really bad. again, like outside of like the game That's the main takeaway. A lot of our conversations about video games

with you, Jomi, seem to center on how bad I am. Your lack of skill in said games. I tried, uh, Punisher is pretty easy, you know, just a gun, uh, Win a Soldier, pretty simple, but just a gun. But the Moonnight thing was cool because you could jump off, you can glide.

Oh, you know, you can glide. You can glide. You press LB, you glide. So that was like, oh, that's really fun. And, uh, yeah, no, the game is, is, I tried a bunch of guys, but I think Boon Knight, for I'm sticking with, not the most health, so I do die very quickly. But it's still, you know, it's all right. I do my thing.

All right. Yeah, it seems like there's a good skill ceiling here. There's some death. There's almost a legal legends, Dota kind of complexity to the skills. And then there's the hero synergy, hero pairing sort of system, which it sounds like people haven't fully explored yet, but could yield some dividends down the road. You've got destructible environments, which is always a plus for me. Plus, it seems like the predatory micro-transactions, none of that here.

And the battle pass is not timed so you can take your time again. Sounds nice and laid back. So I'm looking forward to getting into this at some point. And it seems like it's up your alley, Arjuna also. Yeah, for sure. I love Marvel, obviously. And I'm excited to try it out. And I think with any of these games, it's always exciting to try out the different characters

and have the feels of how many of these guys are actually. different, right? You know, you just mentioned Jomey like, you know, Punisher and Winter Soldier. They're both kind of like gun-based heroes in the game. So like I'm curious always with these games of like how much nuances that between, you know, like a Smash Brothers or whatnot where

you have so many playable characters, but X amount feel like just clones of the same kind of fighting style or play style. I will say one thing before we get off this topic. If you play Iron Fist on this game, just DM me, your address

location we can fight right now. I'm sick and tired. Is this the odd job of Marvel rivals? I'm sick and tired of every time I'm doing some. Iron fist come behind me. D-D-D-Dick, I'm dead. That's it. That's it.

Two seconds is over. Does he say I am the immortal Iron Fist? Maybe he does, but I don't hear it because I'm cussing it. I'm cussing them out. You know what I'm saying? Like, again, I'm having fun. It's great. But at the same time, Iron Fis, leave me alone.

What did I do to you? I'm just out here trying to have a good time with my friends. and you out here being mad and you one piece of me, and it's over. Like, brother, what happened to all the friendship and love from just a second ago? We was had a good time, and now I'm lying on the four dead. I got to press and B to respond because you out here hit me with two, like literally, boom, boom, and I'm gone. It's over.

Like, what? There was a Star Wars take on this earlier this year, Star Wars Hunters, a free-to-play PVP arena combat game that didn't really break out because it was on mobile originally and then switch, and it's just not as broadly accessible, but this one has broken out, and as always, the question is, will it be a flash in the pan,

or will it have staying power? Will we see those steep declines in the player counts? Or will it turn into one of these games that is just popular forever? Because it's kind of crowded at the top and it's tough for other games to break in. And how many times have we seen that this year, whether it's the notable failures,

the enormous flops like Concord or X-Difiant, the Ubisoft game that just shut down, And you might need Marvel Heroes to stand out in this crowded marketplace where everyone's just like, I'm good with Fortnite. I'm good with Baurant. I'm good with Overwatch. What do I need another game for? Marvel Heroes gives you a hook. Not that every Marvel game has been super successful, even the pretty critically acclaimed ones like Guardians of the Galaxy or Midnight Suns.

But it is a differentiating factor helps you stand out in a crowded genre. But then you got to give people the goods, too. It's got to be a good game. You can't just have Marvel skins. The hype over that lasts only so long. And it sounds like there's much more to Marvel rivals than just that. So I look forward to checking it out more. Maybe we will return to the topic on a future episode.

But I have told you what is coming up on this podcast. There's a lot to get to. What about elsewhere on the feed? Let's check the programming notes. On Monday, the Midnight Boys, Poo-Pew, we'll bid farewell to the late, not-so-great Sony Spider-Man universe with their Craven the Hunter reactions, followed by a midweek episode on skeleton crew

and something involving Lord of the Rings that I'm afraid to describe. No, no, no, don't tell them, Ben. Help me out here. It's got to be a secret, Ben. We'll let that be a surprise. You guys are not ready for this episode of the Midnight Boys.

Wednesdays, Lord of the Rings. I can't even, I'm going to say, the Midnight Boys are finally talking about Lord of the Rings in just the way you'd expect them to. Yes, the most Midnight Boys way. It is like just talking about it And in the planning meetings It was

It was like a moment where it's like Let's turn on the mics right now Let's go We're ready Next Friday Jomi and Steve and I Will be teaming up For a Mint Mashed crossover episode

To cover the final video game adaptation Of the year Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Get hyped for the Hedgehog Jomey's second most anticipated thing Of 2024 behind Arcane Oh man I can't wait This meant something to me man

This means something to me, Ben. I can't wait. Me too. Over on House of our, Mal and Joe will be doing a double deep dive on Craven and War of the Roherne, followed by their skeleton crew coverage later in the week,

and right after the finale, a deep dive on Dune Prophecy, episodes 5 and 6. So we're finishing 2024 strong, creating content to the end. Jomi, want to tell the people where they can find all these presents we're putting under the tree?

They can find them on Twitter, on Instagram, on TikTok, and on Facebook. at Ring averse. We've got some cool stuff for you guys at the end of the year, so make sure to tap in. You know, we're going to look, 2024, we're going to go out with the bang, right?

In the 2025, let's do it. And also our YouTube channel, where you can check out a lot of this stuff, not this episode. We like to leave a little to the imagination, but most of that stuff is on there now if you want to watch us while you listen to us. And, of course,

you can contact button mash at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to by Weather Tech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways. Catchup goes rogue ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus.

Beth and Rip are back in a new series. Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Colehous are returned, and this time they're taken on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch,

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But as Marion once said, I always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door. Last time you were both on, we were discussing Star Wars Outlaws, a game we weren't wowed by. It wasn't bad, but it did disappoint in terms of its critical reception, its financial performance. Ubisoft is still trying to fix some of the flaws that we complained about on that podcast via post-release patches. best of luck to them I will probably not be diving back into Atlas I've seen too much but I was gonna ask it

have either of you played since we I have not since we potted about it I did no yeah I started the the DLC you know it's a game that we've come to enjoy you know what I mean and there are some stuff it's you know it's like

it's like going back home you know going back to the spot where you were you like for example I got a spot Hong Kong Express, Chinese food, right? It's a bee on the door. I know it's a bee on the door. But they pack it tight.

You know what I'm saying? So I go back, I know what I'm getting. It's not where you're supposed to be at. But, hey, I love it. I'm having a good time. Mine is well, you know what I mean? So I went back.

It was cool. It was fun. It's the same game. It's the same game. Yeah, so it's not a cyberpunk. It's not a complete readvention. I'm happy for the people who are experiencing it. in this form for the first time.

And I think the changes they've made make some sense. We certainly complain plenty about the stealth. That's been the focus here. I don't think as many changes will be needed to the stealth in the Great Circle, which is what we're going to talk about now. We are focusing on another Lucasfilm property, one with a less sterling track record in video games, but similarly high stakes and expectations,

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which is out now for Xbox and Windows, is available via GamePass with a PlayStation version coming sometime next year. So there have been more than 20 Indiana Jones video games, but very few standouts. I would challenge most people listening to this podcast to name more than five of them, let's say. The best are probably the two written and directed by Hal Barwood, the 1992 point-and-click adventure game, The Fate of Atlantis, and the 1999 3D action adventure game, The Infernal

Machine. Arjuna, Fate of Atlantis, is a favorite of yours. right. It's truly one of my favorite video games I've ever played. It's one I actually revisit every few years. Very simple. Like you said, it's a point and click adventure. But the story is really

rich. It also has a path system within the game, so it has you can play it multiple times. And it just really leans on, I think, the things that make Indiana Jones special. You know, between action and combat, exploration, detail to, you know,

history details. and teamwork, right? In fact, the, you know, I guess spoiler alert on a 30 year old plus game, but there are three paths you can take in Indiana Jones

in the fit of Atlantis. You can do a team path. You can do a fight path or you can do a wits path essentially to focus on those kind of tent poles of Indiana Jones if you're like, I want to fight more.

Well, you can go do that. If you want to do more puzzles, you can do that. If you want to do teamwork stuff, you get to do that as well. So it is a great game. You know, obviously,

it doesn't look the best being 30 plus years old, but it is... Don't say that. Arjuna, you look great for 30. Thank you. I appreciate that. Don't do that. I appreciate that.

Don't do that. But it is a lot of fun. I think it is like the apex of Indiana Jones games. Yeah, which doesn't say that much about the past few decades of Indiana Jones games. And it's fitting and fascinating that the best Indiana Jones game is this puzzle-heavy, old-school adventure game. because the franchise has had a pretty tough transition to 3D. So the follow-ups to the Infernal Machine, the Emperor's Tomb, the Staff of Kings,

got mixed reviews at best. Staff of Kings, Lego Indiana Jones 2 came out in 2009, the year after the Crystal Skull. And that's the last time anyone made a full-fledged indie game until now. By the way, normally when we talk about indie games, we mean independent developers. But you know what I mean. We're going to be saying indie a lot in this episode. They name the dog Indyama. Yes, yes, they did.

So there's this really interesting paradox of games that are clearly inspired by Indiana Jones, like Tomb Raider and Uncharted, turning into genre-defining franchises and juggernats that are still going, while Indiana Jones itself has been a bit of a dud in gaming. Arjuna, why do you think that is? Yeah, I feel like Uncharted came out in what, 2006, 2007, around the beginning of the PlayStation 3 life cycle. and it felt like it just took all of the Indiana Jones kind of like space away, right? Uncharted was like really an Indiana Jones clone. Nathan Drake is modern day Indiana Jones, right?

If Indiana Jones was born in the 80s or 70s and was adventuring in the 2000s and 2010s. And I think that just became, you know, everything about that game was Indiana Jones. It was Indiana Jones coded. And it felt like I even remember at the time as like Uncharted. the really popular Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 came out, it was just like, wow, this is, like, Indiana Jones on the gaming level is just gone.

There's just no point to make it because I think everyone is going to now compare it to Uncharted, right? It's when the competitor comes out and takes the top spot, and then you're now the imitator. You're not the original anymore. And I think that made it tough where enough time

now has passed since Uncharted 4 came out and we haven't had a new Uncharted game and the Uncharted franchises dimmed a bit with the, you know, ill-fated, uncharted movie with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg coming out. The brand has been maybe slightly damaged from the heyday. And I think also Noddy Dogs focus on The Last of Us has taken precedent over there where maybe Lucas felt like, okay, we can come back with an Indiana Jones game. You know, obviously, Dial of Destiny came out last year. So there's been a little bit of a resurgence with Indiana Jones branding in general,

which has been exciting. You know, it's been exciting to kind of dive back into Indiana Jones video games. It was, you know, for me as someone who grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s, there weren't new Indiana Jones movies coming out, kind of similar to Star Wars where you got, like, I got a lot of my Indiana Jones franchise things through the video games and through some of the supplementary content. And hopefully it feels like this game could be that for new Indiana Jones fans.

Yeah, and I will accept no slander of Dial of Destiny on this podcast, which I lump into the category of solo a Star Wars story as both very fun times at the movies. I don't know what more people want, but it is good that we have a good Indiana Jones game. And when we get to The Great Circle, which is published by Bethesda, developed by machine games, a studio best known for making Wolfenstein games. And so when this one was announced, it raised a lot of eyebrows because it came from a studio known for first person. shooters, and it's played from a first-person perspective, which is not what people expected out of Indiana Jones. Nazis aside, this game is nothing like Wolfenstein. If you try to shoot your way through, it's generally not going to go great for you. But what has happened here is that Uncharted and Tomb Raider, these other games having come in and claimed the corner of Indiana

Jones and said, we're just going to pour it over what everyone likes about those movies and make it work in games, and we're just sort of stealing your thunder here. Now the Great Circle has come out and reclaimed that corner by redefining what an Indiana Jones game is. And I can tell you, it took a little while for me to figure out what this game was exactly. Rarely has a game grown on me while I was playing it as much as this one did. Because you texted me Arjuna early in my play-through and I was thinking, you know, I'm kind of into the story. I like the audiovisual aspects, but not so sure.

about everything else yet. But then as it went on, it just grew on me more and more and more to the point where when I finished it, which I just did yesterday, I roll credits and I'm thinking, that was a great game. And this was a great Indiana Jones game.

And this is maybe what Indiana Jones should have been in this interactive medium all along. So it was sort of a shack I was not familiar with your game kind of meme when I was playing it. And, you know, another indie quote, I understand its power now. I do. the wisecracking, the whip cracking, all of that is there.

But it's a little less of an action-adventure, platformer, shooter type of game than you might have expected. Or that the marketing materials and the trailers and the promo materials might have led you to believe. I feel like I was just thrown for a loop initially. And then once I acclimated to what this was, I thought, okay, this is actually working really well for me. Jomi, you have not gotten quite as far as Arjuna and I have in this. game. We have wrapped it up. You have moved on beyond the opening area and the game has started to branch out and broaden a bit for you. What have your early impressions been? The children yearn for the uncharted games again. That's what they want. That's what everybody wants. Everybody wants puzzles and climbing. That's that's it. You mentioned at the beginning about how Tomb Raider and Uncharted are like genre defined, but we don't talk about it enough because as I'm playing this game, I'm like, man, I would really like to play and try it again.

Not that this game isn't, like, exciting and fun and interesting. Like you mentioned, once you get into the mechanics, once you figure out how to play the game, it becomes a bunch of fun. And it's raucous, especially, you know, oh, man, the fascist, they saw me. I got to go climb somewhere and hide. Used to whip, you know, it feels, it feels fun. But as I'm, as I'm climbing, as I'm doing stuff, I'm like, man. A thief sand was real cinema, man.

You had to be there. Yeah. You know what I mean? Not putting down Uncharted. We love Uncharted. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. This is just, it's a different beast.

I'm hearing Arjuna Wax Poetic about, you know, the first Uncharted. Like, man, we used to make real video games, man. Those are a special times. Wow. Man, we used to do the feature film in development. We used to be a country, you know what I mean? But this game harkens back to that. And it is different, right?

Obviously, first person when you're playing the game for the most part, and then third person when you're climbing. It takes a second to get into it because there are a lot of mechanics. There's a lot of stuff at the beginning where you're kind of like, how do I do this? What am I supposed to do here? I don't really. And then, and honestly, I think when Gina shows up,

I think that's when the game kind of turns around a little bit in the gameplay and then in the story, I'm like, oh, man, I'm having a bunch of fun. The puzzles are excellent. You know, you got to run around the Vatican any little priest costume is Father Gallagher or whatever. And this is like really silly and very, very, very indie.

Yeah. The first movie I watched was Crystal Skull because that was what was popping. Way back when. It's insane. What a place to start. What an introduction to India and agents. I don't know those aliens in that mug.

I was like, okay, they got aliens and it's cool, it's cool. I did go back and I did watch the OG ones. All right, so chill on me. But I think part of the, of why this game works so well is because they get indie so right. Troy Baker is in his bag doing the Harrison Ford impression.

He did a great job. He did a really great job. My wife walked by and she's like, wow, they got Harrison Ford for the game. I'm like, no, that's not Harrison Ford. My wife is well. Yeah, they have his likeness, but it's more than a half decent indie impression.

Every now and then it slips a little. But for the most part, yeah, I was what to say. It was completely passable. Troy Baker, I notice you. I notice you. Yeah. But there's even this. There's that scene in the Vatican where one of the fascists pulls him in to, you know, confess.

And he's like, my mother, my mother-in-law will be with child, but moms, where my wife's going to be with child. And he's just like, all right, whatever. And punches him. And like, that's indie, man. Like, that's Indiana Jones. The writing team knew what they were doing. Yes. The cast knew where they were doing.

I think it's just, it works on a lot of levels. And I'm super, super excited to play more. I'm going to finish this game. I don't know if I'm going to go looking back for stuff. That's not really... You don't want to find those notes? I kind of don't actually. Radio frequency.

Well, so here's the problem, right? I don't know what you guys are doing when you guys are playing, but me, I was looking for everything. I was like, I'm going to go, I'm going to do that because I thought it was essential. I didn't know that like the adventure and the fieldwork do different things.

Right? I'm just, I'm doing field work. I'm thinking, oh, this is for the game, right? You got to go get the key to do this and go here and do that. Okay, go find a, you know? And then I'm like, hey man, where you guys at, man, game fun? We're done.

Yeah. What? I did enjoy some of that stuff. Like, I did most of, I think I did all of the side stuff in Giza. And then at the Vatican City, I did most of it, probably like 80%. And then the final, the final area, I really just kind of blew through just to kind of finish the game at that point. But I actually really enjoyed a lot of the side quest.

Yeah, no. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the field missions. I thought they added, like, good depth. You meet some, like, new other characters as well that kind of gets some time to shine. And I think comparing this to Outlaws, as that was the one we did before, where a lot of those quests felt, oh, just really, you know, cut from the same cloth, very much the same thing, lots of fetch quests, kind of just, like, random intel that you'd get. This felt a little bit more, you know, thought through in terms of, like, how it worked within the main narrative, how it really worked with, in the unique environments you're in for each place.

That's what I liked going from, you know, area to area. Each place did feel unique. You know, obviously they're, you know, they're a video game animators. So they're like, okay, we're going to do our snow place and our jungle and our desert, you know, really show off the game mechanics and stuff. But I thought even though the game mechanics aren't vastly different, I thought there was enough nuance in each place where it's like, oh, I'm glad like we're learning this new skill set that makes sense here. Yeah.

Or here. Yeah, if anyone isn't pulled into this immediately, as I wasn't, I would suggest power through that Vatican section. Maybe don't even linger there. You feel like you have to do everything. You don't necessarily because that was the least interesting of the main hub areas to me. There are three main areas that are sort of semi-open worlds. And then there are some more linear levels that connect them. The Vatican is the opening area.

And you can easily spend the most time there of any of these places. but it's just not as interesting in terms of the level design and the geography, and there's a lot of backtracking, and there's a lot of stuff that you don't necessarily need to do. So I would suggest don't take all of the time there if you're not immediately hooked. And yet, there is this kind of in descending order of how essential and involved these tasks are. There's adventure, fieldwork, discovery, mysteries, and a lot of these things you're doing to get these adventure points, which you can use to upgrade indie. You also have to find these books that unlock certain skills.

So that's part of the exploration here. It's not just your standard skill tree. You have to find the skills in order to unlock them. And what we're alluding to by saying that this isn't just the sort of run and gun, Nathan Drake, just jumping onto stuff. Yeah, there is some of that. There's plenty of punching Nazis. There's plenty of using your whip to jump around.

But this is more of an immersive sim. This is like a DeiSX sort of dishonored style game in an indie skin. And I don't mean that it doesn't feel like Indiana Jones because it absolutely does. This feels like a full-fledged Indiana Jones story. But there is a lot of freedom in how you tackle this game and how much time you want to spend with all the side stuff. I beat this game in about 17 hours. And I didn't try to speed run it. I was exploring the scenery, but I easily could have spent twice as long going off the beaten path.

Wow. Yeah. I'm curious Ben, are you going to like go back? you think and do any of the field work or mysteries or anything like that, you know, now that you're done or do you feel like less inclined with the narrative kind of over? Yeah, you can, which I always appreciate when you can go back and clean up all those loose ends on your menu screen when it's over. I don't think that's a spoiler unless people thought that Indy was going to die in this one. Maybe they haven't seen Last Crusade. By the way, this takes place pre-Last Crusades, posts, Raiders, and Temple of Doom, of course, right? So it's sort of mid-trilogy where, you know, mid-30s, the Nazis are gaining power.

World War II is on the horizon. But yes, once you beat the main story, you can travel pretty freely and go back and do all of the extra stuff. So I don't know. I always lose some of my incentive to do that as soon as the credits roll. It's like some switch flips in my mind. And I'm like, another game would go to. Yeah, there's something else to play, right? But that is kind of giving it short shrift because there's a lot of good stuff here.

And the nice thing is that a lot of it ties together. So it's not completely extraneous. You might be doing some sort of field work, and then you'll find that actually it leads right into the adventure or it reinforces that or they're sort of parallel objectives and it deepens and enriches your sense of the story. So it's not fully side stuff. It all kind of intertwines in a way that I enjoyed. Yeah, I think they hit the nail in the head with just like how it interacts together.

and I think it does a really good job with that. And even there's like, this might be too specific, but there's like one mission that actually has you, like one side mission that has you go back to the other places to kind of unlock this treasure. And then there's another thing at the end also where it's like something you're collecting is helpful for a puzzle at the very end of the game that you can do.

So I do like those, that little nuances, right? Again, it feels, and it all fits within the story, all fits within the narrative that they're telling. And if you've kind of been paying attention to the, fieldwork. Again, it doesn't feel like, why am I taking this random picture of this, like, weird symbol? It's like, oh, this actually makes sense because this is going to help.

Yeah. I mean, like, the collecting stuff makes sense because I remember there was one, when I was, again, spending way too much time in the Vatican. There was one puzzle that you have to, like, look through your notes to try to figure out. You got to, like, toggle through them. And if I hadn't, like, you know, been collecting stuff, I would have just been trying to unlock this, trying to solve this puzzle with no, no knowledge. Yeah.

You know? And so it's just like really like intuitive to the puzzles. I think I'm not a great puzzle guy. I'd be getting sold on. I'd be like first things, but like, hey, YouTube, man. How do I solve this, man? You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't have time to be in here.

But these puzzles are pretty intuitive so far. I'm not, I don't feel like an idiot trying to solve them. They like do their best to, I mean, I'm playing on light because God forbid I'm sitting there for three hours trying to figure this out. that will never be me. There are some more advanced ones. Like for some of the other mysteries, there are some like lockbox codes

where you kind of get multiple pieces of notes from across the map or there's some ciphers you have to kind of utilize that take a while. Like, and I think can be challenging. And so I like the gamut of the puzzles where it doesn't feel like it's just, again, not to keep going back to outlaws. But where outlaws were just like,

go to this location. Here it is. Here's the one of four attachments that you get with your gun and blasted to solve this puzzle, which again, I know Alas was obviously not designed to be like a puzzle game, but I do appreciate, especially with an Indiana Jones game, that nuance within puzzles. I think it makes it rewarding. And, you know, if you have the time and you want to do that stuff, it makes, you know, it makes it more enriching.

And then also if you really try and you get one of those harder puzzles, you kind of feel like, all right, I got a cool reward here. You know, like there's, you know, there's like money, obviously, in the game that you can utilize to buy some like maps and guides to help you unlock more stuff, which is helpful too. So I really enjoyed a lot of that side quest stuff.

Yeah, I reached a point where I had cracked enough safes and done enough combinations. And I thought, am I going to get something in here that is worth my trying to figure out this code and decipher this riddle here? And sometimes I just moved on. But a lot of the puzzles are really satisfying. And ultimately the first person perspective, once I got used to it and accepted that, okay, this was a different thing than I was expecting.

But it really works because it makes you feel like you're inhabiting this character. You just feel like Indiana Jones. And is it sometimes awkward for climbing at first? You have to walk backwards off a ledge and then Indy will grab the ledge. It's almost like a Indiana Jones style leap of faith, I guess. But at first, it's not totally intuitive. And there are times where you're looking and you're thinking, can I make that jump? It doesn't look like it.

I guess I'll try. And then you can. But other than sometimes the platforming being a bit awkward or janky, I think it just totally immersed me in that world. And it really helps with the puzzle solving and the exploration and appreciating all the finer details of the world. And just, you know, having a torch in your hand or you're lighter and holding it up as you're creeping through some catacones. and there's scorpions crowding around you and all that stuff is just very immersive. Oh, my God.

Why did it have to be scorpions? Yeah. Why? Yeah. But this is also, I think, this is as good in Indiana Jones story. If you just package this as a movie, put it in theaters, you're good to go.

Now, if I were, Van, if Van were here, he might have something to say about Jomi not getting into this game until Gina shows up, but I'm not going to go there. I was, well, I think it's a good question, though, in terms of like, how do you guys feel like the characters work? You know, Ben, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I thought the story was really, really good for an Indiana Jones game.

And I love that this felt like the first game that they've made, especially obviously in a lot, it's the first one that's come out in a long time, but it's the first one that really feels like it immersed itself in the movie lore, like in a way that the other games haven't, where it almost feels like a standalone adventure. It could be connected to the continuity, but it really has no direct bearing. This one is like firmly establishes where it is.

It references a lot of things that have happened. It kind of alludes to things that you know are going to happen as well, which I thought was really smart. Like they know their audience. It's like, okay, your audience is well versed within these movies. They know the Indiana Jones movie as well. They've probably seen all five of them and know that like there are two that come after this. There are five. Some people maintain that they're only four as far as I can tell.

But yeah, it's not just even movie references. It's like deep cuts. Not even young Indiana Jones, but like French language comic books that I had to Google. What references that? There's some deep indie lore here. And also, yeah, there's a fun little love interest and a lot of just indie style site gags and humor. And there are times when you think, okay, is this treading a little too close to movie territory where it's more than an homage, it's kind of copying.

As you're exploring, you will get sick. of seeing the message opens from other side when you try to push through a door that's locked. And there are some doors that are locked from a storytelling standpoint because of the constraints of the movies. The game actually starts with a recreation of the Rolling Boulder scene and basically walking you through the beginning of Raiders, which at first put me off a little bit because I'm thinking, I thought this game was going to do its own thing. And here I am just retracing the steps from the film. Maybe it's not a bad way to get people in just to remind them, oh yeah, this is what we like about Indiana Jones. And there's not that much of that throughout the game. Yeah, you return to

certain locations. You go to Egypt. You go to the Himalayas. I guess it's like a Star Wars game. You always have to return to the desert and the ice place, Tatween Hoth, whatever it is. And you have a bespectacled evil Nazi, et cetera. There's some commonalities here. But I thought that the villain is actually excellent because he's not just purely evil. I mean, he is. But also he has like an inferiority complex, and he wants Indy to admire his archaeology skills. And then there's a kind of becomes an ally, not to spoil too much over the course of the game, but the late and great Tony Todd plays a fictional giant, a real-life giant playing a fictional giant called Locus in this game, and I think does a fantastic job with that character, too.

So literally larger than life, characters, just very pulpy, very much in the spirit of indie, and just completely nails the tone of the franchise. And you string these cutscenes together. You'd have a movie or two worth. I mean, you're talking several hours, probably, of footage here. Not all of which looks amazing. You know, you got some Bethesda faces, and not everyone is modeled as well as the likeness of Harrison Ford is.

But the storytelling is just really well done. You can tell that these people love Indiana Jones and also did not just recreate what, we have seen before, but sort of took it in another direction. Yeah, I've only just met Voss, or not just met Voss, but I have, like, limited experience with Voss. He sucks. Just one of the worst I've ever seen.

I want to wipe that smile off his face. Yes. That little grin that he always got. I've seen enough. Enough is enough. Yeah. I can't do it. When you boot up the game, there's a disclaimer.

There's a warning that says that the story and contents of this game are not intended to and should not be construed in any way to condone, glorify, or endorse the beliefs, ideologies, events, actions, persons, or behavior of the Nazi and fascist regimes, which, you know, maybe in this day and age you need to actually specify that, unfortunately. But I think that's pretty clear from the character of Emmerich Voss and from the storytelling here. No love lost between India and Gina and their Third Reich adversaries here and all of the fascists who are often identified if you have the subtitles on as fascist one and fascist two. No fascist three. No room for fascist.

I mean, I've always been, like, fascist too. Always too there. Yeah, he's always, yeah. Yeah, number two. Number one, maybe he never had a choice, but two. Not because, like, one is like, already knowing but two, like, are you here too? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, nah, it's too much.

It's too much. Yeah. Now, the game can be a bit janky. You might run into a bug or two. I know there's already been a patch. And you should know that if you go back, if you quit the game and go back to the main menu, which in a cool touch updates the image of the main menu, you reflects where you are in the game.

But also, you can roll back to earlier checkpoints because there are a couple times where I got stuck and I thought I was doomed that I'd have to go back to the beginning of the game, but you actually can find a way around that. Jomi, before we started recording, you were complaining about the difficulty of the first boss fight.

My game glitched out and skipped that boss fight entirely. Must be nice. It was nice, but it was also, I felt cheated a little bit. I was just done with that section of the game, and I didn't even have to punch any giants or anything, and it was jarring. I was like,

that would have saved me 40 minutes. Yeah. Slide spoiler, Jomi, there are multiple. No, every time I'm setting my game to light after that. Every time I see it come up, I'm sitting my game to light. I'm not dealing with it.

There's one in the middle of the game, which adds like another dynamic. I don't like that. Which I'm excited to hear. No, I don't like that. Yes. So if I had any complaints,

I'm really, enjoying the game so far, I'm going to go back and finish it over the brain. I'm going to have, like, a fun time. The combat, especially, like, in that boss fight, like, punching, like, the fascist is fine for the most part. You know, you got to hit them a couple times. They go down, whatever.

But, like, when you're in that, like, that boss fight, and all you got to do is punch him, nah, man, it wasn't, that was not where it is. Yeah. And you have a gun as Indiana Jones. and I shot this man in the face six times. He's a giant. And he's not going down, nah, bro.

I know it's mystical and the whole thing. Nah, man, let me kill him. Yeah. Please. I'm begging you. It was that one was tight. And then he's also like grabbing me from like, I don't know, I don't say like halfway across the thing.

But like, I'm way out of his reach and I'm still getting grabbed. Yeah, he's got a good wingspan. Great wingspan. I'm like, what's going on? Let me beat this dude. I'm like, running. around and I you know what I'm saying trying to put some realism like you mentioned day sussex trying to you know up the real the real in this game every day we could we can do

without that we don't need we don't need that and he gets winded quickly for a guy who is able to scale any barrier but that's part of the power fantasy of video games you got to upgrade you got to hold your breath longer and yeah the combat can be frustrating at times really you're meant to avoid it you're not meant to shoot you're meant to sneak around And it's not as frustrating as it was in outlaws. The AI is still sort of stupid sometimes. There's no peripheral vision for the guards, so you can just sort of sneak around.

There are a lot of conveniently placed objects, which are nice. You can pick up anything, lots of shovels, lots of mallets. You can bash people on the head. That's nice. And, you know, sometimes I'm always torn because you want the stealth to be realistic. It almost breaks your immersion if you can just like alert everyone and then run away. And then they're like, well, yes, he's gone. and they go right back to their routine.

But it's also very frustrating if they actually acted like they were in real life and never left you alone. So you can sometimes experiment where I would just like sprint in to a place that was full of guards, but that was my destination and then get punched out.

And then while I'm waiting, you get sort of the second chance at life where you can crawl around and pick up your hat, your fedora. I actually loved that animation. I like that too. And while you're doing that, the guards start walking away.

They ignore you. And you could just stand up and walk up. right into the door that you were sure. So there's some ways, you know, creative ways through the level. And no manual saves, which is a little frustrating. And there's a lot of taking pictures, hope you like photography, unlimited film, apparently in this camera, which can be developed immediately. It's not a Polaroid, not sure how that works. But these are minor nitpicks. This is really a great game. And I think this is what you want out of indie. And this is what you want out of any licensed game.

Any game that you want to see translated from film, from TV into video games, this nails it. We're not just retracing the steps. We're not rehashing everything. We're really giving us the full fantasy of being Indiana Jones and living in this world and experiencing everything that indie does. And on the whole, no major complaints. I would suggest that anyone who has any affinity for this franchise or immersive sims style gameplay in general, you got to go check out Great Circle. Even if you're just like, I'm not a huge indie fan,

but I'm familiar with it. And you like games, I would say, check it out. Honestly, I think it's a lot of fun. And I think I feel like it's a good way to even get new fans for Indiana Jones in a lot of ways because I think it really immerses you in what Indiana Jones is and it feels closer to some of the top movies than maybe some of the more middling and not so successful like Indiana Jones. films that have come out in in different years.

Yeah. And that's why I mentioned the stakes. I mean, outlaws, there were stakes for Ubisoft. Sure, but it's not as if this was an existential crisis for Star Wars. There are so many Star Wars games. There are so many Star Wars releases. Indy is not that way. So this is kind of the flagship of the franchise at this point.

We had Dialed Destiny, which again, I liked, but when in under expectations, box office wise, Harrison's hanging up the whip. what's the future of this franchise? Who knows? If this game bombs, that's a bad sign for the future of Indy at all, if you want there to be one. And the fact that this game has been greeted so warmly, it leads to potentially sequels to this game down the road, but even more so maybe scripted projects. Who knows? So that's why there was-

I would love a sequel to this, you know, even having some of the characters returning. Indiana Jones and the greater circle. There was an obvious, again, not to spoil the game, which I want. won't, but there was like an obvious title that could have made it by the end that obviously, if they had, would have spoiled the entire game. Yeah, you can't. Like a better title. You can't do that. No, to your point, though, Ben, I think, and we talked about this right from the jump, if you're a fan of Uncharted and a like Tomb Raider and you love those games and you miss that you got the edge for it, this game will, will fill up your cup.

I think it is a ton of fun. And although, you know, it's not a third person cover shooter. like the like a charter was this game does this job with the adventure the platforming and the puzzling is just um it's a ton of fun so if you if you need to lock in lock in Indiana Jones in the great circle we'll fill your cup the cup of a carpenter which takes us back to where we started this episode but we have another topic to talk about which we'll probably have a little less to say than we did about indie but let's pivot from a video game adaptation of a scripted IP to a TV adaptation to a TV adaptation. of video game IP, Secret Level. This is a prime video show from Tim Miller, the director of Deadpool and Terminator Dark Fate, producer of the Sonic films, beloved by Jomey,

and creator of Love, Death, and Robots, the animated Netflix anthology series. Love Death and Robots would probably be the best comp here because we're talking about roughly five to 15-minute animated shorts. You could also liken this to Star Wars Visions, except instead of many shorts inspired by, the same universe. It's one short apiece inspired by many universes. So it's been a big year for Prime Video with games with gaming adaptations with fallout like a dragon. And now this. How did you guys

feel like this worked? I guess I'll throw to you, Arjuna first. And to be clear, there are 15 episodes of Secret Level 8 were released this week. Seven more are coming on the 17th next week. So I've watched ahead a little bit, but we will not be spoiling any specific plot points here. But as you've probably seen, if you've seen any of the previews or anything, we're talking some well-known video game properties here in this first batch of eight episodes. You've got Dungeons and Dragons, Seafood, New World, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40K, Pac-Man, Crossfire, Armored Corps. The next batch will include some Sony games and honor of kings and Concord, amusingly, our last

little look at Concordes that we never really got and Mega Man and Spalunky and the Outer World's, et cetera. So Arjuna, what did you make of the first batch of episodes? Yeah, I think similar to Love Death and Robots. I think there are some like real highlights and then there are some others where you're like, uh, okay, you know, I watched something and wasn't as successful. I'm going to leave it there. And that and that will be that. You know, I thought like, similar to Jomey, and I'm sure he'll mention this, it's like, I haven't played all of these games before. I'm, like, familiar with a lot of them,

but some I've, like, never, never even really touched. And so it was cool to be immersed into different worlds that way as well, while also, like, ones that I'm really familiar with, like Dungeons and Dragons, for example, you know, is a game that I play often. And I thought that one was really fun for me to watch as a fan to see all of the different kind of influences within that episode. and then like an episode

like the New World episode with Schwarzenegger I thought it was like pretty funny I actually like really enjoyed that I was like chuckling a lot and I enjoyed that versus like yeah an episode like the Armored Core one

with Keanu Reeves which is like way more serious and was like the last one I finished with and before the pause started it was like that I watched this before I went to bed last night I won't spoil the episode but it ends in a pretty dark place and I was just like

this was not the best best thing to watch right before going to bed. Yeah. And that's the mixture of the episodes. And I think that's the, that's what they're going for, you know, with the different animation studios, with the different IPs that they're kind of hitting. There's some tonal shifts. And, you know, some really work and some I really like and others are interesting interpretations.

I would say. Yeah, I think that's 100% fair. I think the thing that I, that bothered me is not like the right word, but the thing I was think about the most was how like similar they all look. Yes. Yes. You know, you mentioned visions and the thing about visions. Exactly.

Yeah. They are. They're drastically different. Dastically different. Episode to episode is a new studio and they're taking brand new look at the, at Star Wars. And so they'll be, they'll have different looks, have different fields, different vibes. They all kind of look the same. Mm-hmm.

And so where you get a, you know, a Pac-Man or a new, new order, or a new world or whatever it may be, it all looks like the same stuff. That 3D animation look that they're kind of going. Yeah, that almost photo realistic, but uncanny valley kind of looks. It's a cutscene. It's the best, it's where you put all the cinematics at,

like in Halo 4 when the beginning, they had the great cut scenes, and at the end when they had the great cut scenes. And then the rest of the game is like, okay, this is all in engine. We're fine for our lives right now. but it's a team we can do it. You know what I mean?

This was the stuff that they put at the beginning of the game to get you locked in. And while like to your point, like New World was funny and the Crossfire one I enjoyed a lot because I like that kind of stuff, it all just felt kind of like the same stuff.

Except for Sifu, yeah. Seifu had a little bit of a different look and I think it was so much better for it. I agree. I definitely agree with that. Yeah, and there's some star power. You mentioned Arnold's.

There's also Patrick Schwarzenegger multiple Schwarzeneggers. Kevin Hart, Keanu, you can always count on to show up in a video game related project. Our boy, Tim Morrison is in here. Emily Swallow, the armor. We got some mandolorean action in these shorts. But I think it's a tough premise for a series. It's a tough assignment. And if I had to put on my network executive hat and someone pitches this to me, I don't know that I give this a green light because I just think that it's a heavy lift for a lot of people. And I hope it does well. And I hope it does find an audience and I hope they make more. But there's such obstacles to that just because the video game landscape is so fractured.

And this is something that we wrestle with on this very podcast when we're trying to decide what to talk about and who should talk about it. Video games, it's huge, right? It's such a big umbrella that we all just lump under this medium video games. But within that, you have innumerable fandoms and people might be into one thing and not into. to another thing and you might have no idea, no familiarity with this. I know nothing about Crossfire, for instance. Now, that's not for me necessarily. That's big in China, big in South Korea. So they're going for a global audience here. But when I'm watching that, I'm thinking, what is this? I feel a little out of the loop. And then is your solution to that to just sort of

boil down the game into a 10-minute short and sort of summarize what the game looks like? That's the way that some of these shorts go. That's how Warhammer felt. Yeah. That's how Warhammer fell. The Warhammer one, it looked cool, but it's very much a compliment to Space Marine, too. It's a tie-in. It's essentially an ad, more or less.

I mean, I don't want to dedicate it, but there's an element of these that is a little bit like, here's a teaser for the full experience. Go get the game, if you thought this looked cool. I did look ahead and I watched the Sony flavored episode that brings in a number of Sony franchises. and that's been shown. You've seen Cretos probably in the trailers. That very much smacks of Spancon.

It's just let's stick some Sony characters into this more or less unremarkable story. And hey, cool, I know that character, that kind of thing. And then you have Sifu, which actually adapts a level of the game. It just retells a level of Sifu, a run, essentially, which is fine, but that's something that you've seen that you've played if you've played that game. I like the ones that get a little wacky with it, which is why the Pac-Man adaptation here, which is just the...

Now, be for real right now. The farthest out of left field, maybe most disturbing interpretation of Pac-Man you've ever seen. Easily. Which is what I want from this, I think. You just want to see the yellow guy chopping fruit? I don't want to see that.

I can play that at the arcade. Look, Ben, Ben. I don't know what I expected from a Pac- This will keep me awake at night. A little vignette from this show. I did not expect that. No. I think totally like a lot of these were kind of were darker outside of New World.

And so I kind of wish Pac-Man was a lighter episode than what it was. Like you said, maybe the heaviest of the eight that were initially released. Yeah. This is like disturbing. Yeah. I think that makes it maybe a tougher cell too where like love of death than robots. Again, a lot of those are also dark. But there are a few, like there are more.

lighthearted ones in there, which I think helps with break it up tonally. This one is just, you know, be prepared if you watch all of these back to back, just like, okay, it's going to be a little heavy. Maybe try and break it up. Yeah, there's a lot of sameness, not just in the visual style, but then thematically too. Yeah, you get Sifu and New World, which are both about characters getting reincarnated over and over again, and those are back to back in the season, I think, the way I watched it. And then, yes, there are a lot of lone wolf or small platoon takes on massive army of enemies.

And then it's just a bunch of shooting and slashing, which is more fun to play probably than to look at. But I think the challenge of this project and also the opportunity is the range that it affords you, that there are just so many different animation styles you could employ and so many different worlds and so many different stories you could tell. And in this first batch of eight, there's just not enough of that. As I said, I watched ahead a little bit. The Outer Worlds episode specifically is the best of the ones I've seen because it is a little lighter-hearted and more character-driven. And it just feels like a reprieve from all the grim, dark violence. But I would want more of that if they continue this season.

Give me more variety. Explore the space, maybe in a less disturbing way than the Pac-Man short, if that offends your sensibilities. But I appreciate it just the way that they took that. I was not expecting. I mentioned ghosts. I see no ghosts. Yeah. No, it's true.

Where were the ghosts at? You know, you can eat everything but their eyes. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I understood that reference. What are we doing here? Eat.

Eat. Cool. Eat. All right, bro. Scary stuff. You will never see Pac-Man the same way. I don't think I can play it again. The guy is, he's insatiable.

He eats everything around him. It is sort of disturbing. If you think about it, it's certainly disturbing. and the quantity of quarters that Pac-Man robs from me and many people older than me at the arcade. What was your favorite of the first eight then, if it was not Pac-Man? I think it's probably the seafood one

because, again, it looked different. And what I haven't, I've never played seafood. And it's just really cool. And I think emotionally that was like somehow in like the 10 minutes or so they had worked very well because he starts eating the dumplings with the lady. Then he comes back as the old man

and she's, you know, tell me about it. It's just like, okay, like to do all that in less than 10 minutes, I thought, was just excellent. That would have to be my favorite. Second is Crossfire. Like I said, I love that stuff. Shout out Claudia Dumit. She was in there as well.

That was much fun. I love that, like, oh, they got the package. All the decoy. We got to go, the dude, sniping them from like across the map, essentially. Was that like cool? So, yeah, that was my second one. What about you, Arjuna?

I really, like I said at the top, I really liked the D&D one. I thought that was cool. I thought ending it on a cliffhanger was awesome. I was like, wait, there's another thing here. Arjuna, they all died. Do you know that, right? No, no, they're fine. They're cooked.

They're fine, a hydrant. When you play in D&D, right? Here's a little D&D thing. When you hit zero health points, you don't die. You're knocked unconscious and then you have to do death-saving throws. You know, so you have three chances to kind of revive back to one health point. So that's what I'm going to imagine.

That's bad. I've never played D&D before, so I don't know how this works. Well, you have now. We're not spoiling for the time. You're not spoiling. You got to tease them. You got to teal. And then I actually like the armored core one,

even though it was a disturbing way to end the night. Yeah, I thought just, I thought Keanu did a really great job. And that one, I thought the fight sequences with the mecks were fun. It reminds me of why you play armored court game in a lot of ways. The New World one wasn't so... So funny. Wasn't my favorite, but it was the funniest.

It stands out because it actually made you laugh one time. It made me laugh multiple times. Which is one more than all the other ones. Come on. You know what I mean? Like multiple times, I'm just like, I had a smile on my face, just laughing, laughing like crazy because it was just so silly. Guys, like, every time

it gets up, yet I still live. Oh, my God. But short, yeah, getting short snaker for that role specifically was was very good. Yeah, he was indulging his almost like fifth element sort of campy kind of era in that one, which was fun. I think, as I mentioned, the outer worlds one that comes out next week is my favorite. But of this batch, I do appreciate just the sheer batch shit nature of the Pac-Man adaptation,

even if it will haunt my dreams. I also like the D&D one, though, as you said, Arjuna, it felt like a great teaser or set up for something, which is maybe the downside or one of the downsides of this. format is that if you really do some fun world building and character creation, as soon as you do, it's over. And then you're wondering what happens to these characters? Will we ever see them again? Will we see them in season two?

And maybe we will get through lines and threads. Maybe if there's a second season, we'll see the continuing adventures of that party. But it's a little frustrating to get this kind of compelling setup and then credits. Well, I will say very accurate to playing D&D. where you play a session and you get to the end and you're like, wait a second, I want more. We've created this found family.

We've created this team. Yeah. I thought that actually worked for that. Like, that worked well for the IP. I admire the ambition of this project. It's just, it's going to be tough to please everyone because only the hardest core of gamers. Maybe Matt James,

who has played every video game released, would have some familiarity with every one of the properties. associated with these franchises, but a lot of people of the 15, you just hope your batting average is over 500, maybe when it comes to actually knowing and caring about these properties. And then the question is, can you hook people if they don't care? And how do you familiarize them with this world and tell an interesting story in 10 minutes or even less in some cases? And how do you do that without just recycling something from the game?

Or is this something that's really for the fans? and it's kind of a deep cut and it's a supplement to an existing story, but then maybe it's less accessible to someone who has not played those games. The shorts that love death and robots are largely adapted from short stories, which is a natural fit. But trying to take on an entire video game or video game series and establish the language of that thing, it is just really, really tough, I think,

to make this appeal to everyone that it's supposed to appeal to. I think if there's a season two, I think giving more direction to these studios is key, right? because it did feel like the prompt that they gave everyone was just like, give us your thing with this IP and that's why you get like six of the same kind of story that looks the same. Very much like Vision season one where everyone had free reign and so they all did a Jedi story essentially. You're going to make your favorite thing. Yeah.

But there has to be a little curation here, a little direction. You don't want to cramp anyone's style, but. I joked that it looks like this. This was just made by the people who make all the video game cinematics. You will never guess the studio that does this, that made this season, Blur. Blur Studio. And they are responsible for the cinematic trailers of Batman Arkham City, Batman Arkham Origins, and Batman Arkham Night. And they remade Halo 2 cutscenes for Halo Master Chief Collection and produced the cutscenes for Halo Wars 2 after doing so for Halo Wars, the OG.

So this is what they do. This is very much where we are watching the people who make the video game cutscenes make video game cutscenes essentially. With greater care and attention to detail because they're just focusing 10 minutes of the time as opposed to several hours for indie cutscenes. But still, there is that look. So yes, I would encourage them to branch out a bit visually and thematically in season two. If there is a second season, each of you have maybe.

a game or two on your wish list, something that you would like to see, get the secret level treatment. Indiana Jones in the Great Circle? Mrs. Pac-Man. No, thank you. Can we get Frogger in here? You know?

And it's just like this little frog, trying to hop across this 18-lane highway, and he's, like, flashing back to his life and the choices that he made in his life to be in this position right now. And then as he's getting the last, Lane, it's an 18-wheeler at custom black. You hear the horn boom,

custom black. That's how the show does it. That's how the show operates. I would love to see one of the team-up games, like a smash bros or even like a Kingdom Hearts, where you're already taking multiple IPs and to participate in this project. Yeah, good luck getting Nintendo. They're going to sue you just for saying that.

But that's the dream. Cut Arjuna suggesting that, Devin. No, I'm kidding, but still, err on the side of caution. But I think, I mean, for me, my My real wishless ones would be games that we're never going to get for this project because they're probably pretty obscure. But those are the ones that I would want because we're not going to get a sequel to those

things. So the only way that they live on is in secret level. So you want outlaws? Like the Concord fans out there. I know you're out there, the Concord community, you actually get a little glimpse of this game that was rudely ripped away from you. So some games, I don't know, I'd like to see some Skies of Arcadia in Secret level or some sort of Panzer Dragoon orta kind of world.

I mean, these are hipster picks, obviously. And so I'd be actively repelling the audience that I've already suggested would be tough to attract. So more realistically, I guess I'd like to see some stories that have strong worlds, but maybe left a little meat on the bone in terms of filling in some of the gaps, like stray, for instance, which very much feels to me like a game. Like a half-life, right? Like, we ever got Half-Life three, you know, and that was like, oh,

Sure. Let's just give us a half-life three in a secret level short. Everyone will be satisfied. Half-life three in a single level would kind of... It hits. Well, it fulfills the premise of the title of the show, right? It's a super level. Yeah.

There you go. Yeah, at least Half-Life 2 episode three or something. Give us something here. That would work. But yes, Stray, I would like to see because I found that world's pretty compelling, but it's sort of subtle environmental storytelling. I'd like to learn a little bit more about that world. And Horizon, I'm always here for,

Horizon stories, even having played both of the main games and the DLCs, I'm just very intrigued by that sci-fi setting, and I would sign up for much more of not even just A.O.A. and her continuing adventures, but filling in some of the gaps and some of the centuries that passed between the old world and the new. I will say some of the visuals in the Warhammer episode reminded me of Death Stranding. So it feels like they could already visually have the palate to make a Death Stranding episode. Just grab Norman Redis again. There you go.

Have the baby. All right. Well, we are going to take a quick break here. We're going to go watch the Game Awards. And then we will reconvene in a number of hours. It won't be hours for you, listener. It will be mere seconds. But we will be back in just a moment in your time to discuss what went down at the Game Awards,

some of the big upsets, some of the big wins. And most importantly, some of the big wins. big announcements. They announce Half-Life 3. Yeah. And the game of the year is Astrobot.

And in less time than it takes Jeff Keely to announce best RPG or best mobile game, we're back. We just watched three hours of game announcements, trailers, and ads, occasionally broken up by awards and brief speeches. Are the game awards, occasionally

cringy? Yes. Are they incredibly commercial? Yes. But those were some sweet commercials. They brought it for the 10th anniversary show. We are hyped. Somewhere, Aaron Paul and Laura Bailey are still on stage, bantering about dispatch. But we are back in the studio. On the clock, Arjuna, we did not get a Half-Life 3 reveal.

But everything short of that, this show delivered. It did. The trailers were, like you said, the highlight. There were some real standouts. I'm sure that we're going to get into. You know, when you said a little cringy, I might say a lot cringy. For other awards. Definitely.

But, you know, maybe that's part of the charm. Maybe that's what makes the Game Awards, the Game Awards. You can try to make gaming's Oscars into the Oscars, but they'll just never quite get there. And I say that with love and affection. But there's just a certain gaminess that you can't take out of the Game Awards. And it is revealed in every crowd shot as Snoop is performing gin and juice. So it's hard to know when to go to the bathroom during that show. because you can't tell the difference between the commercials and the ceremony.

They do kind of blend together. And no one's pretending otherwise. Harrison Ford was there playing the Al Pacino presenter part of when does my check cash and is the prompter working. Nice to see him. We started with some indie as we did more or less in this episode. Congrats to all the winners. And for everyone else, you lost today, kid, but that doesn't mean you have to like it.

So let's talk about some of the awards. then let's get into the game reveals because we know that's what this is all about. You want the actual awards to matter. Show up at the BFTAs. Show up at the Dice Awards. This is about the trailers. We plan to do one award win that upset us and one that made us happy. So maybe we can get the actual award reactions out of the way before we get into the meat of this thing. Was there something, Arjuna, that made you up in arms about a winner in a category here. I'm not going to start with a win.

I'm going to start with a nominee. And it's in the best adaptation nominee list. That was mine. And it's got to be, why is Knuckles been nominated for best adaptation? That might be the worst show I watched this year. You didn't like, flames a disaster?

Like, first of all, not even a show about Knuckles. It's about Wade Whipple. Knuckles is barely in the show. the fact that that's in the same category as Fallout, which was the rightful winner. Do you have something to say about that, Jomey? I'm sure Jomey has something to say.

So that was going to be the winner that upset me. Look, I love Fallout. You know, I thought the show, it surprised me. Somebody who's never played the games. It actually wanted me, it made me think about picking up the game, and then I watched some gameplay, and I was like, actually, let me love myself and not do this.

But Arcane season two was like the thing. Like, come on. Let's be for real. Now shout out Ella Pranel, no matter how it went down, she wins anyway. So good for her. But I was like, yo, Arcane, like here's the thing. I do see the vision, but I just kind of feel like you can be able to give Fallout an award in the next like two years.

You know what I mean? This was Arcane's last stand. Kind of sucks that they didn't get it done this time. It's true. Is it win for season one? So it didn't win in season one because it wasn't worth having a best adaptation category until the past few years, apparently, until Arcane came along. No, it's true.

I was certainly in terms of return on investments budget-wise or audience size, Fallout wins in a walk. But quality-wise, hey, I enjoyed Fallout also. There was some patting out the nominees in that category. We had to get five. Yeah, had to get to five somehow. So throw knuckles, throw like a dragon, Yakuza in there. Okay, so that's the category that upset you guys the most.

For me, it's best sports racing game. which was also just a travesty, just a snub for EA college sports, 25. What are we doing here? Not even nominating college football in this category, which was the breakout sports game of the year. This thing was a system seller. Van Lathen somewhere is probably playing right now, and I'm sure he's upset about this.

It created one of the most viral moments of the ringer this year when we did a live stream and Jomey got an interception. and then immediately hit the dive button. You guys aren't going to believe this, but I am bad at video games. And that entire that is higher

live stream was just Austin yelling over my shoulder, what are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah, what a time. Pretty good. No, what a time. EA Sports FC-25,

winning over college football. I just, I think that's, I don't see it. That's an insane sin. It is. Okay, first of all, rest and peace, He gave us good years, but the money wasn't there.

All I've heard from everybody, let me tell you some, I could never, once they dropped the FIFA label, I was like, all right, I see what's going on here. Y'all got it. I will not partake in this travesty. But some people have been locked in the FIFA so long, you got to get it. I've never seen a game, like, drop so low in people's estimations. Like, FIFA was already like, you know, we talk about the heyday at FIFA 14, FIFA 15, FIFA 16, with Messi and Marco Royce on the cover going crazy. Nobody, people bought it out of obligation. And they were like, oh, this is actually terrible.

This sucks. Why am I still here? People still buy Madden these days, you know what I mean? Sure. Like, for people to like turn on AEAFC like that is nuts. And so, yeah, the game is just falling off. So the fact that it was nominated in one just doesn't make any sense to me. Is there an award win we're most pleased about?

I guess that it might be the same one potentially. Is there one that you guys were happiest about? So I know where you guys are. And so I'm going to, I'm going to zig a little bit where you guys are zagging. Actually, no, I'm not. Because it's the different, it's a different category. Same game. Same game.

Action adventure. Right? Because when I don't think of a platform like that as an action adventure, that's basically what Astrobat is. Right? And up against Prince of Persia 2, the Lost Crown, Silent Hill 2, Star Wars Outlaws, and the legend of Zelda echoes of wisdom. for Astrobot to come out on top.

I was like, okay, I thought that this was going to be like the pity one. You know, we're going to give you this one, you know, and it will give the big award to somebody else. But I assume Game of the Year is where you guys are at with your happiest to see when. Yes, yes, indeed. We're Astro stands over here. This is our game of the year. It is mirrored in the selection here. And it's just nice to see Astrobot.

It's not the biggest seller of the year, but just in terms of, of pure joy, just pure gaming goodness, Astro on top of my personal list, and glad that it got the recognition here. It definitely felt like it was deserving. I'll throw in one other one. I enjoyed Hell Divers, too, so I was happy that that got Best Ongoing Game.

I thought that was a fun one. That's when I play with my brothers. Every few weeks, we just jump on and we just have senseless fun, you know, killing bugs and robots. Like, what's better than that? Best multiplayer also high on my list. Yeah.

All right. So we've talked about the awards again. Congrats to you all. But you're all winners in our book. Yes. We all won because we had just an incredible lineup here of reveals. And Keeley, you know, sometimes he'll tease the industry redefining, paradigm resetting announcement of the game awards. And it's a slight letdown.

Not tonight. He brought it. So did each of you have a number one? I feel like we're going to have a whole lot of honorable mentions here because there's a lot to talk about Arjuna. I mean, I got to start with the naughty dog reveal of Intergalactic, the Heretic Prophet. They showed, I think, a four and a half minute trailer of the closers. Yeah, in-game cinematics. And I'm hyped.

It's shot up my list, obviously, of games that I'm really anticipating. Don't think we got an actual release date for it. Nope. We got a 28, maybe. We'll see you sometimes. They've been working on it since 2020, which means maybe two, three more years. Yeah.

A little more time in the oven. The last of us, like HBO show will be over, you know. Yeah. Be well moved on from there. But I'm still really excited for that. I'm excited to hear more about it and hear about the story. Naughty Dog going the full sci-fi route is really exciting. You know, taking some of the really great platforming elements

that we've obviously seen in The Last of Us. And Uncharted, you know, we talked about Uncharted earlier in this pod and how revolutionary that game series was. So I think anytime Naughty Dog comes out with an original IP that's out there, it always is something to pay attention to. And obviously being something that is sci-fi-related is something that's really exciting for me too. So that one's got me very hyped.

Yeah. There were rumors that Natty Dog was working on some sort of sci-fi series, but to see that a new IP, it's been too long. And I like that we ended on that, that that was the... biggest reveal of the show, not another sequel, even though there were so many sequels that I was excited about, but we're just a wash in sequels and prequels and reboots and to actually have something new. That was a nice note to end on. Notty Dog is, you know, like some of the premier directors and like smaller studios in Hollywood, right, where you know when they come out with an original idea, you're going, right? Like when Chris Nolan comes out with Oppenheim, you're like, all right, I'm going because I trust this creative, right? Nottie Dog has that kind of. of, you know, power, I would say, within the video game issue where it's like, whatever you're making, I'm in.

You know, like, I believe in you as a studio. So same thing, obviously, with Rockstar, even though I know they just make Grand Theft Auto sequels at this point. But yeah. That's all you know, they don't just make Grand Theft Auto sequels. They just made Grand Theft Auto 5. That's what they've done for the last like 13 years. Huge upset, GTA6 winner of most anticipated game.

Who could have thought? Yeah. No, I'm excited. Druckman's writing The Nadi Dog. game looks like it's going to be good. Can't wait for the toxic discourse that we're going to get about the protagonist, but we'll put that out of our minds. The comments are off on the YouTube video bit.

It's already started. It's not a coincidence. Everyone's the trolls are mobilizing to downvote three years in advance, but we are upvoting. We are extremely excited. Show me. I'm going to go with Borderlands 4. These are these. So these, like, I got on a gaming pretty late in my whole thing.

I was playing Halo. You know, Halo in sports games was it. But everybody would talk about Borderlands. And I don't know if you guys saw the movie that came out recently. But I loved it. I loved it. I thought it was 10 out of 10. You know what I'm saying?

They need more. Make Borderlands too happen. No, but this would be like my, I mean, I guess I could go back and play the old ones, but so much going on, like I could, I want to start fresh. And Borderlands 4, I was like, okay, cool. I can finally just get into Borderlands. You know, I don't know how much they're taking from the, original three games, but I'm ready to lock in, man.

Again, it's a shooter. I'm going to be terrible at it. But as long as we're all having fun, that's all that matters. And the thing about Borderlands is everybody says it's so much from the customization. The characters, the worlds are just an absolute blast. So I can't wait to dive in. For me, maybe a hipster pick, but I would go with the slight tease we got of the new Famito-Uweida game, maker of Eco, Las Guardian, Shadow of the Colossus, just classics, all.

this one was so short. We just got the briefest look. It looks like some sort of mech game, but atmospheric as usual. Didn't even get a title. So this thing could be years and years and years away. Could be completely different when we get it. Yes, if we get it. The knowledge that it exists in some form,

and I could almost feel just those janky, awkward controls, just watching that character climb up the back of that colossus-looking meck. So that's pending actual information. about whatever that is. I'm hyped about that. Beyond that, though, I guess I got to give it up to the presenter, extraordinaire, the F-bomb dropper, Joseph Fairs of Hazelight and Split Fiction, which seems very much up the ringer-verse alley,

sci-fi and fantasy co-op game. This is from the makers of It Takes 2, the Game of the Year award winner a few years ago, and others, which I've played with my wife. We play all those games, no way, a way out. Brothers A Tale of Two Sons, we have played all of those. Hazlite is all about the co-op, all about the local couch co-op. And this one looks like it's going to follow in the footsteps of it takes two.

And I'm excited. And comes out March 6. So it's always nice when we get the reveal and the release date. And it's not in the super distant future or entirely hypothetical, but we could actually have our hands on this thing in less than three months. So that might be the highlight for me, but there are so many close contenders. I'll just throw out one more trend, which is just the sort of, you know, Obi-1 award for that's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time.

We had a few games kind of come out of nowhere here and surprise me. Onimusha is coming back. It has been almost 20 years since we got an Onomusha game. Tarak, we got new Tarak coming. Turak Origins. Pretty sure Justin Charity drafted that in the Buttonmash remake draft. I guess this is not actually a remake, but still new Tarak. And a reveal that seemed to reduce Jeff Keely to tears.

And I get it. Okami. There's a new Okami coming out. That's crazy. Just Okami sequel. I think they should leave that. Great name. Yeah.

It's right to the point. It's very descriptive. I played Okami late in. college, like after he'd been out for a long time. And I'm very excited for that one. Yeah. So Hedekhi Kamia's new studio is working with Capcom. So that's an exciting reunion there.

So always happy to see long dormant franchises come back to life. Are there other highlights for you? I don't know about highlights, but are any things that we think, like any announced games that you think could have like popped a trailer out and showed us something. Like, I wish I could have seen more of Ghost of Utah, the Ghost of, um, the Ghost of, um, the Gus or Chima sequel, no Marvel 1943, nothing from there. And no Wolverine,

which brings me to, I think insomniac is broken. I think after the Spotterman, after the leaks, after Spider-Man 2, they said, you know what? It's cool. Don't worry about it. They'll never hear from us ever again.

Because they got hacked, so we know already. So I can play them, I guess. I would like to see it, though, Ben. They canceled the apparently there was supposed to be D.O.C. Spider-Sider into it said, scrap that. It was in the code. They had it in the actual code for the game.

You know what I mean? And so, fair, right? The leaks, the hacks got y'all, bet. No problem. Y'all still do have, y'all still announce some games that I would like to see and play at some point. What's the, can we at least get, like, throw a smoke signal or something? You know, I feel like insomniac being, like, completely invisible from this game awards kind of sucked a little bit.

Yeah, you know, haven't they given us enough? No, man. Sure. No. You demand more content. Jomey wants more. He needs more pictures of Spider-Man. I need more pictures of Spider-Man.

How about more Eldon Ring? Does that float your boat? So we're not getting an Eldon Ring sequel. They have not really ruled it out, but said they're not working on one. But instead, we're getting DLC and spin-offs that are essentially full-fledged games. So we're getting Eldon Ring Night Rain, again, in 2025. and this is almost kind of a co-op, rogue-light sort of boss rush set in the same area,

but just fighting monsters and no run is the same and looks like maybe slightly arcadier combat. It's hard to judge from the brief glimpse that we got, but I love that we're just kind of getting a new Eldon ring in some shape or form every year at this point without getting an actual sequel. They're marveling it up, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, they just got to pump it out. I was even going to say, that's not like GTA 5 where we're never going to, you're not going to get Eldon Ring 2, but we're just going to keep throwing stuff to Eldon Ring and you're going to be here forever. Grand Theft Auto Online, man. I just saw a new update. They're still going. I'll tell you, even after GTA 6 come out, people still going to be playing GTA 5, man. Yeah. It's going to be that.

It's that in green. They're like, yeah, this is just part of the system. It's nice to see a little GTA detail drop. little teaser, but they're too big for the game awards. So it's their own event whenever they decide to release something. Ben, is that game coming out next year, Ben? I'm not a betting man. I would go, I would take out all of my savings, go to Vegas, and put the answer on no.

100% on no. I was not. There's no way. There's no chance. There's like, there's essentially zero chance. tired than zero. It's a non-zero chance. I'm clinging to that.

Zero. It's not possible. It's impossible. Impossible. It's impossible. Because they haven't even started. Did you guys, do you guys also see that report that someone was like,

the Xbox and a rock star and announced some big project or something together? And then we didn't get nothing like that. Yeah. You know, the rumors were flying. But, crazy. Should we,

should we touch on Game of Thrones, Kings Road? We should. Yeah. Look, I think that the, the Game of Thrones IP is underutilized in the gaming space.

I think we need more, more Games of Throne here. But this, I don't know, I guess. I don't think this is it. This is not it. Well, because I see the trailer.

I'm like, it's like that meme with the excited face. It's like new Game of Thrones game. And then it's, said Bobo and then my face just dropped. I was like, ah, it's not. Then you get a lot of bad impressions of famous characters. I mean, look, it's cool.

You can't bring them back. You can't. I mean, you could if you had the bread. Clearly, they don't have a bread, right? Just get Troy Baker in there. He'll take care of it. Troy Baker can probably do a great John. Troy Baker, do every character for your throne.

So we saw John, we saw Varis. Secy and Jamie. I mean, it's all here. Yeah. Yeah. It's, the person they got to do, Jamie's voice was particularly bad. That was not great.

It was just bad. And, you know, Game of Thrones theme song is epic. This is the first time I've heard it or seen it with something. I'm like, this is cheesy as hell. It tricked me, bro. It did not work for me. It tricked me, man.

I was like, ah, I get to go to the wall, man. You castle black, I get to take the oath, man. I was hype. And in mobile game, I'm like, yeah, y'all got it. That's for y'all. I will not be there. Y'all enjoy it. This is for y'all, not for me.

I will not be there. I will not be there. I would guess that it will come to non-mobile platforms at some point, but whether we will want to play it, TBD. Nice to see them using the license for something. But, yeah, is this what we want them to use it for? Remains to be seen. Also, if we're talking about big games that we may not see for a very long time,

which are four, right? Let off the show with an extremely long trailer, which was exciting. but I imagine this one also on the distant horizon. Yeah, that's got to be like 2029. 2028, 2009. That could be a PS6. PS6.

That's a launch day. This is CD project. You know, the last thing they did was cyberpunk 277. And you know how we all know how that went in terms of getting that open and getting that game played well off the rip. So they're going to take their time with this one,

I'd imagine. You know, have this one. Make sure this one. one's really well done before they drop it off to the fans. They lose their minds. Yeah. We got a couple new game announcements from RGG Studios, makers of Yakuza Like a Dragon. They're working on something looks interesting, Project Century, as well as a new

virtual fighter game, which gives me hope for speaking of games getting exhumed and old Sega properties. You never know what could be coming next. So that's exciting. The Rousseau has appeared via video. one of them wearing an extremely high collar, like a Oran in Final Fantasy 10 height collar. Get a new slant, Ben.

Get a new slant. The first berserker, Kazan. All right. Look, there are a lot of games here that you can't really tell from a trailer. But interesting. We got the Sioux team making a game called Rematch, which is exciting. We talked about Seifu earlier in this episode. And Arjuna, we were just talking about Hell Divers.

Now, the best thing about the game awards is when we get a surprise drop immediately. And I'm not talking about new Snoop and Dre. I'm talking about new helldivers content and some serious hell divers content, too. So this was very God of War Valhalla sort of announce and, hey, it's available right now. It's there, right? Yeah. So we've got the long rumored, the long anticipated third faction, the Illuminate, they're back. we also have a four-player

co-op-buggy, all-terrain vehicle. We've got vehicles, we've got driving in Hell Divers. This is exciting. So I've been taking a little bit of a Hell Divers break, but this is enough, I think, to get me back in and maybe restore those player counts for a while. So I love when we don't have to wait for something. It's not just a tease.

It's a you can go get this. Go play it right now. Especially with so many things being nebulous and being like, yeah, this will be like three years down the road when we're like, oh yeah, remember when they announced that? Remember when games were coming on time? And, like, they would announce them

and you would get it. And if, I mean, here's the thing. Has that ever actually happened? Well, no. That doesn't happen. Well, not like, well, I mean, like, it would come out a reasonable time. You know what I'm saying?

Like, sequels wouldn't take five years or six years or whatever. Like, I feel like even we joke about GTA, but that's, like, insane. Right? But the fact that they were to be able to milk GTA 5 for all that money for all that long, let them cook on GtA 6.

Whereas a lot of these games be like, cool, yeah, yeah, yeah, we announce a sequel, you will get that, when the next time you get that, you'll have kids. Like, that's just what it is, you know? Yeah. And so, like, yeah, there is something to, like, getting the game now. Like, I feel like we miss that.

Games, like, I'm cool games getting delayed. I want it to work, right? I want it to look at it. I want it to work. So I don't mind I'm getting delayed. But, like, the graphics don't need to look like it's, you know, the future anymore, man. They look, it's okay.

As long as they work, right? The graphics got, they can look solid. They can't be janky. You know what I mean? And maybe that's what it is. Because when I was a kid, games weren't 175 gigs. They looked fine.

You know what I mean? Maybe my eyes have gotten better. Maybe the TVs have gotten bigger and more high definition. Yeah. But I didn't need to be like, man, 200 gigs. All right, so I'll start download this today.

Then I can play it, maybe six to eight weeks, you know? Back in your day. Yeah, it was a different time. Yeah, in my day and I had my 64 megabyte. Back in my! My PlayStation 2 memory car. Good enough for me.

Yeah. It's newfangled graphics. It's not even a disc drive on my PlayStation. Three years between TV seasons, seven years between video games. What happened by country, man? This is the world we live in now. It's hard to make things, but this is where we are. But look, we got a lot coming.

We got a lot in store. it was a successful show in its goal, which is partly to reward people for making good games that are already out, but mostly to get us all excited about the games that will be briefly awarding at a future edition of the Game Awards. So shout out to Statler and Waldorf for trolling Jeff Keeley. So effectively, shout out to Jeff Keeley for actually mentioning layoffs in the industry and not just skirting over that in 30 seconds,

all sorts of upsets at these awards. Any closing thoughts, anything else you want to mention before we finish? Which of the games that you saw are you most confident will be like Game of the Year? The year it actually comes out. I mean, I guess you got to be what you're for. Got to go with Nottie, Doug, I think. No, I mean, I mean, maybe. I just don't, I don't know exactly what to expect from that game.

So, I mean, I trust, I'm with you guys. I trust the Noddy Dog Vision, but I literally don't know what the gameplay is going to be like what it looks like. I know what the Witcher look like. And that game, that game got that heat on it.

And so if a CD project do what they got to do, I think they got something in the bag there. Do you think Henry Cavill was just like sad? Seeing the trailer, you know, tough. He's busy. He's working on Warhammer.

He'll be already. Yeah, that's fair. Good for him. Good for him. Just jumping from one franchise to the next. Yep. Good for all the award winners. Good for Astrobod.

Good for Bilatro for winning every other award that Astrobot didn't win. We had a fun time watching and like a winner at the Game Awards. We will wrap it up. That will do it for today. Jomey, Arjuna, couldn't have done it without you, or I guess it could have, but I could have, but it would have been boring. It would have been a very long monologue. I'm very happy that you were both here. Thank you.

Of course, man. I'm keeping Indiana Jones, by the way. Let's stay on me. Oh, please. That's yours. Yes, I gift it to you. I've bestowed it upon you for you to use as you choose. And of course, Buttonmash will be doing our game of the year draft, which is really the most hyped event of the season.

You know, the game awards, they can do their little thing. That's nice. But really, it all comes down to what we do here at Buttmash. That'll be later this month. Although, if you go to the ringer.com, when this episode is up or shortly after, what a wonderful website, you can read a top 10 that Justin Charity and Matt James and I have cooked up. It doesn't duplicate what we'll be doing here on Buttmash, which is more of a draft. But our ranking, our written ranking, will be up at the site on Friday. And also, I realized belatedly that we did not praise the score, the soundtrack to the Great

Circle enough because that is another highlight of that game. And I interviewed the composer, Gordy Hobb, who now for 15 years has been doing his, it's a slight to say, John Williams' impression. He is a very gifted composer when it comes to writing music that it sounds like John Williams could have or should have written. And if you have played an Indiana Jones game or a Star Wars game for the past 15 years, you have probably enjoyed Gordy Hobbs' work. And The Great Circle is no exception. So I will have a Q&A up with him at the ringer.com in the not too distant future. That's awesome.

I was going to say this because I didn't want to embarrass myself. But it's just the three of us talking, right? There's nobody. Nobody else is listening. I'm really excited to read your piece, Ben, because as I'm playing the game, every single time I press RB to swing over to another level of the map, out loud, a lot of the times, I will literally go, dun-da-dun-dun-dun-d-d-d-d-d-d. Every time. Every single time, that riff plays in my head every time I swing on the bullwhip. It's true. That's one of the things I talk to him about,

because it plays in your head. It doesn't play that often in the game. He used it sparingly. He teased us. Every now and then there's a little snippet of it. But when the credits roll, then you get the full theme. So that's something for you to look forward to jumping when you get there.

That's the thing. That's the thing. Yes. Thank you to Devin Ronaldo for producing today's extra long action-packed episode. This is where I would normally thank Arjuna for his senior podcast management, but I've thanked you enough. That's, we've covered that. One thank you is.

enough. Yeah, that's my quota. Happy honeymoon, though. Bon voyage. Enjoy your trip. Yeah. We'll be off and back before you know it. We'll try to take care of the Ringerverse while you're gone. We won't screw things out too much. Just make sure it's not the community,

you know, beam of Donald, you know, glove are coming back and everything's on fire. Yes, yes. Holding the pizza. Visit at Ringervorverse on YouTube to admire Jomi's wonderful work on 12 days of Ringervis Miss, our podcast, Christmas as Carol for this year, featuring me exaggeratedly moving my controller around as I play video games in the manner of people in movies and on TV who tend to do that.

Stay tuned for upcoming coverage of Sonic and Skeleton Crew and Craven and Dune and so much more. You can contact Buttmash at ringerversegaming at gmail.com. As short round said, I keep telling you, you listen to me more, you live longer. Keep listening, keep living, and we will talk to you soon. You can't just run away from your problems, Indiana. Watch me.